The SPEAKER ( Hon. Bronwyn Bishop ) took the chair at 10:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
BILLS
Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Above the Line Voting) Bill 2013
Report from Committee
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (10:01): On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, I wish to make a statement relating to the committee's inquiry into the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Above the Line Voting) Bill 2013. The committee has considered the content of this statement and unanimously endorses it. On 12 December 2013, the Senate adopted the report of the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration on the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Above the Line Voting) Bill 2013, which recommended that this bill be referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for inquiry. As result, the bill stood referred to the electoral matters committee.
The bill proposes to reform the system for electing candidates to the Senate in light of perceived attempts to 'game' the system through preference deals at the 2013 federal election. This proposal is timely, as the current system has resulted in the election of candidates who attracted a very small proportion of the primary vote—less than one per cent in some cases. The intention of the bill is to simplify the voting process to better allow voters to determine their own preferences.
The bill proposes an optional above-the-line voting system for electing candidates to the Senate. Electors would have the option of numbering either at least one group voting square above the line or at least as many candidates as there are to be elected at that particular election. The voters would then have the option to go on to number as many other squares as they wish. This would allow voters to express their preferences to the extent they wish.
The committee is currently conducting a wide-ranging inquiry into the 2013 federal election, and all matters relating thereto. The main focus of the committee for the early stages of this inquiry is in fact the current voting system used to elect senators. The committee is considering a range of different proposals, including several responses to the provisions outlined in this bill. There seems little point in covering the same territory twice, or in pre-empting the conclusions of this more comprehensive inquiry.
Given the wide-ranging nature of the inquiry into the federal election, the committee does not want to consider individual reforms by way of private bills. This committee takes very seriously its responsibilities when it comes to the future of Australia's electoral system, and is intent on considering this proposal in the context of the range of reform options that will be presented during the course of this inquiry.
Additionally, should this bill be passed by the Senate, the House will have a chance to consider its provisions in detail at that point. Therefore the committee has decided not to inquire into this bill in a separate inquiry, and will instead incorporate consideration of its provisions into the inquiry into the 2013 federal election. This will allow time and scope for the deepest consideration possible, as well as consideration of a range of other potential reforms to the Commonwealth Electoral Act which will no doubt come up in the course of the committee's consideration.
It is the committee's intention to report on the issue of Senate voting early, ahead of the full report. We are taking submissions on this specific issue now with the aim of reporting, if possible, before the parliamentary break for the budget. I present a copy of the statement to the House.
Public Service Amendment (Employment for all of us) Bill 2014
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Bandt.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (10:06): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill gives effect to an election commitment of the Greens. It addresses a growing social problem that I attempted to draw attention to in this place a number of times in the last parliament, and I will continue to do so. It addresses the high unemployment and underemployment rates amongst people from two very important groups in our society. One is groups of people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, and the second is Australians with a disability. The bill will also help ensure that our Public Service is truly representative of the public it serves. In a nutshell, the bill requires the Public Service to double the number of employees from each group within five years. It leaves up to the Public Service Commissioner the means by which this will be done but requires the Public Service Commissioner to issue a direction that it shall be done.
It is worth reflecting on, firstly, the very real problem that this bill seeks to address. In my electorate of Melbourne, we have more public housing than any other electorate in the country. In that public housing are people from all walks of life, but a very large proportion are people who have come here from other countries seeking a better life. Many of those have been through Australia's migration and refugee programs and have now settled here in Australia. Quite often, they have become Australian citizens. But we know that, amongst this group of people, the unemployment and underemployment rate is much, much higher than amongst the rest of the population.
As far as unemployment goes, research has shown that officially, amongst people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, the unemployment rate is at least twice the national average. Unofficially and in reality, I suspect that it is much higher. I spoke a little while ago to one of the managers of one of the community centres at one of the public housing estates in my electorate, who said that across that estate they measured the unemployment rate at above 80 per cent.
The question of underemployment is also significant. Research shows that, if you come to Australia with skills or a tertiary degree from a non-English-speaking background, you are more than twice as likely to find yourself in a low-skilled job than someone from an English-speaking background. As result, we have in Melbourne people with masters degrees driving taxis. We have, according to the representatives of one community association I spoke to, a former jumbo jet pilot who is now driving a taxi. We have doctors who have been unable to have their qualifications recognised. We have people who have worked for two or three decades as an accountant or a financial adviser in their former country who are now unable to find work in a comparative field. What is worse is that it appears that this mismatch between the jobs that people want to have and the jobs that they are actually getting is now flowing on to younger generations, including people who have been born and brought up in this country.
The stories are legion, certainly in my electorate, of people who finish their finance degree at a university in my electorate and then send job applications and wait in vain for the phone to ring. I have spoken to many people who have sent off dozens, if not hundreds, of job applications and had no response. But they find that, when they change their name on the job application from 'Mohammed' to 'David' or from 'Fatima' to 'Jane', all of a sudden the phone starts ringing.
It is very bad when it starts happening to people who have been through Australian educational institutions, but it also has flow-on effects for young people who are second-generation migrants and come from a refugee background in our community. They look at their parents and say: 'You did all the right things. You worked hard. You studied hard. You are immensely qualified and immensely hardworking. Yet here you are doing a job that you do not like and that only earns you minimum wage.' That, in turn, affects their motivation to continue to participate in the workforce at all—to even continue to seek a job.
And the figures are not getting any better. Yes, there have been some incredible success stories, and we should sing those from the rooftops, but there are also stories of exclusion and discrimination, and it has effects for us as a society. You would probably find agreement across everyone in this chamber that, at the end of it, employment and engagement are the key. If there are people in our community who are willing to work and who are seeking jobs, then they should not be prevented from getting those jobs by artificial barriers or discrimination.
One senior researcher who has been looking at this problem for some time described it as a fence. He said: 'The people are over here on one side wanting work. The jobs are over there on the other side, and it is as if there is a massive fence in between us and we do not know how to get rid of the fence.' This bill will take one step towards getting rid of that fence.
It will also address the issue of employment of people who have a disability. What we know from the research is that the workforce participation rate is around 30 per cent lower for people with a disability. This is despite the fact that people with a disability report wanting to engage in quality employment. Of course, employing someone with a disability makes good business sense. The studies indicate that employment of people with a disability can lead to increased productivity, reduced absenteeism and a more positive workplace culture.
It is difficult for this place and this parliament to encourage greater activity or regulation of the private sector if the public sector is not first leading the way. The public sector should be a place where the government leads by example. However, the public sector is falling behind. We know that almost 20 per cent of Australians identify as having a disability, but the number of people with a disability employed by the APS dropped to 2.9 per cent of the entire workforce in 2012. Similarly, one in four people in Australia identify as being from a non-English-speaking background but account for only 5.1 per cent of the APS workforce.
This bill takes a step toward redressing that. It proposes and requires that the Public Service Commissioner issue a direction to give effect to existing employment principles under the APS Act. Section 10A(1)(g) of the act sets out the existing employment principle, which is to 'recognise the diversity of the Australian community and foster diversity in the workplace'. To give effect to that principle, this bill will require the commission to issue a direction pursuant to existing powers to double the number of APS employees with a disability and the number of APS employees who come from a non-English-speaking background that exist as at 1 July this year by 1 July 2019. It leaves it up to the commissioner to determine how best to give effect to that.
This is a reform that would have significant effects on social problems that exist in a very real sense in our communities at the moment. We run a very real risk of creating an underclass of people who, as Australian citizens, are being systematically locked out of the workforce. It will not solve the problem, but it will be a significant step towards moving people who want employment into that gainful employment. At the moment we have discrimination in the Australian workforce, and this parliament needs to acknowledge that as a fact. We need to acknowledge that there are people who want work who just are not getting it. The Australian Public Service and this parliament, with its powers to control how the Commonwealth spends its money, can lead the way. I commend this bill to the House, and I hope that members from all sides will look at it as a reform that is practical and that could be implemented and that will ensure that people who are currently falling through the cracks find the gainful employment that they are so dearly seeking.
The SPEAKER: Is this bill seconded?
Mr Wilkie: I second the bill and reserve my right to speak.
Debate adjourned.
Live Animal Export Prohibition (Ending Cruelty) Bill 2014
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Wilkie.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr WILKIE (Denison) (10:17): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
In essence, this bill would put an end to the live animal export trade from 1 July 2017 and in the interim would put in place improved animal welfare safeguards, and, in particular, between now and 1 July 2017 permits would only be granted for the export of Australian livestock if they were to be sent ultimately to overseas abattoirs that would stun animals before slaughter.
This is my fourth attempt in my short time in this place to restrict the live export trade and the third attempt to phase it out. Regrettably, none of the previous attempts were successful. On only one occasion did a bill ultimately come before this place for a decision and it was supported only by the member for Melbourne, and I thank him for that support. This time around, though, the bill really must be supported. It is beyond time for the live animal export trade to be wound up.
There are three compelling reasons why this bill must be supported. First and perhaps most important is that the live animal export trade is systemically cruel. In just the last three years, in fact, there have been at least 12 episodes of cruelty to Australian livestock either en route to or in other countries. In particular, in May 2011 there was a horrendous expose of cruelty to Australian cattle in Indonesia. In August 2011, it was sheep and cattle in Turkey; in February 2012, cattle again in Indonesia; in September 2012, sheep and cattle in Kuwait and Qatar; in October 2012, sheep in Pakistan; in December 2012, sheep in Israel; in January 2013, cattle in Mauritius; in February 2013, sheep in Kuwait; in May 2013, cattle and goats in Egypt and Malaysia; in June 2013, sheep in Lebanon, Jordan and Israel; in October 2013, sheep and cattle in Kuwait, Jordan and Mauritius; and, in December 2013, Australian cattle in Gaza.
Surely we do not need any more episodes, any more exposes, to see that the system is systemically cruel. The system is broken. If there had just been perhaps the episode in Indonesia that Four Corners famously publicised some three years ago now, if that had been a one-off, then perhaps we could have a different response to the trade. But, when you have episode after episode after episode in countries as diverse as Egypt, Israel and Turkey on one side of the globe, through to Pakistan, in South Asia, through to Indonesia, just near our borders, how much more evidence do Australians need to understand that the system is systemically cruel and has to be shut down?
Secondly, this trade is not in Australia's economic self-interest. Every time a ship leaves our shores with live Australian stock on board, it is effectively shipping overseas the jobs of those who might process those animals in Australia. There is no doubt that the trade has, in effect, cannibalised the Australian processed red-meat industry. There is now not a single abattoir in Australia north of a line from Perth through to Townsville that is licensed to export meat overseas. There used to be numerous abattoirs in that half of Australia; now there are none.
Fortunately, the Australian Agricultural Company is in the process of building an abattoir just outside Darwin, which goes to show that, when a company puts its mind to it, a persuasive business case can be made for building abattoirs, reopening abattoirs, processing those animals in Australia and giving jobs to the Australians that might work in those abattoirs. Good research shows that, if the sheep that currently are shipped from Western Australia were in fact to be processed in Western Australia, that would create as many as 2,000 jobs in that sector in that state alone. If all of the cattle that are currently shipped out of the Northern Territory were processed in the Northern Territory, that would create as many as 1,000 jobs in the Northern Territory. It is clearly in our economic self-interest to process those animals in Australia.
There is no good reason why we do not do this. The Australian Agricultural Company, as I say, has made a business decision based on its assessment that it can be done in Australia, and it is building that new abattoir outside Darwin. I wish that company the best of fortune, the best of luck, with that business endeavour. Some people say that the animals have to be sent overseas live to be killed overseas on religious grounds. What the industry will not tell you, will not publicise, is that just last year some 450,000 sheep were processed in Australia in halal accredited abattoirs. The point is that it can be done; it just needs the political will to push the industry in that direction.
The third point I would make is that the trade lacks popular support. In August 2011, some 15,000 Australians protested nationally, voicing their opposition to the live animal export trade. In October 2012, some 20,000 Australians protested around the country, voicing their concern with the live trade. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows that a clear majority of Australians oppose this trade.
So why on earth is it so hard to get support in this place for a reform that would phase out and eventually shut down the industry and shift the industry completely to processing animals in this country? Why is it so hard? It escapes me. It is clearly systemically cruel. It is clearly not in Australia's economic interest. It clearly does not have popular support.
So I would ask that this time—my fourth attempt to move legislation successfully in this place—all members get behind it and see the good sense in it. I am sure there are enough people of good heart in this place who care about animal welfare. But even if you do not care too much about animal welfare, at least care about Australia's economic interest and employing Australians, getting Australians back into work in an area where they used to be very much employed.
I am mindful of the people who are involved in this industry. About eight per cent, I understand, of Australian cattle that are killed for meat are in the first instance exported live and processed overseas. In fact, only a few weeks ago, in late January, I flew to Darwin and I met with a number of people from the industry, including producers. I understand their concern with people like me and the member for Melbourne. I understand their concern with those of us who are trying to shut down the live trade and have those animals processed in Australia. I respect their point of view but I do not agree with it, and I ask those people who are currently depending on the industry to understand that their industry does not have a long-term future unless those animals start to be processed in this country. If they persist with the way the industry is currently operating, ultimately the industry will fold. I have no doubt about that. There are too many good reasons why the industry has to be wound up. So I say to those people in the industry: if you want to have a sustainable long-term prosperous future, then make the decisions now. Stop exporting these animals live; start insisting they go to abattoirs where they would be slaughtered in Australia.
I probably sound like a broken record in this place. It does escape me why, after so many attempts, there is so little support. I suggest that members in this place are completely and utterly out of step with the majority of public opinion. I suggest that the people in this place who are very quick to talk about the Australian economy, about getting people to work and about creating jobs are in fact missing the point when they get behind this industry which has been a job killer. If you want to get thousands of people back to work, then shut down the live animal export trade, get those abattoirs open and build new abattoirs. The Australian Agricultural Company at least sees the sense in it. That is where our future lies. Those who are continuing to support the trade as it is are flogging a dead horse, so to speak. They are supporting something that is fundamentally unsustainable. It will fold one day; it is just a matter of when. Thank you very much.
The SPEAKER: Is the motion seconded?
Mr Bandt: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
Debate adjourned.
PETITIONS
Dr JENSEN (Tangney) (10:28): by leave—On behalf of the Standing Committee on Petitions, and in accordance with standing order 207, I present the following petitions:
Overseas Aid
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition is from: Certain citizens of Australia and draws attention of the House to matters relating to the Commonwealth Budget of Australia.
We therefore ask the House:
1. To reconsider the Government's proposal to reduce the allocation of aid to overseas nations by $4.5 billion.
2. To honour the commitment to reach 0.5% of Gross National Income to be spent on overseas aid by 2015.
from 85 citizens
Proposed Pharmacy in Miranda
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of the local community of Miranda and the residents of surrounding suburbs draws to the attention of the House that this community, in particular those receiving care at Miranda Medical Centre, 573 Kingsway, Miranda, NSW, 2228, during evenings and on weekends, is left without reasonable access to the supply of pharmaceutical benefits by an approved pharmacist due to an unintended consequence of the application of the pharmacy location rules.
Miranda Medical Centre is open Monday to Friday 8am-l0pm and Sam-7pm on Saturday, Sunday & Public Holidays and services the community with 14 full—time equivalent Medical Practitioners approved to prescribe-PBS medicines. This unintended consequence of the application of the pharmacy location rules leaves the local community of Miranda and the residents of surrounding suburbs without reasonable access to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) services and prescriptions dispensed by a pharmacy, approved under section 90 of the National Health Act 1953, in the medical centre.
We therefore ask the House to remedy this lack of reasonable access to pharmaceutical benefits for this community by requesting the Minister for Health to exercise the Discretionary Power to approve the proposed pharmacy at Suite 1, Ground Floor, 573 Kingsway, Miranda, NSW, 2228.
from 4,259 citizens
Mobile Home Parks: Goods and Services Tax Exemption
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of certain citizens and residents of Australia draws the attention of the House to GSTR 2013/D2 (a draft Goods and Services Tax Ruling issued by the Australian Taxation Office on 30 October 2013). The proposed consequences of GSTR 2013/D2 are that:
1. a "moveable home estate" is not "commercial residential premises" for the purposes of section 195-1 of the GST Act; and
2. therefore, Division 87 of the GST Act (which facilitates a GST exemption or a GST concessionary rate to be applied to rent payments paid by owners of "moveable homes" to owners of "moveable home estates") does not apply; and
3. therefore, owners of "moveable homes" will be required to pay GST at the full rate of 10% on all rent payments paid to owners of "moveable home estates".
We therefore ask the House to stop this tax hike on moveable home estate rent payments by amending the definition of "commercial residential premises in section 195-1 of the GST Act to specifically include a "moveable home estate".
from 854 citizens
Mobile Home Parks: Goods and Services Tax Exemption
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of the residents of manufactured home parks in and around the electorate of Shortland draws to the attention of the House:
the proposed ruling by the Australian Taxation Office to impose a GST on the residential site fees of manufactured home parks, and the hardship it will cause to park residents.
Manufactured home parks are a primary provider of affordable accommodation for over 100,000 residents in Australia, about 95% of whom are pensioners. These residents can ill afford the extra GST cost on their site fees. The imposition of a GST would cause hardship to home park residents.
We therefore ask the House to: take urgent action to do everything in its power to ensure that the GST is not imposed on the residential site fees of manufactured home parks.
from 1,826 citizens
Mobile Home Parks: Goods and Services Tax Exemption
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of residents of the Gateway Lifestyle Village known as Brisbane River Terraces
Draws to the attention of the House the draft ruling by the Taxation Commissioner which will essentially change the definition of a caravan or residential park so that any resident of the park who owns their own caravan or manufactured home and is renting the site would be subject to paying GST on that rent.
We therefore ask the House to consider the burden on vulnerable older Australians by the imposition of a goods and services tax upon their site fees and the significant rental cost increases arising from the application of a goods and services tax and instruct the Taxation Commissioner to order a repeal of this proposal and observe the current GST Ruling.
from 13 citizens
Middle Head: Proposed Residential Care Facility
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of SaveMiddleHead.org representing citizens of Mosman, North Sydney and Australia draws to the attention of the House: (1) the Draft Management Plan for Middle Head Precinct and (2) proposed development of a 93-bed residential care facility at Middle Head.
We believe that the proposed development should NOT proceed as it would go against the fundamental principals behind the establishment of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust (Trust), which includes:
preserving and protecting the environment and heritage values of Trust land,
maximizing public access to Trust land,
ensuring that management of Trust land contributes to enhancing the amenity of the Sydney Harbour region,
establishing and managing suitable Trust land as a park on behalf of the Commonwealth as the national government, and
co-operating with New South Wales, affected councils and the community in furthering the above objectives.
We therefore ask the House to do all in its power to ensure that the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust: (1) REJECTS the proposed residential development, (2) consults with the local community and other interested parties on alternative uses and (3) allocates sufficient funds to the Trust to reuse Platypus, Neutral Bay and 10 Terminal, Mosman, to protect and preserve public land from residential development in keeping with the Trust Act.
from 1,874 citizens
Islam
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of certain citizens of Australia.
draws the attention of the House that Islam contradicts, opposes and divides the Australian constitution, citizenship and allegiance. Islam complies to the meaning of sect, by surviving beneath the umbrella of political law, by being undemocratic, secular, intolerant, with fanatical, somewhat unGodly beliefs and specific untruths.
We therefore ask the House to, through legislation or referendum ban the sect Islam from Australia [as Japan has done].
from 1 citizen
Petitions received.
PETITIONS
Statements
Dr JENSEN (Tangney) (10:29): In December last year I had a brief opportunity as Chair of the House Petitions Committee to present petitions and ministerial responses received since the end of last parliament.
Today I am pleased to be able to speak for the first time outlining the role of the committee and the petition requirements it implements on behalf of the House. This information is on the committee's page on the Parliament House website, but it may be useful if I summarise it, especially in this early stage of the 44th Parliament. Since it was established in 2008, the committee has acted as a conduit, bringing petitions from members of the public to the attention of the House and facilitating a response from the relevant minister. In particular, the arrangements for receiving ministerial responses to petitions have helped raise the profile of petitioning as an important way for the Australian public to engage with the House and to learn what the view of government is on the subject matter of their petition.
But, before a petition can be presented to the House and receive a response from the minister, the standing orders require that it meet some threshold requirements. In particular, the petition must be addressed to the House of Representatives, not to a minister, a member or other individuals or groups. It must refer to a matter on which the House has the power to act—a federal legislative or administrative matter only. It must state the reason for petitioning, contain a request for action to be undertaken by the House and contain original handwritten signatures, not electronic or photocopied. The petition terms, reason and request must not exceed 250 words and cannot be illegible or promote an illegal act. The language used must be moderate. The first page of the petition must contain the address to the House, the reasons for the petition, the request itself and the full name, address and original handwritten signature of the principal petitioner. The request must appear on each subsequent page.
That was a summary, and I invite potential petitioners to check the committee's web page and contact the secretariat for assistance before they collect signatures. This will save them time in the long run. When petitioners have completed their petitions and obtained signatures, they may either send them directly to the Petitions Committee or send them to a member. Members will need to forward these petitions to the Petitions Committee because standing orders require that the committee examine all petitions before they are presented to the House to certify that they meet the standing order requirements. If they do meet requirements, then they obtain the benefit of a ministerial response after they have been formally presented.
When considering petitions, committee members set aside their personal views or allegiances regarding the subject matter of the petitions and requests. Members may or may not agree with the request. The committee's role is to ensure that the petitions meet those formal standing order requirements. In finding that a petition complies, the committee is not endorsing the request. Similarly, from time to time the committee finds that a petition does not comply. This is not a comment on the content. It signifies that the House's formal requirements have not been met.
After consideration by the committee, petitions that comply with standing orders may either be presented by me as the chair during this time slot or return to the relevant member for presentation at other times, if that is the petitioner's and the member's request. In presenting petitions that comply with standing orders as Chair of the Petitions Committee, I am assisting members of the public to raise their concerns directly with the House. I may or may not agree with the contents. Similarly, members who present their constituents' petitions may or may not agree with the content. What we are doing is in keeping with the historic nature of petitioning the House and is in keeping with the House's respect for freedom of speech.
The committee is keen for members of the public to understand the benefits of the House petitioning process and to know what is required of them so that they obtain those benefits. That is why the committee's web page has detailed information on the work of the committee and the requirements for petitions. The secretariat is also able to assist prospective petitioners with draft petitions to give them the best chance of being presented and being responded to by government.
Regional Development Australia Fund
Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (10:35): I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) funds were allocated for Regional Development Australia Funding (RDAF) Round 5 in the 2013-14 budget;
(b) RDAF Round 5 provided assistance to local government projects to fund the construction of important pieces of small scale infrastructure to support local communities and regional development;
(c) the Government has:
(i) committed to delivering some, but not all, of the RDAF Round 5 projects; and
(ii) not yet made clear which RDAF Round 5 projects will and will not proceed; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) report to the Parliament on:
(i) what, if any, consultation it had with local governments and Regional Development Australia in choosing the RDAF Round 5 projects it has decided to fund; and
(ii) which, if any, of these projects will be funded under the National Stronger Regions Fund; and
(b) provide certainty to regional communities by committing to fund each RDAF Round 5 project.
There is a growing sense in regional Australia that elected representatives, particularly those from big cities, just do not get the needs of regional Australia. This was most recently and succinctly expressed by the New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries and putative candidate for the seat of Goulburn, in New South Wales, when she said that Barry O'Farrell and the incumbent member just do not get the needs of regional New South Wales.
It would appear that the Premier of New South Wales is not alone, because, when you look at what is going on with the Regional Development Australia Fund, you see a government that is out of touch with the needs of regional communities. The Regional Australia Development Fund round 5 was designed for small-scale projects, local priorities for local communities' infrastructure, which were put forward by elected councils. These projects were filling the gaps in infrastructure development. They were designed to renew dated community-scale infrastructure across the country. Most of the grants, up to 70 per cent of them, about $105 million, were earmarked for regional towns. This money was for small-scale projects, $30,000 to $2 million in value.
Anyone would think, given the bipartisan support we saw in the announcement of these projects before the election, when we saw National Party mayors, Liberal Party mayors and councillors falling over themselves to say, 'Yeah, us too; we're in behind these projects'—and the member for Newcastle, who is in the chamber with me at the moment and has a deep interest in this fund, had a similar experience in her electorate—that, when the coalition parties found themselves in government, bipartisan support for these projects would flow into government. But, regrettably, we see a government that has its priorities all wrong.
In their first three months in government we have seen tax cuts for the big end of town and tax hikes for the rest of us, cuts to benefits, cuts to services and nothing but a deaf ear to the needs of the regional community. They are not even listening to their own members. A few weeks ago we saw the member for Murray courageously step outside the tent to stick up for the needs of her electorate. She begged the government to listen to the needs and support jobs in her electorate, particularly those impacted by the fate of the SPC operation in Shepparton. The member for Murray was ignored by her own federal colleagues. That shows their complete indifference to the needs of those regional communities.
The RDAF was funded in the 2013-14 budget but now seems to have been given the chop by the federal government. The government even axed the funding source for this fund, the minerals resource rent tax. They said it did not deliver any money. It raised $126 million in its first six months of operation. That might seem like not very much money to those opposite, but that is equal to the entire amount of funds that were earmarked for regional Australia in the RDAF round 5 funding, so they could have funded it if they wanted to. They could have funded these projects which were earmarked for regional Australia. They chose not to. Their priorities are all wrong. The shocking truth is that many of the projects in round 5 of Regional Development Australia have already been axed. The rest of them lie in limbo.
Happily, I have to say that some projects will proceed. In Labor's final budget we allocated around $300,000 for the Meals on Wheels project in Rockhampton. The idea of this project, a worthy project that deserved funding, was to replace flood prone and confined kitchen facilities. The government has decided that this project, unlike so many other worthy regional projects that deserve funding, will actually proceed. Deputy Speaker, you cannot argue on the one hand that the reason we are chopping RDAF round 5—and the reason we are refusing to proceed with funding for all of these other projects—is that the funds are not in the budget, if on the other hand you are sneakily going out there and giving the wink and the nod to these projects that you want to get up, like the Rockhampton Meals on Wheels project. I have nothing to say against the Rockhampton project; indeed, it was a project that was approved by Labor in government. But I do say: where is the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development when it comes to the interests of all these other projects?
We often hear that the National Party are the party for regional Australia, but the truth is laid bare by their handling of the Regional Development Australia Fund. The minister sneaks through those communities in the dead of night, opening the projects that were funded by Labor—in fact, he spent most of his Christmas holidays cutting ribbons on Labor's funded projects and taking credit for them—and then nicks off with his chequebook firmly wedged in his back pocket when the real business of being a minister comes to bear. People went into the last election somehow thinking that National Party and Liberal Party members in regional Australia would stick up for regional communities. What people have learned since the election is that nothing could be further from the truth. We are seeing cuts to regional Australia and cuts to funds in projects, and these cuts are hurting jobs.
These are important projects. You have to ask yourself, Deputy Speaker: what would a decent minister for regional Australia do when considering the terrible economic blows that have been wreaked upon many of these regional communities? In South Australia, for instance, they are suffering from the announced closure of Holden. The flow-on effects that that closure is going to have on the components sector will put thousands of jobs at risk. What would a decent minister for regional Australia do in South Australia? He certainly would not scrap the half a million dollars that has been earmarked for the city centre renewal project in Salisbury, in the seat of Makin.
I see that the member for Boothby is in the chamber at the moment. I have not heard much from the member for Boothby. He is not out there defending the half a million dollars that was set aside for the Aldinga District Centre Main Street and Town Square upgrade. I have not heard anything from the member for Boothby—maybe he will put himself on the speaking list for this debate and champion his community. A decent minister for regional development would be out there saying: 'South Australians are suffering. We are going to do something to assist them in their time of need.'
Northern Tasmania is in the grip of recession, and we see the minister not doing one thing for the needs of Northern Tasmania. We see cuts to projects in Devonport, including the upgrade of the Devonport Aquatic Centre, and cuts to projects in Launceston. The Northern Tasmania Cricket Association Ground upgrade was canned. That was $127,000. It might not seem like a lot of money, but for that community it would have meant an important upgrade of their facility. Over in New South Wales, in the grip of drought, we see that the $3.5 million upgrade to the Casino Regional Livestock Exchange Centre has been cut. Deputy Speaker, you would think that, if there were a community anywhere in Australia that was in need of some good news, we would see the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, the Leader of the National Party, up there delivering some good news to the people in Casino. He whizzes through there, opens and announces some Labor projects—but not one brass razoo to assist in the completion of the Casino Regional Livestock Exchange Centre. And I have to say that the member for Page—he is no hero, this particular Hogan!—has gone missing on this project. He is not standing up for the needs of his own community.
We could go right around the country. We could talk about the cuts to the Gulgul Barang Youth and Community Centre in the seat of Shortland—$2.7 million promised before the election, now cut. There was the Derby Export Facility enhancement project in Western Australia—$330,000 in the seat of Durack—but we have heard nothing from the member for Durack in defence of that project. Over in the Northern Territory, the member for Lingiari has unfortunately not been able to get through to the minister about the $124,000 for the upgrade of the sports field in Elliott. I call on all of those opposite who are of good heart and conscience to push hard to ensure that the minister gives some certainty for these projects, because regional Australia needs them. (Time expired)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): Is there a seconder for the motion?
Mr BROADBENT (McMillan) (10:45): I have great respect for the member for Throsby, but today he either shows a lack of respect for the regional public or is delusional in his response to the budgetary circumstances that existed when funds were offered to regional communities—funds that, at worst, were a premeditated attempt to mislead regional communities as a base political endeavour. I had that experience myself in the Latrobe Valley. Good members who have now left this parliament came down and made offers to the regional community of Latrobe Valley for a low-carbon future. They came down and said, 'We will fund you so that the Latrobe Valley will continue to exist.' In one weekend all funding for the low-carbon future was to cease. Why would that be? Because there was not one seat to be one in Gippsland. That is why. For base political reasons those projects were abandoned, but let me say to the House today that we in the Latrobe Valley will not be forgotten. It was bad enough that the previous government offered chocolates to regional communities without funding them, but what they have done to single-parent households, to low-income student loans and to regional hospitality, crippled by archaic penalty rate laws, is unforgiveable.
We intend to do the right thing by regional communities by saying to those regional communities that we will not make you an offer we cannot fund. We will not make you a promise we cannot fulfil, as the previous government made promise after promise but they were unfulfilled promises because the money was never there. The former Labor government made promises that a fiscally responsible party could not keep, and so it was that rounds 5 and 5B of the Regional Australia Development Fund were put on hold.
Like many other electorates, my electorate of McMillan was stunned; disappointed people were left wondering where the money had gone and why projects would not be funded as promised. The simple answer was, of course, that the money never existed. The Labor Party in government promised more than 950 projects, valued at $150 million, in RDAF round 5. All round 5 projects were announced after 1 June 2013 and, as such, they were considered to be Labor Party election campaign commitments, rather than projects that had been through normal due diligence processes and deemed worthy of Commonwealth assistance. They were empty pledges from a broke government, using the promises of money it did not have to buy votes. The lack of commitment to project delivery was evident in rounds 2, 3 and 4 of the RDAF program, as there were more than 50 projects that did not have funding agreements in place—even though some had been announced more than two years previously.
To ensure that the government meets its fiscal obligations, it has decided not to fund these projects. It was a hard decision and one that has caused angst. However, governing is not just about being in power but using power wisely. I would remind the member for Throsby that it is not the office that he holds but the outcome that is produced that is important. In not funding these, we have a future. The government continues to support communities across regional Australia, including through its new Community Development Grants Program. The coalition looks forward to delivering our election commitments and to continuing to engage with local communities on their infrastructure and regional development needs throughout the term of this government.
The great Martin Luther King may have had a dream, but I have one too. Mine, of course, is somewhat more humble, but, for the people of my electorate of McMillan who share in this dream, it is important nonetheless. My dream is to see my rural seat on an equal footing with those in the city. As the member for Throsby mentioned, there is that great divide between the rural and metropolitan electorates.
As any rural politician knows, infrastructure funding is essential. It is a means of driving not only the economy but also positive social change in our communities. On my wish list for McMillan, roads, sporting clubs, childcare centres, hospitals, marine rescue services, Centrelink outlets and even post offices all jostle for priority. I do not know how much will be in the pot in the future, but McMillan's needs are great.
The West Gippsland Hospital in Warragul, the very town where my electorate office is located, services a population that is growing day by day and also services people who are coming from the city out to the country for their health needs. We could direct some funds towards it—yet a piecemeal response will not do: it needs to be rebuilt, and this will be an eight-year plan costing $243 million—or there could be the glorified political decision on behalf of the member for McMillan to give him $245 million for a brand-new hospital at Warragul; I think that would go down well!
The Port Welshpool jetty, which was almost destroyed by fire some years back, has been crying out for funding for years. A bright future awaits, with $3 million needed to transform not just a historic landmark but the fortunes of that region. It will mean that the school will progress, businesses will progress, child care will progress and the pub will progress. And it will mean disability access for fishing, which is sorely needed—I could go on. It ticks every box for a community that needs rebuilding.
The Korumburra Integrated Children's Centre would take pride of place in the centre of a bustling town that remains one of McMillan's true success stories. A dedicated committee has a dream that I share: quality child care for a community that has a bright future. Every community needs a quality childcare centre for that delivery. The childcare centre would meet a crucial need for families in Korumburra for child care, kindergarten, out-of-school-hours care, maternal and childhood services and specialist children's services. This project has been thoroughly investigated and planned with ongoing community involvement. In addition to the land, South Gippsland Shire Council will commit $2 million to the development of the centre. Parents have contributed $100,000. However, a further $3 million is sought.
The Pakenham soccer ground could use $1 million to continue its development. The marine rescue team at Port Welshpool needs a new boat. We need duplicated roads, but we need especially the rebuilding of local roads: we had the drought, then we had the rain, then we had more rain, and now the roads have broken up. The South Gippsland Highway, Leongatha bypass, Warragul-Drouin highway duplication and Warragul-Korumburra road are all crying out for money, along with a lot of other roads.
Moe, a town close to my heart, that has been given funding for a railway precinct redevelopment, is deserving of more still. I would love to see a Medicare office and post office in the town. Honestly, I could stand here speaking on the subject of McMillan's wants and needs all day. I must stop now. I am mindful of the clock.
In closing I would like to say: anything that elevates the fortunes of our rural electorates is something worth its weight in gold. The Regional Development Australia Fund may not be a panacea for McMillan's shortfalls, but I look forward to seeing what it delivers. We need communications infrastructure. I do not think there is a member of parliament in this place that would not desire better communications in their area and better roads, as these things are planned and developed for our communities.
I know that the member for Throsby is thinking, 'Your desires are greater than any government can fulfil for all our electorates,' because, as to what I have just outlined in my electorate, and as to city electorates, we could all run up a bill on behalf of our government that is very, very high, just on the infrastructure needs of our communities. Every regional member of parliament knows the benefits of infrastructure development—be it a hospital, telecommunications, or roads—because development of infrastructure enhances business opportunities. When we enhance business opportunities we therefore enhance the opportunities for our children to get jobs locally, for our families to live locally, for our aged care to be enhanced, for our healthcare services broadly to be advanced, and for our children's centres to be advanced.
Every one of the members of this House works in the best interest of their communities, and those with a regional voice need to be heard louder and stronger even when it comes to the minister at the table's black spots program for mobile phones. There is nothing worse than when you are in the middle of a crucial conversation in a regional area and you go round the corner and the conversation is over. Now we have a regional black spots program. It is not going to fulfil every need in every community, but it will change the way some communities have access, especially for their emergency care.
I commend the motion to the House not because of the detrimental words of the member for Throsby in regard to this government's approach but because it raises the issue of infrastructure development in regional communities.
Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (10:55): I rise to speak in support of this important private member's motion moved by my colleague the member for Throsby, whose own electorate shares a remarkably similar history to that of Newcastle and who likewise hails from a region which has always punched above its weight and which remains an important social and economic contributor to our nation. My own electorate of Newcastle, embedded within the Hunter region, is part of Australia's largest regional economy, producing around $37 billion in 2012 and eight per cent of New South Wales's total economic activity. So there is no doubt that regional Australia makes a more than significant contribution to our nation.
As do all regions, we expect this contribution to be recognised and indeed supported as appropriate by all levels of government to ensure continued growth and economic development. It is no secret that regional Australia and their local governments in particular struggle to meet the growing infrastructure needs of their communities. That is one of the reasons that the previous federal Labor government established Regional Development Australia, the first-ever tripartite regional development advisory body linking the federal, state and local governments together with regions across the nation. RDAs allowed local communities direct access to Canberra and helped to depoliticise the nature of infrastructure funding in the regions by operating as an independent body at arm's length from government and setting their own priorities for local infrastructure. RDAs worked to put an end to the bad old days of regional rorts that operated under the Howard government. RDAs across the nation are made up of local leaders who volunteer their time to work across each region for the benefit of their communities. Their task is to develop strong long-term strategies and solutions for their regions' needs. RDA Hunter, under the strong leadership of Dr Gaye Hart as chair and Mr Todd Williams as the CEO, is an excellent example of RDA's work to grow and sustain a region's economy for the future. I would suggest that any government that chooses to ignore or dismiss the advice and recommendations of local RDAs does so at its own peril.
That is what is so distressing about this government's decision to slash the round 5 Regional Development Australia funding grants for community infrastructure. In my electorate, the Newcastle City Council was set to receive more than $1 million to upgrade the Merewether Baths pavilion and surrounding area, ensuring that amenity and accessibility issues were addressed. The improvements included the replacement of the baths pavilion, new shade shelters and seating and the provision of disability access to the area. The works were to complement the major upgrade of the baths funded by a state government loan and the council's own funds. The major upgrade to the baths themselves is going ahead, with the baths closing this week. However, the million dollars ripped out by the Abbott government will mean that the site remains inaccessible to wheelchair users, with the old, rusty and somewhat dangerous pavilion remaining. The council confirmed this themselves in their public information document: 'No works to the pavilion are included in this stage of the redevelopment. Council are currently considering options for renewal for the pavilion and public domain.' The cash-strapped council could have done without another review. They could have done with the $1 million of funding from the federal government.
In six or so months time when the baths reopen we will have a wonderful upgraded free facility for the community to enjoy. Some of the old Merewether Mackerels, the winter swimming club, will tell you that a daily swim there, especially in the midst of winter, is life prolonging. But significant numbers of our community will not be able to use the facility as it will remain inaccessible. If wheelchair users are lucky, they will be able to roll down to the baths that will have improved accessibility at the water's edge but they will not be able to find their way back up the steep, non-compliant ramps.
This cut to regional funding is cruel and it does not make sense. This government needs to come clean on why it is abandoning these much-needed, small-scale community infrastructure projects. As highlighted by this motion today, the government is now picking and choosing which projects are to progress for funding. What, if any, consultation has the government had with local government and local communities? I join with my Labor colleagues today and call on the Abbott government to honour the RDA round 5 funding commitments, including the $1 million allocated for the Merewether baths, to give certainty to Newcastle and other regional communities around Australia who have been left in limbo. (Time expired)
Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (11:00): Let us call this motion moved by the member for Throsby what it is: it is just playing pure politics with people in regional and rural Australia. It is a disgraceful motion and it follows the disgraceful action by the Labor government in the lead-up to the last election. They went to communities and promised things that they knew they could not deliver on and would never deliver on. They provided false hope and in doing so they played with local communities. What the Labor Party did in the lead-up to the last election with this round 5 funding was a disgrace and this motion is a disgrace because it follows on from that despicable behaviour.
I remember having to go to the small community of Pomonal, which had been promised some money for their hall. It was promised by a Labor Party government. It was a political stunt to try to wedge hardworking local members by playing games. I explained to that community that that was what this was. The Labor Party were desperately spending. They were going into local communities promising this and that, knowing that they would never be able to deliver.
Meanwhile, good hardworking coalition MPs were going around talking to their communities trying to find out what projects they wanted and needed. They had discussions with the local communities and said: 'The Labor Party have made a mess of our budget. The Labor Party cannot run the economy. We're going to have to try to fix the nation's finances. In doing that we will deliver on local projects, but we can't deliver on all of them. We can't just splash the cash around willy-nilly, because ultimately someone will have to pay for it.' You look these people in the eye and say: 'Because of the way the Labor Party went about governing, it will be your children who will have to pay the price for this mismanagement. It will be your children who will have to pick up the tab, the bill. That is why we have to be responsible. That is why we will selectively look at projects, work with you and hopefully deliver them for you.'
It was easy because you can explain the Labor Party's record with round 2, round 3 and round 4 of the RDA where they spent the money not in areas where the community wanted it spent but in areas for their own base political purposes. The community understood that. All of a sudden in round 5 they are saying: 'We'll splash it around here and splash it around there. We will splash it around everywhere.' The community were sick to death of it. They will not buy into these political games that Labor play. Get serious about how you go about developing policy and developing your community engagement because, if you keep playing these types of games, you are going to have a very long, deserved stint in opposition.
In my electorate of Wannon we are going to deliver on the projects that we took to the election. I am proud of the commitments we took to the election: $10 million for an integrated cancer care centre; $25 million, matched by $25 million, for the repair and upgrade of the Great Ocean Road; and $3.2 million to fix the Condah-Hotspur road to make it safer for our school buses to carry schoolkids, to make it safer for mums and dads driving on those roads and to make it more efficient for the log trucks. That had been an RDA priority through round 2, round 3 and round 4, yet when the Labor Party came to splash the cash in RDA round 5 they did not even consider it. This is a sham of a motion. You were a sham of a government and you deserve a long time in opposition. (Time expired)
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (11:05): I am pleased to rise in support of the member for Throsby's motion. I do this as the representative of one of Australia's fastest-growing municipalities: the city of Wyndham, a region that in recent times has grown by more than 12,000 residents every year. This equates to around 230 people arriving a week, or 32 every day. It seems that at every turn a new suburb has appeared, expanded and filled. We truly are the epitome of a growth corridor. With this growth comes great things: new innovation and ideas, increasing diversity, and a vibrant and ever-shifting cultural identity. We celebrate this dynamism, but with growth comes needs as well. We need more health services, we need more and better schools, we need improved roads and we desperately need local infrastructure.
So when in June last year it was announced that the city of Wyndham would receive its share of $150 million in Regional Development Australia funding I was thrilled. I was thrilled as a local resident and thrilled as a member of the Wyndham community. Because back then that is exactly what I was: a concerned resident, a mother and a principal. I certainly was not the member for Lalor, because that is how long ago this funding was announced—well before I was the member for Lalor, well before the election and well before those opposite came to government and made this heartless cut. So for them to maintain—insist—that this funding was simply an election promise that does not need to be honoured is just plain untrue.
I note that the member for Wide Bay and the member for McMillan have also claimed that the money for these projects simply does not exist. But, as my colleagues have pointed out, this funding was promised and budgeted for months and months ago. So maybe the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development should have a closer look at the budget papers, as well as his conscience. If he did, he would see what is at stake here: parks, playgrounds, swimming pools, medical centres, memorials, multipurpose halls and even something as simple and as necessary as a ramp to improve access for those with mobility issues.
Regional Development Australia Fund round 5 was essentially about supporting infrastructure that makes our communities better places to be. Locally, for my electorate, that
would have meant funding for the construction of the Tarneit Community Learning Centre Library. It would have meant federal government assistance for a library designed to meet the needs of our rapidly- growing region and the very new community of Tarneit. It would have meant the city of Wyndham could continue to demonstrate to every family the value of literacy. And it would have meant a place where people could come together, particularly some of our more isolated residents. But, because of the callous and heartless attitude of the Abbott government, funding for this project has been cut, without consultation and without question.
Maybe there is hope. After all, the member for New England and Deputy Leader of the National Party did say that projects of merit would be funded. But maybe the member for New England thinks that a library for the people of Tarneit has no merit. What about the people of Guyra's new roundabout in the member's own electorate, a footpath in Gunnedah or the new playground in Tamworth? All of these projects were to receive funding under Regional Development Australia Fund round 5. But now, who knows? Now we have nothing—no clarity, no commitment and no community funding. It will, however, be interesting to see whether the government's opposition to the RDAF extends to when it is ribbon-cutting time for round 3 and 4 projects. Will they be there for the photo opportunity when the Geelong Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases Research Hub opens? Will they be there when my community's recreation centre redevelopment is finished? Only time will tell.
If the government want to be fair dinkum, they will not just turn up to cut ribbons and get their photo taken; they will also turn up and help communities in need, communities such as those of the member for Newcastle, the member for Throsby and my own. I call on the Abbott government to reinstate round 5 funding. I commend this motion to the House.
Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (11:10): I must admit that I am a little perplexed by today's motion, moved by the member for Throsby. When I first read the motion it looked like—to use cricket parlance—a full toss on leg stump. The sheer audacity of this motion is, in effect, the member for Throsby demanding to know why the coalition is unable to meet the former government's last-minute pork-barrelling through round 5 of the RDAF, in addition to our own election commitments.
Let me be clear to the member for Throsby: the funds for round 5 RDAF projects were doled out by a desperate and profligate government which knew it would never have to fund the projects itself. What is also perplexing about this motion is that oppositions normally try to hold a government to account by demanding that they keep their own election commitments. But here we have the member for Throsby questioning why we are not meeting the Labor Party's irresponsible election promises on the eve of the last election.
In my own electorate of Deakin, all of the RDAF projects were announced on the eve of the election and they were, categorically, election commitments. One heartbreaking example for me as a local member is the Croydon Mens Shed, whose members were cruelly misled by Labor. Instead of doing the honourable thing and making clear that these funds were election promises contingent on the Labor Party's re-election, the former Labor member dishonestly presented these funds—to use the term provided to me by the Croydon Mens Shed—as 'signed, sealed and delivered'. But the truth is that not a single funding contract was signed prior to the election. Moreover, in the case of the Croydon Mens Shed, the group did not even know that the funding was coming before it was announced. They had not specifically sought it. During the desperate and rushed process, on the eve of the last election, the Croydon Mens Shed received a telephone call out of the blue asking for a photo opportunity and a press release. Labor undertook no due diligence on the project. After the event we now know that the project is worthy. But no due diligence was undertaken by the Labor Party and that is a hallmark of how they treated taxpayers' money for the six years that they were in government. We know that the Labor Party are good at putting out press releases and generating great photo opportunities, just like they did with the Croydon Mens Shed. But they just do not have any ability to manage a budget or to spend taxpayers' dollars in a prudent way.
I suggest that if the Labor Party want us to take their RDAF election promise seriously, they should start by doing so themselves. But we know they could not contractually commit to these projects because no money was allocated to the projects. So of course they could not enter into the contracts. These round 5 projects were yet more expenditure commitments tied to the income supposedly being raised by the mining tax. Labor were unable to deliver on these projects because they depended on mining tax revenue that just was not there. And we all know that the expenditure commitments tied to the mining tax far exceed any projected income.
In contrast, the coalition government takes its commitment to regional Australia seriously, and that is why we are taking real action and introducing the National Stronger Regions Fund. Two hundred million dollars per year has been allocated to this fund over the next five years. Not only is this fund within our fiscal means but the government is committed to working with local communities to ensure this funding is delivered to the areas that need it most—not phone calls out of the blue requesting photo opportunities, Member for Throsby, but undertaking proper due diligence with taxpayers' money. Furthermore, proposals for worthy RDAF round 5 projects like the Croydon Mens Shed may be resubmitted under the NSRF scheme, with the scheme's guidelines to be released shortly.
On September 7, the Australian people elected a government that says what it means and means what it says. They also elected a government that knows how to manage its finances. I am therefore proud to be part of a government which continues to make prudent decisions in order to meet our financial obligations and a government that has made substantial commitments to regional Australia. We look forward to honouring these commitments. Time expired
Debate adjourned.
Great Ocean Road
Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite) (11:15): I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Government is delivering on its $25 million election commitment to upgrade the Great Ocean Road;
(b) this commitment has been matched by another $25 million from the Victorian Government; and
(c) $15 million of federal funding for the Great Ocean Road upgrade was brought forward to this financial year; and
(2) recognises that:
(a) this iconic road is the centrepiece of the south-west Victorian tourism industry which supports thousands of local jobs;
(b) the Great Ocean Road is a key Victorian tourist route which is used by high volumes of local and tourist traffic all year round;
(c) approximately 1.7 million tourists drive on this road every year, and this number is expected to climb as the road continues to attract tourists from all over the world; and
(d) the Great Ocean Road is also an important route for local industry.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): Is the motion seconded?
Mr Chester: I second the motion.
Ms HENDERSON: The Great Ocean Road is one of our most iconic tourist attractions. For overseas tourists the rock, the reef and the road are the three must-sees. So I begin my address by issuing a call to arms to Australians and those planning a visit to Australia alike: come to the Great Ocean Road and take one of the best road trips you will find anywhere in the world.
I speak with enormous pride about the Great Ocean Road. It is the centrepiece of a regional tourism industry which delivers $2.1 billion to the Australian economy, it supports thousands of local jobs and it is of enormous historical significance. And let us not forget the importance of tourism to our national economy: tourism is our largest services export, with international visitor consumption of $26 billion—representing over eight per cent of total Australian exports.
The Great Ocean Road is the world's largest war memorial. As I noted in my first speech in this place, it is a road which begins in Torquay and weaves its way past magnificent surfing beaches, including the iconic Bells Beach, national parks, rugged sandstone and limestone cliffs, white beaches and through vibrant coastal communities—places like Anglesea, Aireys Inlet, Lorne and Apollo Bay—to Cape Otway and beyond, all the way to the Twelve Apostles. It is a journey made possible by the sweat and toil of the returned soldiers of the Great War who built this iconic road between 1919 and 1932.
These days, 1.7 million tourists travel the Great Ocean Road each year. It has a special place in my own life. Every Easter, as a young family, we would make the trek down the Great Ocean Road to stay in the Wye River caravan park. There we would camp by the river and eat more Easter eggs than desirable, which made the trip home along that windy road particularly perilous. Much of the Great Ocean Road winds along the coast in my electorate of Corangamite, perhaps the most beautiful electorate in the country.
It was also with great pride that our government committed $25 million to the upgrade of the Great Ocean Road, matched by another $25 million from the Victorian government. This is not just an investment in tourism but in jobs, road safety and our regional economy. That is why building the roads of the 21st century—the infrastructure of the future—is so important. Over five years, this upgrade will fund important maintenance works: road surface maintenance; improvements to roadside cuttings and drainage; restoration of structures such as bridges, culverts and retaining walls; and resurfacing. These are basic but vitally important works.
On this point, I must pay credit to the G21 Geelong Region Alliance, which led the campaign to upgrade the road—the OMGreatOceanRoad! campaign. The five councils represented by G21, the G21 board and particularly the CEO, Elaine Carbines, all played an important role. The upgrade garnered widespread support from business, local residents and, importantly, local tourism bodies led by the likes of Roger Grant and Rex Brown. They understood how important this was to our regional economy.
Unfortunately the only ones against the upgrade were the Labor Party and the former member for Corangamite, Darren Cheeseman. It was one thing to be against it, but Labor ran a dishonest and deceitful campaign in an attempt to score cheap political points. Mr Cheeseman claimed, incredibly, that the Liberals were planning to dynamite the cliff tops to prevent rockfalls and widen the road. I particularly draw your attention to a story in the Geelong Independent on 26 July 2013: 'Liberals to 'dynamite' Ocean Road, says MP.' Mr Cheeseman also falsely claimed we were planning to build a four-lane freight highway. This level of dishonesty was unfortunately characteristic of the sort of campaign that Labor ran in Corangamite and, frankly, I was shocked. So were many community leaders who were stunned by the antics of their then local federal member of parliament.
In arguing the federal government should play no role in maintaining or investing in the Great Ocean Road, Darren Cheeseman failed to stand up for his community and federal Labor turned its back on one of the nation's most important tourism attractions. The road is listed on the National Heritage register and that is important. But, again, we saw Labor fall down badly over its campaign to include the road on the World Heritage List. Labor did not do some basic research: under the current criteria, an operational road would not be eligible.
As a strong local voice, I fought very hard for this funding, as did my good friend the member for Wannon—Wannon, of course, being the home of the Twelve Apostles—and it was with great pride that we joined the Prime Minister and the Victorian Minister for Roads, Terry Mulder, to announce our $50 million election commitment last August. Work is already underway to deliver on this important commitment. I took part in a range of community consultation sessions in Anglesea, Lorne and Apollo Bay, and they were incredibly important opportunities for our community and the vital communities along the coast to have their say—to give their input and provide their feedback on the works they want to see on the Great Ocean Road. We have ensured that $15 million of federal funding for the upgrade was brought forward to this financial year. Again, this is symbolic of our commitment—that we are getting on with the job.
On 1 December last year, the Victorian Minister for Roads and I announced a $1.2 million upgrade along a two-kilometre stretch of road in Lorne, between Stony Creek and the roundabout at Deans Marsh Road. Then, on 16 December, Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited Anglesea to announce a $1.8 million upgrade in that town. My friend the member for Wannon has also made an announcement in his electorate—again, a very strong reminder that, having made this commitment, we are getting on with the job of delivering and we are doing it now.
Our commitment to the Great Ocean Road is just part of the story. In conjunction with the state government, the work is underway to duplicate the Princes Highway between Waurn Ponds and Winchelsea, a $171 million project, and the vital planning is underway to duplicate the next section of the Princes Highway, a $515 million project. The duplication of the Princes Highway is incredibly important for our region. It will drive economic prosperity and business confidence, and it will link the towns of Winchelsea, Birregurra, Colac and beyond. Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, you might remember a number of years ago the then opposition leader, Mr Abbott, visiting that stretch of road and having a very near call. There are many very tragic stories about that road. I am incredibly proud of our commitment to duplicating that road.
Our government has also committed $1.5 billion to Melbourne's East West Link, a critically important project for south-west Victoria. This will open up south-west Victoria, addressing the quagmire that commuters in Geelong are currently facing when they try to reach Melbourne and they come to what is no less than a car park in the lead-up to the West Gate Bridge. So it is a very important infrastructure project for our region and one that, very unfortunately, Labor is opposing. The federal government, led by our infrastructure Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is getting on with the important job of building the roads of the 21st century. I commend this motion to the House.
Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (11:25): I can agree with the member for Corangamite on one or two things. I agree that the Great Ocean Road is a beautiful stretch of highway. I have travelled it many times myself on pushbike. As I was riding my bike around Australia, I found the Great Ocean Road a little bit wet in part but a fantastic place to tour through. I have also travelled it by bus and car. I have concluded from those experiences that it is almost as nice as Lawrence Hargrave Drive, which runs through the electorate of my colleague the member for Cunningham and terminates somewhere near my electorate of Throsby on the South Coast of New South Wales. It is a beautiful stretch of road. The Great Ocean Road is almost as nice as Lawrence Hargrave Drive, and indeed it has many things in common with Lawrence Hargrave Drive, being a beautiful stretch of road that hugs the cliffs alongside the ocean.
We have absolutely no difference of opinion when it comes to the fact that this is one of Australia's great assets. Literally millions of Australians have driven and, like me, cycled along the road and stopped at the regional towns along the way for a bit of respite. I am pleased that this government recognises the importance of this road, as Labor always has.
I also think it is pretty good that the coalition actually have an infrastructure project in regional Australia that they are willing to back, because such projects are few and far between. You have to ask yourself: what is going on? What special thing singles out this particular piece of infrastructure in regional Victoria from all the others that speaker after speaker have got up recently to talk about, saying, 'We'd love to fund this project but there's no dough'? We recently heard the member for Wannon and the member for McMillan get up and say, 'I've got a shopping list of projects but unfortunately my side won't fund them because we've got no dough.'
The difference is this: the Victorian government is going to an election this year, on 26 November. What we are seeing in this motion is a celebration of a $25 million electoral bailout for a struggling Premier. That is what we are seeing. I see the member for Wannon here. He finds it hard to cover up his smile because he knows that this is absolutely true. Indeed, when the Premier of Victoria lodges his electoral declaration in December this year, there will be one very big line item: a donation from Tony Abbott to the tune of $25 million to help his struggling government get across the line. That is what this is. This is an electoral bailout for a struggling Victorian government—nothing more and nothing less.
Mr Tehan interjecting—
Mr STEPHEN JONES: Yes, it is a worthy project, but it is no less worthy than many of the projects that have been canned—and I see a prominent member of the National Party in the chamber—in your very own electorates, which you will not get up and fight for.
On this side of the House, we think it is important that you keep this important, iconic road in good nick, but we are more than a little bit suspicious about the motives that have picked out this project, at this point in time, for a $25 million fill-up whilst ignoring literally dozens and dozens of excellent projects in other electorates around the country. It is a $25 million electoral bailout for Denis Napthine—nothing more and nothing less. We see that the government in its first few months have cut literally millions of dollars out of regional Victorian communities dotted throughout regional Victoria. I think, for example, of the Emerald Tourist Railway, affectionately known to many of us as Puffing Billy. Perhaps if they called it Puffing Freddo Frog and dipped it in chocolate it might be a little bit more successful in gaining funding, because when the Prime Minister was in Tasmania he was more than willing to throw some money at some tourist infrastructure down there, being that multinational-owned Cadburys confectionery factory, claiming that the reason he was doing that was that it was an important tourist icon. The Emerald Tourist Railway will be very disappointed to know that the $3 million which had been granted to their Puffing Billy railway, as an important tourist attraction, has been withdrawn. If only it were the Freddo Frog railway, it might have got that funding.
While we are talking about the Great Ocean Road, can I talk about Torquay, on the Great Ocean Road. I have spent a number of nights at Torquay. It is a beautiful place. I know that the people in the town of Torquay are crying out for community infrastructure, including the Torquay North Family and Children's Community Centre, a $6.5 million project that had attracted funding from the federal government, only to have that funding withdrawn. If we are to believe those opposite, it was because there was no dough available, and yet we see the government able to bring forward over $15 million and $25 million to fund this project. I do not cavil with the project; I query the motivation for doing it now.
One of the joys of travelling along the Great Ocean Road is stopping at the country towns along the way. Just outside Geelong there is a little town called Leopold, of 13,000 people. There is no community hall there, so the football and netball club take on that role. The member for Corio, a great champion for his community, has recently spoken in this House about sports facilities there that have not been updated since the 1970s. They were due to receive over half a million dollars for a new netball facility. Unfortunately, with the election of the coalition government, that funding has been axed—a community along the Great Ocean Road that has not received the priority that it deserves. A family touring through Geelong might like to get out and go for a bike ride, as I enjoy doing, and they might be interested to know that there had been a proposal for a new million-dollar cycleway project out of Geelong. We promised to fund it. It was supported by the member for Corio and the former member for Corangamite but unfortunately not by the current member for Corangamite, the mover of this motion, and that funding has been withdrawn.
Whilst there is much to celebrate in the grant of funds—under suspicious circumstances—for the upgrade of the Great Ocean Road, there are many communities along the Great Ocean Road and throughout regional Victoria that are not enjoying the same largesse. The member for Bendigo is in the chamber at the moment, and I really hope that she has something to say on this important motion, because I know that she has experiences that the House needs to hear about to do with the failure of both the Victorian and the Commonwealth governments to support worthy and important infrastructure projects in her electorate.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you would have thought that a member of the government might be a little bit timid to stand in this place and talk about an infrastructure project, given the woeful history that the coalition have had in government. When we came into government, Australia was ranked 20th out of 25 for the government's commitment to infrastructure and infrastructure investment. That is right: 20th out of 25. When we left office last year, we were ranked No. 1. The coalition would not have even made it to an Olympic Games at the conclusion of their term in office. They would not have even been in the reserve pack. But when we were there it was gold medals for our contribution to plugging the infrastructure gap left by those opposite.
The member for Corangamite was proud to talk about many of the coalition's infrastructure commitments. She had nothing to say about the $1.5 billion fillip from the Commonwealth government for the WestConnex project. They have lectured us up hill and down dale about the importance of cost-benefit analyses. There was not one cost-benefit analysis for that $1.5 billion worth of Commonwealth money. While you are all there weeping on that side of the chamber about there being no dough in the bank to fund your important projects, you have got your priorities wrong.
Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (11:35): It is with great delight that I rise this morning to support my friend and colleague the member for Corangamite and commend her on what is an excellent motion. It is a motion about how the Abbott government is delivering for regional and rural Australia and how it is delivering by co-investing with the Victorian government, the Napthine government, in a major project which will deliver real economic benefits to the state of Victoria and to the nation as a whole.
The private member's motion that went before this one was just about politics and playing games. It was actually shameful. This motion is about this government delivering for our communities. I commend Prime Minister Tony Abbott for setting out to become the infrastructure Prime Minister. He wants to make sure that that is one of his key legacies, and this commitment to the Great Ocean Road will help him to achieve that legacy.
The Great Ocean Road is iconic. There is no other way of describing it. It carries 1.7 million tourists a year, and with those tourists comes an economic contribution to the state of Victoria and to the nation. The Great Ocean Road sustains 10,000 jobs and is the centrepiece of a $2.1 billion regional tourism industry. So this money is being well spent. It shows that the member for Corangamite knows her priorities. She knows that the Great Ocean Road is a strategic asset to her electorate, just as I know that the Great Ocean Road is a strategic asset for my electorate. It was with great pleasure I heard that the Abbott government, as soon as it was elected, thought so much of this commitment that it brought $15 million of the funding forward to this financial year. Already the member for Corangamite has been out announcing where the much-needed stretch of road will be fixed. I, too, have joined with the Premier of Victoria in announcing the much-needed repair of the road near the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory. That factory is key to our local dairy industry. It provides significant income to our region, to our state and to the nation.
I find it strange that those opposite will not wholeheartedly get behind this motion: $25 million from the Victorian government will be matched by $25 million from the federal government to ensure that this iconic landmark will continue to deliver tourists safely to the Twelve Apostles and to other locations and to ensure that it will carry the freight, in particular dairy freight, which makes Victoria such an economic contributor. It also will carry the mums and dads and it will carry children safely to and from school and from sporting events. This is money well spent. This is an election commitment which, had the Labor Party done their due diligence, Labor would have wholeheartedly supported in the lead-up to the last election. We would not have seen scaremongering and fearmongering from those opposite on this project about blowing up this iconic road. It was shameful. I wholeheartedly support the motion by the member for Corangamite. It is an excellent motion because it reminds people that the Abbott government is hell-bent on delivering the infrastructure that this nation needs.
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (11:40): I find the motion by the member for Corangamite quite amusing. It appears to be an almost desperate attempt to lock in the government to funding a project in the next federal budget. Clearly the member for Corangamite doubts whether her government will deliver the funding for this project in the next budget. She has taken the unprecedented step of congratulating the government and herself before the funding for this project has even been allocated. Why else would the member for Corangamite be congratulating the government before the May budget and before funding has been allocated to this project? The fact is, until funding has been allocated in the budget or otherwise, this project is still an election promise. Given the number of the government's already broken election promises, I can understand why the member for Corangamite is nervous.
I, too, am nervous about an election promise made in my electorate. During the recent federal election, the coalition promised $45 million to upgrade the Calder Highway alternative interchange at Ravenswood, an election promise from Labor, which they matched. Oddly, it was not the then shadow minister responsible for infrastructure who attended the announcement; it was not the shadow minister for regional development; it was not the shadow minister for finance, the shadow Treasurer—someone responsible for allocated funding—or the opposition leader. In fact, it was not anybody in the opposition executive who had anything to do with infrastructure and roads expenditure for regional Australia. It was the opposition spokesperson for employment and industrial relations, Senator Abetz, who made this announcement. This raises the question: how serious was the then coalition—then in opposition, today in government—about keeping their election promise to fund the upgrade of the Ravenswood interchange when they sent along to the announcement somebody who had absolutely nothing to do with infrastructure funding?
This project has moved from being a key priority to being an urgent priority. This intersection is a black spot. Only last week VicRoads announced urgent safety measures to be introduced at this dangerous intersection. The speed limit on the Calder Highway will be lowered in this section from 100 kilometres to 80 kilometres per hour. There is a concerning pattern of crashes and near misses occurring at the site. That is why this upgrade has moved from being a key issue to being an urgent issue. Upgrading the interchange will make it safer for the thousands of motorists and truck drivers who travel from Melbourne to Bendigo and to Mildura every day. I have been a fierce advocate for the Ravenswood upgrade project, as has my state Labor counterpart. Like many, we have been waiting for the state coalition government to complete the planning required by the federal government and Infrastructure Australia to fund and complete the project.
In 2010, the former state Labor government pledged funding to start the necessary planning work. Disappointingly, when Labor made the commitment, there was not one skerrick of support from the then state Liberal-National Party coalition. After being elected, they have continued to drag their feet. Years and years later they have created a crisis by not acting to get the planning done.
At a state or federal government level, only Labor can be trusted to deliver vital infrastructure funding to regional Victoria. I was pleased to join with former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, the Hon. Anthony Albanese, back in August to announce the former government's commitment to this project. It is only Labor that commit to funding these projects and it is only Labor that deliver these projects. That is why the Labor government's legacy to the current government sees us at the top of the ranking, as No. 1 in the world for infrastructure funding.
Since the election of the Victorian state coalition, this project has continued to sit in the too-hard basket. The government of the day have dragged their feet and because of this delay they have put safety at risk. Knowing how urgent this project is, I continue to lobby to meet with VicRoads in the area and to get a briefing on this project. But the state minister has denied me a meeting with the local representatives to find out more. What have the government got to hide? Let us hope that the governments act and commit to their promises. (Time expired)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): The member for La Trobe.
Mr WOOD (La Trobe) (11:45): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and can I congratulate you on your appointment as deputy speaker. Can I also congratulate the member for Corangamite, who has been a fantastic ambassador for her electorate. This is a fantastic motion that supports her local residents and acknowledges the importance of the Great Ocean Road. I also acknowledge the great work by the member for Wannon, who also has the guardianship of the Great Ocean Road and in particular the Twelve Apostles. As a Victorian, I am very proud of the Abbott government's commitment to the Great Ocean Road. The Prime Minister said he wants to be known as a Prime Minister who builds infrastructure and he is certainly living up to that title. People from around Australia and around the world, and from my electorate of La Trobe, love travelling down the Great Ocean Road. It is a beautiful road with the ocean alongside it.
The Great Ocean Road is the longest war memorial in the world, having been cut out of the cliffs by returned soldiers from the Great War. What a truly inspiring effort by those returned soldiers, and that is what also makes this road so significant. It is one of the most spectacular coastal drives in the world. It is a jewel in the crown for Victoria, attracting seven million tourists each year. And I must give the La Trobe electorate a plug, in particular that Dandenong Ranges, which is also a fantastic tourist destination. Five thousand people travel along parts of the Great Ocean Road each day. That is why I was so pleased in August last year to hear the then opposition leader and now Prime Minister Tony Abbott speaking from Anglesea when he announced the coalition's commitment to this national heritage listed Great Ocean Road. Therefore, I cannot understand why Labor members opposite would oppose funding to a national heritage listed project.
Under the Abbott policy, the Australian government and the Victorian Napthine government are working together to upgrade the Great Ocean Road with a $50 million commitment over five years. The federal government will commit $25 million and the state will commit $25 million. The Abbott government commitment is delivering significant upgrades that include maintenance of bridges and retaining walls, improvements to road safety for motorists and resurfacing roadworks. This upgrade will ensure the Great Ocean Road is safer and able to handle the increasing volumes of traffic.
As mentioned by my colleague the member for Corangamite, consultation sessions have already occurred in Anglesea, Lorne and Apollo Bay. I congratulate the member for Corangamite for listening to her local residents and fighting for this election commitment. It is also very exciting that the member for Corangamite, along with the member for Wannon, has brought forward to this financial year the Abbott government's commitment of $15 million. That means things will get moving very quickly. In November, Victorian Premier Denis Napthine and the then Victorian opposition leader announced a $1.2 million project on the Great Ocean Road at Allansford outside the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory—the first of many projects to improve this iconic road. Can I also congratulate Warrnambool on their sound and light show. As well, can I congratulate the member for Wannon, who has taken on the position as chair of the coalition's tourism committee.
As part of the commitment of $1.2 million announced on 1 December 2013, two kilometres on the outskirts of Lorne between Stony Creek and the roundabout at Deans Marsh will be sealed. This will see potholes repaired and rough sections of road improved. In December, Prime Minister Tony Abbott again visited Anglesea to announce a $1.8 million upgrade to a section of the Great Ocean Road. This is a fantastic commitment from the Abbott government. We are on the move to rebuild infrastructure not only for Victoria but for all of Australia.
Dr STONE (Murray) (11:50): My earliest memory of the Great Ocean Road is my mother's real concern for our safety as my father swung around the bends carved into the sheer cliff faces, with the ocean crashing below. I was five or six, but I can also remember being told that the road was made, literally, by hand by the ex-WWI diggers. They were given a pick or a shovel and no doubt were grateful for the few pounds they earned each week constructing this Great Ocean Road. They had come back to a country where jobs for the unskilled were scarce. I imagine the great camps that they would have had at the end of each day that were perhaps also a healing place for the diggers to compare notes and talk about war stories, and be grateful that they were a long way from the Western Front at that time.
Today, more than seven million tourists use the Great Ocean Road every year, an incredible number, who drop into the coastal towns and end up on the beautiful beaches of Victoria's south-west coastline. The road extends along a 243-kilometre stretch. According to the Great Ocean Road Destination Management Plan of February 2012, there are some 7,000 jobs contributing more than $1 billion annually to the Victorian economy as a result of this great road link and the access it gives to tourists and locals who visit the fine national parks or other places of recreation. There are national events programmed around this great scenic route—for example, the Great Ocean Road Marathon and the Great Victorian Bike Ride.
Prior to 1918 the south-west coast of Victoria was rugged and inaccessible except by the very lonely bush track or by sea, so at the end of the First World War then chairman of the Country Roads Board, William Calder, asked for funds for soldiers to work on a number of remote roads, in particular the plan to link up the coastal area. In those days it was important to support the timber industry and the budding tourism industry, and both needed decent road access. The original road was to extend from Barwon Heads in a westerly direction around Cape Otway and end near Warrnambool. The work started on 10 September 1919. Eventually some 3,000 returned servicemen built the road, which was also to be a memorial for their fallen brothers and sisters in arms. We know 60,000 died in the First World War—the so-called Great War, the war to end all wars—and another 156,000 were wounded, gassed or taken prisoner. It was fitting to have their surviving brothers in arms build this great road, particularly given there was very little work when they came back from their European experience.
It is incredible to think how rugged that work was, given the survey teams could only manage three kilometres a month as they literally carved their way through the thick forests and around the cliffs. The road was created with hard labour using explosives, picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. Several lost their lives on the project. The road was finally finished, mostly a single lane, and it is amazing that in the first years, given the condition of car brakes and the horse-drawn wagons using the road, more were not lost over the cliffs. Such was the importance and significance of the project that when the road was finally completed, in 1932, the Lieutenant Governor of Victoria Sir William Irvine officially opened it announcing to all that it was the largest war memorial in the world. Three years later the road from Eastern View to Lorne was completed with much celebration. Tolls were levied to cover the cost, because it was a trust that first put together the funding to make this road a reality.
Now the government is delivering on its $25 million election commitment to upgrade the Great Ocean Road. It is fitting and appropriate that $15 million of federal funding for the road upgrade was brought forward to this financial year. This upgrade is essential for tourism and linking the towns. It is a fitting tribute to the men and the women who lost their lives shortly after the First World War. It is an iconic road, a centrepiece of the south-west Victorian tourism industry, and it supports thousands of local jobs. I commend the new member for Corangamite, Sarah Henderson, for this motion. She is a great advocate for her people, and this road will always stand as a fitting memorial to those who died.
Debate adjourned.
PRIVILEGE
Mrs McNAMARA (Dobell) (11:55): Madam Speaker, I raise a matter of privilege about whether the then member for Dobell, Mr Craig Thomson, deliberately misled the House in a statement he made to the House on 21 May 2012. Madam Speaker, you will be aware that during the previous parliament this matter was referred to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members Interests on 22 May 2012. That inquiry lapsed with the dissolution of the parliament. I seek to present some additional information on this matter and request that you allow a motion to be moved to refer this matter again to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members Interests to recommence their inquiry in light of this new information.
On 21 May, Mr Thomson said in an extensive statement to the House that Mr Marco Bolano threatened to:
… seek to ruin any political career that I sought and would set me up with a bunch of hookers.
Mr Thomson described how his drivers licence, credit cards and telephone records had been rigged or manipulated to set him up. Mr Thomson was found guilty at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 18 February 2014 of six charges of using credit cards to pay for sex as well as other charges, including theft and using union funds for his personal use after he had left the Health Services Union and taken up his role as a Labor MP.
I provide as further information a transcript of Mr Thomson's speech to the parliament on 21 May 2012 and the then Manager of Opposition Business's speech and motion first raising the matter of privilege on 22 May 2012. I also provide a number of media reports on the outcome of the trial of 18 February, showing that Mr Thomson did not dispute the facts of the case, only the authority he held as a secretary of the Health Services Union to expend members' fund in this way. In addition to the matters raised by the then Manager of Opposition Business on 22 May 2012, when the issue was first raised, this information, I believe, establishes a prima facie case that Mr Thomson deliberately misled the House in his statement of 21 May 2012.
The SPEAKER (11:58): I thank the member for Dobell for raising the matter. In accordance with standing order 51, I will consider the matter that has been raised and will report back to the House expeditiously.
BILLS
Tax Bonus for Working Australians Repeal Bill 2013
Second Reading
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all the words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading the House is of the opinion that the $900 payments, along with infrastructure investments including in schools, roads and social housing, prevented recession and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and small businesses following the Global Financial Crisis."
Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (11:58): At the time that this debate was adjourned, I was referring to a case in Launceston, northern Tasmania, where a gaming venue, having been made aware of the first of the $900 cheques being distributed, decided it would be worthwhile in attracting potential punters into the venue to offer free breakfast to anyone who purchased $25 in poker machine credits. The result was that there was a $75,000 net benefit to the business as a result of additional business that occurred due to the $900 cheques being spent in that particular venue.
Coming from Tasmania, where we have an unemployment rate by far the worst in the country and well above the national average, I know just how effective this program has been. Nothing is more important in Tasmania than jobs. In September 2013 we went to the election with our economic growth plan and we are delivering on that plan. I know and I believe that Tasmanians are also soon ready to elect a Hodgman government after so many years of economic mismanagement under Labor and more recently under Labor and the Greens.
We opposed this package at the time because it was simply unaffordable. History shows that the legislation was passed. We are now trying to clean up the mess—with little help from those opposite. Even last financial year, four years after the legislation was passed, 15,000 cheques were issued, totalling $13 million of borrowed money. Since its introduction, more than 16,000 stimulus payments have been sent directly to taxpayers living overseas, at a cost of more than $14 million. The total amount of borrowed government money spent on stimulus payments to date is estimated to be around $7.7 billion. What extraordinary waste. We are stopping the waste and will clean up the mess. I commend the repeal bill to the House.
Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (12:01): This is, on so many levels, an embarrassing bill. The bill itself is 10 pages long while the explanatory memorandum, for those sitting in the gallery, is 17 pages. It takes more to explain how little this bill actually does than the bill itself. When you look at the bill you see how little this is supposed to save. We have had a whole lot of claims being made through the course of this debate, but in actual fact this bill represents an absence of substance in the extreme. They concocted a reasoning or justification for the bill, but you have to go through what it does, especially in the context of how it has been brought to the parliament.
We have had those opposite say that there has been a budget emergency—that we need to find savings, that we need to be much more frugal with our spending. This is from those opposite who actually handed over to the Reserve Bank $9 billion in one hit. It did not even meet the need for that to happen. The Reserve Bank in a public hearing before the Economics Committee—a committee of which I am a member—said that they had no view about whether it had to be delivered all at once or spread out over time. But those opposite, when they talk about a budget emergency, provide the Reserve Bank $9 billion. Mind you, under questioning it became clear that it is not going to be paid now; it is likely going to be paid through the course of the next few months. We are told we have to give all this money to the Reserve Bank; they get the money and guess what happens? They provide us with a dividend in August—straightaway. This is from a mob that says we have to be frugal with our spending, we have to be wise with what we do. They can just hand that over. They have handed over $9 billion. What did they do to offset that? Well, they have brought this piece of legislation forward to the House, which will save a grand total of $0.25 million over four years. It will save over the four years $250,000. This is what they are putting forward. They are saying that this is what is required to help bring the budget to surplus.
They said all sorts of things. They said that the debt was out of control; it was not. In actual fact, when we were in office we got AAA ratings not from one agency, not from two, but from three agencies. On any other measure, when you look at other countries and compare where we were at to where they are at, we did remarkably well. We were told the economy was underperforming; it was not. In actual fact, it was one of the few advanced economies to grow. If you look at the economies that we look at—the US, Japan and even our neighbour across the Tasman—our economy actually grew. We were one of three out of 34 advanced economies to actually sidestep the GFC and a recession. By the way, those opposite try to airbrush away the existence of the GFC. They will always tell you about the Asian financial crisis—the one that was the worst in 75 years; the one that they still deliver lectures on in various universities across the globe and talk about financial markets and the impact it had on world economies. But you will never hear about the GFC from our Prime Minister or our Treasurer.
We are told we need to create more jobs. They have actually done the opposite. They have managed in their short time in office to see one job go every three minutes. The coalition encouraged a tepid, lukewarm response to the GFC. The now Prime Minister suggested we should spend in line with what New Zealand did. New Zealand had economic growth that was lower and had trouble holding onto jobs—and we were told we needed to copy them.
On the basis of the model put forward by Labor in government, we were one of three out of 34 advanced economies to sidestep the GFC. The now Prime Minister suggested we follow the New Zealand model. In fact, they just wanted the country to stumble along; for them, it was easy to put out that prescription that we just do what New Zealand did, because it is all care, no responsibility. They are not the ones forced to consider the devastating impact of unemployment not just on families but on communities across the country. Particularly in Western Sydney, we are always mindful of the impact of job losses on the people that we represent. But, again, it is all care, no responsibility from those opposite.
We also need to bear in mind their own record. The IMF absolutely scorched the Howard government when they looked at the level of spending of governments from 1960 through to 2013, outside of the GFC. In their report the IMF labelled the Howard government as the most profligate. They looked at all the spending that had occurred and it was clear that spending was out of whack when those who now occupy the treasury bench were last in government. We inherited a tax system where tax to GDP stood at 23.7 per cent and we were able to get that down to 22.1 per cent, so tax was lower as a proportion of GDP. They bragged about surpluses—you will get that a lot from those opposite. They conveniently forget that they spent less on health, they spent less on education, they spent less on infrastructure—the things that matter to the people who depend on government to work effectively.
The previous speaker in this debate said that this bill formed part of an economic response that was reflective of waste, but this payment that was extended to people through the course of the GFC was designed primarily to inject money into the system at a point in time when what was missing within financial markets was the element of trust as subprime mortgages and the scandal that ensued started to bring down longstanding financial institutions. As that unravelled before our eyes through 2007-08 there was a genuine concern that the whole financial system would freeze. Ensuring that we did not head for recession depended on government being able to inject money into the system quickly. I remind people that, as a result of the types of things that we put in place, we were one of only three advanced economies out of 34 that sidestepped recession. What did we have? We had people who looked at what Australia did, and I want to quote again a comment that was quoted by the shadow Treasurer in his contribution in this debate because it is important to reinforce it. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize winning economist, said:
You were lucky to have, probably, the best designed stimulus package of any of the countries, advanced industrial countries, both in size and in design, timing and how it was spent—and I think it served Australia well.
During the global recession, Kevin Rudd's government implemented one of the strongest Keynesian stimulus packages in the world.
Stiglitz went on to say the package:
… was delivered early, with cash grants that could be spent quickly, followed by longer term investments that buoyed confidence and activity over time. In many other countries stimulus was simply too small and arrived too late, after jobs and confidence were already lost.
I want to reflect on that point because that is the point at which this type of investment by government needs to occur. There is no point after the horse has bolted. We have seen that in economic contractions in time past, when you spend too late and the effects of the long-term unemployed mean that the amount of money that has to be spent to bring them out that situation is much larger. It is better to keep people in jobs to ensure that their skills are maintained and that the overall economic activity is maintained as well. That is an important point. Mr Stiglitz goes on to say:
In Australia the stimulus helped avoid a recession and saved up to 200,000 jobs. And new research shows that stimulus may have actually reduced government debt over time. Evidence from the crisis suggests that when the economy is weak, the long-run tax revenue benefits of keeping businesses afloat and people in work can be greater than the short-run expenditure on stimulus measures. That means that a well-targeted fiscal stimulus might actually reduce public debt in the long run.
This from a person who is Nobel prize-winning economist. And these are important things to recognise.
Previous speakers have said that this was part of a wasteful period of spending, when in fact it helped save the economy. We also have the explanatory memorandum making a reflection in part on this in justifying what is being done. That is the explanatory memorandum of 17 pages for a bill that is 10 pages. The explanatory memorandum says:
Given that stimulus to the economy is no longer required the government considers that further payments are not warranted and represent an opportunity to remove government waste.
That is $250,000 that they describe as waste. I ask the question: do they really think that the economy will not require stimulus? Look at what this government has managed to achieve in a short space of time: one job lost every three minutes. It makes decisions that refuse to allow investment in this country. The biggest example of that was the refusal to allow investment in GrainCorp, which GrainCorp wanted. The government said, 'We don't want it.' The government said to the car manufacturers, 'We're not going to work with you, you're on your own,' and they shut. The government said to SPC food-processing workers that they are not going to invest with them. I reflected earlier on the remarks of Joseph Stiglitz that there is sometime benefit in being able to move quickly on things, and there is an element there that can be considered in the context of these closures, particularly in regional areas.
Any regional member of the government who thinks it is a great idea not to work with business to stimulate economic activity in their regions has to ask themselves what they are doing to stand up for people in their regions. There is value both for people who live in cities and for people who live in regional areas to see economic activity lift outside of the cities. A modest investment can ensure people do not get stuck in the rut of long-term unemployment that will require more government spending over the longer term. It is important that economic activity occurs in the regions so that people who feel there are no economic opportunities in regional Australia do not have to move to the cities to chase a job, because that puts pressure on infrastructure and services that, more often than not, those opposite have a track record of failing to support.
There are a whole range of things. For example, if people are not in work, they are not contributing to the national savings pool through their superannuation. There are a whole range of reasons why it is smart to co-invest with businesses. But since this government have come in they have been willing to block money coming into the country and they have been willing to stop money from staying in the country by pushing it out through the jobs that they are willing to see go.
They are talking now of massively contracting spending in this economy. We can see it from what has been flagged with the Commission of Audit, which they sit on and refuse to release—approximately 900 pages worth of cuts that they are refusing to show to the general public. They are building us up for a budget in May that is likely to cut spending further, and you wonder what will happen to the economy.
They know what is going to happen. They say in MYEFO, the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, that unemployment will go to 6.25 per cent and stay there for a while. Bear in mind that through the entire GFC we did not hit that level of unemployment, not once. While other countries were going into double-digit unemployment—Spain at 22 per cent, the United States getting close to 10 per cent and other parts of the world completely slowing down—and people were wondering what would happen in the eurozone and in particular were looking at what would happen in Greece, we were able to sidestep it.
This bill is a make-work excuse for this government. They claim that they are making savings when in fact the reality says something completely different. It says two things: firstly, this is not a fair dinkum bill; and, secondly, it speaks more to their inability to be able to move with the economic times when they were in opposition and now that they are in government.
Mr EWEN JONES (Herbert) (12:16): I like the member for Chifley—he is a good guy—but he wants to have it both ways. He says that the cutting of the bill will result in the saving of only $250,000 but, if we do cut it, we risk stalling the economy. This is the government that came in in 2007 and said that, for every regulation in, there would be one out. For every regulation out now, there are about 18½ thousand in. I always like it when the member for Chifley gets up and speaks. If you have ever seen The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas there is the governor's song about sidestepping issues. The member for Chifley spent 15 minutes on that issue and did not actually address the thing. What we are about is repealing a bill that is no longer needed.
There was a rallying call by members opposite all the way through the 43rd Parliament. Whenever the issue of debt and deficit was raised, they said, 'The Liberals don't think there ever was a GFC.' For the record, I was not here during the GFC. I was trying to eke out a living as an auctioneer. The loss of confidence in any market is a very telling moment and I lived through that, trying to keep a company going and sales happening. So again, for the record, I truly believed there was a GFC.
But so too did the then coalition opposition. We stood shoulder to shoulder with the government when they proposed the first round of stimulus. We had, after all, cash in the bank and we could afford it. We knew our banking system was in better shape and better regulated than those of the US and Europe, which folded and/or needed massive government bailouts. Still in lock-step, we agreed that the government of the day had a significant role to play in this. We believed that government needed to assure Australians that we were on top of this. We agreed to lift spending with the first stage of the stimulus to help retail and to assist with bills. We agreed that Australia needed to prime its economy just enough to make sure it did not stop altogether.
Where we parted company was on the second round of stimulus. History has shown, I believe, that the second round of stimulus which included the pink batts and school hall projects was a spend-a-thon and waste-a-thon of epic proportions. The lack of checks and balances at the time led to all sorts of calamities, and I do not propose to rake over those coals. Part of that second round of stimulus was the bill we now seek to repeal. The $900 cheques provided some Australians with some stimulus. Like so many things the previous government tried to roll out, the words were great and profound. It was the delivery, or the lack thereof, which will forever be a hallmark of Labor's abysmal economic credibility.
Too many people paid down debt with the money which was supposed to wash through the economy. The basic tenet of the scheme was stimulus and this action went directly against that measure. To many, it seemed like panic was setting in and people began to batten the hatches. Too many people, with the advantage of the high dollar, used the money to go home to New Zealand or overseas for a holiday. This had the obscure effect of using money borrowed from overseas lenders to stimulate the economy of overseas economies! We even sent these cheques to people who lived in countries overseas, stimulating even more international economies but leaving ours without stimulus and with a debt to repay. Dead people were sent cheques. There were a whole lot of other issues where this program was poorly conceived and even more poorly delivered.
Labor borrowed $400 million to roll out this flawed program. The GFC emergency had passed well and truly before I entered this place in 2010, let alone being still around now in 2014. Yet last financial year the then Labor government continued to post out $900 cheques to 15,000 Australians. The money was still being borrowed and farmed out to people long after the need had ended.
I am not opposed to debt or spending, but there is good debt and there is bad debt. There is good spending and there is bad spending. When it is warranted, targeted and focused on improving the overall economy, you get a great result. Where you throw money out the window as you drive along, there will be some lucky enough to be used correctly, but a lot will just be wasted. So it is with Labor's $900 cheques.
We as a government and as a parliament must now face the truth and share that truth with the Australian people. As a government and a parliament, just as in our own households, we must prioritise our spending to ensure we get the best possible result from the money we get in through the door. In the household, that is normally through wages or business takings from hard work and long hours. In government, we get money from the people of Australia through tax. They give it to us begrudgingly, and we owe it to them to treat it with respect.
The first rule of government is 'to do no harm'. The second will always be 'respect the taxpayers' dollar'. With this program Labor broke both these rules. Just like households around the country, we have to work out what we must have, what we want to have and what would be nice to have. No successful family budget starts with the pub and the movies; it starts with the necessities of life. Food, clothing, mortgage payments, power and rates, filling the car and school fees are all listed first. Then there is trying to put some away for the family holiday as well or for that rainy day when something bad could happen.
Similarly, no federal budget should start with random cash splashes. The problem with the previous government was that they just kept spending, on anything. It is easy to spend money. It can be very hard, though, to stop that spending habit. Metaphorically, the previous Labor government started their budget with the pub and the movies, and they did that for six years in government. They did not pay the mortgage or put money aside. When they spent all the money in the bank, they went and got another credit card, then another and another. They were, by the election last year, cash advancing payments—those who have done it tough will understand and know exactly what I mean by 'cash advancing payments'. You had better make sure that you do not fall into arrears on your account. If you put money into your Bankcard or Visa account and you cash advance the payment straight back out you are going to pay interest and, sooner or later, it catches up with you. But it keeps them away from the door for a while. And when you get to that stage, it only ever ends badly, or you must really cop the hurt to get back on track.
The thing about spending without thinking of the consequences is that sooner or later you run out of money, and Labor ran out of other people's money. The consequences of large debt are tough and hard, and Labor never faced these decisions or consequences. They just kept going, making other people pay. So while Labor bashed the single parent pension, forcing them onto Newstart and out of their homes, they kept sending out $900 cheques; while Labor cut $2.8 billion from higher education, they kept sending out $900 cheques; while Labor cut billions from public hospitals and basic health, they kept sending out $900 cheques; while Labor cancelled the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme, a scheme which benefits the poorest and most disadvantaged in all our communities, they kept sending out $900 cheques; while Labor slashed Defence spending to its lowest level as a percentage of GDP since 1938, they kept sending out $900 cheques; while Labor short-changed the NDIS initial trial by more than $3 billion, against the recommendations of the Productivity Commission, they kept sending out $900 cheques; while Labor short-changed the Gonski education funding reforms and loaded them to the back end of the next parliament—not this one—as someone else's problem, they kept sending out $900 cheques; and while all this was happening, they kept sending out $900 cheques—long after the emergency passed.
We have had over $120 billion in accumulated Labor deficits since 2008. If left unchecked, as Treasurer JB Hockey has stated, Labor would never have delivered a surplus and we would be heading toward $667 billion of gross debt. To quote a former Labor Prime Minister, 'This reckless spending must stop.' We have to stop sending these cheques out; we have to end the waste—it is that simple. We have to start living within our means—it is that simple. We cannot simply keep on spending and passing the debt on to our children to repay simply because we just cannot do the hard yards. We must pay back Labor's debt—it is that simple. We must roll back legislation that is no longer needed; the Australian public expects it. We must respect the Australian taxpayer's dollar, because the taxpayer demands it. We must make sure that we do the right thing. It is the time for conviction politics and the time when we have to stand up and be counted. It is the time for hard decisions.
Anyone can stand up here and say, 'We are going to spend some more money and make everyone happy.' What we must be doing as a parliament is focusing on what we have to do, focusing on making sure that we do respect that taxpayer dollar—and that will be a recurring theme throughout this parliament. And thank goodness that we have come to a time when we will be respecting the taxpayer dollar.
Previously, the member for Chifley said that the Howard government was profligate. What they did, though, was pay off all the debt. They had money in the bank. You will find in your own household that on that magical day, sometime soon—sometime in the very far future for myself—when you do pay off your house that your spending on luxuries will increase, because you can afford it. But the spending that the Howard government did, by and large, was affordable, because that was the time and the place. You cannot tell me that from 1996 to 1998—and you know that period particularly well, Mr Deputy Speaker Broadbent—was a time of all fun and glory, where everyone was just throwing money out the window. Some good people lost their seats in that 1998 election because hard decisions had to be made and we had to change the focus.
So we have to start living within our means; it is that simple. Once again, we simply cannot keep on spending and passing the debt on to our children simply because we could not do the hard yards. We must pay back Labor's debt. The rollback and outright cancellation of bad and redundant programs and legislation starts with this bill. It must start now. We have to be fair dinkum about it, and it is as simple as that.
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (12:28): It is with a level of pride that I follow the member for Herbert in this debate on the Tax Bonus for Working Australians Repeal Bill 2013, because he gave, I think, an exemplary illustration of where mainstream Australia is as far as payments to the Australian population through the global financial crisis go.
The entire world struggled with the new challenge that we faced in late 2008, and Australia was no different at the time—caught up in the maelstrom in September of that year of collapsing international financial institutions and the confidence that went with them. Australia had some predispositions that left us in a very strong and confident place, even though at the time we did not realise how well we would negotiate the difficult times to come. With the benefit of retrospect in looking at the way in which we handled ourselves through that period, one thing is very clear but not often detailed: both sides of this chamber in 2008 were unified on the important role for an appropriately sized, timed and targeted stimulus payment. I remember our then leader, Malcolm Turnbull, saying just that: it was not the debate around stimulus so much as the size, the quantum, of the stimulus that mattered.
When you look at the global effort to combat the crisis of 2008 and 2009, sure Australia was at the head of the pack but it was within the pack as far as designing a stimulus payment. It is important to stimulate, but the moment you start stimulating your economy more than your neighbours you simply start to get a flow-on effect where you start stimulating your neighbours' economies at the expense of yours. The best possible example of that was the paying of large, effectively cash transfers to the population in one-off, untied and untargeted payments because, no matter how well-meaning we are as individuals, we know there are people who will purchase large, Korean flat screen TVs with their money. That does wonders for the Korean economy and their efforts to escape their financial crisis but does virtually nothing for ours because all that $1,000 effectively does is purchase a television from Korea and pay for the delivery guy to drive from Harvey Norman to your house. That is an absolutely minute proportion of that stimulus helping our economy. That is called the economic multiplier.
The question one has to ask when planning a stimulus package is: how much of that money will be reinjected into the economy leading to greater economic infrastructure that in turn will strengthen the economy? It is easy for money to leak away to other economies. That helps other countries escape their financial crisis. That is precisely what Australia did.
It is interesting that Australia did not invent the idea of the cash payments that we debate today. No, it was the United States. There was an extensive study by UCSD looking at where these payments went. It showed that, when you looked at household consumption, there was barely any impact in stimulating the economy from making direct cash payments to people—certainly not direct cash payments to backpackers and certainly not direct cash payments to backpackers who have already gone home. There is no economic multiplier impact from that. We know that people who were no longer living and able to spend money were receiving payments. We know there was all sorts of chaos around the payments that was never rectified when the now opposition were in government.
The other great analysis that can be done now in retrospect is on why Australia went so well. I respect that the Australian Labor Party will tell you that it was because Kevin Rudd was our Prime Minister, but if we ask for some economic advice on why we did so well we will be told that there are three major areas that can explain that. The first one was that the Howard government left Australia in a significant surplus position. I will come back to the use of the word 'surplus' in a minute. We left this country with enough fuel in the tank to be able to stimulate the economy when it mattered so that over the cycle Australia was not going to be left in a precarious debt position. That is the first one.
The second one is that we had resilient banking services. Our four major banks are all regarded in the top 22 AA-rated banks in the world. We are one of the only countries, together with Canada, that have such a resilient, high-quality banking sector that holds the reserves so that confidence can remain that, even when these incredible economic ructions grip the financial sectors in the Northern Hemisphere, Australia will not suffer the same fate.
Finally, we know that Australia has a commodity based economy. It seems simple, doesn't it? As long as we are loading ships and employing people to dig up the ore that ends up in them we are going to be okay. That is to a point. So long as the recession is short and sharp your employees do not lose their skills but, if you face a long-term recession, you have the significant risk that people will lose their skills in unemployment and be harder to reemploy. Australia, fortunately, had what we call a short, sharp recession. That short period of stimulus was just what we needed—had it been the right amount—to get us through a short, sharp recession.
Where countries face three-to-five-year or seven-year recessions or economic slowdowns like we witnessed in the 1990s in Japan then it becomes more sensible to have significant and longer term stimuli to keep people working, keep them trained and keep people with their lively routines and not become long-term reliant on welfare. That is not what happened in Australia. We are still the world's leading commodity exporter. Sure, we believe about 75,000 jobs were shed in mining but, no sooner had these people been laid off, Australia was fulfilling longer term contracts, prices had adjusted somewhat and mining companies were beginning to rehire again and whatever jobs, for instance, were lost in one sector were simply picked up in other sectors. Gas is a fantastic example of where employment has significantly grown over that time.
Over the last few decades Australia has been able to rely on not just what is above the land but what is below. You may say that one day these limited non-renewable resources will run out. I can assure you that Australia has plenty of other valuable non-renewable commodities that will last us to the end of this century. No matter what the world will need next, it is quite likely that Australia has it under the ground. We are extremely well placed not to become utterly reliant or beholden but to use our commodity sector to the best possible benefit of the Australian population now. I do not think anyone has any interest in leaving commodities in the ground until the point is reached where they have no worth any more and you say, 'I wish we had dug them up when they were valuable.' Of course we have to go as hard, as effectively and as efficiently as we can to be deriving GDP for this nation and providing jobs to our children who need them. That was the third element that got us through the GFC.
There have been interesting analyses done by the IMF, who took the counternarrative and asked: which were the countries that truly suffered in the GFC? I diverge slightly from these cash payments, but I will come back to them. Summers at the IMF found that nations that were utterly reliant or significantly reliant on high-tech manufacturing were the ones that had the greatest job losses. To put it another way: this was the iPod crisis. The countries with high-tech manufacturing were finding that through the GFC people said, 'I will just pause on the purchase of high-tech goods and see where the economy goes.' They felt the 10 per cent falls in GDP; they felt the eight per cent falls in employment. Many of these were the south-east Asian tiger economies and, together with the US and some of the financial economies, they felt massive falls in GDP and in employment. So Australia did well.
We can entertain ourselves for a decade talking about whether it was the Labor government that was responsible for saving jobs or whether, as most economists worldwide would say, Australia just simply had the prerequisites to survive and negotiate its way. But there is one thing that is virtually not debated; there is one thing you will find agreement on—from students of economics 101 all the way through to governors of the Fed Reserve—and that is: if you want an economic multiplier from the money that you spend, it certainly is not best to do it in open, broad cash payments.
Now payment is one thing but, to use an Orwellian term, a 'tax bonus' is quite another. I find it ironic that the former Labor government actually used to refer to paying Australians 'bonuses'. Every person listening to this speech today would say that a bonus should be a reward for top performance. How can you continue to possibly pay bonuses when you are failing in your job of simply balancing a budget? As I have said before: if you have consecutive budget deficits, which is all that Labor ever achieved while it was in government for six years, isn't that just intergenerational theft? Isn't running a deficit budget, year in and year out, with no intention to ever ameliorate the situation, fix it up, run surpluses at some time in the future or ever balance the budget over the longer term cycle just thieving money from the next generation? Isn't it simply saying, 'Our concerns are greater than those of your children, and I will spend your money on my problems, using the most patronising of language, because I want to spend the money now for my political purposes'? And is there a better example of this than dressing it up in a bill called 'a tax bonus for working Australians'? It is like the bonus that comes in is for working Australians, because there is something truly special in the eyes of the Labor Party about working Australians that means that they deserve a bonus over and above all of that great work they do from a rapidly deteriorating budget bottom line. No, it still called it a 'budget bonus payment'.
In the end this was—and history will recount it for decades—a government addicted to paying out bonuses to people who did not even realise why they were getting them. What other government would pay a schoolkids bonus and liquid paper out the requirement to spend the money on your schoolkids? Only a Labor government could possibly pay a schoolkids bonus and say: 'We don't actually care where you spend the money. Don't keep your paperwork. Here's your payment anyway.' If you were seriously interested in having the money spent on the things that matter, you would have just the one basic requirement to do so. I was appalled that it rubbed it out. If you are going to pay a bonus to Australians at a time when you are running the economy well, under the absolutely legitimate pretext that you are reinvesting the dividends, say, of higher than expected tax takings, then absolutely return it into the economy in the most effective and powerful way possible. What you had exemplar from the other side of this chamber, when it was in government, was the worst possible way of doing it. It was just effectively paying a pre-election bribe.
Now, look: everyone in this chamber can make up a story about how hardworking Australians are and how much we all deserve more money. There is no argument from me on that. Of course, if a cheque arrives in the post, like everyone else I will cash it. But at some point there has to be a conversation about what happens when the music stops, when this money has to be paid back and when our overseas creditors simply say, 'We're sick of giving you more money if all you're going to do is spend it on tax bonuses for working Australians.' I know we do not have massive levels of government debt, but we had moved from being a nation running disciplined and regular surpluses and sending a very powerful message to the market and to the global economy that Australia can handle its economic situation to a situation where you never knew what was going to happen next. A surplus was promised and not delivered. We had ridiculous deterioration in this debate where it then focused on how long away the next surplus would be: 'Whether it's 2018 or 2019, all you've got to do is vote for us three times and we promise you'll see just one surplus in your lifetime.' It became pathetic; it became absolutely unsustainable. But it is true that governments in distress, in utter chaos, ultimately lignify. They are unable to offend without losing political support, and they get to that point where they simply cannot say no to people. That is what we reached with the former Labor government.
So there it was, leading into election 2013, that almost invidious challenge for Australians and for the then opposition Liberal Party to come out and say: 'You know what? We know the music is going to stop, so before an election we will commit to stopping these schoolkid bonuses.' That was an extremely brave commitment to make by the then opposition Treasurer, and I back that kind of courage. I also back that plenty of people in High Street in my electorate, plenty of people living, working and commuting in my electorate of Bowman, will also say: 'You know what? This means I don't get a cheque for $900, but I can see why this government has to, at some point, say enough is enough.' We have been asking, since 2009, for precisely when these forms of ill-disciplined and poorly targeted payments would stop. That is not a difficult question for this chamber to consider, but there was no hope, so long as we retained a Labor government in this country, that we would ever see any form of cessation of these vague and Orwellian tax payments to working Australians at exactly the same time that our economy was in decline.
I have said before that we had three major criteria for why we evaded most of the impact of the GFC. The lesson we did not learn is that our payments need to be targeted. The US made that mistake; we then made it twice more. This legislation was the fourth time, and I am glad that today we embark on its repeal.
Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (12:44): It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the coalition's delivery of its commitment in relation to this bill, the Tax Bonus for Working Australians Repeal Bill 2013. I must say, as numerous coalition speakers have in this debate, that this bill signifies the difference between the coalition and the previous Labor government. This bill encapsulates the difference of approach between the coalition and what we saw from Labor over the past six years. In many respects this is summed up in the pious amendment put forward by the shadow Treasurer. The amendment he seeks to make includes the words:
That all the words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading the House is of the opinion that the $900 payments, along with infrastructure investments including in schools, roads and social housing, prevented recession and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and small businesses following the Global Financial Crisis”.
I am not surprised that Labor still, all these years later, is grasping on to that little sentence. Their line is that they were the visionaries who saved Australia from the GFC. What I hear repeated in talking points, across the length and breadth of this great brown land, is this: if it were not for the Labor Party's strong, decisive action, Australia would have tumbled into recession. The extraordinary thing is they just whitewash the real facts out of Australia's history on an ongoing basis.
The Labor Party does not like being reminded of the real facts. The Labor Party does not like being reminded of the fact that it was under their watch, when they had control of the Treasury benches, that we saw Australia's situation deteriorate from having net assets of billions of dollars—of having money put aside in the higher education fund and the Future Fund, and no net debt—to the Labor Party bequeathing to the next generation of Australians decades of debt in six short years because of their reckless spending. That is the legacy of the Australian Labor Party. We know that right now Australia is on track to reach $500 billion of debt. We know that, over the forward estimates, Labor left behind a forecast of $123 billion of budget deficits. And we know that, if we do nothing and keep to the same trajectory Labor placed this country on, we will reach a peak debt level of $667 billion. So when Labor moves silly, pious amendments like this one, when they pat themselves on the back and say, 'Weren't we great? Weren't we Labor Party visionaries? Look at the vision we had: we chained the next generations of Australians to decades of debt and saved the nation', I do not think the Labor Party's legacy is that great.
Australians see straight through the Australian Labor Party and that is why so many of them decided to support the coalition at the last federal election. Labor can run around all they want in an attempt to whitewash over the history of the last six years and say, 'Look at the Labor Party! We saved Australia from recession,' but they left it to my children and children across the country to pay back not only hundreds of billions of dollars of capital owing but also, probably, $100 billion or more of interest over the next 20 years. So when Labor talks about infrastructure such as investment in schools, investment in roads and investment in hospitals, I ask one simple question: how much more could we as a nation be investing if we did not have to repay $450 billion worth of debt? How much more could we as a nation be investing in roads, hospitals, health and schools if we did not have to pay back over $10 billion a year in interest? That is what Labor left behind.
The bill before the House today—the bill that coalition members have spoken so eloquently about—encapsulates the difference of approach between the coalition and the Labor Party. That difference is this: under us, the reckless spending stops. We will make sure we have turned our back on the failed approach of the Australian Labor Party—an approach that failed not only in this country but in jurisdictions around the world. We have seen the consequences of the approach of those in the Centre Left—the Socialists, the quasi-socialists and social democrats all around the world—as they spent and spent. They said, 'It's okay—we'll keep spending and we'll get there in the end.' But all they succeeded in doing was effectively bankrupting people across the planet. Now, as we see unemployment rates break through 20-plus per cent—despite the fact that those countries were spending and spending, just as Labor would have us do—we know their approach is a failed approach. For that reason, the coalition is very pleased to be implementing this bill to repeal the Tax Bonus for Working Australians Act and to ensure that the Commissioner of Taxation does not make any further tax bonus payments.
The government made a commitment to end this waste during the 2013 federal election and this repeal bill delivers on that commitment. Tax bonuses were paid to Australian residents who paid tax in the 2007-08 income year and met certain income tests. The payments were designed to provide stimulus to the Australian economy at the height of the global financial crisis, according to the Australian Labor Party. Eligible taxpayers received: $900 where their taxable income was up to and including $80,000; $600 where their taxable income was between $80,000 and $90,000; and $250 where their taxable income was between $90,000 and $100,000. Most payments were made in 2009 but a number of payments have continued to be made, through either the late banking of cheques or the issuing of an amended assessment for the 2007-08 income year where the taxpayer had an outstanding entitlement to the tax bonus. In fact, more than 430,000 cheques totalling more than $375 million were issued for the financial year following the year in which the stimulus payments were intended to be made. Nearly 24,000 cheques, totalling more than $20 million, were issued nearly two years after the global financial crisis. In fact, in the last financial year, more than 15,000 cheques were issued, totalling nearly $13 million—three years after the stimulus payments were first issued. At the time of introduction, in 2009, the total amount to be spent on tax bonus payments was estimated at around $8 billion.
In 2009, the government opposed the entire economic stimulus package of the then opposition, including the payments authorised by the tax bonus bill, on the grounds that the package was poorly targeted, ineffective in supporting employment and unaffordable. It was no surprise that the member for McMahon—the shadow Treasurer—and other opposition members continually quoted Professor Stiglitz about the stimulus package. After all, Stiglitz co-authored a book with Andrew Charlton, who was Prime Minister Rudd's senior economic adviser when the Rudd government was splashing the cash.
Given that stimulus to the economy is no longer required, this government considers that further payments are not warranted. This represents an opportunity to stop government waste and reckless spending. The ATO has ceased issuing cheques in most circumstances, except where it has been requested by the taxpayer. To ensure that further tax bonus payments cannot be made by the ATO, this bill repeals the tax bonus act. The removal of tax bonus payments will prevent $900 cheques being sent out to people four years after the global financial crisis. The coalition does not support the amendment moved by the opposition, that I outlined earlier, for the reasons I have already discussed. We can no longer afford to borrow money for this type of spending.
Government spending has never returned to the levels it was at prior to the global financial crisis. In the 2008-09 financial year alone, real government spending grew by more than 12 per cent. The government is now spending $100 billion a year more than in the final year of the Howard government. That is why this government is proceeding with a commission of audit, tasked to assess the role and scope of government as well as to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent wisely and in an efficient manner.
The Mid-Year Fiscal and Economic Outlook ruled on Labor's economic record. MYEFO showed what a mountain of debt and what sort of legacy has been left behind. As I said, it projects $123 billion of deficits over the forward estimates to 2016-17, and a peak debt load of $667 billion, or two-thirds of a trillion dollars, within a decade. That is what will occur unless changes are made. That is why the coalition are unapologetic about ending Labor's waste. That is why the coalition are unapologetic about ceasing the kind of reckless spending typified by the $900 cheques. That is why the coalition is unapologetic about refusing to continue down the path that Labor set us on—borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars just to spend frivolously and run around the community saying, 'Look at what we did.' Every time a Labor member stood up at a school assembly and said to Australian kids, 'Aren't we great because we've built this school hall?' the coalition said, 'No, that's not great, because those kids will be paying off that school hall for the next 20 or 30 years.' That is the legacy that Labor left behind, and it is the pinnacle of the reasons why we have brought forward this repeal bill. I commend it to the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for McMahon has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.
Question negatived.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff—Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (12:56): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH
Address-in-Reply
Debate resumed on the motion:
That the Address be agreed to.
Mrs GRIGGS (Solomon) (12:57): I only have a little bit of time left because the Labor Party decided that it was going to shut me down. I wanted to say a big thankyou to the people of Solomon for re-electing me. They can be assured that I will continue to fight for them. Now that we are in government we can do some really good things.
We announced last week that another 2,300 houses will be built in Solomon over the next five years, which is great. When the Minister for Justice came, he said there is going to be $300,000 for CCTVs in crime hot spots in Darwin. That promise is still going to be delivered, along with $13,000 for the Darwin Table Tennis Association, $5,000 for the Berrima riding school and $8,000 for the Palmerston Football Club. One of the biggest announcements that we made was the $110 million for the Palmerston Regional Hospital. The minister was in Darwin last week confirming the scoping study. We are going to be working with the Giles government to deliver a hospital for Palmerston.
The other very important election promise that I made was to abolish the carbon tax. I voted to get rid of the carbon tax. Labor, particularly Territory Labor, are still voting to keep the carbon tax—a tax that affects every angle of life in the Territory. I cannot believe, when there was resounding support for getting get rid of the carbon tax, that Territory Labor and federal Labor still want to keep the carbon tax. Territorians do not want to keep the carbon tax. Territory Labor should listen. Territorians are very, very clear—they do not want the carbon tax. Thanks again to the people of Solomon. I will not let you down. (Time expired)
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (12:59): It is customary in an address-in-reply to talk about the federal election, to thank people who helped in the campaign and to talk about present policy settings and the future direction of our nation, and I will do so in this speech. In September 2013 the people in my rural and regional South-East Queensland electorate of Blair voted for me as their federal representative for a third time. There was a substantial swing against Labor across the country and for a second election in a row in my home state of Queensland. Against the odds, we held on in Blair with a small swing against us in 2010. This time, against the trend, Blair swung to Labor, resulting in an increase of over one per cent in the two-party preferred vote, the final margin being 5.3 per cent.
It is an enormous privilege for a working-class boy from Ipswich to be elected here three times. I am honoured to have the support of the people of Blair and I will not let them down. I went into this campaign, my fourth, as I always do, with a Labor Party membership ticket in one hand and a union ticket in the other. Labor achieved this result in Blair because the people of Ipswich and Somerset decided. It was the federal Labor government that helped them with their cost-of-living pressures, jobs, roads, schools, health and community infrastructure, and it was the federal Labor government that stuck with them through the trials and tribulations of the floods of 2011 and 2013, and they remembered.
In the three years leading up to the September election, I held 325 mobile offices, from shopping centres to shows, from roadsides to rural events. The feedback I heard from people again and again was about issues related to what they wanted: jobs, schools, roads, community infrastructure and health funding. Locally, the former federal Labor government, after years of coalition neglect, delivered everything from the Ipswich Motorway Dinmore-to-Darra section to the Blacksoil Interchange upgrade, to upgrades in schools and health services and community infrastructure projects, from Springfield to Somerset. We reminded people constantly of what the federal Labor government had done and would continue to do in their suburbs and country towns.
I could not have achieved this great result without the support of so many volunteers—some of the most dedicated and determined people I know—such as Dot Hogan, who single-handedly canvassed over 9,000 constituents. In fact, Dot spoke to so many people that her name became quite well recognised, with people telling me they had talked to Dot so they no longer needed to talk to me! Janet Butler is another good friend and supporter of mine and of the Australian Labor Party. She lives in the rural Somerset region and attended many shows, mobile offices and events. She phone-canvassed thousands of people and gave us one of the best and most impressive election night cakes I have ever seen! Somerset has booths that were once in Joh Bjelke-Petersen's state seat and had never been won by Labor. We polled solidly in those traditionally conservative areas, and I attribute much of our success there to the work done by Janet and the Somerset branch of the Labor Party.
Brian Hall is a local long-term Labor Party member who gives his support to many voluntary organisations. Brian is a remarkable man, whose humility hides a wealth of knowledge, wisdom and common sense. He managed to organise and oversee the erection of signs at over 400 sites in Blair, many of them with more than one sign installed. I want to thank also the former member for Forde, Brett Raguse, and Rosewood Labor Party branch members Steve Franklin and Al McMillan, who erected many signs in their area. Lucas Bird, Kaitlyn Clancy and a public servant known as John worked hard putting up many signs. John knows who I am talking about.
Many local people helped on my campaign, including Greg Turner, my mobile office offsider, and Peggy Frankish, who has had a difficult year, losing her husband and fighting a serious illness of her own, but who still gives freely of her time to give me support. We had help from wonderful people such as the former Mayor of Ipswich Des Freeman and his terrific wife, Colleen; Tracey Clark; Ron Careless; Margaret Doran; Rhonda Nolan; Shaun Nancarrow; Jacinta Benson; Allistair Smith; Doug DeWitt; Janet Patterson; and Steve Leese, just to name a few. There were so many people that I could go on naming them for the rest of the day.
The Blair campaign was all about returning to a 'grassroots' strategy. I thank Chris Forrester, whom I described in The Australian newspaper on 13 September 2013 as follows:
Chris is the best in the business, he is a brilliant campaigner. It is all about talking with people, engaging in transactional politics in serving like a local councillor and getting things done, rather than as a party politician …
I thank the following unions for their wonderful support: the Services Union, my union; the Plumbers Union; the Queensland Teachers' Union; the CFMEU; and, particularly, the SDA for their terrific support in the campaign.
Peter Johnstone kindly agreed once again to act as my campaign director, and he did not let me down. His sage personal and political advice has held me in good stead for many years and I am proud to call him my friend. The Blair electorate office is staffed with terrific staff. Wonderful people such as Jenny Howard and Kylie Stoneman have been with me since I was first elected in late 2007. Both of them are seasoned campaigners and have been involved in many elections locally in Ipswich. I thank them for the work they have done. They complement each other and provide an efficient, professional and friendly workplace.
Sue West, Madonna Oliver and Eliza Atkins—the self-described 'Shayngels'—kept me fully informed about what I was supposed to be doing, particularly in my role as parliamentary secretary. Sue has recently left my employ due to family commitments and will be—and already is—sadly missed. Janice Cumming joined our team a few years ago and has a wealth of experience working in electorate offices. Janice regularly receives chocolates and flowers from grateful constituents, and we are pleased with her generous and warm manner. We love her, not just for her work but for the fact that she shares those chocolates with us, which we really appreciate! Fairly new to the team are Nick Hughes and Wayne Gaddes. Apart from their valuable professional skills, they are great campaigners in Ipswich.
Last but by no means least, I acknowledge the support of my family: my wife, Carolyn, and my two daughters, Alex and Jacqui. I thank them for their love and support over many years. I also thank them for their votes, by the way! None of us could do the job we do without the support of our family. I also want to thank my mum, Joy, and her husband of many years, Rob. They worked alongside me in the campaign and stood beside me on cold winter mornings at railway stations, handing out flyers to commuters catching the train from Ipswich to Brisbane. And of course I thank my brothers, Regan and Darrin, who along with others staffed the Kilcoy booths again. We call them the Kilcoy kids.
Over the past three years, I have made many good friends throughout the region and met some truly amazing people. I have enjoyed visiting local schools, workplaces, community groups, homes and sporting games. Continually, I have been touched by the hospitality and friendship I have encountered as the local federal member.
The Blair electorate covers 6,400 square kilometres in South-East Queensland. It is a regional and rural seat. It is based on central and rural Ipswich—about 70 per cent of the city is in my electorate—and the rural area looked after by the Somerset Regional Council. I have travelled my electorate on many occasions. It has to be home to the best jam, coffee and produce in the country, certainly at country shows and particularly at the Fernvale markets.
Without political opponents, there would be no need for elections. I would like to formally acknowledge my political opponents and thank them for their contribution to and participation in our great democracy. I thank the Australian Electoral Commission for the work they have done locally. We change governments in this country with ballots not bullets and we campaign with words not warfare. We should always cherish our democracy.
There is much to be done in Ipswich and in the Somerset region. Sadly, many projects which were budgeted for by the former Labor government have been stripped away. TheCourier-Mail reports that $15 million has been taken away from the Ipswich City Council and no cash for Springfield—the Brisbane Lions have to look elsewhere. The sports hub would have been a wonderful relocation site for the Brisbane Lions AFL team close by my electorate in Oxley and would have benefitted my electorate tremendously. There was also to be $349,00 for the upgrade of Willowbank Raceway, a $219,000 upgrade to the Lowood pool, additional funding of $100,000 for Ipswich Hospice Care, $250,000 for Ipswich Rugby League and $132,000 to Riverview Neighbourhood House—all taken away by the current coalition government. Even more egregious, outrageous and disgraceful is the $2 million they have taken, which we budgeted for, for the upgrade to St Joseph's Catholic Primary School flood evacuation and recovery centre. This will leave 30,000 Ipswich residents without a proper flood evacuation centre, having experienced flood as recently as 2011.
I am pleased to see some projects have not been cut by those opposite. These include the Toogoolawah Condensery Arts and Cultural Precinct and Kilcoy Futures project and Kilcoy showground upgrades. Thank goodness they have survived the cuts. Improving infrastructure and services has always been a priority for me. I will agitate, irritate and even annoy people to get funding for these types of projects and for my electorate.
During the election campaign, my LNP opponent publicly declared that, if elected, the Liberal-National Party would match the commitment of the federal Labor party to provide $279 million to upgrade the final stage of the Ipswich Motorway from Darra to Rocklea—mostly located in the electorate of Moreton but used by tens of thousands of my constituents every day. It came as a bit of a shock to people locally and certainly to me that the fiscal budget impact of federal coalition policies, released just prior to the federal election, states at 7.9.13 that a mere $65 million has been allocated to this vital piece of community infrastructure across the forward estimates. The LNP was disingenuous on this issue. Their state colleagues Campbell Newman and co, who should learn the lesson of the Redcliffe by-election on the weekend, opposed the final stage of the Ipswich Motorway upgrade from Darra to Rocklea and will not put a brass razoo towards it.
The Prime Minister has freely admitted that his policies will hurt people. Well, Prime Minister, that is an understatement because I can tell you that in my Blair electorate alone, around 15,900 eligible families will miss out on the schoolkids bonus, which helps them with cost-of-living pressures, to buy school uniforms, books and IT for their kids. We will see 46,300 people lose years of super savings. Around 20,900 people, mostly women, will lose up to $500 every year because the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have slashed the low-income superannuation contribution. And that is just the beginning.
According to the South-East Queensland infrastructure plan and program, we need $134 billion investment in infrastructure. South-East Queensland will grow from 2.8 million people in 2006 to 4.4 million by 2031. Sadly, we are seeing locally the consequences of what coalition governments have done and I expect will do. The front page of The Queensland Times on the weekend said that the Ipswich unemployment rate—and that covers up to Esk in most of my electorate—now is 11.5 per cent. That is a 2.1 per cent increase since December last year and a staggering 7.3 per cent higher than in 2008. State Labor MP for Bundamba Jo-Ann Miller clearly laid the blame on the Queensland LNP government, saying that it ripped out funds and jobs from the area in the last two years. I agree with her, but under this government we have seen nothing that will reduce the unemployment rate in Ipswich.
When we were in government, when the global financial crisis hit this country, what we saw from those opposite was inertia, idleness and ignorance. We even heard members across the chamber who denied that the global final crisis impacted our regions, our country and world wide. We kept jobs going. We provided stimulus funding, which kept the economy going. We kept people in jobs, we kept inflation low, we kept growth going and we had one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios in the OECD. We lowered the tax to GDP ratio from the time the big-spending Howard government got in to the time we left office. And not just that: we left the legacy of a AAA credit rating. That is what we did when we were in government. So far from those opposite we have seen 63,000 jobs lost—so much for the million jobs that were going to be created.
In our electorate of Blair, we had to endure the failings of the Howard government and we are seeing them repeated here by this government. We have seen it with the National Broadband Network, with 1,000 local towns—Minden, Kilcoy, Toogoolawah, Lowood, Esk and Fernvale—getting fibre to the premises under a Labor government but nothing under the coalition government. They call it the NBN. What the coalition are doing is not the NBN at all, and they will leave areas like these without adequate fast and affordable broadband. LNP members in my home state who represent regional and rural areas should hang their heads in shame.
In addition to my responsibilities as a local member, I am pleased to have been appointed to the shadow cabinet as shadow minister for Indigenous affairs and shadow minister for ageing. I thank my caucus colleagues for the opportunity to serve in this way and the Leader of the Opposition for appointing me. The former federal Labor government made a huge investment in Indigenous affairs. We had the Closing the Gap strategy and we put a huge amount of effort into that. Sadly, there is a lot more work to be done. Work is needed in a whole range of areas by 2031 before we will see many of the targets being achieved. Since the coalition came to government, the Prime Minister rolled the area into his department and we have seen slashing, cutting and burning across Indigenous affairs.
We have seen $13 million taken from Indigenous legal services, ATSILS. I have spoken to Shane Duffy, CEO in Queensland and involved nationally at the leadership level, about the impact of that. The government have made no commitment and have backed away from the targets in regard to incarceration rates. If you are an Indigenous young adult, you are 25 times more likely to be incarcerated than a non-Indigenous young adult. An Indigenous man or woman is 15 times more likely to be incarcerated than a non-Indigenous person. That is shameful. We have to do more. We have a bipartisan commitment from both sides of politics, but we are seeing that those opposite are not taking the same approach that they said they would take. They are not the government that they said they would be on Indigenous affairs. We have seen $15 million cut from the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples, the peak representative body for Indigenous people across the country. Bringing in a paternalistic, ministerial advisory council is not the way to go. They should be funding the peak body that represents Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The former Labor government budgeted for that funding and those opposite are tearing it away. The consequences are that jobs will be lost in the congress. That should never be allowed to happen.
We have seen nothing about disability targets and nothing about higher education targets in Closing the Gap from those opposite. On the sixth report, we saw that they produced a 16-page pamphlet. We produced 150 pages of data and analysis when we were last in government in terms of Closing the Gap. I am not confident at all that the expectations raised by those opposite will actually be achieved. We have seen the Prime Minister comment on recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Constitution. My concern is that it will be preambular and symbolic. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across this country want substantive change to the Constitution that recognises their land, their culture and that they were the first people of this country. I hope those opposite do not back away from that.
In terms of ageing, we saw what those opposite really think of the aged-care sector on the last day of parliament last year. It took them 32 minutes in this place to get rid of $1.1 billion in relation to the workforce supplement, funding that we had provided for. It was agreed within the sector—the aged-care providers, the not-for-profit sector, the for-profit sector and the unions—to roll out funding to increase workforce numbers across the sector and to reduce the disparity in funding, salaries and entitlements between the health system and the aged-care sector. If you are a nurse, you are more likely to earn $300 or $400 more a week, say, in my electorate at the Ipswich general hospital than at the Nowlanvil Aged Care Facility. That is just one example. We provided that as part of the Living Longer Living Better package. Central to that package that those opposite said that they would support was the workforce supplement, but they have taken it away. It is an easy save for them. I call on them to do the right thing and reinstate it. The sector wants it and the government should do the right thing. This is important as the ageing tsunami hits this country. I call on those opposite to do the right thing. Two weeks before Christmas, the coalition, the Grinch, took that money away from the aged-care sector.
There is much that I will bring to this parliament and there is much more that I can say about these sectors. I want to keep the government accountable. They have made many promises in the area of Indigenous affairs and ageing, and they should do the right thing by both sectors.
Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (13:20): It is a privilege today to speak on the address-in-reply to the Governor-General's speech. It did not take long for the member for Blair to dump bipartisanship in relation to Indigenous affairs policy in Australia and to bring forward the divisive points that he just made. It is an area that should be the subject of bipartisan concern and pursuit, and the Prime Minister has extended his willingness to make it an area of bipartisan concern and pursuit. If the people of Blair want to know what is hurting people, and the member for Blair commented on this, it is the reckless spending of the previous government that has damaged the underlying state of the budget in Australia today. We have $123 billion in cumulative deficits and gross debt is now projected to be $667 billion. I know it will be hard for a lot of people to fathom how much money that is, but that is an enormous amount of money for any government or any set of taxpayers to have to pay back. The member for Blair says, 'Why are we cutting the schoolkids bonus?' I can answer that: we have a $127 billion deficit. We have up to $667 billion of gross debt that was accumulated by the previous government. In that context and in this economic environment that we now live, no government can afford to borrow money to make cash handouts for anything. The member for Blair and the people of Blair should understand that it is because of their member's behaviour in the last government that we cannot afford to do many of the things that the government would like to do from now on.
For my own part, I am very grateful to my electorate of Mitchell for the privilege of representing them in a third term in this parliament. The last election was one of the most important that I have seen in my lifetime and I know it will be one of the most important for many, many years to come. We had possibly the worst government in Australian history—in fact, I would say, as a student of politics at university and high school and a lifelong adherent to political studies, it probably was the worst government in Australian political history. The government was marked by chaos and confusion. It lost control of the very basics of governance. I was pleased to receive from the people of Mitchell support to become the member for what they tell me is the safest Liberal seat in Australia. I put it this way: there are more sensible people in my electorate than in any other electorate in Australia, because they understood that the last government was the worst government in Australian history.
We all know about the chaos of the previous government's policy, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd approach and the deal with the Australian Greens, but I want to talk about their approach to legislation. Perhaps this marks them out as clearly the worst government in Australian history. More than any other area, it is why it is so important to have the new coalition government with a positive agenda in relation to legislation and deregulation. In the last government there were several ministers for finance and deregulation. We had Lindsay Tanner, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation; Craig Emerson, the Minister assisting the Minister for Deregulation; Wayne Swan, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation; Penny Wong, the Minister for Finance and Deregulation; Nick Sherry, the Minister assisting the Minister for Deregulation; and David Bradbury, the Minister assisting the Minister for Deregulation. That was a lot of deregulation and a lot of ministers responsible for deregulation.
What was this army of ministers deregulating? What did they do in six years? In fact, the record shows that the Rudd-Gillard government added 800 pieces of legislation to the books, something they describe as a grand achievement. That legislation includes nearly 21,000 new regulations and those seven or eight ministers for deregulation repealed just 104, despite whole units of government working on the deregulation agenda. When you hear businesses—small, large, medium—saying they are caught up in red tape, green tape and government bureaucracy and waste, you can think of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments and the 21,000 new regulations and 800 pieces of legislation. All this added to the burden of doing business with so little benefit. It affected our ability to cooperate, work and prosper.
One of the greatest things about the new coalition government led by Tony Abbott is that we will have a strong deregulation agenda. Not only are we going to have whole days in this parliament where we do nothing but deregulate—that is, remove obsolete instruments and obsolete pieces of legislation and give this parliament the opportunity to look at obsolete and ineffective pieces of legislation and remove them—but we are going to get rid of whole acts that have no relevance or have long become problematic for people to follow. I welcome this and look forward to 1 March. I am grateful that the Prime Minister has appointed a Parliamentary Secretary for Deregulation in his own portfolio. The member for Kooyong will be pursuing a strong deregulation agenda.
What does this mean? It means that we can allow businesses to get on with the things they should be doing. In Australia it is too hard to do business in the current era. I know businesses in my electorate that manufacture here and export globally. They are tied up in red tape, and now we have come to government we are fighting agencies to reduce this. These companies can produce their products overseas much more easily and at much lower cost for much greater profit. Making ourselves much more internationally competitive is the key goal of this government. One way to do that is to remove shackles applying to so many businesses. It was one of the key things missing under the previous government.
The previous government not only over-legislated, having hundreds of pages of regulations where they needed a few pages and putting in so many bills that did nothing, but introduced the lowest quality legislation seen in this country's history and when compared with that of other countries. I was a staff member of previous governments, state and federal, and I have observed legislation for decades but this legislation was badly drafted and some of the worst produced legislation in scope, size and scale. It does not matter what sector you talk about—and insulation is a prime example—the previous government's legislation was poorly drafted. When it was received by parliament it looked as if it was still a first draft. It was riddled with errors and often did not make sense. The sectors affected by legislation were not consulted properly. Often we would go to representatives of the sectors and ask if they had heard about the legislation. Nine times out of 10 they would reply that they did not know that legislation was coming. They asked the opposition for advice because the government would not speak to them.
There was a breakdown in fundamental processes between government and non-government sectors, between business and government, between the not-for-profit sector and government. Not only were they not involved in the drafting; they were not involved in the production of the legislation or the first draft, the second draft or the third draft. I do not believe there were second or third drafts of much of the legislation. The rush to produce legislation produced perhaps the worst quality legislation the parliament has passed. In summary, the previous government added not only thousands of regulations and hundreds of new pieces of legislation but also legislation that made no sense, was badly drafted and produced abhorrent outcomes.
That is why the results of the last election needed to be so emphatic with that government being consigned to the dustbin of history. In New South Wales, there was a very strong result. I was very pleased to see the results in my electorate, thanks to the work of my community, sending a signal to the previous government. There were also strong results in Western Sydney, in places like Lindsay, Dobell, Robertson, Banks and Reid. In these electorates, in our biggest city, people spoke out against the complete failure of the last government. It was also great to see that nationally a strong result was sent. Whole sectors turned on the government, the small business sector in particular which had been ignored for so long. This sector had seven small business ministers in six years. It was an untenable situation for hardworking small businesses, who found it impossible to be heard by government. They constantly had to rebuild relationships with new ministers in a chaotic, divided and dysfunctional government.
This government's agenda will be very different. I understand this government is strongly pursuing a small business reform agenda. The Minister for Small Business, Bruce Billson, is to be commended. It is long overdue not just to reform competition—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The honourable member will have leave to continue his remarks when the debate is resumed.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Lions House
Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga) (13:30): I rise to congratulate Lions House on the opening of their new home at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital. I was delighted to be able to attend the official opening by His Excellency the Governor of Victoria and Mrs Chernov yesterday. This 12-room, $1.2-million facility is designed to provide accommodation to families of patients at the Austin Hospital and Mercy Hospital for Women. The total project has been funded by donations from many Lions clubs, individuals and corporates.
This started as a project of the Lions Club of Heidelberg Warringal back in 2002. They found an appropriate site and worked hard to see the project become a reality. The state Labor government donated the land. Sadly, Honorary Life Trustee Mrs Margaret Heathorn passed away on 23 January. Margaret played an influential role in the start-up of the project and her drive and determination were vital to the project's success. Happily, Margaret was able to visit the completed building earlier in the year. It was Margaret's daughter, Cathy Godbold, a nurse at the Mercy, who originally saw the need for this project.
I would like to acknowledge the tremendous work of all those involved, including Tony Benbow, the chairman of Lions House; the dedicated staff at Austin and Mercy Health; Sir James and Lady Gobbo as patrons; and all those in our local community who have worked hard to see the project become a reality. (Time expired)
Black Saturday Cruise
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (13:31): As all members of the House would be aware, we have just had the fifth anniversary of the tragic Black Saturday fires in Victoria and there have been a number of memorial services for those communities.
I wanted to speak in the House today about one event that occurred in the Yarra Valley and has occurred for the last three years, and that is a memorial cruise from Lilydale, through Yarra Glen to the Healesville railway station. This has been organised by three dedicated members of the community—Stacey and Troy Kinsmore, and Wendy Bennett—in memory of their friends Kate Ansett and Steve Fisher from Toolangi, who were killed on that terrible day five years ago. It is their way of keeping their memory alive and it is their way of raising money for the CFA. For the last three years they have had this cruise of classic cars, where up to 400 cars and around 1,000 people drive quietly to Healesville. I want to commend them. This year they raised $8,000 for the Healesville CFA.
Problem Gambling
Mr GILES (Scullin) (13:33): Next month residents of the City of Whittlesea will be taking up the challenge to 'March Away from Gambling'. Local neighbourhood houses and community groups have banded together to run a series of community events and activities in March as an alternative to visiting gaming venues and often losing money in poker machines.
The City of Whittlesea is disproportionately affected by problem gambling. Over a quarter of a million dollars is lost in poker machines there every day. This amounted to over $93 million last year. The manager of Thomastown Neighbourhood House, Justine Sless, recognises that Whittlesea's gambling losses are 'shocking' and hopes the March Away from Gambling initiative will help the Whittlesea community reduce losses and also increase engagement in community-building events. I share this hope and am pleased to see such a community focused response.
The initiative asks individuals to do three things: (1) to make the pledge to take a month off any form of gambling, (2) to join in any of the community events organised for each day of March and, (3) to help raise awareness of the issue of gambling. The event is supported by a number of community organisations, including the City of Whittlesea, Creeds Farm Living and Learning Centre, the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service, the Whittlesea Interagency Task Force on Gambling, Mill Park Community House, and the Lalor Living and Learning Centre.
As an advocate of responsible gambling, I fully support the initiative of the Whittlesea community and encourage residents to sign up to the event and support the good work of its ambassadors, Associate Professor Samantha Thomas and Councillor Sam Alessi.
Touched by Olivia Foundation
Mr LAUNDY (Reid) (13:34): In November 2006, John and Justine Perkins tragically lost their baby daughter Olivia, at just eight months old, to a rare illness. As a father of three children, I cannot begin to imagine what this must feel like. Where this would break most parents, for John and Justine this awful tragedy brought with it new meaning—a vision that the world would be a place for healthier, happier kids. With this in mind, John and Justine started the Touched by Olivia Foundation.
In her short life Olivia touched many hearts. It is John and Justine's hope that Olivia will continue to touch many more lives through the work undertaken by the foundation. The foundation's dream to give children healthier and happier lives is being realised through two key initiatives—vascular birthmarks research and a network of inclusive playgrounds. The research into vascular birthmarks is enabling Sydney Children's Hospital Randwick to become a centre of global expertise in this area. In addition to this work, the foundation is working with local councils, communities and corporations to upgrade or build inclusive play spaces, giving children, regardless of ability, the opportunity to play side by side. These playgrounds are called Livvi's Place. The first Livvi's place was opened at Timbrell Park, Five Dock, in my electorate of Reid in 2009 and a number of additional playgrounds are under development around the country. I would like to pay tribute to John, Justine and the hundreds of volunteers who support the foundation. I encourage people in my electorate and across Australia to donate to Touched by Olivia and help fund medical research and the creation of inclusive playgrounds.
International Mother Language Day
Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (13:36): Friday, 21 February was International Mother Language Day, an international day commemorated by UNESCO in 1999 and selected no doubt because of the history of 21 February in the fight to speak the mother language by the people of Bangladesh. On 21 February 1952 several Bengalis lost their lives in a fight to retain Bangla as their state language. Since then, in Bangladesh they have been commemorating the national Language Movement Day. In 1999 that day became a an international day, as I said. In my electorate of Parramatta it is a day that is recognised every year by my local Bengali community as they work hard to show the rest of the community the importance of that mother language. And it is language, of course, that holds the philosophies and character of our cultural backgrounds.
At Ashfield Park on Sunday, the Bengali community in my electorate held their 14th Mother Language Day. They also held a blood donation drive, along with the Red Cross, and some 30 donors gave blood on that day. I thank Avijit Barua and the Ekushe Academy—'ekushe' is a word that literally means 21—for the work they have done in bringing this incredibly important international day to the attention of the broader community and for the recognition of its importance to all of us.
Drought
Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (13:37): I would like to draw the attention of the House to the dire situation facing farmers in Queensland and New South Wales. While some rain had fallen over the weekend on very parched land, there are still large areas that have received little or no rain at all. There is no feed and water for cattle, no water for crops and, as this progresses, there is consequently no income or funds to restock even if it does rain. Land valuations are right down.
The immense impact is heartbreaking. Farmers wake up in the morning to face the harsh reality that they cannot afford to buy feed and cannot afford to transport their cattle. Cattle prices are low and the dollar is still pretty high. Along with the fuel costs and the distance involved in transporting the cattle to market, farmers are really struggling to pay school fees and rates. As a result, there is an increase in the rate of suicides, which is very sad indeed. Labor's ban on live exports was a huge hit on the industry and started the rot.
Why should we care? These are fellow hardworking true Australians suffering a natural disaster of epic proportions and we do need rural communities. Two per cent loans over a 20-year period may be a help to some, but not to all. I urge all members to consider these circumstances.
Morrison, Mr Brendon
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (13:39): It is with great sadness that I am again using the opportunity of a member's statement to pay tribute to a much loved and tireless member of the ACT Labor Party lost too soon. Brendon Morrison, a life member of ACT Labor Party, passed away last week at the age of 59. Brendon was a member of the Labor Party for 20 years. He was an active member of the Weston Creek Sub-branch and was also actively involved with the CPSU and the plumbers' unions in the ACT and New South Wales.
Brendon was an incredibly generous and community minded person; a supporter of many Canberra charities. A double amputee, he was also a living example of the fact that having a disability need not be a hindrance to community involvement. Brendon always showed great support for many Labor candidates in the ACT and New South Wales. I was lucky enough to experience this support firsthand, and I will never forget the friendship and generosity of time and spirit Brendon showed to me and my team.
Brendon was a regular volunteer in my electorate office, especially in the months leading up to last year's election. He was in the office every day, even on weekends, doing whatever needed to be done; sharing his years of experience and wisdom; supporting my staff and other volunteers; and, above all, sharing a good joke. We will miss his presence, his sense of humour, his unwavering support and his friendship.
My deepest condolences to his wife, Di, and family and friends. Rest in peace, Brendo. We will miss you terribly.
Bushfires: Belair National Park
Dr SOUTHCOTT (Boothby) (13:40): Two weeks ago, on a catastrophic fire day, bushfires broke out in Belair National Park, 800 hectares of natural bushland, in my electorate. I would first like to congratulate the emergency service staff and volunteers for what, by all accounts, was a swift, well-coordinated and effective response to the fires, which quickly contained them. A large number of my constituents live in the Mitcham Hills and Upper Sturt, which border Belair National Park. Bushfires are a serious concern for this community, especially given that a February 2012 Natural Resources Committee report described the area as 'a disaster waiting to happen' as a result of high bushfire risk and low preparedness. I have asked the state emergency services minister for a formal briefing about the cause of these fires in specific, as well as what progress has been made in the last two years, since that report, to improve the situation.
This incident also serves as an excellent opportunity to draw attention to the Sturt Country Fire Service Group's tanker appeal. Recently, the local CFS started a community appeal in order to be able to purchase a second water tanker to supply their five brigades. Currently they have only one, which is not adequate for their needs. I encourage local residents and business to help the Sturt CFS with this critical piece of equipment. Local businesses in Belair, Blackwood, Hawthorndene and Glenalta are hosting donation boxes, and I understand that appeal letters will soon appear in local mailboxes.
Blair Electorate: Unemployment
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (13:42): The front page of last Saturday's The Queensland Times revealed the very disturbing news that the unemployment rate in Ipswich is at its highest level in the last 15 years. The Ipswich unemployment rate is currently 11.5 per cent, which is up 2.1 per cent from December, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The figures cover Ipswich and out to Esk in my electorate and are very worrying for the constituents of Blair.
The state Labor MP for Bundamba, Jo-Ann Miller, laid the blame squarely with the Queensland LNP government and said:
The Newman government's jobs crisis is being felt particularly hard in the wider Ipswich area. And unfortunately when families suffer, that flows on to the local economy.
Jo-Ann Miller is spot on about this. In 2008 I made a speech in this parliament and I quoted the current unemployment figures for Ipswich and surrounds. The unemployment rate in Ipswich was lower than the state and national averages. That is not so now.
The federal Labor government introduced a $3.9 billion employment services strategy as part of its Nation Building and Jobs Plan, which was the envy of the world. We faced, and faced down, the global financial crisis and we protected jobs in the Ipswich and West Moreton region. Under Labor this nation had the second lowest unemployment rate in the OECD. Having a job is more than just having an income. It is about giving people the chance to connect, participate and achieve the things they want to achieve in life. Now is not the time for this coalition government opposite to cut funding for services and jobs and funding in our region again. (Time expired)
Hindmarsh Electorate: Fundraising
Mr WILLIAMS (Hindmarsh) (13:44): I was recently proud to attend and support a heart-warming fundraising event in my electorate of Hindmarsh. West Beach Surf Life Saving Club held their second annual Pink Swim, raising around $10,000 for the National Breast Cancer Foundation, which funds research for prevention and cure. I was one of those who personally donated to this fantastic cause. Breast cancer, as many of us know, is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women in Australia. One in eight women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. State Liberal leader Steven Marshall participated with his sister Kerrin, who is bravely fighting breast cancer herself. It was also great to have our foreign minister, Julie Bishop, attend and support those who participated in this wonderful event. There were over 400 participants, all swimming for a mother or grandmother, sister, wife or friend who had been affected by this insidious disease. Another special participant was Olympic medallist and South Australian swimming legend Phil Rogers. It was great to see him swimming with the young and old.
West Beach Surf Life Saving Club held a junior carnival recently and, as a parent, a club member and an honorary member, I was more than happy to burn a few sausages with my fellow members and help out—or so they said! I congratulate all involved at the club for organising two wonderful events, and I thank the people of Hindmarsh in South Australia for supporting them so well.
Kingston Electorate: Rail
Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston) (13:45): Sunday was a good day for the people in my electorate. On Sunday the first electric trains rolled off the Seaford Rail Extension. This was a great project that was supported by federal and state Labor. Federal Labor invested $291 million to create a rail bridge and also to extend the line to Seaford. This is an incredibly important project which those opposite, while in opposition, said was a waste of money. But it is not a waste of money to the people in my electorate. It is much-needed infrastructure that is being welcomed.
We had a wonderful family day in which people were able to come and see the new trains, get a new timetable and have a look at what the service will be. Indeed, some people took their first ride on the new electric trains, and the comments were about how smooth they were and how little noise they emitted. It was a great outcome.
This is an example of Labor investing in our outer-metropolitan suburbs. It is disappointing that the now Liberal federal government have said they will not invest in urban rail. It is a shame that they will not put money into urban rail, because I am seeing the benefits. So I call on those opposite to rethink this obstinate position in which you will not invest in urban rail, because we are seeing the benefits in my electorate. (Time expired)
Swan Electorate: West Coast Eagles
Mr IRONS (Swan) (13:47): I advise the House that on 12 February I co-hosted 'An evening with the West Coast Eagles' with the member for Curtin in Parliament House. We helped organise the event to raise awareness and build parliamentary support for the exciting plans to relocate the West Coast Eagles training base and administration base to Lathlain Park in my electorate of Swan.
As members would be aware, I have been working closely with the Eagles on this move for some time now, having publicly proposed it following the announcement of Burswood as the site for Perth's new stadium prior to the 2010 election. After all the hard work, it was a great moment to be able to progress to the point where we could showcase the plans to members of parliament in Canberra.
The event was well attended: we received 50 RSVPs from members and senators and, despite some late divisions in this House, many members were determined to attend between votes. It was encouraging that the Minister for Sport was also present. I see the member for Fremantle in the chamber, and I suggest that she get on board with this issue as well, even though she might have allegiances elsewhere.
Players Nic Naitanui, who is Fiji's most famous export to Australia, and Beau Waters attended and entertained those present, while CEO Trevor Nisbett outlined the impressive Lathlain plans in more detail. David Wirrpanda also attended and spoke about how the plans include a new headquarters for his foundation. This was particularly appropriate on the day parliament considered the Closing the Gap report.
I thank the Eagles and the players involved for coming to Canberra and for their professional presentation and attitude which was beyond reproach. (Time expired)
Fremantle Tales
Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (13:48): It was my pleasure on the Saturday before last to launch a book called Fremantle Tales by author Ian Darroch at the old Woodman Point Quarantine Station in my electorate. As a work of storytelling it has great liveliness and a great sense of the joys and challenges of life as well as its sorrows, and it is imbued throughout with a wry sense of humour. Ian's collage portrait of Fremantle begins with the Whadjuk Nyungar people, and it carefully registers the disastrous impact of colonial expansion on their way of life. As it proceeds, this collection sweeps up everything of significance in its path. It tells the story of Fremantle's physical world, its landscape and buildings and harbour; the America's Cup and other stories of ships, including the Boonah tragedy; and the stories of key figures, high and low, from Gaven, the 14-year-old who was the first European to be executed in the Swan River Colony, to the thrilling escapades of Moondyne Joe, John Boyle O'Reilly, and the Catalpa Six. It details the lives of transformative individuals like CY O'Connor, and celebrates Fremantle's rich multicultural heritage and the history of Freo's iconic football clubs. There is so much in Fremantle Tales, and that is, of course, characteristic of Fremantle—a place of great diversity and energy and change.
I congratulate Ian for producing Fremantle Tales and thank the Friends of Woodman Point for hosting the book's launch.
Axonal Neuropathy
Mr BROUGH (Fisher) (13:50): I would like to share with the House some of the lyrics from local musician and rap artist Nathan Tessman. These are his words from Fly Away:
Some days in my life wanted to spread my wings and fly away
Leave my problems never return never come back in a couple days
Try release all the pain that I keep bottled up inside
Let's switch body's see what life's like through each others eyes
… … …
I must admit at my school I wasn't the coolest kid in the class
Around tenth grade got hit by depression and man it came fast
Never thought it would past never thought it would stay for so long
Made me feel like I didn't belong always felt like the outcast
In my family felt like a failure all because of my disability
… … …
I cried myself asleep every night thinking this was so unfair
As a young kid I always thought my disease would go away
And I could stand and walk like everyone else but was so unaware
That it wouldn't and I was stuck with this condition permanently
… … …
You have know idea how this makes me feel to get of my chest
Cause when your depressed you really do [feel] like your body has been possessed
Then your stressed then you think life just becomes a test
To escape all this mess you only think suicide's the guest
… … …
I know my body looked in pain but my whole mental state was painful
And I thought to myself were the hell is my guardian angel
Now I'm great-full that he found me all I can say is I'm so thankful
That you turned my life around and made me feel like I'm not disable
… … …
Now you know my story and all the pain I faced everyday
Cause before MC Wheels I just wanted to fly away
Nathan is a 20-year-old with axonal neuropathy. He is an inspiration to his family and his community, and I am very delighted to be able to read his words in this House.
Greenway Electorate: Access
Ms ROWLAND (Greenway) (13:51): I rise to update the House about my local community's campaign to improve access at Pendle Hill and Toongabbie train stations. Despite the New South Wales Liberal government's promise to dramatically increase funding for more easy access lifts at train stations, and despite hundreds of local residents signing petitions calling on the state government to deliver on their promise, Pendle Hill and Toongabbie train stations remain without lift access. For a number of years I have highlighted to the New South Wales government the need to upgrade Pendle Hill and Toongabbie train stations with lift access. The demographics of these two areas demand these upgrades. They have seen extraordinary changes in the number of people using the stations who are elderly, have a disability, have young children or have problems with mobility. Parents and new home builders, as well as empty-nesters and retirees, comprise the largest increases in age groups in these areas. There are also a number of aged-care facilities in close proximity to these stations. I am contacted on an almost weekly basis by constituents who are very frustrated about the lack of lift access at both Pendle Hill and Toongabbie stations. I have constituents who can see these stations from their homes but cannot use them. We must ensure that every member of our community has access to public transport, and lift access is crucial to this. One in five people in New South Wales has a disability, and excluding 20 per cent of the population from public transport is simply unacceptable.
I want residents to know that I will keep up the fight on their behalf so that the voices of residents in Toongabbie and Pendle Hill are heard and that they finally get the lift upgrade that they deserve.
Durack Electorate: Infrastructure
Ms PRICE (Durack) (13:53): On 6 and 7 February I had the pleasure of hosting Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development the Hon. Jamie Briggs and Minister for Finance Senator the Hon. Mathias Cormann in my electorate of Durack. This was a highly successful trip, where the ministers were able to gain a better understanding of the important infrastructure facilities and services that the Durack electorate encompasses. This included visiting various resource projects in Karratha, including Woodside's Pluto LNG and North West Shelf projects, Rio Tinto's Dampier port facilities and CITIC Pacific's magnetite mine. The ministers were also provided with the opportunity to visit and gain an insight into the importance of the Port Hedland port, which is Australia's largest port by annual throughput.
Although it was important for the ministers to see the value of infrastructure investment in Durack, this visit was also an opportunity for Minister Briggs to officially announce the delivery of a key coalition election promise: $480 million in funding for road infrastructure projects in Durack was announced by Minister Briggs, Minister Cormann and me in Karratha. It is all part of the Abbott led government's Infrastructure Investment Program, which will commit nearly $4 billion to roads in Western Australia over the coming years. The funding included $307 million to upgrade Great Northern Highway and $174 million to upgrade North West Coastal Highway between Minilya and Barradale. My thanks go to the ministers for their visit, and I look forward to showing off Durack to both again in the future.
Kingston, Mr Trevor
Mr WHITELEY (Braddon) (13:54): In my electorate throughout the north-west coast, west coast and King Island communities there is example after example of tireless volunteers making our community what it is. It is an honour for me to inform members present today of the work of one such gentleman: Mr Trevor Kingston of Smithton. Trevor is the kind of bloke everyone wants to have in their community—a hardworking, caring man dedicated to helping others. The long-time chief of the Smithton Fire Brigade has recently been awarded the Australian Fire Service Medal by the Governor-General, Quentin Bryce. Being awarded such a prestigious medal is recognition of almost four decades of hard work and dedication Trevor has contributed not only to his brigade but also to the community of Smithton. Trevor has seen the ups and downs, experiencing the best and worst moments that the job has to offer. Battling fires close to home and interstate, Trevor is always the first on hand in the case of an emergency. Over the years Trevor has joined with the brigade overseeing the introduction of the high-tech pager system as well as upgraded truck filters with high-flow pumps.
A humble man, Trevor did not accept this award on his own; he dedicated it to the members of his brigade, saying that their desire to work as a team as well as taking pride in what they do helps it to be so efficient. I have no doubt that when Trevor signed himself up as a volunteer all those years ago he would not have pictured himself where he is today: an honoured man worthy to be recognised in this parliament for his service to his community. With Trevor Kingston, Smithton is in great hands.
Port Kembla Copper Stack
Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (13:56): Last Thursday the Illawarra community witnessed the fall of an icon. At 11.13 am the 200 metre tall Port Kembla copper stack—a figure which had dominated the industrial skyline of the region for almost 50 years—came crashing down. It was a bittersweet moment for me, as I am sure it was for many others who have lived in and around the Port Kembla region and looked up at the stack for the past half-century—people like 78-year-old Maria Leone, who admitted she was clutching a box of tissues as she watched the stack fall from the window of her family home on nearby O'Donnell Street. Mrs Leone was a former employee of MM, just underneath the stack. She said she had fond memories of watching the construction of the giant chimney—a symbol of the Illawarra's emergence as a national industrial power-player—every morning and every afternoon from her desk.
But nothing lasts forever. The Illawarra region has undergone significant economic change over the past 20 years. We are a diversified region. Steel-making and coalmining still play an important role, but there are now major contributions from industries like IT and communications, education services, tourism, financial and property services, health and hospitality. So while the skyline will never look quite the same over Port Kembla, the demolition of the stack may be just what the area needs to continue to move forward and reinvent itself. I am looking forward to seeing what is in store.
Loone, Mr Robert George
Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (13:58): I publicly acknowledge one of my community stalwarts who is genuinely a person who could claim a life well spent. So many people turned up to Robert George Loone's funeral at Deloraine in Northern Tasmania that a second community hall with video link had to be quickly set up near the Deloraine community complex to take the overflow. More than 900 people attended the service to mark the death of the long-time Meeandah Valley resident always known as Bob. Bob was born on 17 July 1940. He was brought up on a farm just out of Deloraine and attended the local school before leaving to work on his family dairy farm and for neighbours. He became a member of the Deloraine Junior Farmers, as Rural Youth was then known. It was the start of Bob Loone's service to his community that spanned more than 50 years. Bob also joined the Forest Hall Badminton Club and the local youth club after he started work.
After he married Olive in 1961 the newlyweds moved down the road to Chudleigh, where Bob got a job with the department of agriculture as a herd recorder, started a fuel delivery business and built a service station and home. The fuel delivery business grew into a family supply store with Bob selling and delivering dairy supplies from the boot of his car. At the same time Bob served as secretary of the Chudleigh Agricultural and Horticultural Show. He played basketball for Chudleigh and he joined the Deloraine walking club. He was a lay preacher for 30 years, working specifically with young people: taking the country kids on bus outings and organising local group meetings. Bob's life has been well spent and no-one here would dispute that.
The SPEAKER: It being two o'clock, in accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION
Members Sworn
The SPEAKER (13:59): I have received the return to the writ which I issued on 6 January 2014 for the election of a member to serve for the electoral division of Griffith, in the state of Queensland, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of the Hon. Kevin Michael Rudd. By endorsement on the writ, it is certified that Terri Megan Butler has been elected.
Ms Terri Megan Butler made and subscribed the oath of allegiance.
MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:02): I inform the House that the Minister for Trade and Investment will be absent from question time this week while he participates in the ministerial discussions as part of the trans-Pacific partnership negotiations in Singapore. The Minister for Foreign Affairs will answer questions on his behalf.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Employment
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:03): My question is to the Prime Minister. On 19 February, the Prime Minister said he was shocked at the job losses—shocked about Toyota, shocked about Holden, shocked about Alcoa. Prime Minister, is the government's state of shock the reason that there is no plan on transition, no plan to create new jobs and no plan for innovation from his government?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:03): I do deeply regret the job losses at the various businesses that the Leader of the Opposition has mentioned. I deeply regret them. Our plan to create jobs and to boost prosperity starts with scrapping the carbon tax. It starts with scrapping the carbon tax; it continues with scrapping the mining tax. It goes on with restoring the Australian Building and Construction Commission. It goes on with reducing red and green tape. This is what we need in this country if we are to create the jobs—the secure and sustainable jobs—of the future. That is our plan.
What is the Leader of the Opposition's plan? The Leader of the Opposition has consistently opposed everything—everything—that this government has tried to do to create jobs. The Leader of the Opposition's plan is to keep the carbon tax: a $9 billion hit on jobs. The Leader of the Opposition's plan is to keep the mining tax—again, an anti-Western-Australian tax. The Leader of the Opposition's plan is to oppose the restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, because the problem—
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: We will have some silence on my left!
Mr ABBOTT: with this Leader of the Opposition is that he cannot transcend his background as a union official.
Carbon Pricing
Ms MARINO (Forrest—Government Whip) (14:05): My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the impact that the carbon tax is having on the Australian economy? How will scrapping the carbon tax support Australian jobs?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:05): I thank the member for her question. The government's plan to build a strong and prosperous economy does start with scrapping the carbon tax. Scrapping the carbon tax will be good for jobs, it will be good for businesses and it will be good for families' cost of living, because the carbon tax is a $9 billion a year hit on jobs. It is not surprising, given the fact that this is a $9 billion a year hit on jobs, that unemployment is 110,000 people higher now than it was in July 2012, when the carbon tax was introduced.
The carbon tax, even on the former government's own figures, is a giant handbrake on our economy. Members opposite know, because their figures said so, that our economy by mid century will be $1 trillion smaller—a cumulative $1 trillion smaller—with the carbon tax than without it. It is as though Australia were to close down for a year because of members opposite and their carbon tax.
Mr Perrett interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Moreton will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: Every single Australian's gross national income per head will be $5,000 a year less with a carbon tax than without one. That is a $5,000 a year hit on every Australian's income that this opposition wants to maintain in perpetuity.
Scrapping the carbon tax right now would make every single Australian household, on average, $550 a year better off. That is $550 a year better off, thanks to scrapping the carbon tax. Scrapping the carbon tax will give industries like the aluminium industry a fighting chance not just to survive but to flourish. The Labor Party's own figures show that, by mid-century, under a carbon tax aluminium production will be down by more than 60 per cent. So, every time an aluminium plant closes or scales down, it is just the carbon tax doing its job.
I am pleased that the Leader of the Opposition is now visiting workplaces where jobs are at risk; I am very pleased that he is doing that. But if he wants to help those workers rather than just use them, he will get out of the way and he will let the carbon tax repeal legislation go through.
Employment
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:08): My question is to the Prime Minister. Since the Abbott government was elected, thousands of jobs have been lost: at Toyota, Holden, Forge in Western Australia, Alcoa in Geelong and Rio Tinto in Gove. Why hasn't the Prime Minister had the courage to visit these workers in their communities? Why is the Prime Minister a wimp when it comes to standing up for Australian jobs?
Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Leader of the Opposition's question is out of order. It contains epithets and argument, words that do not have any place in a question. If he wants to ask a sensible, straightforward question, I am sure it will be entertained by the House. But this is merely argument masquerading as a question, and I would ask you to rule it out of order.
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, on a point of order: the issue of whether or not people are visiting workplaces was raised directly by the Prime Minister and is quite properly being addressed in this question.
Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker, it was the inane remarks in the second half of the question that clearly made it into an argument. The opposition should work out how to ask a straightforward question. Therefore, I would ask you to rule it out. Maybe they could come back to it later in question time.
The SPEAKER: It might be helpful if the Leader of the Opposition rephrased his question.
Mr SHORTEN: Certainly, Madam Speaker. Since the Abbott government was elected, thousands of jobs have been lost: Alcoa in Geelong, Rio Tinto in Gove, Forge in Western Australia; Holden and Toyota. Why won't the Prime Minister demonstrate the fortitude to visit these workers in their communities? Why is the Prime Minister—
The SPEAKER: The member will resume his seat. The problem with the original question was argument contained within the question. Will the Leader of the Opposition rephrase his question to leave out that argument? Please do not restate the beginning of it; we are familiar with that. It is the end of the question that is the problem.
Mr SHORTEN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Why won't the Prime Minister talk to Holden workers, Alcoa workers, Rio Tinto workers, Holden workers and Forge workers? Why won't he talk to them about their liberation?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:11): I think the workers of this country do not want talk; they want action. That is what they want. My job as Prime Minister is to fight in this parliament for the policies that will help those workers and that will enable those businesses to have a fighting chance of surviving and flourishing—and that is what I am doing every day. As Prime Minister I am doing what I can in this parliament to remove the taxes and the regulation and the industrial lawlessness which are damaging the job prospects of these decent Australian workers. That is what I am doing, and I will do that as long as there is breath in my body.
G20 Meeting
Ms O'DWYER (Higgins) (14:12): My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline the outcomes of the G20 finance ministers' meeting held in Sydney this weekend? How will the outcomes of the meeting affect growth and jobs?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:12): I thank the member for Higgins for the question and recognise that she came along to a number of meetings over the weekend. There was a meeting of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors. It was the first significant ministerial meeting under Australia's presidency. At the end of the meeting Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, described Australia's presidency as 'action oriented'. That is exactly what the Prime Minister promised at Davos earlier this year—that we would have a presidency of the G20 that would be focused on getting on with the job of building infrastructure, creating more jobs and repairing budgets. It is so vitally important not just for the world but also for Australia that we focus on structural reforms to create jobs. Only through structural reforms are we going to increase the speed of growth in the economy.
The heavy lifting on economic growth cannot be left to central banks, be it in Australia or anywhere else in the world. Easy monetary policy is only a temporary source of growth. The only way you can have economic growth is to earn it. You have to earn it, and it only comes through structural change in economies to cope with the changing nature of the global economy. That is why, out of the weekend and for the first time ever, G20 finance ministers laid down on the table a number—a real ambition—for the next five years to increase global growth by over $2 trillion. That is tens of millions of new jobs across the world. It is the first time it has happened. Why has it happened? It has happened because every country in the G20 recognises that only through structural reform are you going to grow the economy and create jobs. I was wondering what the reaction of the Labor Party would be. I love the member for Wills. He said this morning on the doors, 'Growth is not an end in itself. I heard over the weekend that Australian adults have grown by six kilograms in recent times and this is in fact a recipe for diabetes and heart disease so it is not a good thing.' I guess I have been in 'recession' for the last 12 months, haven't I? Oh dear, growth is not a good thing. This is the man who was the Labor Party Parliamentary Secretary for Trade and for Schools—keep him away from the kiddies if he is going to give them that for an economics lesson.
Pensions and Benefits
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:16): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Treasurer's comments on budget cuts, 'All options are on the table.' Considering the Prime Minister's election promise that there would be 'no changes to pensions under an Abbott government', will the Prime Minister rule out any changes to the pension as a result of the Commission of Audit?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:16): I thank the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Development for her question. I do remind her and the House of the scale of the fiscal challenge that members opposite have left us. Under the policies of the former government, we would get $123 billion in cumulative deficits over the forward estimates period; and, under the policies of members opposite, debt was skyrocketing towards $667 billion with $123 billion in accumulated deficit. So there is a big challenge, and we will address it in ways consistent with our pre-election commitments.
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In order to be directly relevant, the Prime Minister needs to make some relevant mention to the commitment that he made to pensioners. The was a commitment to pensioners, and he is not touching it at all.
The SPEAKER: Has the Prime Minister finished his answer?
Mr ABBOTT: Yes.
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister has finished his answer.
National Broadband Network
Mr WILKIE (Denison) (14:17): My question is to the Minister for Communications. Minister, my office is being contacted almost daily by constituents who are being stuffed around by the NBN rollout in Tasmania. One pressing problem is the large number of individuals and businesses that have had their copper service disconnected but are waiting months for the NBN. Such business people and businesses are in trouble now. What is your plan to fix this mess now?
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Minister for Communications) (14:17): I thank the honourable member for his question. As the honourable member is aware, the rollout of the NBN in Tasmanian essentially stalled in July, and very little work has been done since then—in large part because the contractor, Visionstream, was not prepared to continue working for the rates it had previously agreed to. Since then the NBN Co under its new management has had extensive negotiations with Visionstream. Work has resumed already on 17,000 premises and is shortly to begin on another 19,000 premises, all of which are expected to be complete comfortably within this year. So we would, if that occurs—and we expect it will—have more premises passed with fibre by the NBN Co in Tasmania in this year than were under six years of the Labor government.
The honourable member is concerned, as we all are, about people who have cancelled their service—for example, their Telstra service—in anticipation of the NBN Co connecting them at the time that the NBN Co said they would. So they were told by the NBN Co, 'We will connect you on such and such a day,' and those people cancelled their Telstra or Optus service. Then the NBN Co did not turn up on time, missed appointments and so forth, and those people were left in the lurch. This is a real problem. As the honourable member knows, this has been going on for some time. This is not something that has occurred since the election. He asked me what we are doing about it.
We have changed the approach the NBN Co has to rolling out its network. Previously, it was totally focused on meeting numbers in its corporate plan and passing premises so as to tick that box without regard to whether those premises could actually be activated. That is why there are so many thousands of premises—roughly a third—which are in so-called service class zero and which cannot be connected at all. We are focusing now on activation, and the new chief operating officer, Greg Adcock, is very focused on actually delivering what it should. The object is to get people connected, so we are very alert to it. I can give the honourable member an example of some early progress. He will note from the rollout figures we publish every week that the premises passed in Tasmania have not materially increased since July although they will start o ramp up now. But the number of premises which are connected and which have a network termination device on the premises has increased by 50 per cent.
Budget
Mr PASIN (Barker) (14:21): My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline the challenges ahead to address Australia's debt and deficit levels? What are the alternative approaches to the management of these budget challenges?
Mr HOCKEY (North Sydney—The Treasurer) (14:21): I thank the member for Barker for his question and recognise that, over the weekend, G20 finance ministers spoke about the challenge of ongoing deficits. It was Korea who said that they are going to have a surplus this year. Korea is going to have a surplus this year. Germany has been running surpluses since 2012. I remember when Wayne Swan promised a surplus. I do not remember when Labor last delivered a surplus.
Mr Abbott: It was 1989.
Government members interjecting—
Mr HOCKEY: That was 1989—the year of Roy. The fact is that Labor left us with a $123 billion deficit and debt approaching $667 billion. They made spending commitments that had no money behind them. That was the way that Labor ran the budget.
I turn to that oracle of wisdom about economic policy on the Labor side, the member for Wills. I want him to be on the doors every day. He said this morning:
What we need are economic objectives such as low unemployment, low inflation, low interest rates and a balanced budget. They are the things that people could get excited about.
I want to be at his home for a dinner party on a Saturday night—'They are the things that people could get excited about.'
As for low unemployment, the member for Wills should be asking his colleagues why, after just six years in office, they left the unemployment rate 200,000 people higher—200,000 higher than what they inherited. As for low interest rates and low inflation, you do not have to worry about that too much when you have five out of six years of below trend growth—which is what Labor had. But how about this: there he was on the doors talking about a balanced budget. This is a new concept for Labor—a balanced budget. He said that that is what the people can get excited about. I say to the member for Wills: instead of going to the doors in the morning, why don't you walk down the corridor and go into the Leader of the Opposition's office and just ask him why he is opposing $20 billion of savings in the Senate. Five billion dollars of those savings are what the member for Wills promised to introduce at the last election. You promised to introduce those at the last election and now, like complete A-grade hypocrites, Labor are now opposing their own policies to fix the budget now they have gone into opposition. Do you know the great lesson of opposition? You have to have consistent principles—and I hope the Leader of the Opposition is going to learn that.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
The SPEAKER (14:24): I wish to advise the House that we have visiting us today the Hon. Mr John Baird, PC MP, Canadian Foreign Minister, His Excellency Mr Michael Small, the High Commissioner of Canada, and Mr John Light, Director-General Cooperation, Foreign Minister's Office.
We also have with us the Hon. Wal Fife, former New South Wales member for Wagga Wagga and minister in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and a former federal member for Farrer and for Hume and also minister in the federal parliament. We make all welcome.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Asylum Seekers
Mr MARLES (Corio) (14:25): My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Last Tuesday, the minister cautioned 'people to be very wary of unsubstantiated reports that may be put into the public domain'. What caution did the minister take in the very same press conference when he said that last week's death of Reza Berati at the Manus Island facility occurred outside the facility's perimeter?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (14:26): Before I answer the member's question, I am sure he would join me in expressing condolences to the family of Mr Berati. I offer those condolences on behalf of the government and myself for that tragic death that occurred at the Manus Island centre last week.
In relation to the question put by the member: as he would know, as a former minister that morning and over the course of that night I took several reports, verbal and otherwise, regarding what had occurred that night. What happens in these situations, as ministers previous opposite will know, is that information can be patchy—and it is rarely perfect on those first occasions. I reported the information I had as of that morning; and, later that afternoon when I returned to Canberra, I received further briefings and I gave a press conference where I stated quite clearly the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr Berati—known as 'the deceased' at that time. I said:
In terms of the man who died, he had a head injury and at this stage it is not possible to give any further detail on that, including now, based on subsequent reports, where this may have taken place.
On the afternoon of that very Tuesday, I further qualified the report I had given that morning. Over the course of that week I received further briefings, and I dispatched my deputy secretary and General Campbell to Manus Island. Over the course of the weekend, on Friday night and on Saturday, in particular, I received further information that made it very clear that it was important to make a further correction to that earlier report. Information is never perfect in those circumstances. Over the course of that week I conducted five press conferences to update people on what was occurring at that centre. What occurred was a terrible tragedy.
The other point I would make about what occurred on that night is that, despite that terrible tragedy, the centre opened the next morning and it continues to operate today. That centre is an important part of our overall suite of border protection policies. I would not describe it as the cornerstone of our policy; I would describe it as an important part of our policy. It is the part of our policy that has been most successful in ensuring that, for 64 days and counting, we have had not one successful people-smuggling venture to Australia has been principally what we have done at sea. We stand by all of those policies, because those policies are stopping the boats and they are saving lives.
Mr Marles: Madam Speaker, I seek your indulgence to very quickly associate the opposition with the condolences that have been expressed by the minister in relation to the death of Mr Berati.
Regional Aviation
Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (14:28): My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. How will the government's policies assist regional aviation and the jobs that it supports?
Mr TRUSS (Wide Bay—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development) (14:29): I thank the honourable member for the question and for the privilege of being with him in his electorate during the break. It was good to see and talk about some of the important infrastructure projects that this government has planned for Wannon and the neighbouring electorates.
The member would also know how important regional aviation is for so much of country Australia. People who live in regional communities depend on aviation not just to get to other places in the country or around the world but also for many of their basic services, such as health, education and the professional services they need in their community from the people who fly in to provide those services. Alternatively, country people so often have to go to the cities to get the health care and other things that they need. So the aviation industry is very, very important to regional Australia. It has been an industry facing significant competition and, obviously, high cost. It is a difficult environment.
However, since the carbon tax was put in place, the cost of regional aviation has increased dramatically—6c a litre added to the cost of aviation kerosene and 5c a litre added to the cost of avgas—and that puts up the cost of operating aviation right across the country. We all know that regional aviation companies have been reporting declining profitability. Sharp Airlines in the member's own electorate—
Mr Snowdon interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order, member for Lingiari!
Mr TRUSS: reckoned that this tax is costing them $400,000 a year, money that they find very difficult to recover from their passengers, and of course it also affects their profit margin. Rex have talked similarly about declining profit projections.
There is something that this parliament can do to make regional aviation more competitive and that is get rid of the carbon tax. If the opposition is serious about jobs in this country, then it should be voting to get rid of the carbon tax. It is a job-destroying tax. It is a service-destroying tax. It is a tax that tears particularly at regional communities because they have to pay such a significant share. So when members opposite talk about the need to look after Qantas and Virgin and the other major airlines, there is something that this parliament can do right now. The Senate should vote to get rid of the carbon tax that will tear hundreds of millions of dollars out of the cost structure of our airlines, to make them more profitable, to enable them to employ more people and to provide better services for the people of Australia.
Asylum Seekers
Mr MARLES (Corio) (14:32): My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. In light of the minister's previous answer, precisely at what time and on which day was the minister first advised that the information he provided in his previous press conferences was wrong?
The SPEAKER: Order! I will call the honourable the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, but I do note that much of the information sought was contained in the previous answer. But the minister can have the call.
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (14:32): I am happy to answer, Madam Speaker. I advised in my previous answer that on Tuesday afternoon I received a further briefing and I reported on that afternoon that there were conflicting reports. That is what I said on Tuesday afternoon. Over the balance of the week, I received further information and on Saturday I received information that made it clear that it was essential to correct the record, which I did on Saturday.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! Members on my left, you have asked for the information—
Mr MORRISON: There will be a formal review into these matters and that formal review will investigate all of the issues that relate to this incident. That would include how this centre was specified and who set it up and how it was set up. It will go into the performance of the service contractors that those opposite contracted. It will go into the security arrangements that were put in place and left to the opposition when we formed government.
Ms Owens interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order, the member for Parramatta!
Mr MORRISON: It will go into all of those matters, and it will go into my conduct and the conduct of those on this side and our handling of these issues since we took over responsibility for these centres. We identified that there was a $1.2 billion funding black hole for the operation of the offshore processing centres.
Mr Bowen interjecting—
Mr MORRISON: That is the figure from MYEFO. The shadow Treasurer interjects opposite that it is not the right figure. Maybe he has trouble counting, but there was a $1.2 billion funding black hole that went to issues such as security infrastructure and the size and capacity of the centre.
I know those opposite will be concerned about the specifications and arrangements they put in place in Manus Island. The Manager of Opposition Business once boasted that he could build a 10,000-man camp on Manus Island. I just shudder to think how something like that could have been run safely on Manus Island.
But we on this side of the House, and I as minister, took steps early in September to commission a force protection assessment review of security arrangements on Manus Island. It listed a long list of things that needed to be conducted and performed, and we have been implementing them over several months. So I look forward to the review.
Mr Husic: It's not TheShipping News, but there is a lot of fiction!
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Chifley is warned!
Carbon Pricing
Mr WILLIAMS (Hindmarsh) (14:35): My question is to the Minister for the Environment. I refer the minister to the statement of the managing director of Adelaide Brighton, Mr Mark Chellew, who said:
The removal of the carbon tax by 1 July 2014 could provide an after tax benefit of circa $2 million compared to 2013 ...
However there is political uncertainty around the repeal process—
What is that political uncertainty Mr Chellew refers to, and how could that be removed?
Mr HUNT (Flinders—Minister for the Environment) (14:36): I note that the member for Hindmarsh asks about political uncertainty. He asks where political uncertainty is. The political uncertainty has turned its back on the Australian people. The political uncertainty is sitting in that seat, and the political uncertainty caused by the Leader of the Opposition is an industrial go-slow in the Senate. The Leader of the Opposition has called his senators out on an industrial go-slow. Our senators are ready to vote. They are ready to repeal the carbon tax. They are ready to get on with the business of giving Australians lower electricity prices. But, since December, we have had an industrial go-slow in the Senate. This is a throwback to the fifties from a throwback to the fifties! Right now, the Leader of the Opposition, if he wants to be a very modern man, can do something very simple, and that is to send his senators back to work, get them back to the job so that they actually vote on legislation.
The member for Hindmarsh asks about the costs of the carbon tax. As the Prime Minister said, only a week ago the Clean Energy Regulator confirmed a multibillion dollar hit in the first year—a $4.1 billion hit to electricity bills. I just want to repeat that: $4.1 billion of electricity bills whilst this Leader of the Opposition sits there with his arms crossed and his senators on strike. But, more than that, it is $1.1 billion on manufacturing alone. So at the very moment that the Leader of the Opposition feigns this concern about the jobs of manufacturing workers, he is standing in the way of $1.1 billion in tax relief by removal of the carbon tax for Australia's manufacturing firms and Australia's manufacturing workers. Adelaide Brighton has a gross carbon tax of $62 million, Boral cement has $41 million and Cement Australia has $53 million. And what does the cement industry say? The Cement Industry Federation and the National Lime Association of Australia say that they support the carbon tax repeal legislation and request that the Australian parliament pass the bills well in advance of July 2014.
Whilst you opposite are sitting on your hands, we have issued a ministerial determination to axe the carbon tax auctions before 30 June. This is your chance, I say to the opposition, to stand up and allow those auctions to be repealed. The determination is in place, the auctions are off and only a disallowance formed by a reunited Greens and Labor alliance can get in the way of them. So we say to you: 'Get out of the way and let us repeal the carbon tax.'
Asylum Seekers
Mr MARLES (Corio) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. In the minister's previous answer, the minister has said that he first received information on Tuesday questioning the precise location of Mr Berati's death. So why did the minister not release his correction to the media until Saturday night at 8:44 pm?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (14:39): Let me read to the opposition spokesperson exactly what I said on the Tuesday afternoon:
… I am not going to make assumptions until I have further information on that—
referring to the details of what had occurred to the deceased—
Where physically—
Mr Bowen interjecting—
Mr MORRISON: No, listen!
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
Mr MORRISON: Listen:
Where physically this took place based on the information I have received this afternoon, that is a matter where there are some conflicting reports.
A journalist then asked:
What are the conflicting reports?
And I said:
Well the reports are conflicting on where the individual might have been at the time.
That is the report I gave on the Tuesday afternoon, immediately reporting in the press conference that there were conflicting reports about the nature of that incident and where the individual might have been when those incidents occurred. Over the balance of the week I sought to have those conflicting reports resolved: firstly, by sending the deputy secretary and, secondly, by sending General Campbell. And when General Campbell had returned, and I had received further advice on the Saturday about these incidents, then I produced the information.
Mr Burke: What time on Saturday?
Mr MORRISON: Those opposite ask about what time—in particular, the Manager of Opposition Business. I ask the Manager of Opposition Business: how long did it take him after the Nauru processing centre burnt to the ground to announce—
Mr Burke interjecting—
Mr MORRISON: Now you get up, don't you! I've got you to your feet now!
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. There are no end of opportunities in this House for political pointscoring—
The SPEAKER: What is the point of order?
Mr Burke: We are dealing with an issue where a man—
The SPEAKER: This is not a point of order; the manager will resume his seat! Resume your seat!
Mr MORRISON: I have been asked about what time, and I am simply making reference to the previous practice of past governments. I note that the Manager of Opposition Business, when he was minister for immigration, took a full week to front the Australian people to announce the review in relation to the Nauru processing centre that burnt down on his watch.
Mr Bowen: Why don't you answer it?
Mr MORRISON: It was a meltdown on your watch!
Mr Burke: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
The SPEAKER: It had better be a point of order this time.
Mr Burke: It is on direct relevance. This cannot possibly be directly relevant to that question—
The SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The minister has concluded his answer.
Fiji
Mr VARVARIS (Barton) (14:42): My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister update the House on her recent official visit to Fiji, and the government's approach to Fiji?
Ms JULIE BISHOP (Curtin—Minister for Foreign Affairs) (14:43): I thank the member for Barton for his question, and I recognise the number of Fijians living in his electorate, as well as the number of Fijians living in Australia.
I am delighted to be able to inform the House that on the weekend of 14 and 15 February I visited Fiji as part of the ministerial contact group of the Pacific Islands Forum. The six ministers in that contact group welcomed the progress that has been made by the Fijian government towards an election to be held by the end of September this year. In particular, we noted the large number of registrations that have occurred. At the last count it was something like 550,000 voters registered out of a population of about 800,000, including registrations of Fijians living in Australia, the US and elsewhere. We also noted that independent electoral commissioners have been appointed, and we were pleased to see that progress towards these elections is being made. We also held meetings with other Fijian ministers to talk about the election preparations, we met with representatives of the other registered political parties and we met with civil society.
There are challenges, including the need for freedom of the press. There are challenges involving putting in place an electoral legal framework for the conduct of the elections. We urged the Fijian authorities to have international observers present. There should not be any doubt in the minds of the international community as to the legitimacy of this election when it is held.
I also took the opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Bainimarama. This was his first meeting with an Australian minister since 2008. In accordance with the commitment we took to the Australian people at the last election, we believe it is time for there to be a new and constructive phase in our relationship with Fiji. I outlined to the Prime Minister our plan for deeper engagement. Australia is the largest source of investment for Fiji, we are the largest source of overseas development assistance and we are the largest source of tourists to Fiji, so we believe it is time to rebuild the political ties, including reviewing the travel sanctions.
In accordance with our election commitment, we have a plan for deeper engagement and that will include public sector exchanges, defence exchanges, and greater trade and investment with Fiji. The Australian business community certainly welcomes the change of foreign policy under this government. Given the deep affection that the Australian people have for the people of Fiji and the affection that the people of Fiji have for Australia, I am proud that this government have been able to change the direction of our foreign policy and work towards embracing Fiji as it leads into an election by the end of September this year.
Asylum Seekers
Mr MARLES (Corio) (14:46): My question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Minister, who is the person on Manus Island in charge of the detention facility? Prior to the death of Mr Reza Berati, how often did the minister speak to that person, when did the minister first speak to that person after the death of Mr Berati and how often has the minister spoken to that person since?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (14:46): The operations manager is an appointee of the chief migration officer of the Papua New Guinean government, Mr Rabura. I first met the operations manager when I visited the centre when I was in opposition. I met him personally when I was visiting that centre in September last year. Officers in my department regularly engage with that operations manager and I maintain that contact through the department, as I do with Mr Rabura.
The member raises an important question about the jurisdictional issues regarding this centre. This centre is run by the government of Papua New Guinea. The Australian government supports the government of Papua New Guinea in running that centre through the arrangements which were established under the former government and we work within those arrangements.
Donations to Political Parties
Dr SOUTHCOTT (Boothby) (14:47): My question is to the Minister for Education and Minister representing the Minister for Employment. Will the minister inform the House what funds the Health Services Union, a registered organisation under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009, provided to a political party from 2007? How does that compare with the funds found to have been taken from that union's members by its national secretary, the former member for Dobell?
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (14:48): I can inform the member for Boothby about the questions that he has put to me. The first question was: how much has the Health Services Union, a registered organisation under the act, provided to a political party from 2007? I can tell the House that the Health Services Union gave $1.2 million to the Australian Labor Party—$1.98 million was donated to the Australian Labor Party from 2007 to last year.
Mr Perrett: More than big tobacco gave you, Chris.
The SPEAKER: The member for Moreton will desist.
Mr PYNE: I can also tell the House that the Fair Work Commission found that $267,721 of Health Services Union members' money was used in the Dobell campaign to elect Craig Thomson, the former member for Dobell. So $1.2 million went from the Health Services Union to the Australian Labor Party and $267,000 of Health Services Union money was found by the Fair Work Commission to have been used to elect the member for Dobell.
I can also tell the House that the Labor Party paid $350,000 of legal fees for the member for Dobell prior to the last election in order to maintain his vote in the parliament. Senator Sam Dastyari admitted that was paid in order to make sure that he remained in the House and they could, therefore, rely on his vote. Here is an important test for the Leader of the Opposition because he has failed the test on the Registered Organisations Commission, he has failed the test on the Australian Building and Construction Commission and he has failed the test on the royal commission into union corruption. But this is an important test. If it was good enough for the Labor Party to use their members' funds to fund the legal defence of Craig Thomson, the former member for Dobell, will the Labor Party pay back the $267,000 to the Health Services Union members that was taken illegally by the former member for Dobell to use in his campaign to be elected? This is the test for the Leader of the Opposition. If he really stands on the side of workers, he would direct the Labor Party national office to repay $267,000 to some of the poorest workers in the economy, to those members who faithfully handed over their membership dues to the union bosses—
Ms Rishworth interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order, Member for Kingston!
Mr PYNE: He has to show whether he is on the side of the worker or on the side of dodgy union officials. Can he rise above his background or will he continue to be a union official and support union officials running a protection racket for a protection racket? This is his latest test, and I hope he will announce today that he will at least pass that test.
Ministerial Staff: Code of Conduct
Ms KING (Ballarat) (14:51): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the conflict of interest involving Senator Nash's former chief of staff and to the statement of the Prime Minister's own department at Senate estimates that the Prime Minister approves all personal staff appointments. Did the Prime Minister know of the conflict of interest when this appointment was made and, if so, why was no action taken?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:51): The short answer is that certain requirements were put on the staffer in question. My understanding is that he failed to adhere to those requirements. When it became obvious, the staffer in question resigned and the matter is now at an end.
Education
Mr WHITELEY (Braddon) (14:52): Madam Speaker, my question is to the Assistant Minister for Education. I refer the minister to this morning's report that shows one in five young people aged 15 to 24 in west and north-west Tasmania, my electorate, are without a job. Will the minister inform the House what the government is doing to help connect school students to a real job in electorates such as Braddon?
Ms LEY (Farrer—Assistant Minister for Education) (14:52): It is a pleasure to take a question from the member for Braddon. Last Friday I was in Burnie and Devonport with the member for Braddon. We visited two chambers of commerce. It is indeed an appalling statistic that 20 per cent of young people in the north and north-west of Tasmania are without a job. It was clear to me that the job-destroying carbon tax and the job-destroying Tasmanian Labor government have left these young people without a meaningful pathway from school to work. The cost of doing business in this part of Tasmania is just too high. These jobs should exist—on the farm, in the factory, in forestry, in mining, in agriculture, in aquaculture—and they do not.
Last week I also held a roundtable with the states and territories to revisit and rewrite the national framework for vocational education in schools. This was created in 2001 by the previous coalition government. The previous Labor government had, I think, five ministers for skills, which shows its lack of commitment to trades training and vocational education. Labor spent a lot of time talking about higher education and tertiary education, but instinctively its approach was this: if you have not made it to university, you have not made it at all. Our approach is very much focused on the young people like those that I met in Tasmania with the member for Braddon and on a first-class pathway from school to work. Our approach will have industry at the table. We want to elevate the status of the trades. We understand the importance for every young person to find that pathway.
It is interesting that there are a lot of people doing vocational ed in schools but that only nine per cent of the 40 per cent are in a school based apprenticeship. That needs to increase. We need to have school leading to work. Our approach starts—
Ms Rishworth: Because you stopped it!
The SPEAKER: The member for Kingston is warned!
Ms LEY: with local schools talking to local industry about local skills shortages. We look forward to working with the members for Braddon, Bass and Lyons, to participating in our economic growth plan for Tasmania, and to jobs for young people—real jobs in the real economy.
Ministerial Staff: Code of Conduct
Ms KING (Ballarat) (14:55): Madam Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's previous answer where he has admitted that he was aware of the conflict of interest prior to the appointment of Senator Nash's chief of staff.
The SPEAKER: I will rule the question out of order if you insist on putting it in those terms.
Ms KING: Sure. My question is to the Prime Minister, and I refer to the Prime Minister's previous answer. What were the arrangements required by his office at the appointment of Senator Nash's chief of staff, and what actions did he take in ensuring that they were adhered to prior to the minister making any decisions in her portfolio area that related to the conflict of interest?
The SPEAKER: Before I call the Prime Minister, I would advise the member that the question is very close to being out of order in accordance with standing order 98. This is not a matter of public affairs—
Mr Dreyfus: What? You're joking!
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Isaacs will desist or remove himself. In terms of the standing order, a member may orally ask a question without notice, but:
A Minister can only be questioned on the following matters, for which he or she is responsible or officially connected …
The question is very close to being out of order. However, I will allow the question to stand and I will call the Prime Minister.
Mr Pyne: Just before you do, Madam Speaker—
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: There will be silence on my left!
Mr Pyne: Madam Speaker, during your explanation to the chamber as to why you are going to allow the question to stand, the member for Isaacs, I think very rudely, reflected on the chair. I would ask him to withdraw his very rude reflection on the chair. When you were in the middle of your presentation he shouted, 'You're joking,' which is a reflection on the Speaker's position and I would ask him to withdraw it.
Mr Dreyfus: I withdraw.
The SPEAKER: Thank you.
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (14:57): For the benefit of the shadow minister opposite, the gentleman in question was required to divest himself of an interest in his wife's business. My understanding is that he was dilatory in doing that. When that became apparent, he resigned. That is as it should be. I would simply make this point: when people on this side of the parliament fail to act by the highest standards of propriety and decency, they go. It is as simple as that. They go, and he is gone.
Asylum Seekers
WYATT ROY (Longman) (14:58): Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. Will the minister inform the House how many days it has been since the last illegal boat arrived? What factors have contributed to that success?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) (14:58): I thank the member for Longman for his question. It is not a question those opposite tend to ask me in this place. On that side of the House they have no real interest, it would seem, in how long it has been since a successful people-smuggling venture has made it to Australia. I can inform the House that it is 67 days. That is how many days it is. It is 67 days as of today, 64 as of last Friday, and the reason I say that is because we have not had a consecutive period where there has been no successful venture like this since before the previous government got rid of the policies that worked under the Howard government. The measures that we have put in place are working and they are stopping the boats, and the lead in those matters is what we are doing at sea. I am not going to rely only on our own experience in this. I am going to make reference to Gillian Triggs, who said today: 'I suspect that the real cause of the capacity to save lives has been the stopping of the boats in the physical sense.' And we know what she is referring to—she is referring to our policy of intercepting vessels that seek to illegally enter our waters and removing them. This has been the watershed policy that has been responsible for the success we have seen over the last 67 days.
Those opposite like to refer to offshore processing, but those opposite had to be dragged kicking and screaming to offshore processing. Now they talk about it as the cornerstone of their policies. It was the only stone they had in their policies and they had to be forced to put it back in place. That measure remains important; it is a backstop measure for any potential vessel that may happen to get through. But for 67 days that has not happened.
The other measure relates to temporary protection visas for those of the more than 30,000 that the current opposition, when in government, left behind for this government. And those opposite still, to this day, are seeking to frustrate the mandate of this government to remove the possibility of permanent visas for people who have come to this country illegally by boat. They betray themselves, but this government is not going to be intimidated into walking away from our policies. We are not going to be intimidated by the weakness of the Greens or the double-mindedness and hypocrisy of the Labor Party. We are not going to be intimidated by any violence that occurs in any centre anywhere or at sea. Our policies are working. They are stopping the boats and our resolve is absolute.
Ministerial Staff: Code of Conduct
Ms KING (Ballarat) (15:02): My question is to the Prime Minister and I refer to his previous answer. I refer to the Statement of Ministerial Standards that requires ministers to ensure their decisions are unaffected by bias or conflicts of interest and that they not mislead the public or the parliament. Given that the Prime Minister is in charge of the ministerial standards of the executive, why has the Prime Minister taken no action in relation to Senator Nash's clear breach of these standards?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (15:02): I appreciate that members opposite are desperate to find some moral fault with members on this side of the House. I appreciate the embarrassment, in certain important respects, of members opposite when it comes to ethical standards just at this present time. But let me make this point: the minister in question has not breached the standards. She has not breached the standards. She gave what she thought was correct information to the Senate at the time and, as soon as she was aware that the information was incorrect, it was, in fact, corrected for the Senate. As for the former staffer, he was required to divest himself of a shareholding. He was dilatory in doing so. As soon as that became apparent, he resigned. The matter is at an end. The right thing has been done by all.
Ms King: I seek leave to table the ministerial standards to remind the Prime Minister of what they are.
Leave not granted.
GP Superclinics
Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (15:04): My question is to the Minister for Health. I refer the minister to the Emerald GP superclinic in my electorate which was promised more than three years ago. It is still not open and still has not seen a patient. Will the minister update the House on how delays to the GP superclinic program have affected the provision of health services in Queensland?
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (15:04): Thank you very much to the hardworking member for Flynn. I appreciate his interest in health and thank him very much for this question. The GP superclinic program was held up by the former Minister for Health, the member for Sydney, former Minister Plibersek. It was one of the great programs of the Labor Party and their time in government. It is worth going back through the GP superclinic program to try to trawl through those many, many successes. Emerald happens to be among those, I am happy to inform the member for Flynn.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order, the member for Wakefield!
Mr DUTTON: Like the member for Flynn, I am a little old-fashioned on these things. I like to see a doctor's surgery, not an open paddock where patients are expected to go to see a GP. It is old-fashioned, I know—
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Charlton will desist, as will the member for Wakefield.
Mr DUTTON: but the taxpayers are contributing $5 million for a vacant paddock and not one patient has been seen. Yet the former health minister trumpeted this as one of Labor's great successes. It is all relative, of course.
It was a $650 million program, the so-called GP superclinic program. Bear in mind that they had to borrow that $650 million. Bear in mind that other health needs faced this nation, such as the ageing of the population and a doubling of the amount that we were spending on medical services over the course of the last 10 years. The Labor Party was still able to set up 12 new bureaucracies and find $650 million of borrowed money to put into these superclinics for none of that to make any difference to patients. This is the ironic part of it: $650 million, in this particular case, was promised in August 2010.
There is another example I would like to point to and that is the Mt Isa GP superclinic. It was promised on 21 November 2007. In actual fact, I have this glossy press release here which talks about some money—$2½ million dollars of borrowed taxpayers' money—being put into a superclinic at Mt Isa. Again, it has never been built. Not one patient has been seen. This Labor Party left this government with $123 billion of accumulated deficits, racing towards debt of $667 billion. And there they were in government—with the former minister, the member for Sydney, saying that this was a great program—wasting money hand over fist, not cutting waiting lists and not investing in the areas that we needed to in health. They wasted money across government. They left us with an incredible mess. But we will clean up Labor's mess in health, as we will do in other portfolios. We will get Australia's health system back on track. But we will not do it by wasting taxpayers' money like Labor did with the superclinic program.
Ministerial Staff: Code of Conduct
Ms KING (Ballarat) (15:08): My question is again to the Prime Minister. I refer to his statement:
I am determined to ensure that as far as the new Coalition government in Canberra is concerned, not only is it clean and fair but it's seen to be clean and fair …
Prime Minister, were the actions of the Assistant Minister for Health clean and fair when she removed the Health Star Rating website, a policy decision where her chief of staff had a clear conflict of interest? Why won't the Prime Minister require that the website be reinstated immediately?
Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Prime Minister) (15:08): Again, I understand that the shadow minister in question is attempting to impugn the ethical standards of this government.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Those on my left will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: I back the ethical standards of this government absolutely, to the hilt, against the ethical standards that those opposite showed when they were in government. I do. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to show a little bit of repentance for the standards of members opposite, he might say something about the former member for Dobell.
To get onto the issues that she raised—
Ms King: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. It was a particular question about the Health Star Rating website and on Senator Nash's—
The SPEAKER: It was quite clearly a question about ethical behaviour.
Mr ABBOTT: On Health Star Rating, my understanding is that the departmental website was put up before the system was ready to go. That is my understanding. That is the answer that the minister provided to the Senate. Let me make this absolutely crystal clear—
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The deputy leader will desist.
Mr ABBOTT: The minister has done the right thing, and the former staffer did the right thing by resigning. This is a government which takes ethical standards seriously. This is a government that will always act with decency and integrity.
Mr Champion interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield will remove himself under 94(a).
The member for Wakefield then left the chamber.
Mr ABBOTT: The staffer in question was dilatory in complying with an undertaking that he had given. He has now done the right thing and he has resigned. The matter is at an end.
Broadband
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (15:10): My question is to the Minister for Communications. What is the government doing to deliver fast broadband to Australian businesses and families who cannot access broadband after six years of Labor?
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Minister for Communications) (15:11): I thank the honourable member and well recall the broadband forum we had in his electorate some months ago. The previous government are notorious for, when embarking on the National Broadband Network project, not undertaking a cost-benefit analysis. What is perhaps not so well known is that they did not bother to even ask the most fundamental question, which is: where is broadband good, where is it okay and where is there no broadband at all? Logically, a government that is going to spend taxpayers' money to address broadband deficiencies would want to target the people who had the worst broadband. Our predecessors in government, the Labor Party, had no idea what the answer to that question was. They did not care, because the only thing that informed their rollout was politics. That is why you saw in marginal seats in Western Sydney the fibre network being rolled out on streets where there were not one but two hybrid fibre-coax networks, where the residents already had a pick of 200-megabit-per-second services.
What have we done? Last Thursday, we released the complete Broadband availability and quality report and the MyBroadband website, which drills down to 78,000 local areas across Australia and shows what types of broadband are available—wireless, HFC, fibre to the premises, ADSL et cetera—and what the quality of them is. It gives an estimate as to what types of speeds people will get. It shows graphically where broadband is good—and in some places it is very, very good—and it shows where it is really bad. There are 1.6 million premises in Australia where there is either no broadband at all or broadband with medium peak speeds of 4.8 megabits or less per second, which today is unacceptably slow.
It would have been a lot easier if the previous government had done this from the start and, as I have said to the House many times, we had not been left with, rather than a blank sheet of paper, a real mess to clean up with the NBN. But what we are now going to do is prioritise the worst served areas so that people with poor broadband get it upgraded sooner. The recent strategic review of the NBN estimated that underserved areas can be upgraded on average two years sooner if they are prioritised in the rollout as we are proposing. We are committed to all Australians having access to very fast broadband sooner, cheaper and more affordably, and only the coalition can be counted on to get that job done.
Mr Abbott: After that excellent answer, I ask that further questions be put on the Notice Paper.
REGISTER OF MEMBERS' INTERESTS
The SPEAKER (15:14): I wish to inform the House that, following a competitive selection process, Ms Claressa Surtees has been appointed Deputy Clerk of the House. I am sure that members look forward to working with her in this role. I might add that she is the first female to hold that position. In accordance with resolution 3 of the House of Representatives relating to the registration of members’ interests, I have appointed Ms Surtees as Registrar of Members’ Interests.
COMMITTEES
Economics Committee
Membership
The SPEAKER (15:14): I have received advice from the Chief Government Whip nominating a member to be a supplementary member of the Standing Committee on Economics for the purpose of the committee's inquiry into the Reserve Bank annual report of 2013.
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:15): by leave—I move:
That Mr Smith be appointed a supplementary member of the Standing Committee on Economics for the purpose of the inquiry on the Reserve Bank annual report 2013.
Question agreed to.
AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS
Report No. 20 of 2013-14
The SPEAKER (15:15): I present the Auditor-General's Audit No. 20 2013-14 entitled Performance audit: management of the central movement alert list—follow-on audit: Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.
DOCUMENTS
Presentation
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:16): Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
PARLIAMENTARY RETIRING ALLOWANCES TRUST
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:16): by leave—I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Act 1948, Mr Ruddock be appointed a trustee to serve on the Parliamentary Retiring Allowances Trust.
Question agreed to.
STATEMENT BY THE SPEAKER
Privilege
The SPEAKER (15:16): Earlier today the honourable member for Dobell raised as a matter of privilege that, in a statement to the House on 21 May 2012, the former member for Dobell Mr Craig Thomson deliberately misled the House. The honourable member for Dobell provided some background to this matter, including that a question of privilege in relation to Mr Thomson had been referred to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests in the last parliament. I note that the chair of the committee of the time, the member for Gellibrand, the Hon. Nicola Roxon, advised the House on 14 February 2013 that the committee had suspended its inquiry as the laying of criminal charges against Mr Thomson raised issues in terms of the operation of the sub judice convention. Ms Roxon noted that the inquiry remained live and, at the conclusion of the judicial proceedings, the committee would consider how it should proceed with the inquiry. That inquiry lapsed with the dissolution of the House. The honourable member for Dobell also made reference to findings of guilt in relation to Mr Thomson by the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on 18 February 2014.
Deliberately misleading the House is one of the matters that can be found to be a contempt. As I noted earlier, this matter was referred to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests in the last parliament, with the unanimous agreement of the House. I have considered the principal information provided by the honourable member for Dobell and the background material I have already referred to. In light of the fact that the House had referred this matter to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests in the last parliament and that the proceedings were suspended and the findings of guilt by the Melbourne Magistrates' Court, I give precedence for this matter to be referred to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests.
COMMITTEES
Privileges and Members' Interests Committee
Reference
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Education) (15:18): I move:
That the following matter be referred to the Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests:
Whether, in the course of his statement to the House on 21 May 2012, and having regard to the findings of the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 18 February 2014 in relation to Mr Thomson, the former Member for Dobell, Mr Craig Thomson, deliberately misled the House.
I ask the Clerk to photocopy the motion and provide it to the Manager of Opposition Business. I will speak very briefly to the matter before the House. I do not wish to traverse all the details of the sordid and tawdry tale of the issues surrounding the former member for Dobell and the Health Services Union over the last several years, but I think it is perfectly clear that, for parliamentary privilege to mean anything, it needs to be protected and enhanced. Members of parliament have a real opportunity in this place to put things on the record that they might otherwise not be able to put on the record without facing matters of defamation. That also comes with a very heavy responsibility. In the statement the former member of Dobell made to the House, several members of the public were named and an extraordinary tale was woven, which many members on this side of the House—and, I am sure, many members on the other side of the House—now regard as fantastic, given that the former member for Dobell did not dispute the facts in the case in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court, only that he had the authority to use Health Services Union members' funds in the way that he used them.
This side of the House—and, I am sure, the Manager of Opposition Business and the other side of the House—believe that telling the truth in parliament is an extremely important aspect of the role we play as members of parliament. Sure, politicians have been accused over the centuries of sometimes gilding the lily and perhaps not being entirely fulsome with all aspects of the truth, but that is a far cry from standing up in the parliament and making statements which are deliberately misleading, which are lies, to the chamber. It is the role of the Privileges Committee to determine whether that was done in a deliberate way and, if so, to recommend to the parliament what sanction might apply to the former member for Dobell. Those members who are interested will be able to look back through the precedents of this place and recognise that this has been an issue in the past, and the parliament has acted.
But I will leave the deliberations on those matters to the Privileges Committee. That is their purpose. I simply place on record for the House today that we think deliberately lying to the House is something that the whole parliament should want to deal with and deal with very severely if we are to maintain a reputation, as any parliament, of putting the truth ahead of the personal political salvation of one member of parliament by lying.
I am glad you have given precedence to this motion. I have discussed it with the Manager of Opposition Business in the House. I look forward to his remarks and I hope the Privileges Committee will deal with the issue in speed and also in an entirely nonpartisan way, in order to protect the reputation of the parliament.
Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (15:22): I join the Leader of the House in expressing agreement with and support for your decision to give precedence to this matter. This matter was referred unanimously to the Privileges Committee in the last parliament. It had our support then. The motion now before the House has but one amendment, which is quite appropriately to incorporate the findings of the Magistrates' Court in those deliberations. For that reason, as we supported it in the last parliament, we support the reference in this parliament.
Question agreed to.
GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH
Address-in-Reply
Debate resumed on the motion:
That the Address be agreed to.
Mr RIPOLL (Oxley) (15:23): I thank the House for the opportunity to make some remarks in the address-in-reply. It is always an honour to be elected to this parliament. To be re-elected for the sixth time is a huge honour for me. Being elected for the first time in 1998, I recall really well my campaign, all of the volunteers around me, the Labor Party and my supporters, and my clear intention to work really hard to be a good representative for my community and to fairly and honestly represent their views as best as possible in the parliament. I had only one intention, to do the very best job I could, and hoped, if I did that, they, my electorate, might give me a second chance to be re-elected for another term in 2001. Obviously, it now being 2014, having been re-elected in 2013 is a huge privilege.
All election campaigns are hard fought on all sides. Everybody who runs in an election wants to represent their community for a variety of reasons. People have different motivations, different goals, different objectives, different philosophies and different views about what their collective community needs most or prioritises. For me it would be no different. I am very close to my community—I like to think I am anyway—and certainly to all its great variety of cultures and languages. It is an enormously diverse community from Vietnamese people in one area to Pacific people in another, to Indigenous people through my home town of Inala, where I grew up, right through to lots of old European families, to a whole variety in the western corridor where over 100 different languages are spoken. I feel very proud to be a representative for that community.
Election day itself was unusual, to say the least. For all the doom and gloom there were many good things on the day. The opportunity a community gets to cast its judgment not just on the government and who leads the country but also on who leads them in the parliament at a local level is something we should all take note of.
Like all elections, there were national issues, perhaps even international, but certainly many local issues. In my electorate of Oxley in the western corridor of Brisbane and in Ipswich, my constituents were very concerned about what an Abbott government might mean for them—not in a positive way. Having already experienced a Campbell Newman government at a state level they were very concerned. Some were very frightened about where they might end up, what sort of cuts they might get. The mood and the talk were about what they might lose, not about what they might gain.
Locally people told me they knew Labor had worked very hard and yes there was a price to be paid by us—I am the first to acknowledge it—for a range of issues in the previous parliament. But my electorate were very convinced that Labor, under any circumstances, could still deliver for them a better outcome. Whether that revolved around infrastructure delivery—the Ipswich Motorway, local roads, the work we had done in schools in Building the Education Revolution—and not just providing infrastructure but a different sense about the way every child going to school would get a hand-up, not a handout, and a positive change in the way education would be delivered.
I am sure it is the case for all members in this place: I have not yet been to a school where they did not want the school hall, they did not want the classroom, they did not want the science lab or they did not want the extra investment. If someone here in this place could say, 'I've found a school that rejects the investment of cash, that rejects a new school hall or a classroom,' please come forward and let me know. I am yet to come across one anywhere, let alone in my electorate. It was money well spent.
I want to remind people that it was a two-pronged thing we had to do. Coming out of a global financial crisis a good government needs to respond. We wanted not just to protect jobs and the economy to make sure that families still had an ability to pay their mortgage but to invest in schools at the same time. Those legacy infrastructure projects will be with us for the next 30 years. Every time you go to a meeting at a school—whether it is an induction of leaders, which we would have seen in the last few weeks—you turn up in a school hall that Labor built. I have gained enormous pleasure and pride from going to some of my oldest schools, which are a little bit run-down in some parts because no-one had spent any money—state or federal—for 30, 40 or even more years. To see the one shining example of an investment in that school community as something Labor did filled me with a lot of pride. Yes, true, at the same time, we did not quite get all the kudos that we possibly could have, but sometimes you do things because they are right not just because you are going to get thanked for it afterwards.
There were a lot of other projects in the electorate, but there was one thing for me that was very personal and very important. When you do a good thing in your community, when you stick with people and you work with people from different communities regardless of where they line up politically, they do remember that you did something really good for them. Different people in different communities have said to me, 'We don't forget our friends and we won't forget when you stood up for us.' That is probably a lesson that all members in this place could ponder.
I am enormously proud of my office—it is not just me; I am but one person—all of my staff and all of our volunteers—the people who lend a hand, help, do things in the community, turn up to events, make things happen and assist things to happen, all of those things that we do over a long period of time that mean something and are valued. For me, after so many years in parliament, they are the things that I look back on and say: 'They're the things that are worthwhile. They're the things worth doing, regardless of the politics and regardless of the way that people vote.'
My electorate is in a growing and developing part of Queensland in the western corridor. Not only is there a lot of infrastructure to be built; there is a lot of development to go on. People are building lives and families are growing. Not only do they need schools; they need places for recreation, parks and amenity. While traditionally that has been the purview of local government and others, there is a case to be made for the federal government to be involved, and Labor did get involved. In government, we added value to a whole range of communities with a small bit of funding. For example, in Robelle Domain at Springfield Lakes a small bit of funding facilitated a much larger project going ahead. Those are the sorts of things that I am very proud that Labor did. That is the case also with black-spot intersection upgrades. I was the Queensland chair of the committee. By announcing it here today, I am sure I will be removed as chair when somebody discovers that a Labor member still chairs that committee and perhaps I should be replaced by a Liberal member. We will see how long it is before someone twigs—and I am sure that will be in the next two minutes.
There is the work we did on the National Broadband Network. Forget about the claptrap you hear in this place about the politics of it all. Everywhere that actually got it delivered and got connected, you have never seen happier people. They really understand it. Retirees and pensioners I visited who had their home connected had the ability to talk to their family. They can be a part of the bigger world through that giant portal, that huge window, and that gives them the opportunity to communicate with the rest of the world. Some of our older people are the most skilled at getting on the internet. They have a little more spare time in their retirement and they can see what is happening in the world. And there are small businesses, home businesses and micro businesses who can benefit. I have never seen such a rush of people knocking my door down saying, 'When are we getting the NBN?'
It is a big program and you cannot roll out an eight-year program in eight weeks, but it is worthwhile. Again, it is the sort of heavy lifting that Labor governments do and that I am proud that we did as a government. For most governments, that heavy lifting is just too hard and you cannot think that far ahead—eight years and somebody might criticise us for not getting it all done in eight weeks. The reality is we started it and, no matter what this new government does, it will continue. It might look a bit different, but it is the work we did, the heavy lifting, in terms of the National Broadband Network which will guarantee that people around Australia are connected and schools and health and medical services are connected and connected to the rest of the world. It will guarantee small business an opportunity to do the things that they have to do in the modern world. The modern world was last century, by the way, just in case the mob on the other side are not quite sure about where the modern world sits.
There is another piece of work that I am enormously proud of that I think delivered in spades. We committed an amount of funding to the Brisbane Lions of the Australian Football League to relocate their headquarters and field in Brisbane to Springfield Lakes. This was an enormous move for the Lions. It came with a lot of infrastructure and a lot of jobs. We did that a few days, as I understand it, if not a week, before caretaker mode commenced. That funding would have guaranteed that that organisation and football would thrive in the western corridor. My understanding today is that that funding has been withdrawn. I know this will create enormous disappointment across my community and also for all the fans of football. This sort of issue should be above politics. The infrastructure delivery on this project was beyond reproach. It was value for money. What has happened is really disappointing.
I have mentioned a whole range of my communities, but I want to single out the Vietnamese community in my electorate and give special thanks to Phuong and Duc. I will not go into a heap of other names, otherwise I will be here for a long time. But I do make special mention of those two people for being such good, honest, hard workers in their own community let alone in supporting me and my efforts to represent them in this parliament. I also want to thank Tin, who is our Vietnamese-speaking volunteer who comes in to help Vietnamese constituents with their issues and provides for free an invaluable service. I also mention members of the Pacific Islander community who are genuine, hardworking people who have created a new life in Australia, most of whom have New Zealand citizenship and came here over many years by a variety of means. They came here to seek new opportunities not unlike others who come to Australia and not unlike all of us at some point in time. People come here because they want a bigger and better opportunity for their families and I am really proud of the fact that they do that. There are a number of issues that I was working on in the previous parliament and in government to make sure that they get a fair opportunity at educating their kids and that they get the same sorts of benefits that Australians might get, even though there are some conditions around their residency in Australia because they are not full Australian citizens. But I think there is lot that this parliament could look at to make their lives a bit better, particularly for their kids, who aspire to a higher education level and who could contribute so much to our community.
Oxley is smack in the middle of the western corridor, between the two great cities of Brisbane and Ipswich. It is one of the fastest growing corridors in the country. People go there because it is a great place to live. It is where I call home. It is thriving with new opportunities, new jobs and innovators. There is so much potential that it is bubbling to the surface. But you need to support that through assistance from government to do the things that developers cannot do. A developer cannot build a railway line but a state government can, and it can invest in people and in communities. A federal government can invest in massive infrastructure for nationally significant parks, so that in 50 years time people will say, 'The people who thought this up must have been real forward thinkers.'
They are the people of today. Sometimes you have to do that. It is a bit like building the Story Bridge in Brisbane. When it was built back in the twenties, no-one could have imagined in those horse-and-cart days that you would need eight or 10 lanes. They must have been saying, 'You're overcooking it and spending too much.' But we look back at that today and say, 'If only they could have added two lanes it would have been good.'
There is a good argument to be made for supporting and developing infill areas like Richlands or Inala, Goodna and Ipswich right through to Springfield and the centenary suburbs in my electorate, which thrive in western Brisbane. Our schools are booming. We have record achievements at some schools, even those in the most difficult areas. Glenala State High many years ago was probably regarded as one of the worst schools in the country. It had a high number of Pacific Islander and Indigenous communities. Through the persistence of a number of school leaders and principals, it is now an example of a school that has achieved some of the best results I have seen. It now has a 95-plus per cent retention rate for year 12, and 84 per cent of year 12 students get an OP of between one and 15. These incredible results are because people believe in that school, believe in the kids, believe in the community. It is not just about infrastructure and money; it is about leadership. At every opportunity I say a huge thank you and congratulations to Glenala State High for the incredible work done to produce some of the best kids in the region.
But it is not all good news. There is some bad news, unfortunately, particularly for small businesses in my area and right across the country. When Labor was in government—some of you might find this a bit difficult—we were the best friend of business and the best friend of small business. We invested some real money in supporting small businesses not only through the global financial crisis but in aspects of building businesses and starting businesses. National business name registration was a big step into the modern world, taking seven disparate databases across the country—some just on paper—and putting them all on the internet. It used to cost $1,000 to register your business; now it is something like $70, and you can register businesses 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
We also invested a huge amount of money in the instant asset tax write-off, not only in assets but also in direct investment through pooled depreciation. All up, the direct investment that we made in business and small business was close to $5 billion. That is a lot of money, but you would spend a lot of money on small businesses if you believed in them. The first thing the Abbott government did when it came to power was take all of that money away, through a whole variety of measures—the instant asset tax write-off and the direct assistance. There is more to come, but that is a $5 billion hit to small business. Small businesses are not yet feeling this hit, but they are twigging on to the fact that all the assistance is going. The Abbott government has defunded bodies that used to assist—like helplines and websites—and were really well used. Small business uses the facilities we provided including tax incentives and direct cash incentives. Where small businesses invested, we invested with small businesses. We were there for small business. This government says it is the best friend of small business. We will see when the money is on the table who really is the best friend of small business.
There is a lot to be said about all the things that have changed since this new government came to power five and a bit months ago. I was particularly close to the Future of Financial Advice reforms during a difficult period with the global financial crisis, the Storm collapse, Trio and lots of mums and dads who had worked their whole lives to save for independence in retirement losing it all. Something had to be done, and we stepped up and did it. It took a lot of years, consultation and work, but we came up with a really good model, the FoFA reforms. This government has taken those reforms and said it will make some technical amendments and minor changes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is the changes being made will rip out the guts of FoFA and leave nothing—no best interest, no transparency, no disclosure, the reintroduction of bank commissions and fees. Over a period we will see some clear winners, and those clear winners will not be consumers. Consumer protection will be gone and consumers will be paying enormous fees, having lost all the protections Labor put in place.
In the remaining time, I turn to jobs and the important work that Labor did in supporting jobs, not just through the global financial crisis. We were there when a million jobs were created during the worst global recession. We did better than any other global economy. Although the Abbott government said governments never create jobs, they have promised to create a million jobs in five years. The ticker is ticking, but unfortunately for them it is heading south really quickly. They goaded Toyota and Holden to go. They are not interested in jobs and a plan for saving jobs. In fact, they are doing everything they can to say they will not participate in a jobs plan. They might have some arguments about industry welfare, so let us hear those and have a debate about them. We are asking: where is your plan to create jobs? Do you have a jobs creation plan? What have you planned for communities in Geelong, South Australia, and other places hit by closures? We understand the problem with the high Australian dollar and the difficulties in manufacturing, but it is wrong to shut the door and leave workers, families and communities with no hope.
It always comes down to who you stand up for and how you will be counted. When we were in government, Labor took difficult decisions. We always stood up for communities, people and families, whatever the cost. The government needs to support the country and the national interest. When it comes to a choice, this coalition government is prepared to cut people loose. This means that Australia, for the first time in more than a decade, has an unemployment rate of six per cent. That is not good enough. (Time expired)
Mr WYATT (Hasluck) (15:44): There is no greater privilege than that which is bestowed upon us when we are elected to this place, but it is a greater honour to be returned to this place by the electors of Hasluck. I would like to thank the people of the Hasluck electorate who supported my re-election as their federal representative for another term. It is an honour and a privilege to continue serving them and I look forward to another three years—and, hopefully, a future that is a little bit longer. I remain absolutely committed to working on their behalf both within the electorate and here in Canberra.
I am equally pleased to be joined in the parliament by new members who are outstanding West Australians. It is great to have them join the WA team in the federal parliament, where their contribution will be of immense value to the nation. I would like to acknowledge Mr Christian Porter, the member for Pearce and a former Treasurer in the Barnett government; Ms Melissa Price, the member for Durack; Mr Ian Goodenough, the member for Moore; and Mr Rick Wilson, the member for O'Connor. All have been elected to this place for the first time. The experiences that they went through reminds me of the first day that I walked through the doors into the House of Reps. It was emotional and also a feeling of elation because of the fact that you could contribute to debates in this House that improved the lives and worked for the benefit of the people that we represent as well as the broader community.
You do not win and retain your seat on your own. I would like to acknowledge and pay tribute to the people who assisted me during the campaign. There were many, particularly my staff members, members of the Liberal Party and the many supporters who I have thanked privately. I want to congratulate the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, on the magnificent campaign that he ran and thank him for visiting my electorate to announce the Swan Valley Bypass, which is better known as the Perth to Darwin highway.
I want to make special mention of the number of people who gave so much of their time during the campaign and on the days of the election. They were there always—long hours, the hard yards. Firstly, there is my family: my wife, Anna; and my two sons, Brendyn and Aaron. There is my staff: Jarrod Lomas, Amanda Templeton, Jill Bonanno, Morgan Ralph, Chloe Lim, Karlia Dillon and David Lovelle. There was my campaign team: Barry MacKinnon, Linda Reynolds, Heather Gilmour, Peter Stewart, Jamie Edwards, Danielle Blain, Graeme Harris, Ray Gianoli, Deirdre Willmott, Terry O'Connor, Wayne McIntosh, Bill Munro, Peter Abetz, Nathan Morton, Joanne Pryce, Liam Staltari, Henk Loohuys and Merle Burn.
I particularly want to acknowledge Damien Cole, Jenny Tanner and Emma Tanner for the work they did on election night when we came together; the Hon. Julie Bishop, MP, for all of her support; Ben Morton from Menzies House; and all the 'sea of blue' volunteers and polling day workers, Young Liberals and Liberal students.
I would like to make a few points on the election in Hasluck in Western Australia and on the election generally. I am proud to have been re-elected and I am also proud to have taken the seat from a margin of 0.58 per cent to one that is now 4.3 per cent, and on being the first member to win the seat back to back. I want to congratulate the six candidates who nominated and contested the election for the seat of Hasluck. That is the beauty of our democracy. Adrian Evans, deputy state secretary of the Maritime Union of Western Australia, was a formidable opponent and he was determined to win the seat of Hasluck. I had immense respect for Adrian not only as an opponent but as a person who was an excellent candidate, a family man and respectful of his opponents. Adrian really hit the trail hard with a well-financed campaign. At times it was alleged that my opponent had a war chest of $1.4 million to fight with. To me it does not matter about the quantum of funding. What is more important are the concerns which are important to the people and families of Hasluck. I will continue to emphasise the importance of building stronger local communities within my electorate.
I also want to reflect on some memorable election moments—from the launch at the Advent Park in Maida Vale in July to Prime Minister Tony Abbott's visit to announce the Swan Valley Bypass funding which we had been fighting for. The Hon. Christopher Pyne assisted in marking the third anniversary of my election to the Australian parliament. Former Prime Minister John Howard came to the Midland Gate shopping centre and was mobbed like a rock star. There were young people wanting 'selfies' and people who turned and said: 'We need you back. We want strong leadership.' They enjoyed his company and they enjoyed the interaction.
There was the Midland markets every Sunday morning at 5 am to set up and Kalamunda markets on Saturday mornings. I also want to acknowledge Margie Abbott for spending a half day in the electorate engaging with constituents and spending the time to meet with people—interacting and seeking their views in the way they were progressing their lives and some of the challenges that they were facing. Bronwyn Bishop, our newly elected Speaker, spent a whole day in the electorate and engaged with seniors at a number of forums in which she answered some of the tough questions. The Hon. Malcolm Turnbull met with constituents about the coalition's vision for the NBN and the commitments that he would undertake if he were elected.
There were a number of people from the electorate who wanted to assist with campaign signs in the front yard, help out on polling day and assist wherever there was a need to help me be re-elected. To Brian on the Helena Valley booth, who had a heart attack a week before polling day and still rocked up to help out against advice, thank you for your dedication.
I want to respond to particular matters acknowledged in the speech of Her Excellency, the Hon. Quentin Bryce, AC, CVO, Governor-General, on the occasion of the opening of the 44th Commonwealth Parliament. I want to turn to Her Excellency's reflections on key matters that are important for the families and constituents of Hasluck. In her opening address she said:
On September 7, history and people voted for a government that said it would repeal the Carbon Tax, establish a Commission of Audit and improve the Budget, strengthen border protection and build the roads of the 21st century.
I am proud to be a member of a government which is committed to developing such a strong, prosperous economy built on prudent economic management—a government which will focus on a more productive and diverse economy and will guarantee Australia's future prosperity by building on our national strengths. It is a government that will work to deliver more jobs and more opportunities so there is less pressure on the families of Hasluck, enabling them and more Australians to get ahead. It is a vision of a dynamic, confident Australia where we can all, individually and collectively, pursue our hopes and dreams.
Businesses within Hasluck will ultimately benefit through growing a strong economy and creating the best conditions for more jobs, and families will benefit from the growth in all parts of the economy—in manufacturing, agriculture, education, research, services and mining. As the economies of Asia continue to expand, demand for Australian resources and other exports will remain strong and there will be a new demand for Australian education and research, expertise in advanced services, manufacturing and agricultural products. There are already businesses within my electorate that are benefiting from that focus and they are creating the opportunities that build their companies for a strong position within the economy of Western Australia. This creates opportunities for the medium and small businesses within Hasluck and, indeed, for all Australian companies.
I will remain a strong advocate for the people of Hasluck and will work to ensure that the National Disability Insurance Scheme becomes a reality for Australians with disability and their carers, particularly those who live within the electorate. I also welcome the Prime Minister's commitment to provide $200 million to help Australian scientists find a cure for dementia and $35 million to help find a cure for type 1 diabetes. Within the electorate of Hasluck there are 8,070 Australians who experience diabetes, and this research will help assist their quality of life. Equally, I welcome the commitments to provide fairness in superannuation pensions to our veterans and the Defence Force Retirement Benefit and the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefit superannuation pensions being more generously indexed from 1 July next year. This will be welcome news to those who live within my electorate.
I want to ensure that businesses, families and individuals who live and work in the seat of Hasluck are an integral part of a more productive and diverse economy that will guarantee Australia's future prosperity. I am pleased that the following election commitments are secured: $500,000 for CCTV in the city of Swan; Green Army commitments throughout the electorate, for the Friends of Mary Carroll wetland, the Tom Bateman reserve, the Brixton Street Wetlands, Blackadder Creek, Wattle Grove open space and Kings Meadow Reserve; trees for Men of the Trees and the Shire of Kalamunda; $615 million for the Swan Valley bypass, affectionately known as the Perth-Darwin highway stage 1; and commitment to the completion of the Gateway WA project around Perth Airport.
I have now been on this journey for 3½ years and I thank those who have been on the journey the entire way, and that includes all those that I associate with. The local agenda of issues are matters that are close to my heart and it is my intention to act on the priorities for my electorate. One is building a stronger local community that brings together families and people to value, to contribute, to protect and to look after each other. Another priority is education, and in the gallery today I have two young people who are part of the Hasluck Leadership Award. So far we have had six recipients who have shown the quality of their leadership and we will continue building young people's capacity to become leaders of the future. I have worked with a school in which they have established a minerals and energy academy and I am currently working with industry and a number of schools to look at a transport academy and a plumbing academy as two separate entities in which students who want to pursue a career in that area will be able to engage and begin an educational pathway.
For the environment, I will build on Hasluck's green map and work with all the environmental groups to nurture those parts of the electorate that are bushlands forever, the corridors and those regions that are important. Mental health and the work that is yet to be done will become a focus of my activity in this term and I will work again with state and federal governments to look at the way in which we can provide the services to the people who need them.
I want to develop within my electorate a 'lean on me' strategy. In doorknocking, which I do regularly, I meet people who are lonely, who do not have people in their lives and who rely on the local bank or post office or the occasional interaction with somebody to overcome that loneliness. I have often thought that the degree of loneliness was not across the age continuum, but I am finding that there are young people who are lonely. I find people who have lost a partner after death who for the first nine months are visited by family members but then the visits drop off and they are on their own. Everyone needs compassion and needs to be connected to others within their community, so I am working with a number of organisations to bring a 'lean on me' strategy to a reality.
I also want to focus on senior and aged-care needs and those of self-funded retirees and be an advocate in many areas that are important to them in their lives. And I want to focus on aircraft noise, which will span the political horizon for the next three years and remains a priority in the focus of the work that I will undertake with my local parliamentary colleagues. I will continue to doorknock—I doorknock two days a month—and go out to meet people, hear what the issues are and connect at park meetings, coffee shop programs and in many other ways so I can hear their concerns and then represent them to various ministers or within the forums that are available.
I enjoy the opportunity of being a member of a number of parliamentary committees—the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, where I can bring into play my experience within the bureaucracy of health, and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights—and I have the privilege of chairing the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
Something I want to focus on for the future is changing our planning mindset. Often, all of us think of today, tomorrow, the next event, but we never push beyond into the future, to 2015, 2020, 2030. The world has changed in many ways, and we can see that from what has occurred within the last two decades. I enjoyed reading the works of James Canton, who is the CEO and Chairman of the Institute for Global Futures; of Patrick Dixon, author of Futurewise: The Six Faces of Global Change; and of Bernard Salt. They challenge the way in which we should consider the future of our society. How are we planning for a world that continues to change at a more rapid pace in all aspects of our culture, business, technology, medicine, security, terrorism, population and environment? It is happening: today, tomorrow and into the future. The world continues to change in every way. It changes at a rapid pace and increases the challenges for legislators.
I want us to think about being future wise, planning to change future thinking at every level to adapt to the global change which is fast, urban, tribal, universal, radical and ethical. We saw that with the work that the Treasurer, the honourable Joe Hockey, undertook in leading the discussions and debates at the G20. A global economy impacts on all of us—we are not isolated. The whole concept of globalisation, global corporatisation and the flat-earth model in which sovereign boundaries are no longer barriers to global companies are bringing about great changes.
Similar practices applied by commercial companies which develop a strong business case that has an embedded futuristic projection of the benefits and the potential to have a return for investment should be the focus of this parliament into the future. Our legacy should not be political and personal gains, but a legacy that positions Australia for our children and future generations. We need to look to the future not for the term of a parliament or to pursue policies of expedience based on political philosophies but on what is best for the future. We position ourselves through our free trade agreements to optimise our balance of payments, our trade, but also our interactions with other nations that are within the region. I want to see the future for those who live within my electorate to be given the opportunity to become part of the global society and not be restricted or constrained by the lack of educational opportunity or training opportunities. It is about creating pathways through engagement and through informing. I will continue always to focus on those that need levels of intervention. But in policy directions it is my intention over the next terms of my time here to use the opportunities to generate debates and thinking about how we move into a dynamic future role. I would also compliment the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the way in which she has certainly engaged Australia in the global forums that are an integral part of our economy, our wealth and our opportunities to create jobs for those within our country.
One of the pleasures I had—and it was a nice touch—was when one of my staff, Jill Bonanno, came and saw me and said, 'You have to swear on a Bible.' She said she had been given a Bible when she was baptised at the age of 19 and she asked me if I would—as a personal gesture and to help reflect her value of that—use it when I was sworn in this time. It gave me great pleasure to be able to say to Jill that I would do that for her. It is the little things that we as members do in this House not only for our staff but also within our electorates that make the difference. I reflected on a couple of comments made by the member for Oxley, who talked about the need for us to engage locally within each of our electorates. It is the little things that become the big memories for people who acknowledge the way in which we reach out, listen with respect, and then engage them and act on their behalf.
To conclude, I look forward to this term in parliament. It is easier being on the government benches because you are able to do some things you cannot do from opposition. It is always hard to convince a minister to invest in your electorate when you are in opposition. Often people view us as members in this House as being in conflict, but I have made some tremendous friendships across all spheres of the House. I value the colleagues who make a contribution on behalf of their electorates in the way that they advocate and work in committees and on the way that we deliver what is required for the decisions that occur.
Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (16:03): I am very pleased to be speaking in this address-in-reply. I would like of course to start by thanking the people of Richmond for re-electing me for a fourth term. It is indeed a great honour and a privilege to represent what is in fact the most beautiful part of Australia, the electorate of Richmond, with its diversity and its people, its communities and its landscape. It is truly unique. From the pristine beaches to the beautiful hinterland, it is one of the most beautiful parts of Australia. I would like to thank all of those who supported me throughout the election campaign and to all those people who volunteered their time because they had such a strong commitment to Labor values and the Labor policies we took to the election. I thank them and acknowledge all their hard work.
I also acknowledge the many people in the community that I spoke to and continue to speak to over the years on the issues they have raised, particularly the concerns they have about the impact of a Liberal-National government. I can assure the people of the North Coast that I will be holding this government to account on a whole range of issues, all those issues that impact the people of the North Coast. We are already seeing that some of those impacts are hurting the people on the North Coast. We are seeing cuts by the government particularly to areas around regional development funding—around five cuts. We are seeing cuts to the schoolkids bonus as well. There is a lot of concern about plans for a $6 GP tax, which will be devastating for an area like Richmond, particularly with the large number of pensioners we have in my area. Just today in question time we saw the Prime Minister refuse to rule out cuts to the age pension, which also would be devastating for many people as there is a very high proportion of old age pensioners living on the North Coast of New South Wales.
We also saw from the government last year the threat to impose GST on the rents of mobile home residents and, indeed, a strong community campaign forced a backdown on this unfair tax grab. We are also seeing a strong community campaign against the government's plans for that doctor tax and their plans to dismantle Medicare. Right throughout the country we are seeing people mobilising because of their concerns about our universal health system, and I certainly stand with them in making sure that people can access the healthcare services that they need when they require them. It is only been a number of months and we are already seeing some very harsh impacts being felt particularly in regional areas and, as I say, I continue to highlight those concerns.
During the campaign there was also a very positive response to the record funding the Labor government delivered to the area. A major issue in my electorate was opposition to harmful coal seam gas mining, which I will detail a bit later on. I would like to say that I am very proud to have worked closely with many people on the North Coast to deliver this record funding whilst I have been the local MP. More than $1.5 billion was delivered for local improvements and many of those came from the economic stimulus projects that are so vital in protecting local jobs and also in providing very, very important infrastructure.
I would like to outline some of those that have made a very big difference on the North Coast of New South Wales particularly the Pacific Highway upgrade. More than $350 million was allocated for the Sextons Hill upgrade and more than $550 million for the Tintenbar to Ewingsdale upgrade, which is, in fact, the single biggest ever infrastructure investment on the North Coast. It is being constructed as we speak, and we look forward to that being finalised and having all those Pacific Highway upgrades finished up there.
I was also very proud to deliver the GP superclinic to South Tweed. It has been open for a long period of time now and is providing exceptionally great service to many people within the area. All of the funding to local schools has made a huge difference as well.
What was also really important was the investment in community infrastructure, like the Murwillumbah Community Centre, or the Byron Regional Sport and Cultural Complex or the Lennox Head Community Centre. Indeed, there was other sports infrastructure, like the $5 million in funding for the new Arkinstall Park upgrades for netball and tennis facilities in South Tweed. This also is under construction and we very much look forward to that being finalised. It is a great resource for locals. We are hoping that it will be a bit of a central point for a lot of training, as well, particularly on the netball front.
There was also more than $2 million for the world's first surfing centre of excellence at Casuarina Beach. It is great to have that open and providing some really important mentoring for many people who come there from right across country. And it is great to have a world first surfing centre of excellence at beautiful Casuarina Beach.
So, as I have said, it has been a real honour to be given the opportunity to continue to represent the people of the North Coast and to work with them to keep on achieving those best results for locals and to improve our infrastructure and surrounds on the North Coast.
Richmond is indeed a very diverse electorate, and that is what makes us incredibly special. It stretches from Skennars Head in the south to Tweed Heads in the north, and from Byron Bay in the east to Nimbin in the west. Richmond has significant agricultural areas and urban areas as well, like Tweed Heads. It has very vibrant and active coastal areas, like Byron Bay, and really strong, rural based communities, like Murwillumbah and Mullumbimby. They are very diverse areas.
During the election and over the past year I have continued to have many discussions with the people of the North Coast, and the message is very clear and consistent—locals have a very clear idea about the sort of community they want. They want one where they are able to access the services they require, whether those are health, aged care, education or community services. They want to see investment in regional infrastructure. Very importantly, they want to have jobs in their local regional area and they want their children to be able to have quality jobs in their regional area. And they want to see an emphasis on making sure that we have strong local economies.
In areas like mine, importantly, they also want to see that we have a sustainable environment, and they want to see effective action on climate change. That was a very big issue during the election campaign. All of these issues featured very prominently during the campaign but, indeed, the single issue that was raised with me time and time again was the very real fear shared by many locals about the impact of harmful coal seam gas mining on the North Coast. Indeed, this continues to be the single largest issue across all levels of government, all community groups and all individuals no matter where you go. This is the issue that people talk about; it is the issue of concern to them. They have real and genuine concerns as to what could happen to our environment, to our water and to our communities if this industry were allowed to expand on the New South Wales North Coast.
In a very real way, the 2013 federal election in Richmond was a referendum on whether the community wanted coal seam gas mining. In fact, the people have now spoken clearly. It was clear by the result in the Richmond electorate that the voters have rejected coal seam gas mining. They believe it is unsafe and environmentally destructive. As I said, the electorate has made it very clear how they feel about it. They are very worried about the ramifications of coal seam gas mining, the effect it will have on current and future generations and the impact on our area.
Nearly all the villages and towns, along with the local councils of Tweed, Byron and Lismore on the North Coast, have made declarations to be coal seam gas mining free. In fact, the movement against coal seam gas mining has been growing for a considerable period of time. In the past few years, it has grown more and more. This movement is now directed specifically against many in the National Party in our area and their very strong pro-CSG agenda. It particularly refers to our state members of parliament. In fact, as we know, it is the state government that regulates and licences coal seam gas mining. What concerns me and concerns the community is that all of our state National Party MPs on the North Coast actively and publicly endorse coal seam gas mining in our area. In doing so they have ignored the people of the North Coast. They have chosen to support the interests of big coal seam gas mining companies and completely ignore the will of the people who they have been elected to represent.
To understand how big an issue this is, and the impact of it, it is important to examine the magnitude of public support against coal seam gas mining and to look at the history of this community activism. I will run through some of the major events. There are many more, but here are some of the community's major concerns.
On 9 April 2012, the Lismore City Council voted 6-5 in support of the motion to have a specific poll to gauge views on coal seam gas mining. The poll was then held in conjunction with the September 2012 local government election. The result of this poll was overwhelmingly against coal seam gas mining, with 87 per cent voting against it—a huge number. Also, on 25 October 2012, Tweed shire councillors voted 6-1 for a moratorium on coal seam gas mining.
On 31 October 2013, Byron shire councillors—off the back of a survey which showed that some 98 per cent of residents wanted the shire declared, and to remain, CSG free—restated their support for a gas-field-free shire that incorporates a coal seam gas mining exclusion zone. Also, the North Coast peak council for local councils, NOROC, considered this coal seam gas mining issue so significant that they funded research on the effect of CSG on the environment. This means we now have a situation where the councils and nearly all the villages and towns along the North Coast have themselves made declarations to be CSG-mining free. This is a strong declaration of the people's will. In fact, when you drive through those smaller villages—and we are lucky to have many vibrant and wonderful villages on the North Coast—you will see many 'lock the gate' signs and you will see signs declaring that they are coal seam gas mining free. We have had dozens of small villages continue to make those declarations, and they go from street to street to make sure that their concerns are heard about how worried they are about the impact of this industry possibly expanding in our area.
Across the North Coast we have had many groups that have come together to support this anti-coal-seam-gas-mining movement. This list is not limited to but includes groups such as: the North Coast Environment Council; Gasfield Free Northern Rivers; the Tweed Lock the Gate Alliance, led by Michael McNamara; the Nimbin Environment Centre; the 100% renewable energy campaign; the Caldera Environment Centre; Transition Byron Shire; the wonderful Knitting Nannas Against Coal Seam Gas Mining, who continue to do such a great job in highlighting their concerns; and the Byron Environment Centre. There are many other community groups and individuals who have been part of this ongoing campaign to make sure that their concerns are always heard in relation to this.
I think there has been possibly no greater demonstration of those determined to stop coal seam gas mining than the display of strength at various protests and rallies. On 14 May 2011 in Murwillumbah some 8,000 people marched through the town to demand a stop to coal seam gas mining. This is very impressive, particularly when you consider the town's population is far less than that. People came from far and wide to be part of this protest. Also in May 2012 around 7,000 people marched against CSG in Lismore. Again that was a major number for a regional town. On 15 October 2012 around 4,000 people marched against CSG in Murwillumbah in a day of action against the industry, and that day was known as Rock the Gate.
As recently as December 2013 we saw the Tweed Shire Council reaffirming its call for a moratorium on CSG operations. I was pleased to see that they reaffirmed that. I point out to the House that that motion was carried five votes to two. The two people who voted against it were—yes, you guessed it—the National Party councillors. At all levels of government—whether it is at the council level, the state level or the federal level—we see the National Party's pro-CSG agenda. That was confirmed for us as recently as December in the vote at council where we saw the two National Party members vote against it.
Also, in outlining the history of the communities' concerns about coal seam gas, on 14 February 2013 the former member for Page, Janelle Saffin, and I launched a petition calling on the New South Wales government to declare an immediate moratorium on all CSG activities and licences within the boundaries of the state parliamentary seats of Lismore, Ballina, Clarence and Tweed on the New South Wales North Coast and further declaring them to be CSG-free and thereafter off limits to the CSG industry. The petition happened because the people of the North Coast were ignored by their state National Party MPs, who failed to represent their concerns.
In a very short period of time the petition got more than 12,000 signatures and was presented to the Speaker of the New South Wales parliament for subsequent debate on 30 October 2013. When the debate occurred it was disappointing for a number of reasons. Firstly, the only North Coast members who spoke were the members for Ballina and Lismore. I assume the member for Tweed was hiding and remaining silent on the debate, as he often does on many issues. I note that the member for Clarence did not bother to speak either. When the members for Ballina and Lismore spoke in the debate neither supported the proposal to have the North Coast declared coal seam gas mining free; neither supported the wishes of the majority of residents. So we had this petition which in a sense forced them to speak about the issue and they refused to back the wishes of the people of the North Coast. They completely ignored them and completely abandoned them. This is not what people want from their state MPs. They want MPs to listen and act on their concerns. They want action. They certainly did not see that.
I think it is also important to note that whilst in government we took action under the EPBC Act in relation to coal seam gas mining. It is important to have that on the record. Federal Labor in government passed an amendment to expand national environmental laws under the EPBC Act. We had water as a trigger in relation to CSG activities to cover the impacts of coal seam gas mining projects on water resources.
Locals know that the biggest threat to their way of life is the ongoing National Party's pro-CSG drilling, fracking and expansion agenda. They know it is the National Party who are the environmental vandals when it comes to this and other issues. We know that the coalition government have a very strong history of supporting coal seam gas mining. We see reports constantly of just how committed both the Liberal and National parties are to the growth of the CSG industry.
It was quite disturbing when we saw last November the new industry minister telling an energy summit in New South Wales that he wanted uniform regulations for the exploration and the production of coal seam gas across state borders whilst warning opponents of coal seam gas to respect the law and labelling some of them as anarchists. That caused a great deal of offence for many people opposed to coal seam gas mining. We are not anarchists. People of all ages and backgrounds have put forward their views in a very democratic way about the concerns they have for the environment. Women from the CWA, which I am proudly a member of, marched in some of the rallies I spoke about. It is offensive that the resources minister called outstanding women like that anarchists. In fact, it is insulting, and it is insulting that he continues to not listen to the wishes of people who are so concerned about this when they are from all different backgrounds.
We are also concerned when we see of late the resource minister talking about setting up a task force. We are not quite sure what this task force will be. We have seen some reports that he is working on the make-up and role of the task force to speed up coal seam gas mining development projects in New South Wales. The new resources minister is very much involved. He is very committed to coordinating and getting coal seam gas mining on the agenda. I would like to know who he intends having on the task force, what he intends them doing and which areas they intend going to. In saying this I am reflecting the views of many people on the North Coast who have said to me that they are very keen to find out the details they can about this task force, because this minister in the first few days he was in power made it very clear that, despite the things he said prior to the election, he is 100 per cent behind coal seam gas mining.
I talk to people all the time about what we can do as a community to keep the issue of stopping coal seam gas mining on the agenda. People are very much aware that it is only Labor on the North Coast who will stop it. They see at all other levels of government this massive push to have mining—whether it is council having the National Party vote, whether it is state MPs pushing it all the time or whether it is the federal minister pushing it. They see that constantly. They know it is Labor who stand with the community. They understand that. We will continue to do that because this has united people unlike any issue I have seen before.
It is important to keep in mind the reason why many people have moved to the North Coast of New South Wales. They made a conscious choice about the area they wanted to live in. They wanted to live in an area that has a pristine hinterland, beaches, beautiful ranges and all of that. They love the area. It is a great place to raise a family and a great place to live. Because they are so attuned to and respectful of their environment, many people of all ages and backgrounds have become involved in this campaign. So, whilst there are many issues I will be fighting for for the people on the North Coast and continue to advocate here or locally at home, this is one issue that as a community we are united on and will be fighting at all levels of government to make sure we get an outcome on. I say this to the National Party: you have underestimated the resolve of people in our area and how far we intend fighting to make sure we have this area coal seam gas mining free.
In conclusion, I would like to make it clear that it is only the Labor Party that will stand with those people; the National Party has walked away. I know that it will pay the price for that in upcoming state and council elections. The fact is people are not going to vote for a party or for candidates who continue to push forward an industry that will be so destructive to our area—not only to our environment but also to our water resources and our water supplies. That is something that troubles so many people. We currently have a licence that goes over one of the major water resources for the Tweed area. The impact will be absolutely huge in our area.
Finally, I say again what an honour it is to have been re-elected and to have been re-elected on a range of issues. One in particular is that I and the Labor Party are committed to fighting to make sure that together we can ensure that the North Coast of New South Wales is coal seam gas mining free.
Mr EWEN JONES (Herbert) (16:23): I would like to start by stating the obvious: I am over the moon about being back here for a second term and representing my seat of Herbert and my city of Townsville in this nation's 44th Parliament. I feel a great debt of gratitude to the electors of Herbert, and I assure them I will be here and in my electorate doing my best for our city and our region.
No-one wins an election by themselves. The team behind me last year was massive. I would like to acknowledge my immediate and extended family, but especially my wife, Linda, and my three children—Emma, Abbie and Andrew—for their continued and determined support of me and my role. To my staff, ably led by Sheree Lineham, I say thank you. For any sales team to be effective, the back office must be strong. I have a back office of Sheree, Karen Ruffle, Calum Kippin and Kurt Fong. There are none better in this country. That they were able to marshal their families, friends, contacts, casual acquaintances and strangers from the street to help get me re-elected says a lot about their genuine enthusiasm for their roles. To all the team who worked so hard from the leadership group of Tony Abbott, Julie Bishop and Warren Truss, to the party organisations, to the party members in Townsville, to our friends and supporters, I say thank you very much. I want to especially thank a few others who went above and beyond the call of duty: to Michelle, Stephanie, Julie, Andrew, and Lenny, I thank you all; I would not be here without you. To the Jones collective and the Young LNP, I say thank you. I want to thank Molly, Dan, Brendan, Dale, Kelsey, Sam, Drew Boy, Emma, Thaddeus, Jessica, Scott, Dr Michael, Crystal, Chelsea, Ryan, Stathie and the hundreds of volunteers who these people were able to drag up to the front line in the name of getting me re-elected.
When Senator Ian Macdonald was first elected to the Senate in 1990 he was the only Liberal representative north of the south-east corner. That the LNP now boasts the members for Leichardt, Herbert, Dawson, Capricornia and, if you crib a little bit, Flynn, is full testament to the commitment Ian has to the role of being a senator for Queensland. His work in supporting our candidate for the seat of Kennedy, Noeline Ikin, where a swing of over 15 per cent was recorded to her, should go down as one of the great campaigns. His recognition of a truly great candidate to give proper representation to the people of north-west Queensland, and his willingness to back her all the way, should never be underestimated or undervalued. Noeline will come to this place and she will be a great member. I would like to also pass on my personal congratulations to the coalition's class of 2010. We have all been returned and will become a great force in this parliament. I especially want to congratulate the members for Aston, Kooyong and Riverina for their elevation to parliamentary secretary roles.
I do not propose to spend my time here pointing out the weaknesses and errors of the previous government—for a start I only have 20 minutes. The Abbott government will be a government for all Australians. It will be a government that sets tasks and gets them done. It will be a government that builds infrastructure and will facilitate growth and trade. Locally, we will finish the Townsville Ring Road, finally fix Dalrymple Road, replace the Haughton River Bridge, build a community centre and a cyclone evacuation centre in the northern beaches, fix the Bowden Road intersection, install lights for walkers on Castle Hill and River Way Drive, and upgrade facilities at the Townsville Showgrounds. Additionally, we will finish the Vantassel road extension, which should have been done in 2010. Additional to this will be the establishment of the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University.
It will be a government that will reduce waste and remove the constraints of red tape. Small business has been especially hurt by new and costly regulations and red tape. It has strangled enterprise and it must stop. We will do this because it is not government that creates wealth, nor does it create jobs. What government does is set the parameters around which business can do things and then gets out of the way. That is what we will do.
Our Treasurer, JB Hockey, stated in a speech to the Centre for Independent Studies that the coalition has a plan in three parts:
Firstly we must be honest about the challenges we face.
Secondly we must lay down a road map that helps us to deal with those challenges.
And thirdly we must harness the support of the nation as we follow the road map notwithstanding the obstacles that will be put in our way.
No matter the sector, no matter the industry, no matter the cause or campaign, these basic tenets are true and we need to heed these words.
If we do not include the people of Australia in our vision, we are doomed to fail. I will challenge our side of politics to look further than the political wedge or the news grab for our discourse with the Australian people. We all deserve better than we have had. We have to be able to articulate that vision for the future. We have to get the people of Australia to understand and know that vision. And we have to deliver on that vision, keeping Australians informed along the way. That is the mission we have undertaken, and it is a mission in which I am proud to play a part.
The Abbott government took a series of commitments to the 7 September election, and we will honour our commitments. Central to this is the repeal of the carbon tax. No issue could be clearer to the people of Australia during the election: if you want the carbon tax removed, you vote for a coalition candidate. Nothing could be clearer. That we won 90 seats in a very clear majority should tell all those in this House what people want. They want this toxic tax gone. I urge the Labor Party to respect this mandate, as we respected its mandate to remove Work Choices. To do otherwise is to thumb its nose at the people of this great nation.
Townsville is a hub for our region and the north of our country. It will continue to be so and grow with responsibility and with the reputation for being able to get things done. Whether it is the west to north-west minerals province and its renewable energy corridor possibilities, or further north and east to PNG and Fiji and the Melanesian world, we will grow to become an educational trade hub for that dynamic arc of the Pacific. Townsville will be part of the future.
The future is indeed bright, but only if we grab it with both hands. Tony Abbott's backing of the white paper on the development of northern Australia is an act of pure leadership. Clearly, this is an incredibly important part of my future in this place. That there are only eight House of Representatives seats north of the Tropic of Capricorn in the entire country means that there are 142 south of that line. The politically expedient thing to do, if he was just about winning elections, would be to concentrate on other parts of the country. That he and Andrew Robb can see that the development of the north is imperative for the future of our country is a credit to them both.
The white paper is an opportunity to really grab our part of the Asian century, but we must be tenacious in our approach to this. We must remember to keep the paper looking to the future. I want the paper to be framed by the question: 'If we were having this conversation in 2050 or 2100, what would have to have happened for the development of northern Australia to be a success?' We must, first and foremost, look at what our customers want. We must then decide what can be built, maintained and delivered. We must approach the development of northern Australia at a macro level. Above all, we must get the baseline science right. You do not build a house starting with the roof—you get the foundations right. Everything we do impacts on our environment. It is how we manage those impacts which should drive our decisions. It is pointless to grow a $20 million crop of mung beans if it wipes out the billion-dollar prawn industry in the Gulf of Carpentaria. James Cook University, the only university to be established with its purpose in education directed toward life in the tropical world, is perfectly placed to lead this venture. We can lead the world on many fronts—from tropical medicine to clean energy generation to technology—if we seize the opportunity. This should not be a science versus development project; this should be development guided by science.
The white paper should look not only at what private enterprise will invest in but also at what private capital will not invest in. Some suggest the use of the $1.4 trillion of superannuation savings of Australians should be targeted as a driver here. I am certainly not against that, in principle, but for them to invest they must either be guaranteed a return or the enterprise must first be established and proving itself, through its returns, to be an attractive investment. We cannot speculate with the life savings of other Australians. To throw superannuation savings at speculative investments, the way a Labor-Greens government wanted to with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, would be folly of the highest order. Venture capital has its place but it must be supported by taxation reform. That is a discussion in which all Australians must play a part; I am willing to be part of that.
When Andrew Robb addressed a luncheon in Townsville on his plan to develop the north, he used this description: presently, there are roughly 500 million people in the tropical world—that is, people living between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer—who could be described as middle class. That number is expected to grow rapidly to 3.2 billion people by the year 2035. These people will want many things, including energy, quality education, quality food, cutting-edge health outcomes, holiday destinations and investment opportunities. If we miss this chance, if we sit back and do not plan, if we wait for them to come and throw money and infrastructure at us, we will be, as Lee Kuan Yew once famously suggested, the 'white trash of Asia'.
We have an opening and we must grab it and fight for it. This is too important an opportunity to miss. As a country, we need to ensure our own people are offered opportunities for personal growth and success. From our first Australians to the newest members of our society, the chance to prosper is what makes Australia great. That means that our education, industrial relations and social security systems need to be working correctly and engaged at every level.
Education is the key to everything, I believe. From health outcomes to work and pay, the better your education and attitude the better, statistically at least, you will cope. I do not have a university degree; I am an auctioneer by trade. But my life was given the best possible start by parents who loved me and believed in me and by quality teachers at Texas State School and Toowoomba Grammar School who drilled the basics into me until I knew them by heart and instinct. Under the guidance of Christopher Pyne, the coalition will allow more autonomy at the local educational level. We will empower principals and school communities to make the decisions. We need to get more decision-making capability closer to the students so that we get the best possible outcome for our future leaders. There is a lot we can do from this place to assist the states to deliver quality education. We must work together and be constructive, through COAG, to achieve better results for all Australians.
From education we go to work. We must be a country which competes on quality and service. We are a high-wage country. We can have high wages into the future if we have low input costs. Over the last two terms of government, we have seen a build-up of regulation and constraints around doing business in Australia. Cleaning these up does not mean a drop in working conditions; it means that if we want jobs we have to service the customer, not the other way around. If we do not, the customer leaves and does not come back. More than that: he tells his friends and they do not come back, either. We have needed foreign investment in Australia since 1788, and the world's capital is very mobile. We must provide the level of service and productivity we need to present a compelling case for investment. It is that simple.
I reaffirm the coalition's commitment to fair indexation for DFRDB and DFRB military superannuants from 1 July this year. The use of the CPI as the only lever for increase has diminished their pension's capacity to keep up. The inability of previous governments, going all the way back to Whitlam's, to apply the male total average weekly earnings and the pensioners and beneficiaries cost of living index measures to their pensions has gone on far too long. I am proud to be part of a government which will, from 1 July 2014, finally right this wrong.
Coming from Townsville, I am acutely aware of the service given to our community by the men and women of our ADF. We need to honour our past, and the centenary of ANZAC will be a great moment in time for all Australians. We do, however, need to be vigilant with our care of our most recent veterans. Additionally, we are also closing in on the 50th anniversary of the battle of Long Tan—surely a great moment for Australia to look back and right some more wrongs. As other members have noted in this place, this must be commemorated with respect and dignity.
I am heartened to hear that the Abbott government will work towards formal recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in our Constitution. This, along with former Prime Minister Rudd's apology to the stolen generation, is a symbolic gesture whose time has come. It will not, however, get one more person a job, stop one more person going to jail or stop one more student disengaging from the education system.
Those are things which must be corrected in conjunction with our First Australians. It must be driven by them and for them. We in this place must offer every assistance and incentive, but there must be an outcome. In many cases, we are talking about changing generational disengagement. That is not easy; it never has been. But nothing worthwhile comes with no effort. There will be mistakes and errors, and there will be people hurt along the way.
For too long, good intentioned people have sat back and made excuses or looked the other way. For too long, the answer has been to simply throw more money at the problem. It is my firm belief that money is not the answer. It has created industries where people have profited from others' misery. It has, in some cases, meant that corruption has occurred. I will make it my business to uncover corruption where the victims are the most vulnerable in our society. There must be a way to hold the individuals to account. It has to happen, and it must start now. On the weekend there was a meeting of local Aboriginal and Islander elders aimed at engaging kids at risk, not just kids in the system but kids at risk of getting into the system. That is where our focus has to be. We have to spend money, but it costs over $100,000 a year to keep someone in jail, and we have to keep that in perspective.
The answer to getting people out of poverty is worthwhile and meaningful work. Minister Andrews is always saying that the best social security you can ever give someone is a job. Senator Nigel Scullion has always made the observation that this is not a black problem; this is not a problem purely for Aboriginal and Islander people. This is a poverty problem. This problem exists everywhere in the world where poverty exists. This is a problem everywhere in the world where people cannot engage properly in education and health systems or get meaningful work. We, as a country and as a society, must stand up and be counted. There are many steps and many debates, discussions, disagreements, and knock-down, drag-out arguments that have to take place along the way. We should have these debates, but meaningful work should be the goal for every Australian.
I said in my maiden speech that no-one would be left behind. I meant it then and I mean it now. Australia is a great country and I represent the best part of that great country. North Queensland is an absolutely magnificent place, and Townsville is obviously the greatest place in North Queensland. As the Treasurer said, there are challenges, and we must produce the road map to better times, which will include bringing everyone together and allowing them to play their part. I will be doing my best to represent my city and region for the next three years. Townsville and its people are a forward-looking group. They are a group that see the glass half-full. They are the fox terrier that is always chasing after something. They are the blue cattle dog that is always looking to work. We are optimists. We are workers who get things done, and we will continue to do so. I thank the House.
Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (16:41): I begin this speech by acknowledging the traditional owners and thanking them for their continuing stewardship. It has been just over six years since we had the very first welcome to country in this parliament, under Prime Minister Rudd. It occurred before parliament started, out in the foyer, under the flag. It was a long time coming, but I am proud to say that that practice has continued. It happens every day in this parliament under a range of speakers.
Soon after that welcome to country was the apology to the stolen generations. When I look back on my six years here, I see that as my best day in parliament. There have been many good days since then, obviously. Today, welcoming into the parliament the new member for Griffith, Terri Butler—following in the footsteps of former Prime Minister Rudd—has been a good day. I welcome and look forward to working with the new member for Griffith. While acknowledging former friends, I also acknowledge the former member for Petrie, Yvette D'Ath, on her win on the weekend.
I would also like to acknowledge one of my constituents who is up in the gallery, Laurie Woods DFC, from Sunnybank. I know Laurie well. I will talk a little bit about Laurie in acknowledging him. He joined the Royal Australian Air Force in June 1942, at the tender age of 19. He only looks like he is in his late fifties; he is a little bit older. Laurie has some great books out. He is here on a book-selling tour at the moment. His books are great yarns about his time as a bomb aimer with No. 460 Squadron at RAAF Binbrook in Lincolnshire. He recalls that, by October 1944, only eight of the 49 air crew—who made up seven crews—posted to No. 460 Squadron were left alive. He tells the tale of a raid on Wanne-Eickel. When an aircraft was damaged and the pilot was wounded, Laurie had to fly the plane.
It is good to have a constituent here, Laurie. He is here having a bit of a look around Parliament House. I know him from the Sunnybank RSL. I know you were not the navigator, Laurie, but I will give you some orientation for Parliament House. We are on the eastern side. We have green carpet over here. Think of it like the military. There are 150 members of the House of Representatives, on this side of the flagpole. Think of them like the Army. The 150 House of Reps people do all the grunt work. Then, on the other side of the flagpole, on the western side, you have red carpet. It should really be white carpet, because they are like the Navy, the white ensign. We do not really know what they do over there, on the other side of the flagpole, but they are a bit like the Navy—they are important; they serve a role. But we all know, Laurie, that the most important part of Parliament House is not the front, where the public is and where you came in, but the blue-carpeted part out the back. That is just like the military; it is like the RAAF: everyone, whether they are on the green carpet or the red carpet—in the Reps or in the Senate—all want to be on the blue carpet. It is just like the ADF: everyone wants to be in the air force. Isn't that right, Laurie? I will take that interjection: 'The air force is the best!'
On a more serious note, I would like to thank you, Laurie, and the generation you represent, because not all of your flying comrades are here and not all of your military comrades are here with us today, but I do thank you and your generation for the bravery that you showed. Laurie is here with his and my publisher, Dan Kelly, who runs a printing business in my electorate. It is good to see you as well, Dan Kelly.
It really is a privilege to be able to speak in this 44th Parliament, and I am here today because of the incredible support I received from people like Laurie and the good people of Moreton, and from many volunteers, including people from the Australian Labor Party. So, to all of my friends and comrades from the union movement, to the community groups, to the organisations, to the branch members, and to my family: I thank you for the great work that you have done. I am going to mention some of those in particular: Julieanne Campbell from the AMWU, who was the volunteer coordinator, skilfully organised people to tell that Labor story. We did not have money for billboards like my opponent did; we did not have a lot of fundraising money coming our way, but we were able to go out and tell that Labor story of the things that we believe in: justice, equity and opportunity—three principles laid down on a base of dignity, employment and education. These are the things that we bring to the Australian story. I also thank Trent Abberfield from the CPSU who helped coordinate the ability to tell those stories to the people of Moreton.
I thank the community leaders. I know it is dangerous when you start mentioning some, and I will not cover all of them; I know I will not. But I would particularly like to mention Lewis Lee, who worked tirelessly throughout the campaign and has done so over the last decade or so for the people of the south side, irrespective of what political party they are connected with. I thank Melody Chen, Peter Kao, Professor Choui, Wayne Ko, Anthony Lin, Danny Yo, Peter Low, Stanley Hsu, Janeth Deen and Mustafa Ally, to name but a few.
I would also like to mention three of the hardest working Brisbane City councillors: my local councillor Steve Griffiths; Milton Dick, from the Richlands Ward; and also Nicole Johnston, who is actually not a member of the Labor Party—she is not from my tribe—but who is a great, fantastic local advocate who is always prepared to tell people what the truth is in her electorate, irrespective of the consequences. To all three of you: your support and advice on council issues was critical for the campaign we ran in Moreton.
I say so because one of the important issues was the 'Sardine City' plan which is being imposed on the people of the south side of Brisbane. I know that there is more work to be done and I am committed to carrying out more information and education campaigns about Lord Mayor Graham Quirk's 'Sardine City' plan. Also, the person who will actually be signing off on that plan when it goes to the state government will be the former lord mayor, the now premier of Queensland, Campbell Newman. He will be signing off on the 'Sardine City' plan and the incredible consequences it will have for people all over Brisbane, with much smaller backyards on much smaller lots. People will not even be consulted about what is taking place next door: you will not know that a set of units is going up until you see a tradesman's ute turn up. That is not the way that you consult with the community.
So there is more to be done. I know that we have to contact the state members connected with the south side of Brisbane—all over Brisbane, really—to make sure they understand that people are unhappy with this proposed Brisbane City plan, a plan that would forever change the character of the suburbs on the south side of Brisbane. If you have driven around that area, you know the old Queenslanders—the tin and timber that makes Queensland homes special. We will instead have no more verandahs or backyards to speak of.
I know that you need development—I am not one of those who is just focused on the 1950s—and I know that climate change is real, so we just cannot keep building further and further away from our community facilities, particularly when we have a federal government that has made a commitment not to fund public transport. That means that we cannot go further and further away. We have to have appropriate development. But it must be appropriate and it must be done in consultation with our communities. Do not hide from people like you are doing; you must have fair dinkum consultation—fair dinkum community meetings—to give people a chance to speak up, otherwise their communities will be changed forever, and we would not want it to happen in places like Moorooka or Chelmer or Graceville or Sherwood, or anywhere, basically, in Brisbane. We need to keep consulting and engaging with the community. It should not be something that people are scared of, even when it is an unpalatable discussion you are going to have. So we cannot let Campbell Newman and his white-shoe-brigade mates change our suburbs without any consultation or input from people on the south side.
I also thank the many wonderful activists from the 10 Labor Party branches that touch on Moreton. I am in the Walter Taylor branch, and I know that they are the best branch, but I also thank all of the other branches and the people who stepped up to do work: Sally from the Annerley branch was indefatigable, was seen everywhere, and really made sure that the Annerley branch continued that tradition of covering a much broader area than they actually represent. I will also mention some other activists: Cam Crowther; Rod Beisel; Sandeep Sarathy; Ricky Lee; Joan McGrath; Alice Orwat; Phil Day; Norm Bullen; Joanne Phillips; Jesse Thompson; Ines Almeida; Felix Gibson, who was the school captain of Nyanda State High School, the school that was closed down under the Newman government; Craig Wood; Jennifer and Dallas Elvery; Brendan Crotty; Sam Pigeon and all of the education people associated with those guys; Michael Oliver; Ken Boyne; Annamarie Newton; and former councillor Mark Bailey, who was also a great help with the 'Sardine City' campaign that I mentioned earlier. There are hundreds of other volunteers whose names I do not have time to go through—people who spent months and, in some cases, years going out and knocking on doors, telephoning people, and going out and doing street stalls. I was starting to think that Sally only lived on street stalls and did not have a home to go to, I saw her out so often!
I know that is a hard slog when you have policies that people have questions about, but obviously the Labor Party will only thrive when we have the ability to sit down and talk to people—to look into their eyes and say, 'This is the reasoning behind the policy; this is what we believe in; this is what we bring to the Southside.' The story in Moreton was tough. On election night 13 seats that had a bigger margin than mine fell, so it was a tough night for Labor with nearly 18 seats falling. I was fortunate enough to have a swing to me, and a lot of it goes back to the work of those volunteers in my electorate on a night when not many Labor people did have a swing to them.
I will mention my wonderful office staff: Kate, who comes to Canberra with me; Norma, who organises basically my entire life; Isaac, who, sadly, has gone back to university via Europe to become a schoolteacher and will not be in the office anymore; Peter, who always has time for individual complaints; Andrew, Melanie and Lee. I thank them and their families, because so many of their children and loved ones missed them during the election campaign because they were working above and beyond for Moreton. I make special mention of Lee Lunney, who is on maternity leave and actually delivered her baby the day before the election, probably one of the last babies in Queensland born under Prime Minister Rudd. Sid Coggins, I say hi to you. I hope you will not be too old before you get to experience another Labor Prime Minister—maybe before your third birthday even. I thank Terry Wood and Matt Jutsum especially, but the person with her hand firmly on the rudder of the good ship Moreton is my great friend and former union comrade Ros McLennan. Ros, your management of the campaign with Jules and Terry and the leadership team ensured that it ran precisely like a fine quality Swiss watch.
Finally, to my own family, to my boys Leo and Stanley and my wife Lea: thank you for the sacrifice that you have made because of my political career. I believe that every politician who is a parent is selfish. You have to be to be a politician who is connected with your electorate. Obviously our families make the sacrifice because of our commitment to our electorates, and I know the people of Moreton appreciate the fact that you were able to let me spend so much time with them rather than with you. I know that that is a sad part of being a politician. Not a day goes by in this chamber and in my office when I do not remember the sacrifices made by the hundreds of hard-working volunteers, and I will never forget those who gave so much. I say that because when I walk down the hall going to my office I have an entire wall of photographs of all the volunteers, so I know you are watching me making sure that I do my job well. I promise that I won't let you down.
I won't let you down, because I believe in striving for a brighter future—I believe in that light on the hill. It is what the Labor Party is about. We look to the future, not behind us with rose-coloured glasses dreaming about a past that never existed. I believe in tomorrow and what it can bring for all, not just looking at the past. When I first rose in this House six years ago, I promised to deliver for the people of Moreton. The best way to check on whether a politician has met their KPIs is to look at their first speech. I had a look at my first speech, and in that I made a commitment to rolling out sound barriers on Riawena Road, and that was delivered in 2008. I talked about the Toohey Road bike path, and that was delivered on 3 June 2009. The Acacia Ridge Elizabeth Street rail overpass, something that I had been campaigning on since 2003, was delivered on 5 June 2009. I also made mention of the Chinese war memorial, which Laurie would know all about because it is at the Sunnybank RSL, in consultation with the Chinese diaspora. The first sod was turned by Ralph Seeto, representing the Chinese community, and Phil Lep, representing Sunnybank RSL, on 16 July 2010. It is still a wonderful part of the community and the legacy continues every year where there is a student from local schools who also tells the story of those Chinese Australians, who were not citizens but were able to die in the service of their country. A big commitment I made going way back to 2003 was the Kessels and Mains Road upgrade. If you are in Moreton today you can actually drive under that overpass. It has taken forever and it still has a long way to go, but you can drive under the overpass today. The first sod was turned in January 2012 with the member for Grayndler after it was announced in the 2011 May budget. It should even finish early. The Southside community centre has been purchased and opened and is now being renovated in Marooka.
Six years ago I also spoke in my first speech about the importance of organ donation, because a friend of mine had just died. The Rudd government's reform of the organ donor system is one of the most significant yet one of the least-talked-about achievements of the previous government. When we assumed the government benches, organ donation was sitting at around 10 donors per million of the population, which I think everyone would agree is disgraceful. Since then, the rate has steadily risen to 15.6 and it is heading north. There is more to be done and it is bipartisan; there is a joint ticket on that one. Despite this outstanding achievement, Australia still has one of the lowest levels of organ donation in the developed world. Organ donation saves lives, and I remain committed to ensuring that this trend continues.
Another topic I mentioned in my speech was racism and the Racial Discrimination Act. I think I was elected by the people of Moreton, which is a very multicultural electorate, because I represent their values. In 2007, I ran in an election against a sitting member who had said in a radio interview: 'My community is being exhausted by African refugees.' Surely this was an opportunity to appeal to the lesser angels in Australian society. In my first speech, I made my position on racism and hate very clear:
Contrary to earlier misguided statements, I do not see an exhausted community. Instead, I see suburbs full of people who are committed to getting on with and helping their neighbours.
I think that we need to be eternally vigilant to make sure that the people of Moreton and the people of Australia understand racism.
I am concerned about the Attorney-General's intention to repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. I think that is misguided. I think that bigoted and vitriolic abuse can seriously damage one's mental health, break down community cohesion and sometimes lead to acts of physical violence. That can start with that sort of behaviour. We too often see people fanning the flames, like Alan Jones did back around the time of the Cronulla riots when he called those young men 'vermin' and 'mongrels'. That sort of stuff should never be tolerated. I am disappointed with the Attorney-General for taking this approach.
I also made a commitment to the people in my electorate that I would take steps to introduce religion as a ground of discrimination so that you can make a complaint. You can do it in Queensland under the anti-discrimination laws, and the world has not ended in Queensland because of the people's capacity to do that. So I reassert my commitment to the constituents who approached me about that, and I will work with my community to make sure that we advance that.
Obviously, what we are as the Labor Party always takes a bit of a recalibration after an election. We need to be the party of vision. We need to do the heavy lifting when it comes to making sure that Australia has a way forward. Recognising Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the Constitution is a good start. Signs and symbols represent the real world beyond. I know that we can appeal to the better angels—we have done it with refugees in the past—and not to the lesser angels, which occurs when racism and riots break out. (Time expired)
Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (17:01): I rise this afternoon to take the opportunity of speaking on this address-in-reply in the breadth in which I am able to cover issues in my electorate. Over the past seven-odd years, I have been very much saddened by what I have seen as a decline in the Cairns region. This has very much been as a direct result of poor policy decisions by the two previous Labor governments.
Initially, going back to 2007, we saw the loss of NQEA and the majority of our shipbuilding and maintenance industry as a result of the government at that time cancelling a $300 million contract to build a section of the air warfare destroyers. What was particularly galling about that was that they had allocated the contract. They then cancelled it and reissued it to a southern based firm, but, after a couple of years of not being able to deliver what was necessary and a whole lot of stuff-ups, they actually came back to the original contractor and asked if they were in a position to, in effect, re-establish their firm again to do the contract because it was not being delivered where they had sent it. Of course, unfortunately, after a couple of years, the company were no longer able to do that.
We then had the pink batts scheme, which not only caused the death of a young local electrician, 22-year-old Mitchell Sweeney, but affected many small businesses. A lot of these businesses were insulation businesses in my electorate. I remember talking to businesses which had been long established and had actually bought in stock to carry out the requirements of the scheme. Unfortunately, there were a lot of what I call carpetbaggers that came into the business and basically took all the low-hanging fruit. When the decision was made, without any consultation with the legitimate businesses in the area, they had leasing arrangements on vehicles; they had staff; and they had a whole lot of other stock, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock, which they could not give away, let alone sell. We saw some very long established businesses in our area close down as a direct result of that.
Of course, we saw the school halls debacle, where it seemed that the only businesses that won the contracts were the large multinationals. I recall talking to one of our bigger local businesses up there which had survived over a very difficult period in business in construction. I asked him what the secret of his longevity was. He said to me that one of the greatest blessings he had was that he had never, ever got a contract for the school halls, because he said they were subcontracted out to the multinationals and in many cases they were having to provide goods and services well under the actual cost of provision. Unfortunately, in that particular case, he did not survive. He eventually succumbed to a lot of these bad policies, and that business, along with hundreds of employees, was basically shut down.
We then had the live cattle debacle and the Labor Party's knee-jerk reaction, which certainly affected graziers in my electorate around the Cape York area and into the western gulf. The sad part about it, these years later, is that that impact is still being seen quite profoundly. As we go into a drought situation now, there are many cattle out on those areas that should have gone out on those boats a few years ago, but unfortunately, because they had to be retained because of that decision, they became too heavy and could not be shipped. Of course, that had flow-on effects in too much overgrazing. They could not sell them locally, and we are still seeing those flow-on effects now.
The closure of the Coral Sea was a direct result of the Labor Party promoting the lock-up mentality being pushed by the American gas company called the Pew foundation. Instead of promoting sustainable multiple use, this has pushed long-term, long-suffering family owned businesses to the edge. At the moment, while we have made a decision to reverse that decision, there is still a family there, the Lamasons, of Great Barrier Reef Tuna, who have basically been pushed over that edge and desperately need some support. Even though we have reversed it, that is still not going to save that family business, and we need to do something to make sure that they are able to retire from their industry with a level of dignity.
The proposal for the blanket World Heritage listing of Cape York was another one of those initiatives that was pushed by the Labor-Greens agenda. It has created a huge amount of uncertainty for Cape York residents and for businesses, who feared the locking up of any future economic potential. The larger landholders in the area are, of course, Indigenous people, who have campaigned for decades to recover a lot of their land and who were faced with the prospect of having no say in their future direction.
Thankfully, with the support of the state government, we are now starting to move away from that mentality and looking at conservation based on merit, accepting that landholders have a legitimate role in working on their landholdings. But the results of all these decisions that I have just explained, and many more, are very sobering. Small businesses have for years been struggling to stay afloat. Four hundred small businesses in the Far North have closed their doors in the previous two-year period. We have record unemployment levels and, at one point, they were the highest in Australia. Even today, I note, we have the second highest youth unemployment rates in the country. You have to be worried about that. Those numbers have doubled since 2007. As I say, all of these issues have had a profound impact on our region.
However, it is not all doom and gloom at this point, because Far Northerners are an optimistic bunch. We are starting to see some serious signs of recovery. A number of big-ticket projects are sitting in the wings, waiting for a start. They just need a little support. The major one that was announced was the $4.2 billion Aquis integrated resort-casino proposal for Yorkeys Knob. I congratulate Tony Fung, the proponent, for all the public information and consultation that has so far taken place. It is an unprecedented project for Far North Queensland; in fact, it is unprecedented for Australia. It is one of the largest of its kind in the world. I certainly look forward to the outcome of the EIS.
The same goes for the Mount Emerald Wind Farm project, which has been stalled for over five years. The latest storm over the delay was due to a $1 million study in relation to the 60-odd towers that they are going to put on this site and the impacts they would have on the breeding habits of the northern quoll. That delayed the project last year. This $500 million project will provide power for 75,000 homes a year. It is great to see that they are now starting to gain some momentum.
We also have the $1 billion Etheridge Integrated Agricultural Project, the 20-year $1 billion Cairns Airport redevelopment and the $1.4 billion Ella Bay resort, near Innisfail. If projects like these stack up, they will be absolute game-changers for our economy. So, rather than making excuses as to why they cannot be done, let us find a way to make them happen. Let us start looking at building infrastructure and other complementary initiatives that will have a flow-on effect. The $42 million investment in the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at JCU is a case in point.
I am very passionate about the establishment of a tropical campus for the Australian Institute of Sport. Within that $42 million investment for the tropical health and medicine faculty, there is a faculty for tropical sports medicine. So it provides an opportunity for us to grab that and go with it.
Mossman Botanical Gardens is a great project. It will cost a couple of million dollars in total to establish it, but all the prehistoric flowering trees of the Daintree rainforests of that area will be showcased. It will provide quite a unique opportunity for people to see them. The Mossman Botanical Gardens Committee have done an outstanding job in bringing this together. They have now identified a parcel of land, which they will be working on. I am hoping that they can start to turn the first sod on that sooner rather than later.
The government have also announced funding of $700 million for an essential piece of road infrastructure: the Bruce Highway from Gordonvale to Cairns. We certainly need to ensure that we keep doing that. We will not be locking up the cape with a blanket World Heritage listing. Areas such as the Quinkan Reserve, near Laura, certainly need that listing and they should be judged on their merits. I have no doubt that they will proceed once all the consultation and consents go ahead. But we need to open that area for opportunities for landholders there. The government recently found the cash for a $10 million infrastructure project in Cape York which will include a very significant amount for the Peninsula Development Road. That is the way we can start to open up opportunities for Cape York.
What the current government have done and what the previous government did not do was: firstly, speak to the state government; secondly, actually put money with the promise; and, thirdly, actually gone through a consultation process, talking to the elected leaders in the area so that we can prioritise it according to their needs. At this point I congratulate David Kempton, who is the state member for Cook. Only the other day he announced a $10 million addition to this project, for the ongoing sealing of the Peninsula Development Road.
In Cape York we also have the Scherger Air Force base, near Weipa, which I can assure will serve our community much better as an operational air base than as a 'prison farm'—which is how I refer to it. It has been used temporarily as a detention centre. Now that it is being closed down, I think we need to seriously look at the opportunities provided in the further recommendations of the defence white paper, to build its capacity as an operational base. At the same time I think we should be also looking at the expansion of HMAS Cairns, which, in my view, as we are looking at moving our defence assets north, is an absolute no-brainer. Again, we have to find ways to make these things happen and to encourage projects that will have flow-on effects in education, tropical health, tropical agriculture, tropical aquaculture and of course tropical medicine. These tie in perfectly with the coalition's Northern Australia plan.
This policy is the first I have seen in my lifetime that actually prioritises the opportunities for Northern Australia, and it will have ramifications that will last for generations. I was a member of the Northern Australia Water and Land Taskforce in 2005. We have been developing our policy since that time. The coalition government are already talking to communities. We have an extensive consultation process. We will be moving around most Northern Australia centres and talking to people about agriculture, about alternative energy opportunities, about water security and about a range of other initiatives.
We will also be looking at how to increase tourism, given that tourism is the largest industry in Cairns, my home town. We are looking to increase tourism to two million international visitors a year, and a key market for us is China. Chinese visitors to Australia grew nearly 16 per cent in 2012, to more than 626,000, and they spent $4.2 billion. The Tourism 2020 Strategy estimates that China has the potential to grow to between $7.4 billion and $9 billion in real expenditure by 2020. Northern Australia will get a significant slice of that pie.
I applaud the coalition initiative in dealing with the root of problems in obtaining visas for Chinese tourists. It is all about a collaborative effort, and we have identified electronic visas, multi entry visas and urgent-processing visas as the things the Chinese market is looking for. There are many other countries competing for that market; many have already seen their opportunities and grabbed them. It is important that we do the same. That is the sort of initiative that will encourage Chinese airlines to commit to Australia. We also need to raise awareness about the value of pre-clearance in Cairns for PNG travel and goods. That is something else we need to organise, and I have been in discussions with the minister on that issue.
There is also a range of social issues I intend to keep focusing on. Mental Health is one that I have been raising for many years. Local organisations such as the Declan Crouch Foundation face an ongoing battle raising money for suicide prevention. They are trying to raise money for adolescent facilities in Cairns. They do an incredible job raising awareness. Ruth Crouch, whose family suffered the tragedy of losing her young son Declan through suicide, has been absolutely focused on getting adolescent beds at Cairns Hospital, but we have to expand it more than that. We have to make sure our existing mental health services, particularly in juvenile mental health, are not only safe but also adequately funded. I have been working with organisations including the Cairns Mental Health Carers' Hub and the Time Out House. They play an integral role for people with mental health issues, and it is vital that we do not lose these services. In fact, it is critical that we expand them.
In aged care the Mossman District Nursing Home project is extremely worthwhile but, under the current quota system, cannot get the bed allocations and funding grants it needs to get up and running. It has been going now for as long as I have been a member—that is, since 1996. I am told that the minister is currently working through issues with the department and the Prime Minister regarding an ACAR system, and I welcome any developments that arise.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Ageing owns the Star of the Sea facility on Thursday Island, which is an appalling facility. Over the past few years I have been raising this with the previous government to no avail. Fortunately I have been able to get Minister Fifield to affirm the commitment to better aged care in the Torres Strait. The coalition will develop a Torres Strait aged-care master plan, which will be produced in consultation with the state and local governments, the Torres Strait Regional Authority and the local community. The community itself will have the opportunity to have a say on the future of aged care in their region.
I also had the opportunity to get the funding for the sea walls—another of my long-time chestnuts. I managed to get the $12 million that was committed by former minister Simon Crean about 18 months ago. We have that money now and they can now start work. It is great to see that we were able to find those funds.
Insurance, affordability and lack of insurance availability, is another major issue in my region. Senator Arthur Sinodinos is absolutely on board and doing some fabulous work. He is keenly aware that insurance affordability continues to cause financial and emotional strain, and he is also concerned about the impact of high insurance prices on the region's economic growth. I am hoping that over the next couple of months there will be some significant announcements made in relation to dealing with some of these problems. There are a lot of initiatives that we will be announcing shortly.
We are on the cusp of a prosperous and brilliant future for the first time in many years. You can feel it. There is confidence in the air, our tail is up and there is even a bit of a wag in it. But it will not happen unless we want it to. We need to be looking at ways that we can facilitate these initiatives in economically, socially and environmentally sustainable ways. We cannot revert to what has happened in the past. We cannot allow the naysayers to squander these opportunities by continuing to search for reasons that they should not be realised.
I am excited at the prospect of being able to work with my home community to make this a reality. This is our chance; let us grasp it.
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (17:21): I am absolutely delighted tonight to be able to speak on the address-in-reply and to use this opportunity to spend some time talking about my much-loved electorate of Canberra. It has often occurred to me that I might be the only member of parliament who can guarantee that every other member of parliament has visited their electorate. Of course, I am not just talking about a flying visit; Canberra is your home for around 20 weeks a year. If your parliamentary career is long, that might be 20 weeks a year for as many as 20 years.
One might assume therefore that Canberra is everyone's home away from home; that you all have strong connections with my electorate and know it well. Unfortunately, I do not think this is the case. I think that, for most MPs and senators, almost all of the time spent here in Canberra is spent within the confines of this very building. Understandably, you want to get home to your electorates as soon as possible; however, I believe that as a result you are missing out on a great opportunity to get to know this wonderful city.
In my first speech in this place I said that I hope that in my time here I might convince more Australians to be proud of our national capital. I stand by this statement. However, I would also like to add that, in particular, I would like to improve the relationship between our federal parliamentarians and Canberra. Today I would like to issue an open invitation to all members of parliament on all sides to spend some time outside of this building while you are here—and not just driving to and from your apartment and a few restaurants around the inner south. If you did, what you would find is an incredibly diverse city—something far from the dull, boring, monotonous, concrete jungle which is so often depicted.
You can visit the very south of my electorate—suburbs like Gordon, Banks and Condor—and you could come with me to the Lanyon Youth Centre, where the YWCA runs a wonderful range of services for the youth of the south of Tuggeranong. While Canberra has a reputation for being full of highly paid, highly educated public servants, there is enormous social isolation in the very south of Canberra. The Lanyon Youth Centre regularly takes teenagers on trips into Civic. For many of these teenagers—and I know this is an extraordinary story—this trip is the first time they have ever seen Lake Burley Griffin.
You could travel a little further up the electorate to the Tuggeranong Town Centre, where my electorate office is based. Like so many Canberra town centres, Tuggeranong is perched on a beautiful lake. I have often heard it called the 'Venice of the south'. Tuggeranong is home to several government agencies, including the Department of Human Services and the department formerly known as FaCHSIA, now the Department of Social Services. The small businesses of Tuggeranong, predominantly in the hospitality, retail and automotive sectors, rely on the patronage of these public servants to support their business. Every time public service jobs are lost from Tuggeranong, these businesses suffer. Right now there are reports that IT jobs at the Department of Human Services will be moved out of Canberra, and Tuggeranong businesses are bracing themselves for this.
Like Tuggeranong, Woden is a town centre that is home to Commonwealth public service agencies. The Department of Health, among others, is based here. The staff of the Department of Health work hard in vital areas such as preventative health, mental health reform, vaccinations and immunisations. However, Prime Minister Abbott has questioned the value of these staff because they do not—according to him—'run a single hospital or nursing home, dispense a single prescription or provide a single medical service'. But I know that those Australians who have benefitted from programs such as national mental health reform value these staff immensely.
To the west of my electorate is the beautiful Weston Creek, one of the original districts of the ACT. Many suburbs in Weston Creek were devastated by the bushfires in 2003. All four lives that were lost on that terrible day were from this area. Today, the suburbs of Weston Creek have been rebuilt and they are thriving. New suburbs, too, are being built just north of Weston Creek, in the Molonglo Valley. These new suburbs are at the foot of Mount Stromlo, on top of which is perched the beautiful Mount Stromlo Observatory. Also devastated by the 2003 fires, the observatory has been rebuilt and is now, once again, a thriving and world-leading hub of space and spatial innovation.
To the east of my electorate you will find the industrial suburbs of Hume and Fyshwick—both of which are home to a range of small businesses and local industries and defence industries as well. These are the suburbs where the innovation that is required to diversify the ACT's economy is occurring.
The suburbs that surround this building, the inner south, are probably more familiar to my colleagues. This is where many of you live for 20 weeks a year. Some of your neighbours here in the inner south include the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service—an Aboriginal community run primary healthcare facility that services not just the ACT but also much of New South Wales. Just down the road is the Narrabundah Ball Park—home to the Canberra Cavalry, the Canberra baseball team made up of part-timers and amateurs that recently beat the multimillion dollar teams of Japan and Korea to be crowned Asian Baseball Champions.
The diversity of Canberra—geographic, economic and social—was a part of Canberra's design. For the most part we have Sir Robert Menzies to thank for that. Menzies did not like Canberra very much at first, and who can blame him? At the time he moved here Canberra was referred to as 'a cemetery with lights', 'the ruin of a good sheep station' and 'six suburbs in search of a city'. Menzies said:
I cannot honestly say that I liked Canberra very much; it was to me a place of exile; but I soon began to realise that the decision had been taken, that Canberra was and would continue to be the capital of the nation, and that it was therefore imperative to make it a worthy capital; something that the Australian people would come to admire and respect; something that would be a focal point for national pride and sentiment. Once I had converted myself to this faith, I became an apostle.
And an apostle he was, as Prime Minister Menzies put his government to the task of creating a capital worthy of the nation and a city that was truly the seat of government. Menzies declared his intention to 'build up Canberra as a capital in the eyes and minds of the Australian people'.
The establishment by Menzies of the National Capital Development Commission in 1958 was key to this vision. The National Capital Development Commission identified four principal tasks in its first annual report. These were to: complete the establishment of Canberra as the seat of government; to further its development as the administrative centre by providing facilities to permit further transfer of public servants from Melbourne—and those final public servants were not transferred from Melbourne to Canberra until 1990; to give Canberra an atmosphere and individuality worthy of the national capital; and to further the growth of the city as a place in which to live in comfort and dignity.
The commission adopted what was known a 'Y-plan' for decentralised development, or what we now call the satellite city concept, and built four new towns called Woden-Weston Creek, Belconnen, Tuggeranong and Gungahlin. Each of these parts of Canberra is as important as the next. Each of these town centres must prosper in order for Canberra as a whole to prosper. They must be properly supported through investment, through infrastructure, through population and—most importantly—through jobs.
Over the last year, most times that I have stood in this chamber to speak about my electorate, I have spoken about my fears for Canberra, my concern about Canberra's future. Today is no exception. The prosperity of Canberra, the ACT and the capital region is inextricably linked with the Commonwealth Public Service. While the proportion of Canberrans directly employed by the Commonwealth Public Service has decreased over time, it is still our largest employer. We must also remember that many Canberra small businesses, sole traders, microbusinesses, and even large businesses, rely on the federal government as a major client. So, when a government comes to power with a promise to substantially cut the Public Service, as the Abbott government has done, it must be aware that it is jeopardising the economy of the entire ACT and surrounding New South Wales.
Here we can learn an important lesson from our past. In 1996 John Howard was elected promising to cut 2½ thousand Public Service jobs. That ended up being over 30,000 Public Service jobs nationally and more than 15,000 here in Canberra. The impact on the Canberra economy was devastating. Fifteen thousand people out of work meant 15,000 people no longer patronising Canberra's small businesses, buying their products and using their services. Business bankruptcies in Canberra increased by 38.4 per cent in the 1996-97 financial year. Non-business bankruptcies also jumped sharply in 1995-96, by 38 per cent, and again in 1996-97, by 17 per cent.
The flow-on effects for Canberra's housing market were equally devastating. Between March 1995 and March 1998 the median house price in Australian capital cities grew by $22,950, or 17 per cent, and the median across the whole of Australia by $19,240, or 15 per cent. However, in Canberra the median house price fell by $5,750, or four per cent. In terms of the price index for established homes, over the same period Canberra's index fell by 3.7 points, in comparison to an increase of 11 points in the weighted average of Australian capital cities. Effectively $25,000 was slashed from the average Canberra house price. On 31 May last year the member for North Sydney made a joke on morning TV. He said, 'There is a golden rule for real estate in Canberra: you buy Liberal and you sell Labor.' He then proceeded to laugh wholeheartedly. I for one do not think the financial hardship of Canberrans is a laughing matter.
The reason I remember the coalition government job cuts of 1996 so clearly is that I was one of the 30,000 public servants to lose my job. In 1996 I was working at the Australian High Commission in New Delhi. Three months into a three-year posting I was called in to the high commissioner's office. The then high commissioner, Darren Gribble, is a friend and a man who always gets straight to the point. 'You've been sacked,' he said. I was shattered, and I was not the only one. It was a message that was being delivered around the world that day to 50 of my colleagues, as the entire public affairs division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was given its marching orders.
At the turn of 1997 I returned to a city that was devastated. In 1996 Canberrans learnt what can happen to this city when there is a government with no regard for our national capital, no understanding of the relationship between the Commonwealth Public Service and the economy of the ACT and region, and no appreciation for what public servants do. These are servants of democracy. They perform incredibly important jobs for the benefit of the nation. Every single public servant I have ever met is incredibly altruistic. They joined because they wanted to serve their country, and this government has little or no regard for that service and the job of a public servant.
The Abbott government was elected promising to cut at least 14,000 Commonwealth Public Service jobs 'as a starting point', to quote the Treasurer. It also promised to move thousands more Public Service jobs out of Canberra. At various points in the lead-up to the election, the then opposition promised to move government agencies out of Canberra to places including Tasmania, Geelong, the Central Coast and various northern Australian cities, like Karratha, Darwin and Cairns.
As I have already stated, it was the vision of none other than Sir Robert Menzies to 'build up Canberra as a capital in the eyes and minds of the Australian people'—and so he did. Menzies created a capital worthy of this nation, and now the party he led is seeking to destroy that vision. The truth is that over 60 per cent of the Commonwealth Public Service is already located outside of Canberra, and moving more Public Service jobs out of this town will only destroy it. Canberrans young and old are now waiting with bated breath and a large degree of fear. We are waiting for the Commission of Audit to report. We are waiting for the May budget. We are waiting to see how our city will fare.
There is so much to value about this city. I wish those opposite could see that. Last year, as you will be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, Canberra celebrated its centenary—100 years since Lady Denman, wife of the then Governor-General, Lord Denman, announced that the name of the new Australian capital would be Canberra. And what a celebration it was. The centenary celebrations highlighted the diversity and creativity of the people and industries in Canberra and the region as well as the significant and ongoing contribution that Canberra makes to the nation. Last year we saw Canberra at its best, from the Canberra Day celebrations in March, which included a symphony and a ballet commissioned especially for Canberra, and the world's longest champagne bar, to the international sporting events that were held in Canberra for the very first time.
Through the celebrations, we learnt more about the communities we are connected with in the Murray-Darling Basin, through the One River project; we saw the best theatre Australia has to offer, through the Canberra Theatre's special centenary season; we recognised the importance of the ACT's unique villages, through Unmade Edges; and we opened previously inaccessible parts of the ACT, with the Centenary Trail. We learnt more about our history, and we thought more about our future. The program of centenary celebrations was outstanding, and if I were to detail my own highlights we would be here for hours. The centenary has enabled Canberrans to celebrate what they love about this city. I hope that it has also enabled Australians outside of Canberra—including those opposite—to think of their national capital in a new light, to think of Canberra not just as the home of parliament but as a thriving, diverse and special place.
I would like to take this opportunity formally to acknowledge the work of the Centenary of Canberra unit, especially of Creative Director Robyn Archer, and the ACT government for their vision and their tireless work and dedication in making last year's celebrations truly wonderful. I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the Canberra area, the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. While we celebrate 100 years of Canberra as the national capital, it is important to remember that their connection with this land is measured not in hundreds of years but in tens of thousands of years, and that their role as owners and custodians of this land is as important today as it was thousands of years ago and will be in the future.
The most important thing I want to do today is to thank the people of Canberra for re-electing me to serve as their representative in this place for a second term. It is a truly great honour to stand here representing the wonderful people of Canberra—the public servants, military and civilian defence personnel, the small business people, the teachers, the students, the scientists, the carers, the community workers and the tradies.
This morning a group of students from Canberra Grammar School visited Parliament House and one student asked me what I thought I could do or wanted to achieve in opposition. My answer was simple: to hold the government to account and to protect Canberra. This is my promise to Canberrans. If I can do only one thing in this term, it will be to do everything in my power to protect our beloved city, to protect our schools, to protect our health care, to protect our jobs and to protect our community. You know, Canberra, I will advocate for you, you know I will promote you and protect you, and seek to protect you, and you know I will fight for you.
Finally—because this speech is formally a reply to the words of Her Excellency the Governor-General in opening the 44th Parliament—I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Governor-General, Her Excellency the Honourable Quentin Bryce, AC, CVO. I had the great honour yesterday to attend a farewell lunch for the Governor-General at Government House. I also had the honour to attend the presentation of the posthumous VC to the parents of the late Corporal Baird on Wednesday. It was a very moving service. So in the course of one week I have attended two extraordinary events, both held with great dignity by the Governor-General. Yesterday was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what an excellent role model the Governor-General has been, not only as Governor-General but throughout her life. She has spent a lifetime breaking glass ceilings, she has been a pioneer for women and an eternal advocate for those less fortunate.
I know the Governor-General is much loved by the Canberra community. I have seen her at a number of events, including when she opened the new Canberra Rape Crisis Centre in Weston. At that event, she recounted the stories of when she was setting up women's refuges and rape crisis centres in the 1970s and how she managed to perform miracles on the smell of an oily rag. Her commitment to women's rights, women's health and women's wellbeing was particularly prevalent in the speech she made that day. The Governor-General is also very active in providing housing for less fortunate women.
On behalf of Canberrans, I want to say that it has been our absolute honour to have her as a resident of this city for the last five years. I think she has enjoyed her time here. Yesterday, she spoke about Canberrans in very fond terms—about the gardens at Government House, about the animals at Government House and about the infamous noisy cockatoos. She will be very much missed by Canberra. We look forward to seeing her and to welcoming her back to this city. She will forever be an honorary Canberran.
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) (17:41): I appreciate the opportunity to join the debate this evening to provide an update to the House in relation to the bushfires which have impacted the Gippsland region over the past couple of weeks. There is a bitter irony in the fact that just as we were commemorating and recognising the fifth anniversary of the Black Saturday bushfires on 7 February where, tragically, 173 people died in Victoria, the weather combined with some existing fires across the state of Victoria on 8 and 9 February to provide quite horrendous conditions. We were exposed again to another devastating series of fires across Victoria, particularly in the Gippsland region. On 9 February the extreme weather contributed to four large fires across the Gippsland electorate.
There were fires in the eastern part which continued to develop on that particular day. One was around Latrobe Valley in Morwell-Driffield area. One fire was around the South Gippsland region through Jack River near Yarram. Another was through the rural area surrounding Bairnsdale, around Glenaladale and what we call the Fingerboards area. The other one was at what we call the Goongerah complex, a massive fire in the order of 130,000 hectares north-west of Orbost in the Bonang and Bendoc area. For the sake of members, I will run through the responses to the fires by our volunteers, the professional firefighters and the agencies involved, and the local community. I will give an update on things now in the Gippsland region.
The South Gippsland fire near Jack River threatened the townships of Yarram and Devon North and burnt through in the order of 5,000 hectares of mainly agricultural land but also through pine plantations and quite difficult terrain. There were significant losses of equipment through the HVP plantations, loss of assets in the pine plantations themselves and there were agricultural losses. In many ways I think we were quite fortunate with that fire. If the northerly winds had continued for much longer and pushed the fire down towards the south before that southerly change came, the township of Yarram would have been threatened. So in some ways we dodged a bullet in the region that day through Yarram and Devon North.
Another fire which has been extinguished and contained was in the Glenaladale area, which is at the back of Lindenow in the foothills. There had been a fire burning a couple of weeks earlier, but on that day of extreme conditions the fire flared up again. Despite the efforts of departmental personnel and CFA volunteers, that fire got up and running on 9 February when we lost homes and a lot of outbuildings. Stock losses were also quite significant. I do not have the final tally with me; it is still being accounted for. There have been significant stock losses and a large amount of fencing has been lost from what was a very fast moving fire. The hot northerlies pushed the fire from the foothills down into the farming areas.
It is not all bad news. I had the opportunity to fly over the fire front a couple of days afterwards and it was obvious from the air that many people in that region had been very well prepared. They had their fire plans, they implemented them and that saved their properties. Though we did lose homes, there were some remarkable saves on that day. I pay credit to the agencies involved right across the Gippsland in working with the local community, spreading the message, informing them and preparing for the inevitability of fire during the dry and hot summer that we have just experienced.
My good friend Ewan Waller, the former Chief Fire Officer of Victoria, is one of those who saved his home. I know Ewan has been very busy within the community in these last 10 days helping with the recovery effort. In company with Ewan, I had the opportunity just last week to meet a family who, unfortunately, did lose their entire home. They lost property and suffered significant stock loss—in this case, they lost their entire goat herd. I saw their resilience and determination to rebuild and get on with their lives. Admittedly, right now it is a very difficult for them to figure out which job to start with, but they are determined to rebuild and get on with their lives. It was a great opportunity for me to meet with local residents and get a better understanding of how the fire has impacted on them.
The Goongerah complex fires are still causing major concerns in the east of the state. The fire started from lightning strikes. At various times over the last few weeks, it has threatened townships such as Bonang, Deddick, Goongerah and Bendoc, and also Buchan and Orbost at one stage. I visited the incident control centre on the eve of the day the fire really got going again. There were 500 personnel on the ground over that weekend, with people from right across Victoria, New South Wales and the parks service as well as the volunteers and contractors. Private contractors are such an important part of the firefighting effort in our regional communities. It is one of the key reasons that I am such a strong supporter of the timber industry. The timber industry brings with it equipment, material and people who know the bush and can go in there and help save properties and lives in desperate circumstances. This is a vast fire. It is in the order of 130,000 hectares. It is primarily in a remote area, but there are homes and properties there, and there have been losses from this fire.
It is the biggest fire we have seen in Victoria for quite some time and it will require a substantial amount of rain to extinguish it completely. The people in that community have been on high alert now for three or four weeks and the stress on families is genuine. They do not know when the fire is going to emerge again from the bush. It will threaten their livelihood and it will threaten their homes.
As the local member and a resident of Gippsland, it has been very pleasing that we have not lost any lives in these fires. The tragedy of Black Saturday was the number of lives that were lost. We did learn some lessons from Black Saturday about the need to leave early if you are not properly prepared and to seek refuge rather than to put yourself into a situation where you might be exposed to an inferno of the magnitude we have seen develop in Gippsland over the last couple of weeks.
In providing this update to the House tonight, I would like to thank the volunteers and the staff of all the emergency services and the local community groups like the Red Cross, and other organisations like the VFF and those who have rallied to help people who have been affected by the bushfires. I would like to thank our local councillors and the staff for the work that they do in very difficult times and the police and emergency services personnel. Gippslanders are a resilient bunch, but their resilience has been tested many times in recent years. I am sure we will recover and I encourage people, as they continue to face the fire threat, to put the safety of their families first.
There is one fire that is still causing a great amount of concern in Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley—that is, the Morwell mine fire. Members here in Canberra or from Sydney may not have heard much about this fire. In Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley region this is a fire that is causing a great deal of angst. People are becoming angry and frustrated with the amount of smoke, which is particularly affecting the township of Morwell, where there are health concerns. On the weekend that fire started there was a fire already burning at Hernes Oak, which is to the west of Morwell near Moe. It burnt down the Princes Highway corridor and ended up threatening the outskirts of Morwell. No primary residences were lost but an amount of shedding and fencing was lost. At one stage that fire got into the Maryvale mill site and burnt into the woodchips and the log stack. That was a huge concern for our community. There are 1,000 jobs associated with the Maryvale mill. That mill was threatened during the night and I pay credit to the people on the ground who managed to put that fire out and save the mill, and in doing so they saved 1,000 jobs. It would be very difficult for anyone to rebuild the Maryvale mill had it been lost on that night. It caused significant disruption and the highway was closed. The fire crossed the highway and burnt towards Morwell.
At the same time another fire which we believe was deliberately lit started on the Strzelecki Highway and burnt towards the Morwell mine, where the Hazelwood power station is and spotted into the mine. It ignited a redundant area of the mine on the northern face and started a coal fire. Anyone who has had experience with coal fires understands that these are very difficult fires to fight. It is not like a grass fire or a bushfire where you can hit it hard and hope to put it out. A coal fire takes time and unfortunately the patience of my community has been well and truly tested over these past two weeks as that coal fire has continued to burn.
There are three key issues for the community at the moment in relation to the Morwell mine fire, as I see it. One is that we need to put the fire out as soon as we possibly can. It started outside the mine. It was deliberately lit. I do not blame the mine personnel at all. The fact that someone lit this fire grates with my entire community more than you can believe. Resources have to be applied to that fire and to make sure it is put out as soon as possible. The second is the need to protect the health of local residents, particularly the young, the elderly and the more vulnerable who have existing health concerns. It is important that we get those health messages out to our community as much as we possibly can. The third is that we have to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent a recurrence of a fire like this. There will be sources of ignition, whether a lightening strike, an accident or an arsonist, and we just need to minimise the damage or reduce the fuel load when that occurs.
In relation to the open-cut mines in the Latrobe Valley, we need to make sure that any of the disused sections of these mines are properly rehabilitated to minimise the likelihood of future fires in those parts of the mines. In the day-to-day operation of open-cut mines sprinklers prevent any outbreak where the working face is involved. However, in the disused sections of the mine we need to make sure we minimise the likelihood of future fires occurring. That means proper remediation and rehabilitation of the disused sections. I am not seeking to apportion blame in that regard, because we are talking about a section of the mine that has not been used for 30 years. It was decommissioned 30 years ago under the former SEC. The site has been there a long time and it has not been fully rehabilitated, but we need to make sure, having learnt a lesson from this event, that a fire of this magnitude does not occur again.
To appreciate the difficulties, the discomfort and the concerns of the people of Morwell, you need to visit the town when the fire is burning and the prevailing winds are blowing the smoke directly across the town. It is like sitting around a campfire for six or seven hours with the smoke never leaving you. Ash and smoke are descending on the town on a constant basis. The challenges for the community to manage that for an extended period are very real, and I empathise with people concerned about their personal health and the health and wellbeing of their families and friends.
For the sake of completeness, I provide an update on the operation to suppress the fire. The latest update is provided by GDF SUEZ Hazelwood and I have made it available on my Facebook site. It indicates that work is continuing 'around the clock with all the relevant authorities to combat the fire in the Morwell mine and reduce the level of smoke' and impact it is having on people in the valley. Crews from the CFA, the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, along with mine personnel and contractors, are working there. The update says:
Over the past 72 hours crews have begun to gain the upper hand, with several milestones including significant blackening out of more than 300 metres of the Northern mine faces, more than 200 metres on the South-east faces …
The Northern mine face is creating the most angst for the people of Morwell, because the smoke and ash from it are descending on the town. Vehicles have arrived from Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory fire services. They are using compressed air foam systems to assist with fire suppression work. CFA strike teams have been in there, along with crane monitors and aerial fire suppression appliances involving long-line helicopters and sky-cranes. All have been instrumental in helping to progress the efforts to suppress this fire.
It is fair to say that a lot of resources—I understand, in the order of a couple of hundred people—have been applied to the fire. I am confident that the incident controllers are getting on top of the event and are reducing the impact on the local community. But I do sympathise and empathise with the local residents who feel as if they have been neglected. They believe the broader Australian community is not aware of the conditions they are enduring. I want to assure the residents of the Latrobe Valley-Morwell district that along with my state colleague, Russell North, who has been out and about almost every day working with the agencies and supporting his community, we have been regularly updating the upper echelons of both the state and the federal governments on the fire. We have made sure that the information provided to people regarding their health and fire suppression activities is distributed more widely.
It is fair to say that in the early days—the first four or five days after the fire started—there was not enough information given to the community. They did not know what was going on and the possible risks to their health. I am happy that in the past week various agencies, such as the Department of Health, the Department of Human Services and the EPA and CFA, have been getting information to the community and providing people with better updates highlighting steps that need to be taken by those with a pre-existing health concern or those worried about family members with respiratory conditions. This is a challenging time for the Morwell district community. No-one should be under any illusions about how difficult this firefight is. It is probably going to take another couple of weeks before it is completely under control and the smoke is reduced to the extent that people can go about their normal lives. In the meantime, I assure the people of the Morwell district and the broader Latrobe Valley that I am working with the state government and the federal government on steps we can take to alleviate their concerns.
I turn to my re-election as the member for Gippsland. In my maiden speech in 2008 I reflected on what a great honour and privilege it is to be elected to this place. It is hard to imagine that is almost six years ago. It has been quite a journey in partnership with my community. I vowed at that time that I would never take that honour for granted and I hope I have fulfilled my end of the contract with the voters of Gippsland. When you enter this place you have an unwritten contract with your constituents. To my mind the contract is always to put the needs of the people of Gippsland first. I have endeavoured to do that at every opportunity over the past six years. I will aim to work on several key projects during this next term in government, in partnership with state and local government authorities and the broader community. It will come as no surprise to anyone in my community that my key focus remains on job creation and helping young people in the Gippsland region to achieve their full potential.
To that end, I will be working towards delivering several key projects over the next few years. I do not guarantee every one of these projects will be delivered, but we are working on these projects as a community and I think they are very important for our region. One is the Latrobe Regional Hospital redevelopment, which is the most essential health service upgrade east of Melbourne. The plan is for a $65 million redevelopment of Latrobe Regional Hospital. The project is still awaiting funding. The previous federal government did not fund it, although I acknowledge it funded other regional hospital projects under the regional priority rounds. Unfortunately we did not secure funding for the LRH project even though it met all the criteria. I will still work with my state and federal colleagues on ways to fund the project in the future.
There is another project I am particularly passionate about in my new role as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence but also in my ongoing role as the member for Gippsland, and that relates to the East Sale RAAF base and further upgrades of that facility. It is a magnificent RAAF base with a long association with the Gippsland community. There is already some work going on at the moment in the form of a $180-million redevelopment, which I had the opportunity to show the Minister for Defence and the Chief of Air Force just last week when they visited the Sale region. There are opportunities for further growth of the East Sale RAAF base and the community is keen to pursue those. In particular, the community in the Wellington shire is supporting a bid to bring the AIR 5428 contract to East Sale in the future. That is a competitive tender process but I know that the Wellington Shire Council is particularly keen to see that succeed.
More generally in terms of road funding initiatives, I am supporting efforts to upgrade the Princes Highway, not only the Traralgon-Sale duplication but also through Roads to Recovery, through accident black spots, through the Bridges Renewal Program and by making sure that Gippsland receives its fair share of any finding that is available through both the state and federal governments.
In 2015 there will be investment in the Stronger Regions Fund delivered by The Nationals and the Liberals in government, which will see $200 million invested each year in local capital works projects. Again, I will be making sure that my community receives a fair share of that funding commitment.
Gippsland will always expect its local member to fight hard to secure its share of funding, whether it be for capital works or for other projects, but I still maintain that our greatest asset remains our people. I mentioned before how incredibly resilient they have been in the face of adversity in recent times, whether it is young or old, black or white, we do have a very resilient community who are prepared to work together and who are determined to get on with their lives and help each other through volunteering, whether it be through sporting or through our various community groups.
I thank the people of Gippsland for the confidence they have shown in me over the last three elections. I intend to repay that faith in my efforts as the member for Gippsland and also in my new role as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence. I would like to thank my family, friends, supporters and staff for their tireless efforts and their enduring patience. We ask a lot of our families in this place. I would like to wish all members a successful term in the 44th Parliament.
Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (17:59): It is a great honour to once again represent the people of Throsby, and I thank them for returning me for my second term in this parliament. I undertake to do this with the same vigour that I did in my first term as their member. Can I take the opportunity to congratulate all the new and returning members to the 44th Parliament.
At the opening of this parliament we gathered in the Senate chamber for the Governor-General's address. The Governor-General, I should say, undertakes her functions with an energy and dedication that would shame the most fervent of democrats, but when this ageing ritual is laid bare it rubs more than just a little at the Australian sense of democracy. The journey for members of the House of Representatives to the Senate remains a misguided nod to mother England. Lords down-under it is not but, still, we gather there in obedience in belief that the vice-regal should not address us all in the Commons. I say that it would do no harm to the splendour of the day if we were to gather for this formal occasion in the Great Hall, as has been recommended by many members of both sides of the House on several occasions over the last decade.
By tradition the Governor-General's address is given on the advice of the government of the day. While ever we remain a constitutional monarchy, with the King or Queen of England as our head of state, the monarch's representative in Australia deserves better advice than that that has been provided by this government. What we heard at the opening of this parliament was not a program for the betterment of our nation—not at all. For those who had hoped that the Abbott government could convert their seductively simple slogans into the necessarily complex policy, it has not started well.
I remind the House that while the first act of the Rudd Labor government was an apology to the stolen generation, one of the first acts of the Abbott government was necessarily to apologise to the leaders of the Asia-Pacific region for the Prime Minister's own oafish remarks as opposition leader and beyond. I have got to say that he had much to be sorry for.
While the government of Australia has changed, the challenges we face as a nation certainly have not. At the recent federal election, I stood on a platform that included taking strong action on climate change. I took this position because I believe in the science and because I believe that I do not want my children to have to pay the price for our generation's wanton indolence. This problem will simply not go away. The longer we wait, the more expensive it will be to make the necessary changes to deal with this threat. Our responsibility here is to heed the expert advice and to reflect that advice in policy and legislation. And when seeking advice on climate change matters, I err in favour of the scientists over the radio shock jocks. I agree with the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and with many other experts who say that climate change is underway and we need to take action now to slow and adjust that effect.
I support putting in place measures which are effective and have the lowest cost to taxpayers and to the economy as a whole. In my view, Labor's policy meets this test; the Abbott government's does not. The major snag in the government's obsessive crusade to repeal the carbon tax is that it leaves no useful or sensible policy in its place. Labor on this issue is on the right side of history. We want to make sure that Australia is not left doing nothing on the issue. We support ending the carbon tax. We do not agree with axing the law which caps it.
Since coming to government less than six months ago the Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, has presided over the loss of 63,000 full-time jobs. That is over 10,000 jobs a month, 2½ thousand jobs a week, 350 jobs a day. This is despite his promise to create one million jobs within five years. Contrast this to Labor's record—employment grew by over 960,000 jobs, with more people in work than at any time during our nation's history, despite the global financial crisis.
The government wants to dismiss their critics, particularly their economic critics, as champions of entitlement or the 'protectors of protection'. They beg us to avert our gaze from the thousands of jobs that are currently being lost and focus somewhere down the track—focus on the future. This is cold comfort for the workers in Geelong, in Elizabeth, in Altona, in Shepparton and in the suburbs of my own electorate, where one in 10 jobs have traditionally relied on the manufacturing sector.
While the Treasurer executes his own war on entitlements, I will be championing my constituents' entitlement to a decent job with fair pay that enables them to meet their cost-of-living pressures. Indifference to the loss of industrial jobs is a problem. The failure to have a plan to help those who are looking for work right now is a tragedy, which turns the entreaty for us to look to the future into a cruel farce. It is unusual in an act of leadership to entreat us to hope for less, but this is exactly what the Treasurer is asking us to do. Make no mistake, this is what this war on entitlements is all about.
I have to say the coalition likes a war. The Prime Minister has waged his war on the ABC. The education minister, despite not having done a skerrick of policy work in opposition, has launched a cultural war against universities, a three-day school funding war that did not end very well for him, a war against the national curriculum and, last week, a war on teacher training. But, Deputy Speaker, with an eye on more than his current job, the Treasurer is not going to be outdone: he is launching his own war on your entitlements and he is gathering his troops. They are never upfront with the Australian people about this; they do not talk straight. After weeks of broken promises on education, the National Broadband Network, debt and many other things, the Prime Minister simply waved it away as miscommunication—in his words:
We are going to keep the promise that we actually made, not the promise that some people thought that we made, or the promise that some people might have liked us to make.
This is the man who warned us not to believe anything he said unless it was written in stone.
The coalition, Deputy Speaker, wants you to think that an 'age of entitlement' refers to somebody else's entitlements, not yours—somebody, perhaps, who is undeserving of that which they receive. Make no mistake, this is a war on the entitlements of working people, a war on the entitlements of families, a war on the entitlements of pensioners. It is not a war on the entitlements of mining companies or wealthy CEOs. Let's be clear about what this actually means. This is about the affordability of health care. This is about a decent living wage. This is about dignity at work and in retirement. It is a war on equality in education, on a clean and sustainable environment and on reliable access to decent broadband. These are the real markers of a fair society and the real markers of what a responsible government will deliver. These are things that Australians have a right to feel entitled to.
In the Illawarra we are undergoing an economic transformation from the traditional manufacturing and mining industries towards growing retail, education, ICT and service sectors. However, despite its tremendous attributes, the region also includes some high levels of social disadvantage and higher than the national average of unemployment. The economic future of this region is heavily dependent on reliable, superfast broadband that the NBN could provide. Right now, a lack of reliable broadband is a huge problem for people in areas that I represent, such as Albion Park, Oak Flats, Horsley, parts of Dapto and the Southern Highlands, where overloaded exchanges and geographic difficulties mean many cannot even connect to basic ADSL services and have to rely on unreliable, overpriced dial-up or expensive, patchy wireless services. For suburbs and towns like those, I believe there is a strong case for fibre to the premises to be supplied to ensure an adequate broadband service is delivered. Labor is committed to rolling out the National Broadband Network to more homes and businesses in my electorate of Throsby than in any other region in Australia—but, of course, this is all now at risk.
I have had some harsh words to say about the government in this address, but one area that I am in complete agreement with is the commitment to closing the gap. I can say that I was genuinely moved by the statements of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition when the sixth Closing the Gap report was tabled in the last sitting week of this parliament. Across the parliament we are in agreement that to make good on our historic apology and quest for reconciliation we need to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous disadvantage. While we have made a start in addressing the disparity in the key areas of education, health, employment and life expectancy we are still way off the pace. Let's not lose the opportunity that the 44th Parliament presents to make real and significant differences to Indigenous Australians. While money may not be everything, we need to ensure that as the government is taking the axe to so many programs that support equality and welfare, those who are making a tangible difference to Aboriginal Australians need not feel the blow. This should be a bipartisan commitment.
Can I also say something about parliamentary support for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people. In our national anthem we sing the words:
For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share …
Of course, the plains were not empty when white people arrived here. They were occupied by a people who have practised their culture and lived on this land for in excess of 30,000 years. No other country in the world can make that claim. No other country can say: 'We are home to a place where, for 30,000 years, human beings have practised a culture and have been at one with the land—a culture that still exists to this day.' They were our first people and they deserve to be recognised as equals in our national Constitution.
The story is simple: for as long as our Constitution includes the vestiges of that first act of racism, we are not the country that we can be, we are not the people that we should be. I say that it falls to this parliament, in a historic act of bipartisanship, to pass the legislation that is unnecessary, to formulate the words that are necessary, so that we can rid our national body politic of this stain and not only recognise the first Australians in our Constitution, as our founding document, but also remove the last vestiges of racism from our Constitution so we can all stand tall and proud.
I will take the opportunity to use the time remaining to say thank you to the people who have assisted me in ensuring I can continue to represent them as their member for Throsby: the friends, the family, the staff, the volunteers, the members and all who assisted and those who voted for me in what was a very tough election. There were over 10 candidates running for the seat of Throsby. Most of them were from the area. There were one or two blow-ins including a blow-in for the National Party, whom they plonked into the campaign late in the piece, thinking that his pop star appeal might turn some voters' heads—and I am very pleased to say that no such thing occurred. It was certainly a hard-fought election. Mostly it was clean, and it is a fantastic honour to be standing here in our parliament representing the people of Throsby for another three years—an honour, I have to say, that I do not take lightly.
I thank my wife and children. As all members in this place know, it is not an easy job being a wife or child of a parliamentarian. They give up much so that we can fulfil the role as representatives in this most important of institutions. I thank my mum, my mother- and father-in-law and our extended family for the support they have shown me over the last three years and for the support they gave to me during the election campaign.
I would like to thank the staff who work for me. Simon Zulian is my indefatigable campaign director, and I am very pleased he has continued to support me by coming onto my staff full time after the election. He has been a pillar of strength. I thank my friend and former colleague Jane Mulligan for her steadfast support during the campaign and for the three years previously. It has been a great honour to work alongside a person of such capacity and integrity. I thank my electorate staff—Caitlin, Carol and Danielle—for the ongoing support that they provide to me. Quite often, as you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, we get a lot of attention for the work we do in this place, but it is the day-in day-out work in our electorate offices that enables us to continue turning up here over the years. The staff who are manning the phones and the front desk at our offices deserve every bit of thanks that we can give to them for the difficult work that they carry out on our behalf. As you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker, people rarely ring the electorate office when everything is going well; it is generally with a complaint or a problem and it is our staff on the front line who deal with that. So I pay tribute to those staff who are doing that on my behalf.
I take the opportunity to thank the Mayor of Shellharbour, Marianne Saliba, and her team of councillors. I have worked very closely with them over the last three years and I hope to enjoy the ability to work very closely with them over the next three years. I thank the Deputy Mayor of Wollongong, Chris Connor, and his team of councillors whom I have also worked very closely with, and Councillor Graham McLaughlin from Wingecarribee Shire Council who is a great mate and who has been a great support for me up in the Southern Highlands of my electorate. Thank you very much.
There are also the local party members and volunteers, the executive members of the six Labor Party branches across my electorate—Port Kembla, Warilla/Mount Warrigal, Shellharbour/Barrack Heights, Albion Park/Oak Flats, Dapto and the Southern Highlands. I thank them all for the work that they have done. Each of the volunteers from the vast area of the Southern Highlands often travel great distances. Very frequently they come down into the campaign office, man the phones or do work on behalf of the campaign. Christine Tilley, Justine Fischer, Jan Merriman and Warren Glase were available at a moment's notice, like so many others in the Southern Highlands, and I thank them very much. I thank my great mate Louis Stefanovski for his ongoing and enduring support, particularly for his assistance in translating Macedonian both face to face and in my many election periodicals. To my mate Jose Madrid who did great work coordinating our campaign volunteers, thank you.
I also take the opportunity to thank the campaign teams in Cunningham and Gilmore for their cooperation and support. We work as team Labor in the Illawarra and Southern Highlands and we could not have done everything we have done without their cooperation. I thank the great team of New South Wales ALP, people like: Anthony Albanese, the member for Grayndler, for launching my campaign and for his support over the previous three years and over the last few months; Labor legend Bob Hawke for visiting the region in the lead-up to the campaign; and from the party office as the then party secretary, Sam Dastyari, who has now joined us in the other place; my mate the assistant secretary of the party, John Graham; and my friends from the Organised Labour Movement. I give special thanks to the members of the Community and Public Sector Union who have always supported me, and members of the Maritime Union of Australia and people throughout the South Coast who have seen the important work that I do, I hope, in supporting their causes and who have given up some of their time and effort to support me in my campaign.
I thank my opponents for what was mostly a fair fight. I thank the members of the media, local and national, for mostly fair coverage, and the Australian Electoral Commission for their impartial and professional conduct. They do an absolutely outstanding job. I know that from time to time, particularly over the last election, they cop a few brickbats, but in my division they were absolutely professional staff and I am sure that any of the candidates who stood in that election would say the same thing. The staff at the AEC in the Throsby division did an outstanding job and I thank them for their work. I thank the teachers in my electorate who overwhelmingly supported the government's plan for better schools.
I end where I started by thanking the people of my electorate. I truly am in love with the region. I think that it is a fantastic place and I thank the people for putting their trust in me for another three years. I leave you with this commitment: I will not let you down.
Mr RANDALL (Canning) (18:21): I stand here as a member of this House, honoured to serve the electorate of Canning for the fifth time. I do consider it an honour. I never take it for granted. It is a privilege to serve in this place and to do it for the fifth time in the seat of Canning is something that I am particularly proud of because I am now the longest-serving member for Canning since it was created in 1949. This was not done just because I am the member; this was done because we had a magnificent team result in the election campaign, which I will refer to as I go on.
On 7 September last year we were ready to fight the campaign. And, as most people in this House would know, we were ready to fight that campaign probably for the three years beforehand, because we had a pretty dysfunctional hung parliament—which I will also refer to as I go on. I say at the outset that the Labor candidate, Joanne Dean, was somebody who I never met during the campaign. I want to pay tribute to all those people who ran in the campaign. Like the member for Throsby, my campaign was a good, clean campaign. Everyone who was involved as a candidate essentially got along. There were seven or more local people as candidates in this campaign; people like Derek Bruning for the Australian Christians and Wendy Lamotte, who ran for the Palmer United Party. One who was not a local was Richard Eldridge, who ran for Katter's Australian Party. This Richard Eldridge was a former member of the Liberal Party in the seat of Swan, so he was obviously seduced by Bob Katter. It is a pity that Katter's Australian Party crashed and burned during that election, with the member for the seat of Kennedy only recording 23 per cent of the primary vote. So much for the impact of Katter's Australian Party. We had Alice Harper for the Family First Party and Damon Pages-Oliver for the Greens. He is a local social worker, and does a great job in the community. And there were a couple of others, as I said, who filled some of the minor positions.
I was lucky enough to draw No. 1 on the ticket, which some people say is worth somewhere between one and two per cent. So that puts in context the election I ran in before against the now member for Perth, who championed a great result, because in my last three election campaigns in Canning my Labor opponent drew No. 1 all three times. Previously, when I drew No. 1 on the ticket I was the member for Swan and I lost my seat in the election, so I was a bit superstitious about drawing No. 1 on the ticket. But on this occasion I was pretty happy because we went from a margin of 2.2 per cent in this election to 11.8 per cent. I was very happy with the result—quite an outstanding result in terms of the overall swing, which was one of the highest for a sitting member in Australia.
In analysing the results, I was very pleased to see as well that I was able to gain 51.07 per cent of the primary vote, which meant we did not have to go to preferences. Some other interesting nuances that I would like to allude to before I go into some of the other details of this election campaign were that the Labor Party's vote actually collapsed; it went backwards by 13.71 per cent. On the night of the election, the Greens were actually polling behind the Palmer United Party. They snuck ahead with preferences as the vote count continued, but it just shows you, Mr Deputy President—and I find it passing strange—that a Gold Coast billionaire, spending millions on an election, could attract the attention of my hardworking blue-collar people in the state seat of Armadale, for example.
I am still amazed at this fascination of the people in a hard, tough area like Armadale, where they are essentially blue-collar wage earners—and that they are being seduced and attracted by somebody who was going to build the Titanic. I suppose it was about increasing pensions by 25 per cent and all the money he was going to give away because he was going to be the Australian Prime Minister. But at the end of the day they had a good result and, as we know, they had a good result nationally in the Senate vote.
Another interesting detail that I wish to allude to is that since becoming the member for Canning—and I will only go back to 2004—the Senate vote in Canning was 52.91 per cent in 2004, in 2007 it was 47.56 per cent, in 2010 it was 42.48 per cent and in 2013, even with that result, it was 38.11 per cent. That is interesting, because the primary vote of the Liberal Party had increased significantly in the case of Canning. In the seat of the member for Brand, Gary Gray, the Liberal vote was 31.94 per cent. If you follow that through there are some interesting Senate ramifications, particularly as we look at the new Senate election in Western Australia. People like Bob Baldwin, the member for Paterson, have a similar case. He has a good, strong primary vote but his seat's Senate vote is a little less than desirable.
But, as I said, we ran a strong grassroots campaign—as we have always done. Nothing can beat doorknocking. People want to meet the candidate; they want to meet the person. It does not cost you anything to get out there and shake hands with the people who you want to represent. They want to know who you are; they do not want to see somebody else from your team walking up and down the street and shaking hands. They want to meet the candidate. I think people are quite cynical when people do not do that. We had street stalls and we met people at shopping centres.
I had a magnificent staff. I have always been fortunate enough to have good staff in my office. That has been my strength—not me, Don Randall; I am not the hero of these election results, because Canning really is not a Liberal seat. To give you the context of that, Mr Deputy Speaker, the largest population base in the electorate is around the state seat of Armadale. The sitting member in the state seat of Armadale, Tony Buti, won most of the polling booths. Yet at this current federal election, I won all of the polling booths in the state seat of Armadale. There are 12 polling booths that represent the federal seat of Canning in that state seat of Armadale and I won them all—except one, which we missed by four votes. But, in saying that, we had something like an 11.6 per cent swing in that seat. So right across Canning we won every polling booth. And when you look at some of the demographics around Canning, there are some pretty tough areas. In Coodanup around Mandurah and some of the areas nearby there are a lot of issues, but people want the member to represent them not only on their local issues but on the issues that come to the parliament.
I hear those on the other side say—and I am sure we will hear it again shortly—that they stand by their commitment to the carbon tax. I have to tell the parliament that the electorate does not. When we have another Senate election in Western Australia shortly we will remind the people that there is a party on the other side of this House that still wants to slug them $23 a tonne through a carbon tax.
The people also want to know why Western Australia has been targeted with the mining tax. It had many incarnations and was going to collect billions of dollars but did not collect the money. When the mining tax is combined with the carbon tax it is an albatross around the neck of development in Western Australia. There is no other spin anyone on the other side can use. 'There is a downturn in the resources sector'—yes, there is all that sort of stuff, but at the end of the day a whole lot of mines are not going ahead or expanding because of the high cost of labour and the high costs of doing business in Australia due to things like the mining tax and industrial relations, which we know those on the other side are wedded to because their union mates put them in this place and fund their campaigns. We heard a bit about that today in relation to Dobell.
In addition to that, when walking down the street people asked me: 'Can you people really stop these boats? If you become the government, can you guarantee that you will stop the boats turning up?' It has been 67 days since the last boat. At the same time last year when the Labor Party were in charge there were 30 or more boats with close to 1,500 people on those boats and people had died at sea. If that is the way you want to conduct your migration system and border security in this country, the public do not want it. This will be another thing that we will remind people of in the Senate election in Western Australia.
I also used to be stopped in the street by people saying, 'We are sick and tired of the way this parliament is running.' I used to go to schools and had to apologise to the children when I addressed them in their politics classes, more generally at meetings or with their parents. The parliament had become dysfunctional. The 43rd Parliament had become highly dysfunctional and it was not a good look. In the 42nd Parliament we had the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd incarnations. My room in this house is next to the government party room and I used to see them coming and going all of the time. It was a charade. There were cameras and that corridor was locked up with journalists wanting to see the next dysfunctional charade going on when the Labor Party were in government.
People had had enough. They were embarrassed. People would say that when they went overseas they were embarrassed by the way the Australian parliament was being run. The other side would say to us, 'Yes, but look at all of the legislation we passed.' A lot of that legislation was ethereal. Where was the money coming from in relation to the NDIS and Gonski? For example, Western Australia did not even get a trial for the NDIS out of the previous government. There is no money to roll it out, despite what the poor deceived parents of disabled children think. We have not even got an NDIS trial in Western Australia.
There was less money in Gonski in the early years than later on. So it was to be two parliaments later from when the now opposition promised the money would be delivered; it was going to be six years later. As you know, the chances of them making it six years later were very ordinary. So at the end of the day this was a dysfunctional parliament.
We had the case of the hung parliament being run by the crossbenchers here. You expected the Green to get into bed with the Labor Party and form a coalition. Bob Brown met with Julia Gillard all of the time and discussed tactics. Bob Katter was not quite sure which side he was on half of the time. We had the two smarmy Independents from north New South Wales. The then member for Lyne took 17 minutes to tell us he was going to vote with the Labor Party. It was all about the money for him. He wanted to be the Speaker. He wanted to be a minister in the Labor government. Eventually the fallback position was they gave him a heap of committees. What do these committees pay? The ones he was on gave him $20,000 to $23,000 extra and that fed into his superannuation. He was being drip-fed all the time to support the Labor Party in this place.
You would see the charade every now and again on a few procedural issues. When it looked like his vote would not count, they would sit there watching each other to see how they were going to vote so there was always one extra vote. People did not miss this. People rang me up all the time asking how they could get the phone number of that smarmy bloke in Lyne, Mr Oakeshott. I gave it to them and said, 'Ring him up and tell him.'
Then we had the member for New England, who was part of this cabal of supporting this dysfunctional Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. His whole reason for being here in the last parliament was to square up with his enemies in the National Party. He spent the whole time trying to take out the people he had had a beef with for years and years in the National Party. That was the way this parliament was being run. It was an absolute disgrace.
In the last few moments I want to say that we promised the electorate of Canning a number of things. We promised that we would give $10 million for the Mandurah Aquatic and Recreation Centre redevelopment. It is a vast vital piece of community infrastructure in this area. We are going to do this because the Prime Minister has always said that we are going to deliver on our commitments. The Peel-Harvey catchment is to be recognised as its own natural resource management region. The Minister for the Environment, Mr Greg Hunt, is already delivering funding towards that to start on 1 July this year.
There is more than $360,000 for the Pinjarra Bowls Club upgrade. We promised that when we were the government. When we did not become the government, the Labor Party took six years to even deliver one project under the RDA and this was their one project. Brand got plenty but Canning got nothing. We said we would match their funding because it has always been one of our priorities. There is the Plan for Safer Streets in Armadale and Mandurah. Armadale will receive $170,000 for CCTV systems and support for help with crime. Mandurah will get $250,000 funding for crime prevention infrastructure under our safer streets program.
We are going to reintroduce the Green Army because those opposite got rid of the Green Corps. All those young kids who were being trained in jobs—we have one of the highest youth unemployment statistics in Australia, in Mandurah in particular—and they took away a good environmental training initiative like Green Corps. And they took away Work for the Dole. Then they combined the two and bastardised the whole thing by putting together Green Corps and the long-term unemployed, which basically wrecked the whole system, and then they just walked away from it.
But we are re-establishing all of that. We are going to have the Darling Downs Equestrian Estate and Birriga Brook freed up, Peel-Harvey catchment council will get the Len Howard park in Erskine done, and Boddington is going to get money to fix the community resource centre. We are going to give money to the Mandurah Migrant Centre to help people like Cathy Bickell who are doing such a great job in helping a lot of people who have arrived on visas and who are stranded down in the regional areas. There are also grants for Mandurah and Port Bouvard surf lifesaving clubs to help them purchase equipment and first aid and medical supplies. And we will be helping families by building a stronger economy, taking away the carbon tax et cetera.
You have heard the minister in this place talking about the NBN. As I was doorknocking streets around Mandurah, I was near the telephone exchange. The people in the same street as the telephone exchange were telling me they were not connected to the NBN even though it had gone past their houses. What a joke. Here they were, they had signs everywhere saying: 'The NBN's coming.' Then they smashed up all the asbestos boxes and they had to stop work because there was asbestos flying around by the lawnmower contractors.
I want to thank a lot of people very quickly. I want to thank Caroline Boyer in my office. She did a great job of helping to lead the team. I want to thank Dave De Garis, an outstanding young man who is going to go places. I want to thank Tess and I want to thank Eilidh. Nicole did a fantastic job. She is now working where she should be and increasing her professional career. There are people like Tegan. We had a great team. The Canning division gave us great support. I thank all of those people who worked for me on polling day, and worked well before polling day, like Lyn Pushong at the Greenfields centre. We had a great result on the pre-poll there, but it took hours and hours and hours and, being a dual poll with Brand, it was pretty hectic. She did a fantastic job.
I want to thank all of those people who financially supported us by coming to functions as well as those people who sent $5 and $10 to us to help with the campaign. They wanted to get rid of the terrible Labor government that was taking Australia backwards, the government that had gone into office with no debt, with money in the bank, that suddenly ratcheted up debt. It has put us into debt and created uncertainty in the community. It ruined a migration system that was working. They wanted to get rid of those people, so they were willing to give us money and give us their time.
I want to thank the local Ford dealer who allowed me access to his vehicle to tow my great big sign around everywhere. The old-fashioned stuff about putting signs and placards out still works. All the fancy electronic stuff like Facebook and Twitter—that is probably the new way of winning a seat. So the next member for Canning—may that be well into the future—will probably win his seat by being on social media. But the old-fashioned way of getting out there, shaking hands, putting up a placard and telling people who you are, and listening to them, still works. My motto is: you talk, I listen. And I do, because I am interested in what my people have to say. I do not always agree with them and I cannot always deliver for them, but I am interested in listening to what they have to say. That is why we come to this place: to represent the people in our electorates. There is a pretty cynical view about politics in this country—that is, politicians are here just for themselves. If we are here for the people, they will continue to give us the benefit of the doubt and give us the strong result that we got in Canning. (Time expired)
Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (18:41): It is a privilege to be in this place. It is an oft-used expression, I know, but it is an apt one because it is a privilege to serve those who voted for me, now on two occasions, and those people who voted otherwise. When I walk through the neighbourhoods of my Western Sydney electorate of Chifley I am very aware that I am entrusted to stand up for local residents, to make sure their voices are heard and to do those things that make their lives easier. I certainly take that role and that task very seriously.
This is my second address-in-reply in this place; in the first instance I delivered it in my inaugural speech. Back then I was able to thank the many people who helped me on my path to this place, and I am grateful to be able to do the same today. But I also want to reflect on the issues I pursued on behalf of Chifley residents during the 43rd Parliament and to focus on those issues that will form the bulk of my work during this term of office.
I am proud to serve as a member of the Labor Party because I believe in its values, and I have for many years. When I first took out my ticket, as a 19-year-old, it was on the basis that, no matter who you are, you are able to have an opportunity to play a part either in building a better neighbourhood or building a better nation. Ours is a party built on the back of the motivations and hopes of ordinary working Australians. It is a party of the battler, and it will continue to be. But, as our country has evolved, so our party has evolved. We retain our commitment to be a party that will press for the greater cause—not opposition for opposition's sake, but looking to create something enduring for the betterment of all, not just some.
I like working for the Chifley electorate. I love the way locals call it as it is. They will tell me to my face or walk into my office and tell my team that work with me how they feel, the things that I should be working on, the priorities that I should have, and I am grateful for that candour. And there are things they are telling me loud and clear that they believe need to be worked on both in the immediate sense and in the longer term sense, and I certainly want to reflect on some of those.
For example, one of the things they are telling me loud and clear is that in relation to their health care they deserve better. They think that the proposed $6 co-payment to visit a GP is a step too far. Six dollars to the constituents I represent may not sound like a lot to many other Australians, but it is a big deal to the vast majority of people I represent. Grabbing $6 here and $6 there from those who can least afford it, from people who look at their weekly or fortnightly budgets and realise that they have their backs against the wall, is a painful prospect. I would hate to think that Australians who really need to see a doctor will not, simply because the extra $6 they will need to find stops them from doing so, and so they avoid attending to their health problems now—at greater cost to them and their communities later on. Or, worse still, I would hate for them to turn up at a hospital emergency department and clog up a system already under strain. Six dollars might be a coffee and a bit more to some, but for others it is a whole lot more. Ninety-nine per cent of the GPs in the electorate I represent provide bulk-billing services—the highest rate in the country. There is a reason for that. People in our area need a healthcare system they deserve, not just one they can afford.
Health care is a big issue for people living in our area of Western Sydney. We have major health problems we are forced to deal with: diabetes, asthma, heart conditions and cancer. For me, it is an absolute priority to ensure that locals have affordable, accessible, quality health care. That is why we want to see Medicare protected as part of the front line of primary health care. That is why we are, for example, fighting the New South Wales government over its diabolical closure of our cardiac ward at Mt Druitt hospital—an unbelievable move. That is why we pushed to get an MRI for that same hospital. I was delighted when the federal government, under Prime Minister Rudd, announced funding for a desperately needed MRI at Mount Druitt hospital. This reflected the fact that over 4,000 people had signed a petition for that very MRI, many of them elderly constituents for whom travel and transportation is a major obstacle and difficulty. You can imagine their dismay when, just before Christmas, official word came through of massive health cuts ushered in by the incoming Abbott government and that the new MRI, which was set for delivery to Mount Druitt, was one of the casualties. It is just wrong, and the people in my area deserve to be treated much better.
The public is not stupid. They watch our actions like hawks. They celebrate with us our victories, both big and small, and punish us when we make promises that are not kept or when we have been callous in the decisions we make. The removal of funding for an MRI at Mt Druitt hospital is one of those decisions that everyday people in the electorate I represent will see as callous. They should not be made to think, for even the slightest, remotest moment, that they are undeserving when other areas are able to access this equipment easily.
Prior to the announcement, when I thought government money was being promised to less-deserving projects, I took a very public stand on this MRI. It was a difficult decision but I honoured the commitment I made to be an advocate for the constituents I represent—for the neighbours and the people in the areas I have grown up in. They are people I am proud to represent and I will continue to do so as long as I am given the privilege. Today, after many trips down the Hume Highway, I have wised up to this place, learning what is needed to keep governments to account, and I will certainly fight for this MRI for Mount Druitt. I have written to the health minister seeking the reintroduction of funds promised by the Labor government last year because I do not think people should be forced to travel long distances for a diagnostic service that could be the difference between life and death for many of them.
It might not mean anything to people outside Chifley—even outside Mount Druitt itself—but the beauty of our political system is that we represent people of all ages and persuasions whether they vote for us or not and, to many, an MRI at Mount Druitt is a very important thing. Four thousand people who were prepared to put pen to paper in a petition thought so at the time and they should have their voices heard.
This leads me to another contentious issue: the National Broadband Network. This was a matter that attracted considerable attention in our area for a number of years. I have worked with residents, NBN Co and Telstra on this issue. We held community forums. I have advocated publicly on this matter and addressed parliament numerous times on the plight of residents in some of the worst affected areas, suburbs like Woodcroft and Doonside. As a result of our collective efforts my constituents were successful in getting included on the NBN Co construction program, which would have seen high-speed broadband delivered to their homes and businesses by a Labor government which had the vision to realise that Australia needed to be brought into the 21st century when it comes to communication. Once the member for Wentworth, Malcolm Turnbull, and the Abbott government arrived, these promises went out the window. This is from the same member for Wentworth who, when in opposition, said it would be a 'travesty of social justice'—his words—if places like Woodcroft did not get access to the NBN. Despite claiming in opposition that they would honour rollout contracts, the good people of Woodcroft learned pretty quickly that under an Abbott government their suburb would disappear completely off the map—all due to a sneaky redefinition of a coalition promise. Regardless of the tricks and the word games, this stands as another broken promise that suburbs and neighbourhoods in our area will lose out because of. I intend to pursue this during the life of this parliament because, again, these residents simply deserve better.
I am proud to say we have almost 70 schools operating in the Chifley electorate—good schools with great principals, teachers and staff, and keen students. Relative to other electorates, Chifley might be made up of more people on lower incomes; but I can certainly inform the House that there are many hardworking families who place an exceptionally high value on good education. They make sacrifices to ensure that their children get a great education and, as a government, Labor wanted to play a part in helping lighten that load. Families in our electorate treasured the small leg-up that was the schoolkids bonus—$400 per primary student and $800 for secondary students. For many, the schoolkids bonus was not a luxury. It helped families with the cost of living and ensured children's education costs could be met. Yet it was also subject to cruel cuts by an incoming Abbott government which figured it could simply save money by snatching it back from those who need it most.
I attended an award ceremony just before Christmas, one of the many I am lucky enough to attend each year. I gave out a sporting prize to a young boy from a local public school, a boy of humble means; his family are salt-of-the-earth members of the community who, like many, do it tough. As I was handing the award to this young man, his mother stood at the back of the room attempting to take a photo with shaking hands while tears were running down her face. These were tears of pride that her boy, despite all the challenges, had achieved something and was being recognised for it. It was a moment that struck someone who works with me and will stay in his memory for a long time. He said to me that this was 'his day and her day' and that, my friends, is a good day—one we need more of. We need more of those better days to ensure that, besides the help we can offer families with education costs, these families can be confident of the quality of schooling their children can get, that areas of need, like many places within Chifley, will get stronger, targeted support.
This is the thinking that sat at the heart of our Better Schools Plan, the work that was built on the back of the Gonski report. This was a plan that would have seen more effort dedicated towards improving teacher quality and principal autonomy and ensuring that a new resourcing standard would better direct resources to schools in need for smarter outcomes. That transition to better education remains under threat by a new government which seems to focus more on saving money than on ensuring a better outcome in education.
The Gonski reforms were agreed to by governments at the state level, regardless of political persuasion. They realised that an overhaul in education was overdue, that systems needed rebalancing at their base. After pretending during the election to suddenly support the Gonski reforms, the Abbott government did a backflip. After coming into office, and after coming under fire, they backflipped again, promising that the funding pie would remain the same, but with a caveat—it would see only four of the six years funded and the last two years unfunded. Those are years where significant support would have flowed.
There are simply no guarantees by this new government on how the money will be distributed. You can be sure, based on their track record, that elements of the coalition will not focus on education funding that reflects need. This is something that families in the Chifley electorate should be seriously concerned about. A good education should never be for an exclusive club of those who can afford it. It should be afforded to every Australian child.
On Saturday, I was delighted to read an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, written by Amy McNeilage, that outlined and destroyed the myth that education standards in Western Sydney are deplorable. The article highlights Rooty Hill High School, in the Chifley electorate, and the vision of principal Christine Cawsey when she took over as principal in 1997. She reflected that even her own staff had suggested at one point that students would not be in need of computers because advancement to a university education in a largely working-class area simply did not happen through Rooty Hill High, which is staggering. She certainly was not prepared to accept that, and she fought for better.
This is what I have discovered in schools in our area. They are saying that not only are students capable but they are expecting more out of students. As a result of that higher expectation, we are seeing results improve across a range of schools. Rooty Hill High School and Plumpton High School are two schools whose results, I have noticed, have gone up. I single them out but I have noticed that there has also been improvement in a number of other schools where there has been similar active leadership. I visit local schools often and I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that university study is today very much in the minds of students in Chifley, largely due to the pioneering work and mindset of people such as Christine Cawsey. Congratulations to her and everyone at the school.
I am also proud of the fact that we invested over our last six years in trades training centres, for example, at Doonside Technology High School, Evans High School and Loyola Senior High School. At those schools, the automotive, electrical, hospitality and hairdressing trades, and a whole range of other trades, are being taught. Those students are proud to take up a trade. They will be on the front line of ensuring that we address some of the skill shortages that hold back the Australian economy. The face of Western Sydney has changed for the better. It seizes on opportunity. That is why I am determined to ensure that we get everything that we deserve, and more, in our area.
Promises made in election campaigns should become a reality when the dust has settled and we are back to business. That is certainly something I live by in my role as a local MP. I will give some quick examples. I said that, if elected, I would fight for better broadband. I did. We were due to get it. It was denied by the Abbott government. I said I would push for better healthcare investment. I did. We were due to get it. It was denied by the Abbott government. I said we would push for better funding to help clean up neighbourhoods affected by antisocial behaviour such as graffiti and vandalism. After a long campaign, we got this. Again, it was denied by the Abbott government. During the last term, I actively lobbied government to invest proceeds of crime in cleaning up areas like Rooty Hill and Doonside, teaming up that funding with the funding set aside by Blacktown City Council. To their credit, council—which spends nearly $1 million per annum on graffiti clean-up—thinks laterally on how to tackle this problem. We saw federal funding combine with council funding on offender rehabilitation via local community groups. We teamed up with schools to help get in early to tackle behaviours that might lead to problems down the track. In August, we announced funding for mobile CCTV cameras to help provide better support for police and council.
Additionally, we saw funding directed to some great groups in our area, such as the PCYC and Marist Youth Care, to find ways of engaging with local youth to help build skills and tap into their creative energy, all with a view to reducing instances of antisocial behaviour while investing in the talent of local young people. Marist Youth Care, working with Blacktown police, saw some terrific results through the Comm4unity initiative. But, after being successfully selected for funding, this funding was ripped from them by an incoming Abbott government that refused to honour the contracts. I am absolutely staggered at the brutal stupidity of this move, which will save money in the short term but cost our community in the long term.
The alternative being pursued by the Abbott government is simply throwing money at CCTV cameras while denying a broad, multidisciplinary approach to cracking down on antisocial behaviour. They should not get off the hook for this, especially with the terrible signal it sends that governments can betray commitments if it suits political advantage. I intend to pursue this further.
While politics divide many of us in this place, we speak as one on this critical point: our elections to this House are not efforts of spectacular individuality. We are truly indebted to the many who give of themselves freely and generously. I start by thanking my family: my wife, Bridget; my son, Sam; my parents; and my parents-in-law. In particular, Bridget's and Sam's kindness in overlooking my extended absence, and being incredibly supportive through that time, meant the world. My sister punctuated that absence by helping me out on my campaign. Sabina remains an inspiration and a source of constant candid, frank counsel. While not family, he spent so much time with us he could be an honorary relation—thank you to Nathan Metcher.
To my federal electorate council, led by president Gayle Barbagallo and secretary Tom Kenny, I extend my deepest thanks. I also thank all the ALP branches for their support and generosity. My deepest gratitude also goes to the state member for Mount Druitt, Richard Amery, and to councillors Charlie Lowles and Edmond Atalla. I thank my friends in the CEPU, NUW, FSU and United Voice, who helped out.
I also want to record my heartfelt thanks to some people who devoted their energies and care to the constituents of Chifley via our electorate office: Nicole Seniloli, Rosanna Maccarone and David Field. Thank you. Thanks to Melisa Mahmutovic, Priscilla Armstrong, Kara Hinesley and Matthew Overton. In addition, I thank Louise Crossman, Danielle Bevins-Sundvall and Solly Fahiz—a worthy competitor on the basketball court as well. Particular thanks go to Ausseela Thanaphongsakorn, who has moved on to start a new, exciting episode in her life. She will be remembered by me for playing such an enormously dedicated part over an exceptionally long period of time. I cannot thank her enough for everything that she did.
There were many, many volunteers who gave so willingly—finishing their day jobs and then helping out after hours and on weekends. They talked to constituents in streets and on phones, they attended shopping centres and cold railway stations with me, they put up posters, they came to community group meetings and they stood at prepoll and polling booths. They were phenomenal and sensational and I cannot thank them enough. Like my friend and colleague the member for Throsby, I also want to recognise the local AEC staff and thank them for all their tremendous effort. I have thanked those volunteers personally. There are too many names here to mention but I would like them to know that, in this House and beyond, I will remember them eternally for their generosity.
I end as I started, reflecting upon the privilege that is extended to us to be able to serve in the House of Representatives. Like some others here, it took me a number of goes to get to this place, but I remain not only grateful but focused upon the job of faithfully representing the people who voted for me, and those who may not have voted for me, ensuring that their voices are heard and ensuring that government has a meaningful impact upon them and their lives and, importantly, that they never feel like they are an afterthought from government, from business or from anyone who operates in our community. The people of Chifley deserve the very best, and it is my firm intention that they get that through this term and, if I am lucky enough, terms beyond.
Dr STONE (Murray) (19:01): I rise to pay tribute to all who are a part of the fruit-processing industry of Australia. Probably some 90 per cent of these people and their enterprises are located in my electorate of Murray. Others—for example, navy-bean growers and sugar producers—are far away in Queensland. Only one Australian fruit processor, SPC Ardmona, remains in business in 2014. It has survived where others have collapsed, victims of the policy failures of successive governments, both state and federal. But soon, I anticipate, these failures will be addressed by us and they will be something of the past.
The failures of successive governments include the costly and ineffective Australian antidumping regime and the failure to use the WTO-sanctioned emergency safeguard measures, which could be in place while the month after month of analysis of antidumping claims churn its way through the commission. The crippling overvaluation of the Australian dollar, which killed export competitiveness and triggered a flood of cheap, often dumped, imports has also made a victim of too many Australian manufacturers. Then there is the massive market power of the two biggest supermarkets in Australia, who control over 80 per cent of the retail grocery business, making it almost impossible for the suppliers to have any chance of competing for better prices. These supermarkets' strategies of relentlessly growing their market share through more profitable home-brand offerings on their shelves, aided by obscure country-of-origin labelling, poor at-border food safety inspection and weak antidumping protection mean that, in Australia, our fresh and manufactured food suppliers are up against it. And these supermarkets compete with ever-cheaper prices, with the losses borne by their overpowered suppliers.
Then there continue to be the massive increases in energy costs, exacerbated by the carbon tax and carbon equivalent tax on refrigerant gases. Between 2010 and 2013, SPCA's sales revenue, net of discounts, per unit of product sold decreased four per cent—as I say, squeezed by the supermarkets—while the unit cost to make and sell increased by around 22 per cent, reflecting the huge increases in energy and other non-wage input costs. How could any of our manufacturers survive in such a perfect storm? In the case of SPC Ardmona, there were also 10 years of the worst drought on record, from 2001, followed by the worst year of floods on record, which inundated some orchards for up to 12 months.
You will not be surprised for me to tell you that, for a succession of recent years, Coca-Cola Amatil, an Australian owned company, the parent of SPC Ardmona, has carried the losses of this, the last remaining fruit processor in Australia. It has just been announced, the write-down of losses from SPCA for last year was an accumulated $400 million. You could have seen other companies walk away with such losses, at the demand of their shareholders. I want to commend Coca-Cola Amatil for understanding the icon status of the last remaining fruit processor but also its great future prospects if only it can get through the perfect storm that I have just described.
SPC Ardmona management in April 2013 had to walk into their growers' orchards, their kitchens or the small offices attached to their cool stores—and some of these family orchards have been with the same people for generations, since they arrived from places like Italy, Macedonia, Greece, Albania, Turkey and, more recently, the Punjab. They had to face these orchardists and tell half of them that they could not take any fruit from their orchards anymore, not a single tonne.
More than 50 growers in the Goulburn and Murray valleys then faced, as you can imagine, extraordinary financial distress and, for some, collapse. They knew that flooding the fresh fruit market with their canning varieties of fruit was not an option, and they had to find the funds to bulldoze their apples, pears, peaches and apricots or continue the costly business of spraying, pruning and picking the trees but with no returns. This continues to be a very dark time for those families and the hundreds of workers in the small-town communities which depend on their enterprise. I want to express my deepest sympathy for those who still have this terrible financial problem to overcome, where they have no market for their varieties, which were developed for canning.
The remaining 50 or 60 families with orchards developed for fruit processing—covering hundreds of hectares, with cool stores and equipment and highly developed irrigation systems—were informed by SPC Ardmona that they would only have half of their fruit taken in the next season, with very few firm prospects for the future. Imagine the extraordinary distress that occurred with over 100 orchard families in April last year being given this shocking news.
Obviously, all of our orchardists who have developed for the processing industry face enormous difficulties, with the same drastic employment impacts on the districts and towns where they lived. We thought that was the worst of it because, with the huge reduction in the amount of fruit to be taken, at least the factory could limp along, but there was worse to come.
Let me tell you about SPC Ardmona. Australia's largest and now last-remaining fruit processing enterprise began with the establishment of two grower cooperatives—the Shepparton Preserving Company established in 1917 and Ardmona established in 1921. In 2002, SPC and Ardmona merged and in 2005 the processor was purchased by Coca-Cola Amatil when the Australian dollar was at about 60c against the US dollar. The parent company had changed its name from Amatil in 1989. Let me stress: it is not a subsidiary of the multinational Coca Cola. It is not an American-owned company; rather, among other enterprises, it has a franchise to sell Coca Cola product in defined regions.
Australia's fruit processing sector has always been an innovator, with the Tatura trellising system developed for orchards now used throughout Australia and with Ardmona being the first manufacturer in the world to develop single serves and to put preserved fruit into resealable plastic packaging. SPC Ardmona is often referred to as 'the cannery' but in fact it is a highly innovative and mostly plastic packing enterprise in the Goulburn and Murray valleys.
The growers who supply the fruit and tomatoes for SPCA have been benchmarked as highly productive, in particular the tomato growers who are benchmarked as some of the best in the world. For convenience and efficiency, these growers are concentrated within a 50-kilometre radius of the factories. They grow over 80 per cent of Australia's pears and apples and most of the country's apricots, peaches and plums. This is the food bowl of Australia, especially if you focus on the fruit food bowl. The orchards take advantage of the flat topography, fine Mediterranean climate, good soils, excellent road transport infrastructure and water security provided by the Goulburn-Murray system, the oldest irrigation network in Australia.
The federal government committed $1.216 billion in 2011 to modernise this irrigation system in order to serve the fruit and dairy industries of the Goulburn and Murray valleys better. The Victorian state government recently invested another $l billion into this irrigation system. The towns of Cobram, Kyabram, Mooroopna, as well as the City of Shepparton are dependent on the fruit manufacturing industry, in all over 150,000 people, but directly employed in the factory are over 800 people and directly linked to those 800 people are another 5,000 or 6,000 jobs. This is the equivalent of Holden in Adelaide or Alcoa in Geelong.
Given it takes four to seven years, depending on the variety, to grow a new fruit tree to a stage of commercial production, once people have bulldozed their orchards, they do not come back. You cannot afford it, you do not have the time to wait for the trees to re-establish, especially when you are carrying debt from 10 years of the worst drought on record and especially when SPCA has not been able to pay you very much for the last few years of your fruit production. The tragedy is that from April 2013, with contract cancellations, 25 per cent of the fully productive pear trees in this area were bulldozed and since then another 60 per cent or 300 hectares of the canning peaches. This is a catastrophe that most other nations in the world would be shocked to hear about. How could a country, through market failure, through no fault of the manufacturers themselves, be bulldozing highly productive fruit trees, knowing they would not return? Growers had no other option but to try to avoid a phytosanitary crisis for their neighbours growing fresh fruit varieties or, alternatively, they did not have the means to keep spraying the trees to manage pests and then to bring in the pickers and pruners. Calls on the state government of Victoria for help with these costs fell on deaf ears.
A perfect storm had descended on Australia's last fruit manufacturing industry and little of this perfect storm could be deflected or influenced by Coca-Cola Amatil, SPC Ardmona or the growers, their cool store operators, their transport industry, the makers or their cans and plastic containers and cardboard boxes, Visy, the pickers, the pruners or the packers. All were powerless to influence what seemed to be the only rational outcome to save further losses for the parent company shareholders and that was to close the whole business down, literally to turn the Murray and Goulburn valleys into a desert.
In April 2013, the management of SPCA was changed and they did not close down, but did what they could do with business restructuring. SPC currently employs 840 FTE staff—528 full-time and 921 seasonal workers—at its three factories in Kyabram, Mooroopna and Shepparton. The vast majority of SPCA's workforce is in Shepparton and the decision was taken that the Mooroopna and Kyabram factories would shut down. Seventy-three trade qualified maintenance workers who had not been able to agree on new productivity and flexibility measures saw an announcement in December 2013 that these positions would all be outsourced. The vast majority of the other food preserver workers at SPCA, some 767, have a living wage of, on average, $53,000 per annum, not a huge amount. The award wage for this group is some $27,000 per annum. It was not possible for them to be pushed back down to their award wage and for them then to be able to feed their families and pay their mortgages. The average wage increase agreed in the food preservers EBA by SPC Ardmona from 2010 to 2013 was 2.4 per cent per annum, which was lower than the negotiated food industry average of four per cent per annum and lower than the national average wage increase of 3.4 per cent. So their wage increases were way below the national and their own industry standards. One hundred and ten weekly EBA positions—that is, 29 per cent of the total—at SPCA were made redundant between 2011 and 2013. You can imagine the pain of that 30 per cent of the workforce no longer with their positions.
The salaried headcount was reduced by 31 per cent during the same period. This was a very painful but significant workforce restructuring and downsizing made by the management in an effort to maximise efficiency and so save the industry. So the orchardists suffered, the workers suffered, but they understood this was one measure they could all take in trying to save the last Australian fruit processing industry.
It is not correct to say that SPC Ardmona had not made major changes to workforce size, conditions and entitlements or that they paid exorbitant wages compared to national or industry standards, or that their problems stemmed from wages. That is what the Productivity Commission concluded on page 75 of their 12 December 2013 report Safeguards inquiry into the import of processed fruit products. They said that labour costs are 'a relatively minor contributor' to total costs and SPCA is 'suffering serious injury'.
I have already said that SPC Ardmona's earnings before tax had been significantly eroded and had declined by over 25 to 30 percentage points between 2010 and 2013 for their key domestic processed fruit categories. The business wrote off more than $300 million in the last several years. This year it has announced a further write-down of $400 million. The response of the shareholders in not closing this sector has therefore been magnificent. But what to do? The industry had restructured its workforce, reduced it by 30 per cent and removed off their payroll those with whom they could not negotiate. They understood that to survive they had to innovate, and they have done that with some magnificent new products. But that innovation required new machinery and retooling the factory, given that it was to consist of one factory campus instead of three. These new products require very different equipment.
SPCA, supported by their parent company Coca-Cola Amatil, embarked on a four-pronged strategy. The first was to request an innovation co-investment grant of $25 million from both the Victorian government and the federal government which would be matched by $90 million from Coca-Cola Amatil to invest exclusively in the new equipment and retooling. Remember, I just referred to the huge losses that Coca-Cola Amatil's shareholders had been taking. So to invest $90 million into this significantly damaged industry was an enormous step for them to take. The Commonwealth chose not to extend this support, but with a $22 million grant from the Victorian government and $78 million from Coca-Cola Amatil there is now $100 million to retool and buy new equipment to manufacture the new products, which have been doing so well in their trials. This is going to give us a real, new chance of having a market beyond the reach of the supermarkets. These new products can be put into the fast-food sector, it is hoped, and repositioned into the export market as the dollar begins to retreat.
The cheating at our borders with dumped imports also has to be addressed. If there was fair play in pricing, SPCA estimate that in regard to the dumped tomatoes from Italy, if the up to 20 per cent margin was applied as tariffs or duties then they would immediately experience a 25 per cent improvement in price competition with those dumped products—a significant amount. SPCA took a case against Italian tomatoes and South African peaches to the Anti-Dumping Commission, expecting fair outcomes. Of course they did not receive that in the case of the South African peaches. The Anti-Dumping Commission found there was dumping, but they used a different methodology to that applied in the case of the tomatoes. They used the weighted average instead of the transaction methodology. They said the margin on the dumping of the South African peaches was only two per cent. They refused to do anything to support SPCA. New Zealand used a different methodology, and immediately reintroduced antidumping actions against South African peaches, thereby protecting their industry.
In the case of tomatoes, not even our great Anti-Dumping Commission could turn its back on a dumping margin of up to 20 per cent on Italian tomatoes into Australia. However, it has now been 11 months since SPCA brought this case, and still we do not have an outcome. The minister has not received the final recommendations from the Anti-Dumping Commission asking that these duties be imposed for a period of time. How can an industry like SPC Ardmona compete with this massive dumping and the super cheap prices of other products coming into Australia? We are supposed to have fair play. We were supposed to have a strengthened antidumping regime from Labor. I am pleased that our minister is going to make sure that the Anti-Dumping Commission improves its game, reduces the time it takes to look at these cases and reduces the costs imposed on Australian industry trying to get a fair outcome.
We also have to address our flawed labelling laws that allow dumped product to come in disguised as something else under the heading 'Made of local and imported ingredients'. We have to have a better food safety inspection regime. At the moment, canned peaches from China are entering this country with lead levels double the Australian allowable limits. I am deeply concerned that those canned peaches in their three-kilo tins are still being snapped up by the food services sector, particularly in government procurement outcomes where the cheapness of the food is the most important factor in keeping the hospital, the aged-care facility or even the Defence Force canteen afloat. We have to address all of these fundamental issues.
We also have to make sure that when a company like Coca-Cola Amatil does the hard yards with its own restructuring and innovation, that Australian government competition policy is changed so that the supermarkets cannot take advantage of their market power to drive down prices to their suppliers and to put their product into home brand generics, which kills innovation and new product development in branded product. We have to make sure our antidumping regimes work and our quarantine inspection services are based on real concerns about Australian food safety. All of that is important. It must occur. The good news is that SPC Ardmona will be continuing to produce some of the best food in Australia and the world. (Time expired)
Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (19:21): It is not often that I begin a speech with a quote from Ronald Reagan, but here I think it is particularly apposite because Ronald Reagan said that the first duty of any government is to protect its people. If that is right, it means protecting a country's people, their lives and property and their way of life. It is against this test that in particular conservative governments, but I think any governments, and their programs should be assessed. It is clear that the Abbott government is failing this test and failing it miserably. In fact, the Prime Minister, his government and its program stand condemned not just because they are failing to protect Australians and their way of life now but because the policies of this government will endanger Australians into the future.
The recent fires in Victoria are not over. The city of Morwell remains shrouded in a dangerous cocktail of smoke from the Hazelwood coalmine fire. Suburbs of Melbourne were threatened. Hundreds of brave firefighters supported by the community are continuing to battle the fires to protect their communities. These same firefighters and their organisations tell us that the worst could be still to come as we face the prospect of more bushfires influenced by climate change. These fires and the fires in South Australia come on the back of an unprecedented year of heat across much of Australia and a devastating early start to the fire season in New South Wales. The Victorian fires also follow an unprecedented period of heatwaves in the south-east of Australia. That heatwave itself killed people. In the north of Australia, the country is in the middle of a severe drought.
We know that global warming is already starting to have an impact and that climate change will make fires, heatwaves and droughts worse. We know that only strong and urgent action to cut pollution will lessen these impacts. That is why this government and its program stand indicted. Instead of protecting the Australian people and taking strong action against global warming, this government has set out to systematically dismantle the action Australia is taking to fight climate change.
First the government abolished the Climate Commission. Then it scrapped the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Then it sought to scrap the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Then it moved to abolish the Climate Authority. Then it moved to cut the price on pollution. Now it is coming after the renewable energy target. Along the way it has continued to peddle misinformation and, in the case of the Prime Minister, lies about the link between extreme weather and global warming. There is very clearly a direct relationship between extreme weather and climate change. It is common sense that as ocean and land temperatures rise there will be an impact on weather conditions. Scientists are telling us that what we are starting to see is consistent with their predictions.
When I say there is a direct relationship, it is absolutely crystal clear that according to the science global warming is influencing extreme weather events. The Climate Council, including one of Australia's most eminent scientists, Professor Will Steffen, released a report earlier this year entitled Be Prepared: Climate Change and the Australian Bushfire Threat. The report outlines five key facts about bushfires, which I will outline because amongst the chortling and interjections from those opposite it is concerning that there is a complete unwillingness from the coalition to do what other conservative governments around the world have done, and that is to say we accept that there is a link between global warming and the extreme weather events we are facing.
As I said, the report outlined five key facts. Fact one, climate change is already increasing the risk of bushfires. Extreme fire weather has increased over the last 30 years in south-east Australia. Hot, dry conditions have a major influence on bushfires, and that is just common sense. Climate change is making hot days hotter and heatwaves longer and more frequent. In fact, according to a report released in the past few days, it is clear that in places like Melbourne, in Victoria, these heatwaves are now commencing on average 17 days earlier and they are between 1.7 and two degrees hotter on their hottest days. Some parts of Australia are becoming drier. These conditions are driving the likelihood of very high fire danger weather, especially in the south-west and the south-east. Australia is a fire-prone country and has always experienced bushfires. All extreme weather events are now being influenced by climate change, because they are occurring in a climate system that is hotter and moister than it was 50 years ago.
Fact two, in south-east Australia the fire season is becoming longer, reducing the opportunities for hazard reduction burning. The report made it clear that these changes have been most marked in spring, with fire weather extending into October and March. The scientists tell us the fire season will continue to lengthen into the future, further reducing the opportunities for safe hazard reduction burning. One analysis indicated that, under a relatively modest warming scenario, the area of prescribed burning in the Sydney region would need to increase two- to threefold to counteract the increased fire activity. Under a more realistic scenario, the report predicted an increase of fivefold would be noted.
Fact three, recent severe fires have been influenced by record hot, dry conditions. Australia has just experienced its hottest 12 months on record. New South Wales has experienced the hottest September on record, days well above average in October and exceptionally dry conditions. These conditions mean that fire risk has been extremely high and we have already seen severe bushfires in New South Wales, on the Central Coast and in the Blue Mountains. The Black Saturday fires in Victoria were preceded by a decade-long drought with a string of record hot years, coupled with a severe heatwave in the preceding week. The previous record for the Forest Fire Danger Index was broken by such an extent that it was revised and, of course, as you would know, Deputy Speaker Broadbent, we saw the category 'Catastrophic' or 'Code Red' added. Since 2009 there have been a number of subsequent declarations of catastrophic conditions around southern Australia in step with the hotter and drier climate.
Fact four, in the future Australia is very likely to experience an increased number of days with extreme fire danger. Fire frequency and intensity is expected to increase substantially in coming decades in many regions, especially in those regions currently most affected by bushfires and where a substantial proportion of the Australian population lives. Australia has always been a country that is prone to bushfires and extreme weather events. So why on earth would you wish more of them on us and the population? Because those who deny that global warming is having an impact right now are doing exactly that.
Fact five, it is crucial that communities, emergency services, health services and other authorities prepare for the increasing severity and frequency of extreme fire conditions. As fire risk increases, disaster risk reduction and adaptation policies will play a critical role in reducing risks to people and human assets. Increased resources for our emergency services and fire management agencies will be required. One estimate of the future economic cost of bushfires indicates that, with no adaptive change, increased damage to the agricultural industry in Victoria by 2050 could add $1.4 billion to existing costs. By 2030 it has been estimated that the number of professional firefighters will need to approximately double compared to 2010 to keep pace with increased population, asset value and fire danger weather.
The heatwaves which we have been experiencing in recent months are not only exacerbating bushfires they are thought to be directly responsible for the loss of life. A report in The Age newspaper has outlined the impact of the recent heatwave. According to the report:
Hundreds of Victorians died … during the [January] heatwave and there are fears the death toll could match or exceed the lives lost during the 2009 heatwave that occurred a week before the Black Saturday fires.
As doctors called for a review of how heatwaves are managed across the state, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine said it had recorded 203 deaths between last Monday, January 13, and Sunday—double its historical weekly average of about 98. The institute works with the State Coroner to investigate reportable deaths.
The deaths, which so far amount to an average of 29 per day, far exceed the average of 19 per day recorded over two weeks during 2009's unprecedented heatwave, believed to have killed about 374 Victorians.
The deaths in Victoria are the most horrific impact of the heatwave, but countless other Victorians have suffered through these heatwaves too. For vulnerable people living in my electorate, and especially those living in public housing, these increased heatwave days mean a constant search for shelter from the heat. Many people have been forced to crowd into air-conditioned spaces in the bottom of public housing to deal with the heat.
Many people here will know the public housing blocks in my electorate. As you come in on the CityLink freeway, as you hit the yellow and red sticks, if you look to your right you will see some of the big concrete public housing blocks that were built around the sixties that are not air-conditioned. When you have three days when it is over 40 degrees consecutively and when it does not drop below 30-odd degrees at night, they become hot boxes. It is getting to the point where one constituent rang me to say that, in her flat with her family, she was measuring the temperature and it was nudging 50 degrees. It got to the point after a couple of days of this where the housing just did not cool down. They have taken to going downstairs and sleeping on the oval. Families with their young kids are now sleeping on the oval in the middle of Melbourne because the heatwaves are rendering their homes uninhabitable.
Community agencies and local councils have done their best to assist but it is clear that the state government must do more to lead all levels of government and community agencies in a plan to deal with this crisis, which will grow year after year. This is what global warming looks like. We have been talking about the dangers of global warming for some time now, but now we are experiencing them.
If there is any doubt in anyone's mind about what we are experiencing, just look at the tumbling records of the last year. I want to go through a few of them. 2013 began with the hottest January on record, and it was smack bang in the hottest summer on record. We then had a record-breaking heatwave in March in Melbourne and the hottest March on record in Tasmania. January to June was the hottest start to the year on record and this was followed by the warmest July for Canberra and a number of other regions in the south-east of Australia. August saw the warmest winter on record in South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland—a factor in the early and devastating start to the fire season in New South Wales. September was the hottest on record across the country, starting what became the hottest spring on record. December ended a scorching year, which was the hottest on record in total and which brings us to the last month of scorching temperatures, heatwaves and bushfires in the south-east.
This is what global warming looks like and it is only going to get worse and worse if we do not act. This is where the Abbott government is failing to protect the Australian people. Not only is it failing to protect the Australian people, it is in fact making it worse with its campaign to junk any meaningful action to halt Australia's pollution. If Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the government get their way, future generations will look back on this government as a bunch of shameful cowards in the thrall of special interests. Last year a number of people took exception to my criticism of the Prime Minister for wearing a firefighter's uniform while enacting policies that will make risk of dangerous bushfires worse. It was clear that my criticism touched a nerve. But if the truth hurts, deception and obfuscation will hurt us more.
The signs are clear: if the last year of record heat tells us anything it is that we are running out of time. What is at stake is whether, when you go on holidays every year at Christmas, you are going to have to be worried about whether bushfires will threaten you and your family where you are. If you want to go fishing, the question you will be asking is whether ocean acidification has meant the fish are not there to catch in the same way that there have been in previous generations. The signs are clear and we are running out of time. Severe climate impacts are starting to be felt now and they will get worse year after year. Scientists are telling us this is the critical decade when we need to urgently turn our pollution downwards, but the Abbott government is set to squander years of work and squander even more of this decade with its campaign to smash renewable energy. When the scientists are telling us that this is the critical decade, what they are saying is that in the whole of human history this has to be the decade in which our pollution is at its highest and that we need to start cutting now to become a zero pollution economy in the next couple of decades. And the tragedy in all of this is that it is completely possible.
The adviser to the German Chancellor and to the G8 said: 'We look at you Australians and we wonder, with all your sun and wind and wave power and with all your incredible manufacturing capacity and your high level of smarts and intellectual capability, why aren't you leading the world in renewable technology? Why is it being left up to cloudy Germany to do it?' In cloudy Germany a couple of years ago, according to recent figures, they had 382,000 jobs in their renewable energy sector. To put that in the Australian context, that is about 102,000 jobs; and, to put that figure in context, that is more than twice as many as in coalmining, oil and gas combined. In Germany they also have some very straightforward mechanisms that are helping boost their economy and cut their pollution: if you build a renewable energy power station above a certain size, then the electricity grid is obliged to connect you to it, and so there are people building offshore wind and large solar plants and building wind farms.
This is all within our wit to do here in Australia as well. There are people at the University of Melbourne in my electorate, together with universities in other electorates, who have developed printable solar cells. They are on the verge of being able to commercialise that. Just think for a moment about being able to print a solar cell. At the moment they are doing it with the polymer technology that makes banknotes. If you are able to print a solar cell, you could print one onto the cover of your laptop so that the lights in any room could power it. If you could print solar cells directly onto your corrugated iron you would not need to install a solar panel on your roof because the roof would be a solar panel.
It is exactly these and similar kinds of technologies that could set Australia up for the 21st century, that could ensure that our manufacturing base thrives, that could ensure that we have something to sell to the rest of the world in 15 years time that is not just coal or woodchips. But all of this is under threat from this government as it seeks to rip up all the laws that are having an effect to drive Australia to a clean energy future. It is incumbent on all of us in this place and throughout the Australian community to stand up. We need to have the courage to look reality in the face and connect the dots between what we are experiencing and the impact of global warming. We need leadership that has the courage to do what is necessary to combat the climate crisis. The Greens stand ready to protect the Australian people from global warming. The government clearly does not, so it should get out of the way.
Mr CHRISTENSEN (Dawson—The Nationals Deputy Whip) (19:41): I did not want to start my speech this way but when you have to sit through 20 minutes of extreme green statements being thrown about in this chamber that are basically just absolute rubbish you have to say something in return. The member who just spoke—
Mr Frydenberg: Who misspoke!
Mr CHRISTENSEN: Well, who misspoke—shows exactly why the voters kicked out the last government that was beholden to his political party, the Australian Greens, and a ragtag bunch of Independents who used to sit behind me here. It is disgraceful that people are politicking off natural disasters in this country. We have had bushfires before, we have had droughts before, we have had floods before. They are terrible, terrible things. And up my way we have had plenty of cyclones before. But every time one happens now we have the Australian Greens jumping on the bandwagon and saying: 'This has to do with climate change. Oh, woe is me, the sky is falling!'
Mr Bandt: Doesn't it? Are you saying it doesn't?
Mr CHRISTENSEN: No, it does not because they have happened before. These events will happen again. Australians know it and, I have to tell you, they feel very offended when the Greens come out and try and play politics with these issues. The member pointed to all of these so-called record heatwaves that we have had through Australia, forgetting the fact that Australia is not the only place on the globe. It is supposed to be global warming. We have actually had record cold temperatures in many countries right across the world. In fact, nearly universally, all climate scientists will tell you that for the last 17 years there has not been evidence of warming in the globe. That is something that even the most ardent proponents of the theory of man-made climate change are scratching their heads about.
Mr Bandt interjecting—
Mr CHRISTENSEN: The member here has proven why the last government was kicked out. He talked about us acceding to special interests. Well, we do accede to one special interest: the Australian people. They did not want a carbon tax, which the previous speaker, the member for Melbourne, concocted with the previous government and the other Independents and forced on the Australian people.
In making my contribution to the address-in-reply to the speech by the Governor-General, I want to acknowledge the Governor-General and thank her for that speech on behalf of Her Majesty's government. I also want to congratulate retired General Peter Cosgrove, AC, MC, who has been appointed to the role of Governor General and will be duly sworn in to that position in coming months.
I also want to thank the electors of Dawson for having faith in me to represent them again in this parliament. From Mackay, right along that North Queensland coast up to Townsville, the many different communities—the Whitsundays, the Burdekin and also the community of Bowen—once a Labor stronghold with 60-40 in most booths, flipped around to be 60-40 LNP this time and I am particularly pleased with that. I was very sad to hear on the news today that Bowen's famous Big Mango has gone missing. Apparently, overnight, something happened and there is some footage of that floating around. The Bowen tourism people turned up this morning to find the mango gone! I hope and pray for the sake of that town's honour that the Bowen Big Mango is restored and we do not see thefts of the Big Banana and the Big Pineapple to create some Big Fruit Salad!
Getting back to the topic, it is a privilege and an honour to have been re-elected as the member for Dawson. I said during the election campaign that I was going to be a strong local voice for those people in a better government, and I am very glad that I can be that strong local voice in a better government. We set out with a plan for the Dawson electorate. The plan involved fixing the Bruce Highway. The plan involved having policies that would stop the boats. The plan involved axing the carbon tax, and the plan involved restoring job security for local industry. I have got to say that we are doing it on all of those fronts.
Certainly, with stopping the boats it has now been nearly 10 weeks since we have had unauthorised boat arrivals in this country. When I walked around the electorate and talked to people in the street and asked them what was their biggest concern, they would say to me, 'On the national level, this whole illegal immigration thing is out of control. We have got to do something about it.' It was one of the issues for them.
And they were right to have those concerns and they should not be denigrated for having those concerns, as so many on the left do particularly the Greens. We need to know exactly who is coming into this country. We need to know their backgrounds. We need to know that they are not a security risk. We need to ensure that our immigration system is sacrosanct and is not being undermined by people coming through methods which, as a country, we simply do not prefer. So I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection for all they have done in the short time we have been in government to achieve this quite remarkable result. We have taken what was a full-blown crisis and actually almost completely solved it. For nearly 10 weeks that has been the case.
More than that, we have obviously got a plan to get rid of the carbon tax and, along with it, the mining tax. That plan is currently being frustrated in the other place where the Liberal and National coalition do not have control of the Senate. That is a shame. I would have hoped that Labor and even the Greens—yes, I can hope that much—would have recognised that the government have a mandate on these issues that we campaigned so strongly on: getting rid of the carbon tax and getting rid of the mining tax. In my community of Central Queensland in particular and all up through North Queensland, those two policies have caused economic chaos. We have had thousands of job losses. In fact, I think the figure at last count by the Queensland Resources Council put it upwards of 15,000 job losses in the mining sector particularly in the Bowen Basin. That, I have to say, is particularly being felt right on my doorstep throughout the Mackay region. The carbon tax and the mining tax were putting pressure not just on large coal mines and potential future investment in coal mines but also on mining service businesses that were feeling the squeeze at the time when they really could not afford to. If the Labor Party would get out of the way and allow us to implement what we were elected to implement, we could get things up and running again and restore some of the job security.
There have been a few brickbats thrown at the government from those opposite about the car makers leaving Australia, conveniently forgetting the fact that Ford announced they were leaving under the watch of the last government. I have made my position pretty clear on this issue. These were industries which were being propped up by taxpayer dollars. No-one ever came to Central Queensland to those mining service companies in my area that were feeling the pinch and having to shed jobs, actually closing the doors and going into receivership because of the downturn, because of the policies or partly because of policies implemented by the previous government—policies like the carbon tax and the mining tax—and said, 'How much do you want a cheque made out to to keep your doors open?' If that is the case for businesses throughout Central Queensland, then it should be the case for businesses in Geelong in Victoria, and in South Australia as well, particularly when they are multinational companies.
To go with what our plan was for the electorate, I have made many local commitments. We are committed to, and have a time frame in place, for the rollout and construction of the Mackay Ring Road, something that is vitally needed in our region, something that the last government actually did little about apart from the $10 million study. They did not even set aside funding in this financial year to do the detailed design work and the resumptions that were needed, and they should have done that. Now it is up to this government to get on with the job and do that, and we will be doing it. I am in continuing discussions with the Minister for Infrastructure about getting that funding called on sooner rather than later, in fact going quicker than the time frames that was announced during the election, and I am hopeful about that. We also have plans for the upgrade of Sandy Gully—a flood-prone area that we have near the Bowen community. We also have plans in place for the upgrade of the patently unsafe and also flood-prone Horton River bridge, just north of Brandon in the Burdekin.
We committed to providing social infrastructure for the electorate, with a contribution of $750,000 going to Mackay Gymnastics for their new gymnastics centre. That was something that I campaigned long and hard about in the previous parliamentary term, repeatedly asking the government to approve the requests from Mackay Gymnastics for funding to go towards that centre.
We committed to projects such as the Green Army, one that we would locate in the Whitsundays to help an excellent organisation called Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc. Eco Barge do this great practical environmental job—better than anything you would ever see coming from the Australian Greens. They go out and actually clean up the marine debris. They go out into the Whitsunday Islands, get their hands dirty and pick up all the rubbish—the flotsam and jetsam that is coming from boats and which washes up out of our waterways—that comes, quite frankly, from kitchen and bathroom sinks and which ends up washing out into the ocean. This is practical stuff, and we are going to provide a Green Army for them—it will actually be more like a 'Green Navy', given that it is going to be out in the sea—to help them do that job, and to do that job better.
We also have a Green Army for the Don River Trust in Bowen. They are going to do some environmental work that will assist that river in flowing more freely, ensuring that there is not a build-up of sand. That actually poses a risk to both life and property in the Bowen and Queens Beach areas.
I will go on with a few other government commitments that we have made: mobile CCTV units for the Mackay Regional Council. We are talking about funding at least two of those and possibly up to four, depending on how far the dollars stretch. That funding will, as I said, go towards these mobile CCTV units to investigate things like vandalism in parks and illegal dumping, with which we have a problem right throughout the Mackay region. We also promised funding to light up some of the inner-city CBD car parks—a problem that has been raised with me by younger women in particular, and also by shop owners and female workers in the CBD. I am very glad we have provided those commitments for the region.
Personally, I actually promised some things myself—some sponsorships for groups—and I am currently rolling those out. We have already contributed $5,000 to improve and build upon the Mackay Recreational Fishers Alliance's young angler education program, where they are teaching kids how to fish. It is amazing when you go and see some of these kids out there, learning how to fish for the first time—putting the bait on the hook and learning how to cast a line. They end up loving it and taking on that hobby for life. I have given $5,000 to the 50 & Better Healthy Ageing Programme Inc. of Mackay, also to build upon the activities that they provide for seniors in our region.
Fifteen thousand dollars from my pocket is going to the Whitsundays community to help them build an adventure playground in Cannonvale. It is an innovative community-driven concept, and something I have been very happy to support. Along with that, there is $12,000 going to the establishment of a homeless drop-in centre in the Mackay region. They are just some of the things that I committed to personally, utilising funding from my electoral allowance, and I think that these are important projects for the region that I can contribute to directly as a local MP.
One of the other things that we also promised was to get on with the job of approving the Abbot Point coal terminal expansion. It has been a controversial decision, I know, but I have to say that there have been so many green lies told about this project it is not funny. For the town of Bowen, this project is so important; it is vital. We have had business after business shut their doors, people out of work and a community that really is in decline and in the doldrums. They were hanging their hats on Abbot Point being approved. We have approved that; we approved that at the end of last year. That project will go ahead once the green groups actually finish their court challenge for it, which is probably obligatory. What disturbs me is the fact that the green groups that are now taking this matter to court and the green groups that engaged in political campaigns against the government and against this project are the green groups that also receive tax deductibility status. I have to say that I will make it my mission this term to see that that tax deductibility status is stripped from those groups that engage in political campaigns like this—destructive campaigns like this—where they tell blatant lies about job-creating projects. It is always harmful to North Queensland.
I will go on to attacks that the green groups and other people in the nanny state brigade have also waged against the sugar industry. As someone from the biggest sugar-growing electorate in Australia I feel obliged to stand up and defend the sugar industry, and I will continue to do that this term. Along with that now, unfortunately, we have people within the bureaucracy, from the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics, who have come out with this report saying that these so-called subsidies to the ethanol industry should be scrapped. I am fiercely against the recommendations that came out of that report. That report was clearly wrong. It has understated the employment that has been generated by the ethanol industry. They were even talking about how ethanol excise was being forgone to the tune of 38c a litre, forgetting the fact that actually government—and both sides of the political spectrum—has only ever said that ethanol excise will, at the most, be 12½c a litre. That report was based on outright lies, and I will continue to stand up and speak up for the sugar industry in matters like this.
In the short time that I have left, I will thank a bunch of people. I want to thank the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the ministers for agriculture and industry, and a former member, Sophie Mirabella, for coming to my electorate. I also thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, who also came to assist me in my electorate.
I thank my staff members: Dave Westman; Dennis O'Reily; Nicole Laffin, who has since left to have a baby; Anne Whitson; Kathleen Agnew; Margaret McLean; and Danielle Nielsen. I thank the people who assisted temporarily and in volunteer roles throughout the campaign—Anne, Tamara, Casey and Rebecca—and my indefatigable electorate council and campaign committee people: Charlie Camilleri, Kerry Latter and a bunch of other members. If I were to read that list out, I would have to have another 20 minutes—and, Mr Deputy Speaker, I do not think you will give that to me—but I do want to mention Jim Wort, a stalwart of the Liberal-National Party in the Airlie Beach area.
Sadly, I found out a week ago that Jim had passed away due to pneumonia. I probably never really stopped to give Jim the thanks and appreciation I should have. I am sure I said, 'Thanks for the help,' but we always say, 'Thanks for the help,' to our volunteers. Jim went out of his way for the cause. He went out of his way for me. I thank him and his family so much from the bottom of my heart. It is going to be very sad not being able to talk to Jim in the future, catch up with him and be harangued about the things he thinks we could be doing better. I do thank Jim. With those words I want to again thank my entire electorate for the privilege of being here. I will be their strong voice in a better government.
Mr SWAN (Lilley) (20:01): I want to start today by thanking the electors of Lilley for the trust they have placed in me for another term in this parliament. It is a great honour to represent the people of Lilley in this parliament. I will do everything I possibly can, with all of the energy I have got, to make a difference in the lives that they lead, a difference for the better. The people who work hard—those people who get up every day, send their kids off to school, go to work, come home, cook the tea, get up the next day and do it again—deserve the support of a government that is looking after their interests, that, if they suffer misfortune, someone will be there with a helping hand for the vulnerable and those left behind. Australians who work hard have the expectation that they will get a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and that they will have access to affordable health care, education and housing. Australians want a community and a society where it is possible for all to get ahead, irrespective of their background. They want to know that their kids have the opportunity to succeed in life through getting a decent education. They want to know that they have the peace of mind of always having Medicare there should they suffer ill health.
Lying beneath all of these public policies is the fundamental fact that you can have none of those things unless you have a job. Jobs are central to my agenda in this House and are central to the agenda of my party, and it has been that way for over 100 years—not just the number of jobs but the quality of the jobs and the working conditions that go with them. In Australia over two terms the Labor government participated with the private sector in the creation of nearly one million jobs. Jobs were constantly on our mind—firstly, secondly and thirdly—every day we were taking decisions about the future of our economy.
As a Labor member of parliament I appreciate particularly the economic and social destruction that arises from high levels of unemployment and prolonged unemployment, the destruction that high and prolonged unemployment brings to communities. When that prospect was threatened in this country through the global financial crisis and the global recession those considerations of preserving communities through supporting employment were No. 1 in our concerns. By dealing with the global financial crisis and the global recession in the way we did we supported employment. Hundreds of thousands of people kept their jobs. They would have otherwise been unemployed and suffered all of the consequences of that in their households and in their communities.
We should never forget that during this period in the Labor Party's endeavour to support jobs we were opposed every step of the way by those opposite, who used some of the most crude and destructive politics that I have seen in the 20 years I have been a member of this place. But, because of the actions of the Labor government, Australia almost alone among developed economies avoided a deep recession and the social and economic destruction that comes from it. Indeed, we did much better than that. Australia has grown 15 per cent since 2007 while just about every one of our peer economies in the developed world struggled during that period to keep their head above water. As I said before, as a nation we added nearly one million new jobs during that period. It is a record I am deeply proud of and it is a record that every Labor member in this House is deeply proud of.
Our economy continues to face challenges and at the moment it is the challenge of transition—transition in the mining sector from an investment phase to an export led phase, transition from mining sources of growth to non-mining sources of growth. Naturally these challenges have not been made any easier by the very high and artificial level of the dollar for a long period of time. That has had a profound impact on our proud manufacturing sector.
We can meet all of these challenges with confidence. We can meet all these challenges if we have a plan for the future, if we have a fiscal policy that is expressly designed to support growth, if we have appropriate monetary policy and in particular if we have an active industry policy. We can meet these challenges if we have a determination to invest in infrastructure, such as superfast broadband. We must meet the challenge of increasing our educational performance, which is why the Gonski recommendations were so important. Make no mistake, these educational challenges in particular are the key to Australia reaping the benefits of the Asian century.
It is deeply disappointing that jobs are once again under threat in this country in a way in which they were not previously. We have a government whose policies are infected with what I call a vicious ideology, and at its core—at the core of this vicious ideology—is a government absolutely determined to dismantle the social safety net in this country. We have a government that fully subscribes to Maurice Newman's maxim of 'creative destruction'. There are plenty of people, particularly in right-wing economic circles, who follow that maxim. But when Maurice Newman, the chair of the Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council, says very clearly that he believes in creative destruction—that is, let the market rip and do not ever, ever intervene to protect the vulnerable or necessarily make the platforms for future investment—we know this is a very destructive attitude that starts at the top, from the Prime Minister, runs through his Business Advisory Council and right through his cabinet. Basically they believe in the destructive powers of the market to be used against anyone or anything, and it cannot be masked by the fancy language that we hear occasionally from the Treasurer. It is about justifying sawing the bone of the most vulnerable. And that is the very last thing our economy needs at the moment. The very last thing our economy needs is a dose of European style austerity through savage cuts to the social safety net and cuts to critical investments in infrastructure, and in particular to the NBN.
These are all plainly the goals of the coalition government. Over the past six months, they have gone about systematically trashing our country's economic record and economic performance by deliberately exaggerating deficit and debt. This trash talking of our economy has already had a corrosive effect, particularly on consumer confidence, which has dropped substantially since September last year. This characterisation of our economy is completely repudiated by international financial institutions, reputable market sector economists and credit rating agencies. Just a week ago the International Monetary Fund, in their Article IV assessment, had this to say in their lead paragraph:
The Australian economy has performed well relative to many other advanced economies since the [GFC].
But you did not see a word of that in the newspapers and you did not hear a word of that from ministers in the government. The International Monetary Fund, in this report and many other reports over the past five years, have always strongly supported Labor's strategy through the global financial crisis and continue to oppose European style Hockey-Abbott austerity measures for this country.
Despite all of this, every time the Treasurer or the Prime Minister open their mouths, they deliver a depressing speech on the state of the economy: 'It's heading in the wrong direction,' 'Debt is a huge burden,' 'Spending's out of control' and 'Wages are increasing too fast'. Well not according to the IMF, not according to the credit rating agencies, not according to the World Bank, not according to most market sector economists, not according to Moody's, not according to Bloomberg—and, most importantly, not according to the Reserve Bank of Australia, which only this month produced a new set of forecasts that are much higher than the forecast produced by the government in their midyear update at the end of last year. So you have every credible commentator on one side of the debate, and that lot over there on the other.
Once again, according to the IMF:
[We have] a track record of sustained growth … a resilient financial sector, and public debt [is] still low … and [we have] strong and transparent fiscal institutions.
It is a complete endorsement of the fiscal strategy of the previous government. Bloomberg came out the same day that the Prime Minister was in Davos—he was making the extraordinary statement that the global financial crisis was 'caused by governance, not by markets' and saying that 'finally the country was open for business'—and said Australia was the fifth most open economy in the world.
You can also go through the reports from the credit rating agencies. All of these agencies have maintained Australia's AAA rating, despite the deliberately downbeat forecasts that were put forward by the government in December last year in their MYEFO report. Indeed, Fitch upgraded their rating for Australia in late 2011 and they said then, expressly—they were the third major rating agency to give us a AAA rating; the first time in Australian history we have ever had it, and not something that had ever happened under the Liberals—that they gave it to us because they supported the practical use of fiscal deficits to maintain economic growth and cap the unemployment rate.
We got the September national accounts last year that confirmed our economy has completed a remarkable period of 21 consecutive years of economic growth. In fact, economic growth in this country has largely left every other developed economy in its wake. This is what the IMF observed just last week:
The budget deficit was reduced from 3 percent of GDP to 1½ percent in 2012/13. [The previous government's] goal of returning the budget to surplus last year was held back by slower-than-projected output growth and weaker commodity prices. Revenue fell short of projections—
That is, what occurred was that revenue slowed down; it was not the consequence of government spending. And of course to cut harder at that stage would have undoubtedly produced negative growth in this country.
As much as they absolutely hate it, the fact is the coalition have inherited one of the strongest economies in the developed world—a country that got the big calls right at the right time! The danger we see now from this government is they might make some big calls, but they might not get the timing right and they most probably will get them wrong. Let us take what they are saying about one of their favourite topics at the moment—that is, tax. When Peter Costello described Australia as a low tax country, our tax-to-GDP ratio was 24 per cent. After six years of Labor, our national tax-to-GDP ratio is currently 23 per cent. Add in state and local governments and the tax ratio is around 33 per cent of national income. Compare that to New Zealand and the United Kingdom, where the total tax-to-GDP ratio is over 40 per cent. That is in countries with conservative governments.
What is the purpose of all this trash-talking of the economy we hear from the Prime Minister and the Treasurer? What they are on about is demonising government and the services it provides as a way to opening the door politically to bring in the savage cuts they were not game to tell the Australian people about during the election campaign. That is what all this demonisation is about, and it is straight out of the playbook of the Tea Party in the United States. They spout mantras like growth and productivity and debt, but the reality is that the sort of savage program they are planning will result in the opposite: it will result in lower growth, less productivity and higher debt.
They say they are for growth, but here is a government where the Treasurer stood in this House and hounded Holden out of our country. The day he stood here doing that, everyone knew that Toyota would go too. He did it gleefully, and he did it arrogantly, and it sent a terrible message to international investors in our community. After six months it is clear that Australians have not got the government they voted for. Sadly, they are just what we warned they would be, only worse.
Given this record, if there were to be a new economic emergency in Australia we had all better pray that the ambulance is not being driven by Joe Hockey. It was Mr Hockey and Mr Abbott who, back in 2008 and 2009, opposed the essential measures we took to save our country from recession. What we know now, as we knew then, is that they believe in the cleansing powers of recession. That is what they mean when they use the words 'creative destruction'. They believe in it. It is a value system which infects their economics and produces the hardline politics that we are seeing.
For years Mr Hockey would not even admit that the global financial crisis had occurred. In fact, on one occasion he said it was confined to the North Atlantic. We had the Prime Minister in Davos in January saying the global financial crisis was not caused by markets but by governments. Tell that to the countries around the world with tens of millions of people unemployed as a result of the irresponsible actions of some of the largest banks in the world! They are either deeply ignorant or deeply misleading; I guess it is probably both. Either way, all of this rhetoric and all of this practice is not a solid basis on which to make policy which will affect the lives and fortunes of millions of Australians—not least the kids and teachers that are depending on the money that should be flowing through to provide Gonski and the quality of education that would come with it—so that we can get a fair share of the prosperity that will come with the Asian century.
Over the weekend Mr Hockey was at the G20. I hope it goes well for Australia. But he did not believe in the G20 back in 2009. He said it was a left-wing conspiracy. It was not an organisation he was supporting. At that stage I would imagine even Chancellor Merkel would have thought that was a little odd. The point is this: at the height of the global financial crisis the Treasurer did not see the G20 as an important decision-making body, and that has implications for how he uses the chairmanship now. He did use the chairmanship over the weekend for a partisan domestic political agenda. This was deeply ill considered. He is the chair of the G20. He does not have the luxury of trying to dress up his domestic agenda as a collective international agenda. That will, sooner or later, produce problems for the G20.
In Sunday's newspapers, for example, he claimed the IMF had recommended, in its suite of structural reforms to reinvigorate growth, that Australia should further deregulate the labour market. It must have been in the IMF report in invisible ink, because it cannot be found. He is simply making it up as he goes along. He might be saying that because he is a former minister for Work Choices, but there is no such recommendation to further deregulate industrial relations in the IMF report. What he is really trying to do is warm the country up for another attack on workers' rights. It is the same old Liberal Party with the same old preoccupations—get stuck into the workers, rip into industrial relations and rip away essential protections.
This government has a completely ideological agenda. It will go to any lengths to prosecute them, which brings me to MYEFO. The MYEFO forecasts, which are excessively pessimistic, are the government's forecasts. They are not the Treasury's forecasts. They differ markedly from the PEFO, which is produced by the independent Treasury and the finance department, without government. They differ markedly from the Statement on monetary policy brought down by the Reserve Bank in February this year. Why is it that the forecasts that underpin the calculations in MYEFO that the Treasurer uses to claim there is an extra $70 billion of debt are markedly different from the PEFO before it and the Statement on monetary policy from the Reserve Bank after? The answer is pretty clear. There is a fiddle going on here with the forecast. It has been put in place deliberately by the Treasurer to exaggerate deficit and debt and create an environment in this country where they can get out of the commitments they made during the election campaign not to cut the social safety net. That explains why they are out there now suddenly claiming there is a problem with the pension. They are going to do all these things they said they would not do during the campaign; they have to do it because they have $70 billion more debt, most of which has come from a change in the forecasts which were not produced by the Treasury and which the Treasurer himself says are government's forecasts. That is what is going on in this country. It is an agenda that we on this side of the House will fight because it is a bad agenda for the country. It is bad for jobs, it is bad for growth and it is bad for equity.
Mr JOHN COBB (Calare) (20:21): It has been several months since the Governor-General gave her speech in this parliament. I am glad to now be able to give my reply. I want to make some remarks about the election result in the electorate of Calare before talking about my vision for Calare and what I hope to achieve with a coalition government controlling the House.
For those who are not familiar with my wonderful electorate, it is the oldest part of modern Australia. It is what Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson saw when they crossed the mountains. Calare has towns and a city older than Brisbane and Melbourne—in fact, older than any capital city in Australia outside of Sydney and Hobart. Calare runs from where you trip over the mountains at Lithgow and that stretches west, all the way out to Forbes and Parkes. Having been the member for Parkes, I feel an incredibly responsibility for and affinity with Parkes. I still have my property in the seat of Parkes, so I feel like western New South Wales is where I belong and what I am responsible to. That is not to take anything away from the member for Parkes, Mark Coulton, and the job he is doing there.
Calare is the engine room of New South Wales. It has agriculture, mining, power generation and forestry. It is where the first serious steel foundry, at Lithgow, and the first serious coal mine in Australia were established. But, like many rural and regional electorates today, it is facing challenges. I will get to those later.
In the 2013 election, I had nine candidates, the highest number I have ever had, against me. I suspect that was because they all realised what a wonderful part of Australia Calare is and they were very keen to represent it, under whatever banner they chose. Despite that, we got the best result we have ever had in Calare. I am only a very small part of that. I have absolute confidence in saying that Calare voters made their decisions in the best interests not only of Calare and their families—as I am sure they did—but also, more broadly, of Australia. I believe the people of Calare knew that only the Liberal-National coalition would actually bring back jobs, bring back industry, bring back productivity and bring back to people a sense of control over their lives and their cost of living.
I cannot thank enough the more than 500 volunteers who manned pre-polling booths, campaign offices and the 90 Calare election day booths and did every job in between—all the things that volunteers do. Time obviously does not allow me to name them; I am not going to try. But I do extend my, Calare's and the parliament's sincere gratitude. You came from every corner of the electorate to champion our cause and it certainly made the difference. It is an absolute pleasure to have represented you over all those years and to represent you now in this parliament.
To my staff members, Caroline, Beth, John, Melissa, Kylie, Bernice, Richard and Ann: you all put your lives on hold and embraced the even longer working hours, unusual requests and stress that go with an election campaign. You are not just an asset to me and my office, the National Party and the government; your knowledge, skills and sincerity are an asset to Calare, the parliament and the people of Australia. I also thank your families and friends, as I obviously thank Lisa and the rest of my own family. Without a family and people to fall back on, it does not work very well. I have the best and I really do thank them for that.
I turn my attention now to my hopes and desires for Calare. In all the years I have been in parliament and had the pleasure, the honour and the agony of fighting for constituents and my electorate—whether out west in Broken Hill or in Lithgow—I do not think I have ever had a stronger passion to do that than I have right now. I say that because I am absolutely committed to ensuring that under a coalition government, a National-Liberal government, Calare gets a fair deal. Calare voted for the coalition because the coalition believes in infrastructure, dams and reducing the cost of living. It does not believe in political correctness at the cost of what people need. I guess it is no surprise to anyone that I wanted to represent agriculture in this government. However, as the saying goes, when one door closes another one opens. I have been given the opportunity to focus more of my energies and time on what is good for Calare and for New South Wales.
Before I get to the vision, I need to give some context and some background. Along with other areas across Australia, our manufacturing and processing sector has been hit with costs and imposts—the carbon tax, increased competition from cheaper overseas goods and various other things. These issues came to the fore in Calare in the last quarter of 2013 and the first months of 2014. We have suffered substantial workforce and industry changes and probably the loss of over 1,100 jobs, continuing over the next couple of years.
I want to speak in some detail about two operations that are part of this change, namely Electrolux and Simplot. One is an American owned family company and the other is a Swiss based company. It is interesting to note that they are not the only foreign companies or processors in that region in my electorate. I can think of three: Devro, who make sausage skins amongst a variety of other things; Nestle; and Mars. Those three companies are all foreign owned and have invested heavily in themselves over the last two, three or four years—and continue to do so—whereas Electrolux and Simplot have not.
Electrolux global announced on 25 October that they would consolidate their Asia-Pacific refrigeration production, directing investment and funds to Thailand, supposedly, to produce fridges and freezers. As a consequence, Orange in Australia will no longer produce fridges. They used to produce 300,000 articles a year, which was about 50 per cent of the Australian market. This is a decision that has an enormous impact on the 578 workers at the plant and the 98 contractors, as well as the families connected to them and the entire community. Thank heavens it is in a place like Orange that can probably—and I say 'probably'—deal with this. The decision was made by the global management, despite repeated requests from me and the newly reinstalled Minister for Industry, Ian Macfarlane—who toured the plant and spoke with local management in October—for time for the government to investigate the situation. I was and I still am bitterly disappointed that Electrolux global management made this decision. Electrolux has European and North American members on its board but no-one from Asia or Australia. Unfortunately for Orange, Electrolux global management had made the decision to have one production centre in South-East Asia, and nothing we could do would have changed that decision.
In a similar situation, another large manufacturer in the region, Simplot, based in Bathurst—as well as Tasmania—have signalled their intention to scale back their operations, and 110 full-time jobs and 24 casuals will go in the next couple of months as the plant moves to one shift per day, focusing on frozen and canned goods and Chiko Rolls. Again, Minister Macfarlane and I requested Simplot to give the new government the appropriate time to look into the situation, but they did not give us that opportunity. While the factory remains, it is a huge blow to those people and their families.
The region is also set to lose a further 300 jobs, as several other businesses have indicated their intention to move. They include rail business Downer EDi, 100 jobs; Centennial in Lithgow, scaling back around 80 positions; and Coalpac in Lithgow, 120 positions. Coalpac went into voluntary receivership, with the bulk of the employees being retrenched last year. And earlier this year EnergyAustralia, the new owners of Mount Piper and Wallerawang power stations near Lithgow, citing a shortage of commercial coal supply and a decline in energy demand—in some ways, I have no doubt, due to the cost of the RET and the incredible effect it is having on coal supplies and coal power—announced that by the end of March Wallerawang will no longer operate. While the 300 jobs there are guaranteed for the next four years, the contractors and suppliers to Wallerawang are certainly not.
We are a tough region and we are a good region and, one way or another, we are going to deal with this. I believe we are one of the few parts of regional Australia with the 'get up and go' and opportunities to replace these losses. How are we going to do it, though? I have always believed that to create jobs you must first create opportunity, and the government must provide opportunity, where it makes commercial sense.
Since I became the member for Calare, after redistributions, I have thought long and hard about what is imperative in Calare—not just due to these productivity losses; it always has been—and that is water storage. The western two-thirds of Calare have a serious water shortage. It is something that I have seen and looked at for the last six or seven years. It has to be addressed. We seem to have a dam phobia in this country, and we have had it for too long. In my electorate we are in desperate need of appropriate water storages. Currently our productivity is under enormous sustainability and expansion pressures due to a lack of reliable water sources and reliable water storage.
The Needles dam proposal is a short-, medium- and long-term solution which would assist with job creation, encourage existing industry expansion and attract new industry. I have been asked on many occasions why there is not a bailout package for our region, given that our job losses proportionally are worse than what is happening to Melbourne and Adelaide with the car industry. But we all know that throwing money does not necessarily solve anything. It does not magically create jobs. You have only got to look at the money that has been thrown at Mitsubishi, Ford, Holden and Toyota, and all of them have gone or will be going.
You have to create the right environment to create jobs. That involves encouraging new industries and the morale of those who would invest in the region, helping those already there to expand and to take on new workers. A new dam will not only create open optimism; it well create the morale, attract new industry and support industries already in our region. It will give them the confidence to plan ahead. Mining, abattoirs, tourism and urban development are all calling for water storage they can depend on. It does not exist now. It will also create some immediate jobs but the long-term goal is to support other jobs that would be created through new or expanded businesses.
The dam in question would be located on the Belubula River called the Needles Gap, near Canowindra. It has a catchment area of an estimated 532 square kilometres into which a significant number of creeks feed and which would become part of an integrated water system with Lake Rowlands and Carcoar Dam. It may create 150 jobs to build it. That is a bonus but it is not the reason to do it. It would give water security to eight local government areas: Bathurst, Blayney, Orange, Cabonne, Cowra, Parkes, Forbes and Grenfell, some of them outside Calare, but that is good—I am great with that. Indirectly the whole region and the lower Lachlan would benefit too because it would not create new irrigation but it would give much greater security to those who already irrigate, because the Lachlan is the least secure irrigation region in New South Wales.
New South Wales Water could undertake a detailed feasibility study, including geotechnical, environmental and design and the economic benefits for the region, which I have had quoted at me, for the cost of $3 million. The timeframe for the feasibility study is less than two years. Hopefully, with an enthusiastic state government, the project could be completed within five years.
The Needles Dam proposal is noted in the federal government dam strategy as the new Carcoar dam and is prioritised in the New South Wales government infrastructure strategy and would now be the leading dam. While the building of the dam obviously far exceeds the initial cost of a feasibility study of $3 million, it would provide governments and stakeholders the opportunity to set in motion the second phase, while reinforcing the morale of the region's workforce and industry. Just the knowledge that it was going to happen would encourage mining to get going. It takes mining at least five years to do their setup as well.
Since I first went out there to talk about this, with all the local mayors totally in support, the feedback has been simply amazing. This has to happen. Calare overwhelmingly voted for the Nationals and the coalition in the recent election. It did so because it knew that only the coalition was committed to more jobs, to more industry, to more production and to a better standard of living. It did so because only the coalition was committed to more infrastructure and to more dams—it had a dam strategy. Calare needs more water for all the above reasons. Calare needs more water storage for now and for the future. Calare needs $3 million at this time so that New South Wales Water can do the study that will make Needles Dam a reality and will also look at the cost benefits. I intend to ensure that the Nationals and the coalition make good for Calare and show the leadership and guts necessary to do what needs to be done.
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (20:41): I begin by thanking the voters of Makin who elected me to represent them in this place. I would not be here were it not for them. Equally, I thank my family, my office team and the many supporters, for without their help I could not have run my re-election campaign. As every member of this place would know, running an election campaign for a federal electorate requires a huge effort. I am most grateful for the work of all the people who in some way assisted me. I also acknowledge the many candidates who stood for office in the 2013 election and in turn provided voters with choice. It is part of the strength of Australia's democratic system of government.
The election resulted in a change of government. As a result, several of my colleagues whom I had worked alongside in the last parliament were not re-elected. I place on record my appreciation of their service as members of parliament. They were all hardworking MPs who, I believe, had served their electorates well, but for reasons mainly beyond their control they lost their seats. Such is the nature of Australian politics where the focus is too often and too much on the political leaders of the day. I particularly acknowledge the service in this place of my South Australian colleague Steve Georganas, who diligently represented the Hindmarsh electorate for three terms. He was a hardworking local member who served his electorate well. I also acknowledge the many colleagues who voluntarily retired at the 2013 election or, in the case of the former member for Griffith, who retired shortly after the September election. I will miss their friendship and their experience. Having said that, I also congratulate other members of this place who were re-elected in September or were elected for the first time.
This parliament forms the centre of our democracy, our rights and our freedom, but in truth we are only as free as our laws allow us to be. The role of this parliament is, however, to ensure that those laws fairly balance the rights of individuals with the rights of the collective society we are all a part of. One of our important responsibilities as MPs is, therefore, to ensure the independence and impartiality of this parliament.
Regrettably, in its first months in government the Abbott government has treated this parliament with arrogance and contempt,
making a mockery of question time with ministers refusing to answer questions or avoiding answers, removing supplementary questions from question time, limiting opportunities for members to speak in adjournment debates and private members' motions and, as we have seen, gagging debates on important legislation at a time when the legislative program is very light. Restricting parliament's ability to do its work is a direct attack on our democracy.
The Governor-General's address on 12 November outlined the Abbott government's agenda for the 44th Parliament. What is notable about the address is not what it spells out but what it does not. As voters are very quickly finding out, the Abbott government has much more in store for them than what the Prime Minister told them in the lead-up to the election. Of course, the government's defence will predictably be to blame the previous government. Even that is already beginning to wear thin with the voters with whom I speak. I will also comment briefly on the government's claim to have a mandate for all that they want to do. I do not accept the mandate argument.
Firstly, the government only received 45.5 per cent of the public vote. That in turn means that 54.5 per cent of the Australian people voted against the government—in other words, more than half of the Australian voters did not support this government. Secondly, the election, as is the case with all elections, was not a referendum on one single issue. Voters made the choice that they did for a multitude of reasons. Again, that is always the case, always has been and always will be. What we have seen from the Abbott government, however, in its first five months in office is a government that takes from low-income Australians and gives to high-income earners, a government that wants to balance its budget on the back of low-income earners, a government that has turned its back on the environment and a government that has turned its back on South Australia. If time permits, I will address each of those points.
As a South Australian, I will begin with how the Abbott government has turned its back on South Australia. I know just how important the river Murray and Holden are to South Australians. Yet, in its first weeks in government, the Abbott government capped water buybacks to 1,500 gigalitres, deferred over $600 million of buybacks and walked away from the Labor government's commitment to return an additional 450 gigalitres of water to the river Murray system. Restoring and securing the health of the Murray was a painstaking process. Being at the end of the system, it was particularly important for South Australians. Under Labor, we finally reached a national agreement. It was not an easy process, yet in a matter of weeks all of that good work was being undone by the Abbott government while South Australian Liberals both in this place and in the South Australian parliament remained silent. The fact is that South Australia is once again being rolled by the eastern states and the South Australian Liberal members of this government have gone to water, just as they did when it came to Holden.
The Abbott government had been warned for months by former Holden executive Mike Devereux that any cuts in government assistance to the auto industry would result in the closure of Holden and with it the loss of several thousand jobs in South Australia alone. For South Australia, it also meant a $1 billion plus hit to the state economy and that recovery for the state would take years. Secondly, there are no immediate jobs for those workers to transition to and, to add insult to injury, the Abbott government came up with a pitiful $60 million of national assistance funding—not just for South Australia; this is the total for the nation as a result of the hit on the auto industry. Again, where were the voices of South Australian Liberals in this place or the voice of the South Australia Liberal opposition leader Steven Marshall? Again, they remained silent whilst the people in South Australia, including hundreds of small businesses whom they elected to represent them, were being ignored by the Abbott government.
No amount of protesting by the Abbott government or South Australian Liberals that Holden was always going to close will change the fact that the Abbott government made no effort to keep Holden in Australia. Instead, they did the opposite, cutting water assistance by $500 million and then ordering a Productivity Commission inquiry after making it clear that there would be no further financial assistance to the industry. By all accounts, the Prime Minister not even once picked up the phone to speak to GM executives about Holden's future in Australia prior to GM making its decision to close. The Abbott government simply did not care about car workers or their families, just as it did nothing to secure the jobs of workers at Toyota, SPC Ardmona, Electrolux, Qantas, Simplot, Peabody, Caterpillar or Rio Tinto jobs in Gove. In fact, 63,000 jobs have been lost since the Abbott government was elected, predominantly in the manufacturing sector.
As shadow parliamentary secretary for manufacturing, I take a particular interest in those jobs and Australia's manufacturing sector. Even with the loss of jobs in manufacturing over recent decades, I do not accept that Australia does not have a future or that we should put up the white flag on manufacturing. In recent years, the most damaging hits to manufacturing have not come from workers' wages that the Abbott government seeks to blame but from globalisation and the oversupply of products arising from the global financial crisis, a high Australian dollar, loopholes in free trade agreements and high levels of government assistance in competing countries. Nor do I believe that Australia can be a secure First World economy without a strong manufacturing sector. Over the months ahead, I will be working with my colleagues and talking to manufacturers around Australia about the most effective ways the government can secure Australia's manufacturing industries. If other advanced countries are able to maintain a profitable manufacturing sector, there is no reason why Australia, with so many natural advantages, cannot equally do so.
What is of real concern and should be of concern to Australian families is that since coming to office the Abbott government's true agenda is quickly emerging, and the government's austerity measures are focused on working families, low-income earners and welfare recipients. The Abbott government has already cut the schoolkids bonus to 1.3 million Australian families; it is worth an average of $1,200 to each family. It has cut superannuation tax breaks worth up to $500 to some 3.6 million low-income earners. It has cut small business tax breaks, including the instant asset write-off of up to $6,500, tax loss carryback provisions of up to $1 million and up to $5,000 for motor vehicle tax write-offs to small businesses. The Abbott government has even taken back $4.5 million in grants made to not-for-profit community groups to which the previous Labor government had allocated funding.
These groups return far more in value to the Australian community than the grants that they receive from government. This is penny-pinching at its worst. There is no doubt in my mind that the government's Commission of Audit is nothing more than an excuse for further cruel cuts in the May budget. Commissions of audit have been standard practice of conservative state and federal governments in this country for the past 20 years. We know that the government wants to sell off Medibank Private and impose a Medicare co-payment on people who rely on bulk-billing. Again, low-income earners and pensioners will be hit the hardest.
Of course, the Abbott government will deny any such thoughts until after the Western Australian Senate election, just as they did in the lead-up to the Griffith by-election. The government and the Treasurer talk about the end of the age of entitlement but that only applies to low-income Australians whilst high-income earners, like BHP and Rio Tinto, are rewarded with tax cuts. For the years ending June 2012 and June 2013, I understand that BHP and Rio Tinto made a combined pre-tax profit of around $82 billion and an after-tax profit of $55 billion. If the age of entitlement is over, let us see what the Abbott government does in May to mining rebates such as the oil and gas tax concessions, worth around $1.2 million over the coming year; the accelerated depreciation for oil and gas assets, costing $450 million this coming year; and the $1 billion-plus fuel tax credits program, of which the mining sector are major beneficiaries.
The Abbott government's agenda is becoming very clear—that is, to balance the budget on the back of low-income earners and welfare recipients, to raise taxes that mainly affect those already struggling the most, to cut health and education spending and to reduce workers' entitlements by blaming them for the nation's woes whilst corporate CEOs and other executives continue to receive excessive salary packages. The member for Lilley articulated these points very well. The philosophies and the agenda of this government are clear and becoming even more so each day. The problem is that these policies will have an adverse effect on the Australian economy, on economic growth and on job creation within our country. These policies will hurt many of the people I represent and Australians right around the country.
Contrary to the rhetoric of this government that seeks to blame the previous Labor government for all its woes and in turn run the narrative that it is doing what it has to do in order to restore this nation's economy and balance the budget, the government inherited an economy in pretty good shape. Economists around the world had described the economy as being in pretty good shape, and the member for Lilley articulated this point well. The Lilley economy had a AAA credit rating from all three major credit rating agencies, relatively low inflation, low unemployment and relatively low debt and deficit by international standards. We will not hear this from the government over the coming months in the excuses for why it needs to do what it is going to do—that is, attack low-income earners, wage earners and welfare recipients. Those policies will have an adverse effect on the people who elected me to this place and whom I represent. Those policies will also have an adverse effect on the 2.7 million small businesses in this country.
This government continuously claims that it represents small businesses, but in reality when you analyse its policies it does nothing for small businesses. The best example I can think of is before us right now, with the government turning its back on the auto industry. In turn, who will be one of the major losers from that? Thousands of small businesses around the country. I was elected to this place by people who want me to stand up against those kinds of cuts, people who do not want to see education spending cuts, people who do not want to see health spending cuts, people who want to see our environment protected and people who do not want to see their working conditions further eroded. They took a strong stand on working conditions in 2007. People in this country work hard and do it tough, but they are not prepared to wear the responsibility for policies that this government wants to implement and which are going to make their lives even tougher.
ADJOURNMENT
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) (21:00): Order! It being 9 pm, I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
McPherson Electorate: Varsity College
Mrs ANDREWS (McPherson) (21:00): I take this opportunity to report to the House on a fantastic local success story in my electorate of McPherson. Just a few hundred metres from my electorate office is Varsity College, one of the largest public schools in Queensland and one of the most highly sought after P-12 public schools on the Gold Coast.
Varsity College is a great example of what is actually working when it comes to the delivery of quality education in the public sector. With a motto of 'Dare to dream', Varsity College is focused on 'putting students first and maximising student-learning potential'. Varsity College is also benefiting from the Independent Public Schools initiative, which allows them more autonomy in developing innovative education initiatives.
I am very proud to inform the House that Varsity College is pursuing a range of world-class initiatives. It is the only school in Queensland that offers a Chinese immersion language program. Its basketball team, Varsity Vipers, was established by NBL player Adam Darragh and currently ranks sixth on the state leader board. In 2012 the school was placed first in the Gold Coast Eisteddfod competition as a part of its outstanding music program, in which over 600 students participate. Importantly, Varsity College is the only P-12 school in Australia to have the distinction of being a 'Microsoft World Tour School' and is one of just over 30 in the world with this award for demonstrating innovation in education. There is a strong emphasis at the school on maths and science, and that of course is supported by the latest technology. In 2012 the school identified a high number of students interested in pursuing maths and sciences, and they have worked to specifically meet the needs of those students. I congratulate the school on its efforts.
There is a lot of public debate, particularly at present, about the need to encourage students and teachers in the areas of maths and science. This is something that is very near and dear to my heart as an engineer with a passion for science. Of course, it is also vital for our ongoing economic success as a nation. Skills shortages in these critical areas have been identified and will worsen unless we begin to attract more students into maths and science. That is not necessarily just at the tertiary level either. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Varsity College administration team, staff and community for achieving world recognition through their unique digital learning platform, and particularly for the commitment to encouraging and promoting excellence in maths and science.
Earlier this month I met with the Executive Principal of Varsity College, Mr Jeff Davis, and discussed the college's ongoing success and how the Independent Public Schools initiative has assisted in the continuation of their programs of excellence. Mr Davis is a strong supporter of the Independent Public Schools initiative, and I understand that the Varsity College community, staff and parents are very supportive of his views. Mr Davis has had many years' experience in education and has observed firsthand how providing greater autonomy to principals can lead to improved outcomes for students, teachers, principals, parents and the community more broadly. There is a significant body of evidence to support those findings.
By 2017 over 1,500 public schools across the nation will claim greater independence in governance as a result of the Independent Public Schools initiative. Seventy million dollars invested in this initiative by the Abbott government will help to strengthen the Australian curriculum and increase teacher quality, principal autonomy and parental engagement. Creating this independence is a fundamental step in cutting onerous red tape and empowering government schools with the ability to make more decentralised decisions.
Once again, I thank and congratulate the staff, parents and students of Varsity College for providing a stunning example of what can be achieved in our public schools, and how the Independent Public Schools initiative can really work to support ongoing innovation in education.
I encourage other members of this House, as they promote the Independent Public Schools initiative in their local areas, to talk to their schools about ways to promote maths and science and to look to Varsity College for leadership in this area. Through innovation in technology, as well as actively encouraging the pursuit of maths and science, we can provide a greater range of options for our students and help secure the future skills base of our nation. Above all, promoting excellence in our public schools will encourage our young leaders of the future to continue to 'dare to dream'.
Asylum Seekers
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (21:05): I rise to make a contribution to the debate about Australia's asylum seeker policy. There is a lot that I could talk about this evening. I could talk about 25-year-old Reza Berati, who was killed on Manus Island last week, or about how angry I felt when the ABC's Barry Cassidy asked the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection whether the suicide of an Indian student in detention could have been avoided, and the minister's response was, 'Could he have avoided overstaying his visa?'. The sheer lack of humanity makes my blood boil.
I know there are a lot of views in Australia about how asylum seekers should be treated, so I want to talk tonight about something all Australians should be angry about, and that is the covert manner in which Operation Sovereign Borders is being implemented. Operation Sovereign Borders sounds like it emerged from George Orwell's imagination, with a communication strategy devised by the 'Ministry of Truth'. The Prime Minister has declared on his government's silence:
If we were at war we would not be giving out information that is of use to the enemy just because we might have an idle curiosity about it ourselves.
We are not at war, and expecting our government to provide us with information is fundamental to democracy; it is not a matter of 'idle curiosity'.
Let us walk through how it has come to this. The government's first move was to provide information about Operation Sovereign Borders only at weekly briefings. But these quickly turned to farce as the minister failed to provide the most basic information to reporters. Last December, the briefings stopped.
The obfuscation has extended to parliament. I want to quote from House of Representatives Practice. This manual explains how the parliament works to be accountable to the people of Australia. The Practice reads:
It is fundamental in the concept of responsible government that the Executive Government be accountable to the House. The capacity of the House of Representatives to call the Government to account depends ... on its knowledge and understanding of the Government's policies and activities. Questions ... play an important part in this quest for information.
And we have asked many questions in this place. We have asked how many boats have been stopped or towed back to Indonesia. We have asked how much money has been spent on operations. We have asked whether Indonesian fishing boats have been purchased by the Australian government, as was promised at the last election. Instead of answers we have had a defence of secrecy, the minister stating:
I'm not going to violate a protocol ... to the entertainment of those members opposite or others.
We do not ask these questions because we want to be entertained. We ask them because we want the government to govern responsibly. Instead, the minister invokes a protocol that he invented.
In Australia, we have had no revolution, no civil war, no Arab Spring, but that does not mean we can take our democracy for granted. We do not have to look too far back in human history to discover what happens when governments govern in secrecy: at best, poor decision making; at worst, flagrant, frequent and severe abuses of human rights. Our democracy must be protected by all Australians, and that means demanding the truth.
This conduct is not merely dangerous to our democracy, it smacks of arrogance. The movement of displaced people is one of the most complex problems in the world. International experts cannot agree on a solution. Yet the minister, just a few months into his job, wants us to believe that he has all the answers, that we should just trust him and be quiet. This, of any policy, deserves a full and healthy debate.
The minister has defended his silence by recasting the sharing of information as 'the shipping news for people smugglers'. Of all the arguments around the release of information, this is probably the one I find most offensive because it is just so ridiculous. The people smugglers know what is happening to their boats. They are on board or in direct contact with the arrivals. By not releasing the information we create a system where the people of Australia do not know what their government is doing, but the people smugglers do.
In the last few years we have seen this House endorse royal commissions on the stolen generation and on the abuse of children by institutions. If we could go back in time and prevent the events that led to those royal commissions, we would do it. I know this because I have listened to the heartfelt words of people in this chamber and seen the tears of people who cannot believe that institutions that purport to act in their name would do things so abhorrent to their values.
We live in an open society and, ultimately, I know that the truth will prevail. The question for us Australians is: in a generation, when our children ask us how we let this happen, how we let a government which acts in our name act with such secrecy, what will we say to them?
Petrie Electorate: Employment
Mr HOWARTH (Petrie) (21:10): I rise tonight to talk about a matter of the utmost importance in the Petrie electorate, and that is the issue of unemployment. This was the No. 1 issue raised with me by business owners, employers, employees, youth and seniors in my electorate in the lead-up to the election last September. I have inherited an unemployment rate in the Petrie electorate that is well above the national average. This simply is not good enough. I want people in my electorate to have jobs and to be able to contribute to the community through meaningful employment.
This month I hosted an unemployment forum at the Golden Ox restaurant at Margate. It was the second such forum I have hosted in the Petrie electorate, and I invited the Assistant Minister for Employment, the Hon. Luke Hartsuyker, so he could hear firsthand the issues affecting people in my community. We wanted to hear their suggestions on how the government can help create an environment that supports the business community, because business people are the ones who actually create jobs and employ people.
My employment forum was well attended, with representatives from job service providers such as Max Employment, Help Enterprises, Moreton Bay HR solutions, Employment Services Queensland and Red Cross College Employment Service. There were owners of local businesses—cafes, pharmacies, furniture manufacturers, even a McDonald's franchise—who shared their views. Most of these businesses employed five, 10 or more staff and, in some cases, up to 100. Job seekers also attended, including young people and some older Australians who are looking for work. There was a robust discussion that was contributed to by a lot of those who attended. I would like to mention a few of the things that were raised at the forum.
Seniors certainly have a great deal to offer employers and can bring a wealth of experience, life skills and loyalty to any workplace. They can pass on what they have learnt to the younger generation. A lady named Kay Gillat, who lives in my electorate and is 69 years old, was at the forum. She is looking for work but unfortunately she found when she went to DHS that they are unable to offer her help because she is over 65. I believe that whatever your age, whether you are over 65, whether you are 30 or 40, we should be able to help you find meaningful employment.
The owner of a construction business who was at the forum was concerned in particular about intimidation tactics that he and his staff have been subjected to by the CFMEU, all because he and his staff are not part of a union. I think if you want to be part of a union then you should be able to be a member of that union, absolutely. But if you choose not to be part of the union then you should not be intimidated into joining. Unfortunately, this is happening, particularly in the construction industry, according to that person from my electorate who was present at the forum.
We also heard from a number of hospitality businesses who are concerned about weekend penalty rates being a little bit too high. Their concern is that casual staff are not getting the hours on weekends because some small businesses are not opening on Saturday afternoons or on Sundays. There is talk now about possibly charging consumers a surcharge for Saturday and Sunday in order to pay for those higher rates. This needs to be looked at. It is obviously an issue for the Fair Work Commission to deal with.
A local business owner named Sarah Holland from Select Lifestyle Services Scarborough attended the forum. Sarah runs a business that provides lifestyle support, holiday, leisure and recreational opportunities for people with a disability. Sarah identified the need to encourage more local businesses to employ people with disabilities.
It is my goal to not only reduce the unemployment rate but encourage small business growth by attracting new investors to the Petrie electorate. In order to create these new jobs, we need to abolish the carbon tax, reduce red tape and taxes and provide support to small- and medium-sized businesses. I will continue to work over the next 2½ years with small businesses, service providers and local people to create more jobs in Petrie. Thank you.
Electorate of Charlton: Volunteer Awards
Mr CONROY (Charlton) (21:15): I would like to take this opportunity to draw the attention of the House to some of the remarkable volunteers in Charlton who give so much to our community. In particular I wish to acknowledge: Jan Wever, Alex Wilson, Melissa Fenton, Caroline Davies, Jane Mifsud, Pamela Aylward, Margaret Cropper, Elisabeth Porter, Jennifer Ferris, Gwen Corbet, Howard Trevathan, Bob Broadfoot OAM, Sister Helen-Anne Johnson, Darrell Breasley, Roma Dorahy and George Royal. These are very worthy recipients of the 2013 Charlton Volunteer Awards which I had the pleasure and honour of presenting in a ceremony late last year. Nominated by their peers, these 16 volunteers received awards in five categories: Emergency Management, Education, Environment, Senior and Junior.
Award recipients ranged in ages from 16 to 83 years, and they volunteer at a wide range of not-for-profit organisations such as Red Cross Emergency Services, the Retired Mineworkers Association, Sugar Valley and Maryland Neighbourhood Centres, the Morisset Showground Trust, Mum's Cottage, Cardiff South, Argenton, Blackalls Park and Garden Suburbs Public Schools and Avondale School Toronto Campus. As I got to know the volunteers in the room, it struck me what a unique group of individuals they were—all from diverse backgrounds, in various stages of their lives and with various work and family commitments. But what united them, what made them special and what they had in common was their desire to take action to improve society, to make the world a better place, to go above and beyond.
Speaking to some of these volunteers was incredible. Some of them had been called out for the October bushfires that affected my region as well as the Blue Mountains. Some of them were fostering their seventh or eighth child, having successfully raised three children of their own. Their efforts and their personal stories struck me very deeply. I made the point in that ceremony that we are not just honouring their contribution; we are honouring the contribution of the families and friends that make sacrifices and support them when they are sick and cover for them when they need to go out and make these great volunteering efforts. These volunteers have made a significant impact on all our lives and the Charlton Volunteer Awards endeavour to pay tribute to the unsung heroes of our local community who give so much to others, asking for nothing in return. Thank you also to all the nominating organisations for taking the time to recognise the efforts of the 2013 Charlton Volunteer Award recipients.
I would also like to take the opportunity to congratulate and recognise students in Charlton who have been extended the Pat Conroy Community Involvement Award as part of their school's end-of-year presentation ceremonies late last year. This award recognises students who have excelled in building and maintaining bonds within the school community and have displayed a positive attitude towards upholding the values of their school.
Ten high schools in Charlton participated in the awards, and I warmly congratulate the following recipients: Samantha Mayo of Glendale Technology High School, Chloe Boonstoppel of Lake Macquarie High School, Courtney Young of West Wallsend High School, Luke Brymora of St Paul's High School, Cameron Arnott of Bishop Tyrrell Anglican College, Jasmin Fielding of Charlton Christian College, Jake Henderson of Toronto High School, Kyara Nean of Callaghan College Wallsend Campus, Olivia Cook of Morisset High School, and Jade Morgan of Avondale School. It is important to recognise the achievements and contributions of students to their school community and I am pleased to recognise these outstanding young men and women.
These students were often academically gifted but not always the top of their class. What united them was a desire to make their school a better place, to make their community a better place and to improve society. Hopefully, later on in life some of these recipients will be then receiving volunteer awards for continuing their great public service. So it is a great honour to be a member of this chamber and to represent Charlton in this electorate. But it is an even greater honour to be able to take part in awarding and recognising the efforts of volunteers and community leaders. I would like to honour all those I have named and I hope to be here in a year's time honouring the next year's recipients. Thank you.
Electorate of Maranoa: Coal Seam Gas Mining and Sewage Disposal
Mr BRUCE SCOTT (Maranoa—Deputy Speaker) (21:20): I rise tonight to place on the public record the concerns of residents in my electorate of Maranoa particularly in my own home town district of Roma. The rapid expansion of the coal seam gas industry across the Surat Basin has seen many jobs created in one of the biggest developments in Queensland, the coal seam gas industry. What we have seen in terms of growth and population is the increase of fly-in fly-out workers. Some 78 per cent of the workers involved in the coal seam gas industry, as I understand it according to advice from the Queensland government statistical areas, live in worker camps. The real challenge now is how these camps, whether they are subcontractors or not, deal with the effluent from those camps.
This has concerned residents in my community, who are very upset. There has been an application before the Maranoa Regional Council for:
… a single storage pond to receive and store treated and untreated effluent—
in other words untreated raw human sewage—
sourced from the Coal Seam Gas operations within the region.
I am quoting that from the council's website.
This is located some 20 kilometres north of Roma and the watershed above Roma. The size of the proposed storage pond would be some five hectares in size, about 12 acres in the old measurement, and one metre deep. It will have a storage capacity of 50 megalitres. That is the equivalent of 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools, given that one Olympic-sized swimming pool is 2.5 megalitres. The effluent received at this site will comprise some 60 per cent untreated and 40 per cent treated human effluent. The total proposed accepted wastewater per year will be almost 96 megalitres.
The problem with this proposal is that it has the potential, being located within 1½ kilometres of the nearest resident—in fact, within a 10-kilometre radius of this proposal for the storage of raw human sewage, as well as some treated human sewage, there are 80 residences—to devalue the surrounding land. Think of that with these lifestyle blocks that are rapidly developing in my constituency; people are buying land—160 acres or 40 acres—to build a new house, to raise their family and to enjoy a rural lifestyle. So it has the potential to devalue the land in the area.
A young couple have bought land nearby—a wonderful young couple with a young family—and they asked, 'Why would we buy land there and build our house next to a toilet?' That is the equivalent of what this means. The concerned residents have had two meetings now, and I think they are having another one tomorrow night. They really want to stop this proposal, and I believe that they are on very sound ground. The problem with this raw, untreated human sewage is that it is going to be stored there. The proposal is that the fluids will evaporate and that one day they will just bulldoze the dam and cover up the remaining solids. In this day and age, when we are trying to promote the clean, green image of our agricultural sector, can you imagine that we should allow this type of development, for raw, untreated human sewage to be left uncovered in the open air? Animals and particularly birds could transmit potential risks associated with that type of storage into the region.
The people of Roma who are concerned about this were not aware of this. I know now that the regional council are concerned themselves. We have to work with the gas industry to make sure that we can deal with this in a proper way, as you would in a town or city, so that the effluent that is coming from these camps is treated to the high standards that we would expect in our capital cities. I am with the communities to make sure that we work with these gas companies. We need their support, because if this practice is not stopped now it will continue to be allowed across this coal seam gas industry development for the next 20 years. I do not want to see that occur in my constituency, and nor do the concerned residents of the Roma district. (Time expired)
Copyright
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (21:25): I rise tonight to note the Australian Law Reform Commission's final report on its inquiry into the Copyright Act, commissioned by the previous Labor government, entitled Copyright and the digital economy. Considering 870 submissions collected over 18 months and providing over 400 pages of analysis, the report is a definitive articulation of the challenges that face Australian copyright law in the digital era. Among the recommendations of this report was a clear endorsement of the adoption of a broad fair use exception to copyright law in Australia, rather than the current narrow and prescriptive fair dealing exemptions in the act. For copyright reform advocates such as myself, the report is a landmark moment in the journey towards a copyright law that will help, not hinder, Australia's digital economy.
The introduction of fair-use principles into our copyright legislation would both protect the legitimate interests of content creators and allow those wanting to transform copyrighted material the space to develop and innovate within prescribed legal boundaries. The significance of this recommendation is highlighted by Google's submission to the ALRC where it asserted that it could not have started its business in Australia under the current copyright framework. Nor, might I add, could have Apple or Facebook.
I want companies like this to start in Australia. A copyright regime that permits innovation is required to attract the companies and communities that will make Australia a leader in the digital century ahead. Many online communities often transform other's copyrighted work by adding new uses for data or by creating completely new artistic works through what US academic Lawrence Lessig calls 'remix culture'. They may create content like the political satire videos of Australian, Hugh Atkin, who use sample clips of Australian and US political culture to entertain millions of fans. Such an active relationship between content creators and their audiences should be celebrated, not punished, so long as these new uses are not unfair, considering a range of explicit considerations.
But there are some who look upon this bright digital future and see only a challenge to their expansive current rights, and they have ear of our current Attorney-General. In a speech responding to the ALRC report at the Australian Digital Alliance conference, the Attorney-General expressed doubt about the benefits of fair-use provisions. He instead focused his speech and his reforming intention on a three strikes regime for alleged copyright infringers. In response to this speech, the online journalist, Stilgherrian, expressed dismay, but not surprise, because the Attorney-General:
… is a conservative minister in a conservative government.
But I think the Attorney-General would reject this title. In fact, he devoted more than 6½ thousand words to disowning the title of 'conservative' in his 2009 Alfred Deakin Lecture entitled 'We believe: the Liberal party and the liberal cause'.
In this opus, the Attorney-General argued for a Liberal Party that represents small 'l' liberal ideas and cites—I know that Madam Speaker will approve—from Hayek's seminal essay, 'Why I am not a Conservative', quoting:
There has never been a time when liberal ideals were fully realized and when liberalism did not look forward to further improvement of institutions …
The Attorney-General seems not to realise that Hayek, a genuine liberal, was very much interested in the further improvement of the institutions of intellectual property. In his essay, 'Individualism in the economic order', Hayek reflected on the law underpinning inventions, copyright, trade marks and the like, arguing:
It seems to me beyond doubt that in these fields a slavish application of the concept of property as it has been developed for material things has done a great deal to foster the growth of monopoly and that here drastic reforms may be required if competition is to be made to work.
Hayek later noted in The Fatal Conceit:
… it is not obvious that such forced scarcity is the most effective way to stimulate the human creative process. I doubt whether there exists a single great work of literature which we would not possess had the author been unable to obtain an exclusive copyright for it; …
It seems that Senator Brandis' commitment to liberalism dominates his speeches but does not make it into his legislative agenda.
This is a blind spot shared by others on the right. Our new freedom commissioner, Tim Wilson, wrote a lengthy defence of an absolutist approach to IP in his days as the head of the IP division at the Institute of Public Affairs. In his IPA background in intellectual property matters, Wilson seems blissfully unaware of the liberal critique of intellectual property, advocating instead the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto's work on property rights. He explicitly ignored Hayek's warning and slavishly applied the concept of property as it has been developed for material things to intellectual property. Wilson's position may have been the result of his sadly inaccurate belief that a fee exemption already existed under Australian copyright law, observable in his statement:
Copyright protection is exempted under ‘fair use’ provisions, which allow persons to reproduce the work within a limited framework.
We see then that, in the Liberal Party, an individual's freedoms stand for little in the face of vested interests seeking to expand a private statutory monopoly.
The Attorney-General concluded his Deakin essay by noting:
It is still all too easy to forget what it is that makes us liberals, … the Liberal Party has sometimes forgotten it too.
When it comes to intellectual property, the Liberal Party has forgotten the principles on which it makes a stand.
The SPEAKER: Order! It being 9.30 pm, the debate is interrupted.
House adjourned at 21:30
NOTICES
The following notices were given:
M r P yne to move:
That this House, in relation to the statement made on 21 May 2012 by Mr Craig Thomson, the then Member for Dobell:
(1) expresses its regret for the statement and its contents, much of which has been proven as false by the findings of the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 18 February 2014 in relation to Mr Thomson; and
(2) apologises to:
(a) those individuals named in the speech against which egregious falsehoods were made; and
(b) the members of the Health Services Union, some of the lowest paid workers in Australia, for the spending by Mr Craig Thomson of $267,721.65 of Union members’ funds on his re-election campaign and further private expenditure not authorised by the Union.
Mr E. T. Jones to move:
That this House notes:
(1) the importance of investing in the Bruce Highway to improve productivity;
(2) that the Bruce Highway is integral to the transport of goods along the eastern coast of Queensland;
(3) that priority must be given to the most pressing projects; and
(4) that the development of Northern Australia relies heavily on improving infrastructure in North Queensland.
Mrs K. L. Andrews to move:
That this House:
(1) recognises that:
(a) there are three significant netball events approaching over the next four years, the:
(i) Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014;
(ii) Netball World Cup in Sydney in August 2015; and
(iii) Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018; and
(b) netball:
(i) continues to be one of the most popular sports in Australia with the highest participation rate of any team sport amongst girls; and
(ii) has been identified as not only having notable fitness benefits but also significantly decreasing the likelihood of depression; and
(2) acknowledges that:
(a) Australia’s elite netball players have opportunities to interact with parliamentarians as they prepare for the upcoming Commonwealth Games and the Netball World Cup;
(b) the Australian media plays an important role in highlighting the role that netball has in our cultural identity, which in turn promotes the sport and increases participation rates; and
(c) Netball Australia should be congratulated for its impact in boosting the profile of women in sport, providing its members with valuable leadership skills and supporting world-class athletes.
Ms Plibersek to move:
That this House:
(1) notes:
(a) the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) released on 17 February 2014;
(b) the gravity, scale and nature of human rights violations and crimes against humanity which have been and are being committed systematically by the DPRK, including murder, enslavement, starvation, torture, rape and persecution on the grounds of race, religion and gender, and other inhumane acts;
(c) first hand testimony from DPRK refugees, escapees and asylum seekers;
(d) the political and security apparatus of the DPRK and the use of tactics including surveillance, selective distribution of food, fear, public executions and forced disappearances; and
(e) the crimes against humanity against non-DPRK citizens through international abduction and forced repatriation;
(2) recognises the significance of the public hearings held by the commission of inquiry, in informing the report;
(3) acknowledges the work of the Chair of the commission of inquiry, the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, and his important contribution to improved international understanding and capacity to respond to the state of human rights in the DPRK; and
(4) calls on the Government to take all available steps to:
(a) support the recommendations of the report;
(b) urge United Nations action on the findings of the report; and
(c) support efforts to hold those responsible for crimes accountable through the International Criminal Court.
Mr Williams to move:
That this House notes:
(1) with concern that unemployment in South Australia is higher than the national average;
(2) that South Australia has a talented workforce that deserves a government determined to:
(a) reduce taxes and regulation;
(b) grow the state’s economy, and
(c) liberate the people of South Australia to realise their destiny; and
(3) that the Australian Government has a plan to build a stronger South Australian economy so that everyone can get ahead through abolishing the carbon tax, ending the waste, stopping the boats, and building the roads of the 21st century.
Mr Hayes to move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Assyrian population of Iraq continues to suffer persecution more than ten years after the fall of Saddam Hussein; and
(b) in 2003 there were nearly 1.4 million Christians in Iraq, but due to deaths and forced migration, this figure has fallen to around 500,000;
(2) congratulates the Government of Iraq on giving in principal support for the establishment of three provinces to specifically provide for the interests of Iraqi minority groups;
(3) acknowledges that the establishment of a province in the Nineveh Plains region could provide a haven for Assyrian as well as Christian, Mandaean and other minorities for the continuation of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions; and
(4) calls on the Government of lraq to formalise this region as an autonomous province in order to ensure the security of its inhabitants and the preservation of their ancient culture and tradition.
Ms Parke to move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) since 1 July 1932 when ABC Radio first came on air, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), created by the Australian Parliament, has played an integral and essential role in serving communities from all corners of the Australian Federation;
(b) the ABC and more recently, the Special Broadcasting Corporation (SBS), have played a key role in facilitating the evolution of a diverse but cohesive Australian polity, contributed significantly to the creation of a distinctive Australian identity, and been a critical guarantor of the quality and strength of Australian democracy;
(c) the ABC’s Charter states the broadcaster shall ‘contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the diversity of the Australian community’;
(d) public broadcasting plays an irreplaceable role in delivering a range of services that have not been provided and are not likely to be provided by private media organisations, including high‑quality educational children’s television, comprehensive emergency services broadcasts, non‑English language and multicultural programming, and comprehensive coverage of major civic and sporting events, and democratic processes;
(e) the news, information, entertainment, and emergency service announcements provided by the ABC are of particular importance in regional and remote communities across Australia;
(f) the ABC has a longstanding and established reputation, based on public opinion data and independent analysis, as the most trusted and trustworthy source of television and radio news in Australia;
(g) the conservative think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, has called for the breakup and/or privatisation of the ABC and SBS; and
(h) on the day before the election, on 6 September 2013, speaking live to SBS from Penrith football stadium, the Prime Minister said, ‘No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS’; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) confirm the Prime Minister’s clear and unequivocal commitment that there will be no cuts to the ABC or SBS;
(b) cease its unwarranted, politically motivated vilification of the ABC as a news organisation, and its baseless criticism of the ABC’s organisational independence and integrity;
(c) respect the ABC’s mandate to provide innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services, which in this digital age includes many platforms and cannot be confined to radio and television; and
(d) uphold the ABC and SBS Acts in respect of the arms‑length, merit‑based, and consultative protocols used for the appointment of ABC and SBS Board members.
Ms Hall to move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) 28 February is Rare Disease Dayand encourages all Members to acknowledge that around 10 per cent of the population including 400,000 children suffer from these diseases;
(b) rare diseases, of which there are more than 8,000, are complex, often with inadequate or no treatment; and
(c) 80 per cent of rare diseases affect children and most begin in childhood only to continue throughout life;
(2) recognises that:
(a) for best practice treatments to be achieved, Australians with rare diseases must have access to a wide range of trials; and
(b) a rare disease registry is potentially valuable to the progress of medical research in this field; and
(3) acknowledges:
(a) the vital role organisations play in assisting the patients with treatment and quality of life; and
(b) that an investigation into the establishment of a national patient registry, free of commercial interests, for research purposes.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) took the chair at 10:31.
CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
Kingston Electorate: Live Animal Exports
Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston) (10:31): I rise today on the matter of live animal exports, which is deeply concerning to many in my community in the seat of Kingston. Over some time now we have seen quite sickening and very distressing reports about the mistreatment of animals overseas which have been exported from Australia. This treatment has occurred in places such as Gaza, Indonesia, Egypt and Bahrain. A range of people in my electorate have raised concerns about the inhumane treatment of animals. I received hundreds of calls for action from my constituents, some said they believe the system needs strengthening and others asked for a complete ban of live exports altogether. This has been an issue for some time.
The former federal Labor government did bring in a number of changes to the system including abolishing a regime of self-regulation—which in many instances failed—and which looked at the traceability of animals so that one can determine where they were traded and where they originated. Labor took to the last election a policy of a more stringent regime with an independent office of animal welfare to further strengthen the system. I believe it is incredibly important that the government look at implementing an independent office of animal welfare, an independent statutory body, because if the confidence is not in our community for live animal exports then the demand will be for it to stop. At the moment, when I move around my electorate the confidence is not there. Increasingly, we are seeing reports and footage come through that disturb and upset people quite explicitly.
Last December I wrote to the federal Liberal Minister for Agriculture around the concerns my electors have. Unfortunately I received the response:
The Australian government believes that the livestock trade is subject to the appropriate level of regulatory oversight and has effective review mechanisms in place.
People in my electorate do not have that confidence. They do not believe it is effective and they do not believe it is doing the job. We need to not sit on our hands when it comes to the treatment and welfare of animals that are traded overseas in our name. We need to have more checks and balances. We need to ensure that these animals are treated in a humane way that does not prolong suffering such as in some of the reports that we have seen. It is up to the Australian government to ensure that those protections are put in place. My constituents are calling for it.
Deakin Electorate: Community Infrastructure
Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (10:34): It gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak about three important sporting projects benefiting my constituents in the electorate of Deakin. As part of the coalition government, I am delivering on my election commitments. Before the election, I announced that up to $930,000 would be invested in various community-infrastructure projects in Deakin, and in December I confirmed that funding would be made available through the Community Development Grants Program. I will briefly speak about each project.
Firstly, the Norwood Sporting Club will receive $400,000 to help redevelop the Kevin Pratt Pavilion in Ringwood's Mullum Mullum Reserve. The club is home to the Norwood Football Club and Norwood Cricket Club as well as to social golf. I worked closely with Norwood Football Club President Mark Etherington, a tireless advocate for the community, to secure funding for this much needed upgrade. Importantly, the redevelopment, delivered in partnership with the Maroondah Council and the coalition state government, will benefit the wider community, with plans for local schools and community groups to also use this space. The Norwood Sporting Club lobbied for this project for many years and, with the former Labor member unable to secure support from the Rudd-Gillard government, the federal coalition's commitment is the final piece in that puzzle.
The second election commitment I would like to mention is a $500,000 commitment towards the upgrade of facilities at Eastwood Ringwood Reserve, home to the East Ringwood football and cricket clubs. Anyone in the community who, like me, has been down to support the Mighty Roos on a Saturday knows that the existing clubrooms are in dire need of an upgrade. The club change rooms have barely changed since my days playing junior football there, in the 1990s. East Ringwood Football Club President Geoff Buzagalo and I first met in 2012 to discuss the redevelopment plans, which will not only help ensure the continued strength of the Ringwood Football Club but also will help ensure a first-rate facility for the entire community.
Finally, the coalition government has responded to a much needed request from the Mitcham Football Club for $30,000 to install netting at Walker Park, to keep players safe and protect residential properties. President Matt McCubbin brought to my attention his genuine concerns about the safety of junior players as well as the impact on neighbouring residents. It is satisfying to be able to assist the club, local residents and Whitehorse City Council in resolving this issue. Importantly, all three projects create new infrastructure that will benefit a number of user groups in my community and provide a significant benefit to junior sport.
With obesity and other health related issues increasing, I am determined to make it easier and more attractive for our children in Deakin to participate in sport and enjoy all of the health and social benefits that go along with it. I am proud to be part of a government that invests in community infrastructure and delivers on its election commitments.
Isaacs Electorate: St Louis de Montfort's Primary School
Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs) (10:37): I rise to commend St Louis de Montfort's Primary School in Aspendale for the wonderful environmental-learning opportunities they are providing students through their 'sustainability precinct' that includes a vegetable garden, orchard, chicken coop and student kitchen. St Louis de Montfort's Primary School has grown considerably since its first classrooms were constructed in 1964. The school now has an enrolment of around 760 students and has become an integral part of the Aspendale community.
On Tuesday 18 February I visited the school to present leadership certificates to their year 6 students and to review their sustainability precinct that was commissioned in April 2013. Mrs Julie Wynne and some of the student leaders took me on a tour of the student kitchen and garden to see their sustainability curriculum being taught. Mrs Sue Crisp was bringing maths to life through a cooking class in the well-equipped kitchen made from converted shipping containers. It was evident that the students were thoroughly enjoying learning about fractions by measuring ingredients for their apple crumbles.
Just outside the kitchen another class of students was actively helping the school gardener, Mr Frank Overberg, in St Louis de Montfort's beautiful sustainability garden. The garden has an extensive vegetable patch, a small orchard, a coop for chickens and geese, a rabbit hutch, a worm farm and a soon-to-be-inhabited aviary. Old tyres have been recycled, to construct seating for a small amphitheatre. Extensive plantings of native plants indigenous to the Aspendale area are planned.
Through the integrated sustainability garden and kitchen, students learn about concepts such as permaculture, aquaponics, nutrition and how to identify indigenous edible plants. As I spoke with the students, it was obvious that this applied approach to environmental curriculum has deeply engaged their learning and taught them an appreciation for the land and living sustainably in our fragile Australian environment.
St Louis de Montfort's students have found a very creative way to raise money to continue maintaining and extending the garden and have launched a 'Sponsor a Worm' program. I was happy to assist as their first sponsor, and I can report that the school now has a worm called Isaacs. I congratulate the school principal, Mr Tom Lindeman, and the St Louis de Montfort community on this wonderful educational initiative. Sustainability should be an increasingly important part of all Australian students' learning as we grapple with how best to care for our land and protect it for future generations. St Louis de Montfort's primary school can be proud of taking the lead in developing and trialling applied environmental education through their sustainability kitchen and garden.
Dawson Electorate: My Whitsunday
Mr CHRISTENSEN (Dawson—The Nationals Deputy Whip) (10:40): I am most fortunate to have in my electorate perhaps Australia's best holiday destination, the Whitsundays. What truly makes the Whitsundays such a great place is not just the beautiful waters, the many different Whitsunday islands and the natural features of the place; what makes the Whitsundays great is the extraordinary sense of community that is amongst the locals there.
That sense of community was clearly evident when the Rotary Club of Airlie Beach began a project back in 1986 to put all of the local phone numbers into one handy 36-page booklet. It was the birth of the 'My Whitsunday' local phone guide. That project is now in its 29th year. It covers the region and averages about 250 pages and has comprehensive maps, tidal, first aid and weather information, news and even webcams. They have just launched a new website and a mobile app, which have further increased the accessibility of this resource. With almost 100 per cent advertising coming from local business, it has become an essential tool for every home and business in the Whitsundays.
Most importantly, My Whitsunday is one of the most successful Rotary projects in Queensland and possibly Australia, because profits are returned to the community. Advertisers pay Rotary, which in turn deploys funds directly and indirectly for a wide range of purposes. Direct funding from this project comes in the form of special grants, emergency assistance to local families in need, food hampers, school breakfast programs, equipment funding for the Whitsunday and Bowen PCYCs, local schools, hospitals and the volunteer marine rescue.
It allows donations to local not-for-profit organisations, especially through the My Whitsunday Beneficiary Program, which has raised well over $100,000 since it began in 2009. It supports and sponsors events like the Whitsunday Reef Festival, Carols by the Beach and local youth programs such as safe teenage driving courses. It also supports anti-bullying, child abuse prevention and leadership programs. It supports schoolies week in the Whitsundays, Clean-Up Australia, the Christmas party for the disabled and a local hands-on environmental organisation, ECOBARGE, which I have supported through my own My Whitsunday sponsorship. The My Whitsunday revenue is also used to fund the annual community raffle and prizes. Selling organisations keep ticket sales proceeds.
More than 100 local sporting and community groups were assisted in 2012 alone with more than $100,000. Between 2011 and 2013, the My Whitsunday local phone guide has returned more than $600,000 to the community. Since the project began, it as injected over $10.25 million into the community, getting support to where it is needed. The Whitsundays is a world-class tourist destination, and this community group is doing an awe-inspiring job. The project lives by the motto: By our community, for our community. It certainly is and I congratulate them.
Greenway Electorate: Quakers Hill Nursing Home
Ms ROWLAND (Greenway) (10:43): I rise to update the House on the redevelopment of the Quakers Hill Nursing Home, located in my electorate, which, as members would remember, burnt down in November 2011—tragically taking the lives of 11 innocent people. Victims died in the fire and others died afterwards from complications related to the fire. This was a truly horrifying event for a close-knit community. These were innocent victims—elderly people who had survived wars, The Depression, disease and the passage of time itself—whose lives were ripped away by an event none of them deserved or could have foreseen.
Over the last 2½ years our community has collectively grieved and come together to do whatever we could to help those affected. I would like to mention the outstanding work of Minister Geoff Bates of the Quakers Hill Anglican Church, which acted as both a triage zone and a safe place of comfort for the families of those involved at the time of the tragedy and over the last two years. There are many people in our community who did exceptional work in this area, but I do want to specifically mention Reverend Bates—he was a true shepherd for all our community.
The fatal fire prompted an overhaul of the rules surrounding fire safety in residential nursing homes. The Quakers Hill facility had fire extinguishers and fire doors, but it did not have sprinklers in place. It is now compulsory for nursing homes in New South Wales to have sprinklers, and if we can take anything positive from this tragic event it is that this will not happen in future.
Whilst I am mentioning these lessons learned, I want to make it clear that the Quakers Hill facility had done everything it could, under the rules appropriate to them, and this is not mentioned to attribute fault or blame to anyone, because indeed no-one could have foreseen that this was going to be the work of an arsonist, a perpetrator, who was later convicted—a perpetrator who was, in fact, one of the nurses from the facility.
This Friday we reach a significant moment in the history of Quakers Hill Nursing Home: the official reopening of that facility, which will be done by Premier O'Farrell. I am also pleased that the shadow minister for ageing, the member for Blair, will also be present. The new centre is three times the size of the previous home and will provide 79 single and 24 double rooms, with a dedicated wing for 16 residents living with dementia. But, most importantly, the new home will feature a memorial garden which was designed as a reminder of the impact the Quakers Hill fire had on individuals, families and the community at large. While the physical infrastructure has been mended, the psychological scars will always be raw. My thoughts and prayers, and, I am sure, those of other members, will be with the community on what will be an emotional day, especially for relatives and friends of the deceased. May they all rest in peace.
Casey Electorate: Defence
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (10:46): A little over 100 years ago, five months ahead of the outbreak of World War I, an important historical event occurred in the heart of the electorate of Casey in the towns of Lilydale and Coldstream. In the second week of February 1914, John Monash brought 3,000 troops by train to Lilydale for a camp of instruction. As I said, it was five months ahead of the outbreak of World War I, at a time when the country knew that war was imminent. Those 3,000 soldiers came for a week of instruction and training. On the Thursday of the second week of February 1914, they moved from Lilydale to Coldstream for a mock battle. As it happens, this battle was witnessed by General Sir Ian Hamilton who of course would go on to a very senior role in Gallipoli. On Sunday 8 February this important event was commemorated in Lilydale at Lilydale Lake where the camp took place and then, on the following Thursday, out at Mount Mary where the mock battle took place.
A dedicated organising committee ensured the event was a great success. Storyboards and plaques were erected, thanks to the dedication of the local Rotary and a Centenary of Anzac Local Grant of $5,200. This important local history is vital for our local community, particularly for the younger generations in school to be able to see and touch and feel the community contribution at their local level. I want to pay tribute to the organising committee, particularly to Anthony McAleer who spent so much time organising the event and who has dedicated himself to this particular event by authoring a book that was also released on the day. On behalf of all of the committee, I wanted to make mention of this important event here in this chamber.
Parramatta Electorate: Rath Yatra Festival
Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (10:49): I often say about my electorate of Parramatta that we have the world in us. When Australia opened its doors at the end of the White Australia policy back in the seventies the world came in. I live in a community where the character, philosophy and history of some of the great nations are now woven into the fabric of our society. I love them all, but today I particularly want to talk about the nation of the subcontinent, and some of the wonders that are now in my community because of the presence of quite an extraordinary community. We have already seen, because of this great arrival of people around the world, wonderful new festivals—the festivals of Holi and Diwali. We have seen Carnatic music and dance, which is incredibly strong in my community. We have seen wonderful new restaurants that celebrate the cuisines of different regions of India and the Punjab, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. In Parramatta we can eat the foods of the different regions of India.
On Saturday, a new festival arrived. We saw the first celebration of Rath Yatra in Parramatta Park. Rath Yatra is one of the great Hindu festivals of the world. It is known as the chariot festival. It celebrates an event that started in Puri in India and now takes place in many locations around India. The festival is about taking the deity, Lord Jagannath, and his two siblings on a chariot out to meet the people. It is about bringing the religion of Hinduism out to the people. It is known as the us Rath Yatra was a chariot festival.
The festival was an extra ordinary event. The deities were loaded on the chariot near Parramatta pool. The chariot was pulled with ropes by members of the community about 400 metres through Parramatta Park and then turned around and brought back. It was an incredibly colourful event—an event of great meaning to the people who participated.
A thing to know about this festival which might be quite interesting for Western people is that the word 'juggernaut' came from this festival. The Jagannath chariot, as it is called, is pulled through the streets and once it starts it is very difficult to stop so the word 'juggernaut' that we use on a daily basis comes from this quite ancient festival Rath Yatra.
I congratulate the organisers—ISKCON and also Gambhir Watts of Bhavan, for what was an extraordinary event and a great addition to the ceremonial life of Parramatta.
Lyne Electorate: Awards
Dr GILLESPIE (Lyne) (10:52): I rise to bring to the attention of the House, and to congratulate, Citizens of the Year in the Lyne electorate. I recognised them in my Australia Day speech but I would like to formally mention that in the Manning Valley the Greater Taree City Citizen of the Year was Maureen Turner. She received that award for her years of dedicated service for Riding for the Disabled.
Young Citizen of the Year and Sports Star were also announced, as was the Community Event of the Year. Community Event of the Year went to a wonderful group of people in Wingham. They got together a wonderful festival that really unites the town and brings in a lot of trade and business: the Wingham Akoostik Music Festival. Sports Star of the Year was Arlene Blencowe.
In Port Macquarie the Hasting Citizen of the Year was Ally Costanzo, who has worked tirelessly and helped some of the most vulnerable in our community—those with hearing impairment and those suffering from deafness and blindness. She has been a Trojan in working as solace and support for that community. Senior Citizen of the Year in the Hastings area was local Rotarian and former local journalist Laurie Barber. Young Citizen of the Year was Ahlia Westaway-Griffiths.
In Gloucester, I had the pleasure of being on hand at this year's Australian Day ceremonies to see Norma Fisher named Citizen of the Year and Jack Wilson named Young Citizen of the Year. Yarning our Country was named Organisation of the Year. In the Macleay valley to the north, Maurie Fuller was named Citizen of the Year.
Clay Frist was named Young Citizen of the Year, and the Community Group Award went to Kempsey PCYC. All of these community groups do amazing work in their own communities. People underestimate the value to the community and the value to society as a whole the support and encouragement they give to groups like Riding for the Disabled or to the blind and hearing impaired. Teaching signing or supporting the group is a wonderful thing for anybody to do.
So many other people do great work in the community but on this occasion we chose those who were selected as the winners. But, really, all of those nominated were winners because they are all doing a great job, they are all appreciated deeply by the community, and I encourage them to continue their great and rewarding work.
Swan Electorate: Fringe Benefits Tax
Mr IRONS (Swan) (10:55): The policies of the previous government caused plenty of problems for industry across Australia. But one of the worst cases of the damage happened in its dying days with Kevin Rudd's announcement of the proposed changes to the fringe benefits tax. This policy caused particular and irreversible damage to businesses in my electorate of Swan. Victoria Park, in my electorate of Swan, is a well-known major hub for the local vehicle trade. Many West Australians will be familiar with the famous John Hughes motor vehicle dealerships starting just over the Causeway in Victoria Park and extending down the Albany Highway into Bentley. The hub contains many more small businesses in the car industry including dealerships, mechanics and fleet management companies.
It is the latter that suffered almost immediately after Kevin Rudd announced the $1.8 billion change to the FBT on 16 July 2013 to make it harder for people to have a company or salary sacrificed vehicle. These changes, while only proposed, had an immediate negative impact on the industry as sales volumes crashed through to cancellations and the drying up of new orders.
The coalition immediately announced it would not proceed with the measure if elected but Labor's change had already done the damage as sales dried up for the car lease industry. On 23 July I held a meeting in Victoria Park with three of the four major car leasing companies in the area. One of these companies, Easifleet, was in a desperate position with a collapse in sales income. I met with the 25 staff of the business and could only reassure them that the coalition would not proceed with Mr Rudd's changes if elected. Easifleet was holding out, taking the losses in the hope of an early election to resolve the issue, but, sadly, on 29 July Easifleet started to offer redundancies. In an article in the Southern Gazette on 6 August 2013 entitled 'Redundancy offers follow FBT change', journalist Susanne Reilly reported that:
EASIFLEET general manager Scott Iriks says the car-leasing firm's decision to offer redundancies was because all new business had stopped as a "direct result" of the Federal Government's fringe benefit tax announcement.
The report continued:
"We were prepared to have the costs if the Government announced an election, and while we had no sales income we were happy to pay staff," Mr Iriks said.
However, he said, the cost had begun to weigh on the company and they had to offer redundancies.
I noted this in the same article:
Senator Mark Bishop said claims the FBT changes would cause massive damage to industry were "alarmist and irresponsible".
If the senator had bothered to walk across the road to EASIFLEET, which is right across the road from his office, he would have been able to talk to those people and find out how much that damage was causing. The changes, had they proceeded, would have caused damage to the entire sector. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries estimated a potential 10 per cent drop in imported car sales. This would have had major impact on the motor vehicle trading hub in my electorate of Swan. Thankfully a coalition government was elected.
Shortland Electorate: Human Services
Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (10:59): Last week I was visited by management officers from the Department of Human Services in my electorate. They advised me that there was a plan—and this plan is well down the path of coming to fruition—of moving the Medicare office from Charlestown Square, which is a major shopping centre within Shortland electorate, and co-locating it with the Centrelink office, which is in a very difficult place for people to access.
I do not know about the offices of other members in this House, but my office has been inundated with complaints that people are waiting for extraordinarily long periods to access services in Centrelink and being told to go away and make a phone call to Centrelink rather than have their problems dealt with at the time of their visit. The fact that, in an electorate where there are a lot of older people, the government are moving the Medicare office from a very accessible place to an office which is already overworked with long waiting times and people becoming very frustrated shows that this government are not thinking and do not care about people. The Centrelink office is located on a very busy road, and, combined with the problem of trying to find parking in the area, the new location is going to be impossible for elderly people.
I call on the government to reverse their decision to move Medicare from Charlestown square—a very busy, easy and accessible shopping centre—to an inaccessible, large, busy Centrelink office. Centrelink is already struggling under a government which has inflicted cuts on the agency and is upping its workload. With the increasing number of people in unemployment lines and this government's failure to have any sort of job plan in place, the decision to relocate the Medicare office will only cause harm and hardship to the people I represent. It follows the action that the Howard government took when they were elected and closed the Medicare office at Belmont. It took a Labor government to reopen it. Labor listens to people, but this coalition government is all about cuts and causing hardship to people.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ): Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for constituency statements has concluded.
MOTIONS
Diabetes
Mr WYATT (Hasluck) (11:02): I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that diabetes is a serious health concern with an estimated 382 million people worldwide living with diabetes;
(2) recognises that:
(a) 8 per cent of Australians are living with diabetes;
(b) by 2035, 14 per cent of Australians will be living with diabetes; and
(c) incidences of diabetes are three to four times higher in Indigenous communities;
(3) acknowledges that the World Diabetes Congress was:
(a) held in Melbourne, from 2 to 6 December 2013;
(b) attended by 50 international parliamentarians; and
(c) successful in passing the Melbourne Declaration and appointing International Parliamentary Champions for Diabetes;
(4) recognises that the International Parliamentary Champions for Diabetes will:
(a) exchange policy views and practical ideas for prevention and management of diabetes;
(b) encourage all governments to acknowledge that diabetes is a national health priority that requires a comprehensive action plan leading to action; and
(c) aim to improve health outcomes for people with diabetes, stop discrimination towards people with diabetes and prevent development of Type 2 diabetes;
(5) calls on the Government, individuals, families, communities, health care services and industry, to take urgent action to:
(a) ensure prevention of diabetes;
(b) improve early diagnosis of diabetes;
(c) support ongoing research into treatment and medications for diabetes; and
(d) effectively manage and treat diabetes; and
(6) acknowledges the Government's contribution:
(a) with an expert Advisory Group to consider available evidence and consult with a wide range of stakeholders to inform the development of the National Diabetes Strategy;
(b) to ongoing research into a cure for Type 1 diabetes with a $35 million contribution into the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Clinical Research Network; and
(c) in providing an additional $1.4 million for the Diabetes Insulin Pump Programme.
Diabetes mellitus currently represents one of the most challenging public health problems of the 21st century. There are over 1.5 million Australians with diabetes, including those who are undiagnosed. Diabetes is a chronic condition marked by high levels of glucose in the blood and can be caused by: the inability to produce insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas to control blood glucose levels; by the body not being able to use insulin effectively; or by a combination of the two. Over time high blood glucose levels are associated with complications such as cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, eye disease and neuropathy. Diabetes in its various forms places a significant burden on individuals and on their families as well as on the health system. The most common forms of diabetes are type I, type II and gestational diabetes. Even within each type of diabetes there are differences between individuals in what causes diabetes and in the course of the disease.
While lifestyle factors play an important role in preventing type II diabetes and in managing existing diabetes, the mechanisms are complex and not completely understood. Genetic factors and environmental influences are also important, particularly during gestation and early childhood. A major goal of diabetes management is preventing progression to complications. Depending on the nature of each individual's condition, diabetes may be managed with insulin injections, oral medication and/or diet and exercise.
When I look at the data for my own electorate of Hasluck, I see some very interesting statistical comparisons. The total number of Australians who have registered as having diabetes is 1,093,125. In the seat of Hasluck the number is 8,070. If we look at the number per hundred thousand, we see that 4,725 have registered Australia-wide compared to 4,951 in my electorate—slightly higher than the Australian average. In my electorate, 90.1 per cent have type II diabetes compared to the Australian average of 86.3 per cent. For type I, it is 7.5 per cent compared to the Australian average of 10.9 per cent. For gestational, we are slightly better off, at 1.8 per cent, compared to the Australian figure of 2.3 per cent.
The International Diabetes Federation estimates that in 2013 there were 382 million people worldwide living with diabetes. In 2011 to 2012, based on results from biomedical tests among Australian adults 18 years and over, diabetes prevalence was five per cent. This comprised just over four per cent with known diabetes and around one per cent of adults newly diagnosed with diabetes. This equates to about 999,000 of Australians living with diabetes in that period from 2011 to 2012. For the same period, it was estimated that an additional 3.1 per cent of Australian adults aged 18 and over had impaired fasting-glucose levels, indicating they were at high risk of developing type II diabetes. This means that, overall, around eight per cent of Australians either had diabetes or were at risk of developing it.
Another study, using different methodology with additional testing, AusDiab 2,000, estimated that 16.3 per cent of Australian adults aged 25 and over had pre-diabetes prevalence, based on self-reports from the Australian Health Survey, and this has doubled between 1989 and 1990, and 2004 to 2005. From 2007 to 2008 to the latest data from 2011 to 2012, the rate of self-reported known diabetes has been stable at around four per cent.
Type I diabetes, which commonly emerges in childhood, is an autoimmune disease and accounts for one in every 10 cases of diabetes. Gestational diabetes mellitus is estimated to affect women in more than five per cent of Australian pregnancies each year and is related to the complex interplay of hormones during pregnancy. More than eight in every 10 cases of diabetes is type II diabetes, which may be prevented or delayed through adequate physical activity, adhering to an appropriate diet and maintaining a healthy weight. Increasing age is also a risk factor.
Diabetes, particularly type II, is three to four times more common in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, with rates of hospitalisation of diabetes being four times higher for Indigenous Australians than for the general population. In 2011, diabetes was the second-leading underlying cause of death in Indigenous Australians. The rate of death from diabetes in Indigenous populations was over six times the rate than for non-Indigenous Australians.
In conjunction with the World Diabetes Congress, international parliamentarians held a Parliamentary Champions the Diabetes Forum and established the Parliamentarians for Diabetes Global Network, at which Minister Dutton gave the keynote address. I was in attendance and had the privilege of meeting parliamentarians from across the globe who had a strong interest in reducing the levels and impact of diabetes within their communities. The network is committed to working across parliaments to ensure diabetes is high on the political agenda in every country. They want to see more preventative work and to ensure that the early diagnosis, management and access to adequate care, treatment and medicines is available for all those living with diabetes.
The Hon. Judi Moylan established Australia's federal Parliamentary Diabetes Support Group in 2000 and served as the chair of this group until her retirement in 2013. She is the global coordinator of the Parliamentarians for Diabetes Global Network. The forum endorsed the Melbourne Declaration on Diabetes, which recognises that the Parliamentarians for Diabetes Global Network will exchange policy views and practical ideas for prevention and management of diabetes, encourage all governments to acknowledge that diabetes is a national health priority that requires a comprehensive action plan leading to action, and aims to improve health outcomes for people with diabetes, stop discrimination towards people with diabetes and prevent the development of type II diabetes.
The coalition government has committed to developing a new national diabetes strategy to inform how existing resources can be better coordinated and targeted across all levels of government and to prioritise the national response in existing resources, through an emphasis on prevention, early diagnosis, intervention, management and treatment, including the role of primary care. The government has important roles in maintaining access to affordable high-quality devices, medicines and services to support people with diabetes in self-management and treatment. The Australian government provides support to people with diabetes through the National Diabetes Service Scheme, NDSS; the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, PBS; the insulin pump program, IPP; and Medicare. The government also contributes to supporting research into the causes, effects, treatments, impacts and complications of diabetes.
Developing a new national diabetes strategy provides a valuable opportunity to take stock of approaches to diabetes services and care, consider the role of governments and other stakeholders, look at where efforts and investments are currently being made and how well these match needs and then develop a vision for where we want to be in terms of prevention, detection, management and research efforts. Governments cannot solve the problems alone but need to act did not collaboration with individuals, families, communities, healthcare services and industry.
The government has established an advisory group to consider the evidence and consult with a wide range of stakeholders to inform the development of the national diabetes strategy. The first meeting was held on 11 February 2014 and was addressed by the Minister for Health, Peter Dutton. The government has recently announced an election commitment to provide $35 million to support research into a cure for type 1 diabetes through the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation clinical research network and $1.4 million for subsidies for an additional 136 children on the Type 1 Diabetes Insulin Pump Program administered by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
As chair of the group which the Hon. Judi Moylan led previously I will continue the work that she was a strong advocate for. I will certainly be linking with state and territory parliaments to enjoin other parliamentarians within our jurisdictions to focus on some key initiatives and issues that will make a difference for the future.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Mitchell ): Is there a seconder for the motion?
Mr Van Manen: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (11:12): I congratulate the member for Hasluck for bringing this motion to the parliament. I have acknowledged the role that he is set to play in the parliament in replacing Judi Moylan as convener of the parliamentary friends of diabetes. I know that he is totally committed to this cause. I know that he is a person who really believes that these serious health issues need to be addressed. In doing so, I would like to support the facts and what he has put to the House today
I would like to touch on a different aspect of this debate, that which relates to obesity. Obesity is probably the No. 1 cause of type 1 diabetes and is an issue that we as a nation need to address. In a previous parliament, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing did an inquiry into obesity. We were presented with information about the links between obesity and diabetes, and a series of recommendations were put in place. It makes me quite sad that the current government is overseeing a change in policy—a change in direction—that I believe could actually lead to an increase in the level of diabetes in our society. Over the last couple of weeks we have heard that the health star food rating system, which was a tool developed by all the states and the Commonwealth to address the really important issue of obesity, has been taken down. It is particularly worrying when ones looks at the influence that I believe companies that promote unhealthy eating have had in relation to the taking down of this website.
I hope that Assistant Minister Fiona Nash will address these decisions since her former chief of staff is married to the director of the company which handles Cadbury, Kraft and—I think—Oreo and since the products made under these brands are not noted for their contribution to good health. Governments must show leadership. When they show leadership, sometimes they have to make hard decisions. Sometimes they make decisions which do not necessarily please their friends outside the parliament. It is important that both sides of the House promote healthy eating and healthy lifestyles. Unfortunately, there has been a big move away from doing so with the decision to remove the health star rating system, which was up for, I think, only one day. It provided information to people so that they could choose to eat healthily—and, by choosing to eat healthily, they can address the issue of obesity. One thing that can really help control type II diabetes is making sure that you eat a healthy diet: cut down on your sugars and cut down on your fats. You can do this by knowing what is in the food you eat. The question of good diet is very important to this motion.
The National Preventive Health Agency, which was designing programs to address diabetes and undertaking studies into the impact of diet and its relationship with diabetes, has now been abandoned by the government. The agency, which was a preventative health tool, has—like the health star rating website—gone. It is no longer in place. Let us face it: obesity, because of its relationship to diabetes, is one of the greatest medical challenges facing our country today. Obesity is linked not only to diabetes but also to forms of cancer. We need to adopt a similar approach to the extremely healthy approach that the previous government adopted in tackling smoking. The funding of advertisements to address smoking was very important to the previous government's policy.
There needs to be a three-pronged approach to diabetes: prevention, early detection and—subsequently—early intervention. There needs to be a situation in which funding for health is not cut, but the new Minister for Health is promoting the cutting of health funding and the increasing of the cost of health care to Australians. If people have to pay more to go to see the doctor and to access the diabetes programs which are available through their GPs, a very poor situation is going to develop. People's health is going to deteriorate, and obesity and diabetes rates are going to increase.
I implore the Minister for Health to move away from his philosophy and policies of cutting and implementing taxes on Australian people and instead to really look at the important issues around diabetes. When the Labor government were in power they invested $872 million for a six-year period, commencing 2009-2010, under the COAG National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health. That was a very important commitment by government. I implore those on the other side to fight very hard to see that that continues. The member for Hasluck talked about investment in diabetes pumps. That was championed by Labor when they were in government, along with a number of key initiatives in that area.
The thing that really worries me is the impact that obesity and diabetes will have on the morbidity and mortality rates of Australians. We are facing a threat where the next generation could be the first generation in Australia's history to actually die at a younger age than their parents. To a large extent, that is contributed to by lifestyle issues such as obesity. Unless education becomes a very important part of the way that we address diabetes and unless preventative health is one of those key factors, then the level of diabetes in our community will continue to increase.
My message to the Minister for Health is: talk to assistant minister Fiona Nash and get the healthy star rating system back on the web so that people can make decisions about the types of foods they eat; move away from your decision to abandon the National Preventative Health Agency; do not tax Australian people to visit their GP; and encourage them to get the kind of treatment and help that they need.
Mr VAN MANEN (Forde) (11:22): I would like to thank my good friend and member for Hasluck for putting forward this motion on diabetes. I would like to take a few notes out of the motion just to set the scene for where we are with diabetes in Australia. Diabetes is a serious health concern, with an estimated 382 million people worldwide living with the disease. The motion also recognises that some eight per cent of Australians are currently living with diabetes and, by 2035, some 14 per cent of Australians will be living with diabetes. Worst of all, incidences of diabetes are three to four times higher in Indigenous communities than in the broader population. The motion goes on to call on the government, individuals, families, communities, healthcare services and industry, to take urgent action to:
(a) ensure prevention of diabetes;
(b) improve early diagnosis of diabetes;
(c) support ongoing research into treatment and medications for diabetes; and
(d) effectively manage and treat diabetes …
I also think it is worthwhile noting that the government has committed to developing a new national diabetes strategy to inform how existing resources can be better coordinated and targeted across all levels of government and to prioritise a national response and existing resources through an emphasis on prevention; early diagnosis and intervention; and management and treatment, including the role of primary care.
As we all know, there are two types of diabetes: type 1 and type 2. Type I diabetes requires a different approach. One misconception of type I diabetes is that it is lifestyle related, but that is not the case. Type I diabetes is an auto-immune disease where the pancreas stops making insulin needed to break down the sugar from food into energy. The consequences of that can be deadly.
There is ongoing research into finding a cure for type 1 diabetes, with the federal government recently making an election commitment of $35 million as a contribution to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's clinical research network.
In relation to type 2 diabetes, there are some 10,500 individuals in the electorate of Forde who live with type 2 diabetes. According to Diabetes Queensland, your risk for type 2 diabetes is higher if you have a family history of type 2 diabetes; developed diabetes during pregnancy; are more than 40 years of age; are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent; do not get enough exercise; have high blood pressure; are overweight; have a waist measurement of more than 94 centimetres for men and 80 centimetres for women; or have a poor diet containing too much fatty or sugary food. I think it is obvious that, in order to reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes, some of the things that can be done are reducing the amount of fat and sugar in your diet; eating healthy foods, including fresh fruit and vegetables; losing weight; exercising for more than 30 minutes a day; and reducing your alcohol intake.
I must stress the importance of preventative health. I think that with a lot of health measures we focus on dealing with the symptoms rather than dealing with how we prevent it in the first place. In a speech by the Minister for Health addressing the CEDA conference last week, it was noted that the number of overweight and obese adults has risen by 63 per cent in the latest 2011-12 figures. It is not just adult waistlines that are increasing. Sadly, one-quarter of children aged two to 17 years are overweight or obese. In 2012 there were some 2,200 youngsters diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
We as a society cannot afford to ignore these statistics, and more has to be done to prevent lifestyle related diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Viktor Frankl, in his book Man's Search for Meaning, stated:
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Preventative measures not only will improve the individual's quality of life but should also reduce the strain on our health resources. In conclusion, I support the member for Hasluck's motion and thank him for bringing this important issue to the attention of the House.
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (11:27): I congratulate the member for Hasluck for moving this motion, because diabetes is a very serious problem in Australia and it is a growing one. It is one of the emerging health epidemics we are dealing with in Australia and indeed around the world. I have a particular interest in this matter because my electorate is the diabetes capital of urban Australia. It is not something we are proud of, not an honour which we seek, but is something which we deal with and which we are challenging.
The Australian Diabetes Council shows that diabetes rates have been increasing in my electorate very dramatically. We have 2,298 people with type 1 diabetes in McMahon and 21,995 people with type 2 diabetes. What is even more concerning than those figures is the rate of increase. Fairfield, in my electorate, saw diabetes rates increase by 21.2 per cent over the last five years. In Smithfield the increase has been 30.37 per cent over five years—a 30 per cent increase in the prevalence of diabetes over the last five years.
Diabetes is a serious condition. It can lead to very serious and negative health outcomes. We can and do see an increase in heart disease, in kidney disease, in blindness, in high blood pressure and in dental problems for people suffering diabetes. We can and must do more about this. We can and must do more about it nationally and locally.
In my area, I hosted a diabetes awareness forum at Smithfield RSL last April. I was very pleased that Dr Nadia Tejani, who is a lecturer at the University of New South Wales and a consultant endocrinologist at Fairfield Hospital, came to that, as did Kristen Hazelwood, the Head of Education and Prevention at the Australian Diabetes Council. That was a well-attended forum, and we are doing other things: mail-outs and developing a diabetes plan for the local area. Fairfield City Council has a very proactive plan for improving the quality of exercise equipment in our parks to encourage more physical activity.
The honourable member for Forde, who spoke previously, referred to the importance of preventative health and healthy eating. He is right. I said before that there are things that we can do locally and nationally. We are not doing enough nationally. In fact, we are going backwards. We have seen the five-star rating program, which was negotiated by my honourable friend the member for Blair in office, taken down—in quite a scandalous set of arrangements—by the chief of staff to the Assistant Minister for Health. You cannot say to people, 'You've got to take more responsibility for what you eat and what you feed your children,' and then take down, hours after it went up on the website, something which was designed by the federal, state and territory governments to assist people make those decisions. There is a lot more to be heard about this particular scandal, because it goes to the very heart of the character of this government. A chief of staff with shareholdings in a food-lobbying firm was able, on behalf of the government of Australia, to give that direction with the authority of his minister.
I do not intend to belabour political points in this debate, but this is nothing short of a scandal. This is an appropriate debate in which to raise this issue, because diabetes is prevalent throughout our nation. It is particularly prevalent in rural areas with high Indigenous populations. That is something that we need to deal with. As I said, it is also very prevalent in my area of western Sydney, and it is growing very rapidly.
The other thing we can do is have more emphasis on preventative health, which the honourable member for Forde also referred to. Yet we see this government attacking preventative health by abolishing the preventative health council—again, a very backward step. The Minister for Health, the member for Dickson, talks about the importance of preventative health and personal responsibility but then we see this action by the government.
In the short time remaining I want to put on record that the government needs to tread carefully in relation to the drug januvia, which is being dealt with by the PBS. I do not intend to provide a prescriptive outcome here, but this is a drug which serves between 80,000 and 100,000 people. There are moves to delist this drug. I am sure the PBS has reasons for examining this issue but where you have between 80,000 and 100,000 people on a drug, I would urge this government to be very cautious about the steps taken. (Time expired)
Ms SCOTT (Lindsay) (11:32): I am pleased to support the motion moved by the member for Hasluck. Like the member for McMahon, who is in my neighbouring electorate, I am concerned about the rapid increase of diabetes in western Sydney. It is something that all of us who represent this part of Australia are quite concerned about and it is nice to see the member for McMahon here today supporting this motion.
As many previous speakers have noted, diabetes is a serious health concern for our entire nation. With eight per cent of Australians living with diabetes it is fair to say that everyone would know someone who is affected in some way. In January this year, I was pleased to meet a remarkable young advocate, Emma Hogan from Glenmore Park, who, at just 12 years of age, is working for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Emma was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of seven. Emma knows, firsthand, what it is like to live with diabetes—the discipline and lifestyle that it requires to keep her diabetes under control. Luckily for Emma, she is an amazing advocate and has a very supportive and loving family. This has enabled her to be a trailblazer in her work in getting the message out about juvenile diabetes. Unlike her friends, she cannot fill up on fairy bread at parties. She has to weigh her food and estimate its nutritional content.
Emma is just one of the many people across Australia who have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Emma is particularly special because of her work with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Each year she participates in the Walk to Cure Diabetes, where last year she raised funds for diabetes research. What impresses me most about Emma is how effective she is at raising awareness of juvenile diabetes, particularly across her school communities. I am also impressed at how she has worked and engaged with our local media. Next year she hopes to participate in Jump to Cure Diabetes, where she has set herself the ambitious target of raising $5,000. With this passion and commitment I am sure there are no bounds that Emma will not see. I am sure she will reach this goal.
Emma's aim, though, is simple, and I quote. Her aim is 'to raise both funds and awareness for type 1 diabetes so one day there will be a cure for me and for the 119,154 people in Australia suffering from type 1 diabetes'—a very noble cause from a very young and wise local woman. Through Emma's positivity and determination, I too have become extremely passionate about finding a cure for diabetes. As such, it gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the government's contribution in finding a cure for this terrible condition. I particularly want to acknowledge the government's commitment to ongoing diabetes research, with a $35 million contribution to the JDRF clinical research network and, further, for providing an additional $1.4 million for the Diabetes Insulin Pump Program.
As previous speakers have noted, the number of people living with diabetes in Australia is on the rise—and, as the previous member noted, also in Western Sydney. By 2035, it is anticipated that 14 per cent of Australians will live with diabetes. Alarmingly, incidents of diabetes are three to four times higher in the Indigenous communities, which makes this a significant concern, for my electorate in Western Sydney also has one of the highest urbanised populations of Indigenous persons.
I seek to reiterate the concern of the member for Hasluck and call on families, communities and healthcare services and industry to take urgent action to ensure, firstly, the prevention of diabetes; secondly, improve early diagnosis of diabetes; thirdly, support ongoing research into treatment and medications for diabetes; and, fourthly, effectively manage and treat diabetes. Once again, I would like to thank the member for bringing this important issue to the House.
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (11:36): Diabetes affects about 1.7 million Australians and over two million Australians have pre-diabetes and are at a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare states that over 70 per cent of Australian adults aged 15 and over do little or no exercise; four million Australians are obese; 10 million Australians are overweight; and Indigenous children are twice as likely as non-Indigenous children to be overweight.
This is a big issue for my electorate. I was having discussions with representatives of the West Moreton-Oxley Medicare Local earlier last week to discuss this issue to see what can be undertaken in my area to address the challenge of diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes. An Ipswich study conducted by the University of Queensland's Healthy Communities Research Centre at the Ipswich campus has been undertaking work in this space, and I commend them for the work that they have been doing.
As shadow minister for Indigenous affairs, I am particularly concerned at the incidence of diabetes amongst Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples. ABS results from 2012-13 show that eight per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country report to have diabetes and/or high sugar levels in their blood or urine. This means that one in 12 of Australia's first peoples are suffering from diabetes. Indigenous females are significantly more likely to have diabetes—10 per cent compared to seven per cent of Indigenous males.
The former federal Labor government listened to local members, particularly to people like myself, and we initiated things like the insulin pumps subsidy program in 2008. The subsidies were particularly important and were well received by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Diabetes Australia and by constituents such Phoenix Weaver and Chloe Shaw in my electorate. We also did important things like the Healthy Kids Check for four-year-olds and the Get Set 4 Life—Habits for Healthy Kids Guide, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program has also made a big impact in my electorate—for example, in Lowood State Primary School and Ipswich West State School, where they promote successful and healthy eating and diet amongst young people. Exercise is also vital to prevent disease, and that is why the former federal Labor government introduced the Active After-school Communities program.
It is so wrong, unhelpful and scandalous what the chief of staff and assistant health minister has done in relation to this space. When the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was the minister for health and I was her parliamentary secretary, we negotiated a star-rating system for packaged and processed foods in this country. We have the final communique of the Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation, which I chaired on 14 June 2013. I remember how happy CHOICEand the public health advocates were as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and I did the press conference and issued that press release on 14 June.
In the press release of 14 June there was no mention of the need for a cost benefit analysis or of the two years voluntarily carrying out the scheme across the country. The health ministers across the country, and the states and territories agreed that if it was not widespread there would be mandatory regulation across this space. What we have seen from this government is: not listening to health advocates; not concerned about the health, exercise and diet of Australians; but listening to the lobbyists from the Food and Grocery Council. We know the star system will contribute to alleviating the burden of chronic disease, overweight and obesity which leads to type II diabetes. I will read from the final communique so that the assistant health minister might have regard to this. The final communique 14 June says:
Food regulation ministers noted that the system had significant potential to support consumers to make healthier food choices and acknowledged that FoPL is one tool in a suite of initiatives that will, in the long-term, contribute to alleviating the burden of chronic disease, overweight and obesity issues in Australia.
And of course will assist in relation to type II diabetes.
This is a retrograde step by the coalition. It is an absolute disgrace and scandal what they have done—putting up the front-of-pack labelling and taking it down at the behest of the Food and Grocery Council. There are a lot more questions that need to be put and certainly a lot more answers that the assistant health minister needs to give to the Senate and to the Australian public. I do not know how she sleeps at night in relation to this issue because what they are doing is exactly the opposite of what the public health in this country needs. If you are serious about type II diabetes, you will carry out the agreement from 4 June 2013—the communique—to help Australians health and welfare.
Debate adjourned.
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Syria
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:42): I move:
That this House:
(1) notes the:
(a) ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon;
(b) former Labor Government's contribution of $100.8 million to humanitarian assistance; and
(c) Government's contribution of $12 million; and
(2) calls on the Government to immediately increase its humanitarian aid commitment to people affected by the Syrian conflict.
I believe the motion will be seconded by the member for Freemantle in her remarks.
I rise today to speak on this motion before the House on the situation in Syria. The situation in Syria, and in the countries that border it, is now reaching a crisis point. Indeed it is an extraordinary disaster.
The hope bound up in the Arab Spring has given way to civil war. The regime's brutal crackdown has been matched by terror from extremist organisations. The conflict has already killed well over 100,000 people, with more than 10,000 of those children. The United Nations says about half of Syria's population, more than nine million people, are in urgent need of assistance. The latest United Nations figures estimate that close to 2½ million Syrian refugees now registered in the region and about 6½ million are internally displaced. More than half of those who have fled Syria are children. To demonstrate the growing nature of the crisis, in February 2013 there were around 700,000 registered Syrian refugees, and that number has more than tripled in just twelve months. The situation inside Syria is so bad that it has become virtually impossible to deliver humanitarian supplies in many parts of Syria.
Last April, then Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, described the conflict in Syria as 'one of the world's great humanitarian crises'. With a situation so terrible, it is not hard to see why more than two million people have fled Syria and most of those have gone to neighbouring countries. There are 580,000 registered refugees in Jordan out of a total population of 6.3 million.
Like Jordan, Lebanon has also seen a massive influx of refugees. There were at last count around 900,000 registered refugees and probably around 100,000 unregistered. That comes on top of the 270,000 Palestinian refugees who have been living in Lebanon for many years now. You have got to put this in context by remembering that the population of Lebanon is about 4.4 million, so it is like a city the size of Sydney having a million people come needing accommodation, food, education, health services, work and so on.
Looking at Jordan, the member for Fremantle and I visited the Zaatari camp through which more than 370,000 people have moved since July 2012. There are about 85,000 people there now, making it the fourth largest city in Jordan. Jordan and the UNHCR have constructed a second camp at Azraq to house even more people expected to come across the border in coming months. As I said earlier, around half of those who fled and children and around half of those living in these camps in Jordan are under 18 years old. International organisations like UNICEF, UNHCR, Save the Children and World Vision are responding to this crisis and it was with UNICEF that the member for Fremantle and I visited refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon recently. We saw the terrific, amazing work that these international organisations are doing on the ground in these camps but, as one of the workers said to us in Lebanon, 'We are band-aids on a gushing, gaping wound and the tide keeps coming. We have to adopt an approach of providing meagre support to those in most extreme need.'
Both Jordan and Lebanon are countries that have had their own struggles to deal with. They are not wealthy countries. They are now facing this crisis because they have no other choice. People in a neighbouring country are fleeing disaster and the governments of Lebanon and Jordan have expressed the desire to do all that they can to help. But of course this influx is stretching the resources of these countries. Clean water in Zaatari is struggling to keep up with demand. In January there were over 130 water truck deliveries and over 2,400 latrines had been built by donors. The camp itself is located above a large freshwater aquifer and so there are serious concerns about what happens with sewage, brown water and grey water getting into the aquifer. It is important to understand that Jordan is the fourth most water poor nation in the world, so that issue of the supply of water and the quality of the water supply is a very important one. Sanitation is obviously a huge challenge with the number of people who are moving into the camps and the challenge of being prepared to deal with those people moving in so quickly. There is also a huge need for medical supplies in Syria but also in Jordan and Lebanon, including the need for a very large-scale immunisation program because of a recent outbreak of polio.
When you look at what is happening both in Syria and in Lebanon and Jordan you see the very substantial strain put on existing infrastructure in the neighbouring countries are trying their best to help Syria. The surge in population has put severe strain on schools, hospitals and public infrastructure of all types. In Lebanon the schools have gone to two shifts per day because a population of school-aged children of about 300,000 go to schools in Lebanon and the number of Syrian refugee children that need schooling is also 300,000, so they have basically got the number of kids in their public schools doubled virtually overnight. So UNICEF is helping by training extra teachers and supporting schools to go to two shifts a day. But of course the majority of education is taking place in very informal settings, including tents in camps.
Syrian refugees are also encountering some resentment because they are taking any work they can get to supplement the small amount of money they have brought with them or the small amount they can get from the United Nations. In fact, the International Labour Organization estimates there are 170,000 Syrian minors working every day in Lebanon, desperately trying to supplement family income.
Housing is one of the greatest needs. Most of the housing we saw was very basic. People were living either in tents or in very poor rental accommodation for very high prices. Syrians are taking whatever accommodation they can get and consequently pushing up the price of rental properties as well; in some places by up to 300 per cent in a matter of weeks.
One of the big concerns is not just the scale of the humanitarian need but also the increased volatility in a region that is already very volatile. It is so important that we as an international community support a return to peace as quickly as possible, so as to reduce that volatility.
Former foreign minister Bob Carr sought for Australia, as a member of the UN Security Council, to play a pivotal role in helping the people of Syria. In 2013, Minister Carr developed a transition plan. The first of the plan's four points was the protection of aid workers. It states:
Australia to seek formal agreement from the Syrian opposition to avoid targeting of health workers and allow universal access to hospitals in Syria
The plan called on opposition groups:
To ensure al-Qaida and other extremist groups are excluded from any future Syrian government.
On 22 February 2014 these sentiments were endorsed by the international community through the United Nations, with Australia playing a lead role. Along with Jordan and Luxembourg, Australia drafted a resolution at the UN Security Council that demanded:
… all parties, in particular the Syrian authorities, promptly allow rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access for UN humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners, including across conflict lines and across borders.
The resolution was eventually approved unanimously. The council has also called for an immediate end to all violence and condemned the rise of al-Qaeda affiliated terror groups.
But leading the international community toward protecting humanitarian access is not enough. We must support Syria with the investment of extra resources. The $12 million is simply not enough. (Time expired)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mrs Griggs ): Is the motion seconded?
Ms Parke: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
Mr NIKOLIC (Bass) (11:52): I welcome the opportunity to address the chamber on events in Syria, which continue to exasperate every country that gives active voice to humanitarian principles, the rule of law and democratic government. Syria is now in its fourth calendar year of violence, which began as a series of peaceful protests and is now a brutal civil war. Geographically, Syria is a small country about the size of Victoria, but it contains a terrified and besieged population about the size of Australia—some 23 million people. To date, as the member for Sydney said, over 100,000 people have been killed and millions displaced. Protagonists of every type—government, opposition, unaligned militia and roving mercenaries—kill, plunder and displace innocent civilians at will. Both conventional military weapons and chemical agents have been used on and against opponents and innocent civilians alike.
Confronted with the choice of reform or oppression, the al-Assad regime chose repression on a grand scale. The continuing bloodshed in Syria is a stain both on humanity in general and on this proud and ancient civilisation in particular. It is also a disaster that unfolds adjacent to some of the world's most strategically important and/or volatile nation states. I note that Syria has land borders with Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Lebanon. Together, these neighbours now shelter as many as two million displaced Syrians, the majority of whom are women and children. Syria also invites the involvement of outsiders in the form of foreign fighters or third-party-state players. In either case, the wise will see within this unfolding tragedy a potential and dangerous quagmire where more is never enough and the motives, agendas and alliances of protagonists are often impossible to determine.
Syria has also attracted what I call 'naive envoys' who engage in self-appointed crusades and who, in the process, inevitably prolong and complicate formal diplomatic efforts. Sydney University academic Dr Tim Anderson's meeting with Basher al-Assad is a case in point. In allowing himself to be manipulated by the al-Assad regime, Dr Anderson's efforts have been naive and unhelpful to UN and Australian officials, to the reputation of Sydney University and, most of all, to the innocent Syrian people. Ironically, perhaps only al-Assad and his henchmen benefit from such unwelcome interventions.
Another Sydney University academic, Professor Stuart Rees, met with a senior Hamas political leader who does not recognise the state of Israel and asserts the necessity of its destruction—a meeting that is also entirely at odds with Australia's diplomacy. The role of diplomacy today is rarely if ever assisted by private individuals like Anderson and Rees blundering onto the international stage and attempting to insert themselves into these situations.
But let us return to events in Syria, which tug at the heart while avoiding clear options let alone answers. If there is any clarity accompanying Syria's plight, it rests on two pressing imperatives. The first is to offer humanitarian comfort, when and where it is possible to do so. The second is to be extremely cautious whenever anyone suggests more direct, national strategic commitments. The most acute element of such caution is the illusory temptation to put military 'boots on the ground'. The coalition's approach to Syria sensibly and pragmatically accords with these realities. The Australian government has responded quickly and generously to events in Syria, with targeted and practical assistance. Since 2011, Australia has expended $112.8 million in support of the humanitarian relief effort in Syria.
The Australian government is actively working with the United Nations to bring the Syrian parties together. At the Geneva II Conference last month we heard Australian Ambassador, Peter Woolcott, calling on all dissenting parties to agree to a transitional governing body to end the violence. At the pledging conference in Kuwait last January Australia committed $10 million—exactly the same amount as the former government pledged at last year's conference. In addition, last January the government provided a $2 million contribution towards the destruction of Syria's deplorable chemical-weapons program, and the government is also pressing for better humanitarian access to relief agencies throughout Syria.
I note the foreign minister's announcement today welcoming the unanimous UN Security Council vote, over the weekend, for a breakthrough resolution—drafted by Australia, Jordan and Luxembourg—which orders the warring parties in Syria, particularly the al-Assad regime, to assist in the delivery of humanitarian aid. As someone who has lived and worked in Syria and South Lebanon, and who has delivered such aid, I can tell you that the cooperation of the government in power is absolutely vital for the effective distribution of aid in that country.
Most regrettably, however, there have been a number of impediments on the government's capacity to do more for Syria. These include the fact that funding for Syria comes from what is called the 'disaster fund', the mandated flexibility provision, which was reduced under the former government in December 2012 by almost $19 million. We saw a further reduction by Labor of allocated mandated flexibility from $120 million to $90 million in their 2013-14 budget and, of course, Australians are aware of the appalling economic legacy of $123 billion of accumulated deficits and peak debt forecast to rise to $667 billion within the decade. All of these reduce Australia's capacity to respond even more generously to disasters, humanitarian events and international tragedies, such as in Syria.
Clearly, Australian support has not included the use of military force and I will briefly elaborate on the reasons for this. In my view, the current situation in Syria is a compelling example of the limits of military intervention. Deputy Speaker, military power is most often if not always projected towards the achievement of one of two ends. The first is to forge or create peace. The second is to maintain a peace that has already been made. The former is peacemaking and the latter is peacekeeping. In Syria, the achievement of either is problematic. Peacemaking would be enormously challenging because every warring faction in Syria is, to some degree, tainted by degrees of corruption, war crimes or genocide, or political illegitimacy. Moreover, the exact number of factions at any one time is impossible to discern. Peacekeeping is clearly not possible for the obvious reason that there is no peace to keep. Equally, current conditions on the ground in Syria preclude easy use of a modern Western military force with requisite focus and precision—in other words, with the discrimination of a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. The latter, particularly in densely occupied built-up areas, would only add to the current destruction. Longstanding practical military experience, including time living and working in Syria as a UN military observer and as a participant in the first deployments to Afghanistan and Southern Iraq, has proven to me the truth of these observations. I have seen in person exactly the terrain and complexities of which I speak.
Today, very regrettably, Syria is a tragedy in freefall. Opposing factions seek to outdo one another in violence and atrocity. The otherwise innocent wider population is held captive to carnage and mayhem. Australia, of course, must continue to play its part in supporting international efforts to resolve this crisis. In Australia's case, this will continue to take the forms of renewed diplomatic lobbying and humanitarian support. Our concerted efforts to control Australia's national debt will, in due course, further increase Australia's capacity to support international emergencies and crises like the one we see in Syria.
Deputy Speaker, I finish with perhaps the saddest and starkest of realities: the nation of Syria is now ablaze and it is a fire that is fuelled on all sides by evil and avarice. Eventually, the fire will burn itself out but in the process will consume much of what is good about this nation state. Naive or reckless interventions only act as oxygen to feed and prolong the fire, and the attendant suffering. This remains and is likely to remain the Syrian dilemma. Our enduring and heartfelt sympathies continue with the innocent and besieged citizenry who remain the real victims in Syria. I thank the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mrs Griggs ): The question is that the motion be agreed to. I call the member for Fremantle.
Ms PARKE (Fremantle) (12:02): I thank my colleague, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, for this important motion. In January this year, in my capacity as Deputy Chair of the Australian Parliamentary Association for UNICEF, I was fortunate to join the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Senator Hanson-Young, and UNICEF Australia CEO, Norman Gillespie, on a visit to Jordan and Lebanon to see the situation of the Syrian refugees and to better understand the challenges faced by those countries who are now hosting millions of refugees. I undertook this visit because it is one thing to receive briefings from aid organisations in relation to the world's largest humanitarian crisis, and it is quite another to witness the crisis for yourself.
An intellectual understanding can never be an adequate replacement for seeing the agonised and anxious faces of men, women and children, and the poverty of their existence; for hearing stories of the barbarities from which they have fled and the difficulties they face as refugees; for seeing people who have to burn plastic bags and styrofoam in their tents for warmth, in spite of the terrible health consequences; for hearing from poor Jordanians and Lebanese of growing tensions between refugees and host communities because of the competition for jobs and already scarce educational, health and basic resources; for listening to the Prime Minister of Lebanon tell you that his country, which has not yet recovered from its own civil war, urgently needs international assistance to cope with the 1.2 million refugees who are camping anywhere they can in the small country of 4 million people—a small country that, despite its sliding economy and precarious political insecurity environment, is nevertheless continuing to accept 3,000 to 4,000 new refugees every single day.
Jordan, with a population of some 6 million people, initially welcomed the Syrian refugees, with many Jordanians taking them into their homes. Unfortunately, as numbers have grown, tensions have increased within the community as Jordan's economy and social structures struggle to cope. There are 600,000 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan, and hundreds of thousands more unregistered. Eighty-five per cent of the refugees are living in urban centres throughout Jordan and the remainder are based in the Zaatri refugee camp. Jordanian health and education services are now stretched to the limit. There is a significant rise in child labour, with many refugee children working in bakeries, fish markets, selling goods, or simply begging on the street.
Time does not permit me to go into more detail but I would simply say that, if the situation in Jordan is very troubling, the situation in Lebanon is extremely bleak. In Lebanon there are more than 900,000 registered refugees and a few hundred thousand who are not registered for fear of being identified and attacked. In a country of four million, there are more than a million refugees—a quarter of Lebanon's population again—and more per capita than anywhere else in the world. With no formal refugee camps in Lebanon, desperate people are spread throughout the country, living in apartments, in abandoned buildings and parking lots or in informal tented settlements, where both services and access to utilities are extremely poor. Of the approximately 400,000 school-age Syrian children in Lebanon, more than 300,000 are not going to school. At least a third of the refugees are receiving no support whatsoever. As the UNICEF deputy representative explained to us, 'We're just putting a bandaid on a gaping, gushing wound.'
I would like to express my gratitude and admiration for the UN agencies and the local and international NGOs operating in a difficult environment with limited resources. It is difficult to overstate the scale of the crisis that is occurring. Presently that immense humanitarian challenge is being met by the adjacent host countries and by UN and aid organisations. There is a real risk that the host countries will be unable to deal with the escalating burden of the Syria conflict in the absence of substantial assistance. Given the instability already in the region, further unrest and disintegration would constitute a significant threat to global peace and security.
The international community must do more to provide humanitarian assistance for this crisis—and that includes Australia's contribution. The recent pledge of $12 million by the Abbott government towards the regional humanitarian response is, frankly, an embarrassing and shamefully inadequate gesture considering the immensity of the crisis, our capacity to assist and our historic and present role and involvement with the United Nations. Imagine if six million people—a quarter of Australia's population again—turned up on our doorstep needing help. The incredible stoicism and humanitarian instinct that has seen Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey host millions of refugees without complaint should provide an example to us here. It puts into stark and sad contrast the hysteria aroused in Australia by a few thousand boat people.
The daily horror show that is Syria reminds us of the terrors that cause people to leave their homes and everything they know. With the recent events of Manus Island very much in mind, it is time for us to think again about what sort of nation we want to be. Are we still the tolerant, generous, welcoming nation that believes in a fair go for all? At heart I believe we are, but we need to start showing it again, both in terms of our humanitarian aid and in the way we treat the people who seek our help.
Ms GAMBARO (Brisbane) (12:07): I rise to speak on this motion and state at the outset that the Australian government is greatly concerned by the tragic loss of over 100,000 lives in the Syrian conflict. In line with these concerns, the Australian government welcomes the unanimous adoption by the UN Security Council two days ago, on 22 February, of a breakthrough resolution on the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Australia, Jordan and Luxembourg drafted the resolution, which demands all parties, particularly the Syrian regime, cease deliberate attacks on the Syrian people, end sieges and the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and facilitate access for humanitarian assistance, including across conflict lines and border areas.
The Australian government was proud to co-lead in negotiating an outcome that focuses on the needs of the Syrian people. At the Kuwait II pledging conference in January 2014, Australia pledged $10 million of humanitarian assistance to Syria. This is exactly the same amount pledged by the Australian government at the previous Kuwait conference in 2013. In addition, this year the government provided $2 million for the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, announced in January. Also, $100.8 million that was announced by the last government was expended over 27 months between May 2011 and August 2013.
It is important to note that the funding for humanitarian crises such as Syria is usually drawn from a part of the aid budget called 'mandated flexibility'. This is a pool of funding which can be drawn on for emerging or unforeseen priorities. It is an important tool which is able to be used in responding as an effective and responsible donor.
Regrettably, a fact which is notably not listed on the member for Sydney's motion is that not even the mandated flexibility provision was immune to Labor's poor financial management. In December 2012 Labor raided the mandated flexibility provision to the tune of almost $18 million to fund the $375 million Labor cut from the aid budget to pay for onshore asylum seeker costs. This action made the Gillard government itself the third largest recipient of Australia's aid program. In May 2013 Labor effectively reduced the mandated flexibility again when the 2013-14 allocation was reduced from $120 million to $90 million. The member for Fremantle can bleat all she likes about what has happened, but Labor were the very people who attacked the mandated flexibility provision, and in doing so they have affected our ability to respond this year to disasters and humanitarian events such as those in Syria. When the member for Sydney and the member for Fremantle call on this government to immediately increase its humanitarian aid commitment to the people affected by the Syrian conflict, they need to explain why the previous Labor government—a government of which she was part—ripped $48 million out of the aid budget in the six months between December 2012 and May 2013. The member sitting beside me highlighted the accumulated deficits and gross debt we were left with. This was another mess left by Labor for the Abbott government to clean up. This government has responsibly co-led the United Nations Security Council to unanimous agreement on what was a very difficult resolution after almost three years of deadlock during which it went nowhere.
I commend the work that is being done by the various aid agencies in Syria at a particularly difficult time. Members previously have spoken about the warring factions there and how difficult it has been to ensure that appropriate by aid is delivered in the appropriate way. I also commend the work being done by my parliamentary colleague the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Julie Bishop. I have every faith that under her stewardship Australia will continue to play its part in pursuing outcomes which focus on the needs of the Syrian people and helping them work through the very difficult and troubling times ahead for Syria. I commend her work.
Debate Adjourned.
Defence Expenditure
Mr COLEMAN (Banks) (12:12): I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that Defence is a critical responsibility of the Australian Government, which:
(a) requires substantial investment in order to ensure Australia's military preparedness; and
(b) suffered from material budget cuts under the former Government in recent years;
(2) recognises the plans of the Government to make no further cuts to Defence expenditure, and to increase Defence expenditure to 2 per cent of GDP within a decade; and
(3) commends the Government on this approach to Defence expenditure planning.
Defence expenditure is critical for this parliament, for this government and for our nation—and not just today but also into the future. We find ourselves in a situation today where defence spending as a proportion of GDP is the lowest it has been since 1938—that is, since before the Second World War. Defence spending now is just 1.59 per cent of GDP. This low figure is a consequence of a number of politically expedient cuts to defence spending which were made by the previous Labor government, particularly towards the end of its term in office. The coalition is determined to ensure that there are no further cuts to defence spending—and, indeed, to work towards increasing defence expenditure to 2 per cent of GDP within a decade. This is a very important goal because we need to ensure a significant level of defence expenditure to enable our military to prepare for the challenges that lie ahead. We are now spending six times more on social security and welfare payments than we are on defence. Again, that is a reflection on the lack of emphasis on Defence spending under the previous government.
Back in 2009, the Labor government put in place a Defence white paper which called for three per cent real growth in Defence spending through to 2017-18 and 2.2 per cent thereafter. But of course that did not happen; in fact, what happened was that the Labor Party made some substantial cuts to Defence expenditure to the detriment of our military, particularly in the final years of office.
In 2007, according to the Defence Intelligence Organisation, 5.7 per cent of nominal government spending was in Defence. But by 2012 that had fallen to just 4.9 per cent. So it was 5.7 per cent in 2007, when Labor came into office; 4.9 per cent by 2012. That is a very significant change in the budgetary priorities of the nation. Labor cut Defence spending by almost five per cent in 2010-11 and then by a massive 10.5 per cent in 2012. The 2012 cut was the largest reduction of the Defence budget as a percentage since the end of the Korean War. That is just an extraordinary and unexpected cut to Defence expenditure.
We are now sitting down at 1.59 per cent of GDP on Defence and, when you compare that to a number of another nations around the world, that is a very low figure, unsustainably low. Singapore spends 3.6 per cent of GDP on Defence; Vietnam is 2.4 per cent; South Korea is 2.5 per cent; Russia is three per cent; the UK is 2.5 per cent; and the USA spends 4.5 per cent of GDP on military expenditure.
It is critical that we get our Defence spending back to that level of two per cent of GDP to enable us to plan for the challenges that lie ahead. You have to ask yourself: why did we end up in this situation? Why did Labor cut Defence so substantially? You very rarely, if ever, hear an argument where somebody says 'the right thing to do is cut military expenditure'. Nobody says that. The Labor Party does not say that publicly but, when it is politically convenient and when they want to move some money around to account for the fact that they have so inefficiently spent money elsewhere, Defence is a politically convenient place to cut.
There were huge blow-outs under the previous government: $6.6 billion in border protection; $2 million advertising a border security plan targeted at people smugglers within Australia, which is a shameful waste of money. Of course we had the bungled BER scheme, and the NBN which lurched from one disaster to another under Labor. There are a whole range of failures in budget planning which left Labor in the position of looking for places to cut. They spent nearly $70 million advertising the carbon tax. They spent $100 million on an assistance package for the live export industry. They only had to spend that money because of the knee-jerk decision to basically end the trade overnight. They spent nearly $70 million on set-top boxes that cost $350 each; when you can walk into Harvey Norman and buy one for about $150. And let's not forget the pink batts home insulation scheme, which cost just under $3 billion.
So there has been huge mismanagement of the finances of the nation under Labor. As a consequence, they looked for places to cut, and Defence was somewhere they found. They consistently overestimated revenue. They took rosy financial forecasts and tried to bank the money before the revenue came in. It is always a problem when you spend money before you have it, and that is what they did consistently. As my colleague the member for Fadden has said, Labor used Defence as its personal ATM, to help it address its ongoing budget blow-outs, and that was a shameful piece of budget management.
The Rudd Rebellion by Bruce Hawker is a tremendously interesting work. He made some comments about Labor's expenditure review committee and expressed a relief that Labor decided to focus its saving plans on less politically sensitive areas such as defence. In that statement I think we see a lot about the thinking—or lack thereof—that the previous, Labor government put into our defence planning.
The previous government had their own white paper in 2009, which set out a certain level of spending that was required. That government said, 'Yes, we'll do that,' and then they did not. Not only did they not meet the relatively modest increases called for in the 2009 white paper; they actually did the opposite. They very substantially cut defence expenditure.
So we are now in this situation where our defence spending, as a percentage of GDP, is the lowest it has been since before the Second World War. That is an extraordinary situation, and not one that this current government supports. The Lowy Institute has said that, under short-term political pressures—that is exactly what it was: short term political thinking—the Rudd and Gillard governments began deferring much of their own plans to modernise the nation's military. I emphasise that these were the previous governments' own plans. They delayed or cut more than $20 billion in defence investment.
The Lowy Institute went on to say that the impact of that 10.5 per cent budget cut in 2012 is only now being fully understood. Maintenance, logistics and training are underfunded. Some capabilities, such as tanks, have been effectively mothballed. That has a very significant impact, and it is certainly something that this government will address.
We cannot be sure of what security challenges we will face in the future. The area is inherently uncertain. History tells us that we cannot always predict security challenges before they arise. But one thing we can be sure of is that it is better to be prepared for eventualities than not to be prepared. This government is strongly committed to preparing our military to face the challenges that may arise in the future.
The Labor Party's record in this area is one of political expediency. It is one of taking money out of Defence because of budgetary problems that occur in other areas. Imagine the government of the day putting out a defence white paper—a lengthy process in 2009—committing to the targets, and then, when the going got a bit tough politically and, particularly, financially, basically abrogating those targets and walking away from them completely. That was absolutely the wrong thing to do. This government is committed to turning around investment in our defence forces. That is why I am moving this motion today.
Mr FEENEY (Batman) (12:22): I rise to speak to the motion moved by the member for Banks. There is no greater responsibility for government than the defence of Australia and Australia's interests. In May 2013, the former, Labor government delivered the 2013 defence white paper, which outlined Labor's plan to maintain a strong Australian Defence Force which was capable of meeting Australia's national security challenges. It included major new capability commitments which are critical to Australia's long-term defence and security and which ensured Australia maintained world-class defence capabilities. In the 2013-14 budget the former, Labor government provided Defence with a record $114 billion across the forward estimates, and funding guidance of over $220 billion over the subsequent six years from 2017-18 to 2022-23. We committed to increase defence spending towards a target of two per cent of GDP.
The former, Labor government had a comprehensive equipment modernisation program. From the release of the 2009 white paper until the 2013 federal election the Labor government granted 141 approvals, with a total spend of around $21.1 billion. Consequently, over this period Defence took delivery of a number of major new systems including C-17 heavy lift aircraft, F/A-18F Super Hornet combat aircraft, Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles produced by Thales in my home state of Victoria, and two large amphibious sealift vessels.
As a consequence of this investment and diligence, at the November 2013 Senate estimates hearing, senior Defence personnel confirmed that Defence capabilities had been significantly enhanced under the former Labor government. Last week, in a speech at a dinner hosted by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and Boeing, the Chief of Army, Lt Gen. David Morrison described Army today as being in its best shape ever. Although the coalition government repeatedly said before the election that levels of Defence spending were at their lowest since 1938, they failed to provide the public with an accurate description of Defence funding—this should come as no surprise.
An article published by Derek Woolner, visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, in September 2013 gave a far more comprehensive description of Defence spending. It is interesting to reflect on this for just a moment. The Australian government spent £9,357 on Defence in 1937 and £17,006 in 1938. Those numbers, if converted to today's current figures, would represent around $778 million and $1,114 million respectively. In financial year 2012-13 the Department of Defence spent more than that every three weeks in its annual budget of $25.4 billion.
For six of the 11 budgets the coalition handed down from 1996 to 2007, Defence spending fell to the lowest level since 1938 as a percentage of GDP—a point worth reflecting upon, although no doubt those opposite will avoid it. In 2009, under the former Labor government, Defence spending rose to 1.94 per cent of GDP. Labor has come closer to achieving a target of two per cent than those opposite ever have.
Typically, the coalition has outperformed Labor in the polls when it comes to the question of Defence. This has had the unfortunate effect of making the coalition 'defence lazy'. The notion that the coalition is strong on defence policy actually emboldens the coalition to do little or even nothing. Recently, we saw the coalition use its defence credentials to avoid articulating any meaningful Defence policy and to avoid presenting detailed or even coherent Defence policies. Instead, the coalition followed Labor.
The Minister for Defence, the Hon. Senator Johnston, has on numerous occasions described Defence as 'an unsustainable mess'. While he continues to denigrate Labor and the Defence department, it is worth remembering: at the 2013 election, the coalition promised, eloquently, to spend $113 billion over the forward estimates. Labor budgeted approximately $114 billion, so that was nothing more than echoing a Labor budget.
At the 2013 election, the coalition promised to increase spending to two per cent of GDP 'within the decade' following a Labor commitment to increase Defence spending to two per cent of GDP 'when financially responsible to do so'. Once again, we have the coalition doing nothing more than echoing Labor. The Labor party can do nothing but commend the coalition government for promising the same dollars, the same time frames and the same procurement plans as the former Labor government. That mimicry does not seem to stop the government from indulging in continuing misrepresentation of their position and indeed that of the former government.
The coalition government has made no progress on Defence since the election—a simple fact. The delay of a new White Paper and Defence Capability Plan has ensured that scenarios such as the so called 'valley of death' in ship building, which Labor had effectively solved, will now come to fruition. The government plans to spend half a term writing a new White Paper—what an extraordinary plan that is. It has made no commitment to provide any additional funding to Defence, beyond what was already committed by the former Labor government. A fine example of how this government's persistent inaction in Defence is costing jobs, hurting our economy, damaging Defence Industries and risking Defence capabilities is this 'valley of death'.
The 'valley of death' of course is the foreseeable and dramatic decline in shipbuilding that exists between the completion of the landing helicopter docks and the air warfare destroyers and the commencement of the Future Frigate and Future Submarine programs. It is well understood that having assembled a skilled workforce able to build first-class warships for Australia, the dispersal of this workforce from mid-2014 would not only cost up to 1,100 jobs, but also create avoidable and dire challenges for a viable shipbuilding industry in this country—but none of that seems to matter to government.
The former Labor government developed a plan to manage the so-called 'Valley of Death'. Labor was committed to the construction of two replacement supply ships here in Australia. The replacement of our ships HMAS Success and HMAS Sirius is vitally important to our Navy. Labor was able to marry the interests of our defence industries and our ADF capability requirements and take a solution to the last election. In recent months we have seen this solution wither. By sitting on his hands for some six months, Senator Johnston has now made the so-called 'Valley of Death' a certainty. Instead of dealing with an 'unsustainable mess', Senator Johnston is creating one.
The JSF, the Future Submarine and the LAND 400 project for replacement armoured vehicles were three flagship projects of the last two white papers and, indeed, the former Labor government. All are now under a cloud of uncertainty. There are now rumours swirling throughout defence and the ADF that LAND 400 will not achieve first-pass approval in April, the original time frame under Labor. It may be pushed back to September, it may be significantly slashed in scope and budget and it may suffer significant delays in schedule. That will leave our soldiers with an increasingly obsolete fleet of armoured vehicles. That is an unsustainable mess.
In summary, this motion is a sad nonsense. It is perhaps a breakthrough for the other side to note that defence is a critical responsibility of the Australian government—but, for the rest of the country, that is mere common sense. It does require a substantial investment. Labor made that investment. We were the first government in this nation's history to ever budget more than $100 billion in defence spending across the forward estimates. The best the other side can do is promise the same defence expenditure over the next four years that Labor committed.
The government says it will make no further cuts to defence expenditure but the evidence now is not so plain. The replacement supply ships will not be built as quickly as they would have been under Labor. Replacement armoured vehicles now face the threat of delay and perhaps a reduction in scope. As a sign of the times, we have seen 480 Protective Service Officers, who are used to secure ADF establishments and other vital assets, issued with potential redundancy notices.
In 2009 Labor's defence spending reached 1.94 per cent of GDP. That is the high watermark of defence spending in the modern era—and it is a Labor high watermark not a coalition one. Throughout the Howard years, we saw defence spending wither. Under the Howard government, defence spending reached a peak of 1.87 per cent of GDP in 1996—their first year. It then trended down over the rest of his term, reaching 1.68 per cent in 2007, with an average percentage of GDP for the four terms of office of 1.78 per cent.
So you might very well make the rhetorical claim that Labor used defence as at ATM, but that of course does not bear scrutiny. When we strip away the government's rhetoric we find that they promise the same spend over the next four years and they have the same aspiration of 2 per cent. But worse, they have no record to be proud of in defence. Inadequate spending and inadequate strategic guidance is their legacy. The only reason they can afford to squander half their term writing a new white paper, without doing lasting harm—Time expired)
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (12:33): As someone who represents a defence community in this place, the Holsworthy Army Barracks and the School of Military Engineering, I am very pleased to second this motion moved by my colleague and my neighbour along the Georges River, the member for Banks. Defence is just another sorry mess that we have inherited from the previous Labor-Greens government. The member for Banks raised a very good point when he highlighted the fact that defence funding was simply used as a personal ATM by the former government—stripping defence funding to its lowest levels of GDP since 1938. May peace be in our time. It is a sad indictment of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments that they saw the men and women on the frontlines of Australia's security as an easy target to rip cash out of so that they could pay for their roof batts, their school halls and many other examples of horrendous and wasteful expenditure that we saw through those six embarrassing years.
Let us start with the facts. The former Labor government cut defence spending by five per cent in the 2010-11 financial year. The following year, 2012, it made a further 10.5 per cent cut. This is something unprecedented in the past 50 years. In fact, we have to go back to the end of the Korean War to find a time that a government of this country cut Defence spending as the previous Labor government did. The background to this is that in its 2009 white paper Labor promised, going into the 2010 election, to increase Defence spending by three per cent annually every year on to 2017-18. That was the commitment; that was the promise; that is what our Defence Forces were told—a three per cent annual increase. But what did we see? We saw five per cent ripped out in the first year and 10.5 per cent ripped out the following year.
It is interesting to see what our nearest neighbours were doing at that time. They were doing the exact opposite to the previous Labor government. While Labor was taking the axe to Defence spending, our northern neighbours were increasing their defence spending significantly. One thing that I find most difficult to comprehend is that, while Labor was cutting our Defence spending to the lowest level since 1938, at the very same time they gave away $416.4 million to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in foreign aid. That is all very nice—our foreign aid budget is important—but last year, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam reportedly purchased 12 Sukhoi Su-30MK2 fighter aircraft from Russia for $450 million. Let's not forget that those 12 advanced Sukhoi fighter aircraft will add to the 20 the Socialist Republic of Vietnam have purchased since 2009. And that is on top of Vietnam's recent purchases from Russia of six new Kilo Class submarines, costing approximately $3 billion, and four new Russian built Stealth Frigates, costing $350 million each.
As I have said, I am a supporter of foreign aid, but when rash cuts were made and reduced the Defence budget to the lowest levels of GDP since 1938 and when the Labor government was hopelessly in debt should we really have been sending $416 million to a country that at the same time could afford to buy expensive and highly sophisticated military weaponry? Do they really need Australian taxpayers to pay for their roads and bridges, when we have to borrow that money? In reality we are borrowing money from China for our foreign aid. We cannot afford it—we are in debt—and then we give the money to countries like Vietnam, which frees up their budget so that they can afford to buy advanced Russian fighter jets. I have some great concerns about this policy. Defence is very important, and the coalition has made a commitment. The difference between the coalition and Labor is that when we make a commitment, we will stick to it.(Time expired)
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (12:38): It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak on the subject of Defence expenditure. It is a subject very close to my heart. I worked in Defence for many years before I was elected to parliament, and my electorate of Canberra is home to many Defence personnel, both civilian and military, and their families. Last year I was honoured to take on the role of shadow parliamentary secretary for Defence. I am deeply interested in this issue. I thank the member for Banks for this motion, and on his first point we are agreed: Defence is a critical responsibility of the Australian government. Labor has a proud record in its stewardship of Defence while in government. I acknowledge my colleague, the member for Batman, for his work in this area and his detailing of Labor's proud record a moment ago.
I have a particular interest in Defence procurement, and one of Labor's achievements that I am especially proud of is the Projects of Concern process. This was established by Labor to improve the procurement process by focusing the attention of the highest levels of government, defence and industry on remediating problem projects, ultimately delivering tangible benefits to the men and women of the ADF. I am also deeply interested in the health and welfare of Defence families, and here too Labor has a proud record. I was very pleased when, not two weeks ago, the member for Brisbane praised one of Labor's policies in this area: the National Australian Defence Force Family Health Program. The program, which provides free, basic medical services for Defence families, is one of which Labor is incredibly proud, and Labor is pleased that this is one of the initiatives that those opposite have chosen not to cut. I thank the member for Brisbane for her kind words about Labor's initiative and for recognising Labor's leadership in this area. It showed great bipartisanship.
But it is on the member for Banks' second and third points that I have some concerns. The member for Banks said the Abbott government plans to make no further cuts to Defence expenditure, and moved to commend the government on its Defence expenditure planning. I wonder if the member for Banks has spoken to the Minister for Defence, because it would seem they are on two very different pages. While the member for Banks said there are to be 'no further cuts' to Defence, the Minister for Defence said the Department of Defence is 'too heavy' and needs 'trimming'. In fact, the minister said he is going to 'methodically and carefully trim' the department—which sure sounds like cuts to me.
I wonder, too, if the member for Banks is aware of a little process the government is undertaking at the moment called the Commission of Audit. Perhaps he has not heard of it, or has not heard any detail about it. If he had, he would know that by its own admission the government is waiting to be told what to do, and where to cut, by its Commission of Audit—and that nothing, including cuts to Defence, is being ruled out. The member for Banks must also be unaware of the two separate reviews the government is currently undertaking into the Department of Defence and the Defence Materiel Organisation. And perhaps he did not hear that in January the government announced—one of the very few announcements that have been made by this government in the Defence portfolio—that it would be cutting the pay and conditions of Australian Defence Force personnel serving in Afghanistan and the Middle East, leaving some ADF personnel facing a pay cut of as much as $19,000.
As for the commitment to increase Defence expenditure to two per cent of GDP within a decade, I think the member for Batman has rightly, and very well-articulated, his and Labor's views on that. I ask, and I know the Australian people are asking: how can a government as hell-bent on austerity, cuts and slashing support to those most in need credibly make such a commitment? Analysis by senior Defence economist Dr Mark Thomson of ASPI says that a commitment of two per cent of GDP within a decade requires an annual real increase of five per cent.
When the government has broken every other promise it has made on cuts—promises like no cuts to health, no cuts to education and no changes to pensions—when it has already made cuts to Defence, how can the Australian people give any credibility to this government's promises on Defence expenditure?
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (12:43): I rise today to support the member for Banks' motion. Maintaining strong, financial support for our nation's defence is of particular importance to my electorate of Ryan, which is home to Gallipoli Barracks at Enoggera. Many service men and women have spoken to me about the harsh and sudden cuts under the previous government and the compromising effect that had on the Australian Defence Force. There is no greater responsibility for our national government than the defence of our nation, our people and their interests. This requires complex strategic judgements about risks and opportunities in the international environment. It means providing the necessary financial support to ensure an effective Australian Defence Force that is able to make its contribution in meeting current and future challenges.
The Obama administration announced a military and diplomatic 'pivot' towards Asia. Hillary Clinton, the then United States Secretary of State, emphasised the importance of the Asia-Pacific, noting that nearly half the world's population resides there, making it vital to American economic and strategic interests. Australia is able to draw the same conclusion, as our closest trading partners are from within the Asia-Pacific region, and it is in our interest to help maintain order within our own neighbourhood.
The 2013 Defence white paper understood the importance of an ongoing economic and military shift to the Indo-Pacific as a natural extension of the 2009 Defence white paper's emphasis on Australia's interest in the stability of the wider Asia-Pacific region. Growing trade, investment and energy flows across this broader region are strengthening economic and security interdependencies. These two factors combined are also increasingly attracting international attention to the Indian Ocean, through which some of the wold's busiest and most significant trade routes pass. For Australia, this increasingly more complex Indo-Pacific environment will make it more challenging for us to achieve or influence outcomes. Asian countries will balance a broader range of interests and partners, and Australia's voice will need to be clearer and stronger to be heard.
It is understood that defence planning is, by its very nature, a complex and long-term business. Defence planning is one area of public policy where decisions taken in one decade have the potential to affect Australia's sovereignty and freedom of action for decades to come. Defence spending is primarily tied up in long-term contracts for infrastructure and equipment, as well as long-term commitments of personnel to foreign aid deployments and other international security programs. This does not leave much room in the defence budget for short term cuts and 'efficiencies'.
The previous government pushed a Defence-wide cultural change towards operational efficiency. This is most certainly a positive idea, as all areas of government, including Defence, could be made more efficient. However, even when Defence is on board to move towards a more efficient operation, such a cultural shift will require incremental change over at least a five-year period. The original incentive for a cultural shift towards efficiency within Defence was made on the promise by the previous government that any savings made would be able to be reinvested by Defence for defence purposes.
The problem occurred when the Labor government then turned around, after having taken a wrecking ball to the economy, and decided to take the money 'saved' by the efficiency measures from Defence even before the measures had been realised. The previous government allocated insufficient funding to provide for all of Australia's defence needs. The real cost of military equipment continues to rise and the operational demands and strategic challenges for our defence forces remain high and yet the previous government insisted on ripping the innards from defence. It is vital that we maintain the effectiveness of our nation's defence force and spontaneously cutting funding is a certain way of undermining its strength. Similar issues can arise when defence spending is increased too rapidly. Defence planning, by its nature, requires long-term preparation to enter into new contracts, recruit new personnel and invest in new infrastructure with lasting budget certainty.
I am proud to stand on this side of the chamber where we recognise the crucial role our defence force plays in securing Australia's borders, strengthening our relations with our neighbouring countries and protecting our interests overseas through our commitment to steadily and incrementally increase defence expenditure to two per cent of GDP within a decade. The coalition is proving our commitment to protect and defend our people and to enhance Australia's national security interests, by bolstering our defence capabilities.
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (12:47): I rise to note the Prime Minister's claimed commitment to increase defence spending by two per cent of GDP over the next 10 years. I note this with interest as it suggests that the government believes Australia's defence industry is a growth industry. This will appeal to constituents in Melbourne's west, given the thousands of jobs that have been lost in the manufacturing sector from Melbourne's west and Geelong in previous weeks.
By increasing defence spending, we could see an increase in work for our military suppliers, researchers and shipbuilders over the next decade, particularly at the Williamstown shipyards in my electorate. But the life of the Australian naval shipbuilding industry is currently measured in weeks, not decades.
The Prime Minister would do well to take his eyes off the horizon on defence expenditure and focus on the immediate obstacles facing the shipbuilding industry. I speak of the precarious immediate future of the BAE shipyards in Williamstown, whose workers have produced for 150 years the high-tech warships that the Australian Navy requires. These shipyards have recently undertaken important work on the air warfare destroyer and landing helicopter dock projects. Over 1,000 workers have used their skills and expertise in the production of these warships. But the work on these projects is nearing completion, and the Abbott government's promises of work to come have not yet translated into concrete defence contracts.
The Williamstown shipyards are fast approaching the infamous Valley of Death, where unless new defence contracts are delivered the shipyards will close and the skills and expertise of this sector will vanish. We will see the loss of another 1,000 manufacturing jobs from Melbourne's west to complement the 2½ thousand jobs we recently lost at the Toyota plant in Altona. Such job losses are symbolic of the Abbott government's inability to make the transition from opposition to government. It is all very well to promise an increase in defence spending of two per cent of GDP while acting as an opposition attack dog; but a one-sentence slogan is not a coordinated strategy for the future of our defence program. Rather, a coordinated strategy requires dealing with the practicalities that our defence industry faces now so that any obstacles in the way of a brighter future are fully addressed.
Australia's shipyards ought to have a bright future. The shipbuilding needs of the Australian Navy require the construction of 80 ships worth $100 billion, and constructing them here would ensure a thriving shipbuilding industry in Australia for decades. With an additional eight frigates as part of the Future Frigate project, 14 patrol boats, six landing craft, two supply ships and more than 20 patrol boats included on the shopping list of the Navy, Australia's demand for warships has rarely been greater. As I know the member for Charlton would agree, there is no better place to build these ships than in Australia; we have workers with high-tech skills who wish to do their part to build the warships to defend our nation. The member for Charlton may disagree with me, though, when I say that there is no better place to build these ships than in Williamstown. But I stand proudly for the efforts of the workers in my electorate. I know that their expertise has built the best ships that the Australian Navy could ask for, and I know that the loss of the jobs of these workers through the sheer neglect and incompetence of the Abbott government will leave a far worse scar on Melbourne's worse than the sight of abandoned shipyards.
We need to support the future of these workers, and we need to do it now. A coordinated strategy is required so that the shipbuilding industry is safe in the immediate future and does not experience the peaks and troughs of haphazard defence planning in the long term. There is only so much that a company such as BAE can do when it relies upon Defence contracts for most of its work. The Abbott government needs to step up to the challenge and create a plan to secure the future of Australian shipbuilders. Luckily for the Prime Minister there is already a plan which he can use and which is sensible, has widespread approval and shows an appreciation of the realities facing our shipbuilding industry. The previous Labor government's plan would have prevented the valley of death both in the short term and in long term. Labor announced in August 2013 that the government would fast-track the replacement of HMAS Sirius and HMAS Success to offset the valley of death.
It is time for action. Last week the Victorian Premier met with the Prime Minister to again discuss the future of employment in Melbourne's west and in Geelong. There are no jobs in these meetings; there is no satisfaction in these meetings for the thousands of BAE workers facing unemployment. I do not want to see the Premier of Victoria touring the Williamstown shipyards after they have closed as he has so recently toured the many failed businesses in Victoria. It is time for the Prime Minister to look beyond the easy simplicity of a one-sentence slogan and to endorse the plan for the future of our shipbuilding industry that Melbourne's west so desperately needs. It is about time that the former Leader of the Opposition became a Prime Minister and acted to secure the jobs of thousands of workers in my electorate.
Debate adjourned.
Education Funding
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (12:52): I move:
That this House:
(1) notes:
(a) the importance of investing in education and ensuring that Australia remains competitive by providing quality education to all Australian children regardless of their postcode; and
(b) with concern that the gap between the most well off and disadvantaged students in Australia is on average 2.5 years, which is a much wider gap than the OECD average;
(2) acknowledges that the:
(a) well respected and qualified 'Gonski panel' identified six loadings and the importance of school reform as the key to improvement; and
(b) New South Wales, Victorian, South Australian, Tasmanian and Australian Capital Territory governments along with the national Catholic and independent school authorities signed up to this funding model;
(3) recognises that under the new four year funding arrangements for education, that it is impossible for the Government to guarantee that no school across Australia will be worse off; and
(4) calls on the Government not to return to the inequitable Socioeconomic Status scheme funding model of the past, but to commit to its promise of honouring the education funding agreements already entered into and provide equity by making it a truly national system.
There has been much said about our performance as a nation in the international measures of education in recent years. I have not heard one voice suggest that there is not a need for improvement. In fact, I would argue that no matter what our performance—be it low or high—there will always be room for improvement, because the education of our young people must continually improve to keep pace with the demands of modern life and to ensure that Australia can compete in a global economy.
It was to this end that the Labor government set about building a national system; a system to measure our performance and the resources going into our schools; a system that provided transparency and clear measures so that we as a nation could monitor our progress. The Labor government understood that national improvement requires national effort, a national plan, and national resourcing. The national Better Schools Plan, or Gonski as it is colloquially known, was designed to deliver just that, and it is needed—not least because each state and territory does things very differently; from curriculum to starting age, funding levels, and even centralisation and autonomy. But rather than doing as they promised, this government and this education minister have created division after diversion, to avoid getting started on the real work. On the same day that the minister made his announcement about the dismantling of ACARA, the body established to work with each state and territory system to make a national plan possible, he began a new curriculum war—the first of many distractions. And for what? So that, after years of an exhaustive consultation process, we can start again with a two-person expert review? His second distraction was about independent schools. The minister talks about independent schools with such relish, as though they are a new idea. He claims they are the cure-all for student outcome improvements. But the minister refuses to acknowledge Victoria, where autonomy and local decision-making have been happening in state schools for a long time and where, clearly, autonomy in and of itself does not improve student outcomes state-wide. And finally, in the latest announcement—that is, once again, a rehash designed to distract and divert—the minister talks about teacher training.
The Gonski plan incorporated the required changes in teacher training. The states that signed up to Gonski have already started on this work. Labor's Gonski reforms provide the necessary funding for, and make sure that states pursue, the following improvements: better admissions; tough literacy and numeracy standards; more practical experience in the classroom; professional standards for teachers at every stage of their career; and to continue to improve teacher education programs in partnership with the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency, universities and employers. If these things are already happening, why is the government wasting money on a review? Because they are stalling. They are stalling because the minister does not want to commit to needs-based funding. He refuses to even talk about it. We have only had reference to the SES model being a good system, signalling to many a return to the Howard years—a far cry from what the Gonski panel recommended. This, despite Victoria having had a model for many years, Western Australia having already conducted a review, and New South Wales embracing the same. This is the fundamental recommendation of the Gonski report. It goes to the heart of addressing the inequity in education that is holding our performance back. The minister needs to give us at least what he said he would give us—a unity ticket on equitable education. He needs to put the planks for national school improvement back in place; to deliver the full six years of better schools funding; and to let the schools and teachers get on with the job. The new mantra for this government is, 'get out of our way'. I say to them: there must be something standing behind you, because all you are doing is moving backwards.
I commend the motion to the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): Is there a seconder for the motion? I call the member for Fisher.
Mr BROUGH (Fisher) (12:58): I second the motion. Education is pivotal to the future of my children, my grandchildren and the nation. We all know that, and I think those on both sides of the House recognise it. We have debates about a range of issues. We sometimes fight on ideological grounds. We sometimes fight about the dollar value. We sometimes fight about whether it is the state or the nation that should actually be governing different aspects of the education system. As a former soldier, I know what it is like for families to go from one state to another and fight with the variation in the school starting age—it really is debilitating. A lot of those things are being addressed by both sides of the House. But today's bill is actually quite misleading, on so many fronts, and I think that it behoves me to point out to the new member for Lalor where it is failing.
First of all, she makes the point that the Labor Party were somehow going to implement Gonski, and we saw around our school gates: 'Implement Gonski', 'I'm for Gonski'. I can tell you now the Labor Party were not, because they did not deliver anything remotely like what the Gonski review panel put up—nothing. So let's not kid ourselves. Let's not pretend we are not who we said we would be and connect ourselves with something that the Labor Party simply was not going to enact.
Secondly, the member who now stands as the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, was the very minister who at the time withdrew money from my state. He also withdrew money from the Northern Territory. When we are talking about a national program and those most in need, I think I am well qualified, both from my public life and my private life, to talk about what it is like to be a remote schoolteacher in the Northern Territory working with the most disadvantaged children. Yet it was the Labor government that crowed about its commitment to education that did not guarantee the money under what you, the member for Lalor, depict as a national scheme. A national scheme, by definition, would be for everybody. WA is part of our Federation, Queensland is part of our Federation and the Northern Territory is part of our Federation, but they were not part of it. They were locked out.
Can I tell you that the students and teachers in my electorate are absolutely delighted that the Queensland state government is delivering Commonwealth funding of $131 million—not next year, not the year after, not the never-never. It is in their pockets today. Every single school on the Sunshine Coast has extra money thanks to Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, and Christopher Pyne, the Minister for Education, delivering on an election commitment. That is money that they actually have the autonomy to spend. In speaking directly to principals in the last week, they told me how important it is that they can engage their local business communities. They do not have to get onto QBuild, which might have outrageous costs. And in doing so they get to do the things that matter in their schools, when it matters to them and they have control. That means that have more autonomy and more focus on what matters to their school and getting the outcomes that matter. Local decision making is essential if we want to get the best outcomes, because no two communities are the same.
The member who just spoke said 'national, national, national'. My view is local, local, local—local parents, local businesspeople, local teachers and local school bodies that get together and work to overcome the disabilities and the challenges in their own school communities to get the outcomes that we are all seeking. When you build a national scheme, as the Labor Party referred to, the first thing is to get everybody involved. They failed that test. They were unable to do so. They failed the test of being able to build simple buildings in schools—outrageous costs, huge waste, buildings that actually went places.
Ms MacTiernan interjecting—
Mr BROUGH: I can tell the member from WA who is having a little whinge over here I know of instances where they pulled down buildings in remote communities to put other ones up in their place with no net value. If that is what you consider value, it is no wonder the Labor government you were part of in WA was a failure and it is no wonder the federal Labor government was a failure in this area as well. Get to know your facts. Talk to the teachers, who will tell you that they actually want autonomy. They wanted autonomy and they received it from the WA government. The Queensland government has done it, as the previous member said. The Victorian government has as well. This government is delivering cash to families and to teachers, so the people who know what is needed in their schools can make those decisions. We will not be wasting money. We will not be distracting people. We will be giving schools what they need so we have the education that the country both needs and deserves. (Time expired)
Ms MacTIERNAN (Perth) (13:03): In this general education debate I think it is important to say—and I have been on the record saying—it is not just about money, that one does have to get the pedagogy right. You can continue to throw money at a bad program and it will not help, but we definitely do need the money to ensure that particularly those people in lower SEI groups who are not achieving their potential are given the opportunity to do it. I have always argued we have to get the pedagogy right, but then we have to fund the delivery of that so that we can make up the difference.
What I really want to talk about today is the most lamentable backtracking on the part of the Minister for Education on a principle that he espoused when he was in opposition and now seems to have reneged on. It is the importance of lifting the standards of people who are going into our education system. The Minister for Education said that we need to lift the ATAR standards of people being admitted to education. Indeed, that was consistent with the COAG reforms that from around 2011. Since appointing the vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University to chair this review of teaching standards, he has totally backtracked. That is most unfortunate.
We often talk about Finland. It has been most successful in turning around educational outcomes. In the late 1960s Finland shut down its existing teacher-training colleges and it only allowed education to be attached to its most prestigious and elite universities. To have any chance of being a teacher one had to be very well-educated and a relatively high achiever. This is an important principle that we need to bring into place here. In Australia we have continued to lower the standards for admission to teacher-training programs. Across Australia last year, for example, 7.3 per cent of people admitted to education degrees had an ATAR of less than 50 per cent. We had 16.6 per cent of people with ATARs of less than 60 per cent and 27 per cent of people with ATARs of less than 70.
I accept that ATAR is not the only judgement of a person's intellectual capacity, but adopting the principle that had been supported through COAG, of requiring people to be in the top 30 per cent in literacy and general intellectual achievement, is not unreasonable. Unfortunately, Vice-Chancellor Greg Craven, overseeing this investigation into teacher standards, said that all we need is a 'lick of paint'. We do not just need a lick of paint. We need something much more profound. I will give you the example of a test done at ECU. A document was sent to me in around 2010, so perhaps the test was done in 2009. They gave the year 9 literacy test to first-year education students. Ninety-three per cent of those students failed, first up. It was three weeks, intensive. They got the number down to about 86 per cent failing, after another three-week intensive, and then they got the score down to 81 per cent failing the year 9 literacy test.
This is not good enough. The fact that we are now saying 'Look it's quite good; we're now getting universities that have got their ATAR standard for education at around 65—that's a real achievement' shows a demeaning of education. We are discouraging smart, bright, hardworking young students going into education by allowing such low scores. We know that the Australian Catholic University— (Time expired)
Mr EWEN JONES (Herbert) (13:08): At the heart of everything here, the one thing I like about this private member's motion is that we are talking about education, because education is the key. The previous member raised a couple of valid points. Finland is a great example of what can happen, but Finland is a very small section. I have friends who went on sabbaticals to Finland. When they walked in, every kid looked the same, every kid had the same blonde hair and every kid had the same background. No one in a Finnish school has to deal with kids who have not had breakfast. No-one in Finland has to deal with kids who have the other challenges that Australian schools have. No-one in Finland has to deal with those things that are inherently tough in the Australian education system.
Ms MacTiernan interjecting—
Mr EWEN JONES: The one thing I will agree with, member for Perth, when you talk about teachers, is that in Finland they are PhD qualified. They are very special people. Teachers that I know who have walked into classrooms in Finland talk about the level of engagement there. They say it is spectacular. What we have to do is talk about that engagement.
My younger brother Stewart is a secondary school principal in Brisbane. He is a very good teacher. He sent me a photograph of his grade 3 class at Texas State School in 1970. There were 34 kids in that class, one teacher and no teachers aide. Six kids in the class had there shoes on; the rest of them were barefoot. There were some terrible haircuts. I bet every kid in that class could read and write. There was no teacher's aide, no special needs—nothing. What that teacher, Miss Baker, had to do! She was a very, very tough teacher. In those days, because of the way education was, the smart women were never going to go on to be doctors, pharmacists, accountants or engineers. They were probably told they would make good teachers and nurses. Those of us who are of that age were so blessed with our education, because we had that level of female teaching. My wife is an early childhood teacher. She also is a spectacular teacher. In her class she has three special needs. She has kids who cannot toilet themselves and she has 12 hours aide time. The challenges in education are so much bigger than they were in our time. We ask so much more of teachers today than we ever have.
I take the point of the member for Perth about ATARs and the level of education coming into the system, but I think that what we have to do is look at why people are taking up education, why people are becoming teachers. I think a lot of it is to do with the lack of risk. When kids leave school, because we have been so risk averse at school, they do not know what to do. They want to feel safe. They have not done anything. We have primary schools in Townsville where you are not allowed to do a cartwheel. We have schools in Townsville that do not compete in sports between them because they do not want anyone to find out what it is to be a winner or a loser. Those of the sorts of things in which we have to encourage kids to risk, to fail. When I speak to year 12 kids who are about to leave school and to year 7 kids I wish them failure, because to have failed means they have stepped outside their comfort zone, taken the risk or put themselves on the edge. We as a society have to say to our kids: 'It's okay to fail. It's okay to step out,' and be done with it, to have a go, to scrape you knee, to break your arm, to do that thing. That is what we have to do. We have to encourage risk. The greatest teachers I have had in life were the ones who engaged with me personally. I have no idea what their educational qualifications were, but they loved their subject and their students. That is what we want in education
I say to the Labor Party: can we move on from Gonski? What the Labor Party proposed was never Gonski. It went so far away from what Professor Gonski said. It back ended the payments so far that it was three parliaments from when it was proposed. The legislation brought to the parliament was so inadequate there was no way of working out exactly what it was doing. When the PEFO was produced we saw that they had pulled $1.2 billion out of education. Then Minister Shorten said, 'Of course we were going to put it back. It was only for the purposes of PEFO.' We are getting on with the job on education. We are actually putting smart things into schools. We are trusting our teachers to provide the teaching outcome. We are encouraging parents and principals and school communities. As the member for Fisher, Mal Brough, said earlier, Labor talks about national, national, national; big picture all the time. What we are talking about is local, local, local. That is where the education debate must be.
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (13:14): I speak on this motion on education funding at a moment when the importance of investing in the skills and education of people in my electorate has been made all too clear. The education system in Melbourne's first is already under great strain. Schools face larger class sizes and smaller budgets, and our TAFEs struggle with the consequences of the state liberal government's $300 million of budget cuts. Our exceptional teachers and school leaders in Melbourne's western not to blame for the strains confronting our education system. Watching what they do with so little is remarkable.
One such school, Sunshine Secondary College, which was rightly recognised by the Grattan Institute's Turning around schools: it can be done report last week, was acknowledged as a leader in school turnaround. The vision of principal Tim Blunt for Sunshine Secondary College is to be applauded, and the results the school is now seeing in maths attainment are a worthy model for schools across the nation.
Despite these success stories, those teaching our children in Melbourne's west are facing difficult times. The loss of the Toyota plant in Altona has sent shock waves through our community and will place an increasing strain on our education system in future years. Due to the Prime Minister's inaction, at least 2½ thousand manufacturing workers in Melbourne's west are losing their jobs. Two and a half thousand families will be suffering the social dislocation of redundancy and an uncertain economic future.
The way for Melbourne's west to rebuild is through retraining and education. The need for investment in our education system has never been greater, for it is not only the workers but the children of the workers that will suffer from the decline of manufacturing in the west. Studies show that a child's health and wellbeing decrease if a parent has been unemployed for the past six months. It is hard for these kids to focus on English and science when their parents are at home struggling with the reality of unemployment. This stress has an impact on a child's ability to learn. A child whose parent loses their job is 15 per cent more likely to repeat a grade at school. This impact on a child's marks has nothing to do with their intelligence. These kids will face new obstacles to reaching their full potential through no fault of their own.
Our schools need to help these children get the educational support they deserve so that the gap between those who have and those who do not does not widen, for, if left unchecked, it will widen. Studies show that the children of unemployed parents will on average earn nine per cent less than the children from similar backgrounds throughout their lives. They are also more likely to end up on welfare payments themselves.
So an increased and, importantly, better targeted investment in our education system needs to happen now. It needs to happen both for the manufacturing workers now looking for new career pathways and the children struggling with a stress they cannot fully comprehend. Even the state Liberal government claims to agree with this. In the wake of the news of the Toyota closure, Victorian Treasurer Michael O'Brien declared, 'It is time to redouble our efforts and to make sure that we can manage this transition and give those workers new opportunities, give them training opportunities to get new jobs.'
If the Victorian Treasurer is serious about looking after the unemployed workers of Melbourne's west, he can start by reversing his government's record cuts to the TAFE sector. I know that the higher education institutions of Melbourne's west, led by Victoria University, would be far better equipped to deal with this new retraining task had they not had the additional $40 million, 80 courses and hundreds of staff members taken away from them in 2012.
This investment in TAFE is important in the short term, but what is needed to deal with this long-term dislocation is investment in our schools. Yet, rather than giving school students the tools to escape the chasms they now find themselves in, the Abbott government are digging deeper and deeper into the earth. They are playing games with the education funding they guaranteed during the 2013 election. First, the Minister for Education announced that, despite their promised unity ticket, funding was no longer guaranteed and it was back to the drawing board. Then he announced that the funding was there but allocated according to the Howard government's failed socioeconomic status model. Finally, the education minister affirmed the funding but, staggeringly, did not tie it to any needs based funding model at all. We are left wondering what further surprises the Abbott government will pull to prevent our schools from receiving the funding they deserve.
It is an uncertainty that would not have been seen under a Labor government. Under the Better Schools Plan, education funding was to be allocated to the schools that needed it the most. This needs based funding model would have been a boon for schools like Sunshine Secondary College, allowing an innovative principal to do even more to serve students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and non-English-speaking backgrounds. And, under the Better Schools Plan, Labor would have invested $75 million in 35 schools in Gellibrand, increasing these schools' funding by an average of more than 30 per cent.
This is the funding our kids need to reach their full potential. This is the funding needed to ensure that kids in our community are supported while their families are going through tough times. But all we have seen from the Prime Minister on education is false starts, backflips and blank cheques. The Prime Minister needs to do for these children what he could not do for their parents and provide the support that they need to have for a brighter future.
Mr WILLIAMS (Hindmarsh) (13:19): I speak to oppose the motion today. My father is a teacher, and I am on the governing council of my children's primary school. Education has been and will be a massive part of my life going forward. I, like many parents, am concerned about the state of Australia's teaching standards and education, including in South Australia.
We are on the same page on a number of things. The member for Lalor talked about the need for improvement. Yes, we know there needs to be improvement. The member for Perth talked about the need for better teacher quality. We agree and we are doing things to that end. From our side we also know we are providing certainty for schools over the forward estimates. We know that we are replacing the $1.2 billion that Bill Shorten ripped out over four years for Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia and we are delivering $1.6 billion for the remaining states and territories on the commitments to non-government schools. We are taking a national approach to this. Over the next four years we will focus on what really matters in education—improving the quality of teaching, ensuring that we have a robust curriculum, increasing school autonomy and encouraging greater parental engagement. The importance of the home environment is something that the member for Gellibrand just touched on and how that influences a child's outcome. We are committed to a fairer funding model, which will ensure that no school will be worse off because of anything the Commonwealth does. Final amounts, as we know, for government schools are determined at a state level, and so there is a different application for the model.
We agree that there needs to be a new approach in this debate, and that it is not simply all about funding. Around 33 per cent of Australian school children are failing to meet minimum standards in reading, maths and science. This is despite an increase in funding over 10 years, and that tells us that it is not all about money. When compared to other countries, Australia is going backwards in maths and science. We need to do something about this. So, what are we doing? We are looking to have better training for teachers and we are looking to give parents and principals more autonomy in the way they run the schools. We all know that if you pick a team, that gives you great confidence in matching the needs of your community organisation to the needs of your business operation. That is what giving principals greater autonomy means.
We have set up a ministerial advisory group on teacher education that will identify gaps in current teacher education and recommend implementation timeframes. The member for Perth touched on the need for teacher quality. When I was out in the community, a constituent, an experienced teacher, told me that, if young teachers could receive better skills through guidance and mentoring, that would provide considerable benefits to all. How many times do we hear parents talk about the values of the teachers and how privileged their children are to have a great teacher. Like all good organisations, some principals make better leaders than others, but that is not to say that we cannot get those principals performing at a better level and get mentoring for those who have turned things around.
I was interested to read that, according to the OCED, Shanghai in China has one of the best and most equitable education systems. They have taken a certain approach to change behaviours and practices in some schools. The government contracts a high-performing school to work with a low-performing school to achieve an improvement over a two-year period. These development programs build leadership and teaching skills that are required for change. In my short time as a local member going out to schools, I can already tell the principals who have a clear vision to create a strong culture and have been able to execute their vision. That ability to execute should never be forgotten.
We have heard the member for Gellibrand talk about the school at Sunshine. We have also had the Grattan report, publicised in the Weekend Australian, which talked about turning school performance around. It is most interesting to see the five steps they followed and, while we have heard about some of them today, not enough emphasis has been placed on some of these steps. They are things like strong leadership, effective teaching, a positive school culture and engaging parents. There is evidence that where parents are engaged better student outcomes follow. As Obama said in his book, The Audacity of Hope:
All the money in the world won't boost student achievement if parents make no effort to instill in their children the values of hard work and delayed gratification.
Debate adjourned.
Kurdistan
Mr LAURIE FERGUSON (Werriwa) (13:24): by leave—I move:
That this House notes that:
(1) March 2013 marked the 25th anniversary of the genocidal chemical attack by the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on Halabja in the Kurdish region of Iraq that took at least 4,000 lives within a few minutes and displaced many thousands more, and was part of Saddam’s brutal Anfal Campaign of the 1980s, targeting Kurdish and other minorities in Iraq;
(2) some 4,000 villages, 2,000 schools and 300 hospitals were destroyed, including through the use of chemical weapons across dozens of Kurdish villages;
(3) the Saddam regime was also responsible for the:
(a) deportation or forced relocation of tens of thousands of Faili Kurds on the basis that they were not considered Iraqi;
(b) abduction and execution of an estimated 8,000 Barzani Kurds who were subsequently buried in mass graves in southern Iraq; and
(c) arrest, execution and subsequent burial of up to 100,000 Iraqi Kurds in 1988, including women and children; and
(4) the former dictator Saddam Hussein and Ali Hassan al Majid, known as Chemical Ali, were subsequently prosecuted and convicted for these and other crimes.
I note the attendance here today of Haval A Syan, the Liverpool based representative of the government of the Kurdistan region in Australia.
Obviously, this attack in 1988 was, by any international standard—including by comparison with Bosnia, Rwanda or Syria—an extremely disturbing assault by the government of Iraq upon its own citizens. Before utilising chemical weapons the government of Iraq bombed the Kurdish village of Halabja for quite a while. It is thought they did this to make sure that the windows were open so that the gas would be more effective. The legacy of this was that in 1998 about 7,000 people were still being treated. The local areas—the water and land—were contaminated.
It was part of a broader thrust by the administration of Iraq—the Anfal assault on the Kurdish areas—leading to mass deportations, mass graves, forced relocations and the destruction of thousands of Turkish villages and households. John Simpson of the BBC was on the spot very shortly afterwards. Even though he had not been there at the time of the assault he spoke of his eyes prickling and of grave headaches for hours afterwards. He said:
I saw a woman whose body was twisted almost into a circle, the back of her head touching her feet. There was vomit and blood on her clothes, and her face was contorted in agony.
There were reports of burning and blistering and of people coughing up green vomit. There were very long-term impacts upon genetic diseases and the youth of that region. Cancers, respiratory problems, skin and eye debilities, reproductive and fertility issues were manifest.
In 2010, the Iraqi High Criminal Court tried President Hussein and the man known internationally as Chemical Ali, his close relative, for their participation in this activity. Memos have been discovered in the President's office which told of the provision of mustard gas and sarin. There were internal communiques, between the military and intelligence of the then Iraqi Ba'athist government, confirming approval of these actions. These are actions to be condemned internationally.
Let us talk today, also, about the current situation in Kurdistan. We must reflect on the gains that have been made. It is an area that has the sixth-largest known petrol reserve in the world. There have been significant negotiations with a number of companies, most particularly in Turkey. Today, 27 foreign and diplomatic representatives are situated in Erbil, including four of the five permanent United Nations Security Council members. By the end of this year, China will also have established its first diplomatic mission in the Kurdistan region.
There are, of course, some issues to be dealt with. It is a bit like Lebanon, which has not had a census since the 1930s because they do not want to discover the huge growth in the Shiite proportion of the population. Similarly, in Iraq they are not too keen on taking censuses because there is a livelihood to be had from the current deal, where Kurdistan receives 17 per cent of the oil revenue. Unfortunately, the revenue goes through the Iraqi administration in the first place and is slowly paid back in very paltry amounts over very significant periods of time. Despite that there is an estimate that the Kurds currently constitute a quarter of the population. Obviously, the question of a negotiation based on 17 per cent raises some questions about the ethical distribution.
On the other hand, there is also the issue that a very significant part of Iraq's revenue comes from this zone. So whether it is based on population or revenue, there are significant arguments for a renegotiation of this deal. I am pleased to see that a significant number of nations are dealing directly with the Kurdistan regional administration with regards to the future of these revenues.
The Kurds have been supressed for many centuries. We know about the plight of the Kurds in Turkey, Iran and Syria. They have had very little access to human rights. They have had very little right to language and to culture. They have very few broadcasting rights within those countries. But Kurdistan is making a very real example to the world and to the Kurdish people about their ability to conduct administrations, have their autonomy, and to fight for the preservation of their culture and their rights.
Mr HAYES (Fowler—Chief Opposition Whip) (13:29): I second the motion and congratulate my colleague for bringing this motion forward. March 16 this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Iraqi air force, on the orders of Saddam Hussein, dropping chemical weapons on the Kurdish town of Halabja.
Citizens were rushing for shelter in their cellars, realising the attack was different from the many attacks previously made and from the shelling that had already taken place in that town. The place was covered with a very smoky gas that hovered over the ground. Despite hiding in their shelters, people soon started feeling the horrendous effects on their bodies. Hundreds were feeling ill and then dying in the streets. Thousands of innocent civilians—men, women and children—were exposed to toxic chemical agents that led to their agonising and painful deaths and left many more permanently debilitated.
This cold-blooded attack was part of a deliberate campaign called al-Anfal, directed by the former leader of the Iraqi regime, the infamous Hassan al-Majid. It was designed to exterminate the Kurdish inhabitants. This attack occurred in the township of Halabja and was just one instance of many large-scale mass murders that happened between 1987 and 1988. Several thousand Kurdish villages were destroyed, approximately 100,000 Iraqi Kurds lost their lives and another 7,000 people were injured as a result of this genocide.
This was the first time in history that a government used weapons of mass destruction against its own people. Consequently, more than two decades after this brutal massacre, the aftermath of the atrocity is still apparent, with toxic gas causing long-term illness, birth defects, miscarriages, infertility, paralysis, neurological disorders and cancers among many of the surviving generation. The chemical attacks have also irreparably damaged the environment and soil and have contaminated water and food supplies.
The consequence is that the land remains useless for agriculture and breeding purposes and it is still very difficult for restocking animals. It is important to note, as the member for Werriwa did, that in 2010 the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal recognised that the events at Halabja were a crime against humankind. It was, I strongly submit, a genocide.
Australia has since become home to many of the Kurdish refugees, providing them with humanitarian services and support. In turn, the Kurds have contributed positively to Australia's multicultural community. Despite the overwhelming challenges, the community of Halabja have since taken steps to normalise their lives through a commitment to building a peaceful and inclusive region in Iraq. This is testament to the courage and determination of the Kurdish people. Since these shameful events, which are not just a plight on Iraq but a plight on the rest of the world, we have seen the reconsolidation of Iraq. The position of Kurdistan in the northern region has changed. It is now home to approximately 25 per cent of the Iraqi population and has played a disproportionate role in the economic development of the nation itself. Through the professional developments of its oilfields and the utilisation of the pipeline through to Turkey, and being able to export from the gulf, the Kurdistan region is now making a major contribution to the world's energy supplies and to the economic future of Iraq itself.
There have also been considerable inroads in supporting the health and education of its people. The Kurdistan Regional Government understands that to provide for the future of its people it must first make considerable investment in education of its youth. That is something the Kurdistan Regional Government should be commended on.
I would like to thank Mr Havan Syan—here with us today; the representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government—for keeping me abreast of the issues concerning this region and how vital they are for the stability of our globe. Finally, on the 25th anniversary, which falls on the 16th, I urge that we pause to remember—to commemorate—the innocent lives that were tragically lost as a result of this barbaric attack, and pray that such violence is never again inflicted by a state on its people.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The time allocated for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Proceedings suspended from 13:35 to 15:59
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Corangamite Electorate: Employment
Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite) (15:59): I rise to address recent developments on the jobs front in my electorate of Corangamite, in the Geelong region. Sadly, Alcoa announced last week that it would close its Point Henry smelter in August and its rolling mill by the end of the year. This is a devastating blow. My heart goes out to the 800 workers affected, as well as to suppliers and of course their families. I wish to put on record my disappointment that Alcoa is not providing its workforce with more lead time. The Mayor of the City of Greater Geelong and even the AWU and other unions share my concerns. The only one not apparently concerned about workers' rights in this respect is the member for Corio. On this point he has remained silent.
We have seen, luckily, how quickly our fortunes can change. I visited Shell's Geelong refinery on Friday after 600 jobs were saved when Shell found a buyer for the refinery. During the week, I met with the Prime Minister, the Minister for Industry and the Geelong mayor, with the Prime Minister committing to announcements in coming weeks.
I am also a member of the government's industry and manufacturing economic review panel, which reconvened today. The panel will inform the design of the government's $100 million growth fund. We also have a $24.5 million Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund. The first round of announcements from this fund is imminent. This fund will provide direct support to local businesses to grow jobs in emerging sectors and new industries. Each and every day, we are getting on with the job of creating jobs.
Pink Stumps Day
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (16:01): I rise today to acknowledge the many groups that support the McGrath Foundation through Pink Stumps Day. Pink Stumps Day is the biggest community based fundraiser for the McGrath Foundation and happens annually on 22 February. In particular, I recognise the Werribee Cricket Club, which recently held a function to raise funds for the foundation—last Saturday, in fact. I would like to acknowledge Chris Burton, who organised the Pink Stumps Ladies Day High Tea Cricket Day, with guest speakers, raffles and the opportunity to come together as a community. The afternoon was a great success, raising much-needed funds. I was fortunate enough to be invited to address the audience at the Werribee Cricket Club, and it was wonderful to see over 120 beautifully pink-clad women and men from my electorate supporting such a worthy cause.
And it is a worthy cause, because every family has come into contact with people that they know and love that get that dreaded diagnosis of breast cancer. When local groups like the Werribee Cricket Club and the Laverton Cricket Club, which also has a Pink Stumps Day event, take the time to organise a fundraising event, it encourages the community to become involved. It promotes the good work of the McGrath Foundation and it brings people together. We were fortunate too to hear from and meet a breast care worker who is employed by the McGrath Foundation through the Geelong Hospital. I congratulate both the Werribee and Laverton cricket clubs on their great work in supporting the Pink Stumps Day initiative.
Dobell Electorate: Lakes Grammar
Mrs McNAMARA (Dobell) (16:02): I would like to inform the House of work undertaken by students at Lakes Grammar, in my electorate, to support Ronald McDonald House. The opportunity class at Lakes Grammar, an Anglican school, consists of children from year 5 and year 6. These 10- and 11-year-olds have been involved in an integrated unit of work that looks at ethics, social justice and obligation. This learning inspired the opportunity class to raise funds to assist with a Ronald McDonald House project at Gosford Hospital by planning and organising a dinner to raise funds.
Ronald McDonald House provides support programs that directly improve the health and wellbeing of children. This particular project will see the development of a family room, attached to the paediatric ward at Gosford Hospital, which will provide families of very ill children with an area to relax.
The dinner was held on 11 October, and, as a result of the students' efforts, over $15,000 was raised. Year 6 student Olivia Roberts commented:
It was very stressful but we pulled together and have managed to make enough to make a big difference to Ronald McDonald House Charities. As well as the planning … we also cooked, cleaned, waited on tables, greeted our guests and much, much more.
Student Deanna Barnes said:
We have learned a lot about what we can do to help our community and the people in it … We have also learned that helping other people is something you can do no matter what age you are.
Mr William Wallace, head of the junior school, was thrilled that the students were able to develop a greater sense of the needs of others and what they can do to help. The students were able to present their cheque for $15,000 to a representative of Ronald McDonald House Charities on 28 October. I commend the efforts of Lakes Grammar students to the House.
New South Wales Election: Seat of Swansea
Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (16:04): I would like to congratulate Yasmin Catley on her preselection to be the Labor Party candidate in the state election for the seat of Swansea. Yasmin is an outstanding woman who has many, many attributes. She is the kind of person who is an actual doer as opposed to the current member for Swansea. She has children who range from primary school age to high school, and she is really aware of the issues that are important to families. She knows how important it is that there are good services in our local hospitals and that kids get great education, and she knows how important jobs are for the people of the Swansea area. She is also very active in local community groups and sporting groups. Her children play netball for Caves Beach and they play every Saturday in Belmont. Yasmin will be an outstanding member of parliament. I am sure the current member for Swansea—Liberal member Gary Edwards—is quaking in his shoes to know that such a dynamic young woman with so many close ties to the community will be his opponent. Yasmin is a woman with great leadership qualities. She is compassionate and an outstanding human being.
Page Electorate: ABC Heywire
Mr HOGAN (Page) (16:06): I recently had the absolute pleasure of catching up with Erin Riggall, from my electorate of Page, who was a winner in the ABC Heywire competition. In this job you see a lot of people every day, but occasionally you meet a young person like Erin who makes you take a step back and you want to listen to what they have to say—because what she had to say was so refreshingly optimistic. Erin is one of the 40 of our nation's youngest and brightest who have been discovered by the ABC Heywire project from some of the most diverse areas of regional Australia.
Seventeen-year-old Erin is a country girl at heart, and she makes no bones about it. She is proud of her town and she is proud of the Casino meatworks, where her mum and dad both work. While in Canberra, Erin spoke at Heywire's forum to encourage young people to take up farming. In the International Year of the Family Farm, when large parts of the country is gripped with drought, this country needs more inspiring and optimistic young people like Erin who are willing to have a go.
Many people in our community sometimes can be dismissive of people and jobs like working in a meatworks. But, as Erin said, people who work in those places have to be skilled and they provide a lot of wealth to our community. In fact, the meatworks in Casino is the largest private employer in the electorate, and I am very proud of the work that they all do.
Braddon Electorate: Mount Lyell Copper Mine
Mr WHITELEY (Braddon) (16:07): On 11 December 2013 I informed the House of the tragic deaths of two west coast locals in a mining accident, Mr Craig Gleeson and Mr Alistair Lucas. It is with great sadness today that I inform the House of a third death at the Mount Lyell mine. In the Christmas-New Year break, on 17 January this year, Mr Michael George Welsh lost his life following a mud rush in the mine. Mr Welsh was a father and grandfather who lived on the west coast. On behalf of the parliament I express my sincere condolences to his family, his friends and to the west coast community. Operations at the mine have been temporarily suspended. I have met with Mount Lyell management and the West Coast Council to ensure that they are provided with all the support that can possibly be given.
On Sunday I attended a beyondblue event on the west coast to raise awareness of mental health issues in the community. West coasters were joined by three Hawthorn footballers who ran a football clinic for the children while beyondblue board member Fiona Coote conducted an important community information session on mental health matters. I would like to thank all those involved in the event for their commitment to supporting the west coast, including West Coast Mayor, Robyn Geraghty; the many local volunteers, especially from the Queenstown football club who made the event possible; beyondblue; the Hawthorn Football Club; and the AMWU, who provided much support on the day.
Lalor Electorate: Committee for Wyndham
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (16:09): I rise today to recognise a group in my electorate that has recently celebrated its 16th anniversary. The Committee for Wyndham is an incorporated, civic membership based group that works diligently for the betterment of the Wyndham and western Melbourne as a whole. In particular, I acknowledge the loyal and dedicated Peter Hudson and John Nicol, who have been with the committee since its inception, along with the long-serving Jan Goates. Today, led by Chris Potaris, the committee is dedicating itself to addressing the challenges that a region with rapid growth faces. Working with the local Wyndham council and state and federal governments, this group aims to ensure growth, jobs and sustainability in Wyndham are assured.
Last week I attended a function to which the committee had invited the Hon. Steve Bracks to speak. Steve highlighted the need for groups like the Committee for Wyndham to drive investment in our region and to ensure our skills and jobs are not lost and that we embrace opportunities that lie ahead of us. That is exactly what the committee for Wyndham does.
I congratulate the committee for its work over these 16 years and for some of the achievements that we have seen that are due to its hard work. I know that many in the community go to the Committee for Wyndham when they have issues so they feel need addressing, particularly issues around industry and jobs.
Lindsay Electorate: School-to-Work Forum
Ms SCOTT (Lindsay) (16:10): I rise today to congratulate Schools Industry Partnership and Penrith council for their great work. On Wednesday of last week we held a school-to-work forum. In attendance were key businesses from around our community and key employer groups, the University of Western Sydney and the Nepean Blue Mountains health board all working on how we can find better jobs for the young people of Western Sydney. It was great to see in attendance a lot of local schools, including Glenmore Park high, Colyton high and Caroline Chisholm, all working to see how we can work for youth employment in the area. Our objectives were to establish how young school leavers are going to be ready for the workforce, assist them in this transition and provide potential links between business and schools. We heard about a wide range of initiatives that will help young people, from Panthers on the Prowl to Humanise the Next Generation program, Ropes Crossing Skilling and Employment and Job Services Australia. Businesses and schools in our community are absolutely keen to work together to ensure that there is a very strong sense of local community and goodwill. The trick is to make it easier for schools and business to connect in effective ways.
Blair Electorate: Local Sporting Champions
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (16:11): The former federal Labor government introduced the Local Sporting Champions program in 2008 to provide funding assistance to young men and women to participate in national or state sporting competitions. On 14 February, I held an afternoon tea to congratulate our local sporting champions. I congratulate the following Blair sporting champions: Cade Bandit, who was selected to represent Queensland at the hockey championships in Darwin; Steve Grayson, who hopes to progress into the Queensland cricket team and, eventually, the Australian cricket team; Jackson Tinney, who has been involved in school and club sport since the age of six playing rugby league, tennis, lawn bowls, swimming, athletics, soccer and cricket; Miranda McNamara, who is enjoying the friendship bond associated with traveling with the hockey team; Emily Witheyman-Crump, who was selected in the Queensland Remote and Indigenous Hockey Program Rubies squad, under 19 Indigenous women's team, and who hopes that she will one day play for Australia; Jamie Prasser, who has been playing hockey since the age of four; Teresa Webb, who has been committed to sport and playing softball since the age of seven; Kelly McNamara, who represented Queensland in cross-country; Layla Eleison, for whom making the Queensland hockey team is a stepping stone towards her goal to play for Australia; Mitchell Moran, who was selected for the third time in the Queensland hockey team; Gabrielle Nicholls, who competed in the national hockey titles and who hopes one day to wear the green and gold; Clinton Suther; Thomas Wheeler; Emma Reynolds; Alanna Perry and Zoe Lambi all representing our region in national and state championships. (Time expired)
Ryan Electorate: Community Service
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (16:13): Last week, I was honoured to present a Ryan community service award to Kenmore local Lisa Johnson. The Ryan community service awards encourage and acknowledge the excellent and tireless work of individuals and groups in the Ryan community. Lisa has devoted her time, including weekends and holidays, to working with the Kenmore District Kindergarten and Preschool Association. She has held a number of committee positions, including president, vice-president and workplace health and safety officer. Lisa's two daughters have both attended Kenmore District Kindergarten. During her time at the kindy Lisa has overseen the day-to-day running of the kindergarten and has held monthly committee meetings, while also taking on myriad jobs, including arranging contracts with builders, welcoming new parents and liaising with staff. She arranged the kindergarten's garden project, including the building of two cubby houses, new garden pathways and interactive artwork. Lisa is currently organising the building of two kitchens and the replacement of one of the play forts. Lisa's work has improved the kindergarten's standing in the community, its facilities and its financial position. We are very fortunate to have volunteers such as Lisa in the Ryan community. I congratulate her on receiving her award.
Bendigo Electorate: Roads
Ms CHESTERS ( Bendigo ) ( 16:14 ): Funding for Infrastructure Australia has always been a partnership between state and federal governments, yet since the election of the Victorian coalition government the Ravenswood interchange on the Calder Highway has sat in the too hard basket. They have dragged their feet on the planning and failed to list this project as a key priority for Victoria. Because of this delay, they have put safety at risk. Apparently, according to the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, his state government has finally started the necessary paperwork for this project to be completed. Really? Then why is the Victorian Minister for Transport refusing to allow VicRoads to meet with the local federal member—me—to discuss this project?
Knowing how urgent this project is, I contacted VicRoads and asked them for a briefing on the Calder network and in particular this project. To date the Victorian Minister for Transport has refused to allow me to meet with local representatives to discuss this project. It is an outrageous attack on our democracy to deny the elected local member access to an arm of the public service to discuss such an important issue. As the federal member for Bendigo it is my role to stand up for my community and to hold the new coalition government to account to make sure they deliver on their election promises. Let's hope that the state and federal coalition governments do the right thing and fund this project immediately before it is too late.
Lyons Electorate: Literary Festival
Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (16:16): The small northern Tasmanian town of Beaconsfield in my electorate of Lyons, after 12 months of preparation, will launch its inaugural Festival of Golden Words on 14 March. Organisers are already claiming the event as the biggest regional writers festival in Australia, with 80 writers from all around the country taking part. They include some high-profile names who will lead forums that will be mostly free to the public. Barrister and human rights advocate Julian Burnside will officially open the festival. Leading novelists who will appear include: Carrie Tiffany, the author of Mateship with Birds; Romy Ash, who wrote Floundering; and the author of the international sensation Burial Rites, Hannah Kent. Katherine Scholes, Rachael Treasure, Rohan Wilson, Heather Rose and Danielle Wood will be among the well-known Tasmanian novelists on the program. Andy Griffiths is a Tasmanian who would be well known to any parent of boys—and I particularly enjoyed his book, entitled The Day My Bum Went Psycho. Festival convenor, Mr Dando-Collins, will be talking about his upcoming biography on Sir Henry Parkes. As convenor he has led the committee of local volunteers to organise the inaugural festival. Deputy convenor and West Tamar Deputy Mayor Christina Holmdahl told me that one of the best things to come out of all the hard work for the three-day event was that every interstate writer when contacted said, 'If it's in Tasmania we're coming.' Many have decided to extend their stay to explore the rest of the state.
Shortland Electorate: Surf Clubs
Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (16:17): I would like to take this opportunity to pay credit to all the surf clubs in the Shortland electorate. We are just coming towards the end of a very hot summer season when many residents flocked to the beaches and each of the surf clubs of Shortland—Redhead, Belmont, Swansea, Caves Beach, Catherine Hill Bay and Lakes on the Central Coast—has patrolled those beaches and kept those surfing there safe. Those surf clubs are composed of dedicated volunteers who are prepared to give up their time to patrol the beaches each and every weekend. They do it because they love the surf, they love the beach, they care for their community and they have a real community spirit. In addition to the patrolling of the beaches, they are also very involved in competition. I would like to congratulate all the members of those surf clubs for the outstanding results they have achieved throughout the season. I know that there are many of them who are part of those patrols have a 100 per cent attendance record for patrolling the beaches each and every weekend. From me to the surf lifesaving clubs in Shortland electorate—and around Australia, for that matter—I say a very big thank you.
Australia Day Awards
Mr TONY SMITH (Casey) (16:19): I rise this afternoon to congratulate and pay tribute to a former constituent of mine, Matt Haanappel. I have got to know Matt fairly well in the last couple of years. He was recognised on Australia Day for his contribution to sport and community, with a Medal of the Order of Australia. Matt is from Croydon Hills, formerly in the electorate of Casey, and has cerebral palsy. He competed in the London Paralympic Games, where he won a number of medals including a gold medal as part of the 4 x 100 metre freestyle relay. He also works as an official ambassador for the Cerebral Palsy Education Centre in Glen Waverley in Victoria. I have had the pleasure of meeting Matt on a number of occasions. He is a passionate and positive member of the community. Since his award, he has won numerous other events, set numerous records and broken his own records, and he is now studying at the Institute of Sport here in Canberra. I wish him very well into the future. I congratulate him on his achievement, and I know that he will do Australia proud in both the Commonwealth Games and the next Olympic Games.
Human Rights: Cambodia
Mr GRIFFIN (Bruce) (16:21): I rise today in the House to raise concerns with respect to human rights violations which have been reported to be occurring in Cambodia. Honourable members would know that the Australian government has for many years had an interest in Cambodia and in the process in leading to a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Cambodia. Our former foreign minister, Gareth Evans, played a very prominent role in seeking to achieve a lasting peace in Cambodia, and Australia remains a very significant donor to Cambodia. We also have a substantial expatriate community from Cambodia, particularly in parts of Sydney and in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Those people are very concerned about recent reports regarding actions by the Cambodian military, which included—on 3 January—reports that five garment workers were shot dead and more than 40 other protesters were wounded, and that some 23 unionists and human rights activists were detained without charge.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs has just returned from Cambodia, and, although we have limited reports at this stage with respect to what issues were discussed, other than asylum seekers, one would certainly hope that she took the opportunity to raise the concerns of the international community with respect to human rights abuses in Cambodia. If this government is truly concerned about the issues of workers' rights—as it appears to say it is—then this is something which must be acted upon.
Robertson Electorate
Mrs WICKS (Robertson) (16:22): I rise to give an update on how the coalition's growth plan for the Central Coast is already delivering in my electorate of Robertson. We are providing $100,000 to Gosford City Council for the busy Brendan Franklin Oval at Terrigal for drainage and irrigation, and for the completion of the sportsground lighting project. A few weeks ago I met with the president of the Terrigal Wamberal Junior Rugby League Club, Ben Spackman. He spoke with real pride about the club and about the players who want to represent the Terrigal Sharks—perhaps even one day play in the NRL. Ben was up-front about why the grounds need upgrading: many community groups and schools—not just the rugby club—use it regularly. Better drainage is essential to the facilities to withstand the long season. Whenever it rains, games have to be cancelled, putting real pressure on the various clubs and groups that use the oval. The coalition's $100,000 grant will help ease that pressure. The oval will be fitted with lighting upgrades and better drainage, which will allow more young people to play football.
I thank Graham Boland from Country Rugby League of NSW, Ben Spackman, and Gosford City Council, together with many other people in the community, for their advocacy and determination to work together so that we can improve sporting infrastructure on the Central Coast. This funding is all part of our growth plan for the Central Coast. Within our first six months, the coalition is already delivering over $10½ million worth of commitments to the Robertson electorate. Our growth plan for the Central Coast will boost infrastructure, including sporting facilities and roads, in one of Australia's most beautiful, important and growing regions.
Parramatta Electorate: Islamic Sciences & Research Academy of Australia
Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (16:24): On Saturday night, ISRA returned to Parramatta for one of its forums. ISRA is the Islamic Sciences & Research Academy of Australia, based at Charles Sturt University, which comes to Parramatta on a regular basis to host forums on aspects of Islam. It is always an interesting event, and it was particularly good to see so many people come on Saturday night.
I acknowledge the speakers, Sheik Haisam Farache, who spoke wonderfully on spirituality and in general, Dr Derya Iner, and Dr Salih Yucel, who both visited from much further afield than Sheik Farache. I also acknowledge Associate Professor Mehmet Ozalp, who has been so involved in ISRA for its entire history.
There were also prizes awarded for a poetry competition. It was great to see the eyes of so many young people light up when they were given prizes. We heard some of those poems read out. There was a poetry competition for under-12s, under-18s and in an open category. Some great work was heard on Saturday night.
I would like to play special tribute to what I will call 'the band'—although I do not think they were that. It was the Al Bashir Inshad Group—a group of five vocalists, who sang the Koran and did a number of other performances with incredible style and commitment. That was, for me, the highlight of the evening.
Victoria Park Motor Vehicle Trading Hub
Mr IRONS (Swan) (16:25): I wish to continue with my remarks from my speech this morning on the impact of the previous government's FBT announcement on the Victoria Park motor vehicle trading hub, by making some further general points about the car industry in Australia and the car industry in my electorate.
I get the impression that some people at the local council level would like to see the car industry in Victoria Park move on. I reject this. The car industry is a fantastic part of our local economy, and if we want to see this area continue to thrive, employ people and attract people to Victoria Park we need to support the car trade industry as part of the diversified local economy.
Victoria Park should be a centre for small business. It can be a restaurant hub. It can be a centre for junior sport and elite sport, with a new stadium and an AFL training base going into Victoria Park. It can and should have a thriving motor vehicle trading centre as it has a long and rich history of that. That is a positive plan for Victoria Park and that is what I and the Liberals will continue to campaign on at a state and federal level.
There has been some talk recently about the decline of the car manufacturing industry in the eastern states and particularly the merits or otherwise of import tariffs into the future. This industry was always protected when it first evolved, due to factors surrounding the need to be ready for any wars that eventuated. The need for protection is now long gone and, with the decline of the motor vehicle manufacturing industry, I would support a move to look at the tariff reductions that have been in place to protect the industry as and when it is no longer required.
Riverstone Overpass
Ms ROWLAND (Greenway) (16:27): One of the most urgent matters for residents and businesses in the northern end of Greenway is the issue of the Riverstone rail line overpass. It is one of the few remaining level crossings left in metropolitan Sydney. It consists, amongst other things, of a boom gate and an unworkable set of traffic lights—a configuration that results in endless queues and a hopeless traffic situation, with heavy vehicles queued up down the main street and across the station.
On Sunday, 9 February, hundreds of local residents attended a public forum organised by Blacktown City Council, where the RMS represented its options. This public forum was for members of the public to have their say. Council said that it needs certainty for its own development of certain assets that it owns in the Riverstone CBD. Someone was notable as missing in action: the Liberal state member for Riverstone. What a disgrace. It was the most important issue for Riverstone residents and he was missing in action.
His excuse, as reported by Lawrence Machado in News Local on 30 January, was:
"I believe this public meeting will undermine the process run by the RMS," he said. "We want to give everyone the opportunity to have their say and also have a one-on-one meeting with RMS officials."
What a ridiculous proposition. How many thousands of residents live in Riverstone and its surrounds, and who should say all of them would be able to get a one-on-one meeting? It is an absolute disgrace.
Marion Mall Walkers
Dr SOUTHCOTT (Boothby) (16:28): In 2001 a group formed to walk in the mornings at the Westfield Marion shopping centre. Last Monday they held their 13th birthday. Although, due to the sitting of the federal parliament I was unable to attend, I would like to take this opportunity to wish them a happy birthday.
This group meets three times a week and they walk the centre, which provides a safe, weather-proof environment, for fitness. Members of the group range in age, with most members 60-plus—either retirees or part-retired members. They have grown from small beginnings to now having over 130 members. They have monthly guest speakers from different community organisations. Previous keynote speakers came from Angel Flight, the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the MFS, SAPOL and local celebrity chef Dorinda Haefna, who is a member of the Marion Mall Walkers.
In 2010 I was able to walk with the Marion Mall Walkers and take the Leader of the Opposition with me. There is a committee in place. Some of the stalwarts of the club include Margaret Rowe, life member, founding member and past president for 10 years and Pauline Barber, also a founding member, who have both shown great commitment. This is a great example of healthy ageing. They are a very familiar sight in the early morning walking around the shopping centres in their red shirts. I would like to pay tribute to the great work that the Marion Mall Walkers do for my community.
Scullin Electorate: Wattle Glen Primary School
Mr GILES (Scullin) (16:30): Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Wattle Glen Primary School and meeting the principal, Gerard Fay. Wattle Glen is a great school, you would be well aware, and is the heart of a wonderful community now in the Scullin electorate. I was impressed by the commitment of the teachers and the enthusiasm of the students in the classrooms I visited as well as in the playgrounds. The teachers there do a magnificent job in nurturing the potential of students, and I have no doubt that the students of Wattle Glen Primary will make good use of their fantastic education and go on to bigger and better things.
Gerard brought to my attention the following matters among some of the things: the school tripling in enrolments in three years without a kindergarten or any new estates in the area; the improvements in academic results of the school; the increase in student attendance; and the 12 new staff members who have joined the school. It is a fantastic story, particularly in the shadows of some very difficult times for communities in that region, best evidenced by the articulate and thoughtful four cocaptains of the school who are leaders already.
Under Labor's Better Schools Plan, Wattle Glen Primary School should receive $.26 million more in public funding in the 2019 school year compared to what it received in 2013, a 36.3 per cent increase in per student funding. The funding will allow gifted students to be better catered for, improve specialist programs, offer more opportunities, and provide intervention teachers to assist those students identified at risk of not meeting academic expectations. The funding will assist with classroom modifications and new assistive technology for students with disability.
My visit brought home to me the significant impact on every student, staff member and school community member of the Better Schools promise.
Wright Electorate: Scouts
Mr BUCHHOLZ (Wright—Government Whip) (16:32): Over the weekend within the electorate of Wright there was a special presentation of the Australian Scout Medallion to two young members of the Greenbank scout movement. Gemma Wallace and Sarah Hall were the two deserving recipients of the highly sought after award, which is the highest award that can be achieved by scouts here in Australia.
Scouts Australia is a wonderful organisation which has been contributing to the non-formal education of young people in this country for over 100 years. They teach our children in an increasingly digital era practical life skills and the important tools of self-reliance. They do this to ensure that kids are taking constructive roles in their communities and society as a whole, which is a wonderful ethos for learning.
In Wright we have 11 scout groups operating across the region from Mudgereeaba to Withcott. This is an outstanding statistic which speaks of the longevity of the scout movement, the importance of learning practical life skills and that an appreciation for the outdoors is standing the test of time. I hope children continue to sign up for scout groups and remain committed in our communities for yet another 100 years to come.
Congratulations to both Gemma and Sarah on their achievement of the Australian Scout Medallion. It is a major achievement and you should be proud. We should all be proud of their success. I would also like to acknowledge their scout leader Brad for his obviously stellar job doing his role. Well done, keep up the good work. Baden Powell would be immensely proud of these two young ladies who have achieved the highest award and deserve their accolade.
Morrison, Mr Brendon
Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (16:33): I rise to pay tribute to Brendon Morrison, a life member of the ACT Labor Party, who unexpectedly passed away last week. Brendon was a regular fixture at so many of our community events. He was an amputee and somebody whose presence was immediately apparent. I remember chatting away to Brendon with my son Sebastian there, and Brendon very happily talking with Sebastian about what it was like to be an amputee. I remember standing by the stone that sits out the front of the building commemorating the founding in 1913 of Canberra, and Brendon there talking about his long links to the region.
Brendon was an active member of the Weston Creek sub branch and had been a member of the Labor Party for 20 years. He supported candidates in ACT and federal elections and was involved with a number of unions including the CPSU and the Plumbers Union in the ACT. He was involved with children's groups and the Rural Fire Brigade and had argued for greater support, for ACT amputees, from government. He heckled with great wit and was somebody whose sense of warmth was palpable to all of us around him. I pass on my condolences to his wife, Diane Jackson, and other family and friends. There will be a mass for him this week, which I am sure will be well attended.
Moore Electorate: Telecommunications
Mr GOODENOUGH (Moore) (16:35): I wish to place on record the inadequacy of access to conventional broadband internet and ADSL services to a number of households in the older suburbs within my electorate of Moore, including Craigie, Duncraig, Edgewater, Hillarys, Marmion and Padbury. These suburbs has been established for more than 30 years and the ageing telecommunications infrastructure is insufficient to deliver internet access to some households at acceptable data-transmission speeds, which are currently available to residents of newer suburbs.
A number of constituents have contacted my office concerned that their homes are unable to be connected to the ADSL services. Inquiries have indicated that the cause is limited capacity at the local exchange and also physical distance from the exchange. It is essential, in this era, that residents living within 30 kilometres of the Perth CBD be provided with universal access to suitable internet bandwidth. I call upon the Minister for Communications to investigate the situation and prioritise the above-mentioned suburbs for urgent communications upgrades and future implementation of the National Broadband Network.
Calwell Electorate: Broadmeadows Superclinic
Ms VAMVAKINOU (Calwell) (16:36): On Friday it was my very great pleasure, in my electorate, to do the sod-turning for the new superclinic that will be built in Broadmeadows by Dianella Community Health. This superclinic is a $7.5 million contribution from the Commonwealth, from the previous Labor government. I know there is a lot being said about superclinics at the moment and their value is being questioned, but I just want to put on record that in relation to my own electorate—and to Broadmeadows, in particular—it almost constantly features in statistics for all sorts of issues.
The availability of health-care services, allied health and specialist services has always been a problem in Broadmeadows. Despite and in spite of the rhetoric that is coming from the current health minister about the value of superclinics, my electorate is absolutely over the moon at the prospect of having this super-duper new clinic that will provide a wonderful service to the people of Broadmeadows. It is a service that has been a long time coming. Broadie missed out on a public hospital many years ago and we see this as it finally being given the opportunity to address that problem. So three cheers for the Broadmeadows superclinic and I look forward to opening it in due course.
Higgins Medal Recipients
Ms O'DWYER (Higgins) (16:38): In order to recognise the importance of leadership from the earliest of ages, in February 2011 I established the Higgins Medal in schools within my electorate to celebrate and recognise young and emerging leaders. I am pleased that 19 schools now participate in the Higgins Medal program and I would like to acknowledge the Higgins medal winners for 2013.
They are: Georgia Wolfe of Armadale Primary School; Jackson Bishop of Christ Church Grammar School; Zhi Dong Ye of De La Salle College; Lily Santamaria of Glen Iris Primary School; Emilia Floros of Holy Eucharist Primary School; Holly Walters of Korowa Anglican Girls' School; Alisha Rao of Lauriston Girls' School; Amy Smith of Malvern Central School; Chloe Galileos of Malvern Valley Primary School; Ryan Stewart of Melbourne High School; Sam Boontjes of Murrumbeena Primary School; George Gameras, Christine Nikolopoulos and Danielle Triandafilidis of Oakleigh Grammar School; Quynh Nguyen of Presentation College; Anna Snape of Solway Primary School; Tess Price of St Catherine's School; Sophie Harrison of St Cecilia's Parish School; Annecy Homberg of Stonnington Primary School; and Jean-Paul Martini of Toorak Primary School.
Some of these recipients are from the primary years while others are from the secondary school. They have all demonstrated leadership, in their own unique way, and all are to be commended. Common to Higgins Medal recipients is that they demonstrate excellence in attitude and achievement, are strong and consistent participants in school and community activity, and exhibit awareness of others and their needs. I commend them—and their families and schools—for this achievement.
Fraser Electorate: Active After-School Communities Program
Dr LEIGH (Fraser) (16:39): In the electorate of Fraser, the Active After-School Communities Program is a terrific way of keeping young people engaged with sport. In 2014, a number of schools in my electorate have joined the program: Gold Creek School, Burgmann School, Kingsford Smith School and Maribyrnong Primary School, as well as Emmaus Christian School and Mount Rogers School at the end of last year.
Primary school children in the ACT engage in Active After-School Communities sports across 27 schools, in sports ranging from cricket, touch football, golf, frisbee, fencing, rugby league, martial arts, tennis, gymnastics, dance, athletics, basketball, lawn balls, AFL and softball. There is a range of teachers who work with these programs. When I visited, I was greatly impressed by the regional coordinator, Liz Chester, and the team of coaches that she has working with her. Mentoring provide an opportunity for senior students to develop skills in leadership and in sports coaching; it also provides the opportunity for junior students to engage with their peers and to build bridges within the school. It is a great example of how sport can build social capital, and I commend all those involved in the Active After-School Communities Program.
Petrie Electorate: Woody Point Pharmacy
Mr HOWARTH (Petrie) (16:41): I would like to highlight the achievements of a local small business within the Petrie electorate, Woody Point Pharmacy. Woody Point Pharmacy is a locally owned and operated business that has been nominated for the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Pharmacy of the Year Awards. This is a massive achievement for such a small, husband-and-wife-operated pharmacy and a brilliant testament to the endurance of small-business operators like this throughout the Petrie electorate. The pharmacy has been nominated for its achievements in business management, innovation in professional services, and excellence in community engagement. Steve Flavel's pharmacy is now a top-10 finalist, and I would like to congratulate Steve and his team of nine staff for their nomination.
I believe small businesses are the driving force behind our local economy. They play an integral role within our communities, and it is important that we get behind them and support these businesses to help them succeed. I am proud of the coalition government's commitment to building a stronger economy, creating more job opportunities and reducing red tape to allow small businesses to get on with the job. Congratulations to Steve and all the team at Woody Point Pharmacy. I wish them luck with the nomination.
Lalor Electorate: Point Cook Relay For Life
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (16:42): Today I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the Point Cook Relay For Life committee, who, on Saturday, 16 November, hosted their annual event in my electorate. I had the great privilege to attend the relay and saw firsthand the work and dedication of the team of volunteers who put this event together. It was a great day of the community coming together.
It began with young Hannah sharing her story of caring for and losing her mother. Her story was beautifully written and delivered with poise and clarity. Listening to her, I knew that Relay For Life is much more than a fundraiser. It is only the second time the relay has been held in Point Cook. The event was a credit to the organisers.
There were 32 teams participating—up from 23 the year before. They work together to celebrate survivors and carers, to remember those we have lost and to raise vital funds to continue the fight against this awful disease. There were 462 participants in teams of 10 to 15 people. They all challenge themselves to take turns in keeping their baton moving overnight. The event raised over $51,000 for the Cancer Council's research, prevention and education programs—a remarkable achievement.
I would also like to acknowledge Lauris, this year's recipient of the 'Spirit of relay' award. Lauris was commended for her strength in fighting cancer, for her ongoing work in the community and for her support of the Relay For Life event. I would like to congratulate, Lauris, the committee, and the volunteers for their work and commitment in ensuring the Point Cook Relay For Life committee was such a great success.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It being almost 4.45pm, in accordance with standing order 43 the time for members' statements has concluded.
GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Middle East
Ms VAMVAKINOU (Calwell) (16:44): In light of the statement by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, on 16 January 2014 declaring the launch of the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, I take the opportunity to raise the matter of the Palestinians as a significant public question for Australia and the international community. I also raise a grievance: impediments to the peace process in recent statements made by the Australian foreign minister.
In his statement the UN Secretary-General said that 2014 will be:
… a critical year for achieving the two-State solution, bringing an end to the occupation that started in 1967, and securing an independent, viable and sovereign State of Palestine living in peace and security with the State of Israel where each recognizes the other’s legitimate rights.
He went on:
I call on all members of the international community and, in particular, Israelis and Palestinians, to work together for justice and a durable peace. Israel and Palestine need to live up to their commitment to a negotiated two-State solution and resolve all permanent status issues, in accordance with Security Council resolutions, the Madrid principles, the Road Map, the 2002 Arab Peace initiative and existing agreements between the parties.
The leaders of Israel and Palestine will need political will, a sense of historic responsibility and a clear vision for a better future for this and future generations. I pledge to do my utmost in support of their efforts.
In the time I have been in this parliament I have chaired and co-chaired the Palestinian parliamentary friendship group, led a delegation to Palestine and hosted many events to raise awareness about the protracted, highly sensitive and highly complex Palestinian issue, the resolution of which is still outstanding and which as such remains critical to the stability and security of the broader Middle East. The members of the Australian public whom I have talked to and come into contact with in my electorate and elsewhere are also concerned about and aware of the complexities of the Palestinian issue. It has always been their strong desire that the Australian parliament, its members and, indeed, the Australian government should deal with the issue in an even-handed manner reflecting a commitment to redressing injustices in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Israel has a right to live within secure borders, and of course it has a right to defend itself. But the Palestinian people also have rights. They are entitled to the most basic human right—freedom of movement—and to an independent state that allows them to determine their own futures; and the thousands of displaced Palestinian refugees now in their third generation and scattered in refugee camps have a right to return to their ancestral homeland. In this, the UN Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, I commend and acknowledge the role of local, Australian organisations I work with—in particular, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, the Australian friends of Palestine Association and the Australian Jewish Democratic Society—as well as the many other individuals and groups who are genuinely committed to a just and peaceful resolution of the question of the Palestinian issue. Their advocacy work is invaluable and largely reflects Australian public opinion—as well as international public opinion—which calls for a fair go for the Palestinian people. They, like all Australians, take a keen interest in what we as members of parliament say and do on the Palestinian issue, and they are always willing to brief and inform us on the many private and one-on-one meetings and on the many forums and events which take place.
Pronouncements made by the Australian foreign minister on any aspect of the Palestinian issue attract attention because they carry weight and influence. Therefore, they also rightly need to be scrutinised. When the Australian foreign minister speaks, she does so as an official representative of Australia. She also projects a certain image of Australia abroad. When the foreign minister was recently quoted in the Times of Israel, on 15 January this year, suggesting that, contrary to the conventional diplomatic wisdom, Israeli settlements may not be illegal under international law, the puzzlement and concern it caused can well be imagined. Not only are the foreign minister's statements on Israeli settlements at odds with Australia's ratification of the Geneva Convention; they are also out of step with Australian public opinion. In these statements she is sending a message that Australia's support for international law is qualified rather than principled. In that same interview with the Times of Israel the foreign minister refrained from condemning Israeli initiatives to build additional settlement housing beyond the Green Line or from calling on Israel to freeze such plans, merely noting the fact that settlements were being expanded showed the need for both sides to quickly reach a peace agreement. I will quote from the article:
"I don’t want to prejudge the fundamental issues in the peace negotiations," Bishop said. "The issue of settlements is absolutely and utterly fundamental to the negotiations that are under way and I think it’s appropriate that we give those negotiations every chance of succeeding."
On the one hand I agree with the foreign minister that we must give them every chance to succeed but the question is: on whose terms? And, on the other hand I strongly disagree with the foreign minister on the suggestion that the Israeli settlements are not illegal. They are indeed illegal under article 49(6) of the fourth Geneva Convention, to which Australia is a signatory.
UN Security Council Resolution 465 of 1980 labelled Israel's policy of population transfer into the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as a 'flagrant violation of the fourth Geneva convention and a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East'. It called on Israel to dismantle all existing settlements. In its 2004 advisory opinion on Israel's wall, the International Court of Justice reaffirmed the illegality of Israel's settlements. The illegality of Israeli settlements is thus not a matter of opinion; it is an objectively determined fact. The Geneva Conventions that determine their illegality are universally applicable; these conventions underpin international humanitarian law.
In that same article that I have referred to on the question of whether she agrees or disagrees with the near-universal view that Israeli settlements anywhere beyond the 1967 lines are illegal under international law, the Australian foreign minister replied:
I would like to see which international law has declared them illegal.
Such statements have justifiably created concerns, and I say that the foreign minister has not adequately explained her views to the Australian parliament nor to the Australian people.
It is important for us to know whether these are her private views or musings or whether they are indeed the government's views. These are important questions that need to be answered, because continued Israeli settlement construction today poses the greatest threat to the two-state solution. Even the United States, Israel's closest ally, has repeatedly warned Israel that it is undermining prospects for a negotiated two-state solution by continuing to expand settlements. As a middle power, it is clearly in Australia's national interest to ensure that international law is respected and upheld. We have little to gain as a country by playing hard and fast with its application. Further, the foreign minister has not explained to this parliament or to the Australian people why it is that under her stewardship, as reported in the same article in the Times of Israel, Australia has changed its voting patterns at the UN in favour of Israel by having Australia oppose or abstain from several resolutions that were deemed anti-Israeli. The article goes on to point out that in November of last year, Australia was one of only eight countries to abstain in a vote on a resolution demanding that Israel cease 'all Israeli settlement activities in all of the occupied territories'. Nearly 160 nations supported the resolution. In December of last year, Australia was one of 13 countries that did not vote in favour of a resolution calling on Israel to 'comply scrupulously' with the Geneva Convention.
I am not the only person concerned about the foreign minister's pronouncements. There are a considerable number of other people in the Australian community who are also concerned. I and, I am sure, many members in this parliament have received a number of letters from advocacy groups, such as APAN and the Australian Jewish Democratic Society, as well as Israeli lawyers and intellectuals who have voiced their concerns about Australia's very strange position on the legality of the settlements. I would like to refer to the letter that was received from Bishop George Browning, who is the President of APAN—the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network—and the letter from Dr Larry Stillman and Dr Jordy Silverstein from the Australian Jewish Democratic Society. I have those letters and I seek leave to table them for the benefit of the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Porter ): Leave is granted.
Ms VAMVAKINOU: Thank you. (Time expired)
Economy
Mr ALEXANDER (Bennelong) (16:55): Recently, we Australians have been told that we are in a period of economic transition. A series of blows to our national economic spirit have left some saying it is the end of us and of life as we know it. In the face of changing economic times these people turn their backs on reason and logic and vow to do exactly the opposite of whatever this government chooses to do. They cling to images of yesterday at the expense of real plans for a sustainable future. They demand: 'Save the car industry! Give it more money and spare the jobs, because it's all your fault, Mr Abbott. And, while we are at it, all recent job losses are your fault too.' Too often in this place during spirited debate the first casualties are the facts, yet the facts in these cases are irrefutable. The overwhelming reason for car manufacturers to shut down operations in Australia is based on the efficiencies gained through mass production. That simple reasoning applies worldwide, whether your car is made in Tokyo or Detroit. The bottom line is that we simply cannot compete. The rule of thumb that now applies is that for a car-building facility to be economically viable in the global marketplace it must produce at least 350,000 units a year. Not one of our factories produces even 100,000 a year. The arithmetic is simple; it would make the decision easy for anyone in Detroit or Tokyo, yet it is a hard decision for us to accept. We are a mobile people and with other cars. Holdens and Fords embody Australian values. They are good, honest cars—world class—and we are rightly proud of them. Add to that the sentiment, the prospect of job losses and the anguish that an uncertainty as to families, and our concerns are understandable.
Proponents of the car-manufacturing industry point to unemployment figures, which are at their highest since 1992—and they say it is all the fault of your government, Mr Abbott. Unemployment figures are universally accepted to be a lag indicator that has nothing whatsoever to do with what a newly elected government has done in the most recent six-month period. The previous government made an art form of making headline-generating announcements and then cobbling together a quick fix that was meant to address the problem of the day. Crisis management created by no management left a legacy of no planning and no work done to foster the sustainable business opportunities, real jobs and real projects that produce real wealth in our Commonwealth. The hard work and sacrifices of the Howard government paid off debts and left money in the bank, but the complete disrespect of the previous government and the vandalism of our inheritance saw our prosperity squandered like a rich kid blowing daddy's fortune.
Most unfortunately, history has repeated itself. The syndrome of the Hawke-Keating legacy remedied by the Howard plan of management played out again during the Rudd-Gillard love match, which left us with nothing to show for their spending except record debt. These very debts now await Prime Minister Abbott, as we cry out for new management. Thankfully, this government has a plan, one based on sound, proven principles of economic management. The plan may not make headlines and it may not appeal to those who want instant gratification, hang the consequences, but it will appeal to those of us who realise that good money invested wisely will pay dividends for future generations and who appreciate the difference between putting your money on an outsider at Randwick and investing in bricks and mortar. In the past six years our good money has been put on some rank outsiders and we have been left to lament what might have been, had this absurdity not taken place. It is time to return to the principles of sustainable economic management that once guided this great country and conserved its wealth.
The first principle, of living within our means, is sound and essential. But for many who are used to no-limit credit cards and, an 'anyway, daddy pays' mentality, this may be somewhat of an inconvenience. The next principle, of being absolutely responsible for one's actions, is the domain of adulthood. Now is the time for a sober evaluation of our economic situation, and for coming to terms with the facts; not the way we would like them to be, and not the way they can be made to appear with copious spin, but the real, undeniable facts. This government promises to open Australia for business, to provide certainty and stability for those wishing to invest, to reduce red tape, and to restore sovereign trust. This government will replace the stigma that has plagued us since 2007, when we were labelled a nation of sovereign risk—for the first time in our history. Australian businesses demand better, and the international community needs solid foundations to ensure investment and growth. Our integrity as a nation of trust and sovereign certainty must be restored. Our plan appreciates the needs of the day without bowing to populist pressures or advocates of the short-sighted, quick fix. Our promises to build the roads of the 21st century, and to be the government of infrastructure, are the key ingredients to build Australia, to build our economy, to create real jobs and, ultimately, to reduce the cost-of-living pressures that impact everyone living in our major cities.
After a week in which we joined to commemorate and celebrate our nation's bravest with stories of courage under fire, it is timely to reflect on the qualities of Australian heroes like Corporal Cameron Baird, our nation's 100th recipient of the Victoria Cross. While we in this place are not exposed to the pressures of war, Corporal Baird ought to be the source of inspiration at this crucial juncture in our history. He is a man who set his course with principle and commitment. We here must do the same. For too long, the tough decisions on infrastructure have been shirked, and the consequences abound—our major cities are congested, overpriced and under-resourced; coupled with no comprehensive strategic program of decentralisation. These have become major issues, neglected for too long, and they demand attention if we are ever to realise our nation's potential. There will be some amongst us who will hear the concerns of families and workers, and will determine that any resolution to our current economic situation is all too hard. They will throw their hands in the air and pledge to support the status quo at the expense of a sustainable future. But in their commitment to a failing industry, they threaten to stunt our long-term growth and frustrate any chance we have of visualising an Australia for 2020, or 2050, and beyond. It is time to re-imagine our future and to calm those who would have us fight a losing battle, and who cling to an image of this country that will do no justice for the generations to come.
While concerns are understandable, we in this House must have the courage to look long term and to plan our next step. Our future surely lies in infrastructure planning and development. How do you retrofit infrastructure into our major cities when the land is prohibitively expensive? How do you effect urban renewal and densification strategies to replace the endless spread of urban sprawl? How do you attract overseas investment in infrastructure projects that can liberate regional areas to grow, and give opportunities for careers and home ownership to our next generation? In this week when we have commemorated and celebrated Corporal Cameron Baird for his commitment to his duty, his bravery under fire, and his absolute courage, our policies should be inspired by Corporal Baird—to commit to our course of action on principle, and to have the courage to stay the course. The fire that may come across the aisle should not diminish that commitment. Planning our next step will alleviate the uncertainty and anguish surrounding a period of economic transition. It is our responsibility to make the hard decisions and to commit—to the programs that have been thoroughly developed and tested, programs that will deliver to our future generations opportunities and real jobs; programs that will make Commonwealth more than just a name.
Sovereign Wealth Funds
Mr KELVIN THOMSON (Wills) (17:04): We are losing the war. And by we, I mean the politically left-of-centre; I mean the Labor Party and other social democratic parties around the world, I mean the trade unions, and I mean the environmental movement. We sometimes win battles, but overall we are not winning. I repeat, we are losing the war. We sometimes win elections, but usually on the terms of our opposition. We are in office, but not in power. And at all times we are fighting defensive, rearguard actions to protect the things we have achieved and built up—the social welfare safety net; industrial relations and workplace rights and protections; environmental protections and national parks; publicly owned assets; rules against the abuse of market power. Our opponents are emboldened and enjoy unprecedented media power.
When I was young and first getting involved in politics, it felt like the left was winning and we would be able to usher in a golden age of civilized politics and equal opportunity. But it did not happen. A report by Oxfam, a month ago, found that the richest 85 people in the world own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world's population—some three and a half billion people—combined. Half the world's wealth is owned by just one per cent of the world's population. And the situation is getting worse. In nearly every country they surveyed, economic inequality has increased since 1980.
The richest one per cent in the US more than doubled their share of national income. In Australia, the richest one per cent doubled their share. After the GFC, the wealthiest one per cent in the US captured 95 per cent of post-crisis growth, while the bottom 90 per cent became poorer! How did this happen? Where did we go wrong? At the risk of oversimplification, capitalism was largely unfettered and successfully fighting off the workers and their political representatives until the Great Depression of the 1930s, when they stuffed up big time and paid for it in the form of the rise of the welfare state, government enterprises, workers' rights and protections, and various restrictions on market excesses.
But in the last few decades the rise of multinational corporations, globalisation, free trade and the ideas of the free movement of goods and people has enabled capitalism to progressively break free from national governments. We now see corporations that are too big to fail. We now see companies, some as large as the governments they talk to, demanding the unwinding of rules and regulations they do not like, and threatening to take their bat and ball and go elsewhere if they do not get their way. Environmental protections, workplace protections, foreign ownership restrictions—pretty much anything governments might want to do in the public interest—are under attack. Large corporations are expressly demanding in so-called trade agreements that they have the right to sue any government that takes action which damages their financial bottom line, the so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism.
Some welcome these changes; I do not. The picture I see is of a manufacturing sector in decline and of job security, particularly for younger and older workers, becoming a thing of the past. The picture I see is of our young people not being able to afford a home of their own as we could. The picture I see is of an environment on the ropes, with many of our beautiful and priceless birds, plants and animals on the brink of extinction, and our land ravaged by droughts, bushfires, floods and cyclones. The picture I see is of terrorist violence and regional killings fuelled by conflict over access to scarce land, water, food and energy. The picture I see is of older people struggling to pay the bills, of families under constant time pressure, mental-health problems and drugs like ice and alcohol causing more hardship and misery among our young people than ever before:
So how does the left fight back? How do trade unions fight back? How do environment groups fight back? We need to learn from successful models. We need to learn from Norway, for example. When it comes to long-term policy vision, Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund, currently worth $900 billion, is what we should have done years ago. Set up in 1990, the fund owns around one per cent of the world's stocks, as well as bonds and real estate from London to Boston, making the Nordic nation an exception when others are struggling under a mountain of debt. The fund, equivalent to 183 per cent of 2013 Gross Domestic Product, is expected to peak at 220 per cent around 2030. As the chief economist at DNB Markets points out, 'The fund is a success in the sense that parliament has managed to put aside money for the future,' which is something Australia should have done but squandered the opportunity.
The comparison between Norway's management of their resources boom and Australia's management of ours could not be more different. Norway has maintained a much larger manufacturing sector, currently just under 30 per cent, per working age of population, than Australia. Norway has an employment to working-age population ratio that is five percentage points higher than Australia's and an unemployment rate of 3.3 per cent, compared to ours of six per cent. Between 1980 and 2010 the cumulative current-account surplus for Norway was 200 per cent of GDP, while for Australia the outcome was a cumulative current account deficit of 127 per cent of GDP.
Significantly, Norway has a population growth rate one-third of Australia's and little migration. What it has instead is an aggressive industry policy to maximise pull-over effects to manufacturing from resource expansion. This was done by local content targets during resource expansion and operation; and subsidies, investment support and training to ensure manufacturing could meet local content targets at minimum cost to the resource sector.
The sovereign wealth funds' investments offshore have minimised the appreciation of the Norwegian currency, in contrast with Australia, where a high Australian dollar has put pressure on the competitiveness of manufacturing, which in 2004 contributed 12.5 per cent to our economic output, but today just seven per cent.
There is absolutely no doubt that Australia has contracted 'Dutch disease'. Perhaps we should call ours 'Ozteoporosis'. Mining has grown but manufacturing has shrunk. We had a currency surging on the back of the vast capital inflows required for new mine construction and expansion, as Ian Verrender recently pointed out in an article on how we squandered the resources boom. In support of sovereign wealth funds, Ian Verrender said:
How could such a fund have helped us? By investing offshore, it could have helped stabilise the currency, partially offsetting the dollar-boosting effect of the resources boom, thereby easing pressure on our manufacturing and services industries.
We also need to learn from Sweden. As The Economist has reported:
Sweden has also donned the golden straitjacket of fiscal orthodoxy with its pledge to produce a fiscal surplus over the economic cycle. Its public debt fell from 70% of GDP in 1993 to 37% in 2010, and its budget moved from an 11% deficit to a surplus of 0.3% over the same period.
Sweden's public accounts, in contrast to the rest of Europe, have swung back into balance after the global financial crisis, and Sweden remains one of the few countries in the OECD whose financial assets considerably exceed its liabilities—to the tune of more than 20 per cent of GDP. Yet social expenditures remain high and the Swedish welfare state remains strong. The Swedish state is still large—51 per cent of GDP last year—and spends much more than Anglo-Saxon countries do on everything from early childhood education to job search and training. More than 70 per cent of the children of the poorest fifth of Swedes are in state-financed childcare and education schemes, compared with fewer than 30 per cent in America.
Wage disparities in Sweden are narrower than in Anglo-Saxon countries, thanks to centralised bargaining between unions and employers that sets minimum wages in different sectors. More than 7 out of ten workers are members of unions. Top CEO pay has not risen nearly as dramatically as in America.
Not surprisingly, Swedes' trust in government is over 60 per cent, amongst the highest in the Western world. This is a vindication for a model based on relative equality and supportive welfare that can coexist alongside a balanced budget, funded by high taxation in an economy that is performing well for all its citizens, not just for vested interests.
Unlike Australia, the US, and other European countries, the Nordic countries have kept real control of their borders. With one exception, they have kept their own currency. Norway has not even joined the European Union. That is the sort of thing that gives you real independence and sovereignty, and control over your own destiny, as opposed to entering into trade treaties that compromise and surrender the capacity of government to act in the national interest and look after their own citizens.
And finally, and critically, they have not run migration programs that artificially inflate their population. The Nordic countries have a combined population of 25 million, with expected combined growth by 2050 of only three million to 28 million. Australia by comparison is 23 million but is expected to grow by over 60 per cent to 36 or even 40 million by 2050.
So I say to my friends in the trade union movement, I say to my friends in the environment movement, I say to my friends in the Labor Party: if you are sick of losing, we need to learn from these examples and campaign in favour of independence and self-reliance and against rapid population growth.
Wannon Electorate: Deputy Prime Minister
Mr TEHAN (Wannon) (17:14): I rise to talk about a visit that the Deputy Prime Minister made to my electorate on Friday. It was a significant visit for three reasons. I would like to place on the record my thanks to the Deputy Prime Minister for taking the time—on a Friday, after a busy sitting week—to come down to the electorate of Wannon.
We started the day by attending a celebration. It was a celebration because the local charity organisation Peter's Project, which has been spearheading the campaign to build an integrated cancer care centre for south-west Victoria, was able to unveil a block of land which had been donated by a local church, on which they are going to build a home—the builders were there—and auction off. They hope to be able to raise about $350,000 or $400,000 from this great community project.
That will go into a fund which will then be used to help provide updated technology for the integrated cancer care centre, when it is built. It will be built shortly, because the Premier of Victoria was also there, and able to announce that tenderers for the integrated cancer care centre have been shortlisted down to three. We will know shortly who the winning tenderer is. Then we will be able to get on with turning the first sod and building the integrated cancer care centre. That will be a great community result. The community has led the push for this centre. The state government has got on board. The federal government has got on board. Local government has also contributed.
It is going to be a terrific result for the community when it occurs. I must commend the community because, as I pointed out to Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, the state have provided $15 million and the federal government have provided $10 million. As well as the community house which is going to be built, the community is raising $5 million towards this project. For a small community to be able to raise $5 million it is an enormous effort, but that is what they have been able to do. We have raised $4.2 million so far, and I am full of confidence that we will reach that $5 million target. I am so proud of the south-west community for all they have done in making sure that this integrated cancer care centre will become a reality. It was with great pride that I was able to show the Deputy Prime Minister all that is taking place and all that has been involved in making sure that we get this outcome.
We then went on to the Sungold Field Days—the biggest dairy field days in this nation. The Deputy Prime Minister was able to address the luncheon at the Sungold Field Days. For those who do not know, Sungold is the brand of milk that is produced by Warrnambool Cheese and Butter. It has been the talk of the town and of the dairy industry due to rival bids for that key asset which is the milk factory just outside Warrnambool. Saputo, a Canadian company, has been the winner. Warrnambool Cheese and Butter board have been in consultation with Saputo and are looking forward to the extra investment that they are going to bring to Warrnambool Cheese and Butter and for the future.
The Deputy Prime Minister gave a very good and insightful speech on where he sees the Australian dairy industry going and where he sees agriculture going in the future. He made a plea, also, for Australian investment in Australian agriculture. He welcomed the overseas investment but he also said that it is an imperative that we see the future direction that agriculture will take and we seize the moment so that we see Australian investment as well as overseas investment in this key sector.
The feedback I have had on the Deputy Prime Minister's speech has been top notch. The speech went down extremely well. People were extremely grateful that he was able to go down and address the luncheon. He is one on a long list of speakers who have been to the field days. We have had the Treasurer, down there. We have had the shadow agriculture minister down there. Mr Truss was down there on a previous visit when he was a minister in the Howard government. There is a long list of very good speakers who have come down, and it was great to have the Deputy Prime Minister down again.
It was also fantastic because while he was down there he was able to make an announcement confirming that $2.5 million to upgrade the Condah-Hotspur Upper Road—a key link road in south-west Victoria—has been committed by the federal government and will be provided. This honours an election commitment made to the electorate of Wannon by me in consultation with the then Abbott opposition. The honouring of this commitment once again shows that this government is an infrastructure government. The upgrade of this key timber road will mean that the timber trucks which are harvesting the plantation timber down in the south-west of Victoria and the south-east of South Australia will not have to travel as far as they currently do. The road upgrade will cut the distance that they need to travel to get access to an important mill, and that will mean increased productivity for the trucking companies and for the timber companies. It will also mean less travel by the trucks on the very busy Henty Highway, and that will take some of the weight-carrying load off the highway. This is a win for our local timber industry. It is also a win for our local community because buses, school kids and families all travel on the road and it is incredibly important that we have the road in a safe state.
The Condah-Hotspur Upper Road is, once again, a partnership: the federal government, the state government and local government are all contributing. In Regional Development Australia funding rounds 2, 3 and 4, the upgrade of the road was put forward as the top funding priority for the south-west. Sadly, the previous government—even though the upgrade was then ranked No. 1—was not able to fund it, so it is fantastic that have been able to step in and do so. The announcement of the upgrade of the Condah-Hotspur Upper Road comes on the back of other announcements that we have made to improve road funding, including $25 million—which will be matched by $25 million from the state government—to upgrade the Great Ocean Road.
The Deputy Prime Minister was able to reassure everyone—though once again we have had some doubters from the other side—that not only are we committed to delivering $25 million in funding to upgrade the Great Ocean Road but also, because we see the urgency of it, we have brought forward $15 million of these $25 million to be spent this financial year. So $15 million will be spent this financial year and $10 million will be spent next year in the next financial year. This once again proves that the Abbott government is an infrastructure government and that the Prime Minister wants to be known as an infrastructure Prime Minister. He has my wholehearted support in that regard, because improving our road system improves our productivity and the safety of our families and our community.
So it was a terrific trip by the Deputy Prime Minister. He was able to cover three key areas. He was able to see first hand the community effort in making sure that we get an integrated cancer care centre. He was able to address our local dairy farmers, who provide such a significant economic contribution not only to the south-west but also to the nation; it is the largest dairy producing area in this nation. He was also able to announce that the road funding for the Condah-Hotspur Upper Road will go ahead—2 ½ million dollars have been committed to make sure that this key piece of infrastructure is upgraded.
2013 Federal Election
Mr HAYES (Fowler—Chief Opposition Whip) (17:24): Members will remember the view so fulsomely expressed by the Murdoch press and others in the lead up to the last federal election that Labor faced obliteration in Western Sydney. Let us look at what really happened.
The only Western Sydney seat lost was Lindsay. In two of the other six Labor-held Western Sydney seats there was a solid swing to Labor, while the swings in three of the other four seats were well below the national average. Overall, the six seats experienced a swing to Labor of 0.2 per cent. So much for the apocalyptic views in the Daily Telegraph.
When it came to the crunch, Western Sydney voters decided that they trusted Labor more than its opponents to look after their interests, to strike the right balance between competing interests in the difficult public-policy decisions governments have to make. The people of Western Sydney are well accustomed to having their views taken for granted by conservative governments. Only last year, the New South Wales Liberal government revealed its plan to dump radioactive waste from a disused industrial site in Hunters Hill to Kemps Creek, just outside my electorate.
We are seeing it once again in the debate over the location of Sydney's second airport, with conservative opinion leaders telling us that an airport at Badgerys Creek will bring jobs and prosperity to the region and should be welcomed by all locals. There is no denying that Western Sydney desperately needs more local jobs and a broadening of the regional economy—all the more so as this government continues to sit on its hands while tens of thousands of skilled jobs in manufacturing and services are wiped out or disappear overseas.
Fowler, overall, is an area of disadvantage. The median family income is just two-thirds the New South Wales and Australian average, and the number of people in Fowler identified as prospective National Disability Insurance Scheme clients is the third-highest of all 150 Australian federal electorates. Grace Fava, the founder and president of Autism Advisory and Support Service, tells me that an astonishing 52 per cent of all New South Wales families who live with autism reside within a 25 kilometre radius of the Liverpool CBD. As study after study has shown, with disability comes financial hardship.
In this light, we should not be surprised that opinion is divided in Western Sydney on the desirability of building Badgerys Creek. But what the government and others are not telling us is what sort of airport we would be getting and who would pay for the necessary infrastructure—not just for the airport itself but for the vital road and rail links that are essential to the viability of a new airport.
New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell has made his view quite plain. He believes the Commonwealth should provide the bulk of the funds. He had a great line when he said the $200 million funding package Mr Abbott offered for the area 'seems to be missing a zero'. We are entitled to ask whether this explains Mr O'Farrell's reluctance to sell-off the state's power assets. While I am sure we do not share an underlying philosophical view when it comes to retaining poles and wires in a public monopoly, presumably the Premier of New South Wales is a little worried that a newly cashed-up state government would be in a much weaker bargaining position with the Commonwealth in negotiating cost-sharing for infrastructure to sustain the new airport.
The Victorian government's experience with the Avalon Airport, which is a similar distance from Melbourne's CBD as Badgerys Creek is from Sydney's, is a salutary warning that there is no guarantee that a second Sydney airport, wherever it is located, would be financially viable over the longer term.
Despite massive investment in Avalon and ongoing subsidies from the Victorian government, and the capacity to operate virtually any aircraft type, passenger movements have declined by more than two-thirds from the 2008 peak and no international movements are in prospect. Qantas' maintenance facilities at Avalon will close next month, costing about 53 jobs. The retail businesses that operate there comprise sparsely staffed rental car and shuttle-bus outlets and a single coffee shop. So the job-creation promise that goes with Badgerys Creek needs to be taken with more than a grain of salt.
In any case, what assurance is there that the bulk of these jobs would go to locals?
Will local jobseekers have the skills that these new jobs will require? If not, will they be able to gain these skills? I think that is questionable, particularly given the severe cutbacks to TAFE NSW? We are entitled to ask whether there is any plan to give preference to locals in filling these jobs or at least a plan to have local employment targets.
The adverse effects on people's health and quality of life were clearly documented in the 1997 and 1999 environmental impact statements on Badgerys Creek. The south-west corridor is the fastest growing residential area in the country, so there can be little doubt that an updated investigation would be even more damning. For starters, the already strained M2, M4 and M5 motorways, not to mention arterial and local roads, would be stretched to the limit by the millions of extra passenger and freight movements the airport is projected to generate. Even the pro-airport, Liberal dominated Liverpool council has now hedged its support for Badgerys Creek, indicating last week that all infrastructure must be properly planned and funded for the proposal to be viable. It seems they too now are worried about the impact on the local community. Fairfield and Campbelltown councils remain staunchly opposed to an airport at Badgerys Creek as do Penrith, Blacktown, Camden and Blue Mountains councils. They are joined by president of WESROC, the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, Councillor Tony Hadchiti, who said at a forum last week:
WESROC is still opposed to the airport until more information is released about the details of the plan and environmental impact and noise statements are done …
That brings me to the airport itself. The government is being coy about the crucial question of its hours of operation, but business interests have made it plain that they expect it to operate around the clock in order to clear the backlog of flights—passenger and freight—because of the curfew that applies at Sydney airport between 11 pm and 6 am.
On the subject of whether there would be a curfew at Badgerys Creek, the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development, Warren Truss, said only last week that he sees no need for a curfew, because modern aircraft are much quieter. Minister, if that is the case, shouldn't you first be reviewing the curfew at Sydney airport? Or is it one rule for the residents of the inner city, the North Shore and the Shire, and another for the people who live in Western Sydney? Badgerys Creek, like Avalon airport in Melbourne, will probably receive few cashed-up international tourists. Rather it will more than likely be used by low-cost carriers and freight movements at times that the carriers are prevented from operating through Sydney airport.
I note that the member for Hughes has just entered the chamber. He was at the same forum the other day and heard much of what I have just spoken about. Perhaps the real agenda about Badgerys Creek has little to do with Western Sydney and everything to do with pre-empting a thorough review of the potential efficiencies at Sydney airport. The people of Western Sydney deserve better.
Small Business
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (17:33): When it comes to red tape and bureaucracy there are few who could beat the Taliban. Let us go back to the late 1990s, when the Taliban overran the war ravaged Afghan capital of Kabul. The Taliban's ministry for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice issued decrees on how small retailers should conduct their affairs. To keep their governing bureaucracy busy, the Taliban published a list of 17 misbehaviours that people and retailers had to avoid and the punishment that could result. I have a copy of that list, which has been translated from Dari to English. I will go through a few of the decrees. The second decree was to prevent music. It said:
In shops … cassettes and music are prohibited. This matter should be monitored within five days. If any music cassette is found in the shop, the shopkeeper should be imprisoned and the shop locked. If five people guarantee the shop should be opened the criminal released later.
Rule No. 4 was to prevent the keeping of pigeons. It provided:
Within ten days this hobby should stop. After ten days this should be monitored and the pigeons and any other playing birds should be killed.
Rule No. 5 was to prevent kite flying. It said:
The kite shops in the city should be abolished.
Rule No. 6:
In vehicles, shops, hotels, room and any other place pictures/portraits should be abolished.
Rule No. 9 was to prevent British and American hairstyles. It read:
People with long hair should be arrested and taken to the Religious Police department to shave their hair. The criminal has to pay the barber.
Rule No. 15 was to prevent sorcery. It said:
All the related books should be burnt and the magician should be imprisoned until his repentance.
Obviously, that applied to books such as the Harry Potter novels. The Taliban also banned shopkeepers from selling such things as any equipment that reproduces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, nail polish, statues, sewing catalogues and Christmas cards. Even retailers found that for products like shampoo the Taliban customs officials would gouge out the eyes of the picture of the female on the bottle. They would cover her face with black tape.
Luckily, this was short lived, for by 2001 shopkeepers in Kabul awoke from this grotesque dream, and the bureaucratic interference in the running of their businesses, when the Northern Alliance sent the Taliban scurrying south to Kandahar.
While we shake our heads at such bureaucratic interference in the running of small retail businesses and while this seems so far-fetched, this is happening in Australia today. The example I would like to give comes from the electorate that I represent at the Warwick Farm Homemaker Centre. I specifically refer to a court case between Woolworths and the Warehouse Group, trading as Clints Warehouse. The Woolworths corporation, acting as 'the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice' sued their smaller competitor in an attempt to deny them the right to sell a wide range of products.
These were court proceedings that were spread over four years, arguing about what goods a retailer could sell in his shop. There were 16 days of court hearings going all the way to the Court of Appeal. We actually had barristers and lawyers—platoons of them—arguing before a learned panel of three judges of the appeal court of the Supreme Court to determine whether a bulky goods shop could sell such things as—I am not making this up!—children's potties, plastic storage containers, sandpaper and babies' bibs. The list goes on and on.
This was all despite the learned Justices Mason, Santow and Foster of the Court of Appeal stating, at paragraph 49 of their decision:
… the conduct of the appellant's business—
Clint's Warehouse—
provided worthwhile employment in the area and, in itself, enhanced the attractiveness to the buying public of the retail area in which it was situated.
So, jobs did not matter. Competition did not matter. Freedom to trade did not matter. Common sense was all thrown out the window. All this happened because of the bureaucratic red tape that must be obeyed.
Look at some of the comparisons. It was not only retail shops in Kabul that were banned from selling Christmas cards; the same applied to shops in this area. Specifically listed at paragraph 63 of the Court of Appeal's decision it said that things that were banned included 'No. 60, Christmas goods; No. 61, Christmas trees; No. 62, Christmas decorations; No. 63, Christmas cards'.
We have courts in this country—with the red tape and regulations that we have—sending out edicts that retail shops cannot sell Christmas goods, Christmas trees, Christmas decorations or Christmas cards. It was not only the Taliban that banned equipment that reproduces the joy of music. Here in Australia, at paragraph 19(e) in the 2003 decision of Justice Talbot, His Honour noted:
Condition 5 provided as follows:-
The display and sale of the following item classifications is strictly prohibited:
… … …
(e) music (including CDs and audio cassettes
These words are almost copied directly, word for word, from the edicts of the Taliban. We have courts here in Australia ordering retail shops that they are banned from selling music. And it goes on, with books: where we have the Taliban, 'books selling things relating to magicians', such as the Harry Potter books, this ban in Australia actually goes further. In his 2004 decision in the same case, at paragraph 2, Justice Talbot noted:
On 12 March 2004 I made the following orders by consent:-
1. On or before 19 March 2004 the first respondent cease selling from its store—
and in that category was listed—
(b) books…
Deputy Speaker, even while we hear that the Taliban allowed the sale of shampoo—as long as the eyes were gouged out and there was black tape over the face—some retailers in Australia are not so lucky. In paragraph 19 of the 2003 decision by Justice Talbot, His Honour noted:
Condition 5 provided as follows:-
The display and sale of the following item classifications is strictly prohibited—
and it goes on to include—
(a) grocery items (including cosmetic and toiletry products…
So here in Australia, we have regulations that stopped a retail shop from selling shampoo. How can a retail shop operate efficiently if we have such bureaucracy? This bureaucracy, this red tape, and these overly prescriptive zoning laws—they harm small business. They cost jobs. They protect the vested interests. They throw up an umbrella of protection which our supermarket duopoly can hide behind and, of course, this has knock-on effects for the entire economy. With the lack of competition, we all pay higher food prices, and it becomes a disincentive for investment in our food-producing sector.
The other day, the Treasurer talked about spreading the opportunity. If we are going to spread the opportunity to small businesses across our nation, we need to remove the regulations—this red tape that ties the hands of our small-retail sector. Of course, this is not just one example. Also in my electorate is the site of the Orange Grove retail establishment. This was a centre which had many shops, and over 400 people were working in the centre. It was on Orange Grove road, located next to another major retailer, a Harvey Norman centre and a Krispy Kreme doughnut outlet, with an Officeworks on the other side—it was ideally located for a retail shop. We had 400 people with jobs in my electorate working and what happened? We had the Carr Labor government come in and close them down. The centre was closed down. All those people were thrown out of their jobs. Those small-business people that had put their livelihoods, and their houses on the line—they all had to close down and go out of business. This is some of the red tape that is currently strangling our nation, that is tying small-business owners' hands, and that we as a government need to get rid of. I am happy to say that the coalition government has made a major commitment to reducing red tape. One thing I hope we can tackle is those zoning laws which are harming small businesses.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Porter ): Order! The time allotted for the grievance debate having expired, the debate is interrupted. In accordance with standing order 192B(b), the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 17:44
QUESTIONS IN WRITING
Communications
(Question No.23)
Ms MacTiernan asked the Minister for Communications, in writing, on 10/12/2013:
What National Broadband Network upgrade works have taken place at the Bassendean Telstra Exchange, on what date(s) were those works undertaken, and at what total cost.
Mr Turnbull: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:
The Bassendean Telstra Exchange functions as a large Fibre Access Node (FAN) and medium Aggregation (AGG) site.
The upgrade required deployment of active equipment and network infrastructure, with equipment and labour costs totalling approximately $1.7m (not including payments to Telstra or ongoing OPEX Costs).
The work was carried out between 16 January 2013 and 13 November 2013.