The SPEAKER ( Hon. Tony Smith ) took the chair at 09:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
BILLS
Treasury Laws Amendment (Combating Multinational Tax Avoidance) Bill 2017
Diverted Profits Tax Bill 2017
Customs and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
Customs Tariff Amendment Bill 2016
Returned from Senate
Message received from the Senate returning the bills without amendment or request.
Transport Security Amendment (Serious or Organised Crime) Bill 2016
Consideration of Senate Message
Bill returned from the Senate with amendments.
Ordered that the amendments be considered at the next sitting.
Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2016
Consideration in Detail
Consideration resumed.
The SPEAKER ( 12:02): The question before the House is that amendments (1) to (9) moved by the member for Kennedy be agreed to.
Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (12:03): I think it bears asking here: what happens when you have no competition when you have two people with around 90 per cent of the market? This is what happened in the dairy industry. This is a quote from the letter sent by the dairy factory to the dairy farmers in North Queensland: 'Currently, suppliers receive 58.9c a litre. From 1 July 2000, the price to North Queensland farmers will be 41.5c.' So we went from 60c down to 40c in one day. Clearly, there is an oligopoly operating in the food market in Australia. There was a 20c drop in one day. Who was responsible for that? This place. This place passed the National Competition Policy legislation, which resulted in the dairy farmers of Australia being, in the main, completely destroyed. More than half of the 15,000 dairy farmers are gone—bankrupted, shot themselves or walked off their farms after five or six generations. In my area, they cleared scrub that you just could not believe anyone could have.
Why did this happen? I always say: follow the money trail. If a farmer has $500 million less and the consumer has paid $400 million or $500 million more, who got the $1,000 million? Woolworths and Coles got the $1,000 million, of course. To be exact, it is $1,130 million each year. Didn't they get a good reward from the deregulation and smashing of the dairy industry in Australia? They say: 'We're still getting milk. There's still dairy farmers out there.' Yes, but the blow nationally was the loss of the export market. We went from $2½ billion down to $1½ billion—a loss of a $1,000 million.
With the sugar industry, it was $311 million. The producer was getting $191 per tonne less and the consumer was paying $115 per tonne more. Since 1,000 million tonnes was the average annual home consumption in 2002, the government had delivered to piggy in the middle—we all know who piggy in the middle is—$311 million of extra profit per year. They got one $1½ billion.
Was that enough for them? No. We had to deregulate the egg industry as well. In the egg industry, egg deregulation saw consumers paying over 50 per cent more than they paid pre-deregulation and producers getting paid 10 per cent less. Since more than 240 million eggs are sold each year in Australia, the retailers and other middlemen—piggies in the middle—got an extra $300 million a year. Woolworths and Coles said: 'Thank you, parliament of Australia. Thank you, Mr LNP. Thank you, Mr ALP. We have nearly $2,000 million a year extra in our coffers because of your stupidity, cupidity and utter, callous disregard for the farmers of Australia and the consumers of Australia.'
So more power to the minister. After being in this place for 25 years, there is now a minister with a little bit of courage and integrity. I personally would attribute, somewhat, to his deep Christian belief system that he feels a responsibility to do something about this dreadful situation. I do not know how many operators have gone out of business. I had 240 dairy farmers; I now have 38 dairy farmers. A lot of these people exited the industry in the most tragic manner possible. This is a matter of public record—the piggies in the middle, Woolworths and Coles, walked away from the table with nearly $2,000 million extra in their pockets as a result of the egg marketing board being abolished, the sugar marketing board being abolished and the deregulation of the dairy industry.
I return to the bill itself. (Extension of time granted) We want the existing act to stay. Even I, with all the time I had put in on this, did not fully understand that under the existing Competition and Consumer Act we did have an ability to act. In subsection 46(1) there is a purpose, and the ACCC argue that they can never prove purpose. Woolworths and Coles suddenly decided to have huge sale prices when the IGA opened at Mount Isa, but they could not prove purpose; it was too difficult. But subsection 46(7) uses the words 'may be taken to have taken advantage of its power'. In fact the IGA in Mt Isa that came under tremendous competition, which destroyed them, could have acted under section 46 subsections (1) and (7). The purpose can be inferred.
Let us take the second case—Garbutt, in Townsville. The IGA owner in Garbutt was sent broke by his competitors, namely the big two. People will argue that it was not entirely due to that, but I would argue that it entirely was. Under the existing act, Garbutt could have taken an action. But of course the owner of the IGA is broke, so he did not have money to take an action. All the same, there was power delivered to us by section 46 subsections (1) and (7). There was the power to act in both cases. The effects test strengthens dramatically our power to act in Mt Isa. Clearly the loss of one of the three big supermarkets with only two or three other outlets was a huge blow to competition in Mount Isa. So the new section is wonderful for us—we love it and we enthusiastically support it.
Let me get back to Garbutt. If Garbutt IGA in Townsville is closed, so what? It is a big city, of 200,000 people, and there are probably 100 food outlets, after hours stores and everything else—there are many other independent stores in Townsville, so there is no substantial lessening of competition. If we eliminate subsection 46(1), and we only have this new section 46, we have no power to act in the case of Garbutt or in relation to any store in any other big city in Australia. The closure of a single supermarket in Ryde in Sydney is not going to significantly lessen competition. So if we remove the old section we have no ability to fight the battle inside the big cities of Australia. That explains why Woolworths and Coles for once have remained silent and let this proceed. One thing this has done is bring to our attention that there is power under section 46 subsections (1) and (7), read together—we can infer purpose. I thank very greatly the people I have discussed this with and who have brought this to my attention.
In summary, with Garbutt we have no powers under the new act unless we preserve the old section 46 as well as introducing the new section 46. We pleadto keep the old section 46 as well, because under the old section we did have some powers in the cities but now we have no powers in the city situation. The elimination of smaller independents will never have the effect of lessening competition. I repeat: if we just rely upon the new act and ignore the old act, the elimination of smaller independents will never have the effect of lessening competition. (Extension of time granted) I think I have got across the messages I need to get across—the difference between the city situation and the country situation. The new act is very good for the country situation, but then only about 10 per cent of the population live in the country these days, with 90 per cent living in the cities. The new legislation will not cover us in the cities because there will be no 'substantial lessening of competition' provision. The old act does give us some powers that even I did not realise we had until this debate. I once again thank the minister, because I would not have known about the powers that exist if it had not been for him introducing what has been the first effort to overcome the giant power of the two oligopolists in Australia that completely dominate the market.
The SPEAKER: The question is that the amendments be agreed to. There being more than one voice calling for a division, in accordance with standing order 133 the division is deferred until after the discussion of the matter of public importance.
Debate adjourned.
Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (12:15): It is a great honour to have you in the chair, Mr Speaker, for this very important debate. The Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017 is an uncontroversial bill, but it is an important bill. Any matter in this place that goes to our biosecurity is of critical importance. In agriculture, of course, our greatest competitive advantage relies in our reputation as a provider of clean, green, safe food. The protection of that reputation means everything to our future success in the agriculture sector. Indeed, I think if you were aptly and properly naming the portfolio in title terms you would call it 'agriculture and biosecurity', or maybe 'food and fibre biosecurity'. But, certainly, a primary role for an agriculture minister in this country is to ensure that we have all the resources that the department and its sister departments need to ensure that our biosecurity is as strong as it possibly can be.
Every new minister to the portfolio's first act should be to seek reassurance from his or her department that the resources of government are sufficiently available to make sure that is the case. This is core business, unlike things like sugar disputes in Queensland, where the agriculture minister seems to be spending a disproportionate amount of his time engaging in a matter of commercial negotiation and, if there is a role for government, a matter for the Queensland government. Indeed, in that dispute the Queensland government has been very efficient in guiding the combatants, if you like, in that dispute to a successful resolution through arbitration, through mediation. Here we are at the 11th hour. We are almost there. I fully expect we will get a resolution in the next day or two.
What we do not need is the agriculture minister interfering and sending confused signals to parties to that negotiation. We particularly do not need a Minister for Agriculture now getting involved in the 11th hour in the hope of claiming some credit for the very good work of the Queensland government. We do not need a Minister for Agriculture talking about a code of conduct that does not exist. He says he has it in his drawer, up his sleeve—everywhere but on the table. It defines any rationale or logic to suggest that a code of conduct that cannot be implemented immediately in any case could somehow retrospectively deal with the behaviour of the parties to the commercial process in Queensland. It is a ridiculous suggestion. It does not help this situation for the Minister for Agriculture to be now threatening the parties with some sort of intervention we know will not come, but only sends the wrong signals to the parties in those negotiations.
Minister Joyce should understand that this dispute in Queensland has been dragging on for 18 months for one reason: because of the populist intervention of the LNP in Queensland and its minor party friends with the creation of that legislation 18 months ago—legislation that was always flawed and was always going to fail. The legislation has now been found to be unconstitutional. The Minister for Agriculture told us this morning that he has other advice that it is not unconstitutional. If the Minister for Agriculture has advice that the Queensland legislation is not unconstitutional, he should lay it on the table in this place. He should properly explain it to the growers and he should authenticate that claim. So he has three things in his draw now. He has a mythical code of conduct that would do nothing, he has advice that the Queensland legislation is not unconstitutional and he has one other thing—a report from the Productivity Commission on regulation in the farm sector and its impact on productivity, but he will not release it. I ask the minister at the table: why won't the agriculture minister release the Productivity Commission's report of the inquiry into farm regulation? I will give members of the House the reason: it disagrees with him. It disagrees with the Deputy Prime Minister—well, we cannot have that released! It is in specific disagreement with the Minister for Agriculture on the sugar dispute in Queensland and the status of that legislation passed by the Queensland Parliament with the opposition of the Queensland government. The Queensland Labor government understood the flaws in that bill and understood that the bill would only serve to drag that dispute out in Queensland.
So the Deputy Prime Minister has done enough damage with his LNP colleagues in Queensland. He should get out of the way. He should stop providing false hope to any parties involved in that dispute. He should leave his code of conduct—if it exists. I do not know whether it was the one written by the member for Dawson. Possibly, it was the one written by the member for Dawson at his desk in his office. But whoever wrote it, if it does exist—it does not matter because we know it will have no effect. We know it serves no purpose in bringing this dispute to a successful resolution.
Back to biosecurity: it was the former Labor government which initiated the Beale review of our biosecurity systems, the first serious review in about a century. I do not remember the date of the original quarantine bill, but it was more than 100 years old and it was certainly in need of review. The Labor government did review it. We embraced the Beale review's recommendations in legislation. Unfortunately, that legislation did not pass the parliament before it was prorogued for the purposes of the 2013 election. And, in around 2015, rightly, the then government picked up where the former Labor government had left off and reintroduced the legislation with some changes. My greatest disappointment was the very specific change that Minister Joyce inserted into the bill which basically gutted the Inspector-General for Biosecurity.
I began my contribution by talking about the priority of biosecurity. I am glad that the member for Paterson is with us—we were down visiting the new beehive in the grounds of Parliament House just this morning. The House agriculture committee—of which she is deputy chair and I congratulate all members of the committee, particularly her very innovative work on that committee—has just held an inquiry into the importance of biosecurity as it relates to our bee population. For the minister to gut or attempt to gut the Inspector-General of Biosecurity defies any rationale or logic. Thankfully we had the fight in this place and indeed in the Senate; and we were able to effectively counter the minister's attempts to water down, if not abolish, the role of the Inspector-General. When the government of the day finally revisited what the former Labor government had begun, I was very disappointed that he attempted to water down the independence and the role and the weight of the Inspector-General of Biosecurity, but that has been fixed.
This bill amends Biosecurity Act 2015—the one I just referred to—to make essential changes to the requirements for the management and control of ships ballast water to reduce the risk of invasive marine pests and pathogens entering Australian waters. Again, it does enjoy the support of the opposition. It is interesting to learn that each year around 200 million tonnes of ships ballast water is discharged into Australian ports by some 13,000 ships visiting from some 600 overseas ports. Of course, Australia is particularly vulnerable to biosecurity incursions, because many cargo ships arrive here without cargo, meaning that they require large quantities of ballast water to stabilise the vessel. I had not properly considered in the past the volume of ballast water which, by necessity, comes into our ports but it obviously is a very serious matter.
I did not like the way the minister made reference to the recent white spot outbreak in prawns. The minister cleverly attempted to say that this bill was partly about his genius solution or response to that outbreak—an outbreak which of course has been a debacle in its management under the watch of this minister. Something like the white spot outbreak in prawns is a solid reminder of some of the risk posed by things like ballast water. We are an island continent, and that is the reason we have been able to defend our clean, green image.
I need to say that the government has come to the opposition with some eleventh hour amendments to the bill. They look pretty benign and they do not cause me particular concern but I am disappointed that we still do not have full clarity from the minister's office about what the amendments do. We are assured that they are tidy-ups and not substantial in nature. We have been given a response by the minister's office, but let me give the House an example about the lack of clarity. They say that it 'provides certainty for foreign estates and vessels about their legal obligations when operating in Australian seas which will enable Australia to ratify the Ballast Water Convention'. I should say that this bill is all about bringing us into line with our international obligations. It is obvious to members of the House that this is a matter that is dealt with—rightly—on a global scale. It then goes on to say: 'Subsection 1 and 1(a) do not apply if'—does has been replaced by do—'the condition in section 271, 276, 277, 278(a), 279, 282 or subsection 283(1)(2)(3) is met in relation to the discharge of ballast water.' I am sorry, Mr Speaker, I do not know what that means—I am being very honest about that. I have had a quick look and I do not think that it means very much. It does look like a drafting error and a simple correction to the bill but to come to us at the eleventh hour and expect me to absorb that and interpret what it means for this bill on such an important matter is not appropriate and not acceptable. While restating the opposition's support for the bill, I do put that one caveat on that commitment and that is: before this matter is dealt with by the other place, I would like a fuller explanation and assurance that these complex-looking changes which may not be so complex in the end do not substantially change the purpose and the effect of the bill and certainly do not digress from the main intention of the bill. I thank the House.
Mr DRUM (Murray—Chief Nationals Whip) (12:27): Before I speak to the bill and while the member for Hunter is still in the chamber, I owe him an explanation for comments made in relation to another issue in this House—the backpacker tax. During that debate I was very critical of the way in which the member for Hunter conducted himself in that debate. I made comments about people from my area ringing his office only to be hung up on. I have since worked through where those constituents came from and it turns out that no-one rang the member for Hunter's office and was hung up on. That scenario took place in Senator Hinch's office and whilst I have no love for the member for Hunter's behaviour during the backpacker tax debate—I will remain eternally critical of the member for Hunter's behaviour during the backpacker tax affair—I do owe him and his office an apology for the false accusation. However, that said, it is now time to move on to the biosecurity issues in this bill.
The SPEAKER: I will just say to the member for Murray that obviously the remarks you have just made are not on the subject of the bill, but out of indulgence and for the sake of efficiency I thought it better to let you proceed rather than you jump later on.
Mr DRUM: That is why you get the big dollars, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that indulgence. In relation to the amendments that have been put forward, it is also my understanding that these are mere technical and typographical errors. I have been given assurances that they have no substantive impact on the definition of the bill or the intent of the legislation.
As was also put forward, it is absolutely critical that everybody in Australia understands that biosecurity is at the epicentre of the agricultural industries. Everything we do with our agricultural produce is based around the fact that we have some of the highest quality agricultural produce in the world. Because of the high cost of productivity and the high cost of inputs in this country, we understand that we need this amazingly clean, green reputation to be preserved. It is something that is absolutely critical to everything we do in the agricultural sector. It was a little bit interesting to see the shadow minister for agriculture spend one minute on that and then spend five or 10 minutes talking about sugar. However, the shadow minister did in fact come back to the bill.
This bill is incredibly important when you think about the 200 million tonnes of ballast water that is discharged into our ports around Australia. The sheer quantity of this water makes everybody quite alarmed. We have 13,000 ships coming to our ports every year, many of them empty and ready to pick up cargo. Obviously the additional weight that they need to remain stable comes from increased quantities of ballast water. What is also interesting with the statistics is the high number of different ports from different areas around the world where these ships arrive from. The Zika virus is something that has caused enormous concern because of its effect on humans, and the vectors that incursions are able to derive from certainly create a real concern for us.
This bill will also position Australia and its need to comply with the ballast water management convention—the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments—to provide an internationally consistent approach to managing ballast water on vessels. Ballast water is now recognised as a major source in the spread of exotic marine pests around the world, and Australia has played a key role in developing the ballast water management convention. We signed that convention in 2005, but it is subject to ratification. Australia is now a global leader in biosecurity and has a positive international reputation in relation to biosecurity and environmental control measures. Failure to legislate to comply with the ballast water convention before it is enforced in September would risk further damage to Australia's reputation. Obviously in Australia we have an expanding international marine trade. It is considered in Australia's interest to implement more uniform and stringent requirements to make sure that we do in fact conform to the convention.
I would also like to spend a little bit of time talking about just how important agriculture and trade is to my local area around the Goulburn Valley. It is often referred to as the 'food bowl of Australia', and around 25 per cent of Victoria's agricultural produce, in a different range of areas, is produced in the Goulburn Valley. On horticulture alone, the Goulburn Valley produces over 82,000 tonnes of apples. Twenty-eight per cent of Australia's total apple production is in the Goulburn Valley. Eighty-six per cent of Australia's pear production takes place in the Goulburn Valley. It is over 105,000 tonnes. Over 70 per cent of Australia's peaches are produced in the Goulburn Valley. We all understand that about a quarter of Australia's total dairy produce is produced in the Goulburn Valley, with over 2,300 million litres of milk and milk products being produced. Tomatoes, again, are a huge commodity within the Goulburn Valley in relation to preserved tomatoes and tomato products. It is predominantly driven out of KAGOME in Echuca and SPC in Shepparton. Nearly all but 10,000 tonnes of tomatoes that are processed in Australia are processed in the Goulburn Valley.
As I have said many times in this House, it is not just the primary produce that we have to protect when we are doing free trade agreements. We have seen the impact of those free trade agreements. When we create these free trade agreements with countries like China, Japan and South Korea, once those tariffs and once those exporting costs are diminished, we see a direct increase in the amount of produce that leaves our shore for those destinations.
It is not just the primary produce that benefits from these free trade agreements, from this amazing biosecurity reputation that we have and from the quality that we have. Sitting on the back of some of these commodities which I have already mentioned is a whole range of other primary produce that is yet to receive the go-ahead to move into these other areas. Whilst apricots have just recently been given the protocol approval, we are also looking at kiwifruit. There has been some serious investment in kiwifruit from the Goulburn Valley, and it is trying to reach its way into some of those Asian countries.
On the back of this primary production industry is, in fact, a whole range of other industries. We have the processing plants and then, on the back of the processing plants, we have a whole range of packaging industries—whether that be Visy or a whole range of others. They employ literally hundreds and hundreds of people throughout the Goulburn Valley just in packaging. And then, outside of Melbourne and Sydney, the city that has the most amount of transports registered to it is the city of Shepparton. Again, that is because the transport industry is so critically important to moving so much of this primary produce that the area creates. Should anything ever happen to our primary industries, we have the packaging industry and the transport industry sitting on the edge, which are directly affected, either positively or negatively. When primary industry is going well we also have an increased boost in these associated areas, not to mention, obviously, retail in our major cities around regional Victoria. When the agricultural sector is going well retail is also going well. We know that when the farmers are doing well they spend their money. They reinvest back in their farms and businesses and they provide a real boost for our regional economies. That spills over into the professional sector. When the farming businesses are really humming along, they have an extensive need to create the highly tuned businesses that will provide all the professional services that they need.
So, whether it be in transport or packaging or retail or professional or all the other associated industries that hang off the back of primary production, we all need to realise how critical our biosecurity measures are to maintain this reputation that we have spent over a hundred years in building, aided by the fact that we are an island nation and have had many years in which we have been able to invest in biosecurity.
It is worth noting that when we came to government there had been reports about the fact that we had let our biosecurity protocols slip and that there had been a disinvestment in the biosecurity area. We have had to correct that and bring those investments back. We have invested over $200 million to improve biosecurity since we have been in government, with $50 million to boost Australia's emergency pest and disease eradication capability and $50 million to give farmers betters tools and control methods against pest animals and weeds. It is a very strong record that the coalition has put together to ensure the continued care and protection of Australian farmers and the community from pests and diseases. We need to ensure that this continues to rebuild and reinvest in the biosecurity system.
This bill will effectively come into force on 8 September this year. It is a very important bill. It goes to the very centre of our reputation, which is so highly regarded around the world. We understand how important this is to our fishing industry, in relation to our vulnerability to marine pests. The member for Hunter has already touched on the outbreak we have had with the prawns, which needs to be addressed. It is a very difficult area to address. We have had previous outbreaks which have effectively been able to be treated, but we have ongoing challenges now which are going to need more and more work on them all the time. In this bill we are also going to make these essential changes in the hope that we will be able to reduce the risk of invasive marine pests entering Australian waters. Certainly we would like to think that if we remain ever vigilant—this is where we need to acknowledge the work that Minister Barnaby Joyce is doing in this area. He is prepared to throw whatever it takes at biosecurity measures to insist that Australia adheres to the convention that we have worked so hard to design and helped design. We need to acknowledge that Barnaby Joyce will do whatever it takes to make sure that we protect our reputation and do whatever we can to ensure that biosecurity is at the forefront of everything we do in relation to agriculture.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Rob Mitchell ): I remind the member for Murray to refer to members by their correct titles—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources.
Ms SWANSON (Paterson) (12:42): I rise today to speak on the Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures} Bill 2017. The bill amends the Biosecurity Act 2015 to make essential changes to requirements for the control and management of ships' ballast water to reduce the risk of invasive marine pests and pathogens entering Australian waters. The bill will ensure that Australia will be legislatively compliant with the international convention on ballast water when it comes into force on 8 September 2017. The bill builds on the original intent of the act by providing additional powers designed to strengthen Australia's ability to manage risks to human health, firstly by broadening the existing power to destroy exotic vectors—that is, carriers—of human disease of concern on vessels and aircraft arriving in Australia; secondly, by reinstating a previous power from the superseded Quarantine Act 1908 for human health officials to direct private parties to undertake control activities if an exotic vector or carrier incursion, such as the mosquito-borne Zika virus, is detected.
I spoke earlier in the House on another issue of biosecurity—the Australian honey bee. As deputy chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture and Water Resources, I spoke about the aptly named Safe Keeping report coming out of the inquiry into biosecurity of our honey bees in Australia. It was tabled just yesterday in this House. I am pleased to have worked with chair Rick Wilson on this. I told the House how important the honey bee is to Australia and that its value to our economy is in the order of $4 billion when its role as a pollinator is taken into account.
Our honey bees are healthy, due in part to our isolation, but also because of the vigilance of our biosecurity measures. But the risk of invasive pets and diseases is increasing because of world trade and international travel. There are risks to the honey bee from the Asian honey bee, but the main one is from the Varroa mite, which is present in every bee-keeping country across the world except Australia. That is something that we need to be proud of but also vigilant about. The committee made a number of recommendations, the main one being extending the National Bee Pest Surveillance Program to cover more ports and airports. The program, which involves a system of hives, lures and traps at the main points of entry, currently covers 32 ports.
The committee has recommended the program be expanded to cover 54 ports, or almost 100 per cent of our trade. The annual cost of this $1.9 million program is well worth it, given the annual $4 billion contribution of the honey bee to Australia. I am hoping the Turnbull government takes on board the recommendations of the committee regarding the honey bee to ensure its future contribution to our economy. The government is to be commended for this biosecurity amendment regarding ballast water, and Labor fully supports it. But it must be acknowledged that the Labor Party did the hard work in developing a modernised biosecurity framework, which included a large body of work to strengthen the management of ships' ballast water. We did that work. We set this framework up.
The issue of ships' ballast is a very important one for biosecurity in Australia. Each year around 200 million tonnes of ships' ballast is just discharged into Australian ports by around 13,000 ships from more than 600 overseas ports. Australia is particularly vulnerable to biosecurity incursions, as many cargo ships arrive here without cargo, meaning they come full of ballast water which must be discharged into our waters before the cargo can be loaded. The same can also be said for some arriving cruise ships. When ballast water is taken up in these far-flung ports, marine organisms can be picked up too, and they are released in our waters when the ballast is discharged. Pests such as bacteria, microbes, small invertebrates, eggs, cysts and larvae of various species can all find their way here into our waters. In fact it is estimated that 10,000 different species are moved around the world in ballast every single day.
Sometimes those pests do not cause too much of a problem. For example, we know there are introduced species in Port Jackson and Botany Bay in Sydney, Port Kembla, the Port of Eden, and the port of Newcastle, near my electorate of Paterson. These exotic species do not appear to have an ecological or economic impact. They include aquarium caulerpa, New Zealand screw shell, European fan worm, and European green shore crab. But introduced marine pests can cause serious environmental and economic damage. There has been an invasion in Australia of the Northern Pacific sea star, which was introduced to Tasmania through ballast water from Japan in the 1980s and into Victoria through ballast water in the 1990s.
It led to reduced shellfish production in Tasmania and damaged marine ecosystems in both Tasmania and Victoria. Of course, we now have the much maligned white spot disease. We are not certain how white spot came to Australia, but it shows the devastating effect of a virus on species such as prawns, and how vigilant we need to be. White spot was detected last year in prawn farms in the Logan River, south of Brisbane, and has now been found in wild prawns in Moreton Bay. Queensland authorities say that it is unstoppable and will have to die out naturally. White spot is highly contagious, is lethal to crustaceans and, overseas, has reduced prawn farm productivity by up to 40 per cent. The Logan River prawn farms have seen productivity losses of up to 80 per cent. We have had a bad experience before and we must do our best to ensure this does not happen again.
You have to wonder whether, if the government had acted sooner to bring in this amendment, we might not have the current outbreak of white spot disease in prawns. The government decided it was better to give business more flexibility to choose their own cost-effective option in meeting the requirements of the Ballast Water Management Convention, but this delay may have caused our prawn industry irreparable damage. This current legislation will ensure that Australia is fully legislatively compliant with the ballast water convention when it comes into force this September. That we, as part developers of that convention, are fully up to speed with the rest of the world is a good thing. Schedule 2 of the bill relates to additional vector management powers needed under the Biosecurity Act to ensure Australia is not left vulnerable to significant human health risks. The need for these powers is demonstrated by rising global detections of the mosquito-borne zika virus. The bill seeks to reduce the likelihood of incursions of carriers that could pose a real concern to human health and to provide powers to manage potential incursions when they are detected.
The Department of Health has worked with state and territory counterparts and communicable disease experts to ensure the amendments address contemporary public health concerns posed by exotic mosquitoes, like the zika virus. These amendments will be supported by nationally consistent arrangements to support collaboration across different levels of government, and that is critical as well. The states must be involved. Labor understands the importance of our biosecurity systems and that strong biosecurity will contribute to our economy. The strength of our biosecurity systems is absolutely paramount for Australia's reputation as clean, green and safe, particularly as a producer of food. We must ensure that we absolutely guard 'brand Australia' as being clean, green and safe. Getting rid of introduced marine pests once they have been established is extremely difficult, if not impossible, and we are seeing that borne out by white spot. However, we must be eternally vigilant about our biosecurity, because even though we are a great island nation, that mighty water out there cannot protect us and in fact can sometimes deliver us those vectors that we do not want in this country. I am pleased to say that we support this bill, but we need to continue to be vigilant, and biosecurity is one way that we can do that.
Mr RICK WILSON (O'Connor) (12:51): It is an absolute pleasure to follow the member for Paterson. As she mentioned yesterday, as the chair and vice-chair of the agriculture committee we handed down a report on biosecurity in the bee industry. I think we are at our best in this place when we work together cooperatively on committees, and it is a shame that the general public do not see that side of the work that we do here.
But the member for Paterson went above and beyond the call of duty yesterday, because the secretariat thought it would be a good idea to take the report down and present it to the bees in the hives here on the grounds of Parliament House. I am glad to see you got through that experience without getting stung, Member for Paterson. I am sure the bees are very happy with the outcome of our report.
But I am here today to talk about the Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017. This bill makes two key changes to the Biosecurity Act. It will strengthen powers relating to ballast water to reduce the risk of invasive marine pests entering Australian waters, and it will enable better targeting and control of vectors such as mosquitoes that are capable of carrying human diseases such as Zika virus into this country. Following these amendments, Australia will be in a position to ratify the ballast water convention. It will require ships to have ballast water management plans while in Australian waters and discharge ballast water in accordance with the convention. It will allow new ballast water treatment technologies to be used and will phase out ballast water exchange.
Each year around 200 million tonnes of ships' ballast water is discharged into Australian ports by 13,000 ship visits from some 600 overseas ports. Australia is vulnerable to marine pest incursions. Many cargo ships arrive here without cargo and have a large quantity of ballast water. In my electorate of O'Connor, many of the bulk vessels that enter the ports are empty, as they are chartered to export bulk grain and mineral products. As a matter of course, the vessels will carry ballast water to stabilise them during the journey. This ballast water can host vectors that are hazardous to human health or it can transport animal and vegetative pests that are alien to Australian waters. Our fishing industry is vulnerable to marine pests and it is important to protect our waters and resources from the possibility of such incursions.
The ports of Albany and Esperance are two vital export channels for industries across the electorate of O'Connor. In 2016, 158 vessels visited the port of Albany to import and export in excess of 4.5 million tonnes of bulk product. Grain and oil seeds are the chief export commodities from Albany, but there are also large volumes of woodchips and tonnages of logs and silica sands. In the same year, 209 vessels serviced the port of Esperance, with over 50 million tonnes of product moving across the wharves. Iron ore was the major bulk commodity, with over 11 million tonnes of ore from the Northern Goldfields being transported by rail and road to the Esperance port for export. Cereal grains and oil seeds were the next largest export by volume, and there are also nickel products, gold pyrite and even scrap metal passing the ships' rails in most years.
In the last year, we have seen the first shipment of woodchips leave the Esperance port. Last season the WA grain industry set a record for production, with approximately 16.8 million tonnes of grains delivered to the receival system. The recent rain events across the south of the state have delivered a full soil moisture profile, and the potential for another very large freight task to export this year's crop is looming.
One of the features of carrying out any business in Australia, of course, is managing the logistics supply chain that supplies your business inputs. The ports of Albany and Esperance play a vital role in supplying key inputs to the mining and agricultural industries in the south and south-east of Western Australia. The two main imports for the agricultural sector that enter via both Albany and Esperance are bulk fertilisers and petroleum products. Many farmers across the electorate will currently be planning their cropping programs, based on the timely delivery of those inputs from the ports. The Esperance port is also the entry point for some large tonnages of sulphur and magnesium oxide, both of which are important inputs for the resources sector in the Goldfields and Ravensthorpe.
I will just take the opportunity to mention the shire of Ravensthorpe, which is recovering from a severe flood event that happened about a month ago. I want to say to the people of Ravensthorpe I am monitoring the situation. I dropped in and saw the shire CEO the other day and will be back down there as soon as we have a break in April to see how that recovery effort is going.
The south coast of WA, which Ravensthorpe sits on, also includes Hopetoun—one of those beautiful spots—along with the Fitzgerald River National Park. Over a dozen cruise ships visit each of those ports every year. The tourism industry continues to expand on the south coast of the electorate, and many of the visitors enjoy fishing, boating, diving and sightseeing along the coast. This bill will assist in protecting marine species and the marine environment along the south coast of WA. It will provide the powers needed to manage a potential incursion, should it occur. Given the increasing importance to the Australian economy of exports through the two ports in my electorate of O'Connor, this legislation is vitally important to my constituents, and I commend the bill to the House.
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (12:57): It is great to see that the government has finally fixed this little error that it made in the last parliament. As people on this side have already pointed out, this particular piece of legislation, the Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017, will be supported by Labor. We have said we were surprised it was not introduced in the 43rd Parliament. It is great that the government has caught up, realised its mistake and now brought this legislation to us.
Whilst we support the legislation that is before us, which talks about the safe management of ballast water, it allows me to talk more broadly about the importance of our shipping industry in this country. It allows me to highlight how we must have the world's best practices when it comes to shipping in this country. As you have already heard, and as others have pointed out, about two million tonnes of ships' ballast water is discharged into Australian ports by 13,000 ships visiting our ports from some 600 overseas ports. So this is something we want to get right.
We also know the risks with ballast water if it is not discharged properly. We know the risk to our biosecurity, which is the purpose of this bill being brought before the House. Marine organisms can be picked up and released when ballast water is discharged. We need to make sure, just like when you come in through customs, that we are not bringing in species that could cause a biosecurity risk in our maritime environment, whether they be bacteria, eggs or larvae of various species. We have a clean, green and safe image in this country and must do all we can to protect it—on shore, in the air and at sea.
There are a lot of ships that enter our waters and do business with Australia—13,000 ships from some 600 overseas ports. These laws and these particular rules would be so much easier to enforce if we knew that the people working on our ships were in fact Australian trained and qualified seafarers. There is a growing problem within our shipping industry in that there are very few Australians left to work in our shipping industry. Colleagues of mine have talked about 'Work Choices on water' and the fact that, by stealth, we are losing Australian jobs in our maritime industry time and time again as more and more ships are no longer Australian flagged ships; they are flags of convenience and flagged overseas.
Whilst this is very much an issue about Australian jobs, how does it relate to ballast water and the protection of our vital maritime industries? It is because we do not know if they have had the training. We do not know if they have the skills and qualifications required to ensure that they are meeting our tough laws on environmental safety when it comes to working on water. I have had the great opportunity to meet with many seafarers—people working on tugs in ports like Newcastle, people who used to work on fuel vessels and sea vessels and people still lucky enough to have a position in our shipping industry. They say that we should be concerned and that they know of people who have not had the opportunity of training in Australia—who do not have our MSIC, our maritime security identification card, and do not have Australian qualifications—who have a quite limited understanding of our rules. They tell me of cases where these people just dump their rubbish overboard into our Great Barrier Reef, due to their lack of knowledge, because they are not from Australia and are not Australian workers. In some cases they even struggle to have an Australian pilot because of the growth of 457 visas in this sector. So there are concerns about whether, when we do put rules in place, they will actually be enforced because of this issue that we have about who is working on our ships.
The legislation that is before us does bring us up to the Ballast Water Convention. We signed the Ballast Water Convention, subject to ratification, in May 2005. The convention entered into force and becomes mandatory 12 months after it has been adopted by 30 countries, representing 35 per cent of the world's merchant shipping tonnage. As of 9 January 2014, the convention had been adopted by 38 countries, representing just over 30 per cent of world's merchant shipping tonnage. During the 44th Parliament, the government claimed that the proposed biosecurity legislation implemented the majority of the Ballast Water Convention by introducing stricter ballast water management requirements than were currently in place under the old Quarantine Act. It also acknowledged that the proposed biosecurity legislation which is now enacted would need to be amended to fully implement the convention when ratified. So, whilst it is important that we step this way, we will need to do further work in relation to the convention.
I spoke briefly about what is happening on our shores. Ballast water is not the only issue that we should be concerned about. We have seen under this government a growth in incidents that did not previously occur in our waterways. Part of it is linked to the fact that we have lost of Australian seafarers—people who have the local knowledge, people who understand our waterways, people who have qualifications and skills being replaced by seafarers that do not. We have seen incidents off our coast where ships have run aground. Whilst one particular incident was a bit of a spectacular scene for local people, locals were also very concerned about what was spilling into their community. We have seen incidents of oil spills and problems with what has occurred in our Great Barrier Reef. We have seen time and time again issues related to who is employed to work on our ships. The fact that people working on our ships do not have Australian skills and qualifications continues to be a problem.
I do not understand why we would not want to encourage Australian jobs in Australian shipping. We need to look at industries in our country and how we can encourage future and new industries. We have lost the car manufacturing industry, with the loss of 40,000 jobs. We have lost shipping jobs, but we have not lost our shipping industry. There are other countries in the world, allies of ours, that have a pretty strong stance. The United States have the Jones Act, which says that every person who works in shipping around the United States coastal borders needs to be US trained and qualified. They even go as far as to say that, if you want to use port to port in America, it needs to be an American built vessel. There are other countries that have really led the way in how you not only ensure local jobs—for example, Australians being employed to work in Australian shipping—but also ensure a country's security going forward, whether it be their fuel security, their environmental security or their national security.
There is a need to have an Australian trained and skilled shipping workforce, and at the moment we are on the brink of losing that. We are on the brink of losing that because of this government's inaction in protecting Australian shipping jobs. We have heard from the union in this sector, the MUA, say that there is a problem with 457 visas, particularly in the pilot sector and the higher-skilled sector. We have also heard that there is a problem with people working on crews in horrible and appalling conditions. It has been reported in the media that they can be earning as little as $2 a day. We should condemn in the loudest possible terms any ship that arrives into an Australian port where the workers are being treated appallingly, are not being paid decent wages and do not have decent conditions.
I believe that as a country—and I encourage the government to look at how we can do it—we can rebuild employment in the shipping industry for Australian seafarers. I have met people for whom it was a family business: they are a seafarer, their grandfather was a seafarer and their father was a seafarer. In an island country, a country that relies on imports and exports, it is just ridiculous that we do not have—and are losing at a rapid pace—a skilled seafaring workforce. It is an opportunity to create good jobs in our country and, at the same time as securing and creating these good jobs with Australian skills, with MSIC passes, going through the training colleges that we have here in Australia—some of the world's best in terms of maritime security—also be able to secure our fuel and also our environment, the natural assets we have. These are our waterways, including the Great Barrier Reef. In relation to this issue of ballast water, we need to ensure that we are doing all we can to secure our environment and our borders by ensuring that we keep the nasties out and continue to maintain that clean, green image.
It is great to see that the government has brought this legislation forward. It is disappointing that it did not come up in the last parliament. It is one of those things that should not be largely debated, because it is agreed on both sides. But it has allowed us an opportunity to stand up and say that it is not the rosy, bright picture that the Deputy Prime Minister is painting. He is suggesting that he has been the person to provide the great solution when all he has done is what the previous government failed to do. He was a minister for a period and was to bring this legislation forward in the last parliament. In 2012 Labor introduced a new biosecurity bill to replace the century-old Quarantine Act. This new biosecurity bill included legislative changes in respect of international and domestic ballast water. It was already there. However, it lapsed because of the election and the dissolution of the 23rd parliament. It is disappointing that the 23rd parliament did not bring on that bill when we discussed the other biosecurity measures bill in the last parliament. But it is here, and it will ensure—if passed, and with us being a signatory to the convention on ballast water—that we are doing all we can to keep that clean, green image, which is so vital not just to our local domestic market but also to our export market.
When I was in Newcastle I had the opportunity to travel a little bit further south and meet with people involved in the fishing industry. They talked about the tuna they export. Some of the tuna stays here in Australia and some is exported. And they talked about the need to keep our marine ways, just like our land, as clean and green as possible. However, if, as a farmer, it is your land, it is a little bit easier to manage than waterways. These people spoke to me about the need for this legislation—how legislation like this does help. However, as I have said, we need to ensure that the people who are responsible for ensuring that the wrong thing is not done are doing that. If there is an Australian there who understands Australian laws then it is more likely that Australian laws will be followed. It is critical that as a country, as a parliament—a call to arms of the government—we do more to create and secure shipping jobs in the shipping industry, an industry that still exists, in our country. We have some very good seafarers out there, and at the moment they are unemployed. They want to work, and this government could do more to support them by looking at what other countries have done, looking at what a Jones Act could look like in Australia, ensuring that people who are working in Australian seas, just off our coasts, are Australians. It is an opportunity. It is a challenge to the government. But they should sit down and take seriously the need to employ more Australians on our seas.
Mr HOGAN (Page) (13:12): I rise with great joy to speak about the Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017, which we know, as many have said before me, is going to help enormously to manage biosecurity risks in our country and further strengthen our whole biosecurity system. We know the importance of this, because a good biosecurity system is going to help keep our economy strong. Why do I say that? Our agricultural industries are forecast to earn over $60 billion in 2016-17. And to indulge the member for Reid, who I know will be interested in some of the information I am now going to go into before I come back to this, I have many, many examples from my own electorate of the contribution it is making to this $60 billion in exports. It is very crucial to the economic wealth of our country, the taxes that are paid, the economic activity.
Let me start at the northern end of my electorate, around places like Woodenbong and Kyogle—great beef cattle country up there. A lot of the beef from there goes down the valley and ends up in Casino. Now, Casino has the biggest private employer in the electorate: 1,100 people work at the local abattoir there. It is by far the biggest private sector employer for many, many hundreds of kilometres. Again, it is a great practical example of the contribution the agricultural sector is playing in our region.
Another exciting one is further west. If you are in Casino, head towards the tablelands and you will end up in a place called Tabulam. It is a great place. It is on the heads of the Clarence River. Around there is a new industry that is contributing to this $60 billion that I mentioned earlier, and that is the blueberry industry, a very exciting industry. They are employing hundreds of people out there at Tabulam—and Tabulam is not a big place. I was there just a few months ago. I go there regularly, but when I turned up there a few months ago I turned around the corner and down the end I saw, where the cafe is, near the pub, all these cars. I thought, 'That's a lot of people here in Tabulam!'
I went down, and it was full of backpackers, it was full of young people and it was full of all these blueberry pickers who, again, are part of this contribution that the blueberry industry is making to this $60 billion in exports.
Other industries in my community have contributed to this $60 billion—actually, let us stay with blueberries and go south to Woolgoolga. The banana industry had some tough times down there. There is a wonderful Sikh community in Woolgoolga too. A lot of people who were previously growing bananas have switched to blueberries. There is a very vibrant industry down there, employing a lot of people not only regularly throughout the whole season but also, obviously, peaking in picking season. Again, they almost cannot find enough workers to pick these things, which is why the backpacker tax that we changed late last year was very important: we wanted backpacker tax rates to be competitive. We needed the rates to be competitive with other countries, but we certainly did not want to give those backpackers a lower tax rate than what the equivalent Australian full-time workers were getting, so that level of around 15 per cent was a fair rate to not only keep attracting the backpackers but also make sure that all those wonderful blueberries get picked.
There is more in the rivers and the ocean in my electorate. We still have commercial fishing fleets—good, quality fish—and they are making a strong contribution to the economy. The sugar industry have had a good season; prices are pretty good, so they are making a strong contribution as well. There are forestry products. I nearly forgot macadamias—Page would almost be the centre of the macadamia industry in Australia, and the first commercial plantations are not far from where I live. Again, they are getting very good prices in the macadamia industry, and a lot of it is exported. I might have forgotten to tell you that 70 per cent of the product from the abattoir, the meatworks, is exported.
What has happened? I will just mention briefly the free trade agreements that we have done. The free trade agreements that we did with China, South Korea and Japan were integral to finding new markets for all these industries and, of course, when you find new markets for product obviously what that means is more buyers for your products. But is that as good for the people who are sellers? We are sellers of these products and we have found new buyers and, because we have found new buyers, that means the prices for all these products are going up. Not only has that provided great extra cash flow for the producers but, very importantly, it has also provided extra cash flow for our towns, because the producers come into town and buy extra equipment. They may not have made that capital purchase for their farm previously, but now they are. Besides the good agricultural prices we are getting, I know the $20,000 tax write-off that we give for one-off purchases for equipment has greatly assisted this. Our towns are more vibrant because of the free trade agreements and the $20,000 tax write-off, and the prices for a lot of these agricultural products are doing very well.
Let me return to the bill. We know today's threats to biosecurity can emerge faster than before. If we let any biosecurity risk get out of control, all those examples that I spoke to you about are at risk. That is why this measure is very important. We saw the recent global outbreak of the zika virus, which was spread by mosquitoes. It has shown us how important control of disease-carrying pests is. This bill will provide additional powers to control exotic mosquitoes and other disease carriers at Australia's airports and seaports—that is obviously where a lot of the risk is—including on incoming aircraft and vessels. This includes spraying insecticide to kill the mosquitoes and other disease-carrying vectors capable of carrying viruses so that they do not establish populations in Australia. This bill also gives us the ability to direct airports and seaports to control such incursions. The bill is also going to strengthen Australia's ability to manage ballast water in ships. It will provide additional protection for fisheries and coastal environments from the risk of marine pest incursions by fostering new, more effective ballast-water treatment technologies and phasing out ballast-water exchange.
The bill will position us to ratify the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments. This convention was adopted in 2004 and signed by the Howard government in 2005. It is a key international measure for protecting marine environments and it aims to stop the global spread of potentially invasive and harmful aquatic organisms that can cause havoc to marine ecosystems—especially diseases that are current. One that I know has been mentioned in this place a number of times recently is white spot in prawns. These outbreaks can do great damage to whole industries. These organisms can be transported in the ballast water of ships travelling around the world, can affect biodiversity and can lead to substantial economic loss for our maritime industries. The convention is an important global initiative involving over 50 countries. It will come into force internationally on 8 September 2017, and we hope to ratify it this year.
For Australians more broadly, these amendments mean that there is much less risk of infection from viruses such as zika. It also means we can continue to enjoy the sea and all the joys that it brings to us. Strengthening Australia's biosecurity system through these legislative amendments means we can continue to enjoy our unique environment and way of life. I think we have stressed why protecting biodiversity is important. I think it is obvious that the current Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources has been very serious about these measures. One example that was quite famous was Pistol and Boo. We saw that just because you are a famous movie star does not mean you have the right to break our biodiversity laws. The minister made it quite clear that he would leave no stone unturned to make sure that Pistol and Boo did not damage the biosecurity of our country.
Earlier I was mentioning a few industries, and one that I was remiss of that I would also like to acknowledge—again, biodiversity is very important for this industry—is the dairy industry. I have the fortune to also have a very healthy dairy sector. The main processor is a co-op called Norco. I just happen to have in my region some of the most successful, largest and long-time operating co-ops in the country, and Norco is one of them. Very excitingly, they are exporting fresh milk into China. The volumes are quite small at the moment, but it is a market that they hope will grow over time. They have been maintaining good prices for our producers recently. The meatworks that I mentioned earlier is also a co-op, again one of the biggest in the country and one of the longest operating. The macadamia industry has a co-op, the fishing people have a co-op and blueberries have Oz Berries down near Woolgoolga, which is quite a new co-op. That has been very successful very quickly.
As a result of that, the agriculture minister was able to obtain close to $14 million to establish a national centre of excellence for cooperatives in this country. It was decided, I think quite wisely, to place that my electorate, in conjunction with Southern Cross University, a great regional university. That centre is operating now. The money for that is all about making more co-ops operate and be successful and about having more trained people for co-ops. If you are going to operate a co-op, you need specialist legal advice and specialist accounting advice. It is a very specialised operation in the way you raise capital and in the way you operate. This national centre of excellence for cooperatives is all about making sure that people who want to establish a co-op have the right technical expertise and the information and advice on hand to make it successful. We want this model to succeed. The agriculture minister is not necessarily about corporate farms—the big guys, the big corporations. He is about the co-op structure, which helps the little guys help each other. Especially in my region, that structure has been shown to be very successful. I am very excited about the national centre of excellence for cooperatives, based at Southern Cross University. There is a lot of expertise on hand with the wonderful co-ops in the region who already operate there. I know they are doing a lot of great work already to help this model thrive and prosper. These co-ops would not thrive and prosper if we did not have strong biosecurity laws, which brings me back to the bill.
As I have said, over a number of years, since September 2013, the agriculture minister has shown that he is not only committed to biosecurity—this bill is further proof of that, and I have given examples of that in this speech—but also committed to the success of co-ops in this space and to the success of agricultural industries in this country more broadly. We are seeing the fruits of that—no pun intended!—because we are seeing higher prices for a whole array of agricultural products. I commend this bill. I could go on, but I am going to seek leave from the member for Reid.
Mr LAUNDY (Reid—Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) (13:25): Like the member for Page, I own several pairs of RM Williams; however, that is really as close as I get to the rural sector in the seat I represent. The member for Page gave us a plethora of fine examples, the highlight of which was quite clearly the Deputy Prime Minister and how seriously he takes biosecurity. When it comes to taking head-on two of Hollywood's heavyweights, he did not flinch. Into battle he went—forgive the pun. Pistol and Boo originally came here unannounced and undetected, but the Deputy Prime Minister was not prepared to let this slide. That is the measure of how he became an instant overnight Hollywood success. And we laugh about that, and Hollywood made fun of that. What the member for Page knows better than most in this place, I would argue, given that he is the holder of a proud rural seat, is the importance of our agricultural sector to this great country.
I note the change in the deputy speaker, with Deputy Speaker Coulton now being in the chair. He holds an agricultural seat, in which my brother-in-law has a substantial landholding and is a farmer, up near Moree. Although I do not hold an agricultural seat, I have the honour of being the Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science. One of the first growth centres coming out of the National Innovation and Science Agenda in December 2015 was the agricultural growth centre, the most developed of the six. Earlier today I met with the leader of that growth centre, listening to the success stories that are feeding into the $60 billion role that this industry, agriculture, will play in the next 12 months in this great country. I am married to a country girl. I remember being down in Coolac a few years ago, when cattle farmers were getting $1.75 or $1.80 per kilo. Today the same cattle is selling for $3.70 a kilo. The resultant change in business has come. Capital has flown into the sector. We hear a lot about foreign investment in our agricultural sector, but it pales into insignificance when you consider the capital that has been freed up, with increased commodity prices, for so-long depressed farmers to reinvest in their landholdings and their families' future. It is great see as I travel around.
I could list innovation after innovation that I have seen spawned not just from our agricultural growth centre but from great government institutions like CSIRO. Recently I was there talking to a great company that has cattle collars—it is a virtual fence concept. They use GPS technology, solar charged, around the neck of cattle. They program the fences on the software. It has an electrical charge and a noise. You can more efficiently chart how the cattle move around the paddocks and their proximity to water without building the traditional, capital-intensive fence. Because the cattle are walking far less distance, the profile of their weight gain is far more attractive, productive and profitable, and that feeds in.
This bill is a great bill because it makes that $60 billion safe. We take this seriously. This is an international treaty. It was started in 2004-05. We have signed up to it and it will be implemented later this year. The member for Page mentioned waterborne prawn viruses and the role that we have with our shipping—not often thought of. You know when you go overseas on a plane and you come back and you see them walking along with aerosols to get mosquitoes that could be travelling—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The assistant minister will get an opportunity at that time to return to his enlightened and relevant contribution to this debate.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Paterson Electorate: Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival
Ms SWANSON (Paterson) (13:30): The skirts were full and the Brylcreem jars were nearing empty in Kurri Kurri, my home town, in my electorate last weekend for the annual Nostalgia Festival. Mother Nature turned on some magnificent autumn days for the annual celebration of old time rock-and-roll, which attracts tens of thousands of people to Kurri Kurri each year to enjoy the music, the fashion, the classic cars and the dancing of the fifties and sixties. Devotees go to great lengths to dress up and look the part, in their full circle skirts and slicked back sides, and the show and shine of classic cars is a true testament to the power of chamois on chrome.
It was my great honour to officially open the festival, along with Cessnock Mayor Bob Pynsent and Miss Cessnock City 2015, Emma Myers. I also had the great pleasure of judging the inaugural cake competition, held by Kurri Kurri Public School. It was great to see the school involved in the annual festival, and I want to praise the teachers and students, who went all-out to provide so much more for visitors at the festival to do and see. Kurri Kurri is just an awesome town. I may be biased since I grew up there and only live up the road. But the annual Nostalgia Festival is a great way for us all to show it off. I officially welcome all members of the House to come and enjoy the Nostalgia Festival on the last weekend in March in Kurri Kurri.
Illicit Drugs
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (13:32): We are a high-value, high-price illicit drug economy and the international drug cartels know it, so the last thing we want to be doing is pill testing at music festivals. For goodness sake, the only safe bill is one that is not swallowed. When you deem a pill safe, how are four illicit pills safe? You cannot control the volume. What you do by calling pills safe is endorse the entire upstream provision line of drug cartels and associated groups. When you deem a pill safe, you then sanction all of the health effects that follow. For goodness sake, the only safe pill testing is a sniffer dog and appearing before the law. That is why we call drugs 'illicit'.
Hotels and licensed premises should not be mixing energy drugs and alcohol. I hear Labor MPs laughing. When you drink energy drinks and alcohol together you double the chances of being taken advantage of sexually and you double the chances that you will take advantage of someone sexually—the smiles are dropping off their faces now—you double the chances that you will drive in a vehicle with someone who is intoxicated and you treble the likelihood of binge consumption. As the state, we do not want to endorse that; we want to stop it. I can understand some young people, every weekend, want to be drug-effed, but that is not a good enough reason to sanction that on Monday morning. The hallucinations, the health effects, the days lost and the sickies—stand up to it. There is no such thing as a safe pill. Do not let music festivals start testing pills. We should not have pills in music festivals; we should be able to go to them safely without illicit drugs.
Werriwa Electorate: Roads
Ms STANLEY (Werriwa) (13:33): Two weeks ago, the shadow assistant minister for infrastructure, the member for Shortland and I visited a causeway in my electorate, where Cambridge Avenue passes over the Georges River at Glenfield. The road is a major artery, particularly for the suburbs to the west, providing a vital shorter link to the motorway and the Sydney CBD beyond. The causeway crosses the boundary between where the road is Commonwealth property, on the Defence lands around Holsworthy, and where it enters the surrounding suburbs. Consequently, responsibility for upgrading the crossing has been the subject of buck-passing between three levels of government for quite some time, much to the frustration of many local residents, and the subject of representations from the previous members for Werriwa.
I note that with the additional rain in our area over the last two weeks the road has again been forced to close for a number of days, forcing local residents to add upwards of half an hour to their daily commutes. This is by no means a rare occurrence and, understandably, continues to be a source of great frustration for local residents. This frustration has only grown with the inability of any organisation to take responsibility for the problem, and the impending construction of the Moorebank intermodal will add even more congestion to a thoroughfare that is barely coping at the moment. It is time that the state and federal Liberal governments put aside their differences and worked together to end the ridiculous stalemate on the much needed upgrade to the causeway.
Cyclone Debbie
Ms LANDRY (Capricornia—Deputy Nationals Whip) (13:35): As we stand here today, the people of Central and North Queensland are battened down amidst the worst cyclone to hit since 2011. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the residents as they brace themselves for Tropical Cyclone Debbie. Central and North Queensland—and, in particular, Collinsville, Sarina, Mackay and surrounds—please know that we are with you. We are ready and will be supporting you through this.
The federal government is preparing for the impact and ensuring all precautions are taken. There is anticipation of abnormally high tides and flash flooding in addition to the destructive winds that require particular diligence even after the eye has passed. The Australian Air Force airlift aircraft as well as Army and Navy rotary wing assets are being prepared for potential requests to move personnel and relief stores. Army engineering elements are also being prepared to provide assistance in road clearance and debris removal. Emergency Management Australia has activated the Australian government disaster response plan in anticipation of requests for non-financial disaster assistance. The coalition government is taking all necessary action to ensure the safety and recovery of all those affected. We will work with all levels of government to minimise the impact on the people living through this.
Medicare
Mr KHALIL (Wills) (13:36): Many people in my electorate of Wills have called me, written to me or even just come up to me at the regular street stalls that I conduct to complain about the fact that it is no longer possible to lodge a Medicare rebate in person. They miss being able to just walk into a Medicare office, hand over an invoice from their trip to the doctor, along with their little green card, and have their rebate processed then and there.
Following changes occurring under this coalition government, Medicare claims now must be either submitted online or taken to a Centrelink office to be sent to a regional processing centre—I am not sure where; it could be Armidale. Whereas once you would be handed cash on the spot, the claims process is now known to take weeks. For elderly people in particular, the online option presents real access issues and the extended processing times can cause financial hardship. For people of a non-English speaking background, who may need help navigating the claims process, face to face help is now extremely limited or non-existent in most cases.
We do not want people skipping visits to their GP because they cannot afford to be out of pocket for so long, or because the claims process is difficult to understand. Labor in government took the step of amalgamating Medicare and Centrelink service centres to create a more efficient human services system. But this government cut face-to-face services entirely. That is not an efficiency—it is an attack on the quality of Medicare and Medicare services. These changes have occurred at the expense of service quality. For something as critical as our health care system, this is simply unacceptable.
Berowra Electorate: Hornsby Connect
Mr LEESER (Berowra) (13:38): On 15 March this year I was delighted to attend the opening and launch of Hornsby Connect, a great new organisation in my electorate of Berowra that provides free food and low-cost everyday items to community members who are experiencing financial hardship. Food and items are sourced from Foodbank New South Wales and ACT and include a range of everyday products you would find in your local supermarket. Hornsby Connect now has over 100 registered clients from all over the Berowra area and as far away as Blacktown. I am honoured to serve as a patron of such a fantastic organisation. At the launch you could see that the organisation was so well supported—by Hornsby Lions, by Berowra Lions, by St Ives Rotary, by the Asquith Magpies and by Hornsby Breakthrough Church.
I want to thank the hardworking and dedicated volunteers that have made Hornsby Connect, led by inspirational president Steve Hopwood, possible: Doug Reid, Bill Bradley, David Kerr, Graham Hosking, Julian Baez Avellaneda, Clover Bradley, Ralph Estherby, Brian Engert, Bill Glover and Ian Westmoreland. Their vision, 'A hand up to all in need', provides hope to those who need it most. In times of hardship, knowing you have the support of your community and those around you often makes the biggest difference. Hornsby Connect aims to foster strong community spirit and combat social isolation and loneliness. Clients enter a safe environment and leave with a renewed sense of hope and optimism. I wish Hornsby Connect many, many years of success in the future.
Endometriosis
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (13:39): One in ten women have endometriosis. That is one in ten teenage girls missing classes at-school because of excruciating pain; that is one in ten young women being forced to take time off work for treatment and operations; that is one in ten women living in fear of infertility. Unfortunately, these girls, these young women, these women, largely suffer this insidious disease in stoic silence. Endometriosis is a disease where tissue that is similar to the lining of the womb grows outside the womb, in other parts of the body. Symptoms are variable, which is why there is usually a seven- to 10-year delay in diagnosis. Endo has been described as a nightmare of misinformation, myths, taboos, lack of diagnosis and problematic hit-and-miss treatments overlaid on a painful, chronic, stubborn disease.
On Saturday I had the honour of giving the keynote address at an EndoMarch afternoon tea at Old Canberra House, organised by Endometriosis Australia. Endo sufferers and their families and friends donned yellow and gathered to raise funds for research and, most importantly, raise awareness about this disease. We have to keep having a conversation about endometriosis—we have to end the silence on this disease. It is affecting one in 10 women, young women, girls, in Australia every day.
Rice Industry
Ms LEY (Farrer) (13:41): Almost all of the rice in Australia is grown in my electorate of Farrer. The majority of this is onsold to Ricegrowers Ltd—better known by its main brand, SunRice, one of the world's largest rice food companies. From their main production base at Leeton, up to 80 per cent of this local rice is exported to around 60 destinations throughout the Middle East, North America and Asia. The rice industry generates $800 million in revenue each year and employs and supports thousands of people in regional Australia, mainly southern New South Wales. Unlike our competitors around the world our industry operates without export or production subsidies. Rice production is also at the forefront of 21st century technology and is becoming more and more water efficient. It takes about the same amount of water to grow a paddock of lucerne as it does to grow a paddock of rice. Plus, the saturation of the soil supports the next crop, for example wheat or pasture .
My call to action to every Australian is to buy Australian rice. It is very easy—SunRice continues to produce innovative products that are quick to prepare, that are organic, and there are lots of new varieties, lots of different packaging and so on. Not only are you supporting farmers and food producers; you are getting yourself the healthiest possible product, grown sustainably and with value added every single step of the way.
Braddon Electorate: Produce to the People
Ms KEAY (Braddon) (13:42): I was pleased to connect local social enterprise Produce to the People with the Costa Group, which is seeing about 100 kilograms of strawberries each week going to those in need. Produce to the People was started in Burnie by Penelope Dodd following a bumper crop of tomatoes leading to the thought of what is happening to all the excess backyard-grown produce on the north-west coast of Tasmania? Produce to the People is situated next to Burnie High School, and utilises the school's old garden and now grows crops for harvest. It has hothouses, chooks, alpacas, storage for food and a distribution point for people to come and take home the food they need, no questions asked.
From these humble beginnings Produce to the People has gone on to help thousands of individuals and families in need in my electorate. In February alone Produce to the People assisted 871 people, which was a 55 per cent increase in the previous year with more than 3.2 tonnes of produce grown, gathered and given. Produce to the People has an important ethos—to provide food that is nutritious and fresh. A special mention must go to Produce to the People, the volunteers, and its founder, Penelope Dodd, who has shown a determination to find solutions to keep this service operational despite funding limitations. I would also like to thank Michael Toby at Costa's for his work in making sure this partnership was possible.
Maranoa Electorate: Small Business
Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa) (13:44): Like vertebrae to a spine, small business is the strongest pillar in Australia's economy. This government is forging ahead with our 10-year enterprise tax plan and diligently working to ensure small business continues to thrive in an environment that enables them to be creative and take advantage of the opportunities around them. This week, two small businesses supporting the Warwick community announced their plans to diversify in the local Warwick Daily News. Mark and Rosie Favero own the Belle Vue Cafe and last week they took a new and exciting step in launching the Pickle and Must delicatessen. The opening of the deli marks a very special occasion for the Faveros as they just celebrated the fifth anniversary of their running the Belle Vue Cafe.
Mark and Rosie are standing firmly behind the Warwick community and are planning to buy as many locally produced products from the beautiful Southern Downs Region. Mark and Rosie have also been able to ensure they have the dedicated employees behind them to ensure this venture is a success. A big congratulations to Mark, Rosie and the team.
Another exciting opportunity in Warwick has been created by Cathy Ryan and her sister, Kim Bailey. They are transforming the old Baringa Nursery into the Baringa Gardens and Little Kimmy's Tea Rooms. Cathy and Kim are going to offer the Warwick community a unique and beautiful garden venue with catering for those very special occasions. A big congratulations go to Cathy and Kim for seeing an opportunity and being willing to seize it.
The investment of these entrepreneurs demonstrates that if government puts the right environment around small business they will have the confidence to invest in communities like Warwick.
Australian Small Business Champion Awards
Ms LAMB (Longman) (13:45): Caboolture woman Sammie Lee Milgate has been achieving success in the very competitive music industry for years. But not wanting to steal the spotlight herself, Sammie has created and runs her own small business, Live Music Promotions. It is a publicity and marketing agency for dozens of bands and music venues right across the east coast of Australia.
For a very long time social stigma has led many to believe that women like Sammie just cannot do it—that they are supposed to stay at home and fall into the trap of traditional gender roles. Sammie has wrestled with this stigma throughout her professional career, but it is her success that proves not just that women can do it but they can do it really well.
I have good news. Sammie has been nominated as a finalist in the 2017 Australian Small Business Champion Awards, which are being held this Saturday. This is the second year in a row that Sammie has been nominated. She is just one example of the amazing work that women right across the electorate of Longman are achieving—what they are doing, the efforts they are putting in and how they are being recognised right across Australia.
I urge you to join with me in wishing her the best for the awards on Saturday night at the Australian Small Business Champion Awards.
Groom Electorate: Tourism
Dr McVEIGH (Groom) (13:47): Growth in Australia's inbound tourism industry of 11 per cent over the past 12 months is almost triple the current average around the world. And Tourism Research Australia's advice of 29 per cent over the past three years is welcome news indeed.
While our Groom electorate has a strong diversified regional economy, we have much to do to develop our tourism sector. A 12 per cent decrease in international visitors to the Darling Downs over the past 12 months and a fall of 23 per cent in their average nights stayed is cause for concern, especially when Queensland as a whole has seen a rise of 10 per cent.
In January I convened a Toowoomba meeting with people including Mayor Paul Antonio, Councillor Geoff McDonald and John Wagner, together with Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Keith Pitt. Local tourism leaders have subsequently begun robust conversations about how our industry best attracts and services these visitors going forward. And I look forward to further developments.
Since my election last year, I have advocated that we must capitalise on current growth and infrastructure investment and develop the jobs of the future in our region. Defence industry opportunities abound. We are kicking goals in agricultural exports. We maintain our focus on health and education excellence. While we extracted $62 million from international visitors last year, there is much, much more to be done.
Bendigo Electorate: Easter Festival
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (13:48): It is the last sitting week before Easter. Many take time off over Easter, but not in Bendigo. Bendigo actually has the longest continuous Easter festival in our country. Since the 1890s, we have always had an imperial Chinese dragon involved in the main event of our Easter festival, the Gala Parade. First it was Loong, who was first involved in the Easter festival in the 1890s. Loong is so well regarded that he was actually involved in Federation. He is one of the only artefacts remaining of Federation and the birth of this place.
When Loong became old he was replaced with Sun Loong. With the assistance of Qantas in the 1960s, Sun Loong, made in Hong Kong by dragon experts, was flown to Australia. He has participated in every Easter festival since. Now, Sun Loong is too old and needs to retire by 2018. So the Bendigo community, the Bendigo Chinese Association and the Golden Dragon Museum have kickstarted a campaign asking people to donate towards the purchase of Dai Gum Loong, the third dragon that we hope to have in Bendigo since the 1890s.
This is an opportunity for the Federal government to get on board and help Bendigo purchase its third dragon. This long legacy of Chinese dragons needs to continue. (Time expired)
Forrest Electorate: Harvey Primary School
Ms MARINO (Forrest—Chief Government Whip) (13:50): I want to acknowledge and thank Colin and Teresa Brand, the principal and deputy principal of Harvey Primary School, for the last 12 years of their work. Colin's motto throughout his time has always been, 'Kids come first: if it's good for kids, it's worthwhile doing.'
The school received from the director-general the excellence in education award after completing an educational review of the school. Mr Brand said very few schools receive this award. The school also received: the WA Primary School of the Year runner-up; the PALS schools reconciliation award for attendance across all schools in the state; the Good Goal SGIO Award for indigenous attendance in 2016.
Other achievements include: the development and establishment of the digital technologies program throughout the school; the strong emphasis on bringing the school community together in establishing the outdoor classroom and quiet garden area; the building and maintenance of the earth cage facility at the school; developing strong winds with Alcoa, the Leukaemia Foundation and service groups; the organisation and coordination of four Canberra tours since 2009, providing an opportunity for over 240 students from Harvey. There has been enormous support and guidance.
Deputy Principal Teresa Brand has driven the virtues program at the school, driving a strong culture. She has had a strong role in establishing attendance processes that have been recognised throughout the state. Her role in guiding the student leaders in a tireless approach to the management of student services cannot be undervalued.
I want to thank them both and wish them all the best in their new school in Esperance. Twelve years of great work!
Oxley Electorate: Queen's Scout Award
Mr DICK (Oxley) (13:51): Recently I had the honour of attending the presentation of the prestigious Queen's Scout Award to Goodna Scout Group member Koby Saunter. I was proud to join to Chief Commissioner of Scouts Queensland Mr Daryl Scott; Goodna Rover Crew Chair Mr Lachlan Purcell; Group Leader of Scouts Goodna Mrs Bernice Eickenloff; Venturer Scout Leader of Goodna Katrina Saunter; the Deputy Mayor of Ipswich Councillor Paul Tully; Councillor Kerry Silver and the Lady Mayoress of Ipswich, Mrs Janet Pisasale.
The Queen's Scout Award is highly regarded by our community at large and the Royal Certificate is presented to the venturer scout by a representative of the Queen. The requirements are designed to be inspiring and challenging and to take scouts to a much higher and demanding level. To achieve this, scouts must be able to demonstrate the following: to set a goal; to plan their progress; to organise themselves; to maintain the determination to complete the task while overcoming setbacks and difficulties. Leadership development, which is particularly important, prepares the venturer scout for responsibilities in a democratic society through being involved in unit management and leadership courses.
I send my sincere congratulations to Koby, his proud parents Katrina and Jason, the Goodna Scouts and all of the past leaders, venturers and everyone else who have helped Koby achieve his Queen Scout Award. Koby, good luck for the road ahead, and I know you will continue to achieve great things for our local community.
Cyclone Debbie
Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (13:53): Tropical Cyclone Debbie is on the coast between Bowen, Proserpine and the Whitsundays as we speak. Currently a category 4 system, it is moving slowly, delivering savage, destructive winds of up to 270 kilometres an hour. It is creating a one-metre storm surge and eight-metre waves at Mackay. It is dumping large amounts of rain across much of North and Central Queensland and is expected to continue inland in the direction of Clermont, delivering heavy rain to the interior.
The danger is not contained to the north. After good rain last week in Central Queensland, which was already very wet, Flood Watch is active from Cardwell to Gladstone. Many areas within Flynn are at high risk of flooding—Gracemere and Rockhampton are in danger of serious flash flooding; Mount Larcom and Raglan are facing road closures on the Bruce Highway.
I wish to caution Flynn residents who may find themselves in difficulty to prepare their properties, but I guess this has already been done as the warnings have been out for a couple of days.
Cyclone Debbie shows us just how unpredictable the weather can be. After a very short, hot summer, many now find they have gone from drought to flooding rains and gale-force winds. I hope Debbie delivers much-needed rainfall to the areas of Flynn that missed out in the last week, but I hope it does not cause too much damage.
Racial Discrimination Act 1975
Mr PERRETT (Moreton—Opposition Whip) (13:54): The report from the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee about the proposed legislation to amend section 18C was tabled at 12:30 today. The committee held one hearing over just a few hours with less than 48 hours' notice given to participants.
No Indigenous Australians or representative bodies were invited to appear before the committee. The Aboriginal Legal Service wanted to be heard, and Labor members argued for them to appear but the free-speech champions in the government denied the Aboriginal Legal Service the opportunity to speak.
Unsurprisingly, the coalition-dominated committee made only one recommendation—that this rushed and dangerous bill be passed. Already the bill has been put to the Senate to be debated. This is an appalling way to crunch our democratic process, especially for something with such potentially dangerous consequences.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, for which I am the deputy chair, has already considered possible changes to section 18C. We handed down a report in late February. Our inquiry was still rushed over 112 days but we at least had hearings in every capital city. Our committee actually heard from Indigenous Australians, their representative bodies and representatives of the Jewish community and multicultural community.
We heard the real harm that racist hate speech causes to individuals and their communities. The report from the human rights committee made no recommendation to change the Racial Discrimination Act. I ask the Prime Minister to reconsider the message that this divisive legislation will send—not to the fair-minded 99 per cent Australians but the hateful one per cent—(Time expired)
Fairfax Electorate: Centenary of Coolum State School
Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (13:56): As Shakespeare had it, what is in a name? Take a relatively unassuming sort of name like Ellen Chapman. There was an Ellen Chapman who in 1912 was president of the Women's Social and Political Union, a suffragette who had to wait another 16 long years before women in Britain finally got the vote. Then there was a very different Ellen Chapman who in 2004 was crowned Miss California USA.
There was yet another Ellen Chapman—a young country schoolteacher who was appointed by the Queensland government to teach a school of just 11 students in the Coolum School of Arts Hall, where classes commenced on Monday, 2 April 1917. It is exactly 100 years ago this Sunday since Ellen Chapman, Coolum's first schoolteacher, gave her first lesson.
And so what is in a name, Mr Speaker? Well, in the name Ellen Chapman, you would find a proud 100-year legacy of a school that has operated through war, drought and depression through to this very day and now with over 1000 students and a principal of over 20 years' standing, who is following in the footsteps of Ellen Chapman, and some of the best teachers in Queensland. On behalf of the Australian Parliament, happy 100th to Coolum State School.
Gilmore Electorate: Regional Motorsports Complex
Mr STEPHEN JONES (Whitlam) (13:58): The reputations of governments stand on the commitments and promises they make before an election and their willingness to follow through on those promises and deliver on them. It is not just the big promises like the one not to cut Medicare and the promise not to cut promises, but it is also the local commitments. That is why it is such a disgrace that prior to the last election the coalition promised to deliver $9.7 million to build the Shoalhaven Motorsports Complex near Nowra.
Last night it was revealed in parliament by the member for Gilmore that this promise is going to be broken. I had doubts about the project at the time, but I had no doubts about the need for the Shoalhaven region to get $10 million to deliver on jobs and infrastructure. It is an area that is suffering from 13 per cent unemployment.
The Prime Minister should take a direct interest in this issue. It is not just the reputation of the member for Gilmore that is on the line, it is also the reputation of the Prime Minister. It is not my job to stand up for jobs in the electorate of Gilmore; it is the job of the member for Gilmore. But if she will not do the job, I am willing to do it and the members on this side of the House are willing to do it.
I have written to the minister responsible and asked her to guarantee that this funding will be guaranteed for the electorate of Gilmore. I provide the Prime Minister with a copy of this letter—(Time expired)
Meat Exports
Mr LLEW O'BRIEN (Wide Bay) (13:59): The coalition government is securing new markets for farmers. Australian farmers export around two-thirds of their produce, and the coalition government is promoting better relationships with our trading partners to secure even more opportunities for domestic producers. I welcome the joint statement on enhancing inspection and quarantine cooperation between Australia and China signed by the Deputy Prime Minister last week. It is estimated to boost Australia's meat exports by around $400 million per year, creating more jobs in regional Australia.
The agreement expands the chilled meat trade and fast-tracks a listing of 15 establishments eligible for exporting meat to China. Meat processing is a major employer in Wide Bay, and it is hoped this agreement will benefit the Wide Bay economy. This builds upon the $10 billion of agricultural trade Australia does with China, including $867 million of beef, $230 million of sheep meat and $221 million of live export. This new deal will help to boost farmgate returns for producers.
Everyone knows Labor and the Greens hate agriculture. They were disastrous in government. They killed the Indonesian export trade. Agriculture's share of GDP went backwards under Labor in their last quarter, whereas agriculture's contribution to GDP grew by 23.7 per cent in the most recent quarter. Labor killed agriculture; the coalition is committed to its prosperity. (Time expired)
The SPEAKER: In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Workplace Relations
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:01): My question is to the Prime Minister. We know that the Prime Minister changes his policies when he feels pressure from the Liberal party room, so why doesn't he feel any pressure to act when nearly 700,000 workers are facing penalty rate cuts on Sundays?
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:01): I thank the honourable member for his question. As he knows very well, the Fair Work Commission's decision to bring Sunday penalty rates closer to Saturday penalty rates was based on a careful and objective assessment of the circumstances in the retail and hospitality sectors. That independent umpire concluded that by bringing those Sunday penalty rates closer to Saturday ones it would create thousands more jobs, that more businesses would be open on weekends thus providing more opportunities for employment. That was the object of the inquiry. It was an inquiry started by the Leader of the Opposition by a body with members appointed by the Labor Party and which the Leader of the Opposition pledged to support.
The opposition has not one policy that supports business—not one. Eighty-seven per cent of Australian workers work for the private sector. That is right. That is where the job growth comes from. That is where the opportunities come from. Labor has nothing to offer. It wants to impose higher taxes on Australian business and higher energy prices. It opposes measures to improve employment. It stands in the way of the jobs and growth that Australians deserve. I challenge honourable members opposite to name one policy of Labor's that would create one extra job—just one. It does not have any. It wants to impose higher electricity prices, less reliable electricity, higher taxes and higher debt and it wants to oppose free trade. There is nothing that the Labor Party has to offer to the businesses of Australia, and that means those businesses will not be given the incentive to offer more jobs to more Australians.
Cyclone Debbie
Mr CHRISTENSEN (Dawson) (14:04): My question is to the Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister is aware, Tropical Cyclone Debbie is crossing the coast in my electorate as we speak. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the government's preparations for and planned response to Tropical Cyclone Debbie's impact upon my constituency of Dawson and across North Queensland?
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:04): I thank the honourable member for his question. The thoughts and prayers of all honourable members are with his constituents and all of the people of North Queensland facing Tropical Cyclone Debbie. As the honourable member noted, the cyclone has made landfall now, we are told, between Bowen and Proserpine. It is a category 4 cyclone with winds of up to 270 kilometres an hour near the centre. Conditions have deteriorated rapidly, as the honourable member is aware. The Whitsunday Islands are experiencing especially destructive winds, and this will increase.
The federal and Queensland governments have prepared well for the onset of this cyclone. We have activated the disaster response plan to provide Queensland with every assistance that they need. The Australian Defence Force has established a joint task force and is ready to deploy assets to affected areas to assist in the search and rescue and then relief and recovery. Yesterday, the ADF supported the SES and Queensland Police Service in doorknocking in Bowen, Proserpine and Airlie Beach. HMAS Choules is on its way to support disaster relief efforts and has helicopters and medical personnel on board to provide emergency assistance. Air Force airlift aircrafts, as well as Army and Navy helicopters, are ready to assist in moving personnel and relief provisions into the affected areas. Army engineering units are prepared to provide assistance clearing roads and removing debris.
This morning I spoke again, as I have over the last 24 hours, with Premier Palaszczuk. At her request, with the Minister for Defence, I have arranged for Brigadier Chris Field, currently the commander of 3rd Brigade in Townsville, to act as the recovery coordinator for Tropical Cyclone Debbie. He is a distinguished military officer and he is the right man to head this recovery effort. I note that following the floods of 2011 he was the chief of operation and planned the Queensland Reconstruction Authority.
Our emergency services are the best in the world, and they are ready to respond as soon as Tropical Cyclone Debbie passes. There are around 1,000 people deployed or on stand-by to assist, and we thank them for their courage, their commitment and their selfless service. We are also working with the insurance and banking sectors to ensure that all factors are taken into consideration and all consideration is given when claims are made by households and businesses as a result of this cyclone.
I would reiterate what I said yesterday to those in the path of the cyclone: take care and stay safe. It is too dangerous to stay outside. Be prepared to shelter in place until Wednesday. Emergency services will only be able to respond after the cyclone has passed and the winds have subsided. If you are sheltering at home, make sure you are prepared and listen to the radio for cyclone updates. When it is safe to do so check on your neighbours, friends and family, and look out for each other. Stay off the roads and do not drive through floodwater. Remember to stay calm and stay safe.
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:07): I would like to briefly associate the opposition with the government's remarks. Right now the Prime Minister's words and the parliament's sentiments might not be able to be heard by the people in the brunt of this storm. There will be people at home without power, perhaps, people in shelters trying to ensure that their families are safe. Perhaps the only thing they can hear right now is cyclonic winds and the noise of lethal flying debris. It must be very harrowing for the people going through this. We are very fortunate to have the nurses and doctors serving in the wards, the emergency services, the volunteers, the ADF and the local government workforce. I want to say, in association with the Prime Minister's remarks, that I think all Australians are thinking, hoping and praying for the best possible outcomes for the people caught up in this terrible storm.
Workplace Relations
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:08): My question is to the Prime Minister. We know that the Prime Minister is prepared to give into his Liberal opponents on every other issue, so why won't the Prime Minister now give in to Labor and support our private member's bill to protect penalty rates? When will the government stop fighting itself and start fighting for the conditions of Australian workers?
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:09): Every day the government is delivering the economic growth that Australians deserve. Every policy of ours is focused on delivering more investment, more jobs, more opportunities for Australian families. Only last week we saw a dramatic increase in the export market for chilled beef into China—another opportunity for Australian farmers and regional Australia building on the already substantial achievements of our free trade deals. We are now, in the Senate, seeking to secure the cuts in business tax that will provide great incentives for businesses to invest.
The Labor Party seems to think that you can increase tax on business and life will go on regardless. Of course they regard the tax that companies pay as the government's property. They regard all of the profits that companies make as the government's property. They have no interest in supporting the investment, the jobs or the growth that Australians need. It is that simple. If you want more investment, increase the return on investment. If you want less investment, increase the tax on investment. That is Labor's policy: less investment, less business, fewer jobs. It is the path to poverty. That is where Labor leads. They used to be committed to prosperity, but not any longer. They have abandoned the commitment to growth. They have abandoned Australian workers. They have abandoned the future.
Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting—
Ms Butler interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Lyons and the member for Griffith are warned.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
The SPEAKER (14:11): I would like to inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the Hon. Bob Baldwin, a former member for Paterson. On behalf of the House, I extend a very warm welcome to you. I also inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the Rt Hon. Peter Lilley, visiting from the House of Commons in London. On behalf of the House, I extend a very warm welcome to you.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Cyclone Debbie
Ms LANDRY (Capricornia—Deputy Nationals Whip) (14:11): My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry representing the Minister for Defence. Will the minister update the House on the actions currently being undertaken by the Australian Defence Force in preparation for the disruption and damage as a result of Tropical Cyclone Debbie? How will the ADF assist Queenslanders during and after this natural disaster?
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Defence Industry) (14:12): I thank the member for Capricornia for her question. As the Prime Minister has already said, Cyclone Debbie is quite probably making landfall as we sit here in this chamber in question time debating the issues of the day. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of North Queensland, who are yet again going through another destructive cyclone—Mother Nature wreaking her revenge on us poor humans here on Earth. The member for Capricornia has been through this before, of course, with Cyclone Yasi, and now again with Cyclone Debbie.
The ADF is ready and willing to do its part to support the residents of North Queensland—the businesses, the communities, the individuals and the families—that will be affected by this natural disaster which is shaping up on our shores. To update the House, a joint task force, primarily made up of personnel and engineering equipment from the Townsville-based 3rd Brigade, is prepared to provide support within the region, including aeromedical evacuation, search and rescue, road clearance, restoration of essential services, emergency accommodation and the delivery of stores. Air Force aircraft in Townsville, Amberley and Darwin are on standby to provide airlift capability for the delivery of essential stores and equipment as well as wide area surveillance. The supply ship HMAS Choules departed Sydney on Monday and is heading north to Queensland to be ready to support recovery efforts if required. Two Navy MRH-90 Taipanhelicopters have deployed to Oakey and are ready to provide immediate support in addition to the existing Army rotary-wing aircraft already in Townsville.
It is sad to hear the member for Batman trying to make political mileage out of a tragedy that could well engulf people in North Queensland. His cynicism is really disgraceful, and stands in very stark contrast to the comments of the Premier of Queensland, Anastasia Palaszczuk, who said today about the role of the Commonwealth and the ADF:
I have never seen this level of preparation. I also want to thank the Prime Minister. I spoke to him first thing yesterday morning, I spoke to him again late last night. The level of cooperation is unprecedented and I said to him, I thank you very much for making the Australian Defence Force personnel available to help Queenslanders in their hour of need.
We agree with the Premier of Queensland. The ADF will put its best foot forward to ensure that the people of North Queensland are supported by the Australian government. I, and on behalf of the government, thank those people for the sacrifices that they will make on behalf of Australia and on behalf of the government.
Workplace Relations
Paid Parental Leave
Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat) (14:15): My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister supports cutting the penalty rates of nearly 700,000 Australians by up to $77 every week, and, under this Prime Minister, a nurse in New South Wales would lose eight weeks of paid parental leave, a cut of around $5,300—
Ms Flint interjecting —
Mr Falinski: No, it's the Fair Work Commission.
Mr Pyne interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Ballarat will resume her seat. Take a seat. Members on my right will cease interjecting—the Leader of the House, the member for Boothby and others. I cannot hear the question. The member for Ballarat will begin her question again.
Ms CATHERINE KING: My question is again to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister supports cutting the penalty rates of nearly 700,000 Australians by up to $77 a week, and, under the Prime Minister, a nurse in New South Wales would lose eight weeks of paid parental leave, a cut of around $5,300. When will the Prime Minister stop fighting other Liberals—
Government members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Ballarat will resume her seat. I am going to caution those members on my right again. We are going to do it a third time. I am going to hear the question. This time, if there are any interjections, members will be removed.
Ms CATHERINE KING: The Prime Minister supports cutting the penalty rates of nearly 700,000 Australians by up to $77 every week, and, under this Prime Minister, a nurse in New South Wales would lose eight weeks of paid parental leave, a cut of around $5,300. When will this Prime Minister stop fighting other Liberals and start fighting for Australian workers?
The SPEAKER: The Minister for Social Services has the call.
Mr Hammond: He's not even the health minister.
The SPEAKER: The member for Perth will cease interjecting.
Mr PORTER (Pearce—Minister for Social Services) (14:16): The question was obviously in two parts, and, despite a very clumsy effort to pretend that they were the same thing, they are very different. One was with respect to penalty rates, which, of course, does not affect nurses at all in any way, shape or form.
Government members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members on my right.
Mr PORTER: Notwithstanding what members opposite would like to be able to twist and manipulate and lie about here in the House, it has absolutely nothing to do with and has no reach whatsoever with respect to nurses.
Ms Kate Ellis interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Adelaide!
Mr PORTER: With respect to the portion of the question that dealt with paid parental leave, what the Labor Party presently does not support with respect to paid parental leave—that is to say, the government's proposition and policy with respect to paid parental leave—is near to 60 per cent of all families who receive paid parental leave having a very substantial average gain of $1,300 during the period of paid parental leave. That is what you are opposing. That group of 58 per cent, which is 96,310 recipients, is the lowest income earners inside the paid parental leave system.
Ms Macklin: We're talking about cuts to nurses.
The SPEAKER: The member for Jagajaga!
Mr PORTER: What the members opposite oppose is a policy position which is two extra weeks and $1,300 extra to 60 per cent of the recipients of paid parental leave, where those recipients of paid parental leave are the lowest income earners in the system. There once was a time where members opposite believed that welfare, that payments, that paid parental leave should focus on those in the system that are the least well off themselves, that earn the lowest incomes themselves. There once was a time when members opposite believed the focus of payments in the government system should be on those who are unable to provide for themselves, and what we say is that the focus should be on those people who earn the least and who receive the least. That has been the focus of our reforms in paid parental leave, those have been the reforms that we have focused on in child care, and they are the reforms that you oppose: reforms that benefit those people at the lower end of the system.
Ms Burney interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Barton!
Banking Amendment (Establishing an Effective Code of Conduct) Bill 2017
Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (14:19): My question is to the member for Denison, under standing order 99. I refer to the private member's bill—order of the day No. 33, relating to the mandatory banking code of conduct—standing in your name. This bill is a great example of why it is important that we have Independent representation in parliament, and demonstrates how we as Independents are representing our communities in this place. Can the minister tell the House when he thinks the debate on the bill will be resumed, and what process is needed for the House to fully consider this bill so this important matter can be fully debated and our communities informed?
The SPEAKER: The question did refer to the minister, but the opening preamble referred to the member, so we will go to the member for Denison. Just before I go to the member for Denison, though, I remind the House of the parameters of the standing order referred to by the member for Indi, which is outlined in Practice, with respect to the Procedure Committee's consideration of these questions, which are that these questions certainly should be allowed—and I will be allowing the question—but the answer needs to confine itself to matters of timing and procedure.
Mr WILKIE (Denison) (14:21): I thank the member for Indi for her question and also her tireless efforts to represent and to help the good people of the electorate of Indi, particularly when it comes to banking reform, and in fact I acknowledge the good efforts of all of my crossbench colleagues to bring about reform of the banking sector and, in particular, to see a proper inquiry into the banks through either a royal commission or a commission of inquiry.
In regard to the substance of the question and the direction from the Speaker, I am able to inform the House that the Banking Amendment (Establishing an Effective Code of Conduct) Bill 2017 is now before the House. I have in fact moved the second reading, and it is now up to the Selection Committee to decide on the resumption of the debate. I of course am not on the Selection Committee and cannot speak for it, but I would encourage the Selection Committee to allow the resumption of the second reading debate, because this is a matter that is of great interest to all of the community and, I would hope, to all of the members of this House. The fact is that the current banking code of conduct is ineffective. It is written, funded and implemented by the banks, and what we need—
The SPEAKER: The member for Denison will resume his seat.
Mr Husic interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Chifley is about to not be here to even hear the point of order.
Mr Pyne: Much as I hate to be the Grinch that stole Christmas, there is an important precedent. As you pointed out to the member for Denison, under standing order 99 he has to confine his remarks to the procedures and processes for the carriage of this bill. Now he is straying into the substance of the matter, which is therefore a debating point. Why don't you look up the rules and practices and you will know what the standing order is. You have been here 10 years—
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the House will resume his seat.
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Sydney is warned. The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order?
Mr Burke: On the point of order, Mr Speaker: it would be a long time since the Leader of the House had confined his answers to his own ministerial responsibility. That being the case, it is reasonable to have a level of flexibility in what is one very unusual and rare question.
Ms Burney interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Barton is warned. I have listened to the Manager of Opposition Business. I made clear what the practice is with respect to consideration by the Procedure Committee. I was ready to rule on it, but out of deference I wanted to hear from the Manager of Opposition Business in case he had another point of view to add. Can I say very clearly that I was about to ask the member for Denison to resume his seat. The first part of his answer was completely in order. He has rapidly gone off-road now and he needs to confine himself to the timing and procedure. With respect to the Manager of Opposition Business's point of view, it is a reasonable point of view to put, but he will need to put that to the Procedure Committee. The member for Denison needs to confine himself to the timing and to the procedure—not to what he sees as the merits of his bill, if I can put it that way.
Mr WILKIE: Thank you, Speaker, for your guidance on this. Of course, I am very mindful of it. Returning to the issue of—
The SPEAKER: I just say to the member for Denison I do not want to be headmasterly here, but it is not guidance. It is a ruling, and this is not a negotiation. So get the car back on the road or we are going to move on.
Mr WILKIE: Thank you, Speaker. Returning to the issue of process and when we might see the Selection Committee direct that the second reading be continued, I would hope that the Selection Committee is very mindful in its deliberations of the fact that a mirror image of this bill was moved by me five years ago, in 2012, and it received no support from the then Labor government or the then Liberal-National coalition. So I would hope that the Selection Committee this time around would understand that the situation is even more dire, that there is even greater concern in the community about the behaviour of the banks and that there is an urgent need for the issue of the banks' conduct to be dealt with.
Turning again to the issue of process, we talk about a lot of things in this place. The Selection Committee makes a lot of decisions about what will be dealt with in this place, but I would encourage the Selection Committee to be mindful that there is nothing, or very little, more important for us to consider at the moment than the widespread angst in the community about the conduct of the banking sector—and in particular the big four banks—and the need for there to be a mandatory legislated code of conduct that is overseen by the government and the minister—
The SPEAKER: I ask the member for Denison, in the remaining 20 seconds, to come back to the parameters of his answer that I have outlined now twice, or we will need to move on.
Mr WILKIE: In my last 20 seconds, if I can just make the point that, while we do not know when this bill will be dealt with by this place, we should hope for and encourage the Selection Committee to see the merit of the issue that it addresses and the importance of it being brought into this place as soon as possible so we can start the process of reining in the banks.
Cyclone Debbie
Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (14:26): My question is to the Minister for Justice and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Counter-Terrorism. What emergency management measures does the federal government have in place to assist the communities likely to be affected by Tropical Cyclone Debbie?
Mr KEENAN (Stirling—Minister for Justice and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Counter-Terrorism) (14:27): I thank the member for Flynn for that question. As the House has already heard from the Prime Minister and the Minister for Defence Industry, the level of preparation by both the state and the Commonwealth governments leading up to Tropical Cyclone Debbie has really been unprecedented. There are more than 1,000 emergency services personnel deployed, including SES, fire, police and ambulance officers. We thank them for their tireless efforts in protecting our communities and we acknowledge that they are selflessly putting themselves in harm's way to assist others in need.
I have been in regular contact with the Queensland minister for emergency services, Mark Ryan, to receive operational updates from the perspective of the Queensland government and to continue to coordinate Commonwealth support. In addition to this, the Commonwealth has taken action to ensure that resources are available to assist communities who will be affected by this cyclone. We have pre-activated the Australian government disaster response plan, which will allow us to accelerate requests for non-financial assistance from the Australian government. This includes requests for ADF capability but also unique Commonwealth capabilities such as satellite imagery.
We have been reminded this morning by the member for Capricornia about not just the capability that the ADF brings when it deploys after a disaster but the enormous boost to morale that it has for a community that has been battered by a natural disaster as well. We have sent two of our emergency management experts to be embedded within the Queensland response, and they have been providing 24-hour support to the Queensland government.
Once this cyclone passes, our efforts will as ever move to helping those who have been impacted by this dangerous storm. Whilst the Queensland government will lead those recovery efforts, the coalition government will work side by side with them to help those communities in need. We do this through the jointly funded Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements, under which we will reimburse up to 75 per cent of state expenditure for recovery costs. The NDRRA enables state governments to activate certain types of relief and recovery assistance immediately following a disaster without approval from the Australian government. This will assist people to meet their immediate needs such as emergency hardship or distress payments, support for local councils to conduct counter-disaster operations such as sandbagging, and assistance for state governments to rebuild essential assets. This enables those state governments to act quickly.
We will assist Queensland with what will be significant costs after Tropical Cyclone Debbie. These arrangements have seen $12 billion flow to the Queensland government in the past decade alone. We will continue to talk with them and work closely with them to see what we can do to activate the NDRRA and make sure that that assistance flows as quickly possible. Our thoughts are with those currently at the heart of the storm. Please do what the Prime Minister has suggested: go to safety and listen to what emergency management authorities tell you to do.
Workplace Relations
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:30): My question is to the Prime Minister. Today I met with private sector aged-care nurses, including Dely, who is in the gallery today. Her husband Ken works in retail and faces a pay cut because of the Prime Minister's support for cutting penalty rates. Dely is worried that, once they start cutting Sunday penalty rates in some awards, her pay as a nurse could be cut as well. Why isn't the Prime Minister doing everything he can to protect the pay of all working Australians, including Dely and her husband?
Mr Laundy interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Reid is warned.
Mr Taylor interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Hume is not far behind him.
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:30): That question tells us everything we need to know about the Leader of the Opposition. He knows full well that nurses are employed under state awards. He knows full well that nurses are not covered by the recent decision by the Fair Work Commission. He knows that that decision—
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will resume his seat.
Mr Dutton interjecting—
Mr Pasin interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection and the member for Barker will cease interjecting. I call the Leader of the Opposition on a point of order and refer him to my previous statements following recent points of order.
Mr Shorten: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The point of order is relevance. I specifically asked about private sector aged-care nurses, who are covered by federal awards. Get your facts right!
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Prime Minister has the call.
Mr TURNBULL: The decision of the Fair Work Commission applies to workers in the retail, hospitality and fast-food areas. It does not apply to nurses. The honourable member knows very well that it does not apply to nurses. It applies only to those sectors covered by the decision. What he and his colleagues have been endeavouring to do is, as usual, mislead and frighten Australians with their untruths.
Mr Keogh interjecting—
Mr TURNBULL: This is post-truth politics with a vengeance, utterly heedless of the truth, having no regard for the facts and determined to frighten and scare Australians. Anything they can do in their desperation to frighten and mislead Australians, they will reach at.
Mr Fletcher interjecting—
Mr TURNBULL: We are standing up for Australian businesses and Australian workers. We are providing the support for the investment and the jobs that they deserve. Labor is standing in the way with one untruth after another.
The SPEAKER: The member for Burt and the member for Brand are warned.
Cyclone Debbie
Mr ENTSCH (Leichhardt) (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Human Services. Will the minister update the House on how the government has prepared for Tropical Cyclone Debbie to ensure that Queenslanders will receive assistance as soon as possible?
Mr TUDGE (Aston—Minister for Human Services) (14:33): I thank the member for Leichhardt for his question. The member for Leichhardt understands very deeply how destructive these cyclones can be, particularly having experienced Cyclone Yasi in 2011.
My department, the Department of Human Services, provides services to more than 98 per cent of the Australian population, and it stands ready to assist people in communities impacted by Tropical Cyclone Debbie. During an emergency or major disaster, our initial goal is to ensure the continuity of Australian government payments and services to Australians when they need them most. We are fully prepared for this, even knowing that some service centres in affected areas are closed temporarily, including several in Townsville today. In addition, the National Emergency Call Centre Surge Capability has been placed on standby to provide assistance to the Queensland government. This centre will allow the Queensland government agencies to divert excess calls to their non-triple 0 emergency lines during the response and recovery effort to ensure that they are answered promptly.
We hope the damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Debbie will be minimal, but we will assess the impact on the North Queensland communities and on our service centres once the cyclone has passed. If Tropical Cyclone Debbie is formally declared as a major disaster in coming days, our emergency response actions are on standby and ready to be activated immediately. This can include dedicated teams of experienced staff that we send out to evacuation centres to support the emergency response and restore our normal business; the opening of hubs in evacuation centres; and work on the ground, one on one, with individuals in the community to ensure that they receive all of the support that they need. We also deploy our social workers to evacuation hubs in affected areas immediately after an emergency. They provide people with immediate morale and emotional support to get through what is often a very traumatic experience. Support is also given to pharmacists to maintain supplies of medicines and to dispense PBS medicines to people whose prescriptions are lost or destroyed. In addition, our mobile service centre buses are on standby, and we are currently moving one of them to North Queensland to assist on the ground.
My department has good experience and expertise in these matters and has assisted the response and recovery efforts for several cyclones in recent years, including Lam, Marcia, Nathan and Olwyn. I take pride in knowing that staff from my department are often first in and last out from disaster areas. I hope that these services that I have outlined will not be needed in North Queensland, but we are standing ready to work with the state governments on a coordinated and swift response if necessary.
Workplace Relations
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (14:36): My question is to the Prime Minister. Today the opposition leader and I are meeting with members of the Australian Federal Police Association. Is the Prime Minister aware that AFP officers, including his own protection detail, are concerned that they will lose $35,000 every year because of planned cuts to allowances for working late nights and weekends? Why does the Prime Minister want to add police officers to the list of Australians who will have their pay cut at the same time as millionaires will get a tax cut?
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:37): The work of the Australian Federal Police and indeed all of our police and security services—24 hours a day, seven days a week—is keeping us safe. We have the best police, security and intelligence services in the world.
Ms Husar interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Lindsay is warned.
Mr TURNBULL: And our police—the Queensland police and thousands of other emergency workers—are keeping Queenslanders safe at the moment and will be over the next days and weeks in Queensland.
Ms Husar interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister will resume his seat for a second. I have made it very clear, for those who interject continuously, who are warned each day. I have warned the member for Lindsay. I asked her to cease interjecting earlier. She will now leave under 94(a). And anyone else who has been warned will be leaving in exactly the same manner. It is their choice.
The member for Lindsay then left the chamber.
Mr TURNBULL: The coalition has provided unprecedented support to the Federal Police and our security services, recognising that they stand between us and people who seek to do us harm. And I will ask the Minister for Justice to address the industrial matter that the honourable member raised.
Mr Keogh interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Burt will leave under 94(a).
The member for Burt then left the chamber.
Mr KEENAN (Stirling—Minister for Justice and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Counter-Terrorism) (14:38): I thought I dealt with the untruths that have been peddled in this matter last week when I was asked a very similar question by the shadow minister for justice. I am very happy any day of the week to compare our record with the record of the opposition when they were in government. We have invested in an unprecedented way in our law enforcement and security agencies, including $1½ billion for the counterterrorism response alone. As I said last week, when I became minister I inherited the wreckage of what had happened under the Labor Party for six years, not just in the law enforcement relationship but across every national security aspect of the Commonwealth: the lowest defence spending since 1938 and cuts to customs at $¾ billion, which meant that we were not screening cargo when it came over our threshold, which resulted in imports of guns and drugs—
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Isaacs is warned.
Mr KEENAN: That is the sort of mess we have been required to clean up since we arrived in office. This is combined with the fact that they completely lost control over our borders, allowing criminal people-smuggling gangs to be in charge of who comes to Australia. The truth is—and they would not know it if it hit them in the face—that we provided unprecedented support for the Australian Federal Police.
The SPEAKER: The minister will resume his seat for a second. The member for Hotham has a point of order—and will state the point of order.
Ms O'Neil: Mr Speaker, I have not yet heard the minister address the crux of this question—
The SPEAKER: The member for Hotham will resume her seat.
Ms O'Neil: No, on relevance, Mr Speaker.
The SPEAKER: No, I asked the member for Hotham to state the point of order.
Ms O'Neil: The point of order is on relevance—
The SPEAKER: I am not going to be a broken record. I asked the member for Hotham to—
Ms O'Neil: The point of order is on relevance. I would just like the minister to answer the question about the pay and conditions of Australian Federal Police.
The SPEAKER: I have asked you to return to your seat. The member for Hotham is warned.
Mr Sukkar interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Deakin is warned. Let me make it as clear as I can. Members rising on a point of order need to state the point of order, not to give the House or myself a lecture on what they think of the minister's answer. If they cannot state the point of order they cannot stay in the House. I was lenient in warning the member for Hotham. I had asked her to resume her seat twice. If she thinks that was a bit too tough she might want to consult with the member for Ballarat, who had rather tougher treatment on one occasion. The minister has the call.
Mr KEENAN: With all due respect to the shadow minister, she would not have a clue about what is going on with this portfolio—not a clue. We have supported the Australian Federal Police in an unprecedented way. And, as I said, when we arrived in office part of what we had to do was fix up the damage that had been done by the six years of the Labor Party. We will continue to work side by side with our law enforcement community, with our intelligence community, in giving them what they require to deal with the difficult challenges they face.
Dr Aly interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Cowan will cease interjecting.
Energy
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (14:42): My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the importance of affordable energy and lower business taxes for jobs, wages and the economy, including in my electorate of Hughes?
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:42): I thank the honourable member for his question and note his lifelong commitment to supporting small business and enterprise in the electorate of Hughes and around Australia.
One of the most critically important factors for every business, every household, is affordable and reliable energy. Over the last week we have announced our commitment to Snowy Hydro 2.0. This is carrying on the great vision of the founders of the Snowy Mountains scheme, the courageous men and women from every country in the world who came out to Australia after the horrors of the Second World War and worked together and built an engineering marvel. We have some of those mountain men here in the gallery today—Charlie Silvestro, Gianni De Bortoli, Tom Frece and Ervino Bertolin—as well as Charlie's wife, Sue, who also worked with Snowy Hydro. What an amazing team.
Dr Mike Kelly interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Eden-Monaro.
Mr TURNBULL: They and so many thousands of others like them had the vision to build a Snowy Mountains scheme, and part of their plan was pumped hydro. They knew the opportunity. They did not see, perhaps, the future of solar energy; perhaps they did not see that. But they knew that storage was going to be important, and those plans were drawn up and have been there for over 30 years—plans to add thousands of megawatts to the capacity of the Snowy Mountains scheme. One scheme alone, Tantangara to Talbingo, which we will build—27 kilometres of tunnel—will deliver 2,000 megawatts of additional generation: base load power, renewable power, energy that makes renewables reliable. The Labor Party, in their reckless ideology, pursued a 50 per cent renewable target but with no idea how to provide the backup or how to provide the storage. What is going to happen to the base load? 'We'll just keep switching off,' they thought, 'That's a good idea.' What happens when the wind does not blow? Labor had no idea and no plan for that. We are putting those plans in place. We are going to develop Snowy Hydro 2.0 and build on the work of the men women with us today and of thousands of others like them. Their courage, their conviction and their vision will build on that. We will make renewables reliable. We will build the secure energy future for all Australians.
Mr Khalil interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Wills is warned!
Mr Snowdon interjecting—
Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Lingiari and the member for Hunter might stop interjecting.
Mr Frydenberg interjecting—
Mr Khalil interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Minister for Energy and the Environment will cease interjecting. The member for Wills is warned.
Workplace Relations
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:45): My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister seriously refusing to rule out pay cuts for AFP officers, including his own protection detail, for working late nights and weekends?
Mr McCormack: How are the Clean Event workers going?
The SPEAKER: The Minister for Small Business is warned!
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:46): The Minister for Justice and I have dealt with this matter. Our commitment to the AFP is without precedent in the history of Australian governments. We have provided more support to our police and security agencies than any predecessor government and we do so because they keep us safe. The Labor Party's determination to mislead Australians, we just saw it a moment ago with respect to nurses and the Fair Work Commission decision. I note the remarks of the Fair Work Commission itself, at paragraph 81:
Given the distinguishing characteristics of the Hospitality and Retail sectors, the decisions we have made in respect of the Hospitality and Retail Awards provide no warrant for the variation of penalty rates in other modern awards.
That is what the Fair Work Commission said. What the Labor Party want to do is suggest that that decision applies to nurses, to emergency workers and to police. That is completely untrue and has no basis in facts, but why would they care?
Ms O'Neil interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Hotham has already been warned!
Mr TURNBULL: They have no interest in the facts and no interest in the truth; they are interested only in misleading and frightening Australians. That is the depth the Labor Party has fallen to.
Agriculture Industry
Mr COULTON (Parkes—Deputy Speaker) (14:47): My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on the benefits to Australia's meat industry and economy from our export trade deal with China? Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware of any threats to this industry and the thousands of hardworking Australians that it employs?
Mr JOYCE (New England—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) (14:48): I thank the honourable member for his question. He more than most understands the huge benefits we get from our agreements with China and he would understand more than most how we are turning around the agricultural sector. In fact, in the 12 months to December 2016, there was 23.7 per cent growth—no other sector, in percentage growth, came even close. None of them were even within about a quarter of it. No other sector added more to our GDP than agriculture, and this was a substantial turnaround from previous government. Under Labor, I remember we actually went backwards in the last quarter by 0.5 per cent.
Agricultural production in Australia will exceed $60 billion, and this is a first for that, and $12½ billion of that is in beef cattle. The member for Parkes will understand that, with a substantial beef area and, of course, the selling centre at Gunnedah—one of the most substantial selling centres in New South Wales and in our nation. In the member's electorate alone beef cattle—to give you an anecdotal figure—accounted for about $300 million. This is for beef cattle and calves across 876 farms in northwest New South Wales.
On Friday, Australian and China signed the Joint Statement on Enhancing Inspection and Quarantine Cooperation between Australia and the People's Republic of China. This agreement allows us to our export more chilled beef. What it is with chilled beef is that now that we are capping out our volumes we are increasing our values; we are getting more for the price of what we sell. In fact, it will be worth about $400 million a year. We are finding more processing plants so that we can actually export beef into China and we are getting more capacity for ourselves to be part of the approval mechanism of exporting chilled beef to China.
I know the agreement means that the 4,000 red meat processors employed in one organisation alone, Teys, will get more work, because we are always trying to make sure that we get more work for the working men and women of Australia. There are 13,000 supporting jobs in rural Australia just for Teys alone. Teys processes about 1½ million cattle, and this allows us to get meat works such as in Rockhampton, in Capricornia; in Beenleigh, in Forde; in Biloela, in the seat of Flynn; in my own seat, in Tamworth; in Wagga; in Naracoorte; in Barker; in feedlots. This is how we actually get our economy to turn around.
One of the big impediments, though, is the price of power. The price of power has been going through the roof. For Teys alone it is $39 million a year, and in Naracoorte it has gone up by around 60 per cent since 2015. The member for Parkes will understand that it is time to the Labor Party—I heard the member for Gorton talk about hairdressers and beauticians, and they are a very important part of the workforce, no doubt—started worrying about the meatworkers. It is time they started worrying about the timber workers down in Heyfield. It is time they started worried about the shearers and making sure that those who were their original constituency are actually looked after. It is time they started looking after the blue-collar workers of Australia and stopped worrying about Annandale. (Time expired)
Workplace Relations
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:51): My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, the people who put their lives on the line in your own protection detail and that of your ministers deserve an answer. Does the Prime Minister rule out pay cuts for AFP officers, including his own protection detail, for working late nights and weekends?
Mr Champion interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield will not interject.
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:51): I thank the member for his question. As the honourable member is presumably well aware, there are negotiations ongoing between the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police and the members of the Federal Police and their representatives, and that is being handled at arm's length by the commissioner in the normal way, in the appropriate way. Our commitment to the Federal Police, to all of our security agencies, is utterly unprecedented. They keep us all safe and we thank them for their service. We support them. We defend them, as they defend us.
Taxation
Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (14:52): My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer explain to the House how the government is fixing problems in our taxation system so that we can meet our responsibilities to the next generation of Australians?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Treasurer) (14:52): I thank the member for his question and his interest in ensuring that our tax system has integrity. In the budget we made a commitment to ensure that we would deal with the specific problems in our tax system so that we could fund the important services that Australians rely on. Critical to that plan was ensuring that multinationals pay their fair share of tax and do the right thing by Australian taxpayers in terms of our tax system. We have been delivering on that commitment more than any government has ever delivered on multinational tax reform in this Commonwealth.
Just last night, the diverted profits tax legislation that was announced in the budget passed the parliament. On this occasion it had the support of those opposite. But I am reminded of the time when we brought in multinational anti-avoidance legislation to this parliament and the Labor Party opposed it. Over and over again, they opposed it. Despite their opposition, we pressed forward. The Tax Avoidance Taskforce was put in place, and they are working to deliver some $3.7 billion in additional revenue to the budget to ensure that we can put in place the services that Australians rely on. But they would not be able to do that job if the government was not able, as we were able to do, to ensure the passage of that multinational anti-avoidance legislation. As a result of that legislation, this year alone we have already been able to claw back in tax liabilities some $2 billion from multinationals.
The Labor Party voted for multinationals to pay less tax. The coalition voted to make sure they paid the tax they should pay, and our measures went into place and our measures are being effective. The Labor Party should be embarrassed by the fact that they voted against those tougher laws. They were humbled into submission last night, because they had to allow the diverted profits tax to pass. They probably wanted to vote against it, but they knew the Australian people were so disappointed in the Labor Party because they talk such a big game on multinational tax avoidance, but when it comes to voting for it they are just vacant.
On top of that, we acted. We acted on ensuring that we had better targeted superannuation tax concessions and we reintroduced the low-income superannuation tax offset that supports some three million low-income Australians and some two million Australian working women. On top of that, we delivered for 500,000 hardworking Australians a tax cut which ensured that those ordinary-time full-time wage-earning Australians did not go into the second highest tax bracket. So this is a government that has been delivering on the tax commitments. Yesterday in this place the Labor Party voted against a principle they said they once believed in. We remain absolutely committed to provide the tax relief businesses deserve. (Time expired)
Workplace Relations
Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR (Gorton) (14:56): My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister guarantee that no other Sunday penalty rates in awards will be cut by the Fair Work Commission?
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members on both sides will cease interjecting. The Leader of the House on a point of order.
Mr Pyne: Mr Speaker, the opposition's tactics have now entered the theatre of the absurd.
The SPEAKER: On the point of order.
Mr Pyne: Well, they are trying to run a scare campaign, and they are now asking the Prime Minister to rule out something for which he has absolutely no responsibility at all, which is decisions of the Fair Work Commission, about a hypothetical case that might be taken one day in the Fair Work Commission about another award, which is currently not under consideration. So it offends the standing orders because it is hypothetical and it offends the standing orders because the Prime Minister bears no responsibility for the Fair Work Commission's decisions at all, and it contained no political embroidery whatsoever. Therefore, the Prime Minister cannot answer a more general question. He can only answer the question: can he rule out something for which he has no responsibility? So therefore it is out of order.
The SPEAKER: I will hear from the Manager of Opposition Business.
Mr Burke: I worked out at the end it was a point of order, not an answer. To the point of order though—
The SPEAKER: Yes, you had better come to it quickly.
Mr Burke: I will. The Prime Minister has made clear, as a matter of government policy, that the government supports the changes that have been made to the retail sector on penalty rates.
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members will not interject when I am listening to the Manager of Opposition Business, otherwise I will not hear either the Leader of the House or the Manager of Opposition Business and I will just rule on the question.
Mr Burke: The Prime Minister has made clear, as a matter of government policy, that the government supports the changes that have been made for retail workers. The question asks whether, as a matter of government policy, the government would support similar cuts for other workers.
The SPEAKER: The Manager of Opposition Business does make a fair point, but that was not the question.
Mr Pyne: No, it wasn't.
The SPEAKER: No, I do not need people supporting me or opposing me. It was very close to the line. The way the Manager of Opposition Business expressed it was different to the wording of the question. Can I say that the Manager of Opposition Business expressed it in terms that were well within the standing orders. The original question was not expressed in that fashion at all. It asked the PM to guarantee certain things about an independent body. If it had been expressed in the way the Manager of Opposition Business had expressed it, I would have allowed it. So, I will be generous: I will give the member for Gorton the opportunity to rephrase his question. I hope he was listening. I will just say that you do not need the bit of paper—that will not help.
Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR: I could amend it, while I am standing at the dispatch box. My question, now that I have had the opportunity to reframe it, is: does the Prime Minister support the possibility that any future decision of the commission would cut penalty rates? In other words—
Honourable members interjecting—
Mr Laundy interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Reid can leave. He has already been warned; he can leave under 94(a).
The member for Reid then left the chamber.
Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR: My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister support any future decision of the commission that would cut penalty rates?
Honourable members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Prime Minister can address the question in any way he chooses.
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (15:00): In 2015, the Productivity Commission made recommendations about penalty rates in the hospitality and retail sectors. They were in one of the reports that was considered by the Fair Work Commission. The Fair Work Commission noted, with approval, this passage from the Productivity Commission:
There is no case for common penalty rates across all industries. The Commission is not recommending a reduction in the Sunday penalty rates beyond—
the hospitality and retail sectors—
… Regulated penalty rates as currently constructed for essential services and many other industries are justifiable. The original justifications have not altered materially: they align with working arrangements that often involve rotating shifts across the whole week, are not likely to reduce service availability meaningfully, are commensurate with the skills of the employees, and are unlikely to lead to job losses.
That was the Productivity Commission. The member for Gorton disapproved of their recommendations in the first place, and he gave the Liberal Party some advice. This is what he said in February last year:
Labor believes that the commission is the appropriate body to consider these matters and it should be left alone by the Liberals to do just that, conduct its business as the independent umpire.
Trade
Ms PRICE (Durack) (15:02): My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister update the House on the government's development of a foreign policy white paper and of efforts, through economic diplomacy, to support jobs and growth in regional Australia?
Ms JULIE BISHOP (Curtin—Minister for Foreign Affairs) (15:02): I thank the member for Durack for her question and note her deep interest in more export opportunities for businesses in her electorate of Durack. Australia has undoubtedly been a significant beneficiary of the liberalised international trading system. It is entering its 26th consecutive year of economic growth. Australia is an open, export oriented market economy.
Mr Champion interjecting —
The SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield is warned.
Ms JULIE BISHOP: Our economic resilience and our standard of living depends upon the capacity and ability of our export companies—small, medium and large—to export goods and services around the world. We are facing uncertain global economic times with Brexit, with rising nationalism and protectionism, and with the disruption that comes from technological advances changing the way we do business and the way we connect. For this and other reasons, the Australian government are developing a foreign policy white paper to review our global interests, our values, our priorities and our international engagement. We have had over 600 submissions and carried out public consultation in every state and territory and in regional areas.
Today, for the first time, all our heads of mission—our ambassadors, high commissioners and consuls general—are meeting here in Canberra to provide input to the white paper. We have one of the finest diplomatic services in the world, and one of their priorities, required by the Australian government, is to practise economic diplomacy—in other words, use our network to build greater investment, trade and business links between their host country and Australia. We have been very successful in that regard. We have asked each one of our heads of mission to visit businesses around Australia to promote investment and greater economic ties. For example, our ambassador from Myanmar and our diplomats from China will be visiting the member for Durack's electorate. They will be going to the Woodside gas plant at Karratha and also meeting with fisheries exporters in Queensland. Our Ambassador to Sweden will be going to the Volvo Trucks factory, which employs 1,300 Australians—a major Swedish investment. Our consul general from Shanghai will be meeting with Oakey Beef Exports, which I know is a major agricultural exporter. In New South Wales, our Ambassador to Qatar will be going to Hassad Foods, which has made a $450 million investment in the Australian agriculture sector. In this way, our ambassadors and our heads of mission will be meeting with Australian businesses and also foreign businesses investing in Australia to drive more economic growth and greater trade and investment ties between Australia and the world.
Taxation
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:05): My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister scrapping the deficit levy in this year's budget, and his support for the decision to cut penalty rates. Why is it that, under this Prime Minister, millionaires get a tax cut of more than $16,000, big business gets a tax cut of about $50 billion and workers get a pay cut?
Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (15:06): By referring to the deficit levy, I assume the honourable member is referring to the two per cent surcharge on the top marginal rate introduced in the 2014 budget which honourable members opposite described as a 'deceit tax' and pledged to oppose to the letter. They condemned it as a broken promise. Is that the one she is referring to? I think it might be. Honourable members opposite will know very well that the deficit levy was imposed for a term of three years. It expires at the end of this financial year of its own force. This was a surcharge which they condemned as an act of deceit and they denounced it from one end of this place to another.
The reality is this: Australia is a highly taxed country. The member for Fenner would agree with this, I am sure. Our personal income tax rates are high. Our top marginal rate is high compared to other comparable developed economies. In addition to that, the threshold at which it cuts in, at about 2.2 times average weekly earnings, is very low compared to the United Kingdom, New Zealand or indeed the United States—and many other countries as well. So Australians are paying high taxes already. What we need to do is ensure that Australians have the incentive to work and invest, and that is what we have done—we have reduced taxes for half a million middle-income Australians in last year's budget, and we are reducing tax for businesses, starting with small and medium businesses, because we know, as Labor once did, that if you reduce tax on companies the beneficiaries are workers through more jobs and higher wages.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr TURNBULL: The honourable member denounces that—well he may; this was what the Labor Party had in its budget papers only a few years ago. That was the rationale the Leader of the Opposition had only a few years ago. Consistently the Labor Party used to know the commonsense proposition: if you want more of something, reduce the tax on it; if you want more investment, increase the return on investment; if you want less investment, do what Labor wants to do and increase the tax on it—less investment, less jobs, less economic growth, less opportunity. That is what we are about fixing—taxes should be as low as can be afforded, consistent with meeting our obligations. Why? Because we want more investment, more jobs, more opportunities for Australian workers, Australian families, to get ahead. On that note, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS
Mrs SUDMALIS (Gilmore) (15:09): Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
The SPEAKER: Does the member for Gilmore claim to have been misrepresented?
Mrs SUDMALIS: Most grievously.
The SPEAKER: The member for Gilmore may proceed.
Mrs SUDMALIS: The member for Whitlam in his 90-second statement on the proposed motorsports complex in my electorate said that I had a broken an election commitment. He should perhaps check the facts. It was a competitive round of funding for better stronger regions, and his allies the Greens have killed this project because of orchids.
DOCUMENTS
Presentation
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House and Minister for Defence Industry) (15:10): Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Medicare
The SPEAKER (15:10): I have received a letter from the honourable member for Ballarat proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The Government undermining Medicare, including with its six-year freeze on Medicare rebates.
I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat) (15:11): This is the last sitting week before the budget—there are only two days of sittings before the budget is brought down. Again, this is a very big test for this latest health minister—will he lift the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule? Will he finally acknowledge that the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule that he and his predecessors introduced, sitting around the cabinet table, is hurting patients across the country?
Mr Hunt interjecting—
Ms CATHERINE KING: The minister says Labor introduced this freeze. The minister does not know the facts. The freeze we are talking about here in this parliament today is a six-year freeze—it is an ice age. The freeze that Labor introduced for eight months to bring Medicare into line with the financial year was lifted in July 2014. This is entirely of your own making, and you have to own this decision—a six-year freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule is an ice age when it comes to the fee that is paid in order to make sure that patients can access a GP. Will the minister finally, in this budget, admit that this government got it wrong? Will he back the decisions of every single one of our healthcare workers across the country who say this government has got it wrong when it comes to health and lift the freeze? It is not just Labor. We have been fighting ever since the 2014 budget to make sure that we get money restored back into general practice, back into primary care. The morale of general practitioners and doctors is at an all-time low because of this government's attacks on them, and we have been fighting hard to get this freeze lifted.
Will the government now act, and back the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Australian Nurses and Midwives Federation, the Consumers Health Forum, the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association and the Rural Doctors' Association? They are all telling the government to lift the freeze. In fact I do not think there is a single stakeholder in the health sector that is not telling the government that they got it wrong on health and it is time to lift the freeze.
As I have said, this is a challenge all of the company's own making. It is worth reflecting on where this came from and how we got to this place. First we had the infamous Commission of Audit, which was one of the clearest signs for Australians that the Liberals were not the government that they promised they would be. Interestingly, I see that the Prime Minister has brought Tony Shepherd back into the fold to provide advice—well done, Prime Minister! It was the Commission of Audit that recommended the end of universal Medicare as we know it. Then we had the first health minister, the member for Dickson, and the 2014 budget. In the 2014 budget they introduced a $7 co-payment, in their signature style, to slug every single patient in the country for the health care that they need. It was always clear from the start that this was going to be bad for patients, bad for doctors and bad for the health system.
When they finally dropped that measure—they were forced to drop that measure—they still could not help themselves. They tried to introduce a $20 co-payment GP tax at the end of 2014. That measure did not last very long. It lasted as long as that health minister lasted, frankly—about another three months—and they had to drop that plan again. But then they decided that they would introduce a new freeze onto the Medicare Benefits Schedule because the freeze, of course, had come off in July 2014. Here we were now back in January 2015, and they decided to introduce a new freeze onto the Medicare Benefits Schedule, starting off for a four-year period. Then, of course, in a shock decision in the next budget, they then extended it for a further six years. We then saw the unedifying example of the then health minister—we had another by then; our second in a row—saying during the election campaign, 'Treasury and Finance would not let me get rid of it.' That is what it was—blaming Treasury and Finance. The last time I looked she was actually the minister responsible for the decision.
This six-year freeze has been an absolute ice age when it comes to patients across the country. We have seen out-of-pocket costs higher than they have ever been before. We have already seen GPs across the country increase fees and drop bulkbilling. I know the minister likes to say, 'Here is the increase in trajectory of Medicare spending,' and I think he uses the figures $22 billing, going up to $26 billion.
Mr Hunt: Twenty-three, 24 and 25—you've got it! Thank you.
Ms CATHERINE KING: I hate to tell you, Minister, inflation and population growth is not a health policy. That is just standing still. In fact, that is just treading water. All that is doing is treading water, Minister. It is actually not a policy. What we have actually seen is bulkbilling in this country decline. The minister will say, 'Oh, no, bulkbilling is going up.' What he does, of course, is compare bulkbilling this quarter to what it was in 2015. He does not look at the trajectory of bulkbilling and what is actually happening to the trajectory of bulkbilling. The trajectory of bulkbilling is going down. There were 383,000 visits to GPs in the last six months that were not bulkbilled that would have been bulkbilled before the election.
Unfortunately, we know it is the most vulnerable in our community being hit. GP clinic after GP clinic have been forced to raise price fees and restrict bulkbilling. We have Latitude 19 Health in the electorate of Herbert, Brighton Doctors Surgery in the electorate of Lyons, Patrick Street Clinic in Ulverstone in the electorate of Braddon, Bowral Street Medical Practice in the electorate of Whitlam—there are examples of practices all the way across the country that have been increasing their fees. You just go and speak to any patient out there in the community about what is happening with Medicare at the moment and what is happening with their access to GPs and the costs people are paying. They will tell you that they are having to pay more and more. Don't forget, this is after the Prime Minister on national television told Australians that they would not pay more to see a GP as a result of this government's freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule.
How many chances is this government going to have to actually attack Medicare? We are asking you, in this budget, to finally acknowledge that you got it wrong. Stop whingeing about Labor's tactics during the election campaign. Stop rising constantly and saying, 'Oh, this was terrible. Look at what Labor did to us during the election campaign.' Actually do something about it. You have an opportunity in this budget to lift the freeze. You have an opportunity to admit that you got it wrong when it came to health policy.
What a shame that this is what we are in here debating today. We are not debating about increased investment in innovation in health care. We are not able to debate what new policy initiatives we need to bring forward to make sure that we actually have better and more affordable health care in this nation. What we are debating is trying to get this government to lift the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule that it put in place for six long years—an ice age when it comes to the Medicare system. What we are trying to do is, basically, get them to go back to ground zero—to the starting point—where funding was right at the start of this freeze. That is, basically, what we are asking the government to do.
The minister, I know, loves to quote—he has the very old-fashioned managerial speak, I would have to say—his 'four pillars' of health care. Four pillars, the last time I looked, is a gin that people quite like, apparently! But your four pillars of health care, I hate to tell you, Minister, are crumbling under this government. Medicare, with the freeze, has actually seen an erosion in people's access to general practice. What we need to know is whether this government will actually lift the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and actually back patients in.
The government has got itself in a world of pain when it comes to this issue. It is not just going to have to lift the freeze for general practitioners and specialists; it will have to lift it for diagnostic imaging, as well. That is what you promised in the election campaign. You signed a deal and put out a press release that you were going to unfreeze diagnostic imaging, as well. You have to deal with the issue that you did, again, during the election campaign—pathology rents. That is the deal that you did where GPs are saying you are going to undercut their entire business model and cost them their practices. So it is really important that the government fixes this because that is what it promised it was going to do. The government still has on the table cuts to bulkbilling incentives for pathology and diagnostic imaging which will be seeing patients pay more when they head to the pathologist and when they need to get those important tests.
So this is a test for this minister. We have two days to go in this last sitting week before the budget. Will you lift the freeze, Minister? Are you actually going to be able to convince your cabinet colleagues to get rid of the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and finally admit this government got it wrong when it came to healthcare policy and is unable to protect Medicare.
Mr Hill interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): The member for Bruce is out of place. If we could have some silence.
Mr HUNT (Flinders—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (15:21): Let me make it absolutely clear for the record, for the public and for the medical profession: Labor introduced the Medicare freeze. They can run, they can hide, they can obfuscate and pretend, but they introduced the Medicare freeze. If there was any doubt, let me go to their own document—the 2013-14 budget. What does that budget say about the impact of their changes on Medicare funding? $664 million, but it is not a one-off hit. This was phased over four years, including this year—right now they would be saving $177 million—they would be cutting $177 million. So in 2013-14, $160 million from their freeze; 2014-15 an additional $153 million; 2015-16 an additional $173 million; and 2016-17 an additional $177 million. This year, this moment, this day the Labor freeze is still in place—this year it is still in place. Hypocrisy, obfuscation, a fantasy and a level of dishonourable dishonesty which belies the very reason people have entered this chamber. They are the authors, the owners and the creators of the Medicare freeze. As their own budget document sets out, it is still in action.
Ms Catherine King: You can't read.
Mr HUNT: Oh, I can read it and so can the Australian public. That is the critical thing but let me go a little bit further than that. I have to say I have had a tremendous response in my dealings with the RACGP, with the AMA, with the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine; the heads have been tremendous to deal with—people such as the RACGP's Dr Bastian Seidel and the head of the AMA Dr Michael Gannon. They are working very constructively with us on the long-term national health plan—on the elements we are working with them on. There is no freeze in their dealings with us. I have got to say that the poor opposition shadow has yet to rise on her feet to address a single question to the current minister in nearly three months—not one question. Why would that be? She has been left in the freeze on her watch, on her time. It is not exactly a grand statement of great achievement.
Ms Claydon interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): The member for Newcastle is out of place and out of order.
Mr HUNT: The shadow minister quoted the fact that I make the point that Medicare funding goes up each year, every year, from $22 billion to $23 billion to $24 billion to $25 billion. Their argument has been that that we are cutting Medicare; we are not. It is false; it is untrue; it is incorrect. Then they get all upset about the fact that Medicare funding is actually going up. They also get upset about the fact that bulk-billing is actually going up. We were asked about the trajectory—
Mr Champion interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield.
Mr HUNT: What was bulk-billing for GPs under Labor? Under Labor it was 82.2 per cent. What was the last set of bulk-billing figures for us in the last half year?—85.4 per cent. The trajectory for bulk-billing, which is a measure over time of a trend, is up 3.2 per cent. In other words, bulk-billing has increased dramatically under us compared to what it was. So funding is up, and we also see that bulk-billing figures are up. If you put those two together, you have the strongest and most rock-solid support for Medicare that there has ever been. Let me repeat: they introduced the freeze and we are the ones who are dealing with it now in our discussions with the AMA, with the RACGP and the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine.
Let me deal now with Labor's record and what we are doing in health. Labor's record is very clear: Labor hates private health insurance. Let me repeat that: Labor hates private health insurance and wants to decimate it. How do we know this? Here is what the former health minister, the then member for Gellibrand, said going into the election: 'Labor made it crystal clear that we are committed to retaining all of the existing private health insurance rebates.' Here is what the member for Sydney—who introduced the freeze, by the way—said after they left government: 'How did I pay for it? I paid for it by targeting private health insurance.' Targeting private health insurance! It is the language of somebody who hates private health insurance and who resents that system.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr HUNT: It was not my language—targeting private health insurance. What we have also heard from the member for Ballarat on health funding is: 'The opposition would be kidding itself'—and this was when she was in opposition—'if it did not recognise there were challenges in the budget and that savings need to be found. There is no area that is going to be exempt.'—
Mr Champion interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield.
Mr HUNT: That is what she said just before the election when they were pitching to come into government. What did they do? They cut $4½ billion from private health insurance; they cut $2½ billion from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme; they cut $1 billion from dental care by cutting chronic disease dental care—by axing a scheme for chronic disease dental care. Why? Because it was too successful. What a commitment to dental care! They cut $664 million from the Medicare Benefits Schedule for GPs; they cut $500 million from pathology; they cut $450 million from the Medicare Safety Net. And then we have the grand daddy of all of their deceptions: they used to talk a lot about $57 billion in hospitals. Well, they had their chance. This shadow minister took a policy to the election—they had been talking about $57 billion—and they put in $2 billion. That is a four per cent success rate; 96 per cent fail rate. In anybody's language, that constitutes a fail unless, of course, you are Senator Kitching filling in a Health Services Union workplace safety test for a few friends. So they had a four per cent—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The minister will resume his seat.
Ms Catherine King: I am very reluctant to call a point of order during an MPI. I understand it is a robust debate but reflection on another member, even if they are in the other place, is simply not appropriate.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I asked the minister to withdraw that comment.
Mr HUNT: I actually see no basis for that, but, out of courtesy to the Deputy Speaker, I will do that. But the royal commission actually used language referring specifically to filling in for a few friends.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister for Health will withdraw unreservedly, please.
Mr HUNT: I am happy to withdraw.
Mr Champion interjecting—
Mr HUNT: Let us compare Labor's $55 billion shortfall—Labor's 96 per cent failure on what it had been talking about, promising, pledging and committing to the Australian people—with what we have done.
Ms Catherine King interjecting—
Mr HUNT: Since coming in, we have added $125 million to what we are doing for medical research, dealing with things such as providing $39 million for cancer research, $30 million for dementia, $11 million for Indigenous health—
Mr Crewther: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I refer to standing order 65(b). The shadow minister for health and other members opposite have continued to interrupt the minister over a number of minutes, and I ask the Deputy Speaker to draw attention to that.
Mr Champion interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield is still under a warning from question time. He is on very thin ice. I will explain now: the reason I am doing this is that the minister interjected when the shadow minister was speaking. I will make a statement after the minister finishes.
Mr HUNT: We have added $125 million to our work in relation to medical research. On the weekend we announced that the price of 1,100 drugs for Australian families are coming down. Prices for 1,100 drugs are coming down. There are eight new listings, including for areas such as Hodgkin's lymphoma and skin cancer.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr HUNT: What we are doing is listing new drugs, reducing the price of drugs and adding to medical research. The opposition slashed Medicare, introduced the freeze and failed on their own hospitals test. That is a recipe for disaster on their side. These people, in the end, are— (Time expired)
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That did get out of hand. The Minister for Health was interjecting. The shadow minister was interjecting. That was a most unedifying performance for this House. That is the last time in this MPI that I will tolerate that behaviour. The member for Wakefield was warned in question time, and that is still current.
Ms VAMVAKINOU (Calwell) (15:32): I am very pleased to be speaking on the MPI put forward today by the member for Ballarat which refers to the government's constant undermining of Medicare. The people in my electorate rely very heavily on a Medicare system that is robust, available and affordable. In fact, some suburbs, in particular Broadmeadows, constantly show up in statistics as areas of very high need. We are, in fact, one of the neediest areas. With diseases such as chronic heart disease, diabetes and mental health issues being so prevalent in our community, the government's continued attacks on Medicare raises ongoing alarm both for my constituents and our local healthcare providers.
It has always been the case, certainly in the time that I have been the member for Calwell, that one of our greatest challenges has been the affordability of adequate bulk-billing GP services, as well as the availability of specialist services. My local community health centre, the Dianella Community Health care centre, has struggled over the years to attract and maintain GPs and to also maintain GP bulk-billing. In fact, as far back as 2006, following a massive reduction in the after-hours GP services at Dianella, our community launched a petition calling on the then Howard government to provide the much needed funding to continue this very vital service. At the time, Dianella required about $150,000 per annum to restore our after-hours services. I tabled a petition with some 2,224 signatures with an additional 700 letters sent to the then Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott.
You can see that Medicare has never been safe from a coalition government, nor will it ever be. It has always been, in fact, Labor governments that support Medicare. The election of a Rudd and Gillard Labor government not only saw a return to support for Medicare but also saw the then Labor government invest some $7 million in contribution to the building of a superclinic in partnership with Dianella Community Health. The superclinic is a one-stop medical shop with doctors, physiotherapists, pathologists, podiatrists and occupational therapists all available to my constituents in one place. The superclinic has been running for a few years, and it is doing a great job of meeting my community's health needs. Of course in 2014, under the aggressive budget repair measures, the then Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, derided the value of the former Labor government's superclinic program and, in fact, shut it down. But, for my electorate, the concept of the superclinic was a great model for addressing the shortages and the inadequate availability of health services.
It is not surprising, then, that the governments most likely to undermine Medicare are always the coalition governments. In fact, not only are they most likely to do that but they are most keen and determined to do that. Of course, we have seen the Abbott-Turnbull governments take up this ideological crusade against Medicare since coming to power in 2013. Who can forget the proposed $7 GP tax, the $5 hike in medicines—the biggest price increases for prescription medicine in a decade—the $50 billion cut from public hospitals or the shutting down of the 61 Medicare Locals? The list goes on.
The Abbott government began the aggressive undermining of Medicare, and this Turnbull government has continued the assault unabated. The Turnbull government does not care whether or not people in my electorate can access affordable health care. The six-year freeze on Medicare rebates is making health care less affordable, yet this government's response is to extend it out to 2020, ignoring calls from across the healthcare sector to lift it. My local GPs and health experts constantly tell me how hard the freeze is biting and hurting my local community. We have historically struggled to attract GPs and to keep GP services affordable, and this is becoming increasingly more difficult, especially when demand is increasing and becoming more urgent.
I do want to pay tribute to the many caring GP services in my electorate who are desperately trying to keep bulk-billing and to remain affordable to the underprivileged and underserviced community they serve, but the freeze is really testing them. The cuts to diagnostic imaging affects and further threatens the welfare of people in my electorate, who are statistically more likely to become ill than those from wealthier electorates. Cuts to the bulk-billing incentive given to pathologists and to radiologists will see co-payments rise, and patients will be forced to pay more for tests or scans. Many of my constituents will be forced to possibly skip lifesaving services such as X-rays, CAT scans and ultrasounds as they become more unaffordable, and this is just not acceptable.
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (15:37): There are not too many times that this vitally important topic of health can be raised in this parliament. It is appropriate that we discuss it this afternoon, even though both sides of parliament have very different views on this important topic. The previous speaker was listened to politely and without interruption. We should see the same behaviour from both sides of parliament, because this place is better than to be emitting a constant blather with no intention other than trying to put off an opposing speaker. We can be better than that.
I want to start by touching on the performance of Medicare at the moment, casting some other references to the other pillars of health care, which include private health insurance, the function of the PBAC and the PBS, the history, including the other side's superclinics, and then making a reference to the shifting health debate, which is very much moving away from 'How much money can we shovel in?' to an argument about 'What outcomes can we purchase for the investment?' That is a very subtle change in the discussion, but one that is being led by some of the highest-level thinkers, both in the professions, in the health services themselves and even here, encouragingly, as we see more and more people with a health background entering this fine parliament.
I think it would not go beyond the notice of those who are in the gallery today, watching what they should expect would be a highest-possible-echelon debate about the health system, to ask why some of the highly qualified health individuals from the opposition are not in this debate today. Why wouldn't a highly qualified pediatrician with such eminent standing as the member for Macarthur have been approached to be part of the Labor Party's argument about Medicare? Here is an individual, the member of Macarthur from the other side of politics—I would have thought there might have been a hand that reached out and said, 'Sir, would you be part of this debate? Would you devote five minutes of your afternoon to coming to outline precisely how a hospital system works from the inside?'
It is fine for enthusiasts like us to know roughly when the visiting hours are at the local hospital, but that does not make a health expert. What we need is politicians in this place that have some kind of health background, some kind of health training, some kind of economic understanding to be able to discuss health, because it is an incredibly complicated part of social policy. But alas! The member for Macarthur is up there watching on the CCTV, and we have people reading speeches—reading them word for word. That does not serve the community. That will not serve the community at all.
What we have is a history from the other side of politics where they have promised 64 superclinics and delivered 33. What is the point of simply dropping a Taj Mahal right next door to an existing, functional, privately funded general practice and creating a government-sponsored one right next door? That just crushes business. That was the competitive neutrality problem with an investment in superclinics.
Let's remember the drugs that were relentlessly approved by both sides of politics, proud of our PBAC, until this opposition was in power. What did they do when they ran out of money through self-induced overspending? They deferred the PBAC approval process. That is right. Drugs for schizophrenia, drugs for chronic pain—not approved, even though they had cleared the PBAC bar. We had patients told, 'You will have to wait until we have sorted out our finances.' Then the other side of politics has the temerity to come in here and argue over a 60-cent indexation for Medicare. Let me give you the facts. Seventy-eight per cent of Medicare is bulk billed. Eighty-five per cent of all GP visits are bulk billed. If we assume that they are the poorer cohort of Australians, we have over 20 million Australians enjoying bulk-billed GP practices. I suspect that the other four million of us can afford a couple of dollars to see a GP. That is an utterly reasonable proposition.
But instead of discussing activity-based finance, a shift to outcomes, a nationally efficient price, or even the fantastic editorials written by people like Des Gorman and Murray Horn about shifting the health policy debate away from shovelling money to purchasing outcomes—no, no, no; this kind of quality stuff is not picked up by this opposition. All we are going to argue over is a 60-cent GP Medicare indexation, as if the world revolves around the money in a profession where we do it for the love. This is about shifting from purchasing a health agreement on a piece of paper to purchasing a health outcome; to keeping children out of hospital and having them fully immunised; to having outcomes that are funded by a government willing to do it. That discussion can occur with both sides of politics and with general practitioners and other providers. As long as you have your smartest people on the other side of politics sitting in their offices, not invited to be part of this debate, we will continue to have talking points from ministers' offices thrown around here with no greater gain for this community.
Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (15:42): This is a government that cannot be trusted on health care. They cannot be trusted to fund hospitals properly. Australians know it and they just do not trust you. They do not believe you, because time and time again they have seen this government undermining our universal healthcare system. They just do not trust you on these issues. This government has proven time and time again that it simply does not care about the health of Australians.
There is no better example of the fact that they do not care than the six-year freeze on Medicare rebates. Before the election The Prime Minister promised that no Australian would pay more to see a GP under his Medicare freeze. That turned out to be a lie. Australians are paying a lot more to go to the GP now. In fact, the government's freeze has made health care much more expensive for all Australians. This is on top of their cuts to hospitals and other areas of health care, as well.
I think this six-year freeze on the Medicare rebate really highlights the twisted priorities of this government. They can give a $50 billion tax cut to big business and multimillionaires on the one hand, yet on the other they cut funding to health. They are twisted priorities. In contrast, our priorities in health care are based on fairer funding and greater access to services. We made the choice to not give away $50 billion in a corporate tax cut. We choose to properly fund services. That is our priority. Remember, this government previously failed three times to introduce their GP tax. They tried very hard to do that. That did not work, so instead they imposed a GP tax by stealth—freezing the indexation of those rebates. We made it clear at the election that Labor was committed to lifting the government's freeze on the indexation. This was very popular, I can tell you, in my electorate, because people in my electorate just do not trust this Liberal-National government.
There is a lot of speculation leading up to the budget about what the government may or may not do. We will keep on calling on them to make sure they lift this freeze. We have asked them on many occasions to do that. It is going to be a real test for them to see what happens in the budget, because at every opportunity to reverse the freeze they have done nothing. In fact, they have just extended it. In 2014 they introduced the freeze and in 2016 the Prime Minister himself extended it to 2020. The government have been made very aware of these impacts. They have heard it from the community. GPs, specialists and health experts have been sending a clear and strong message: the freeze is hurting and it should be dropped. I hope the government are listening and I hope, when it comes to the budget, they get rid of it. This freeze comes on top of a lot of other harsh cuts by this government that have hurt the community—cutting over $1 billion from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and increasing the co-payments, cutting diagnostic imaging and pathology, cutting the Medicare safety net—and also their failure to properly fund our public hospitals. This has seen elective surgery waiting times blow out under the Turnbull Liberal-National government to the worst they have ever been.
The combination of all these cuts has been devastating for our country, and particularly devastating for rural and regional areas like mine on the New South Wales North Coast. As I have said many times before, it is choices by the National Party that particularly hurt our regional and rural areas, and they are to be held accountable for these cruel cuts to health and hospital funding. In areas like mine we see the impact of cuts by the federal government such as those ones I have listed, but we also have a state Liberal-National government whose cuts are doubly hurting us. We have right across our region such a lack of funding for health and hospital care. It is so detrimental. In fact, we recently highlighted the fact that our Tweed Hospital is in absolute crisis. I would just like to highlight an article from The Tweed Daily Newson Wednesday, 8 March, with front page 'Out Of Patience' and headline 'Doctors call for help':
Fed-up doctors and nurses are calling on the community to get behind their push to lobby the State Government into action on the stalled redevelopment of the Tweed Hospital … the hospital's Medical Staff Council decided to take the dramatic step of calling out the NSW Government for failing to deliver on its promises to redevelop the facility.
This comes on the back of the lies of the state National Party MP for Tweed at the last election. He said, 'There's $48 million for the Tweed Hospital'—not true; did not happen. We now have doctors speaking out because our hospital is in crisis. This is in absolute crisis, as are other healthcare providers in the region, and this is on top of all of the Turnbull Liberal-National government's cuts to Medicare and cuts to hospital funding. It is leading to a real health crisis in areas like mine, where we have a large proportion of seniors, who have much more complex health needs and are really devastated. That is why at the last election there was a very positive swing to Labor due to the fact that we want to protect Medicare. We created it and will always fight to protect it.
Mrs WICKS (Robertson) (15:47): I am very glad to speak to this matter of public importance, because, despite the disgraceful 'Mediscare' scare campaign run by Labor on the Central Coast at the last federal election, health care is a very positive story that the coalition government can tell on the Central Coast. Far from what members opposite would have people believe, the Central Coast is a region where new and world-class health infrastructure is being rolled out to more people than ever before. It is a region with record high bulk-billing rates under a coalition government. It is a region where, after years of neglect by Labor representatives, the coalition is determined to deliver a plan to see more doctors become available for local families where they are needed the most. If members opposite want to know what real action on health care looks like, they should look to the Central Coast and see how this government has been setting a new standard of excellence in health care for our region.
Contrast this with the six years of Labor representation during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, when Belinda Neal and Deborah O'Neill—now Senator O'Neill—were the members for Robertson, and the Central Coast was falling into a state of very poor health indeed. I remind members opposite that Labor's cuts during this time included $1 billion from Medicare for dental and $500 million from Medicare for pathology. I remind them that Labor cut $664 million from Medicare for GPs, $450 million from the Medicare Safety Net protections, $2.5 billion from pharmacy and medicines, and $4 billion from the private health insurance rebate for consumers, and they means-tested it. It is a very long list. And, as the minister stated so clearly—and it hardly needs repeating—it was Labor who introduced, created, owned and authored the Medicare freeze. Now Labor refuses to back its unfunded $57 billion hospitals promise, their biggest cut in waiting.
What is more, Labor, represented on the Central Coast by then members Belinda Neal and Deborah O'Neill, failed the people of the Central Coast by letting the GP shortage on the Peninsula become a crisis. They did this by simply doing nothing, especially on the Peninsula. In contrast, we acted, including in 2015 when the coalition made vital changes to the District of Workforce Shortage calculations so that now the most up-to-date data is used to identify areas where there is a doctor shortage. This change has meant greater availability of doctors in 26 new suburbs in Robertson. Recently we engaged with health experts and health professionals to host a community forum, packed with around 100 people, where we committed to address this problem. The Assistant Minister for Health, Dr David Gillespie, joined me at the forum at Umina Beach, and I look forward to sitting down with him again tomorrow with key medical recruiters here in parliament.
This also comes as bulk-billing rates hit record highs, meaning patients are getting more benefit from Medicare than ever before. Nationally, as we have already heard, GP bulk-billing rates have jumped to 85.4 per cent during the second half of 2016. This is even higher in my electorate, where it is around 87 per cent, and it is almost 91 per cent in the member for Dobell's electorate, but you do not hear these facts coming from Labor. So let this be clear: the coalition government has a rock-solid commitment to Medicare, and funding is increasing by around $1 billion every year. We also have a rock-solid commitment to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and from next month the cost of more than 1,100 medicine brands is being reduced, with vital new drugs being added to the PBS for people with conditions including high cholesterol, Parkinson's disease, depression and breast cancer. The coalition government also has a generous and sustainable hospital funding agreement, which delivers an additional $2.9 billion in public hospital funding. That is $7.9 billion more than Labor funded in its last year of government.
Finally, let me underline how the coalition government is clearly demonstrating its commitment to world-class health care on the Central Coast. We have set up a groundbreaking new medical precinct task force for the Central Coast, which includes representatives from government and the University of Newcastle, and health experts from the private and public sectors. We did not hear a word about this when Labor represented the region. Established with the assistance of the Minister for Health, when he served as the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, the task force is an Australian-first pilot that will seek to build on our $32.5 million investment in the Central Coast Medical School and Medical Research Institute—again, nothing that occurred under the Labor government.
This is based at Gosford hospital, which is itself undergoing a $348 million expansion thanks to the NSW Liberal government. There are 750 jobs that will flow from the medical research institute and school, with the facility on track to be completed by 2019. I could not be more proud of the work that this government is doing to deliver better standards of health care to people who need it most on the Central Coast and, indeed, around Australia. (Time expired)
Mr HART (Bass) (15:52): I rise today to speak on this matter of public importance. The topic talks about the government's undermining of Medicare, in particular with its six-year freeze on the Medicare rebate. At their simplest, the principles underpinning the Medicare system are very basic. In this respect, Medicare is an idea. Medicare is a very powerful idea. It is grounded in the universality of the right to receive health care.
The first version of Medicare, the Medibank system—introduced under the Whitlam government—was opposed by the coalition opposition and a sizeable section of the medical profession. Universal health care is a right. It is a universal right for all citizens to receive health care based upon need rather than the ability to pay. That is why we say that you should be accessing health care with your Medicare card rather than with your credit card.
Despite the simplicity of the idea, and despite the recognition by the medical profession over an extended period of time of the effectiveness of the Medicare system, the coalition—with protestations—is no friend to Medicare. The reason why I can say this with confidence is that every action taken by the Liberals in government reveals their agenda to undermine Medicare through undermining the universal application of Medicare. There is no better example of their lack of commitment to universality and the importance of Medicare as a universal health care system than the six-year freeze on Medicare rebates. When health care becomes unaffordable for more and more Australians, the universality principle is undermined.
In 2014 they introduced the freeze, and in 2016 the Prime Minister extended the freeze to 2020. The medical profession, represented by GPs, specialists and health experts, has been very vocal in warning that the freeze has led to a drop in bulk billing and an increase in gap payments, which have to be met by patients. Whilst the government may wish to fudge the issue through vague references to working on lifting the freeze, its agenda is to undermine Medicare by requiring more and more Australians to meet more and more of the cost of their health care.
GPs and patients have borne the brunt of the unfair freezing of the Medicare rebate. The government, in particular under the previous minister for health, constantly spoke of the necessity to ensure that our public health system was sustainable. All of the cuts to health care, all of the freezes which have been imposed upon our public health system are in the name of sustainability, which is the most Orwellian code for the imposition of inappropriate and unsustainable restraint upon our public health system—the sort of restraint which can lead to system failure.
Medicare is sustainable, providing it is adequately resourced. It is of significant concern to me, as a former member of a public health board—the Tasmanian Health Organisation - North, an operator of acute care—that primary health, that is the people who access general practitioners, are underfunded through the Medicare rebate freeze, and also that there is significant pressure upon our public health system, particularly in my electorate of Bass. The Tasmanian public health system is under significant stress, with the Launceston General Hospital struggling to meet demand and struggling to recruit specialists to a well-regarded general hospital.
Public health should include a focus on preventable health as well as chronic and acute care. A failure to adequately resource Medicare, in the form of a freeze on the GP rebate, means that people will delay consulting a medical practitioner. People will present to the emergency departments of our already under-resourced public hospitals, instead of seeking advice at an early stage from a general practitioner.
This Turnbull government is making health care less affordable for every Australian, with the Medicare freeze already forcing GPs to drop bulk billing and increase out-of-pocket expenses. The record of state and federal Liberal governments is poor in health. Their failure to properly fund our public hospitals has seen elective surgery waiting lists blow out. I have been made aware of shameful delays within the Tasmanian public health system. I have been told of patients who have been diagnosed with serious conditions like bowel cancer, who cannot access life-saving surgery within a reasonable time, due to the mismanagement of the public health system.
The insistence that public health funding is growing year after year but not meeting demand, increase in acuity or increase in healthcare inflation, means that the funding of our public health system is constantly under stress, with public health boards constantly searching for efficiencies and savings. I know that in my electorate of Bass voters rejected the underfunding of health, the freezing of the Medicare rebate and the freezing of the pathology billing incentive. My electorate has significant pockets of disadvantage. My electorate values universal health care. (Time expired)
Mr LEESER (Berowra) (15:57): My understanding of mathematics is that there are several branches. There is trigonometry; there is geometry. Today we saw a new branch of mathematics: 'Shortenometry'—that part of mathematics where the figures just do not add up. That is what we saw today from the shadow minister for health. She tried to give us this idea that, somehow, a government that has only been in office for 3½ years was responsible for a freeze that has been in place for six years. The truth is that the Medicare freeze was introduced by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the member for Sydney, when she was the Minister for Health in the last government.
But it should not surprise us that those opposite are misleading and deceptive on Medicare, because that is what their record has been like. That was what their record was like during the election campaign, particularly. We saw that big launch where the curtain came down, the Medicare bus was up, and we heard the Leader of the Opposition talk into the microphone with a zombie voice about the importance of saving Medicare. What they did was mislead and deceive the public about Medicare. The 'Mediscare' campaign was the most deceptive campaign ever in Australia. They scared people with robocalls. They scared people by impersonating agencies. They scared people with fake texts.
At one particular point in time in the campaign, the Leader of the Opposition was actually called on this point by Leigh Sales on 7.30 and asked the direct question: can you put your hand on your heart and look Australians in the eye and say that the coalition has a policy to privatise Medicare? What did he do? He could not answer the question. He would not say and he did not say. That is the truth, because, at the end of the day, the 'Mediscare' was one great big deception.
And why wouldn't Labor want to deceive people on Medicare? The nature of Labor Party policy in relation to health has been so bad. They cut over $6 billion, in office, from Medicare and medicines. They introduced the pause in the Medicare indexation. They cut $1.4 billion from diagnostic imaging and pathology. They took a billion dollars from Medicare for dental services and put it into a mean-tested scheme that only helped a third of the children it was supposed to help. They ripped $4 billion out of the private health insurance rebate and premiums went up 30 per cent. They broke a $57 billion hospital funding promise. And, on medical research, they tried to sneak out $400 million.
In my electorate we have seen what happens when Labor administers a health system. I was on the Hornsby Hospital community participation committee before I became a member of this House. For years, Labor in my electorate had neglected that hospital. That hospital was in such bad repair under the state Labor government that when it rained the roofs leaked in the operating theatres, possums ran amok throughout the hospital and many of the buildings and equipment had not been repaired and upgraded since the sixties and seventies. It was only when the coalition came to government at the state level that that hospital was transformed, with a new mental health unit, with a $120 million upgrade for stage 1 and with a $200 million recently upgraded stage 2 of that hospital.
That is a demonstration yet again that Labor like to talk about health but when they are actually in government they fail to deliver again and again. There was their GP super clinics promise. They promised 64 GP super clinics but they only delivered 33. Under Labor, median waiting times for elective surgery went from 34 days to 36 days. They promised to end the blame game on medical funding but they did not. It is broken promise after broken promise.
By contrast, under the coalition, bulk-billing has been stronger than ever. More Australians are visiting doctors without putting their hand in their pocket, with 73½ million GP attendances in the second half of 2016. The bulk-billing rate is at 77.8 per cent. That is a very high rate of bulk-billing. There are more services available through Medicare—$192.7 million of services. That is a real increase in this area. Then we have the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, another part of the health policy of the coalition. From 1 April, the cost of 1,100 medical brands will be reduced. People will have access to cheaper medicines for cholesterol, Parkinson's disease, depression and breast cancer—all areas that are desperately in need of funding relief, and all areas that have been assisted by the coalition's policies in relation to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and health more broadly.
The Labor Party have no credibility, no integrity and no shame in relation to health policy. They could not deliver a surplus. You cannot trust them on 457s. You cannot trust them on education funding. Why should you trust them on anything? (Time expired)
Mr DANBY (Melbourne Ports) (16:02): This six-year freeze on Medicare rebates is gradually and sneakily undermining Medicare and is set to continue with the Prime Minister's plan to extend it out to 2020. The government's attitude is characterised by relentless attacks on our iconic health system. This government came to power with a plan to undermine Medicare. How could we forget this government's first budget—a budget littered with heartless measures aimed at our nation's most vulnerable people? At the very beginning it became clear that the government wanted to weaken and privatise Medicare. The measures in that budget were astonishing. There was a $7 sick tax—a tax that would have immediately transformed Medicare from a service helping our sick into a tax on our sick; increased cost for medication on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme; and encouragement for states and territories to charge a co-payment for GP equivalent visits to hospital emergency services.
The government introduced this freeze in 2014 and in 2016, as I said, the Prime Minister himself extended it out to 2020. This 'ice age', as the member for Ballarat has described it, has had a massive effect on our health system. Out-of-pocket costs are higher than they have ever been and GPs have already been forced to increase fees and drop bulk-billing. As AMA President Michael Gannon said, 'The freeze is hurting now and it should have been dropped a long time ago.' To quote him verbatim, on 1 July 2016 he said:
We know there are some GPs that are changing their billing practices and that commences today, on July 1. The reality is that there are a lot of GPs who decided they could probably take the hit for a couple of years but they are saying enough's enough.
As the member for Ballarat says, the trajectory of bulk-billing is declining, access is more difficult and costs are increasing.
This time the government are going through the back door as a way of destroying Medicare. They want to make people pay more, not through the measures outlined in the zombie bills that are still in the Senate but by reducing the real earnings of doctors over time. Going all the way back to Fraser, the LNP has, like a Trump administration, opposed what they think is socialised medicine. Their current tactic is no longer to attack it head on but to index payments received by our medical professionals from Medicare. In other words, as inflation pushes prices up, doctors receive no increase in the value of their payments and are forced to charge their patients. The government's unfair health policies, rejected by millions of people at the last election, need to be dropped—the increase in the PBS co-payments, the cuts to diagnostic imaging and pathology and the cuts to the Medicare safety net.
The day before the election, Prime Minister Turnbull promised that no Australian would pay more to see a GP under the Medicare freeze. This was a lie. Australians are already paying more for GPs and out-of-pocket expenses for health are increasing. The current government is making health care less affordable for every Australian, with the Medicare freeze already forcing GPs to drop bulk-billing, as I have explained, and increase out-of-pocket costs. The Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, the member for Wentworth, is also cutting $1.3 from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and increasing the co-payment by up to $5—the biggest increase for prescription medicine in a decade.
As the member for Richmond valuably added, cuts to bulk-billing incentives—the payments which give pathologists and radiologists a specific incentive to bulk-bill—will mean that bulk-billing rates will fall, co-payments will rise and patients will be forced to pay more for tests and scans or skip them altogether, which is something that really worries me with Australia's tradition of preventative health care. The government's failure to properly fund our public hospitals has seen elective surgery waiting times blow out under this Prime Minister—the worst we have seen since records started to be kept in 2001. The $1.4 billion cuts to preventative health and health promotion grants are forcing community organisations to close their doors, including organisations which target HIV prevention in young people and LGBTI health in Indigenous communities.
Millions of voters rejected the Prime Minister's health cuts at the last election. Medicare is a universal health system—as the member for Bass pointed out—as imagined by the great Gough Whitlam. It will be preserved only by the election of a Shorten Labor government, with the member for Ballarat as the Minister for Health.
Mr DRUM (Murray—Chief Nationals Whip) (16:07): I think this debate on the matter of public importance of Medicare is a great way to define the differences between the two sides of this parliament. What we have on one side is somebody who calls it as they see it and acknowledges that yes, there was a whole range of challenges in relation to funding and continuing to improve on a health service that tends to grow in most western societies and most western countries at around five, six or seven per cent year on year. It puts an incredible strain on the budget of all those First World countries when so many other parts of the economy are potentially stagnant or maybe growing at one or two per cent. This creates a real challenge, but at least the coalition has the decency and the honesty to acknowledge that we have real, serious challenges.
On the other hand, we have a series of mistruths and lies coming out of the Labor Party. And not only do they get found out for these lies but they are incredibly proud of telling these lies to the Australian public. They are incredibly proud of the fact that even though they were caught out with the 'Mediscare' campaign during the election campaign they wear it as some sort of badge of honour that they are so deceitful. They think, 'We can put one over the Australian people', and they wear it with this incredible honour. As the member for Berowra stated earlier, when the opposition leader was caught out on radio in the days and weeks leading up to the election and asked whether he could give us one skerrick of evidence about whether there is any truth behind the 'Mediscare' campaign at all, he was unable to furnish one skerrick of evidence about so-called 'Mediscare'—the fact that we could somehow or other privatise a system that costs us $15 billion. I would like to see who is going to buy that one!
Irrespective of that, the ridiculousness of the 'Mediscare' campaign has been borne out in the months following the election, but there is this incredible attitude of the Labor Party whereby they still tend to revel in the deceit and dishonesty associated with the entire campaign. It is beyond belief. However, the previous speaker, Mr Danby, the member for Melbourne Ports, at least started his contribution by talking about when the freeze on the Medicare rebate was put in place six years ago, and then he went on with the rest of his contribution. At least he acknowledged that it was the Labor Party that started the rebate freeze. It was the Labor Party that put this freeze in place.
If we start from that point of honesty, then maybe we can go along and look at what the rates of Australians who are using the bulk-billing system are now. I do not know what the member for Sydney was talking about when she wanted to talk about the trajectory of bulk-billing, but, quite simply, 75.1 per cent of Australians were bulk-billing in 2012-13. Then in 2013-14 it went to 76 per cent. In 2014-15—a coalition government—it was 76.9 per cent. There were steady increases in the percentage of all visitors to a doctor, the percentage of all Australians accessing bulk-billing, increasing year on year. And in 2015-16 and 2016-17 it has been 77.1 per cent of Australians accessing bulk-billing. So, the statistics and the facts put a further lie to the outrageous claims that are being put forward by the Labor Party. Once again they get caught out.
In relation to bulk-billing rates state by state and then through electorates, for the seat of Murray, for total Medicare, 79 per cent of people who live in Murray are able to access bulk-billing. Yes, it would be great if we lived in a fairyland world where money were no object and we were not spending $100 million a day more than we were making, if we had no budgetary pressures. If the Labor Party had its way, we know where it would go in relation to higher taxes, where it would go in relation to further spending, putting greater pressure on business. Absolutely, as the Prime Minister said today: not one policy that is going to actually be good for the economy, not one policy that is going to create one job, not one policy that is going to actually fix up the deficit that we are going to hand on to our kids. Only the coalition has the courage to balance the budget.
Debate adjourned.
PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS
Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (16:12): Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Dr LEIGH: Yes.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Please proceed.
Dr LEIGH: In question time today the Prime Minister said that he was sure that I would agree that Australia has very high personal income tax rates on high-income earners. This is not correct. The best comparison of personal income tax rates comes from the OECD's 2015 statistics, which show that Australia's top marginal income tax rate in 2015 was 12th of 34 countries. But this rate cuts in at a fairly high threshold, and if one is to look at the rate on someone earning 167 per cent—
Mr Fletcher interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Fenner needs to go to the point where he was misrepresented, not to make a speech.
Dr LEIGH: I am not; I am simply explaining why I would not agree with the Prime Minister's statement. Tax rates on someone earning 167 per cent of average earnings mark us 13th of 34 countries in the OECD. Australia does not have extremely high personal income tax rates. The Prime Minister is wrong when he says that I would agree with that statement.
BILLS
Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2016
Consideration in Detail
Consideration resumed.
The SPEAKER (16:18): In accordance with standing order 133(b), I shall now proceed to put the question on the motion moved earlier today by the honourable member for Kennedy on which a division was called for and deferred in accordance with the standing order. No further debate is allowed. The question is that the amendments be agreed to.
A division having been called and the bells having been rung—
The SPEAKER: As there are fewer than five members on the side for the ayes in this division, I declare the question negatived in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
Question negatived, Mr Katter voting no.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Third Reading
Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Minister for Urban Infrastructure) (16:19): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2016
Assent
Message from the Governor-General reported informing the House of assent to the bill.
Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2017
Consideration of Senate Message
Bill returned from the Senate with amendments.
Ordered that the amendments be considered at a later hour this day.
COMMITTEES
Human Rights Committee
Report
Mr GOODENOUGH (Moore) (16:21): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present the committee's report entitled Human rights scrutiny report 3 of 2017.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
Mr GOODENOUGH: by leave—I rise to speak to the tabling of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights' Human rights scrutiny report 3 of 2017.
In accordance with the committee's legislative mandate under section 7(a) of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 the committee examines the compatibility of recent bills and legislative instruments with Australia's obligations under international human rights law.
A key purpose of the scrutiny report is to provide parliament with credible technical analysis about the human rights implications of legislation. The report is therefore a technical examination and does not assess the broader merits or policy objectives of particular measures.
The committee receives legal advice in relation to the human rights compatibility of legislation. It is served by an external legal adviser to the committee and secretariat staff.
Committee members performing a scrutiny function are not, and have never been, bound by the contents or conclusions of scrutiny committee reports. Like all parliamentarians, committee members are free to engage in debates over the policy merits of legislation according to the dictates of party, conscience, belief or outlook.
Scrutiny committee members may, and often do, have different views in relation to the policy merits of legislation.
Eleven new bills are assessed in this scrutiny report as not raising human rights concerns. The committee is also seeking further information in relation to five bills and legislative instruments.
I encourage my fellow members and others to examine the committee's report to better inform their understanding of the committee's work.
With these comments, I commend the committee's Report 3 of 2017 to the chamber.
BILLS
Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr HOWARTH (Petrie) (16:24): I am very pleased to speak on the Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill. Beautiful Moreton Bay is an important part of the electorate of Petrie, a haven for boaties, a playground for kite surfers, sailboarders, jetskiers, snorkellers and tourists. I would suggest Moreton Bay is one of the reasons Redcliffe has just been named as one of the top five movers and shakers when it comes to Easter tourism in Queensland. Off the coast lies Moreton Island and the iconic Tangalooma Wrecks—15 boats sunk in the 1960s to form a breakwall for small boats, in response to calls for a safe anchorage. The wrecks have become a popular dive spot and play host to wobbegongs, kingfish, lion fish and trevally, and the surrounding turquoise waters are a popular tourist attraction. The tops were recently cut off the wrecks as a safety precaution, but there is a groundswell of support for re-wrecking the wrecks, and a campaign—More Wrecks for Moreton—to sink more boats at the site has been started on Facebook. The Redcliffe Surf Life Saving Club is tucked into the northern corner of Suttons Beach. A local favourite and destination for weekend visitors, it is about to be filled to capacity for the annual Festival of Sails event over Easter.
I am definitely biased in believing the waters of Moreton Bay are pretty special, but I know I am not alone in having a soft spot for the area. As much as the bay is about beauty and tourism, it also provides a living for many. The Moreton Bay region comprises only three per cent of Queensland's coastline, yet it produces around 15 per cent of the state's commercial catch, including prawns. Australia's prawn industry produces approximately 25,000 tonnes per year, with an estimated value of $358 million. When white spot disease was first detected in prawn farms on the Logan River, south of Brisbane, teams on prawn trawlers in my electorate all held their breath. Unfortunately their worst fears were confirmed just last month, when the virus that causes white spot disease was found in prawns collected from the northern waters of Moreton Bay. A movement control order for the Moreton Bay region is currently in effect and will be in place for three months to allow containment of any potential spread of the virus as well as further testing and determination with regard to future action.
I welcome the concern and action of this government and particularly the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Barnaby Joyce. Upon discovery of the virus I know that both his department and the state authorities began working around the clock to contain and eradicate the disease and to save our valuable prawn-farming industry, because we have one of the best industries in the world and we must maintain that. The coalition government is providing rapid response funding, bolstered by the coalition's Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper, to assist with response costs and future preparedness activities. I am assured all indications are that white spot disease is eradicable. To that end, and in addition to the provision of rapid response funding, a range of emergency response and incident management activities are being undertaken, including destruction and decontamination of affected areas; bird mitigation; monitoring of waterways; community engagement and awareness; surveillance and sampling; and scientific and technical advice. All of these measures are vital, as is the bill that we are here to discuss.
The Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017 will enhance biosecurity powers and further protect Australia's $60 billion agricultural industries, including fishing in my local region and the beautiful Moreton Bay. I might add that our agricultural exports are up significantly over the last 12 months, many thanks to our free trade agreements and other measures for jobs and growth that the coalition has implemented. The bill will provide additional powers to control disease carriers at Australia's airports and seaports, including on incoming aircraft and vessels that move through Moreton Bay and on to Fisherman Island to dock. I see the member for Bonner is in the chair, and he would know this area very well, having Moreton Island in his electorate.
The bill will also provide additional protection for coastal environments from the risk of marine pest incursions. As we have seen with the impact of white spot, threats to biosecurity can take hold quickly. But it is not just the threats to fishing relating to the issue of ballast water that highlight the importance of this bill. The recent global outbreak of Zika virus, which is spread by mosquitoes, has shown us how important control of disease-carrying pests is. It may not be particularly pleasant, but spraying insecticide on incoming aircraft and vessels to kill mosquitoes capable of carrying the Zika virus, among other things, is key to ensuring they do not establish populations in Australia and put the Australian community at risk.
Ballast water is a threat to Australia's biosecurity because any number of plants and animals that live in the ocean may be picked up from the point of departure before being deposited in other regions and offshore in my electorate in the beautiful Moreton Bay. Tightening management of ballast water in ships provides important protection for our fisheries and coastal environments.
Biosecurity plays a critical role in reducing risks and protecting our nation so that it remains one of the few countries in the world that are free from many of the world's most severe pests and diseases. We are fortunate in Australia and we want to protect this position. The bill will complement our current suite of biosecurity legislation to protect our vital agricultural industries and the capacity for our nation to continue producing and exporting the highest quality, clean and sustainably produced agricultural goods to the world.
Importantly, the bill will prepare Australia to be fully legislatively compliant with the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments when it comes into force internationally later this year on 8 September. Of course we should have our own domestically generated layers of protection, and these should be as tight as required. We do not make any apologies at times when imports from other countries need to be stopped due to biosecurity hazards. We make no apologies for that.
The convention recognises that invasive aquatic species present a major threat to marine ecosystems, with shipping identified as a major pathway for introducing risk to new environments. The problem has increased in recent years, along with trade and traffic volume, and in particular with the introduction of steel hulls, allowing vessels to use water instead of solid materials as ballast.
The effects of the introduction of new species have been devastating in many areas of the world. As I said a moment ago, in my own electorate we see white spot temporarily putting the brakes on the trade of prawns. I know that some prawn producers in my electorate have been quite significantly impacted because locals are not eating the local prawns, despite the fact that consumption will not actually hurt humans.
According to the International Maritime Organization, bio-invasions are continuing to increase at an alarming rate and, as the volume of seaborne trade continues to increase, the problem may be yet to reach its peak. However, the ballast water management convention that was adopted in 2004, entering into force in September, aims to address this, preventing the spread of harmful aquatic organisms from one region to another. It seeks to do this by establishing standards and procedures for the management and control of ships' ballast water and sediments. It requires ships to exchange ballast water as far from the nearest land as possible and it sets limits—for example, 200 nautical miles from land—depending on a ships' usual route. In order to comply with the convention, Australia must ensure that ships whose normal voyage goes beyond the 200-nautical-mile zone conduct their ballast water exchange outside that 200-nautical-mile zone. To do that Australia requires jurisdiction out to the exclusive economic zone.
Ratifying the convention gives our nation greater powers to regulate foreign vessels consistent with Australian vessels operating between our own domestic ports. It enables Australia to phase out the acceptance of less effective ballast water exchange in favour of the more effective onboard treatment systems. Having onboard treatment systems on more vessels and regulating ballast water on ships between Australian ports will improve our ability to control a critical pathway that can lead to the spread of aquatic pests and diseases.
Ratifying the ballast water convention is vital for an internationally consistent approach to managing ballast water on vessels. The convention is an important global initiative involving over 50 countries that together represent more than 53 per cent of the world's merchant fleet shipping tonnage. As a nation we signed the ballast water convention in 2005, having played an important role in its development, and thereby agreeing to develop arrangements for its implementation here in Australia. I welcome the opportunity ratifying the convention presents for protecting our sovereignty and industry and ensuring the continuance of relative isolation from the scourge of pests and disease.
Protecting our ocean environment is of immense importance to me personally. As a diver I am proud of our government's investment in our waterways and of course in the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, where the federal coalition government has spent millions of dollars since being elected. It is important for Queensland, for residents and businesses in the Moreton Bay region and for the electorate of Petrie more broadly from both a recreational and a commercial perspective. I will give you an indication of its value.
According to the most recent research that I could put my hands on, in 2005 the Moreton Bay fishing industry in my electorate produced around $13 million worth of seafood. Half of that was produced by trawlers. More recent estimates of catch suggest the value of commercial fishing has increased to between $24 million and $30 million per annum, and it may well be much higher. More than two-thirds of the value of catch caught by the trawl fleet was derived from prawn species, hence the impact of white spot recently.
There are well over 200 vessels active in the Morton Bay fishing zone alone. I was out on one of those vessels during Christmas 2015. I went out on TheMarvin, a local prawn trawler, and they certainly worked hard, our local commercial fishermen. Every two hours they set the nets, sorted the catch and rechecked them. It was, pretty well, from six at night until six in the morning. Our commercial fishermen should be recognised for the valued role they play. Whilst I am a recreational fisherman, not everyone likes to fish recreationally, and people want to buy their seafood from somewhere like Morgans or Seafood Town or other local seafood retailers in my electorate.
All levels of government, at the federal level through this bill and at the Queensland state government level, should be supporting our commercial fishermen. The capital they have invested in their fleets—in boats, associated fishing gear and onshore facilities—is estimated to be around $77 million, $65 million of which is capital invested in vessels alone.
The success of our fishing industry is a combination of the dedication and talent of those who work hard, as I described a moment ago, and the fact that Australian seafood is the best and the envy of the world. You would not go to a country anywhere, let alone in Asia, that would not want to buy our local seafood. Our pristine waters give life to countless species and a livelihood to a thriving, responsible fishing community. Whether cutting a living, catching a feed or simply soaking up the beauty of our surrounds, Australians have an affinity with the sea.
I congratulate the coalition government for working to protect something I hope we can all continue to enjoy, to benefit from and, ultimately, to take for granted. If we succeed on that last point, it means as a government we have done our job well.
Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (16:39): One of the proudest boasts I have in my lifetime is that I—or, more specifically, the head of my department—took the initiatives that resulted in the prawn fish-farming industry in Australia. But to show nothing more than white spot illustrates the error of this quarter of a century by this parliament. They have a policy of free trade. It has been taken to such a fanatical level that they do not honour or respect—the last speaker said, 'We have the best fisheries in the world and we have clean, green image.' No you have not! You have white spot. You do not have a clean, green image in fisheries. You now have one of the worst diseases that crustaceans can take in the world.
Who do we blame for this? We pleaded with the government not to bring in prawns from overseas. We said, 'You will get white spot. You will get IHHNV on the Great Barrier Reef.' We have people whingeing and crying and putting hundreds of millions of dollars, every year, in the Great Barrier Reef and then doing something that destroys the Great Barrier Reef. When we complained that we now have IHHNV there, they said, 'It's endemic. There's nothing we can do about it.' We said, 'Bring them in and you'll get disease on the barrier reef.' No sooner do we get it and, far from saying, 'We're ashamed of ourselves and we're embarrassed at what we've done,' or apologising to the people of Australia and the planet, they said, 'It's endemic now so we don't have to worry about it anymore.' That was, basically, the answer I got.
You cannot have a clean, green image if you bring every agricultural product known to man into this country. I am not aware of anything, with one exception, that has been banned from coming into this country. I was at a big meeting in North Queensland with AQIS, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, and the Johnson family. This family made themselves immortal when they put up a huge sign during Mr Keating's last election. The sign said 'AQIS'. It had a big line through it and underneath it the word 'acquiesce'. That sign said it all!
We said, 'Bring the oranges in and you'll get citrus canker.' So we got citrus canker and it cost us $200 million. We said, 'Bring the plantation product in and you'll get black sigatoka in the bananas.' So we got black sigatoka in the bananas. We said, 'Bring the apples in and you'll get fire blight.' So we got fire blight in the apples. We said, 'Bring the grapes in from California and you'll get the glassy-winged sharpshooter disease.'
We have had an outbreak of black sigatoka. We have had an outbreak of citrus canker. We have had an outbreak of papaya fruit fly. It is easy for me to reel off these things, but each of them costs this country hundreds of millions of dollars. The major prawn fishery in Australia is on the east coast. In fact, the prawns are only caught in the warmer seas. The currents along the east coast travel north, so it will pick up.
I have a very interesting letter, here, from a young man I have very great admiration for, an industrialist in North Queensland. He is on the Innisfail council now. This is at 10 minutes past midnight. I will quote from the submission: 'There is no instruction from the Queensland fisheries service to the commercial fishermen as to what to do when wild-caught prawns carrying white spot are caught.' What do they do—throw them back in the ocean? It went on: 'A few weeks ago 100 tiger prawns were caught in Moreton Bay and all of them were proven to have white spot.' In other words, it has got away into the wild fishery. That is terribly depressing. From there it will travel north right up into the Barrier Reef and up to New Guinea. They will be infected with white spot. 'We believe this test was conducted by biosecurity, as shown by their website and in the Courier Mail. These tiger prawns have been confirmed as being wild, ocean tiger prawns.' So, it is into the wild now. It is into our seas.
The previous speaker talked about our clean, green image. Sorry mate! Your government destroyed your clean, green image. Your government destroyed it. And they did it with their eyes well and truly open. You do not need to feel bad on account of mob on the other side because they most certainly did exactly the same thing. Most worrying immediately—if there is any chance of containing this virus from spreading to other wild prawn populations in Queensland or interstate—is that in the early months of the year, Moreton Bay hosts a huge bait fishery consisting of small, greasy prawns, which is the technical name. They are sold by the fishermen and then processed by a large company into very popular 200 to 300 gram packs for distribution to approximately 3,000 different retailers up and down the east coast of Australia. So, you can kiss goodbye to your southern fishery as well, and your prawns there as well, because you have not even bothered to quarantine the area. If ever there were a case of closing the gate after the horse has bolted, we have it here.
We do not know if these prawns have white spot, as they have not been tested yet. They are not even being tested. They are caught in Moreton Bay, where already there have been 100 cases of white spot in the wild prawn fishery. And Moreton Bay, for those who do not know, is the bay in which Brisbane is built. Also, they are extremely small, and fishermen do not know how to identify whether they have white spot contrary to big prawns on which you can visibly see the marked white spot. You can imagine the ramifications of recreational fishermen using this bait throughout the Australian east coast fishery—throughout all of Australia's fishery and in New South Wales and Victoria—as this white spot is incredibly contagious and spreads quickly. It was in the Logan River, and we have miles of problems because the Logan river runs to the Pacific Ocean at the Gold Coast. As this white spot is incredibly contagious and spreads quickly, the white spot not only affects prawns but also affects all crustaceans in the wild, and, I believe, certain fish species as well.
Minister Joyce, in December 2016, noted our concerns and said they had become a reality, and white spot is now prevalent in the wild in Moreton Bay. The minister has acknowledged this. If white spot disease is left unchecked in the wild, what happens to commercial fishermen? Do they keep fishing? If there is a negative impact on the fishermen and fisheries, will they be compensated for their loss the same as the prawn farmers? Here we go! Tax payers of Australia have to make up for the absolute utter irresponsibility and incompetence of the government—and it was both governments, the ALP and the LNP. Sit contented in the knowledge that it was both of you that did it! Unfortunately for you now, we, the others, are running at 25 per cent in Australia, because the Australian people have just had it up to here with this free market rubbish. If there is a negative impact on the fishermen and the fisheries, will they be compensated for their loss, as the prawn farmers are, particularly given the government agencies have not kept this debacle in check? If it has gone into the wild, we can start with blaming the government for not quarantining the area faster and more effectively, and for not quarantining the bait industry—doing nothing about the bait industry.
I hope everyone understands what I am saying here. Moreton Bay fishery is a big bait fishery. They catch little prawns that they cannot sell as anything else except bait and they sell them in 300 gram packs as bait throughout Australia. There has been nothing done by the biosecurity—what a contradiction in terms that is; it is a classic oxymoron. Nothing has been done about the bait fishery. It was brought to the attention of the minister, the LNP in Queensland and senior officials in the government, and they have done absolutely nothing. South Australia had the brains and foresight to announce a ban on all Moreton Bay prawn being used in their waterways back in January 2017. We cannot understand why the Queensland government and the federal government have not grappled with this problem immediately upon finding out about the white spot outbreak—10 whole months unchecked and climbing. In the event of fishery shutdown if the disease is not contained by strict management practices—of quarantining in Moreton Bay, or any other additional area—assistance should be given to all commercial operators affected, the same as for the prawn farmers.
We seek your urgent support for the establishment of a taskforce to deal with this matter as a matter of the greatest urgency. In our small representation in state parliament, the KAP—which I represent in this place—will be moving immediately along these lines as fast as we can get it into the state parliament. God help those who do not support this initiative.
This is the tragedy. When we established the industry, Thailand had $1,000 million in exports—farmed prawns. We felt that we would catch them by the year 2000. We thought they would hit $2,000 million and we would hit $2,000 million, and we were on target to do that. Two thousand million dollars represents 20,000 jobs. It represents $400 million that the government would get in tax revenue. That is $2,000 million worth. What happened was that we went up to about $700 million or $800 million in the industry and then we collapsed back down to $65 million. I will return to the reason that happened. Thailand did not go to $2,000 million; they went to $10,000 million.
This country here was running around placating the greenies—and that was the Liberal government, by the way; that was the Liberal government that placated the greenies—and it imposed upon the prawn farmers the requirement to have pure water going back into the river and sea systems. There is no marine prawn farming or any freshwater prawn farming in the world that has that requirement, which doubled the cost structure for our prawn farmers. Needless to say, they all went broke. Prawn farming has tremendous pumping costs, for aeration and moving the water, and tremendous electricity expenses. And I will not go sideways on the cost of electricity and privatisation. It is nothing else but privatisation. It is totally the result of privatisation.
Those electricity and other costs, and having to clean that water, meant we had to double the pond sizes. Because these areas are on the Gold Coast, the paradise coast of North Queensland, it is very valuable land. That land costs a hell of a lot of money. If you have to have twice the amount of land that you had before, you are in big trouble financially. Then you have the electricity costs and labour costs going through the roof because you had to purify the water. So we went from nearly $1,000 million down to virtually nothing, about $60 million, whilst Thailand went from $1,000 million up to $10,000 million.
You do not have to be Albert Einstein to figure out what happens then. Your clean, green image is completely shot to pieces. We have every disease known to man in this country now, thanks to these policies of no quarantine. Free trade overrides quarantine. When that famous sign of the Johnsons went up, with 'AQIS' changed to 'acquiesce', the head of quarantine was sacked over the bringing-in of plants that resulted in three diseases escaping. She moved over to head up the department of trade—because she was a great advocate of free trade!
We now have white spot. (Extension of time granted) We said that white spot was going to come in, and within, I think, about six months, there was a huge outbreak of white spot in Darwin. We said, 'Righto. Hey, come on. Now you know that white spot comes in.' They poured 23,000 tonnes of poison into Darwin harbour. But did they stop the prawns coming in from overseas? No way Hose . That would offend against free-marketism, the religion of this place. We couldn't possibly do that! So now we have white spot, and it is all the way up the coast to New Guinea. Congratulations to AQIS and the governments of Australia over the last 10 years! Congratulations to you!
Mr HARTSUYKER (Cowper—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (16:55): The Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017 amends the Biosecurity Act 2015 to further strengthen Australia's biosecurity system and grant further powers to manage biosecurity risk. This bill is consistent with the Australian government's commitment to ensure that biosecurity risks are fully managed and biosecurity systems remain effective against changing biosecurity and human health risks. Protecting our enviable pest and disease status is an ongoing challenge. Biosecurity risks are changing significantly and growing in complexity.
In 2014, the CSIRO identified megatrends expected to impact biosecurity into the future, such as growth in global food demand and markets; and increased movements of goods, vessels and people around the world. The government is responding to this challenge. Agricultural industries are large contributors to the Australian economy, and it is essential to protect them, and our export markets, by keeping them free of pests and disease. We cannot afford not to do that.
Commonwealth funding for biosecurity has increased since 2012-13. The total expenditure this financial year on biosecurity is $749 million. This is an increase of $145.5 million, or 24 per cent, since 2012-13. Total investment in biosecurity from 2013-14 to 2016-17 is $2.72 billion. This includes funding of up to $200 million under the agriculture white paper, to improve biosecurity. This investment is being used to strengthen biosecurity surveillance, increase scientific capability, improve information systems and analytical capabilities, and build community based engagement.
I note that many members of this House have mentioned the current outbreak of white spot disease in Queensland. The objective of our response to this disease remains eradication. I would note that around 20,000 samples have been taken, and fewer than 200 prawns taken from the wild have tested positive for white spot. That is less than one per cent. National response arrangements are in place. The Australian government is supporting the Queensland government, which, as members would be aware, has implemented additional movement controls for three months as a precaution to minimise the risk of further spread. The Deputy Prime Minister also announced the provision of up to $1.74 million in emergency funding to assist with some of the costs incurred during the response to the outbreak, as well as to fund biosecurity preparedness and communication activities for industry. We are also engaging with the Queensland government and the prawn industry on possible cost-sharing arrangements to assist in managing the broader response, which may provide further assistance.
Australia is also cracking down on green prawn imports, following suspected deliberate contravening of the nation's strict biosecurity controls. The government is working to manage any risk associated with uncooked prawns imported before the suspension. We welcome the Senate inquiry into this, which has commenced and which will probe how this devastating disease got into Australia, its impact on industry and how to prevent future incursions.
The bill builds on the Biosecurity Act 2015, which this government delivered, and focuses on measures in relation to ballast-water management for ships and provides additional powers to control exotic vectors carrying harmful human diseases. The ballast-water measures will provide additional protection for coastal environments from the risk of marine-pest incursions by legislating for the use of more effective ballast-water treatment technologies. The bill further strengthens the biosecurity system by enabling better targeting of vectors capable of carrying human diseases, such as mosquitos which carry the zika virus. These additional powers are needed under the Biosecurity Act to ensure that Australia is not left vulnerable to significant human health risks. The need for these powers is demonstrated by rising global detections of the mosquito-borne zika virus. The bill seeks to reduce the likelihood of incursions of vectors that could pose a human health concern and provides powers to manage potential incursions when they are detected.
The bill will also position Australia to ratify the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments by introducing a nationally-consistent approach to ballast water in line with the requirements of the convention. This convention was signed by the Howard Government in 2005 and is an important global initiative involving over fifty countries, representing over 53 per cent of the world's merchant fleet shipping tonnage. Australia played a leading role in the development of the convention and it is important that we ratify it ahead of its entry into force on 8 September this year to uphold our positive international reputation for biosecurity management.
Ballast water is now recognised as a major source of the spread of exotic marine pests around the world. Each year, around 200 million tonnes of ships' ballast water is discharged into Australian ports by 18,000 ship visits from some 600 overseas ports. Australia is particularly vulnerable, as many cargo ships arrive here without cargo and, therefore, with a large quantity of ballast water which needs to be discharged when we fill these ships with our exports for the global marketplace. If the organisms survive the transport and discharge process, they may become established in the environment and populations may flourish. The Northern Pacific seastar, for example, is a major pest introduced into Australia via ballast water.
While Australia has had ballast-water management requirements since 2001 to prevent new marine pests arriving in Australia, domestic movements are not subject to ballast water regulation, except for vessels arriving in Victoria. This bill will enable a comprehensive set of domestic ballast-water-management arrangements to be put in place to lower the risk of marine pests being spread through ballast water between parts of our pristine coastline. Ships will be required to have ballast-water management plans while in Australian waters and to discharge ballast water in accordance with the convention. This will reduce the risk of invasive marine pests entering Australian waters, as well as between Australian ports.
Additionally, it will protect Australia's valuable fisheries industries and environment by reducing the risk of potentially invasive and harmful aquatic organisms being introduced into the Australian marine ecosystem. The bill will further strengthen our strong biosecurity system. With expanding international maritime trade, it is in Australia's interest to implement more uniform and stringent requirements to manage the risk of vessels introducing marine pests into Australia's waters. It is also in Australia's interest to continue to reduce the likelihood of incursions of vectors that could pose a human health concern, such as mosquitos, and provide powers to manage potential incursions when they are detected. These amendments mean there will be much less risk of viruses, including zika, carried by vectors such as mosquitoes being established. It also means that our unique marine life will be better protected. This is very important legislation that will enhance our biosecurity regime, and I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Consideration in Detail
Bill—by leave—taken as a whole.
Mr HARTSUYKER (Cowper—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (17:04): I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and I move government amendment (1):
(1) Schedule 1, item 30, page 9 (line 9), omit "Subsection (1) does", substitute "Subsections (1) and (1A) do".
Question agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Third Reading
Mr HARTSUYKER (Cowper—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (17:05): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Disability Services Amendment (Linking Upper Age Limits for Disability Employment Services to Pension Age) Bill 2017
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Ms MACKLIN (Jagajaga) (17:06): I am pleased to speak on Disability Services Amendment (Linking Upper Age Limits for Disability Employment Services to Pension Age) Bill 2017. Labor will support this bill. This is a technical but important bill for people with disability throughout Australia. This bill amends the Disability Services Act 1986 to ensure there is no gap between the age that people are able to access services under disability employment services—disability management service and age pension eligibility. Without this amendment, people with disability who are aged 65 or older but who have not reached pension age, and who are on income support with mutual obligations to seek work, could be excluded from receiving support to meet those obligations.
The bill amends the Disability Services Act 1986 to align the upper age limit in section 18(a) of the act to the pension age in the Social Security Act 1991, by removing references to '65 years' and replacing them with the term 'pension age' as defined in the Social Security Act. This will make sure that rehabilitation services and employment support can continue to be provided to individuals under the Disability Employment Service—Disability Management Service program until they reach the age pension eligibility age. The total estimated cost of the bill is $4.6 million over the forward estimates.
The government estimates that, without the amendments proposed in this bill today, there would be around 200 vulnerable people affected and left without support later this year, and those numbers would only increase further in the coming years. This is a bill that will help people with disability, and for that reason it is a bill that we support.
Mr PORTER (Pearce—Minister for Social Services) (17:08): I thank the member for Jagajaga and other members for their contributions during the second reading stage of the Disability Services Amendment (Linking Upper Age Limits for Disability Employment Services to Pension Age) Bill 2017. By way of summation of the second reading stage of the bill, it is necessary to note that the bill gives effect to a need to make a mechanical amendment aligning the existing upper age limit in the Disability Services Act 1986 to the qualifying age for the age pension in the Social Security Act 1991.
From July this year the qualifying age for the age pension will begin to gradually increase for both men and women from 65 to 67 years, with the qualifying age increasing by six months every two years. That process commences on 1 July until fully implemented by 1 January 2024. The DES-DMS program is supported by the act, specifically section 18(a), which at present limits the age of the target group for those services to persons who have not attained 65 years of age. Therefore, the mechanical amendment contained in this bill replaces the existing upper age limit for the DES-DMS program in section 18(a) of the act with a reference to the qualifying age as determined by the Social Security Act 1991. This need is due to the pension reform package legislated in 2009, which brought about improvements to the longer term sustainability of the pension system and adjusted the age pension qualification age to reflect the fact that Australians are living longer than ever before. It is estimated that someone retiring today who qualifies for the age pension can expect to receive it for 20 years. The increase to the age pension qualifying age will also mean that there will be people with a disability who are aged 65 or older but have not reached pension age who are on income support with mutual obligations to seek work and who, under the current provisions of the Disability Services Act 1986, might be excluded from receiving support to meet those obligations. So the bill therefore ensures that rehabilitation services can continue to be provided to individuals under the Disability Employment Services—Disability Management Service program until they reach the age of pension age eligibility.
This bill also ensures that jobseekers with temporary or permanent disability, injury or health conditions who require the assistance of DES-DMS and who may require flexible ongoing support but are not expected to need regular long-term support in the workplace have the best support and assistance possible to prepare for, achieve and maintain employment. In making this amendment, the existing Disability Services Act 1986, if you will, is future proofed and able to meet future challenges, as the incorporation of such a reference aligns the upper age limit in section 18(a) of the act to the pension age in the Social Security Act 1991. Without this measure, current estimates are that in this year there is a potential for approximately 200 vulnerable people being affected and being left without support, with those numbers increasing until July 2019, and further again beyond that time. It is therefore vital that the DES-DMS program can deliver rehabilitation services and employment support to people who are expected to continue seeking work, in addition to working people in need of such support. The bill therefore ensures that the DES program can adapt to changing circumstances and future challenges, and provides confidence, ensuring that over time the essential rehabilitation services and employment support which people rely on are able to be delivered. The government is obviously committed to supporting people with disabilities, as I believe is the common goal of all members of this House. I therefore commend the bill to the House.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Mr PORTER (Pearce—Minister for Social Services) (17:12): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Amendment (Polar Code) Bill 2017
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler) (17:13): The great Australian band Midnight Oil got it right about the value of Antarctica in their 1990 song of the same name. In this song, my former ministerial colleague Peter Garrett sings, 'There must be one place left in the world where the water's real and clean.' Antarctica is indeed the last great wilderness, and we need to keep that way. While mankind has a footprint in the ice continent and while climate change looms as a serious threat, decades of international cooperation have protected the ice continent from much of the environmental degradation that we see in other parts of the world. While that is partly to do with isolation and extreme weather conditions, it is nonetheless a wonderful thing.
The legislation before us today is the latest step in that process of international cooperation to protect not just Antarctica but also the northern Arctic region. It amends the existing Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 to incorporate Australia's obligations under the new international code for ships operating in polar waters, which is also known as the Polar Code. The Polar Code was developed by the International Maritime Organization, which is the United Nations agency responsible for improving maritime safety and preventing pollution. It came into operation on 1 January this year. The code is not perfect—indeed, moves are already afoot to strengthen it further—but the opposition will support this bill because it is an important step forward. Protection of the environment is a responsibility that we all share. The Polar Code sets out minimum mandatory requirements for the design, construction, operation and manning of vessels that operate in Arctic and Antarctic waters. Its creation amended the safety related provisions in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea and the environmental protections in the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships.
Under the changes in this bill, all large vessels operating in polar waters will need to hold a Polar Ship Certificate. To be certified, a vessel will need to undergo a survey to check it meets the requirements of the code. Certification will be conducted by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority and will cover a vessel's structure, fittings, machinery, electronics, communications and navigation equipment as well as its fire safety and lifesaving capacity. The code also toughens rules on the discharge in polar waters of oil, noxious liquid substances, sewage and garbage. In particular, it provides for fines of up to $360,000 for the discharge of sewage within three nautical miles of an ice shelf or fast ice. In addition to the bill before us, the government also proposes to amend the marine orders of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to ensure the code is properly implemented.
In practical terms, these changes will affect very few Australian vessels. The Aurora Australis, which is the government's Antarctic research and resupply ship, will definitely need to comply, as will the vessel that replaces it in 2020. However, it is expected that growing international trade will increase the number of vessels passing through polar areas. For example, it is expected that by 2020 about 15 per cent of China's trade, worth about $500 billion, will pass through the Arctic. As trade increases around the globe, it is critical that the international community stays ahead of the regulatory game. Just one major accident could have dire consequences for the pristine environment.
As a former transport minister, I have seen firsthand the kind of damage that can be caused by maritime accidents, particularly those involving the release of oil. In 2010, I inspected the site of an accident on the Great Barrier Reef involving the Shen Neng 1, which hit the reef off Rockhampton and cut a swathe through the coral, causing damage and leaving authorities with a significant bill to clean up the resulting oil spill. But that was, of course, in Australian waters. One of the great risks of accidents in polar areas is isolation. Because of that isolation, clean-up operations are much more difficult as well as much more costly. In the event of an accident in these areas, it can take a long time to get clean-up crews in place. That is why we need tougher standards for polar areas. We need to do everything possible to reduce the likelihood of accidents.
While there is broad support for the new code internationally, there is also an acceptance that more needs to be done to protect our polar regions. Indeed, a select committee of the British parliament has called for another wave of reform to toughen even the measures we are putting in place today. The committee's 2015 report points out that black carbon, heavy fuel oils and discharged ballast water all pose threats to the Arctic environment and that these issues need to be addressed as the code evolves. Likewise, John Kaltenstein, marine policy analyst with Friends of the Earth, warns:
The Polar Code doesn’t do nearly enough to tackle substantial risks posed by shipping: use of noxious heavy fuel oil in the Arctic, vessels operating with inadequate ice-strengthening and structural stability, and disturbances of wildlife, to name a few.
Some of the issues that the next wave of reform should examine include further toughening of the minimum structural requirement for ships and the fact that the code applies only to ships with a gross tonnage of more than 500 tonnes, meaning it excludes fishing boats. As well, while the code covers management of ballast water and antifouling paint, complying with these provisions is voluntary. It also allows for food to be thrown overboard as little as 12 nautical miles from the ice, which, for example, is not allowed to happen—not surprisingly—in the Mediterranean Sea.
These are the types of issues that are already on our forward agenda, and I say to the current government that, whilst it is in government—for the next short while—we on this side of the House are prepared to cooperate on any of these matters. The New Zealand government has produced a proposal for phase 2 of the code. This is a great place to start the next wave of reform, and I congratulate the New Zealand government, now led by Bill English, on its initiative and on showing leadership in this area—as New Zealand has on many maritime issues.
Australia has an excellent record when it comes to protecting the Antarctic. It is something that we should be proud of. We were one of the founding signatories to the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, which placed restrictions on activities in the southern continent other than scientific research. More recently, the Hawke Labor government played a leading role in the development of the 1991 Madrid protocol, which imposed a 50-year ban on mining, prospecting and exploration in Antarctica. That initiative showed extraordinary vision by the Hawke Labor government at a time when this was not front and centre of the national political debate. It is a great example of the responsibility that we, as policymakers, have to look to not just immediate concerns but our responsibility to look after the aspirations of future generations and to ensure that the planet that future generations inherit is in better condition than the one that we inherited. It is possible for that to happen, but it will not happen just by accident. It requires vision and it requires political determination and, when it came to Antarctica, the Hawke Labor government certainly showed that. So we come to this issue with strong credentials and a demonstrated willingness to take a reformist role. That is as it should be. This parliament has a responsibility to future generations to continue to play a central role in the protection of Antarctica, and I commend this bill to the House.
Mr JOSH WILSON (Fremantle) (17:23): I am glad to be speaking in support of the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Amendment (Polar Code) Bill, which amends the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act. It brings into our domestic law obligations under the International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters, also known as the Polar Code. The code, in turn, amends two relevant treaties—the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, or SOLAS, and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, or MARPOL. Those treaties go to the two most significant areas of risk involved when ships and seafarers venture into polar regions, the first being the risk to human life and the second being the risk to the natural environment.
The Polar Code was adopted by the International Maritime Organisation in May 2015 and it came into effect on 1 January this year. That is why we are dealing with it here today. On the need to take further steps through the Polar Code and in future to make shipping in the Arctic and the Antarctic safer and cleaner, it is worth considering the recent and likely future growth of polar shipping. As the shadow minister, the member for Grayndler, mentioned, it is anticipated that by 2020 15 per cent of China's seaborne trade will pass through the Arctic—that is trade worth half a trillion dollars. The impacts of climate change—the reduction of ice in the Arctic in particular—are providing opportunities for ever-increasing shipping through that region, and with ever-increasing shipping comes greater risks. The polar maritime environment itself presents some special and heightened risks, and the International Maritime Organisation has pointed out:
Poor weather conditions and the relative lack of good charts, communication systems and other navigational aids pose challenges for mariners. The remoteness of the areas makes rescue or clean-up operations difficult and costly. Cold temperatures may reduce the effectiveness of numerous components of the ship, ranging from deck machinery and emergency equipment to sea suctions. When ice is present, it can impose additional loads on the hull, propulsion system and appendages.
The polar regions and oceans have enormous and distinctive environmental significance, and they are particularly fragile. The Antarctic, which is the relevant polar region from our point of view, is a special place. It is a region of great importance to Australia in many respects—culturally, environmentally and economically. We have a corresponding responsibility, and we have shown the necessary stewardship, which we must continue into the 21st century.
Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent; depending on the season and the size of the offshore iceshelf it ranges between 14 million and 30 million square kilometres. The Australian Antarctic Territory alone, which I think is something like 40 per cent of Antarctica, contains 30 per cent of the world's fresh water, and the Antarctic krill fishery is the largest underexploited fishery in the world. Our connection to and stewardship of Antarctica is very substantial and longstanding. It dates back to the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, led by Sir Douglas Mawson between 1911 and 1914, and it was a later Mawson expedition that resulted in our claim to Antarctic territory. Our claim, as I said, covers something like 40 per cent of Antarctica—it is equivalent to an area the size of Australia minus Queensland. Since 1954 we have maintained critical research facilities, beginning with the Mawson Base and including two other bases, Casey and Davis. We were one of the founding signatories of the Antarctic Treaty, and it was the Hawke Labor government, again as the shadow minister pointed out, that played a leading role in creating the 1991 Madrid protocol, which imposed a 50-year ban on exploration and mining in Antarctica. As the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has observed, science is the currency of influence in the Antarctic treaty system. That is why science has been such a focus of Australia's engagement with Antarctica, in addition to the direct scientific benefits that our work there has.
The changes to the Polar Code that this bill allows us to implement domestically include new mandatory minimum requirements for the design, operation and crewing of ships that operate in polar seas. To be more specific, that includes the structure and stability of vessels, fire protection, the provision of lifeboats, navigation and communication technology, and related matters. It also imposes stronger restrictions on the discharge of oil, other noxious fluids, garbage and sewage. It requires all passenger and cargo ships larger than 500 gross tonnes to have a polar certificate, ensuring such vessels are fit for polar service—though, as has been pointed out by a number of experts, it does not go so far as to require that vessels be ice strengthened. It requires all vessels to develop and carry a polar water operational manual setting out operations and procedures to be followed when sailing in the Arctic or the Antarctic, and it brings the pollution protection in the Arctic to the same level as the Antarctic with respect to heavy fuel oils. That has been the case in the Antarctic for some time; the code now makes that the case in the Arctic as well.
Notwithstanding the benefits or the greater protections that this bill and the updated Polar Code deliver, a number of experts and relevant non-government organisations have taken a clear view that the Polar Code could be strengthened further. I think that is a view that Australia should take. It is certainly a view that New Zealand has taken in already beginning a push for what somebody described as phase 2 of the Polar Code.
In terms of shortcomings that the Polar Code has in its current form, it does still allow non-ice strengthened ships. It does not cover fishing vessels. It only covers vessels of 500 gross tonnes and above. Some have noted that the reporting requirements and the oversighted shipping routes through the Arctic and Antarctic are not strong enough. On that point, Sian Prior, the shipping adviser to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, has noted:
We have concerns that lessons are not being learned from recent shipping incidents, and Polar Code's adoption will do little to reduce risks to the Antarctic environment … The Polar Code should demand that ships sailing in Antarctic waters are adequately strengthened and stabilised for dealing with ice collisions, that they report their positions on a regular basis to a centralized system, and that they are routed away from important wildlife sites, such as bird nesting colonies, unless strict wildlife watching protocols are enforced.
One of the shortcomings in the Polar Code currently is the lack of strong reference and clear guidance with respect to the dangers of climate change. There is no doubt that climate change presents the greatest risk to the polar regions of the planet. It certainly presents the greatest risk to the Antarctic.
We know that a quarter of all carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean. That causes acidification. That acidification has a very harmful effect on marine life. I was reading something recently that talked about how the kind of marine formate in the Southern Ocean is not dissimilar, in some respects, to the Great Barrier Reef. We have seen over the last couple of years what rising ocean temperatures do to the health of reefs. We have had two consecutive years of severe bleaching events affecting the Great Barrier Reef, which has caused coral death on a pretty large scale, directly related to ocean temperature and ocean temperature rises.
Last week, we had Science meets Parliament. I was very glad to take part in that. I was fortunate to sit on a table that included some brilliant scientists, including some people with a specific interest in the Great Barrier Reef. It was sobering to hear from them the kinds of impacts that are being felt by the Great Barrier Reef. If ocean temperatures continue to rise, if the ocean continues to be required to absorb more and more carbon dioxide and acidifies as a result, we are only going to see increasing damage and impact on species and the loss of species in time to come. So if we are serious about protecting our oceans, including the Southern Ocean and the maritime environment around Antarctica, we have to be serious about climate change.
I note that Dr Jonny Stark, who is a project leader in the Australian Antarctic division, has said on the subject of carbon dioxide:
Carbon dioxide is more soluble in cold water. Polar waters are acidifying at twice the rate of tropical or temperate regions, so we expect these ecosystems to be among the first impacted from ocean acidification …
Research shows the pink encrusting algae, known as crustose coralline algae, may decrease in extent in a more acidic future ocean, as it incorporates calcium into its structure, and this becomes harder for organisms to obtain as the acidity of the seawater increases.
Antarctica may be one of the first places we see detrimental effects of ocean acidification on these organisms.
The Polar Code is a step forward. It does introduce some greater protections against pollution in the polar regions—the Arctic and the Antarctic. It provides some welcome strengthening restrictions and mandatory requirements when it comes to vessels and seafarers, and shipping practices. But we should remember that, as we welcome this kind of development, there is more to be done. We should look forward to that work. We should resolve to be a leader in that area. We have been a leader in Antarctica for a long time. That is something we should be proud of. It is something for which we should double our efforts to carry into the future, rather than watching others do it for us. Some of that will be specific to shipping. Some of it will be specific to the Antarctic. But a lot of it will have to do with more general areas like climate change.
On this issue, I am happy as a member of the opposition to support the passage of this bill.
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (17:35): I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation and to follow the member for Fremantle who has just spoken. This is an important matter. Whilst I do not intend, in my remarks, to go to too much of the detail of the legislation, I want to go to the principle of what this legislation is all about. It is an important matter because pollution of our oceans is a serious matter wherever it occurs. Our oceans are interconnected. Regardless of where the pollution occurs, it then flows on through the waters into other parts of the world—sometimes on the other side of the world.
Every day our oceans are being polluted by discarded plastic products, residential water run-off, discharge from polluted rivers and discharge from farming land—water that ultimately ends up in the oceans—all washing into the waters chemicals and waste products that are doing the waters harm. Indeed, when I was mayor of the City of Salisbury we carried out a study into the coastline of our city with respect to the damage caused by polluted stormwater run-off. For some 10 kilometres of coastline and for some four kilometres into the water, the seagrass had died as a result of that kind of pollution. When we put into place a different practice for the stormwater so that it was no longer going into the ocean polluted, the seagrass began to regenerate. That just proves the point that it does make a difference. Pollution can damage the ocean and whatever lives within it.
Every day tens of thousands of ocean vessels, large and small, are out there in the waters, doing whatever they are doing, but simultaneously in many cases discharging products into the oceans. In the last 25 years I understand that the number of vessels in our ocean waters has quadrupled, and the numbers continue to rise. As we saw earlier today in other legislation dealing with the ballast water from ships coming into Australia, there is a problem in maintaining and managing our ocean waters. I understand that each year in Australia alone some 200 million tonnes of ships ballast water is discharged into Australian ports by some 13,000 ships. Multiply that many times over by all of the other countries and all of the other ships, and we start to have an understanding of the damage that is being done.
Unfortunately, not all ocean pollution is visible, nor is the damage it causes. The risks are real—whether it is risks to fish stocks, to human health or to the marine environment itself. I will quote just a few of the facts and figures put out by UNESCO. It suggests that land-based sources such as agricultural run-off, discharge of nutrients and pesticides and untreated sewerage, including plastics, account for approximately 80 per cent of marine pollution globally. According to those statistics, there are now close to 500 dead zones covering more than 245,000 square kilometres globally, which is equivalent to the surface of the United Kingdom. Another of those facts which I find interesting is that the United Nations Environmental Programme estimated that in 2006—this is 11 years ago—every square mile of ocean contained 46,000 pieces of floating plastic—and plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals. The last point I want to make—and this one surprised even me—is that plastic materials and other litter can become concentrated in certain areas called gyres as a result of marine pollution gathered by oceanic currents. There are now five gyres in our oceans. The North Pacific Gyre, known as the great Pacific garbage patch, occupies a relatively stationary area that is twice the size of Texas.
Those are the invisible sources of pollution within our oceans that most people never get to see and are unaware of because they are not easily detected. But they are there and, sadly, because they are not detected, very little is done about them. We know that, even here in Australia, around 1500 seals and sea lions become entangled in marine debris and die; and that government sponsored studies have reported that between 8712 and 11,937 tonnes of litter gets into Australia's marine environment each year, in addition to 6000 tonnes of waste related to fishing and other types of marine activities.
That brings me to the point of this legislation. Effectively, we are dealing with legislation that goes to the heart of this very matter, because it is about trying to protect our oceans. Over recent years several cases of extensive ocean damage have been caused by large vessels and mining operations. Only three weeks ago, on 4 March, a cruise ship, the Caledonian Sky, caused extensive damage to a pristine coral reef in Radja Ampat in Indonesia. It does not stop there: as we heard a couple of years ago when debating fishing trawlers in this place, the damage and destruction caused by large fishing trawlers around the globe is truly concerning. Again, it is damage that we have not been able to measure properly, because in many parts of the world there is no-one doing that measuring and in many countries there is no authority to take any responsibility or provide oversight for what those fishing trawlers do. The reality is that there are now places in the world where the trawlers do not go simply because the fishing stocks have been wiped out. We do not want to see that happen as a result of their activities or other activities that arise because of poor management of our ocean waters.
We now have the added concern of global warming. Climate change and global warming, as other speakers have alluded to, are having a disastrous effect on the Arctic and Antarctic areas. Again, it is a matter that is not easily managed because we cannot simply say, 'We will do this or that' and overnight things will stop. When you combine all those risks together, you can understand why it is important to do what is within our power to try to minimise the detrimental impact on our ocean environment. One of the concerns I have had for some time is that there are shipping operators around the world who operate under what I would call questionable operational methods. These operators have little regard for the environment—
Mr Hartsuyker: You are being very polite
Mr ZAPPIA: Yes, I am being very polite—and little regard for their crews. They often take on crews who have very little or no understanding of local laws or they crew vessels that are very poorly maintained. It is interesting that many of these operators actually register their foreign-flagged ships in jurisdictions where is no control or oversight of what they are doing. When you add that to the mix here, you can understand why our concerns about an ocean environment and the destruction of it are very real and need to be managed as well as they can be.
The Arctic and Antarctic areas are indeed some of the most pristine areas still left in this world. They are critical ocean areas for a whole range of matters. My view is that the world and the environment that is within it are interrelated. If you damage one part, there is a flow-on effect to other parts. The Arctic and Antarctic are also now coming under increased pressure and increased risk of damage. The increased risk comes because, as we know, more people want to visit both those areas and are doing so. As other speakers have suggested, there is more shipping traffic flowing through the waters that surround them. There is increased risk because we know that there is more and more interest in the minerals and gas that lie within the oceans at that part of the world as well. There are countries that want to explore and get that gas and oil out of the ground. Again, every time that happens, even if it is not within the immediate Arctic or Antarctic areas but close by, there are risks pertaining to that as we have seen elsewhere as well.
This kind of legislation is a step in the right direction, as far as I am concerned, in trying to ensure that the vessels that go into that area are at least obliged to meet a particular standard. The standard known as the Polar Code, as has been pointed out, is not perfect. In fact, one could say that it could be much better. But it is better than what perhaps currently exists and it is a standard that people will have to meet if they are going to go into those areas. Australia, in particular—having a very direct interest in the Antarctic area, which this legislation also covers—has an obligation to ensure that, at the very minimum, the Polar Code is applied to those ships that are registered here in Australia or operated from Australian bases and want to go into the Antarctic and Arctic areas.
For all of those reasons, I support this legislation. I do believe it is a step in the right direction. Of course, just how well we monitor what happens after is another matter, but at least we can be seen to be taking steps to protect what I believe is an invaluable resource in this world, and that is the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the planet.
Mr HARTSUYKER (Cowper—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (17:47): I thank those members who have contributed to the debate. The Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Amendment (Polar Code) Bill 2017 will ensure that Australia's framework for preventing maritime pollution remains consistent with international requirements.
The bill amends the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 to implement international obligations adopted at the International Maritime Organization into domestic law. Through the IMO, Australia has played an important role in developing the International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters, known as the Polar Code. The Polar Code was developed to supplement existing IMO instruments, to increase maritime safety and to mitigate environmental impacts in remote, vulnerable and harsh polar waters. The amendments are consistent with Australia's longstanding support for maritime environment and safety at sea and further highlights our commitment to the IMO as an institution and its agreements.
The Polar Code, through these amendments, covers a range of themes, including ship design, construction, equipment, training, qualifications, search and rescue capabilities, and environmental discharges in polar regions, including Antarctica. Australia has a strong national interest in Antarctica, including in the safety of shipping and the environmental protection of Antarctic waters. Australia has responsibilities in a very significant portion of the Southern Ocean, including search and rescue coordination, environmental protection, hydrography and nautical charting, and the safety of vessels operating in the area. Australia has been actively engaged in the development of the Polar Code at the IMO in order to influence and improve safety and pollution prevention outcomes in respect of Antarctic waters.
Australia's maritime interests are best advanced through internationally agreed arrangements, including the IMO. These arrangements will enhance existing legislative instruments to mitigate the potential risks and impacts in remote, vulnerable and harsh polar regions. It is an important area because ships are operating in very harsh environments in the Arctic and the Antarctic, and ships can certainly encounter very difficult sailing conditions, indeed.
I would like to draw to the attention of the House at this point some important elements of the bill that may not have been fully canvassed in the debate. I refer the House to section 26BCC, which regards the prohibition of discharge of sewage. The legislation states:
(1) A person commits an offence if:
(a) the person engages in conduct; and
(b) the person’s conduct causes a discharge of sewage from a ship in the Antarctic Area; and
(c) the person is reckless or negligent as to causing the discharge by that conduct; and
(d) the ship is a ship to which Annex IV to the Convention applies; and
(e) if the discharge occurs outside the outer limits of the exclusive economic zone adjacent to the coast of the Australian Antarctic Territory—the ship is an Australian ship.
There is a significant penalty for that of some 2,000 penalty units. It also, I might add, states:
(2) A person commits an offence if:
(a) the person engages in conduct; and
(b) the person’s conduct causes a discharge of sewage from a ship in Arctic waters; and
(c) the person is reckless or negligent as to causing the discharge by that conduct; and
(d) the ship is a ship to which Annex IV to the Convention applies; and
(e) the ship is an Australian ship.
Again, in this instance, there is a significant penalty of some 2,000 penalty units. The legislation goes on to say that:
(3) The master and the owner of a ship each commit an offence of strict liability if:
(a) sewage is discharged from the ship in the Antarctic Area; and
(b) the ship is a ship to which Annex IV to the Convention applies; and
(c) if the discharge occurs outside the outer limits of the exclusive economic zone adjacent to the coast of the Australian Antarctic Territory—the ship is an Australian ship.
The penalty for that offence is some 500 penalty units.
The detail of that legislation indicates the amount of thought and consideration that has gone into the upgrade of the Polar Code to ensure that we preserve the pristine environments that exist in our polar regions. It takes account of the very difficult conditions that can occur for vessels navigating that area. I commend the bill to the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Buchholz ): I thank the minister. It is good to see that the minister has such an interest in this particular bill.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Mr HARTSUYKER (Cowper—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (17:53): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Crimes Amendment (Penalty Unit) Bill 2017
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (17:54): I rise to speak on the Crimes Amendment (Penalty Unit) Bill 2017, yet again rising to speak on a bill that is a government bill but in fact gives execution to a Labor policy that we were very proud to take to the last election. The increase in the value of a penalty unit contained in this bill was a policy that we took to the last election. We are glad to see the government embrace another Labor commitment. We proposed this policy because we believe that it is important that our penalties are not effectively weakened as the cost of living increases.
Penalty units were a creation of Labor governments, first implemented by the Keating Labor government in 1992. They were implemented in response to the Gibbs inquiry, which found that the Victorian penalty units system 'encourages a more principled approach to the choice of the appropriate maximum penalty in regard to a particular provision'. They have since been adopted as best practice in a range of jurisdictions, for good reason.
The concept of the penalty unit, a smart initiative, means that with one amendment the Commonwealth government can amend a pecuniary penalty associated with all crimes, rather than having to revise each and every penalty for each and every crime under each and every Commonwealth law which contains criminal offences. Penalty units apply where a person or company commits a Commonwealth offence. This includes offences such as firearm offences, drug offences and other offences under the Criminal Code. The legislation before us will also target criminals engaging in white collar crime and workplace crimes, such as the increased penalty unit that would apply to laws including the Corporations Act 2001, the Fair Work Act 2009, the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, the SPAM Act 2003 and the Telecommunications Act 1997.
It is very important that the value of penalty units is maintained over time to ensure that penalties keep pace with inflation and remain an effective tool for us to deter crime. When the penalty unit was first introduced by a Labor government in 1992, its value was set at $100. Since then it has had fairly regular increases, broadly made in concert with CPI increases. The bill before us will increase the value of each Commonwealth penalty unit from $180 to $210. This will be indexed to the consumer price index every three years. The bill will also delay the first automatic indexation of the penalty unit to CPI from 1 July 2018 to 1 July 2020.
The new penalty unit value will only apply to offences committed after these amendments come into force. That means that the proposed changes will not affect current proceedings or offences committed before this date. Those offences will be based on the value of the penalty unit at the time the offence was committed. I commend this bill to the House.
Mr HILL (Bruce) (17:57): I wish to record a few thoughts on the Crimes Amendment (Penalty Unit) Bill 2017. You will be pleased, though possibly not surprised, to know that I do not intend to take 15 minutes.
Mr Keogh: I am devastated!
Mr HILL: You never know, member for Burt! This is a small bill. It is not a matter of great policy. On some days here you would almost think it would pass for serious reform under this government, given the paucity of any serious agenda in the legislative program. Nevertheless, if you also have a look at the state of the budget—I was just speaking on the appropriation bill earlier—and think about the challenges to our fiscal outlook and the apparent and obvious lack of serious structural reform in the budget to address threats to the AAA credit rating and so on, it is also worth observing that the amount of money raised over the forward estimates is not material.
To record, to echo and to build on what the shadow minister has said, the bill will amend the Crimes Act 1914 to increase the amount of the Commonwealth penalty unit from $180 to $210, with effect from 1 July. It also delays the first automatic indexation adjustment of the penalty unit to the CPI until 1 July 2020, with indexation to occur on 1 July every three years thereafter. For lawyers and those in the system that is probably clear. For those listening at home in the community—I am sure there are some people at this time of day who have the slight misfortune of choosing this bit of the parliamentary day to listen to on radio or wherever else—in plain English, this bill increases the amount that people pay when they are fined for committing a Commonwealth crime. A penalty unit simply sets the maximum amount that you can pay per unit for committing each crime. It is a very sensible solution. Rather than putting a penalty in for committing a crime by writing a dollar figure in—'The fine is $200 today'—to account for the fact that any dollar figure you set at a point in time will go out of date over time from inflation the system of penalty units is used, so governments can increase or adjust the fines all at once, magically, across hundreds of pieces of legislation, when they choose to. The current unit is $180. Again, in plain English: if you commit a crime and you are found guilty of that crime and there is a maximum of, say, five penalty units and you receive the maximum penalty because the court has deemed you extra naughty then you would pay $900. With this change to a penalty unit of $210 you would pay $1,050.
I also need to note that Labor proposed this change in our election policies; the government did not. The government has basically committed, as they say, the highest form of flattery—imitation—by copying our policy as a very small and modest measure in the midyear budget update. I think it is in the order of $90 million over four years. In that regard we welcome the government's decision to copy Labor's policy to ensure that fines keep pace with inflation and remain effective deterrents. One critical point, though, that I wish to make on their kind efforts at copying Labor's policy is that you cannot always pick things off in isolation. Labor proposed this increase in our election policy, but it sat alongside other important commitments. We did bank this revenue, but we did it as we made other critical commitments in the Attorney-General's and justice portfolios. As so often with this government, you need to have a think about what is in the bill and what could or should be in the bill, what is missing and the accompanying commitments.
In that regard I turn my comments to thinking about some of the impact on those who will pay the increased burden of fines. Fines are a blunt, regressive instrument, in a sense, in the criminal justice system. The greatest difficulty in the paying of fines falls to the poor and the vulnerable, as compared to high income earners. That is a fact. We all have family members who find it harder to pay fines if they are low income earners. One of the critical areas in the portfolio that this bill as currently presented does not address is that of community legal centres. They provide a crucial free legal service to all those people who do not qualify for legal aid—those facing family violence, employment and child protection issues. The access to justice is a fundamental human right, regardless of means.
Nationally, despite revenue measures such as appear in this bill, the government is going to cut funding to community legal centres by a further 30 per cent on 1 July this year under the National Partnership Agreement on Legal Assistance Services. Community legal centres already turn away more than 160,000 people every year. Labor has opposed those cuts before, when they were first announced in the 2014 budget to come into effect in July 2015, and in a blind panic the hapless Attorney-General put a bit of a bandaid there. I visited my local legal centre, and they call it the Dreyfus money—if you will permit me the courtesy or discourtesy, as the House rules provide, of using the surname of the member for Isaacs—because when he was Attorney-General, this was the additional money provided to the sector.
We opposed those cuts then; we oppose them now. Community legal centre staff and volunteers work incredibly hard. The Productivity Commission in a 2014 report, commissioned by the member for Isaacs when he was Attorney-General, found that the community gets back $17 in benefits for every single dollar invested in CLCs. CLCs like the Women's Legal Service stand to lose incredibly from these cuts. They are at the front line of responding to family violence. Indeed, the biggest single source of requests for assistance is from the survivors of family violence. A government that is seriously concerned about family violence would not engage in these savage cuts to the very services helping women and children fleeing family violence.
To illustrate my point I draw attention of the House to the Springvale Monash Legal Service in my electorate, facing on 1 July this year—the clock is ticking every day—a funding cut of $165,000. This will have a significant impact on the centre's capacity to provide free legal assistance to people who do not have the means to seek help elsewhere. To quote from a letter I received only in the last few weeks:
Our community legal centre (CLC) provides free legal advice to approximately 400 vulnerable and disadvantaged local community members each month. We help people with a range of legal issues including but not limited to employment law, civil litigation, family violence and sexual assault. The most common legal problem we see is family violence and employment related issues specific to people from CALD backgrounds.
The centre will have little choice but to reduce staff hours and client liaison hours from 1 July. That will have a devastating impact on some of the most vulnerable people in my electorate, who will be turned away without assistance. I know the good work of this centre firsthand from my days many years ago as a terrible law student. I was a terrible law student. I did not actually attend classes for four or five years, you will be shocked to know. That is a story for another day. I did not—
Mr Keogh: You got through.
Mr HILL: The member for Burt got through. The single best subject I did in my 9½ years meandering through law school while working full time—I did not want to waste any time; they kicked you out after 10, so I timed it pretty well—was at the Springvale Monash Legal Service all those years ago, last century, in fact, in the early 1990s. I learnt firsthand there two nights a week at all hours how important these services are to deal at the front line with the most vulnerable people in the community who have nowhere else to go. The government must reverse these appalling cuts to CLCs.
I note that the Senate yesterday in a rare show of bipartisanship or cross-partisanship—multipartisanship—passed a motion introduced by Labor and co-sponsored by the unlikely alliance of Senator Jacqui Lambie, Senator Hinch, the Greens and the Nick Xenophon Team, all of whom condemned the government's cuts to CLCs. No doubt the Attorney-General was not there at the time. He was probably looking at real estate in London, waiting for the next reshuffle before he is shuffled off to retirement as the high commissioner. It takes a very difficult and serious issue to unite different political parties, but these nationwide 30 per cent cuts to community legal centres are certainly one such issue.
In closing, I point out that the revenue gained from this budget measure would go some significant way—not all of the way—to stemming the damage and to giving some genuineness to the government's claims to be seriously concerned about addressing at the front line the impacts of family violence that are felt so desperately in the communities that I represent, adjoining the member for Hotham's electorate—I think you were actually on the board of the Springvale Monash Legal Service many years ago, as our electorates adjoin—and of course we form a little love triangle with the member for Isaacs in terms of our care for the Springvale Monash Legal Service, because our electorates adjoin and overlap the catchment that the legal centre provides service and support to. So I call on the government, in passing this revenue measure, to do the right thing and reverse these cuts and restore what is known as the 'Dreyfus funding'.
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan—Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services) (18:08): I would like to thank members for their contributions to the debate on the bill in front of us—the Crimes Amendment (Penalty Unit) Bill 2017. This bill will strengthen the value of the Commonwealth penalty unit to effectively punish criminal offenders and deter unlawful behaviour. This bill amends section 4AA of the Crimes Act, which prescribes the value of monetary penalties across all Commonwealth legislation and territory ordinances. The bill will increase the value of the penalty unit from $180 to $210, with effect from 1 July 2017. It will also delay the first automatic adjustment of the penalty unit to the consumer price index until 1 July 2020, with indexation to occur every three years following that date.
Increasing the amount of the penalty unit will result in higher financial penalties for all criminal offences across the Commonwealth statute book. This bill will ensure that courts can continue to impose appropriate financial penalties to combat crime and improve community safety in Australia. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan—Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services) (18:09): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2016 Measures No. 1) Bill 2016
Explanatory Memorandum
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan—Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services) (18:10): I present a replacement explanatory memorandum for the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2016 Measures No. 1) Bill 2016.
Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2017
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business) (18:10): Labor welcomes the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill because we have been waiting for it for more than three years. In 2013 the Australian Labor government took a leading role in negotiating the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled. It is a long title for a very important international agreement. What the Marrakesh Treaty does is to allow disabled people access to printed copyright material, such as books, without express permission from the rights holder. It allows works to be translated into a format, such as braille, that is accessible to people with a vision or print disability, without the makers of those works having to fear that they are breaching copyright.
Without the Marrakesh Treaty, those with a disability have a serious constraint put on the works of literature that they are able to access. In fact, copyright restrictions currently mean that only about five per cent of books published worldwide are ever converted into formats accessible to people with vision impairment. The Marrakesh Treaty aims to end this 'book famine'. It is difficult to overstate just what a difference that will make to the lives of people with a disability all over this country and, indeed, all over the world, as other states party to the Marrakesh Treaty amend their own copyright laws.
In the United States, the Bookshare website offers nearly half a million book titles in accessible formats, such as braille, but until now Australia's existing copyright law meant that less than half that number were available. That should now change. This proposed legislation means organisations like Vision Australia can go about the task of creating books in accessible and audio formats for blind and vision-impaired people in Australia without fear of being sued.
When the treaty came into force in September last year, Vision Australia's general manager for information solutions Michael Simpson said:
Having access to quality information allows people to make decisions and choices in life. The lack of information in accessible formats puts people with print disability at a huge disadvantage with their sighted peers. With more available content the playing field for this community can start to be levelled.
I am one of many avid readers in this place. Books are very important to me, and I can only imagine what it would feel like to lose one's sight and, with it, to lose access to the learning and enjoyment that books provide. It is right that we do everything possible to increase access to books for people with print disability. I am very proud of Labor's role in driving this treaty and the reforms that this treaty brings with it.
I am equally disappointed—and frankly dumbfounded—that it has taken so long for the government to make the necessary changes in law that are required in order to be in compliance with the treaty. Regrettably, everything this government has done in relation to the Marrakesh Treaty has been at the last minute or delayed. Under pressure from Labor, the Liberal government finally signed the treaty on 24 June 2014, only just before the one-year deadline for signing expired. The government finally ratified the treaty in December 2015. The treaty entered into force on 30 September 2016.
It has taken the government until now, nearly six months later, to make the necessary legislative changes. That delay has resulted in a significant amount of uncertainty for the disability sector, which has been left unsure where they stand in terms of breaches of copyright law. Nevertheless, we are very glad the government has finally moved in the right direction. It is particularly welcome that the government has recognised the urgency in making these bipartisan changes and has hived them off from the more controversial parts of the earlier exposure draft bill. It is right that something as important as disability access not be caught up in some of the more politically sensitive areas of copyright law.
Disability access is not the only part of this bill. The bill also covers other important changes to copyright law. These include preservation of copyright material by libraries, archives and other institutions; use of copyright material by educational institutions; and harmonisation of copyright terms for published and unpublished works. The bill creates a new, simplified exception to existing copyright laws, permitting libraries and archives to create copies of material for preservation purposes. The act currently contains several provisions dealing with the right of different institutions to make preservation copies of different types of material, which have been criticised as overly inflexible and prescriptive. While some stakeholders would prefer the proposed exception to go further, particularly by applying to collections held by bodies other than 'libraries' or 'archives', this is a sensible reform and the sector is generally pleased with the proposed amendments.
Another part of the bill updates the statutory licences the act provides for educational institutions to access copyright material. Again, these parts of the act have been regarded as overly prescriptive and inflexible. The bill streamlines and simplifies these provisions, removing surplus administrative requirements and allowing educational institutions and rights holders to deal with one another on a more flexible, commercial basis. These changes are the outcome of lengthy negotiation between the education sector and rights holders and are supported by stakeholders on both sides of the issue.
The final part of the bill harmonises rules about the term of copyright for published and unpublished work. Presently, the act does not impose a time limit on copyright in unpublished works. As a consequence, where the owner of a copyright is unknown or unable to be contacted, libraries and other institutions are unable to make use of those works or even undertake preservation work. This problem affects, for example—and there are of course thousands of documents that one could have given as examples—letters by Jane Austen and Captain Cook's diaries. Both are documents that one would think should be made more readily available. This bill, if enacted, will enable that.
Many of you listening would be shocked to learn that this inability to publish and even to undertake preservation work has been the case for decades. The change is a necessary part of Australia's ability to preserve its history, and it is surprising it has not happened before now. The bill amends the Copyright Act to implement a new general protection period of life-plus-70 years that does not differentiate between published and unpublished works. The bill similarly amends the act so that Crown copyright in unpublished work is brought in line with the 50-year period which applies to Crown copyright in published work. Transitional provisions apply to protect the interests of rights-holders. Again, these provisions represent a negotiated consensus between stakeholders and are strongly supported by the library sector.
This bill is a very welcome start to some major copyright reform. But we should be clear: this bill can only be the very start of the ambitious modernisation of the Copyright Act that the government promised at the start of the last term of the parliament. Soon after Senator Brandis became the minister responsible for copyright after the 2013 election, he announced that he would achieve nothing less than a re-write of the Copyright Act in response to the Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry that the Labor government had commissioned. Senator Brandis promised at that time 'a thorough and exhaustive exercise in law reform' which would leave the Copyright Act 'shorter, simpler and easier to use and understand'. Yet it has taken till the second term of this government—well after Senator Brandis was relieved of his responsibility for copyright—for this bill to appear. And, as for that ALRC report? After almost three years, the government is yet to even respond.
Australian artists, Australian industry and Australian consumers are right to be disappointed with the performance of this government in copyright law reform. Labor supports this bill, but it must not be the last word on copyright reform from this government. I commend the bill.
Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (18:20): I rise to support the passage of this piece of legislation, the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2017, and to congratulate all parties—I stress 'all parties'—that have been involved in getting it to this point. As the digital age continues to revolutionise the way we work, communicate and engage with information, it is of course incredibly important that Australia's laws are made fit for the 21st century and to make sure they are not only reflective and fit for the 21st century for some people but also reflective and fit for all people.
Ensuring that resources are available for people, regardless of their disability, is important to the spirit and health of our nation and in making sure that the unrealised potential of every individual, whatever their circumstances, can be brought to life. Online resources have made material and services more accessible than ever for the general population, and it is crucial that the abundance and knowledge available to us is made accessible to all Australians regardless of their disability or any impairment.
Copyright law—for which I have always been a strong advocate—is an important matter to get right. Copyright is central to making sure that artistic creators and authors are able to be remunerated for their achievements and their creations. Nobody should ever be under any illusion about the important role that it plays in helping support our artists and the avenues that they need. Content creators need to have their creative effects and economic rights properly respected, particularly through the form of the exclusive right of copyright.
But of equal importance is ensuring that our copyright laws are flexible and contemporary and reflect the needs and demands of the modern age, particularly in the digital world, and ensuring that content is able to be used by people with a disability and people who need extra support within our community. Copyright is, has been and always will be a vehicle and a mechanism to distribute content, not an inhibitor or a barrier. That is what this bill seeks to implement.
This bill will enhance access to copyrighted material through a number of amendments. It will help bring the education, libraries and archive sectors of Australia firmly into the digital age. As part of this, the bill will harmonise the preservation exceptions for copyrighted material in libraries, archives and key cultural institutions. The former speaker was talking particularly about the importance of bringing to life the value and the cultural contribution of this country for all Australians, and on that I concur with him. The bill will also allow copyrighted material to be incorporated into educational assessments that are conducted online and set new standard terms of protection for published and unpublished materials and for Crown copyright in original materials.
The implications of this amendment and these seemingly simple changes are substantial. Most published material that is available worldwide is not presently accessible to people who are blind, who are visually impaired or who have a disability that affects the way a person reads, views, hears or comprehends copyrighted works. The bill's disability access provisions will put in place an amalgamated, flexible exception that organisations can then utilise to allow people with a disability to access said material. We owe it to the disability community and to people who suffer from problems around particularly blindness to ensure that Australia has the most flexible copyright framework that is available and possible. And if you think about which countries in the world are able to do that and to make content not just available but accessible to people regardless of any affliction or disability, it is us. That is why we are a leader. We will continue to be a leader, and we should be a leader.
The measures in this bill are format neutral, meaning that Australians with a print disability will also benefit alongside technological advancements and innovations today and into the future. The library and archive exceptions will allow libraries and institutions to archive with greater flexibility. Currently there are obsolete restrictions that prevent copies of published material being made unless the original has suffered damage, has deteriorated, or is lost or stolen. This bill will remove these regulations and empower libraries and institutions to make content as accessible as possible. Red tape will also be stripped away in the education sector, because the bill seeks to streamline the educational statutory licensing provisions for the copying and communication of works and broadcasts for educational purposes and permit the use of copyrighted material for online examinations.
The reforms will also refine existing provisions relating to educational use of content in order to assist educators in licensing arrangements and negotiations for access to works. This will allow educational institutions to take advantage of technology and expand the ways students can engage with content and examination material. More importantly, it is not just a legislative change but one that has a human consequence, because it expands the opportunity to engage young Australians regardless of their circumstances so that their minds can be broadened and they can be taken to other places, where they can learn and grow.
At the heart of this legislation is a desire to free our institutions so that they may harness the technology of the 21st century and help our young people, our old people and our people with disabilities. Vision Australia estimates that there are currently 357,000 people in Australia who are blind or have low vision. It projects that this number could grow to 564,000 by the year 2030, which only reinforces why these sorts of sensible, pragmatic, human-impact reforms are so essential. People aged between 15 and 64 years with disability have a lower participation rate and almost double the unemployment rate of those without disability. We all have an obligation to ensure that people with a disability are given equitable access to educational resources wherever possible.
In the digital age there is simply no reason we should not be doing more to give people with disability the best chance and opportunity to live their full human potential. We are committed to ensuring that outdated legislation is never in the way of an individual's pursuits, particularly those whose participation is already low. As a just society we have an obligation to make sure that nobody is left behind because of circumstances beyond their control. This bill is a reflection of the work of multiple parties who have come together at different points to seek pragmatic reform. For all those involved, I finish where I started, which is to congratulate them on their achievement, and I am proud that the Turnbull government is implementing this change.
Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (18:27): I rise to support the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2017, which contains a range of reforms to several areas of copyright law. There are a couple of aspects of the legislation that I would like to speak about. The first is about making books accessible to visually impaired people. Now, obviously I have my own visual impairment, but I am lucky: I can take off my glasses. I may not be able to see the members opposite without my glasses—that can be quite a bonus!—but I would be able to read a book that was in front of me. So, whether it is a hard copy or a Kindle, I have never been denied access to the latest novel or political tome. But that is not the case for many people, whose visual impairment means they do not get a rush from walking into a bookshop that I do.
This bill, which implements Australia's obligations under the Marrakesh treaty, helps change things. In June 2013, the Marrakesh Treaty was adopted. It is part of the body of international copyright treaties administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization. The treaty's main goal was to create a set of mandatory limitations and exceptions for the benefit of the blind, visually impaired and otherwise print-disabled. Let us keep in mind that the announcement of the new treaty was nearly four years ago and it was the first of its kind in the history of the multilateral copyright system. Australia played a key role, and I remember reading about it then, when then Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus expressed his pride in the role Australia had played in the negotiations, working hard to find a balance between the rights holders and the visually impaired. The negotiators also had to work hard to find a balance between the needs of the developed world and the developing world.
The treaty allows signatory countries to make exceptions from copyright laws to enable the creation of accessible format copies—for example, with large print or braille or as talking books. What is more, these copies can be taken across borders. I think it helps address what has been described as a book famine, where an estimated less than five per cent of the world's published works are made into accessible formats. The treaty itself—and this legislation follows from that treaty—also contains safeguards for rights holders, including the application of a domestic commercial availability test so that the exceptions operate only where an accessible format copy is not available. This test protects the interests of authors and publishers, and we always need to think of their interests because they are only able to keep being productive thanks to the income that their copyright generates.
In August last year, former Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes explained the problem that he and many others faced, saying he and other vision-impaired Australians could not import legally-produced audio and braille books without the specific permission of the publishers, and that was not always easy to get. Vision Australia also noted that the law was needed and called for swift passage by the new parliament. I am not sure this meets my definition of swift—it has been quite a few months, and the process, as the member for Isaacs has given detail on, has been a really tortuous journey—but it is pleasing to see that this bill has finally reached the parliament.
The bill will help many in our community access literature that was previously unavailable to them in a form they are able to use. It also contains other changes to the Copyright Act, including improving the ability of libraries, archives and other cultural institutions to preserve copyright materials. They will no longer have to wait until the item is all but destroyed or seriously compromised to be able to make copies. It will also streamline and simplify the statutory licenses available to educational institutions and allow those institutions to use copyright material in online assignments, something previously impossible under the act. I am not sure, but there may be a generation of students who are now going to thank us—or not—for this change!
There are other updates to the act in this bill that harmonise the term of copyright for certain works. There have been a whole bunch of anomalies, I have to say, around copyright. For instance, one anomaly was that a perpetual copyright was given to historic letters and other unpublished documents. That meant that organisations like the Australian War Memorial were unable to digitise them if there were no heirs left to approve the change—they needed to get permission from somebody. The same issue affects Jane Austen's letters and Captain Cook's diaries. Those unpublished letters will not be as much of an issue now, because the bill implements a new general protection period of life-plus-70 years and does not differentiate between published and unpublished works.
I note that many of these provisions are the result of a negotiated consensus between stakeholders and are strongly supported by the library sector, so it is great to see and I hope that we see its passage move smoothly. But I do want to make mention, just in closing, that the draft of this bill contained an extension of the current safe-harbour protections, changing it from carriage service providers to service providers. I note that this has been removed. I have no doubt that that will be a debate we have at a later date.
Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan—Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services) (18:33): I rise today to speak in support of the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2017. As the Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services, I have a particular interest in this bill because it introduces a range of amendments that will: (1) streamline and simplify the existing copyright exceptions and limitations for the use of copyright material by the disability sector; (2) simplify the preservation exceptions for copyright material in libraries, archives and key cultural institutions; and (3) consolidate and modernise the statutory licences that allow educational institutions to use and pay licence fees for works and broadcasts, and introduce new standard copyright terms for published and unpublished works and for Crown copyright in original works.
To enhance access to copyright material for persons with a disability, this bill replaces the current exception and statutory licence schemes for disability access in the Copyright Act with two new simplified and more flexible exceptions. The 'fair dealing' exception allows persons with a disability or those assisting them to make accessible copies of material, similar to the previous exception for persons with a disability but expressed in the more familiar 'fair dealing' language. The new exception for organisations will permit educational institutions and not-for-profit organisations to make accessible-format copies for people with a disability where the material cannot be obtained in that format within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price.
The National Disability Strategy 2010-2020 provides a 10-year national policy framework, representing a shared national approach to improving the lives of Australians with disability, their families and their carers. We must not forget that there are 4.6 million Australians who identify as living with a disability. The strategy is based on the belief that all Australians should have fair and equal access to the full range of mainstream programs and services available, whether it is employment, healthcare, education, transport, housing, public facilities and infrastructure or, in this case, copyright material. The strategy's second implementation plan, Driving Action 2015-18, was released in December 2016 and outlines the government's continued commitment to driving improvements across the strategy's six policy areas.
The six policy areas are, firstly, inclusive and accessible communities—this refers to the physical environment, including public transport, parks, buildings and housing; digital information and communications technologies; and civic life, including social, sporting, recreational and cultural life. Secondly, rights protection, justice and legislation—this refers to statutory protections such as antidiscrimination measures, complaints, mechanisms, advocacy, and the electoral and justice systems. Thirdly, economic security— jobs, business opportunities, financial independence, adequate income support for those not able to work, and housing. Fourthly, personal and community support—inclusion and participation in the community, people centred care and support provided by specialist disability services and mainstream services, informal care and support. Fifthly, learning and skills—early childhood education and care, schools, further education, vocational education, transition from education to employment, lifelong learning. Sixthly, health and wellbeing—health services, health promotion and the interaction between health and disability systems, wellbeing and enjoyment of life.
In September 2016 the Council of Australian Governments Disability Reform Council agreed to reinvigorate all governments' efforts to drive progress under the strategy. Examples of the achievements that have been made across the strategy's key policy outcome areas include improvements to the Disability (Access to Premises—Buildings) Standards. The premises standards came into effect in May 2011 and coincided with changes to the Building Code of Australia, resulting in an improvement to the accessibility of public buildings. The standards were reviewed in 2016, with a government response expected in the near future. There have also been improvements to the Disability Standards for Accessible Public Transport 2002. The transport standards have resulted in considerable improvements in Australia's public transport network. Work is currently underway to modernise the standards and develop a whole-of-journey guide. Further, there have been improvements to television captioning. The Australian government introduced the Broadcasting Services (Television Captioning) Standard 2013 for all television broadcasters.
We are considering a range of improvements to the Disability Standards for Education 2005. The More Support for Students with Disabilities initiative invested $300 million from 2012 to 2014 and included professional development for school staff, more effective use of allied health professions in schools, and resources to support differentiation of curriculum. We are implementing a nationally consistent collection of data on school students with disability. The National Arts and Disability Strategy encourages improved participation and access to the arts for people with disability in terms of physical access, access to funding and opportunities for people with disability to present their work. All jurisdictions have moved to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2 under the Web Accessibility National Transition Strategy. The Australian government has also developed national inclusive playground design guidelines for accessible playgrounds, and last Friday I was pleased to visit the electorate of Gilmore, where a great organisation, the Bay Push, has built a fabulous accessible playground. Mainstream Australian government agencies have adopted protocols for engaging with people with disability, and their representative organisations, in the development of policies and programs. This government is reforming disability employment to improve participant choice and control over the services they receive, create more competition between providers, and encourage more employers to hire people with disability and assist them in the workplace.
I should also mention JobAccess. JobAccess is the national hub for workplace and employment information. The JobAccess site has undergone a major redevelopment and was re-launched on 1 July 2016. I would also like to take this opportunity to recognise the JobAccess program. In February this year it won an international award for innovative policy at the Zero Project Conference at the United Nations, in Vienna. Of course, there is the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The national rollout also represents a significant achievement under the strategy. The coalition government is fully committed to fully funding the NDIS.
While I could continue to list the achievements that have been made under the National Disability Strategy, I acknowledged there is still more to be done. This bill will help to make that happen. This bill will contribute to ensuring that people with disability live in accessible and well-designed communities with the opportunity for full inclusion in social, economic, sporting and cultural aspects. I look forward to seeing the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Act added to this list of achievements.
Other measures contained in this bill just make sense, for all people. This bill replaces the current outdated preservation copying provisions in the Copyright Act with simpler, uniform and technology-neutral provisions that give libraries, archives and key cultural institutions greater flexibility in copying and the digitisation of copyright material to preserve or administer their collections. Libraries and archives will no longer have to wait for published material to be damaged or to deteriorate, or be lost or stolen, before making a preservation copy, ensuring that valuable historic and cultural materials will be available for future generations. Digital preservation and research copies will be able to be made available to people at libraries, archives and key cultural institutions, provided reasonable steps are taken by the institution to ensure that copyright the material is not infringed. I know these provisions are welcomed by the many Brisbane City Council libraries in my electorate including Mitchelton, Toowong, Indooroopilly and Kenmore.
It would be remiss of me, as the federal member for Ryan, with one of the best universities in the world—and I am talking about the University of Queensland, at St Lucia—not to note the support from Universities Australia for this bill. Universities Australia urges the parliament to pass the bill to streamline copyright for educational institutions without affecting the interests of copyright holders. The bill will update and simplify the licences that allow universities to use copyright material in return for payments to rights holders. The bill consolidates and simplifies the existing statutory licences in parts 5A and 5B of the Copyright Act that allow educational institutions to copy and communicate works and broadcasts, in a new educational statutory licence. By removing the prescriptive and administratively burdensome record-keeping requirements of the existing licences, educational institutions and copyright collecting societies will have the flexibility to agree on their own licensing arrangements for the use of copyright material. These amendments have been developed following a collaborative initiative of, and in close consultation with, all relevant stakeholders.
This measure makes long overdue changes to the duration of copyright protection in unpublished copyright materials. Currently, if copyright materials are unpublished they remain in copyright in perpetuity, so their productive uses may be lost. This bill simplifies and harmonises copyright terms by creating new standard terms of protection for original published and unpublished works, sound recordings and films. These terms are consistent with the requirements under international conventions and agreements to which Australia is a party. The new copyright terms will commence on 1 January 2019 and will apply to copyright materials created before 1 January 2019 that remain unpublished or otherwise not made public at that date. Libraries and archives hold large numbers of unpublished materials which are an important part of Australia's cultural heritage. Setting a term of protection for unpublished materials will allow greater use of the considerable cultural value of these materials. I commend this bill to the House.
Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (18:45): If the hardest thing in your day is to support this bill then you have no problems whatsoever. There is no reason you would not support this bill; it is a great bill. In fact, there are two good reasons to support this bill. One is that my friend and colleague the shadow Attorney-General has put his heart and soul into breathing life into what is the Marrakesh treaty in the Australian context, and he deserves more than ample praise for the work he has done advocating for this. The coalition have done a great job with this bill and what it will do. I dare say they have probably gone a little bit further than we would have, but they have done a great thing for Australians who want to be able to access content, who are visually impaired or who have hurdles in their way in accessing content.
But that is it—that is the limit of my compliments for this bill. It is not what is in this bill that you should be focused on when you are looking at this debate. What you should be focused on is what is not in this bill. What is represented by the absence of key parts in this bill is policy cowardice by the Turnbull government. A few years ago when they presented the exposure draft of this bill, they said that they would include provisions for safe harbours in copyright. This is not some academic concept; this is not something that is too difficult, too arcane, too much in the policy long weeds to ignore. An inability to have an effective safe-harbour regime in this country—which was supposed to be in this bill—means that jobs are on the line. Businesses are on the line. We are looking at a government that championed itself as being the innovation government, the one that would see all these new firms sprout up, particularly in the tech space. These firms are now actively looking to go overseas because this bill—and the policy cowardice that is wrapped up in this bill—was unable to work out a way to allow those firms to continue in this country. That is the problem with this bill.
I will give you a classic example. There is a firm in Melbourne that started small and has grown big. It has provided, just in Melbourne, over 100 jobs. It has provided artists with income and it has provided manufacturers with income. For the artists, they will do better than just relying on Australia Council grants; they will actually make a quid and do very well out of it. The firm is called Redbubble, and right now their commercial prospects have been put under pressure because of the policy cowardice of this government. Just to let you know what we are turning our backs on, this is what Redbubble are: by many accounts, Redbubble are probably one of the largest global internet companies to come out of this country. They have some 15 million visitors per month and 450,000 artists have uploaded work, with over 11 million images available, and 63,000 of these artists are from this country. Ninety-three per cent of their sales are offshore from Australia. Artists have earned some $72 million from the Redbubble site, with over 10 per cent of this going to Australian artists. This is nothing to sneeze at; this is good money earned by great Australian artists through a company that emerged out of Australia from Australian smarts. That happened right here. We do not celebrate these companies enough. This is a great, great company. We should be supporting these companies. We should have legislation in this parliament that says: 'You know what? We want to make sure you survive.' But, because of the cowardice on that side—
Mr Fletcher: That is not a nice thing to say.
Mr HUSIC: Well, I tell you what, Minister, if the shoe fits you should wear it. The Liberal government that is supposed to support entrepreneurialism is doing everything it can to not support entrepreneurialism in this country, through the failures of this bill.
In terms of the earnings of these artists, this year all artists on the Redbubble platform will earn $30 million, growing at roughly 50 per cent a year. The contribution that they are making to both global and Australian artists is greater than any single Australian organisation, including the Australia Council. Redbubble directly employ 200 people in high-paying tech jobs of the future. About 100 of them are in Australia, as I said earlier, and about 600 employees are employed indirectly via the fulfillers of advanced manufacturing. Some 60 of these firms are right here in Australia, in Horsham in Brisbane. What happened? Redbubble had an artist who developed an image that incorporated a logo of another organisation—the Hells Angels.
Mr Fletcher interjecting—
Mr HUSIC: Apparently they are your friends too, Minister, because you are aiding and abetting the Hells Angels in squeezing out an Australian firm from our local environment, because you did not provide safe-harbour reform. The Hells Angels complained to Redbubble about an image used on their site, and Redbubble took it down. That normally would be the end of the story. In the US context the Hells Angels would not have a leg to stand on. But, they shopped around and realised that with some of the toughest copyright laws right here, they could sue Redbubble—even though Redbubble as a platform, as a marketplace, took the action. They have about 10 people who scour that website to make sure that copyright breaches are dealt with and dealt with quickly—but it was taken down and they could not do that. Redbubble were banking on this bill that is being debated now, where the exposure draft said that this government would deal with safe harbour reform. It has not been fixed, and now they are being sued. So firms like Redbubble, Envato and 99designs are all under legal pressure because the cowards opposite were unable to find a way to ensure this survives.
The chief executive of Redbubble, Martin Hosking, was reported in the business section of The Australian today. This is a guy who should be championed by those opposite. He is contributing massively to the income of this country, providing jobs of the future, and helping in manufacturing. He should be championed. This guy is a legend. But his business is being squeezed offshore because those opposite cannot work out how to facilitate safe harbour reform in this country within the copyright context. Martin Hosking has threatened to pull his ASX listed company out of Australia—this is insane—because the country's copyright laws are not reformed. He says that without safe harbour protections they will have to leave. Martin Hosking says:
I want to be here, and I want a modern, innovative Australia. The government is asking for innovation from corporations, but the government has to show that same level of innovation.
That is what he said. Why should a firm like this be squeezed out of the country just because those opposite cannot find a way to provide for safe harbour reform? StartupAUS, which represents companies like this, has said:
We risk losing great businesses like these—Redbubble—and stifling the growth of others, if we don't develop a strong safe harbour framework such as they have in the US, Singapore, the UK and other EU countries.
If Australia wants to transition to become a digital economy, we must catch up with the rest of the world on how we treat online copyright content.
These firms want to protect copyright. Redbubble, 99designs, Envato—these firms believe in copyright. They want to protect it. They want to protect artists' incomes. They are doing more for artists' incomes than anyone else in this country. They should not be squeezed out because of cowardice on the other side, but they are being squeezed out. We want to see the protection of copyright, the protection of artists' incomes and the protection of companies like Redbubble.
Because those opposite have not had the guts to tackle this, we are apparently being told we are going for another review, so I want to read into Hansard how many reviews there have been on this issue over the years. In February we had the Productivity Commission inquiry into intellectual property arrangements, and there was a discussion about safe harbours there. In November last year, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties inquiry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership also dealt with safe harbour obligations. In December of last year we had another roundtable by the Productivity Commission into IP arrangements. In December 2015 there was an exposure draft into this bill that talked about safe harbours, and there was consultation about that then. In September 2014 there was the Attorney-General's department discussion paper on online copyright infringement, and safe harbours were talked about there. In November 2011 there was an Attorney-General's department consultation paper on revising the scope of the copyright safe harbour scheme. In 2009 there was another review: Commonwealth government 'Digital economy future directions: consultation paper', and the question was posed: should the existing copyright safe harbour scheme for carriage service providers be broadened?
Mr Fletcher: Who was in government then?
Mr HUSIC: We were.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr S Georganas ): Order! I ask members to make their remarks through the chair.
Mr HUSIC: I am saying this has been reviewed. In July 2005, when you guys were in office, there was a review of the scope of part V division 2AA of the Copyright Act. In December 2004 there was another review by the coalition.
Mr Fletcher: Why didn't you sort it out?
Mr HUSIC: Why didn't you sort it out? You have had over a decade.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: There are too many remarks being directed between members. All remarks are to be through the chair. This is the second time I have asked for that.
Mr HUSIC: My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker. In December 2004 there was an inquiry into copyright legislation. So what is the answer now? We are going to another inquiry—another inquiry by the so-called champions of entrepreneurism who want to be able to basically have all these reviews while Australian companies and Australian firms are completely squeezed out.
The opponents of safe harbours point out that this is all for Google. That is what they say—this is all for Google; this is for some big multinational corporation; it is not about local artists. Well, there are other big organisations like News Corp that are also supporting no move on safe harbours. They are opposed to safe harbours. I have seen News Corp rail against Google. They have written all those columns in the newspapers—I saw one in The Australian the other week—saying how bad Google is. If they do not like Google, they should get their systems administrators in News Corp to ban access to Google—stop every one of their journalists using Google. Stop them right now. If they believe that what Google is doing is wrong, they should stop using them right now. In fact, Google would not emerge in the Australian context. Why? Because our copyright laws would not allow them to. The only reason we access Google here is because of the benefit of a copyright regime on the other side of the Pacific. That is why we access Google—not because Australia allows it. If Google tried to set up service here, they would have their pants sued off them. If News Corp do not like Google, they can stop their journalists using them—stop them right now. But this is not about Google—this is about Australian firms. How is it that those opposite do not have the wit or wisdom to work out a way to help Australian firms? Google and News Corp can look after themselves. I am here talking about Redbubble, I am here talking about Envato, I am here talking about 99designs—I am here talking about Australian entrepreneurs providing artists with incomes and this country with jobs.
The failure of the Turnbull government to deliver on this shows that they are all talk on innovation but they are not there when needed. The start-up community was there for the Turnbull government. The Turnbull government has refused to be there on the big policy issues for all those companies in StartupAUS. Their national science and innovation agenda is collapsing on itself like a deflated balloon. We have never heard any of these ministers take on the ACCC as they have started to shake down start-ups and the acquisition of start-ups by bigger businesses. It is just nuts that they have not done so. They have hardly raised a peep about the ATO impacting on R&D incentives for software development while the ATO has been spooking the start-up sector. And now the safe harbour. Four failures in terms of innovation by those opposite—you have stuffed the NBN, you have stuffed up digital transformation, you have stuffed up your innovation agenda, and our firms, Australian firms, are paying for it. It is not good enough.
This bill can be supported, but the government has to be condemned for what is not in the bill.
Mr FLETCHER ( Bradfield — Minister for Urban Infrastructure ) ( 19:00 ): I rise to sum up in this debate on the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2017. I want to acknowledge the cooperation of the opposition, in particular the acting shadow spokesperson for communications, the member for Isaacs, and indeed the crossbench in facilitating the passage of this legislation—as I am advised, a non-controversial bill.
Let me just take a moment to address a couple of the comments made by the member to Chifley, who focused his observations on one particular feature of the bill before the House this evening—the fact that there was, in the exposure draft of this bill, provisions dealing with a proposed safe harbour regime. Those provisions have been removed from the bill, as it stands before the House this evening. The member for Chifley has accurately identified that that is what has occurred. He has wasted no time in attributing motives to the government's decision to do that. Let me enlighten the House as to why the government has done that. It is perfectly straightforward. We have decided to take the time to conduct additional consultation and further consider feedback from stakeholders on this important issue.
I want to make it very clear that we are not talking about holding a further review or a further inquiry, as the member for Chifley sought to suggest. What we are going to do is further consider feedback from stakeholders on this issue.
Mr Husic interjecting—
Mr FLETCHER: This is a complicated issue. The member for Chifley chuckles to himself—
Mr Husic: I do! You're a joke. You cannot be real.
Mr FLETCHER: in some kind of attempt to indicate his view of what the government has done. But I say this: when the member for Chifley was waxing lyrical at the dispatch box, did he move an amendment? He did not. He did not offer a solution. He was content to criticise. I do want to make it clear that what the government has decided to do in relation to that particular issue is take the time to further consultant, to further engage with stakeholders, to further consider their feedback and, at the same time, to proceed with the important measures in this bill.
Let me remind the House what those important measures address. The Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2017 is an important step in modernising Australia's Copyright Act. The bill will simplify and update the provisions of the Copyright Act relating to the education, libraries and archives sectors and, also, the disability sector. It will provide greater flexibility in dealing with content in these sectors. The bill before the House this evening is an important further step in improving the workability of the Copyright Act. The provisions of the bill follow detailed consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. Many of these provisions were developed cooperatively in conjunction with stakeholders such as, for example, the changes to the educational statutory licence scheme.
I want to thank all of those who have been involved in constructively contributing to the development of the bill. This is an encouraging example of a range of different copyright stakeholders with different interests coming together to support important reforms. So this is a bill which makes a constructive and positive difference to the copyright regime in Australia and responds to the needs identified by a number of stakeholders in the education sector, the library sector, the archives sector and the disability sector. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Minister for Urban Infrastructure) (19:05): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Personal Property Securities Amendment (PPS Leases) Bill 2017
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business) (19:06): This bill amends the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 to extend the minimum duration of a PPS lease from more than one year to more than two years. The amendments will operate so that a lease of an indefinite term will not be a PPS lease unless and until it has run for more than two years. The effect of these amendments is that a PPS lease of more than two years is a security interest that should be registered on the PPS Register.
Labor in government introduced the Personal Property Securities Act in 2009. It was introduced to the parliament by Attorney-General Robert McClelland. The act is an important reform which provides a uniform, functional approach to personal property security law governing all transactions that create a security interest. This includes the national uniform Personal Properties Securities Register, in which security interests may be registered and searched. The Personal Properties Securities Act 2009 harmonised over 70 Commonwealth, state and territory laws, as well as the common law and the rules of equity that govern security interests in personal property. The previous laws varied in their application, according to the form of the transaction, the nature of the debtor or the jurisdiction in which the property was located—which had the potential to significantly add to transaction costs.
Other countries, notably New Zealand, Canada and the United States, had by 2009 all implemented reforms in this area. The PPS reforms were intended to have a significant impact on business and consumers enhancing Australia's position as a financial centre by enabling banks and financiers to gain greater access to international finance, which in turn would assist growth and employment in Australia. The aim of the PPS reform in relation to PPS leases was to improve the ability of individuals and businesses, particularly small to medium sized businesses, to use more of their property to secure lending. The reforms were the subject of extensive consultation and received significant support and input from stakeholders, including industry, financiers, business and the legal industry.
Labor is proud of these reforms. The PPS reforms constitute real regulatory reform that cuts red tape, lowers costs for businesses and improves productivity. In government Labor worked hard to recognise the important role that personal property securities play in the Australian economy. Labor recognised the cost, confusion and uncertainty that surrounded personal property before Labor's reforms and we wanted to alleviate that burden on small business. The Productivity Commission estimated that Labor's reforms would save $70 million a year in compliance costs. This stands in stark contrast to the current Liberal government's imagined commitment to so-called red tape removal that rests on amending legislation with minor changes like deleting commas and correcting typos or repealing hundreds of spent acts that no longer have any legal effect.
The Personal Properties Securities Act provides for the circumstances in which the lease of goods will constitute a security interest for the purposes of the act. This currently includes leases for a term of more than 12 months or indefinite leases. Previously, the act also applied to leases for 90 days or more of serial numbered goods, a category that includes motor vehicles. However, this stipulation was removed by the Personal Properties Securities Amendment (Deregulatory Measures) Act 2015, which Labor supported.
The amendments in this bill make small changes Personal Properties Securities Act but they will provide significant relief for small businesses, particularly for the short-term rental and hire industry which enter into short-term lease arrangements or indefinite-term leases. The bill responds to issues that were raised by a number of submissions to the Whittaker review in relation to the effect of the act on small business, particularly the hire and rental industry, which enter into short-term lease arrangements or indefinite-term leases. That review highlighted the challenges for small business that are created by the operation of act, including the imposition of significant administrative burdens and substantial compliance costs.
A number of recent Supreme Court decisions have also highlighted problems with the operation of the PPS Act in relation to PPS leases, whereby owners of property have lost the right to their property because their interest was not registered. The provisions of the act relating to PPS leases operate to prevent the owner's loss of property that can occur in security arrangements where the goods are in the possession of the borrower. If a borrower uses property as security for subsequent borrowings, sometimes the second lender is not made aware of the owner's existing security interest. The register of personal property securities ensures that lenders are able to identify security interests.
Recent Supreme Court decisions in New South Wales and Western Australia have interpreted the operation of the act in relation to PPS leases. If owners of property do not register their interest on the PPS Register, and a hirer uses the property as security for borrowing without the knowledge of the owner, and the hirer becomes insolvent, the liquidator has an enforceable right to possession of the property. It has raised concerns for small businesses, particularly for the hire and rental industry, that owners of property have lost the right to their property because their interest was not registered. Property owned by hire companies can be lost when a customer defaults or becomes insolvent.
The minister was required to review the operation of the Personal Properties Securities Act. The Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, launched the review he was required to undertake in April 2014. It was led by Mr Bruce Whittaker. The final report of the Whittaker review was tabled on 18 March 2015.
In response to problems identified by small business in relation to PPS leases, during the course of the Whittaker review, the government enacted the Personal Property Securities Amendment (Deregulatory Measures) Act 2015, with Labor's support, so that certain categories of leases do not need to be put on the PPS Register. The Whittaker review highlights the concerns of small business which are partially addressed by this bill, including: low levels of awareness about the act leading to a failure to engage with the registration process and adverse consequences or loss of property; need for professional advice about the operation of the act due to its complexity and the costs of that advice; financial and administrative burdens of the registration and search process; and the cost of resolving disputes relating to the operation of the act. Small and family businesses that do not have the resources to meet the financial burden of the act are vulnerable to loss of property.
The final report of the Whittaker review is 542 pages of comprehensive analysis and review of the Personal Property Security Register. It contains some 394 recommendations for improving the operation of the act. This bill does not implement any of the recommendations in the final report. So let's be clear: this bill is not anything close to the comprehensive legislative reform called for by the Whittaker review. This bill is a minor tweak.
Labor is happy to support this bill if it will alleviate some of the burden currently borne by small business. But let's be clear: this is a lazy and erratic government that has no idea how to engage in proper, broad-scale legislative reform. If only this government would start thinking clearly about what it is trying to achieve and actually work towards methodically achieving some of those goals, then maybe Australians would have the kind of government that they were promised. This government is content to boast about minor tweaks instead of the bold deregulatory reform agenda that they proclaimed. Sadly, this government seems to have no reform agenda and it has no coherent plans for Australia's future. Instead we have seen an inert government that actually ran out of legislation during the first week of parliament this year.
Labor will support this small, sensible reform, but it is only one of hundreds of other sensible reform measures that this government could be bringing to this parliament. There are so many opportunities in Australia's regulatory framework to make improvements to ensure that our laws are operating effectively and are not unfairly or unnecessarily placing the burden on certain areas of society or industry. Labor would be happy to work with this government to make similar changes to a whole range of acts of parliament, but changes must be carefully considered and they must be the product of proper, thoughtful engagement with the issues and the result of consultation with those affected. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (19:15): It gives me great pleasure to rise this evening to speak on the Personal Property Securities Amendment (PPS Leases) Bill 2017. This fixes up an act that was introduced back in 2009. I can remember back then reading some commentary when the bill for that act was introduced by the former Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government and thinking to myself, 'How could the parliament possibly legislate something that makes so little sense for the small business community?' It was crystal clear to me at the time, from sitting outside of this place, that what was actually in that bill back in 2009 would cause problems, would have unintended consequences and would have adverse and unfair effects. But at that time there was just so much poorly thought through legislation that this just piled another bad bill on top of another bad bill.
However, I have to admit that back in 2009 the coalition, when they were in opposition, did not oppose the bill. I have to be fair to the then Attorney-General—Robert McClelland. Yes, he was mistaken on many aspects in this bill. There were some good things originally in it, but I was a bit disappointed that the coalition at that time did not pick up on the bad things. But, in their defence, there was so much confused and chaotic legislation being driven through the parliament then, often on ideological grounds, I suppose the opposition sometimes did not know where to actually start.
As it was, the concerns I had were over two issues. The first concern was with what was known as a Romalpa clause or a retention-of-title clause. This enabled a supplier, a wholesaler or a manufacturer, when they were onselling goods through the supply chain, to have in their contract of sale a retention-of-title clause. The clause was simply something they would often put at the bottom of their invoices that said, the supplier retained the title to the goods until they received payment in full. That was a fair enough term. If a supplier is supplying goods on credit, it is fair enough, if the person he is supplying to goes into insolvency or liquidation and an administrator is appointed, that he gets to retain the title of the goods that he has supplied, especially in circumstances where he can easily identify what his goods are if they have not been mixed with other goods or they have not been made fixtures in a particular property. That worked well for decades. It was a contractual term so that if a company went into liquidation the supplier could turn up and show the administrator or the liquidator the terms of the supply agreement they had. That would have had the retention-of-title clause in there, so they would have been able to take their goods back. Those simple contractual terms worked well and protected the interests of small business suppliers.
But there was a change made to this simple contractual arrangement back in 2009 that said: 'Now you have to register your retention-of-title clause at each particular sale you make with a government bureaucratic website and get it officially stamped. Otherwise, in a liquidation, what you should have retention of title to, or you thought you had retention of title to, will go to the assets of the company in receivership, which, in effect, will go to the secured creditors'—which are often the banks—'or the liquidator.' So, through those provisions, you simply had an asset transfer from the small business community to help the big end of town—the large banks and secured creditors—to, effectively, take windfall possession of goods that they had no entitlement to whatsoever.
The second concern I had with the original act was with regard to the rental and hire industry because it made it so that, if I was a business hiring my goods to another company, and I had an indeterminate term of the lease—and that sometimes may be the case because, when you lease goods or a company hires goods, you do not know how long you may want that term for; you may want it for three months, six months, 12 months, a year or two years—again, in an administration or liquidation situation, the goods that my company had hired out would all of a sudden no longer be my property. Again, that reversed years of simple common sense and a common practice in the industry. Suddenly you had to take along your lease and get it stamped and registered in a government bureaucratic form. If you did not do that, you were at risk of the administrator taking ownership of your property. This was absolutely, completely absurd.
I see the member for Moreton is speaking on this bill, which is very good. I had a look at how this legislation got through parliament the first time, when it was so obvious—
Mr Perrett interjecting—
Mr CRAIG KELLY: I said that. I have acknowledged that. I wondered how it got through parliament the first time. Surely there were parliamentarians here that understood the damage that this would do. Who was on that speakers list for that bill back in 2009? The member for Moreton. He was telling us how wonderful the legislation would be for solicitors—how it would create more work for clerks. I hope that when the member for Moreton makes his contribution on this bill he will stand up and apologise to this House for how mistaken he was back in 2009.
Let's have a look at some of the damage that was done through the legislation that the member for Moreton supported last time. Let's look at a couple of cases.
Mr Perrett: You voted for it!
Mr CRAIG KELLY: I hear the member for Moreton interjecting. I was not here in 2009, and I acknowledge that the coalition did not oppose the legislation, but voted for it. I say that was wrong. I have been gracious enough to say that that was incorrect. I would hope that the member for Moreton would stand up in this parliament and admit that he made a terrible error back in 2009 and got it hopelessly wrong.
Let's have a look at some of the effects of the member for Moreton's foolhardy support of that legislation. Let's look at a couple of cases. The first one is the case of OneSteel and Alleasing. The leasing equipment in that case was in the value of $23 million. An Alleasing employee, responsible for making the government registrations, failed to register the security interest—failed to fill in the bureaucratic government form—in accordance with the specific registration requirements. He used an incorrect ABN number on the registration. That $23 million worth of assets was actually lost by the company and transferred to the company in receivership. That was a windfall gain of $24 million, unfairly lost all because of this original legislation.
Another case was Power Rental Op Co versus Forge Group Power. It was only decided a month or so ago. That case involved, of all things, four mobile wind turbines that were leased by Forge Group Power from General Electric for a period in excess of 12 months. GE was regularly engaged in the business of leasing goods. Even though you would think that you would have to bolt a wind turbine to the ground, the court held that they were not fixtures and found that under the current leases, under this PPS legislation supported by the member for Moreton over there, the turbines became the property of the administrator. This was after only one month. One month had passed in which the leased goods were held by the company that was hiring them. They struck financial difficulties and had an administrator appointed. US$44 million—probably close to A$55 million—was lost: an unjust asset transfer from one company to another company; a complete windfall gain. Of course that money goes to the secured creditors, which would be the large banks, and also money to fund the liquidator's payments. It is simply a transfer from often the small end of town to the big end of town under this legislation.
This legislation does not fix the issue of the Romalpa clause. I would hope that very shortly, having fixed up this one mistake, both sides of this parliament would go back and look at this issue of going back to simply contractual terms of a Romalpa clause, not having to be something that requires a bureaucratic process that you have to go through to do it. It is extra paperwork, extra processes, completely against the interests of small business, leading to unjust, unfair outcomes.
With this legislation we are changing the minimum duration for which leases apply down from two years to one year. It was previously two years; it is now one year. More importantly, it also has the effect that leases of an indefinite term will not be deemed PPS leases unless they have run for a period of more than two years. So that enables companies to put on their lease documents that it is an indefinite period of time, and only once it gets over that two years do they need to register. I would prefer that there were no need for registration whatsoever, but at least this remedies those appalling court cases that we saw, which were little more than theft from one company to another.
The member for Isaacs, in his contribution, also talked about what else the coalition is doing to get this economy underway. In the few minutes left I would like to address some of those things. There are a couple of very important things that we need to do. Firstly, we need to get energy costs under control. We cannot do that when coal-fired power stations are continuing to be run out of town because they cannot compete with subsidised renewables, especially wind turbines.
Mr Dick: Bring on 18C!
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): Member for Oxley, that is disorderly.
Mr CRAIG KELLY: As long as the Labor Party is mad enough to support a 50 per cent renewable energy target there will be no investment in base load coal-fired power stations. That will drive up the cost of electricity; it will make electricity more unreliable; it will cost jobs; it will drive manufacturing off shore; it will make us a poorer and poorer nation. Secondly—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Scullin, on a point of order?
Mr Giles: We have given the member for Hughes some latitude, but he should confine his remarks to the bill which is before the House. He has spoken at some length about the seriousness of these matters. He should address them.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I listened to the member for Hughes. He was referring to the contribution of the member for Isaacs. I admit that he is a little off the centre of the debate, but I believe he is still relevant.
Mr CRAIG KELLY: That is correct. We have to allow broadness in this debate. If the member for Isaacs stands up and wants to bag the government, surely we are allowed to respond. But we know what the other side think about free speech. Just look at their—
Debate interrupted.
ADJOURNMENT
Hotham Electorate: Youth
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham) (19:30): I rise today to talk about the brilliant young people whom I represent as the member for Hotham. One of the things I have really noticed since I became a member of parliament is that young people are often forgotten about in the public policy debate, and it is often because no-one asks them what they think. Recently I wrote to the 11,000 young people between the ages of 18 and 25 that I represent in my electorate and asked them to tell me what issues are important to them. I was absolutely overwhelmed with the responses that my office received. Over a thousand young people took the time to respond to me by mail or online and give me their feedback about how we are doing here in this chamber. You often hear that young people are disengaged from the public debate or not interested in the issues we talk about in this chamber, but I can assure you that that is not my experience as a member of parliament, nor is it the experience that I had in surveying these young people.
I told the young people who responded to the survey that I would give voice to their concerns in this chamber, and I rise this evening to do that. By far the most important topic amongst these young people, raised by 78 per cent of respondents to this survey, was the topic of housing affordability. Young people are being driving out of the housing market, especially in Melbourne, and are desperate for action from their representatives. But what do they have? They have a Prime Minister and senior ministers who think the answer to affordable housing for young people is to have rich parents, to move to the bush or to find a higher paying job. It is no wonder young people are feeling so frustrated.
The second-most important issue to the young people I represent was jobs and training. This should resonate with every single member of this House. Young people are crying out for work. They are looking for further education opportunities more than ever before. What they need is a federal government that will back them in, that will help them attain those important skills, and they are not getting it. Young people are asking me: how on earth is it that this government is able to find $50 billion to pay for a tax cut for the biggest companies in this country? They are able to give a tax cut in this upcoming budget of more than $16,000 a year to every millionaire who lives in this country, and yet they want to push the cost of education—$100,000 degrees—onto the young people of this nation. It is absolutely outrageous and it is not good enough.
The third-most important topic that was raised with me was climate change, with 63 per cent of young people highlighting this as an issue that is important to them. I think young people on average talk a lot more about climate change than older generations because those young people that we represent, and their children, are going to live through the worst impacts. It is up to us in this parliament to work to ensure that we do everything we can to implement a clean energy future for Australians who will be living in this country when we are all gone.
Some of the other issues that came up in the survey were as follows. There was a very strong interest, as I mentioned, in stopping $100,000 university degrees. About 56 per cent of survey respondents spoke about marriage equality as an issue of great importance to them. About half of the young people that responded to this survey highlighted improvement to local mental health services as a major priority. I also asked young people to talk to me about how they want to consume their news and how they want to hear from us as members of parliament. The answers will not shock anyone in this chamber. Nine out of 10 respondents asked me to communicate with young people through Facebook and in fact nominated Facebook as the main area they are getting their news. Just one third of the young people who responded to the survey nominated newspapers and television, those traditional forms of news, as the first place they go to in order to get the news. I think this highlights that it is up to us, as the local members for these very important constituents, to communicate effectively with them and in ways that they desire.
I asked these young people about ways that we can improve the work that we do here in this parliament to represent them, and I want to indicate that they came up with some fantastic ideas. One of them was to have a junior member for each electorate, who would meet regularly with their member of parliament and be a voice for the young people living in that particular area. We got a lot of requests from young people who had recently finished secondary school for more democracy in school captain elections. Youth debates were raised, as well as online live Q&As on Facebook and online town halls. Mentoring programs were also raised. This consultation has been eye-opening for me. It has proved something that I already believed—that is, that young people do care deeply about the society that they live in, but they feel let down by the institutions that are there to represent and support them. Young people have a great deal to say. I would encourage other members to get out there and ask your young people what they think about what we are doing here. They have some really quality responses waiting for you.
Moore Electorate: Schools
Mr GOODENOUGH (Moore) (19:35): With the federal budget process in progress, I advocate for strong continued federal funding support for independent schools within my electorate of Moore. The Independent Schools Council of Australia is calling on the government to provide clarity on school funding arrangements for 2018 so that independent schools have the capacity to plan their operations going forward with confidence.
Australian school education is supported by three major funding sources—namely, the federal government, state and territory governments, and the parents of students. School funding is a shared-responsibility model where the Commonwealth is the majority funder of non-government schools, and the states and territories are the primary funders of government schools. Some 34.9 per cent of students around Australia are enrolled in independent schools, yet they receive only 22.4 per cent of recurrent education funding. The independent school sector relies primarily on parents to fund schools, with 58 per cent of recurrent income coming from private sources.
We are fortunate to have a number of outstanding local independent schools in our community, including St Stephen's School, St Mark's Anglican Community School, Sacred Heart College, Mater Dei College, Lake Joondalup Baptist College, Prendiville Catholic College, St Simon Peter Catholic Primary School, Francis Jordan Catholic School, Padbury Catholic Primary School, Whitford Catholic Primary School, St Luke's Catholic Primary School and the Montessori School in Kingsley. In particular, I acknowledge the Anglican Schools Commission, Catholic Education of WA, the Baptist Church and the Uniting Church for establishing low-fee schools in our area.
Many hardworking parents in my electorate choose to make the necessary sacrifice and commitment to providing the best possible education they can afford for their children. They are by no means wealthy, working long hours and forgoing luxuries to send their children to a private school. Ninety per cent of independent schools charge low to medium fees, with the median fee being $4,800. The average Australian government recurrent funding per school student is $7,940 for independent schools and $9,750 for Catholic schools, compared with $16,180 for government schools. So, on average, independent schools receive around half the level of government funding of public schools. The contribution of these parents towards the cost of their children's education ought to be recognised. It has been estimated that, if all independent-school students were to transfer to the public system, it would cost both the state and federal governments an additional $4.3 billion per annum.
In addition, parents contribute substantially to the cost of providing school buildings. On average, 86 per cent of capital funding for independent schools is contributed by parents and school communities through fees, building fund levies, targeted fundraising and donations. In 2014, parents contributed over $855 million for capital development of independent schools.
For decades the Commonwealth government funding for non-government schools has been based on need. Different funding models over that time have changed the way need is assessed. For some schools this means that their Commonwealth funding entitlement will be reduced. This was the case for a number of local schools with the introduction of the Schooling Resource Standard or Gonski funding model, which came into effect in 2014. Currently, considerable uncertainty attaches to arrangements for non-government school funding beyond 2017.
Government schools are entitled to the full amount of the SRS. The SRS amount for non-government schools is adjusted according to the measure of 'capacity to contribute', which is determined by a measure of the school community's socioeconomic status. Schools with a higher SES score will receive a lower level of per capita base funding. This has been the case for a number of schools in my electorate.
According to the Independent Schools Council of Australia, it is predicted that independent school enrolments will grow by 18 per cent to 2025. Growth in the sector requires not just the building of new schools but also the refurbishment or expansion of existing facilities, the replacement of out-of-date materials and upgrades to equipment to meet the changing curricula and expanded courses. I make the case for strong federal government funding support for independent schools in the upcoming federal budget.
Workplace Relations
Ms COLLINS (Franklin) (19:40): I had the real privilege today to talk to some aged-care workers. These workers were nurse assistants, enrolled nurses and registered nurses who are working in the aged-care sector. They do very valuable work in our community in aged-care facilities and in people's homes right around the country. It was really interesting, in the conversations with them, how frightened they are that they will be next when it comes to cuts in take-home pay, and they are frightened about that because of the penalty rates. They are concerned because penalty rates make up around 20 per cent of their take-home pay—in some cases, for some of the workers, depending on their shifts, up to 40 per cent of their take-home pay is in penalty rates.
We heard a harrowing story from a woman who had to take out a mortgage. When she put in her base rate, she was told that she would not be eligible for a mortgage, but when she included penalty rates, she was. She was really pleased that she got that mortgage, but she was really concerned that, if penalty rates are cut and they go further than the current industries—which is their fear—people like her, who are doing great work in the community, who are professionals but are still low-paid, will not be able to participate in the community and do things like buy homes and take out mortgages.
This is a real concern. When we asked a question of the government today in question time, we got the usual stuff: 'It is never going to happen. We are talking about essential services and nurses here.' I do not think the government understand quite what they are doing here when it comes to penalty rates. They have a chance to intervene in the Fair Work Commission decision because of our bill in parliament. They have a chance to say that they will not cut the take-home pay of workers who work shiftwork and weekends and are currently relying on that penalty rate.
In my home state of Tasmania I attended a rally outside Senator Eric Abetz's office and talked to some workers in the hospitality industry, who are going to be affected by the Fair Work Commission decision. We heard from a constituent of mine, Stephen. He underscored just how important penalty rates were to him and his family. He made the point that he and so many of his colleagues and workmates give up precious time over weekends and important holidays like Easter and Christmas to work because of those penalty rates—because they are compensated—and that they would not be willing to work those days if they were not compensated, because that takes them away from their families.
It was interesting, because we held this rally outside Senator Eric Abetz's office on Eight Hours Day, a public holiday—eight hours work, eight hours pay and eight hours sleep was the idea behind Eight Hours Day. Surprisingly, Eric was not at work that day, but they did leave a message for him about the fact that he welcomed this Fair Work Commission decision and that he was suggesting that these workers could wear and cop this cut in penalty rates. Of course, they cannot. But not only can these workers and their families not cop this cut in their penalty rates and their take-home pay; it will impact the whole community.
We hear a lot from the government about how this is going to increase jobs. They have no evidence of that. Never anywhere has it been proven that that will occur. But, interestingly, over the weekend, the Australia Institute also released some data that says it is actually going to affect the federal budget as well as the individuals and their families—in fact it could affect the federal budget by $650 million. The basis upon which they are saying that is if 285,000 people lost an average of $2,744 per year because they are in the 21 per cent tax bracket. We are talking about $656 million over the forward estimates. This is a significant impact on not just those individuals and their families and the time that they give up to work when nobody else wants to work, but also the federal budget. They know that the public overwhelmingly supports penalty rates. They know that the public overwhelmingly agrees with the payment of, and is willing to pay, additional charges on weekends, particularly in the hospitality and tourism industries, because these people are working unreasonable hours when nobody else wants to work. That is what the public and the community think. We have seen poll after poll side with those low-income workers who cannot afford to have this cut. They cannot afford to have this cut. They should not have this cut. The government should stop this cut from happening.
Canning Electorate: Telecommunications
Mr HASTIE (Canning) (19:45): Telecommunications technology is vital to modern society. It enables us to conduct business, access emergency assistance and keep in touch with family and friends. Imagine how hard life would be if you did not have a phone. For too many residents in Canning, this is a reality. Recently I visited a group of homeowners in Falcon, in the south of my electorate, who for the last 10 years have struggled to get a mobile or landline service. Falcon is a suburb of the city of Mandurah, WA's second-largest city and at the heart of my seat of Canning. When it rains, these residents cannot use their home phones. Even on a good day, they barely get a mobile phone signal.
On a recent visit a few weeks ago I went between SOS and a single bar of mobile phone service sitting at their kitchen table. Their situation is unacceptable. They cannot talk to family, they cannot conduct their business and, ironically, sometimes they cannot even call their service provider for help. This has gone on too long, and I look forward to sitting down with Telstra, NBN Co and the residents soon to resolve this issue. But there are countless other constituents living with unreliable phone service all over Canning—from Serpentine, Jarrandale and Roleystone in the north, to Boddington, Lake Clifton and Yunderup in the south.
Recognising the importance of reliable communication networks, the coalition government has been working hard to improve mobile phone services through the Mobile Blackspot Program. This government has committed over $220 million to the program, enabling improvements to more than 750 mobile black spots across Australia. In my electorate of Canning we are grateful to have received funding for four recognised mobile black spots: Dwellingup south, Waroona north, Lake Clifton and Serpentine-Keysbrook. Residents in each of these areas will benefit greatly from these projects and I look forward to their completion.
The government is also committed to improving online communication for Australians through the National Broadband Network. I receive daily complaints from families and small business owners in Canning who cannot get decent internet. Generally speaking, this is because the existing infrastructure has not kept pace with population growth. We had about 40,000 people added to Canning in the last 10 years, for example. I think of people like Mark Hudson, a Byford business owner who cannot connect with overseas customers on skype. I think of a mother in Roleystone who contacted me recently who decided on a tree change for her home beauty business but cannot access her client emails. And I think of a fellow from Lake Clifton whom I met at Mandurah train station who moved his business out of Canning because he could not compete on the state and international markets because of the internet service.
I am pleased to advise my constituents that the NBN will solve these issues. Australians with access to ADSL currently experience download speeds of seven to eight megabits per second. Across all NBN technologies, peak download data rates will be 25 megabits per second to all premises, and at least 50 megabits per second for 90 per cent of fixed-line premises. That is a significant increase in speed. Already, Canning constituents are reaping the benefits of the NBN. In Waroona, Pinjarra and the greater areas of Herron and Mandurah there are more than 23,000 premises connected to the NBN. Parts are switching on for residents in Bedfordale, Brookdale, Byford, Mt Richon and Darling Downs. Construction is underway on towers around the Mundijong area. Residents in Cardup, Jarrandale, Mundijong, Serpentine, North Yunderup and South Yunderup who are serviced by fixed wireless will be able to connect next year. I am very personally grateful, because, as of a couple of weeks ago, I can now connect to the NBN in Halls Head.
But, like any major reforms, a project of this magnitude is not without its growing pains. With the help of NBN Co I have successfully resolved a number of constituent complaints. I think of John Macauley, owner of Kitchen Warehouse, Australia's largest online kitchenware retailer. The CFO and other board members operate out of John's property in West Coolup but could not get internet access due to NBN boundary issues. That has been resolved and he can now connect to the NBN to carry out his business.
There is huge potential in regional Australia. The regions have been home to business success stories in the past and will be in the future. For all this to happen we need to get communications right. We need to ensure phone and internet services enable families to remain connected and enable Australian businesses to be competitive in local, state and global markets. This government has made great achievements in the rollout of the NBN and Mobile Black Spot Program, but there is more work yet to be done. As long as I am the member for Canning, I will advocate very strongly for my constituents to ensure that they have the very best telecommunications and internet services in their electorate.
Energy
Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (19:50): In the early 1980s, when New South Wales was afflicted by power outages and blackouts, the Wran government acted decisively and they built two new coal-fired power stations in Bayswater and Liddell and, once they were operational, the blackouts stopped. The east coast of Australia is now facing a similar scenario, with constrained supply of electricity and a warming climate. Many people are now asking, 'Why doesn't the government simply do what the Wran government did and bring on extra capacity and supply?' The reason they cannot do that is that assets in South Australia, in Victoria and in New South Wales have been privatised. Yes, that is right: Liberal governments sold off those power generation assets to the private sector many, many years ago. And we are all now paying the cost for that, because the private sector is not investing in new and additional base load power. That is constraining supply and it is pushing up prices, and we are all paying the cost of that.
I recall 2007 when the Iemma government was proposing to sell the electricity generation assets of New South Wales. I was running the union movement's campaign against that reform, and I recall the proponents of that reform saying at the time, 'Don't worry; if we privatise the generators, the private sector will always invest. They will always invest in new capacity and we'll never have a problem with constrained supply.' Well, guess what? The private sector ain't investing at the moment, because of a lack of policy certainty by this Turnbull government. There is no plan to transition from dirty, polluting coal-fired power to cleaner renewables. In fact, this government has completely wiped out a plan.
And we are all paying the cost of that. In its submission to the Finkel review the Australian Energy Council nailed it when it said:
The lack of national policy certainty is now the single biggest driver of higher electricity prices.
That is the view of the National Australian Energy Council. They know what is going on. Because the Turnbull government does not have a plan for investing in new-generation in renewables, we are all paying the cost. Who is going to invest in a coal-fired power station? You would have to be nuts to invest in new coal-fired power stations at this point in time. It is becoming an outdated technology. The industry is not investing in renewables, unfortunately, because there is no certainty. This is a government that removed the price on carbon and completely destroyed the RET and, as a result, investment in the industry fell. Over recent years we have seen that the government has overseen a dramatic reduction in investment in renewable energy. In 2014 investment in large-scale wind, solar and other clean energy sources fell by an astounding 88 per cent to 240 million—the lowest level since 2002. And we are now behind countries like Panama, Sri Lanka and Myanmar when it comes to certainty of investment in renewable energy.
What is the government's plan with all of this? Well, they have introduced this Snowy 2.0. What a joke that is. It is a feasibility study. That is all it is: a feasibility study into whether they can do pumped hydro at the Snowy. And now they are talking about using the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility to invest in coal-fired power, to invest in an outdated technology. I ran a petition in my community against this, because the people of Kingsford Smith do not want to see valuable taxpayers' dollars wasted and invested in coal-fired power in an outdated technology, and 275 people signed a petition opposing that. I thank the people of Kingsford Smith for their support for action on climate change and ensuring that we do not leave the responsibility for cleaning up the mess around electricity prices and action on climate change to our kids.
Labor has a plan to deal with this. Labor has a coherent plan to increase and grow investment in renewables. We outlined that plan in the lead-up to the last election. It includes a 50 per cent target of renewables by 2030, and we will achieve that through an emissions trading scheme. We will introduce a price on carbon in our economy, and that will reduce over time, thereby creating the economic incentive for people to reduce their emissions and invest in renewables. We will boost the RET and ensure that there is incentive to invest in renewable energy technology, and we will ensure that the new market rules around how the system operates are fair and reasonable and encourage renewables. Only Labor has a plan to increase investment in renewables and to reduce electricity prices in Australia.
Family Violence
Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite) (19:55): Family violence is a scourge across Australia, and the statistics are alarming. According to the Domestic Violence Resource Centre in Victoria, one in four Australian women experience intimate partner violence, One woman, on average, is killed in Australia every week by a partner or ex, and that is a dramatic statistic in itself. A woman faces an increased risk of being killed or seriously injured when she leaves or is separating from an abusive partner. Three women are hospitalised every week in Australia with a traumatic brain injury caused by their partner or ex. In my state of Victoria, Victoria police family violence incidents are again going up dramatically. In 2012 approximately 47,000 incidents were reported. In 2016 that number jumped to 77,000. And let us not forget that Indigenous women, alarmingly, are 35 times more likely to be hospitalised by family violence than other women.
Family violence affects so many of us in so many ways. I have spoken before about one of my sister's closest friends, the beautiful Monique Denahy from Geelong, who was murdered by her partner. There are also some amazing stories of inspiration. Members here might have read about Rachael Moore. She has five children, and four of them saved her life when her former partner and the children's then stepfather stormed into their Brisbane home, shooting Rachael in the shoulder. The two older children wrestled the gun away from their stepfather's arms and stopped him attacking their mother while the younger children also took defensive action, including hiding their baby sister. The four children will receive Australian bravery awards later this year.
I am very proud of the work that our government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Turnbull and the Minister for Women, Senator Cash, has done to date. It includes committing $200 million in new funding under the Women's Safety Package and the Third Action Plan to address family violence. This includes $18.5 million to legal aid commissions to deliver integrated duty lawyer and family violence support services; money for family relationship centres; $16.5 million for community legal centres to provide advice; and other specific funding for Indigenous communities. The Attorney-General, too, has led the way, announcing a review of the Family Law Act, particularly in part 7, and also releasing an exposure draft of amendments to the Family Law Act which are being proposed, which include making injunctive orders for personal protection a criminal offence.
As the chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, I am also proud that last week our committee announced an inquiry into a better family law system to support and protect those impacted by family violence. Our committee's strong message is, 'Your voice matters.' The committee has a number of particular areas of focus in the inquiry, including how the family law system can respond as quickly as possible to family violence and how it can provide adequate protection through consent orders. We are also looking at the issue of self-represented litigants, particularly when it comes to perpetrators cross-examining their partners or former partners who may have been subjected to family violence. The inquiry will also consider the financial needs of people affected by family violence, including whether family violence should be a specific issue in relation to property division. We will also examine the capacity of family law professionals to respond to cases involving family violence and the potential for a national approach to the enforcement and administration of intervention orders or apprehended violence orders, depending on the state you are in.
I just want to share with members here and with anyone either watching this tonight or reading it in Hansard that submissions are open until 3 May. But, very importantly, at the inquiry website address, which is aph.gov.au/fvlawreform, there is a questionnaire that every person who has been affected by family violence in the family law system can fill out to share their experience.
House adjourned at 20:00
NOTICES
The following notices were given:
Mr Pyne: to move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Gorton’s private Members’ business notice relating to the disallowance of sections 11(3)(a) and (c) of the Code for the Tendering and Performance of Building Work 2016, made under section 34 of the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Act 2016, and presented to the House on 7 February 2017, being called on immediately.
Mr Fletcher: to present a Bill for an Act to amend laws relating to communications, and for related purposes.
Mr Tehan: to present a Bill for an Act to amend the law relating to defence, and for related purposes.
Mr Joyce: to present a Bill for an Act to amend the Primary Industries Research and Development Act 1989, and for related purposes.
Ms Husar: to move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) reducing penalty rates will have a disproportionate effect on women;
(b) women make up 54 per cent of workers on the Fast Food Industry Award, 55 per cent on the General Retail Industry Award and 77 per cent on the Pharmacy Industry Award;
(c) in hospitality women are disproportionately part time and award reliant;
(d) the Government has refused to rule out cuts to the Hair and Beauty Industry Award, an award for an industry comprised of 87 per cent women; and
(e) thousands more women will be affected by these penalty rates cuts than men;
(2) acknowledges that:
(a) women are more likely to rely on penalty rates to meet household expenses;
(b) the cuts in take home pay of up to $77 a week will make it harder for women to pay rent and feed their families; and
(c) the cuts to penalty rates in these industries will widen the gender pay gap;
(3) condemns the Government’s:
(a) failure to protect the take home pay of low paid women workers; and
(b) support for further cuts to the Hair and Beauty Industry Award; and
(4) calls on the Government to:
(a) support Labor’s Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017 to protect the take home pay of low paid workers;
(b) exercise some leadership and stand up for low paid workers; and
(c) start working to close the gender pay gap.
Mr Katter: to present a Bill for an Act to require the equal treatment of the religious certification of products, and for related purposes.
Ms McGowan: to move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) access to justice is a right of all rural and regional Australians;
(b) Community Legal Centres deliver frontline legal advice and casework to those who cannot otherwise access legal advice and advocacy, people with disabilities or mental illness, the elderly, the young and Indigenous Australians;
(c) on 1 July 2017, the community legal sector will lose 30 per cent of its Commonwealth funding which will have an immediate and adverse impact nationally, magnified in rural and regional areas;
(d) for the Hume Riverina Community Legal Service (HRCLS), this funding cut will result in the equivalent loss of one full-time lawyer;
(e) the HRCLS is the only community legal service in North East Victoria and the Southern Riverina of NSW and is a cross border service, playing a unique role in helping vulnerable and disadvantaged people in 17 local government areas;
(f) the existing funding level already means people are turned away, for example, in 2016 the HRCLS had almost 3,000 enquiries for advice, with 900 people turned away—a third due to insufficient resources; and
(g) this funding cut will mean that almost 500 people could be turned away from the HRCLS due to insufficient resources; and
(2) calls on the Government to reverse this decision and commit to funding the community legal sector to the level necessary to deliver effective and timely legal advice and casework to the vulnerable and disadvantaged people in our communities.
Mr Hammond: to move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Government established a panel to review the Small Amount Credit Contract (SACC) laws on 7 August 2015, which provided its final report to the Government on 3 March 2016;
(b) the Government released its response to the SACC review on 28 November 2016, in which it agreed with the vast majority of the recommendations in part or in full;
(c) the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services said at the time that ‘the implementation of these recommendations will ensure that vulnerable consumers are afforded appropriate levels of consumer protection while continuing to access SACCs and leases’;
(d) the Minister claimed in an interview on Lateline on 28 February 2017 that Treasury was drafting legislation to implement the review’s recommendations; and
(e) in response to questioning in Senate Additional Estimates by Senator Gallagher on 1 March 2017, Treasury’s head of the Financial System Division confirmed that drafting had not commenced for a Bill to enact the SACC review recommendations accepted by the Government;
(2) acknowledges that consumer credit contracts and consumer leases have been shown to cause unnecessary hardship to vulnerable consumers, and that the Parliament should act to protect vulnerable consumers;
(3) recognises that the delay in introducing legislation for consideration by the Parliament, to implement the SACC review recommendations, results in an unnecessary continuation of hardship to vulnerable consumers and their families;
(4) congratulates the consumer advocate groups who attended Parliament House on 27 March 2017 to raise the profile of this important issue; and
(5) calls on the Government to immediately prepare legislation for consideration by the Parliament, to implement the SACC review recommendations.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mrs Wicks ) took the chair at 16:03.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Record Store Day
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler) (16:03): Saturday, 22 April will see the celebration of the 10th international Record Store Day. This was established to highlight the cultural and economic importance of record stores in an era of online shopping, file sharing and downloads. In Australia, more than 180 independent record stores will mark the event with live music, DJ performances and other in-store activities, as well as fundraising for various charities. We all know independent record stores are important in our communities as small businesses, generating economic activity and providing jobs, but the importance of independent record stores extends well beyond economics. It goes to our culture, our lived experience and the way we understand and engage with the world. That is because, in the words of the late, great Chuck Berry:
Music is an important part of our culture and record stores play a vital part in keeping the power of music alive.
We have all spent time in record stores, maybe looking for something specific or maybe just thumbing through the racks, killing time. In 2017, you can download or stream the latest song by your favourite artist without leaving your lounge chair. But you do not get the experience of seeking it out in a record store, thereby opening yourself to a world of music you might never have heard. You do not hear that song on a full album with a collection of tracks chosen by the performer to be heard in a particular order. You do not get to feel the CD or record in your hands, read the liner notes, or admire the pictures and artwork. Grinderman, a side project of Australian singer Nick Cave, put this concept this way:
Do yourself a tremendous favour and go to a record store today. The relatively mild exertion of getting off your fat, computer-shackled [backside] and venturing out to find the object of your desire, the thrill of moving through actual space and time, through row upon row of records, and the tactile ecstasy of fondling the quested treasure—all this will augment and enrich the mental associations the music invokes in you for the rest of your life.
The record store subculture is perfectly described in Nick Hornby's awesome novel and subsequent film High Fidelity. Record stores bring people together. Back in the late 1970s, two young men were browsing in a record store in the US state of Georgia and stopped to chat: Michael Stipe and budding guitarist Peter Buck, who became friends and went on to form R.E.M.
Independent record music stores are critical to the music industry and to our communities. You will not find many recordings of local emerging bands in the big chain stores in your city, but you will find them in independent record stores. I am proud to be an ambassador for Record Store Day on 22 April. As Tom Waits said of music stores:
Folks who work here are professors. Don't replace all the knowers with guessors.
Keep'em open. They're the ears of the town.
Swan Electorate: Roads
Mr IRONS (Swan) (16:06): Welcome to the chamber, Mr Deputy Speaker Hastie! I rise today to update the House and my constituents on an important matter in my electorate of Swan. Between 2010 and 2015, the very busy intersection on Archer Street and Orrong Road in Carlisle saw 117 car accidents, and was subsequently ranked the 84th worst intersection in the state of Western Australia for number of crashes. These crashes came at a cost of $4.6 million. I am pleased to say work is expected to start on upgrading the intersection of Orrong Road with Archer Street, as well as the intersection of Orrong Road with Alexander Road, next month. This work was made possible by a $1.85 million grant from the Australian government's Black Spot Program. The great thing about our Black Spot Program is that anyone from state and territory governments, local councils, community groups and associations to road user groups and individuals can nominate a blackspot for funding. This program is specific to the commitment of reducing crashes on Australian roads. By funding measures such as traffic signals and roundabouts at dangerous locations, this program reduces the risk of crashes. This program makes an important contribution in reducing the national road toll under the National Road Safety Strategy and Action Plan.
This project, as I said before, has been funded by the coalition government and aims to improve safety and traffic flow. The actual scope of the project is quite large, so I will go through it briefly. This project will include the widening of Orrong Road southbound from three to four lanes to provide a double-right turn into Archer Street, and I am sure that any of my constituents who have been stuck at those lights before will agree with me that this will be a huge benefit. Secondly, the project will relocate the pedestrian crossing at Archer Street to allow for a staggered and safer crossing for pedestrians crossing Orrong Road. As Orrong Road is used as a main thoroughfare, particularly for those vehicles travelling to the Welshpool industrial area, a 5.5 metre mast arm for Orrong Road will be installed to improve visibility of traffic signals for heavy vehicles. Other parts of the project include extending the right-turn pocket from Orrong Road into Alexander Road, and upgrading other pedestrian crossing facilities to include a pedestrian phase, as well as upgrading street lighting. I understand this project is expected to complete in six weeks after it commences in April. I am looking forward to seeing it completed, and seeing the benefits that it will bring to my electorate of Swan and to the people who live there and travel on its roads.
Before I finish, I want to mention some of the other blackspots that gained funding in the same 2016-17 round. The Alexander Road and Fisher Street intersection in Belmont was granted $95,000 to install a median island, and several intersections along Canning Highway in South Perth have been funded to extend median strips along there to help improve safety and traffic flow. This is about the coalition getting on with government, and looking after the constituents of Swan and of Western Australia with funding for road safety.
Fremantle Electorate: Broadband
Mr JOSH WILSON (Fremantle) (16:09): By the middle of this year the NBN rollout will be just short of the halfway mark. The rollout in my electorate of Fremantle is in progress and we are learning about some of the challenges and shortcomings as we go. There are areas like Aubin Grove in my electorate which currently have no access to line broadband and where the quality of wireless connection is very poor to say the least. While I understand that a program as large and as varied as the rollout of the NBN has to proceed according to a range of considerations, it is difficult for people in Aubin Grove or parts of Hamilton Hill to watch areas that already enjoy ADSL broadband receive the NBN before they do. That is why, as a local member, I am committed to advocating for the rollout to occur in such areas as soon as possible. I thank the community of Aubin Grove for inviting me to meet with them and hear their understandable frustrations.
As the rollout proceeds, there are two emerging lessons. The first is that technology matters. In some cases households that previously had broadband through HFC rolled out by Telstra or Optus now find their NBN service is actually slower. In some areas the carrying capacity of the existing copper network is so weak that fibre-to-the-node is simply not able to deliver the minimum standard speeds. We know from NBN Co that consideration is being given to rolling out a greater proportion of fibre-to-the-curb, and I would suggest it needs to be more than a consideration going forward. The second lesson is that the creation of the NBN for access on a wholesale basis by the various retail service providers does not and will not magically dissolve the potential for old-fashioned buck-passing. Even with an effective NBN, it is still open for retailers to overpromise and underdeliver while seeking to blame the broadband shortfall on someone else.
Last Friday, as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network, I found it helpful to hear from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and from the ACCC. The TIO explained to us that complaints related to broadband services are not broken down by technology type. I would suggest that this may need to be considered if we are to ensure that the NBN does not plough on in the delivery of technology that not only falls short of being futureproofed but actually fails to meet current standards. The last thing we need is for communities like Aubin Grove, who have waited too long for broadband already, to end up with a substandard service when it finally arrives.
The ACCC reiterated their view that government should support the creation of a broadband performance monitoring program. A successful trial was conducted in 2015, and the ACCC have been asking government to support a comprehensive and ongoing version ever since. Without that monitoring capacity it will be impossible to properly assess the quality of the NBN. It will be impossible to guard against and stamp down on the kind of buck-passing shenanigans we have seen in the past, especially from the retail telcos. The cost to establish and operate the ACCC's proposed monitoring program for four years is estimated at $7 million. It would take three to four months to set up. There really is no time to waste, and I urge the government to support this program without delay.
Robertson Electorate: Infrastructure
Mrs WICKS (Robertson) (16:12): I rise to commend the New South Wales state Liberal government for the work that they are doing to deliver a better future for the people of Gosford and for the Central Coast. On 8 April at the state by-election our local Liberal candidate, Jilly Pilon, a small-business owner and passionate local, will seek election for the state seat of Gosford so the Central Coast can have a strong voice in the state government to ensure that Gosford and the Central Coast has its voice heard.
After 16 years of Labor's neglect, we are now starting to see the transformational results of 1½ terms of state Liberal government on the Central Coast. The world-class $348 million rebuild of Gosford Hospital is running on time and under budget, and it is set to be completed with a massive 800-space car park by the end of 2019. We did not get that under 16 years of Labor government. The state government is also partnering with the coalition government and the University of Newcastle in delivering the Central Coast Medical School and Health and Medical Research Institute, a $72.5 million investment on the very same site, and I am advised that up to 350 construction workers are being employed at the hospital worksite, with most opportunities going to local tradies.
On the other side of the city the state Liberal government is delivering on another election pledge to relocate more than 300 Public Service roles from the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation to Gosford. This stands alongside the federal coalition government's delivery of 600 new federal jobs into Gosford by the end of this year. With a growing population, many of whom commute, this is critical for Central Coast residents. This record of listening and delivering is much more important than the white noise and the smokescreens that we hear from Labor with their scare campaigns and their empty promises on commitments that they cannot even deliver because they are in opposition.
Let's take another example: the shocking state of some of our local roads. After 16 years of Labor's neglect, it took a Liberal government to deliver a $170 million upgrade of the major West Gosford intersection. Jilly Pilon and the Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, have also announced a further $23 million roads package for the Gosford electorate.
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 16:14 to 16:22
Mrs WICKS: As I said before the suspension, Jilly Pilon and Premier Gladys Berejiklian also announced a further $23 million roads package for the Gosford electorate, which includes $8 million for roads in Point Clare, $2 million to improve safety around Point Clare Public School, including the important 40 kilometre per hour school zone, and $13 million for Blackwall Road and Memorial Avenue on the peninsula. At Ettalong, the state government responded to a desperate need, with a grant of $5,000 to the Broken Bay Scout Group after a vandalism attack at the Ettalong scout hall.
It has only be the Liberal government that has committed vital funds to build the Gosford regional performing arts centre, with $12 million towards this cultural heart, including the conservatorium. Labor, on the other hand, is busy protesting about which site the performing arts centre will go on—50 metres one way or the other—despite it being a council responsibility. But that is to be expected, because all you ever get under Labor on the Central Coast are protests and words and no delivery.
keys2drive
Mr BRIAN MITCHELL (Lyons) (16:23): We have just heard from the member for Robertson on the importance of roads in Australia. I rise to speak on keys2drive, a Labor program started in 2009, with the express purpose of keeping young people safe on Australian roads. Some 250,000 young Australians have gone through keys2drive, learning the skills they need to stay safe, so it makes no sense to me that this government is considering axing this program on 1 July. This government, which says that it can afford $50 billion in handouts to corporations and banks, cannot find even $4 million a year to keep this vital national program going.
Nothing is more important to mums and dads than the safety of their children. We know that far too many young drivers lose their lives on Australian roads. Many more survive crashes but are left with lifelong injury and trauma. This program gets results, with a 35 per cent drop in fatalities for young people aged 17 to 29 in the past year alone. The University of New South Wales found that Keys2Drive participants are 28 per cent less likely than the general population to have a crash and 40 per cent less likely to be involved in a crash that causes moderate to serious injury within their first six months as a P-plate driver—so why on earth is this government considering axing a program that keeps young Australians alive?
Keys2Drive equips young drivers with vital skills. Furthermore, and just as importantly, it tests and upskills the supervisor driver. If anything, we should be increasing funding for Keys2Drive, not axing it. Lachlan McIntosh of the Australasian College of Road Safety says it is extremely short-sighted to axe a program like Keys2Drive. He notes that, in addition to the human toll, road trauma costs the economy $30 billion a year. He was reported telling News Corporation:
This expenditure needs to be seen as an investment ... it is just smart economics.
Harvey Lennon, the CEO of the RAC in Tasmania, is also backing Keys2Drive. His organisation has delivered 20,000 lessons over the past year. Bronwyn Fielder, who has worked on the program in Hobart for five years, reports that its P-plate graduates are involved in fewer crashes than their peers. My electorate has been swamped with emails from mums and dads who are outraged that this program faces the axe on 1 July. It is not too much to ask that $16 million be set aside over the forward estimates to continue Keys2Drive. Let's do the right thing by the young drivers of this country.
O'Connor Electorate: Fielding, Ms Kate
Mr RICK WILSON (O'Connor) (16:27): I want to take the opportunity today to highlight the impressive achievements of a constituent from my electorate, Kate Fielding, who is in Canberra this week. Kate is in Canberra, alongside Lindy Hume, as a guest speaker at the launch of the Parliamentary Friends of Regional Arts and Culture group. I managed to attend the launch here in Parliament House and I caught up with Kate before her presentation. She describes herself as a cultural strategist, but the work she delivers for the community is extremely diverse and is work that deserves recognition.
Kate lives in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, one of the largest regional centres in my electorate of O'Connor. She has been a passionate advocate for developing the arts not only in the Goldfields-Esperance region but throughout regional Australia. She was appointed as director of Regional Arts Australia in 2011 and subsequently became the chair in 2014. Through her position, Kate has been at the forefront of discussions regarding both the challenges and opportunities of supporting arts in the regions. In late 2016 Kate was instrumental in organising Warburton Fashion Week, a celebration of local style and culture deep in the West Australian desert. For those outside of Western Australia, Warburton is a remote Aboriginal community nearly 800 kilometres north-east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder and some 1,500 kilometres north of Perth. It is the population centre of the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, with around 1,800 permanent residents. Warburton Fashion Week is unequivocally Australia's most remote fashion event and is a wonderful example of creative ways to celebrate and promote arts and culture in the most isolated parts of Australia.
Kate's talents have been recognised at the highest level in Australia. In November the Minister for Communications and the Arts, Mitch Fifield, appointed her to the board of the Australia Council for the Arts. The council is our peak statutory body in arts and culture and provides advice to the government in the shaping of national policy. Kate's appointment is extremely encouraging to those of us from regional Australia. To have her presence on a board that is responsible for making the arts more visible and accessible to all Australians will undoubtedly benefit rural and remote Australia. And, of course, I am particularly pleased to see someone from my own electorate taking on such a significant role. Outside of her creative projects, Kate is also chair of the Goldfields-Esperance Development Commission. The GEDC is responsible for overseeing the distribution of state government funding and supporting economic growth in the region. It is a role of great importance and one I am sure she will perform with great success.
Kate's impressive achievements were recognised at a statewide level when she was named a winner of WA's 40under40 business leaders earlier this month. Needless to say, she was selected from an extremely strong field of candidates. As a regional MP I am always pleased to see passionate and talented people working to improve the quality of life in regional Australia. I want to publicly congratulate Kate on her work throughout O'Connor and nationally, and I look forward to assisting her future endeavours wherever possible.
Workplace Relations
Ms LAMB (Longman) (16:30): It was 24 September 2016. Six months ago, Catherine and Jacob, a young couple who live in my electorate, were married. They had saved and budgeted for their wedding and their honeymoon, and they were looking forward to starting a family sometime soon. On 22 February 2017, the Turnbull government decided to cut their take-home pay. Where will this pay cut hurt the most? Will it be their mortgage? Will it be their ability to shop locally? Or will it be their ability to start a family?
You see, both Catherine and Jacob work for a major retailer and both rely upon the penalty rates that they receive to augment their total income. They have done the maths. With these cuts, they are set to lose over $130 combined in take-home pay each week. That is about $7,000 a year. What sets this couple apart from most is that they have actually looked ahead. They have realised that, with these cuts, they are set to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in superannuation—money that they were counting on to secure them a very comfortable retirement—hundreds of thousands of dollars!
Recently, I met with Catherine and her co-worker on a Sunday evening—just after they had finished their shift—and I shared this meeting on my Facebook page. I note the member for Petrie obviously monitors my Facebook page because yesterday, here in the chamber, he made reference to it. He admitted that he does not know Cat or Erin's particulars and yet he arrogantly trumpeted that I was, 'Not letting the facts get in the way of a good story.' The member for Petrie literally stated that he did not know the facts and yet he claimed I was using misleading facts. Deputy Speaker Hastie, I wonder if you have ever heard of such a bold disregard for logic? I will not let the facts get in the way of a good story and I will not let a good story get in the way of facts. Instead, how about I just read the facts and let them tell the story?
Catherine and Jacob: young, recently married and they both live in my electorate of Longman. They both work for a major retailer in the electorate of Petrie. Neither Catherine nor Jacob are on an EBA—in fact, they are paid under the award. Both are permanent, full-time employees. Both rely upon penalty rates. Together, they are set to lose $130 a week, or around $7,000 a year. They are set to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in superannuation. The member for the electorate in which they live is fighting for them; the member for the electorate in which they work is fighting against them. The fact is: this government just gave Cat and Jacob a pay cut and gave their employer a $50 billion tax cut.
Spinal Muscular Atrophy
Mr WOOD (La Trobe) (16:32): Recently, I met with local resident Julie Cini at the Berwick Show. Sadly, Julie told me the heartbreaking story of her two children, Zarlee and Montanna, that she tragically lost at a very young age to spinal muscular atrophy, also known as SMA. For the last 12 years, since she lost her second child to SMA, she has dedicated her life to fighting SMA and she is also the national president of Spinal Muscular Atrophy Australia. She has even written a book about the journey entitled Leaving Life Legacies. Julie is an amazing woman.
It is important to understand a few facts about SMA. SMA is a degenerative motor neuron disease. It affects infants, children and adults worldwide. It is suggested that the incidence of SMA occurs in one in 10,000 births. To date, there is no known cure. SMA is a genetic condition whereby the nerves of the spinal cord's anterior horn cells deteriorate—atrophy, meaning waste away—and eventually die. Put simply, SMA not only wastes away the muscles you see, like arms and legs, but also internal muscles used for coughing, swallowing and breathing. How heartbreaking is this for parents?
What causes spinal muscular atrophy? SMA is a genetic disease caused by abnormalities in the SMN1 gene, the survival of motor neuron 1 gene. One in 35 Australians carry the folding gene. Being a carrier does not mean you are affected by the disease. SMA occurs in babies when both parents are carriers of the gene and match up and have a child. In this case, there is usually a one in four chance of having a baby with SMA. But, if only one parent carries the folding gene, there is usually only a one in 2,500 chance that you will have a child affected by SMA.
But all hope is not lost. A new drug has been developed, called nusinersin or Spinraza, as it is commonly known. Spinraza, while very expensive at $700,000 a year per patient, is life changing and potentially life saving for many sufferers. However, it must be administered at the presymptomatic stage. The great news also has been that in the United States it was passed through the FDA on 23 December, making it a welcome Christmas miracle to many parents and families. Here I stand today with Julie to fight to ensure we have it listed on our PBS and to make sure we have this drug one day available in Australia. Again, Julie, congratulations for all the work you are doing for other sufferers of SMA. Thank you very much.
Racial Discrimination Act 1975
Mr DICK (Oxley) (16:36): I am proud to represent one of the most culturally diverse electorates in this country. The electorate of Oxley has over 55,000 people who were born overseas. People from all over the world, including India, South Africa, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, call the suburbs of Oxley home, with just over 38 per cent of people living in our community having been born overseas. Among this number is a rich and flourishing Vietnamese community, with almost 7,000 people having been born in Vietnam and a total of 10,000 people whose ancestry comes from Vietnam. Vietnamese, Samoan, Mandarin, Spanish and Cantonese are some of the most common languages spoken at home in our community, alongside some other, not-so-common languages including Danish, Polish and Korean. It is facts like these that prove the true success of how great our multicultural society in Australia really is—one based on inclusivity, diversity and our mutual respect for one another.
However, last week I, like many Australians, was dismayed to see the Turnbull government throw open the floodgates with proposed changes to 18C that will allow speech that offends, insults or humiliates people based on their race. Of all days to make this announcement, they chose Harmony Day, a day when schools and community organisations join together to celebrate the message that everyone belongs. Students, teachers and parents all dressed in orange to celebrate how we embrace cultures from all over the world to make ours the most successful multicultural nation on earth.
What a relief to those extreme right-wing members of this government that now they can say whatever they want. They can break open the shackles of their daily nightmare and be able to say what they really think. Make no mistake: the proposed changes to section 18C will allow more racial hate speech in Australia. Throughout the last week, we have seen leaders from across multicultural communities denounce this change. We have seen members of my own Vietnamese community stand strongly against these changes. As I said earlier, the success of Australia is based on our inclusivity and mutual respect for one another. However, unfortunately, there are examples where this is not the case. When these occur, we must make sure that adequate protections for those that need them are in place.
But it seems the Turnbull government are not interested in doing this at all, instead allowing speech that will discriminate against their fellow Australians based on the colour of their skin, race or religion. At the end of the day, there is no question: they are weakening the words in legislation, and we will see more examples of racial discrimination involving offending, insulting and humiliating examples of where Australians will no longer be protected under the law. I stand strongly with my community and will always fight against race hate speech.
Queensland: Dairy Industry
Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (16:39): Today I would like to talk about Queensland dairy farmers as part of the Australian dairy industry. Dairy is one of Australia's leading rural industries. Farmgate value for the 2015-16 financial year was $220 million. There are 3,000-plus jobs in the Queensland dairy industry alone.
There are approximately 425 dairy farmers left in Queensland. These 425 dairy farmers produce 70 per cent of all milk consumed in the state of Queensland. In 2000 the industry saw deregulation occur, and in 2011 the industry was further impacted by the introduction of one-litre milk, courtesy of Woolworths, Coles and the milk processors. Before one-litre milk was introduced there were 620-plus farmers in Queensland, while today there are just 425. If you do your sums, this is just short of 200 dairy farmers who have left the industry.
The current farmgate prices are unsustainable, with 50c to 55c a litre on quota being insufficient. It guarantees farm failure, zero innovation, little investment and, of course, a very stressed rural community. Current prices will lead to milk production in Queensland halving in the next 10 years. We anticipate that over 50 per cent of current dairy farmers will shut their gates and get out of the operation. Action is needed to fix the industry. Failure to act will guarantee that in 10 years time most of Queensland's existing milk factories will be shut, putting many workers out of a job. Failure to act now will guarantee that in 10 years time over 80 per cent of the milk consumed in Queensland will be imported. This has never happened in the life of Queensland since the year dot.
This is not an economic debate but a real-life disaster for small-business operators who are caused personal and business harm as a consequence of milk-pricing policies that they cannot influence. Action must be taken to restore the real market. There are three current opportunities to resolve some of these problems in the dairy industry. Affects test amendments are essential. The Senate has a dairy inquiry, and let us hope that it brings some real results, and the ACCC has a dairy inquiry going on at the same time. Each of these have the potential to determine the future of the Queensland and Australian dairy industries. Thank you.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hastie ): In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.
BILLS
Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2016-2017
Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2016-2017
Second Reading
Cognate debate.
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr MARLES (Corio) (16:42): I look at the government's woeful budget that it handed down last year, and I shake my head in sadness at the way in which the Liberal government has mismanaged this country's finances with successive budgets which have blown out debt. When this government was elected, government debt was at $184 billion. That figure has almost doubled now to $317 billion. You might be able to give the government some credit if they had managed to reduce the deficit even a little, but, of course, they have not because, ultimately, at the end of the day, they are not up to it. Since their first budget, the budget deficit for 2017-18 has blown out tenfold from $2.8 billion to $28.7 billion.
The midyear budget update confirmed the Prime Minister and the Treasurer's budget has continued this government's streak of letting the deficit get worse and letting our total debt get worse. I know that the coalition look to the past for inspiration, but if I could give both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer a single piece of advice it would be that it would be wise to let this tradition end. Deficits over the forward estimates have blown out by another $10 billion. The projected surplus in 2021 has shrivelled away in the cold light of the reality of what this government has become. The simple, scary fact is that all of this budget mismanagement leaves Australia's AAA credit rating at genuine risk.
Despite the growing deficit and the looming downgrade to our credit rating, the government still appears to remain determined to give a $50 billion tax handout to big business. What will this tax break do for big business, many of whom will simply deliver that tax break back to overseas owners? What will the tax break deliver for Australian householders facing static wages being eaten away by rising costs? The $50 billion of their money that the Prime Minister wants to give to big business will raise household income by 0.1 per cent by the mid-2030s—not 10 per cent, not one per cent but 0.1 per cent over a decade.
I was thinking about how to provide an analogy in making this speech to demonstrate how puny 0.1 per cent of income growth is. It is actually quite hard because it is so small that it is basically invisible. It is a single drop of milk in a litre carton over the next 20 years, and that is what we are getting for a $50 billion giveaway to big business of taxpayers' money. In the meantime, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are busily smashing household budgets with their cuts to Medicare, cuts to schools and cuts to family payments. You would have thought that the government would have learnt their lesson when they tried to ram these measures down Australians' throats for the first time back in 2014. It appears they have not learnt that lesson, though. They thought they would bring them back for another go in 2015 and then the Prime Minister thought he would pick them up and include them in his first budget as well. Who knows what we will see come May. Here we are with the Prime Minister looking at doing this once again with the coalition government. I am not sure how many more times the Australian people will have to reject these cuts to families, pensioners, new mums, people with disability and young people before the government will learn their lesson, but keep rejecting these proposals we will. The thing is that the government do not understand. In fact, the very thing the government have never understood is that budgets are ultimately about priorities. They are about people and Labor understands that. Priorities and people were at the heart of every budget that we brought down in our last government. People and priorities will be at the heart of every budget which will be brought down by a future Shorten Labor government.
Labor last won government at a difficult economic time for the people of Geelong, but, despite that, the Labor government then fully funded the Geelong Investment and Innovation Fund which secured jobs at a perilous moment and managed to keep Ford manufacturing in Geelong back then. Indeed, when Ford ultimately made its decision to leave Geelong on the very day it did, a Labor government was able to find the money for what is now the Geelong Regional Innovation and Investment Fund. This was in stark contrast to how the then Abbott government approached Alcoa's leaving of Geelong, where no such transition money was provided for the community. Jobs went begging at that moment. In Geelong's moment of need, this government left Geelong behind.
By contrast, the former Labor government provided $37 million to Deakin University's carbon fibre research centre, which provides one of the best carbon fibre research furnaces in the world, and the consequences of that are spinning off companies which are growing jobs to this day. We delivered $3 billion for a regional rail link in Geelong; we delivered the Geelong Bypass; we delivered the Northern Community Hub in Norlane; we delivered, as I said, the Geelong Regional Innovation and Investment Fund. Good governments prioritise local community needs, and Labor knows how important investments in local community infrastructure are for local economies and for local communities to survive and thrive.
One commitment that we made, which was of particular pleasure for me, and it again stands in contrast to a failure by this government to similarly commit, was the previous Labor government's $14 million commitment to the upgrade of the facilities at Kardinia Park. Football and the Geelong Football Club lie very much at the heart of the Geelong community. The club and its players have been an important part of Geelong for more than 150 years. Since the Second World War, the home of the Geelong Football Club has been Kardinia Park, which is the site of that investment by the former Labor government. But, in the earlier part of the Geelong Football Club's history, it was based at Corio Oval, the site of which is now in Eastern Park. It is a site which is not easily found and it is only marked by a small plaque.
There is a sadness in this for me because Corio Oval holds a very significant place in the city of Geelong's history. Not only was it the site of the Geelong Football Club and the site of a trotting track; in fact, Geelong's first three VFL premierships, in 1925, 1931 and 1937, were won at the Corio Oval. But it was perhaps in the 1880s, when Mr Dave Hickinbotham captained the most famous Geelong team, that the Corio Oval might have been at its height. We won premierships back then in 1880, 1882, 1883 and 1884 and went through the entire 1886 season completely undefeated, including beating South Melbourne in what was described at the time as 'the game of the century' to take that premiership. Dave Hickinbotham was a fantastic footballer on his own terms. He was described as fast and strong, playing in the centre. One can only imagine the sight of Dave Hickinbotham running down the centre of Corio Oval surrounded by tens of thousands of spectators. Indeed, the record crowd at Corio Oval was 26,000 spectators in a game played, I think, in the 1920s against Collingwood. Dave went on to coach the Geelong VFL team in 1910 for two years and, curiously, he is one of the few players to have recorded a 100-yard placekick, which he did in 1888.
In 2014, I spoke about the significance of Corio Oval, the significance of that history, the significance of the Geelong Football Club and the significance of Dave Hickinbotham and how this ought to be more properly remembered than simply by a plaque in that place. I proposed then, as I have been proposing since that time, that an oval within sight of the old Corio Oval that is currently in Eastern Park and used mainly as a place for cricket but which does not have a name be renamed the Dave Hickinbotham Oval. It would give a fitting legacy and memorial to him but also serve as a reminder of the significance, just a few metres away, of Corio Oval and its place in Geelong's history. I wrote then to the City of Greater Geelong to seek to pursue this project and was told that I needed to get approval from Dave Hickinbotham's family in order to do that. I was assisted by Frank Costa, the patron of the Geelong Football Club, because it turns out that the Hickinbotham family are in fact deeply connected with the Geelong Football Club. Dave's grandson Alan played in the 1951 premiership team and his great-grandson Michael is a committed Cat fan to this day. Michael lives in Adelaide. I caught up with Michael a couple of weeks ago with the member for Kingston and it has been my pleasure to get to know Michael in the context of this campaign. Michael is, of course, very keen for his family's name to be linked to this oval and for Dave Hickinbotham's exploits and, indeed, the significance of the Corio Oval more generally to be remembered by the renaming of that oval.
I wrote that letter to council back in 2014. Some might say that is long enough to make a decision like this, but I would say that the wheel that grinds slow grinds fine. I understand the decision is on the verge of being made. I am sure that decision will appreciate the contribution of Dave Hickinbotham to our city and our football club, and I am hopeful we will see a fitting memorial to that contribution named in our city soon. I really look forward to being able to celebrate that moment with his great-grandson Michael.
That speaks to the significance of community in the context of the way in which budgets prepared in this place are applied. I want to speak of another community project which, back when Labor were in power, we funded through the federal budget—a $3.1 million upgrade to the Geelong Eastern Beach precinct. In 2003, Australia consolidated a range of heritage lists to come up with Australia's National Heritage List, which was adopted in 2003. This has on it the really significant and iconic sites within our country, and they are the famous sites that we know, but it also includes a number of other sites such as the Cascades Female Factory Yard 4 North, the Moree Baths and Swimming Pool, the Mount William Stone Hatchet Quarry and the Echuca Wharf. All of these are important local places which mark out Australia's national heritage, but there is one disgraceful omission from our National Heritage List, and that is that there is not a single thing from Geelong on it. That is something that needs to be rectified.
Geelong is a significant city in the context of our nation's history. As every local in Geelong knows, it was destined to become Victoria's capital, but some 19th century Melbourne shysters—and I know I am standing next to the member for Bruce, who is no doubt a descendant of one of them—doctored a map back in the mid-19th century to show that Melbourne was closer to Ballarat than was Geelong, which, of course, it is not. On the basis of that map, funding was produced by financiers in London to build the port of Melbourne ahead of the port of Geelong, which then led to Melbourne—
An honourable member: We all know Melbourne is part of Geelong.
Mr MARLES: It is our north-eastern suburbs—which then led to Melbourne becoming the capital of Victoria. There are some who think that Geelong should get over this, but we still remember. During the period when Australia rode on the sheep's back, Geelong was very much the wool capital of our nation, and Cunningham Pier was the centre of the wool trade. Customs House in Geelong was one of the oldest customs houses in Australia.
It is right that there ought to be a representative from Geelong on the Australian National Heritage List, and I think that Eastern Beach is the perfect place to be put on the list. There has been continuous use of the Eastern Beach site since the 1840s, and it was first proposed that a precinct be built there in 1914. Works commenced in 1927, and in 1939 the current shark-proof enclosure in Corio Bay was opened. This is a wonderful Art Deco construction by the architect Harry Hare. The boardwalk and the kids pool are similar to those that were found all around greater Port Phillip Bay, but today it is about the only one surviving. It also speaks to Australia's connection with the water. It is one of the great pools of our nation, along with the Bondi swimming pool, the North Sydney swimming pool and the wonderful Cairns swimming pool. The Bondi swimming pool is on the National Heritage List.
This is a place where people in Geelong now engage in a whole lot of forms of recreation. Significant triathlon events, cycling events and running events all happen here. Geelong enjoys Eastern Beach now as it has for 150 years. Tonight I reiterate the call I have been making for some time: Eastern Beach and its precinct ought to be placed on the National Heritage List. It is time for Geelong to be represented on the National Heritage List, and I will be calling on the council to do that. It is an example of how important funding from this place is in the building of local communities.
Mr HILL (Bruce) (16:57): The Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2016-17 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2016-17 appropriate an additional $2.2 billion this financial year. That is in addition to the amounts appropriated in the annual supply and appropriation act last year. Labor will not block supply. We are good like that. Sustainable budget repair, though, is a significant challenge for this parliament, and I say at the outset that we are prepared to work with those opposite to support the bills we can, to temper the worst excesses of the bills we cannot negotiate workable compromises on and to oppose firmly those which pick on the poor and the vulnerable.
Serious structural reform of the government's budget is required because the government's budget is now in worse shape than it was three years ago when there was a supposed budget emergency. You might remember that. They have tripled the deficit. Net debt has risen by over $100 billion since the 2013 election. We could spend the entire week talking about the ridiculous cuts and critiquing the government's budget measures. Suffice to say that when you look at the zombie budget measures, such as the cuts to poor welfare recipients, the cuts to Medicare and the cuts to school funding, and contrast them with the ongoing desire to give away a tax cut to big business and to cut the top marginal tax rate—I think for every $1 million you earn you get a $16,000 tax cut—it is pretty clear where the government's priorities lie. Serious structural reform, which would address the threats to the AAA credit rating, could be dealt with through adopting Labor's negative-gearing capital gains tax policies and abandoning the $50 billion tax cuts.
Nevertheless, I want to turn to other matters. Nine months or so in as a new member of this House, taking stock and reflecting on the various agencies and portfolios of government, I would have to say an early contender for the worst performing department and minister would have to be the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and its minister. I do not say that lightly, of course, because there is a lot of competition. I am forming that view based on what I see in my electorate, what comes in the door every day, what I have seen already in my work as deputy chair of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, and it is also apparent when you see the complete failure of this minister in relation to the core services of the department and the policy failure on the overall migration program. It is fair to say the core administrative functions of this department are failing. Citizenships delays, I have spoken about at length in this chamber and the other place, and endless audit reports from the Auditor-General outline the failings in procurement and service delivery. The latest gambit of the department—I think this is the minister and his secretary plotting the Department of Homeland Security—where they are proposing to spend a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayers' money on a new headquarters. That went down well with the Public Works Committee, where I think even the government chair, Scottie Buchholz—I cannot remember which seat he is for, you will excuse me—
An honourable member: Seat of Wright.
Mr HILL: Seat of Wright, excellent, got it. Where even he said the secretary of the department was an uncooperative witness. Every budget, we see fees go up for immigration, fees go up for visas yet the service standards go down. We now have, on the policy front, over one million people in Australia on temporary visas—working holiday-makers, international students, 457s and regional visas—with various forms of work rights. There is no reliable longitudinal data. There are endless accounts of exploitation which are not addressed, and the impact on the Australian labour market is not considered in a cumulative fashion—that is a topic for another day.
I want to turn the focus of my remarks to a very serious matter and that relates to the administration by the department of 457 visas and the sustained pattern of rorts, the refusal to reform the practices that we are seeing by the minister, and the department continuing to issue visas. The hypocrisy of the government in turning a blind eye to what is going on in the 457 racket at the moment makes them actively complicit. I quote from a letter from the minister, and this outlines at the outset the stated policy aim of the 457 program:
The policy intent of the subclass 457 visa program is that Australians have priority and that overseas workers are a supplement to, and not a substitute for, Australian workers.
That is what the minister says. In fact, anyone in Australia who writes him a letter gets this little gem of a standard paragraph back. It seems clear; who could argue?
I will also say at the outset, as someone who used to run various aspects of migration as a public servant, that I believe we will always need some capacity for temporary skilled labour, whether that is due to capacity constraints or skill gaps in the Australian economy, and that there is a legitimate need for legitimate businesses to procure these skills in a globalised world. The numbers should scale up and down according to the economy, but the key thing is that the system has to be administered with integrity and fairness to the Australians who may be missing out on work, whether they are unemployed or underemployed, and fairness to those who come in on visas who are then open to incredible exploitation which this government does nothing to address—7-Eleven, anyone?
We have heard numerous reports of labour market testing laws being ineffective or gamed. I picked this up doorknocking thousands of houses through the campaign, particularly from IT workers. But I want to raise a specific matter of current concern relating to residents in my electorate. These are serious allegations and concerns relating to the use 457s for shipping engineers. Shipping engineers are one of the hundreds and hundreds of occupations on what is called the CSOL, the Consolidated Skilled Occupation List. That is the list that you have to have an occupation on if you are to be eligible to apply, or nominate someone, for a 457 work visa. Shipping engineers, though, have a special status in that if you read the legislation they are one of only two professions, engineers and nurses, which are protected from exemptions from labour market testing by the act. The minister, no matter how much he hates it, cannot exempt shipping engineers from labour market testing requirements. They are a highly skilled and specialist occupation. There are at least 250 unemployed shipping engineers in Australia—I know this because the Australian Institute of Marine and Power Engineers, AIMPE, have shown me this data and many of these people live in my electorate. So I am deeply concerned to hear of current issues in relation to the company CSL and its recruitment activities. These issues have been raised directly in March in the last two weeks with DIBP and the minister but with no satisfactory response. The facts are that in January, CSL advertised a range of jobs including for shipping engineers. The jobs—positions for seafarers—were advertised again for one week on seek.com on 8 March, closing on 15 March. I am aware of at least 61 applicants, because I have seen the list, who are prima facie qualified—some, again, from my electorate. I am now in possession of correspondence from the AIMPE to the minister and to CSL, which was settled by a QC on 15 and 16 March, that raises concerns that CSL may choose to fill the positions using 457 visa holders rather than Australian citizens or permanent residents.
AIMPE are raising these concerns because they are worried for Australians as this has happened before in this industry. In fact, AIMPE advised the minister that Inco Ships, now CSL, did not adequately comply with labour market testing as required under the Migration Act. In December 2015 they provided employment to foreign engineers who had previously been engaged to work on CSL owned ships, and these 457 visas were granted by the minister. AIMPE believes that none of the Australian applicants were even interviewed, let alone employed—and I would be very happy to be corrected on that front.
The act requires the minister, before issuing 457 visas, to be satisfied that no Australian citizen or permanent resident is qualified, experienced and available to fill the vacancy. What we see here is a single ad for seven days on seek.com. I do not believe that is adequate. Nevertheless, we could live in hope that these 61 applicants—there were at least 61—will receive fair consideration. But, given their concerns, AIMPE sent the list of applicants to the department. Mysteriously, one applicant was told by email on 21 March by the Chandler Macleod recruitment firm in relation to their application in January that, 'The position has been withdrawn.' Yet on 23 March CSL replied to AIMPE's letter saying they had a large number of applications for the jobs advertised in March. They are undertaking to assess applications, yet claim they have no obligation to interview every applicant—or, indeed, any applicants—and they refused to provide any undertakings requested by AIMPE to not hire more 457 workers.
I call on the minister to make a clear commitment to actually back fairness in this system, to back Australian workers who are qualified for these jobs and to not keep saying one thing and doing another. Minister, say you will not issue more 457 visas for shipping engineers, at least without being properly satisfied that serious labour market testing has occurred and fair consideration has been given. DIBP, the minister's department, replied to this email on 20 March, acknowledging the list of applicants for the jobs advertised on seek.com and saying they would 'consider this new information in consultation with the minister's office.' We await their response, and we seek the minister's assurance.
More broadly, the question that arises, of course, is why shipping engineers are still on the consolidated skills shortage list. It is clear that there are many qualified unemployed or underemployed shipping engineers in Australia, and this was admitted by the government's department in Senate estimates just a few weeks ago by the department of transport and infrastructure. But, despite this admission, we see—or think—that 457 visas are still being issued. We had 180 of them in 2013-14, we had 174 of them in 2014-15 and in 2015-16 we had 100. The minister is still issuing them but, mysteriously, on 30 September last year the department stopped publishing the statistics, so no-one has any clue anymore as to how many 457 visas the minister has issued since 30 September. The Parliamentary Library says, 'We don't know anymore, because they took the data down.'
Labor's response, in our plan to put local workers first, is sitting there in a bill on the Notice Paper that was introduced by the Leader of the Opposition and which could be voted on now. The Leader of the Opposition's speech made it very clear that skills from overseas will always be a necessary part of a modern, open economy. There is no argument about that. But this bill sets more rigorous evidence requirements for labour market testing for 457s. They are not onerous. The bill says, 'Put a job ad up for four weeks.' That seems pretty reasonable. It says, 'Make sure that, if you are applying for a visa, you have done your labour market testing within the last four months.' That seems pretty reasonable. It says, 'Ban ads that target only overseas workers.' That should not be hard. And it says, 'Crack down on job ads that set false, unreliable requirements just so employers can put an ad up and shove it into the department to get a foreign worker.'
When the Leader of the Opposition was the minister he introduced labour market testing, and those opposite opposed it. They voted against it. It is really quite simple: where employers need a 457 visa holder, they should have to provide evidence to prove it. My personal view is that labour market testing may not go far enough and that, in some sectors—in some cases—we may also need to explore price signals to reality test employers. When you have got a choice—and say: 'There's a bit of a shortage here, but with a few thousand dollars I could train a local worker to fill that job. They've got years of experience; they just need a skill'—maybe do not do a fake job ad and then go overseas. Maybe the government says: 'You really think you need that? Then, instead of training a local worker, you pay a higher fee.'
I think that in the minister's campaign for his leadership, he was polishing his head and trying to think: 'Where might I be a bit exposed? Better cover up my weaknesses, if I am going to run for leader, while I count my numbers.' He came out a few weeks ago with this fig leaf, this little sham of a fix on 457s—he got a bit of telly on it. He said, 'We're going to ban temporary foreign workers from taking jobs at fast-food stores.' That sounds all right! What he did not say is that people on 457s are not flipping burgers. This great, big announcement—this great, big crackdown on 457s—applies to a couple hundred people in management and supervisory roles. It is about time the minister actually took his responsibilities seriously, stopped playing politics and stopped trying to undermine the Prime Minister. Then again—given the Liberal Party's record on promotions—the Prime Minister stuffed up the NBN, blew tens of billions of dollars for a dud product, and they promoted him. History would say that the minister is in with a good chance.
In the last brief moment, I will restate my concerns. I cannot overstate my concern strongly enough about the delays in citizenship applications. The human cruelty of these delays for over 10,000 people—who have been waiting one year, two years or three years with no processing by the department for hundreds of people in my electorate and over 10,000 across the country—is unconscionable. The minister should address that. I will read into the Hansard some quotes from a recent audit report on the performance of the minister's department on the procurement of garrison and welfare services for Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The Auditor-General said they had 'fallen well short of effective procurement practice' and he:
… identified serious and persistent deficiencies in the three phases of procurement activity undertaken since 2012 to: … consolidate contracts; and achieve savings through an open tender process.
… Of most concern is the department’s management of processes for contract consolidation and the open tender … The department used approaches which reduced competitive pressure and significantly increased the price of the services without Government authority to do so.
If time permitted, we could detail the tripling in application fees to apply for visas or citizenship. I think this budget significantly increased the fee for an Australian citizen to come in and say, 'I've lost my citizenship certificate. I kind of need it for a passport,' or it is urgent. So, we tripled the fee—or raised the fee, I would have to check the figure—and then the waiting times blew out, so you pay more for a decreased service. There is a pattern here with this department and it is about time the minister took his job seriously and addressed the serious, systemic and growing failings in his department's administration.
Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (17:12): I would particularly like to welcome into parliament three of my constituents and say how good it is to have you here, Eliza, BJ and Pauline from Glenrowan. Welcome and thanks for turning up, because the topic I am going to be talking about is our money bill, Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2016-2017. I note that the cognate bill, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2016-2017, provides for an appropriation of just over $905 million. Of this account, there is $81 million in equity funding to the Australian Rail Track Corporation for the delivery of network upgrades. This particular part of the appropriation bill is of real interest to people in my community. In my speech today, I would like to focus on the role of the Australian Rail Track Corporation. I would like to outline some of the problems we have with the Australian Rail Track Corporation and our railway line between Melbourne and Albury-Wodonga. My call for action is for the Victorian and Commonwealth governments to get together with industry and communities to resolve this particular problem, which has been going on for too long. Pauline, if I could say, I reckon you of all people here understand the problem with the railway line.
The truth is I support the Australian government's financial contribution to the ARTC. They have significant responsibilities. Across five states, they manage and maintain 8,500 kilometres of rail network, and each day they manage the transit of hundreds of freight and passenger trains across the network. Mostly, it is a well-maintained network that meets the needs of its customers.
However, in north-east Victoria the ARTC customers are both passenger and freight, and the needs of the passenger customers are not being met. For more than eight years regional communities in north-east Victoria have been frustrated by significant engineer failings on the Wodonga to Melbourne railway line. The north-east rail line suffers really poor service; it is one of the worst in Victoria, in fact. Currently, there are 23 speed restrictions along the line due to the lack of track work, and trains are constantly replaced by buses, often at the last minute and without appropriate communication to passengers. The issue was brought to a head with the ARTC scheduling track work on the long weekend in Victoria, leading to significant disruption to passengers. Some on the XPT were woken at 3 am on the sleeper carts to be herded onto buses. And what did we hear? We heard the blame game: 'It's not us. It's them' and 'It's not them. It's somebody else. Go and talk to them. We made the decision ages ago. Don't get cross with us.' But what we must do now is ensure safe, reliable services for the communities of north-east Victoria. We have to end the blame game and we must work together. Truly, it is the absolute responsibility of the Australian government—that is, us—to ensure the infrastructure that supports all rail services is maintained at a level that allows services to run an optimal level.
We have heard from the government and the ARTC that they are meeting their contractual obligations, but when this results in the train now taking half an hour longer to get from Southern Cross Station to Albury than it did 10 years ago, there is clearly a problem. My constituents tell me that the train is running slower now than it did in Ned Kelly's time. I believe them! The ARTC has spent over $134 million on remediation works on this line and they advised that, while the projects were due to be completed in December 2016, the majority of the work was completed in March 2016. They also advised that on completion of these works the north-east line would be of the standard of the rest of the network. But let me share some statistics with you. In February 2017, last month, while 95.8 per cent of services were being delivered, only 61.7 per cent of them ran on time. Can you imagine waiting at the Wodonga Railway Station for the train that does not come, and it is certainly late? And, if it does not turn up, it actually becomes a bus.
I do not think you could even begin to understand the frustration of my community—people with disabilities, parents with babies, people with wheelchairs and people with luggage. You are ready to go on the train, which you love, and then you cannot go on the train; it has become a bus. You have to lug up the steps and you have to walk along the narrow passageway, and if you have children or if you are looking after an older person it is incredibly difficult. But, anyhow, I will not go into the problems so much at this stage. I just want to stress that the standard must be wrong if ARTC constantly tells us that they are meeting their contractual obligations.
Let's turn to the role of the community in trying to sort this out. The city councils of Wodonga, Albury, Benalla and Wangaratta got together and formed the Hume rail corridor group. They worked with our local community activist group, the Border Rail Action Group. They prepared a report to show that $100 million in missed economic benefit is being caused due to the poor standard of our railway line. They also found out that, if the line were improved, almost 60 per cent of existing and 72 per cent of potential passengers would convert their non-rail trips to trains, so they would be off the road, they would not be using petrol and they would be on the fantastic road service that we would have.
The north-east line ensures that communities in my electorate can connect to Melbourne for business, education, events, health and other professional services as well as for domestic and international travel. It is really important in rural and regional Australia to have public transport, but it has to work. The north-east line is not working. It was reported in November 2016 that only 55.2 per cent of services ran on time, and that made it the least reliable of all Victorian services.
What I really want to talk about now is that the community has a resigned acceptance that our train does not work. They say: 'Oh, I'm going to go in a car. I can't go on the train; it will arrive late, or I need to go down the day before and pay an extra night's accommodation.' Young people coming home for the long weekend say, 'I can't get on the train.' So then they do the sometimes dangerous work of getting lifts with people or hitching, because they cannot rely on the train. So we have really got to do something.
In this particular instance I would like to say that I believe the Australian government, and in particular the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, have an opportunity to show leadership and commitment to regional Australia by ensuring that passenger services and the transport needs of regional communities are considered core business by the ARTC. There is a very strong message from my community that the ARTC currently does core business around freight. They think, 'They know passenger services are important but they do not make the money that they need.' So my work has been to say, 'You have to do an "and"—this is not a case of either-or.'
In 2016 I met with the federal transport minister, Darren Chester, to fill him in on all our issues. I am really pleased to hear that Minister Chester has committed to travel the North East line—we hope in early April—to see the situation firsthand, and I look forward to welcoming him. But I have to remind him that it will not be enough just to come and look and see. He must do, and he must make a commitment for action. I also supported Senator Hinch and Senator Rice from Victoria two weeks ago during additional estimates, when they asked questions of the ARTC boss, John Fullerton. I welcome the fact that as a result of their questions ARTC has released details of their contract with the Victorian government.
Recently I introduced a private member's bill to parliament that would require Infrastructure Australia to take into account the social benefits of proposed infrastructure investments for rural and regional Australia. We need to know not only that the economic benefit is going to be achieved, and maybe the environmental benefit, but also that social good will be achieved. Last week, I introduced the National Land Transport Amendment (Best Practice Rail Investment) Bill 2017 into parliament. This bill requires new rail projects under the National Land Transport Act 2014 to maximise benefits for communities along the railway, including passenger rail. What it means for Pauline's community is that if the ARTC or the government is going to improve or upgrade railway lines, as we know they are going to do with the inland freight route, they actually have to pay attention to passengers as well as freight. That is a private member's bill, so it does not mean that the government is going to accept it for debate, but it actually puts it on the agenda that, for my community, passenger and freight need to go together and you cannot sell one out for the other.
The government is upgrading the inland railway line and building, in some places, new rail to take freight from Melbourne to Brisbane. This is a fantastic initiative and totally has my support. However, the problem is that the new freight line is going to work on our old faulty railway line. We have been hearing about double-decker containers and we have been hearing about the need to renew the line and up bridges, get rid of railway crossings and make the railway line—our faulty railway line—fit for extra freight. I can tell you that sends shivers through my community. If we cannot even get the passenger trains to run on time and we have to have speed restrictions because of mud holes and faulty engineering—oh, my word!—what is going to happen when we have more trains and freight?
So the call-out is now. We have this small window of opportunity: as we improve the line to take account of the inland freight route, let's make sure that any improvements we make actually give us improved passenger service. Interestingly, it is not automatically assured. Here I would just like to remind the minister and the ARTC—and you, Pauline, and your communities—that one of the problems that we discovered when we were trying to understand what was going on here and we met with the ARTC people and said, 'Well, you're fulfilling your contractual obligations, but clearly it's not working and we have a problem, and the problem's been there for a long time, and people know about the problem; can you tell us what the problem is,' was that the head of ARTC said, 'Well, it's not a premium service you're getting there.' We looked at him and said: 'Well, what do you mean it's not a premium service? I mean, we know it's not, but why are you telling us that?' He said, 'If you want a premium service, you have to pay for a premium service.' and I said, 'What do you mean "pay for a premium service"'?' and he said, 'Well, Melbourne to Ballarat and Melbourne to Bendigo have a premium service.' The penny dropped. I realised that in North East Victoria we have a crappy train line on a second-rate contract. I said 'Who would have signed the contract to give us a second-class service?' If you dig a little bit deeper, you find that it is a 50-year contract—oh, my Lord!—signed five years ago.
Those of you who know Victoria could think: who in Victoria would have signed a 50-year contract five years ago, committing us to 45 years of below-standard service? It is a big problem. We now have to work with the Victorian government to say: 'You've signed this contract. It's going to go for another 45 years. It's below standard. We've been treated really badly. You didn't do this to Ballarat or Bendigo, so why do it to North East Victoria? What are we going to do about it?' What I am going to do is meet with the Victorian Minister for Public Transport, Jacinta Allan, in Bendigo in early April and talk this through with her and tell her that we have a serious problem.
But the answer is to not blame each other. The answer is not to say the Victorian government was at fault or the ARTC was at fault. We have been doing that for a good 10 years. The way forward is for us to work together. As we do the budget—the appropriation—and as we agree to pass this legislation and give this money to the ARTC to improve and increase the efficiency of its network of railway lines, my call-out to the Victorian government and the Commonwealth government and their ministers and to the ARTC is to come together on this with our communities, because we all want to solve it. We all want much better public transport. We want public transport that is going to be a legacy for all our communities for 50, 60 or 100 years. The train is so important to us. We love it and want to use it, but we want it to work at a premium level.
In bringing my comments to a close, my call-out to the government is to come together with us as a community. Bring industry with you. Bring the Victorian government with us. Bring the unions with us. Bring V/Line with us. Bring PTV Victoria with us. Let's all sit around the table and talk about what we actually have to do and how much we need to do it. Then, between us all, let's talk about how we can get the funding and commitment to actually do what we need to do now, not in the future. Let's do it in 2017-18. Let the Victorian government have the allocation in its budget, and in our next budget let's have the Commonwealth make the allocation, so that together we can resolve this problem that has been hanging around far too long. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present my comments today. I would like to acknowledge my community. Thank you for turning up. I look forward to supporting this legislation.
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler) (17:27): The 2016-17 budget was an opportunity for the Prime Minister and his Treasurer to put their personal stamp on the administration of this nation. After the chaos, conflict and disappointment of the Abbott prime ministership, banished by his own party members, here was a chance to turn the page. In my own area of infrastructure it was a chance for the coalition to bridge the huge gap between its soaring rhetoric on infrastructure and the everyday reality of cuts, delays and nondelivery.
In particular, I think people had a great deal of hope that the prime ministership of Malcolm Turnbull would lead to a reversal of the Abbott government's attitude towards urban policy and public transport. It was hoped that the member for Wentworth, who enjoyed taking selfies on trains and trams, might actually fund them. But of course that has not happened. The budget's opening bid was a $1 billion cut to infrastructure investment allocated in previous budgets—no new money for public transport or roads and nothing for cities policies. Indeed, there was a cut of $18 million of funding that was intended to build infrastructure in order to fund a television propaganda campaign that falsely claimed ahead of last year's election campaign that the government was increasing infrastructure investment.
Actually, what we know is that under the first two years of the coalition government, infrastructure investment fell by 20 per cent. The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that quarterly public-sector investment in infrastructure under this government has been lower in all of their 12 quarters since they gained office than any single quarter under the previous Labor government's first budget after 2008. Each one of their 12 quarters has been lower than the 21 quarters in which Labor was in office. Let us look at the context of that. Firstly, you had the resources sector moving from the investment phase to the production phase, which means that you had a drop-off in private sector infrastructure investment. Secondly, you have the economic circumstances of record low interest rates and a Reserve Bank that, because of those low interest rates, has identified a risk in that those low interest rates have led to increased speculation in the housing market. The Reserve Bank of Australia, no less—both the current governor, Philip Lowe, and his predecessor, Glenn Stevens—as well as, of course, former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry and others, have all called for increases in infrastructure investment, and yet the government has stubbornly ignored this advice. We were promised cranes in the sky and bulldozers on the ground by the Abbott government, which we have not seen. We have not seen bulldozers, just clouds of bulldust in terms of the rhetoric of the Abbott government and now the Turnbull government. The only hole that this government has dug has been the one in which they buried the prime ministership of the member for Warringah.
Indeed, we hear, endlessly, this government proclaim that it has a $50 billion infrastructure program. But, of course, that is not true. The Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development noted at Senate estimates that the program is worth $34 billion over the first five years and then $8 billion at some unspecified time in the future. It is not just that; it is that they are not actually even spending the money that has been allocated—last year, $1 billion less than the funding that was actually in the previous government—and they have underspent, which means a slowdown in the rollout of projects like the Pacific Highway and the Bruce Highway. What we have seen from this government is cuts to projects, delays to projects and deferrals of projects. Cuts to all public transport projects that were ready to go, like the Melbourne Metro and the Cross River Rail project. Delays to the commencement of projects, like Adelaide's upgrade of the South Road and the M80 project in Melbourne. Quite often what we have seen is an extraordinary propensity to rename projects and then pretend that they are new, whether it be the F3 to M2 in Sydney, renamed as NorthConnex, or the Swan Valley Bypass, renamed as NorthLink, a new name does not make it a new project. We have seen a government running around the country not investing in the infrastructure that is needed.
This is the sort of appropriation where you should have seen investment in projects that are ready to go that would boost productivity. One example is the Port Botany rail link. Port Botany has had an upgrade through the Southern Sydney Freight Line, but it stops at Mascot. The bit between Mascot and Port Botany has to be completed. At the moment, you can have only one train in and one train out. If a train is going out from Port Botany, then the train bringing in freight to the port has to wait until that train has gone through the system—an absurdity in 2017. When we were in office, the more than $1 billion we invested in the Southern Sydney Freight Line was aimed at upgrading the capacity of the port and upgrading the rail network. The Moorebank Intermodal Terminal, which will begin actual construction in the next fortnight, is a vital project to get trucks off Sydney's roads and to increase the productive capacity of Sydney, New South Wales and the nation. And yet this government has failed to complete that project—an absolute no-brainer. The Cross River Rail project in Brisbane was approved by Infrastructure Australia in 2012, funded by federal Labor in 2013 and cancelled by the incoming coalition government, and four years later the government still says, 'We need more information,' even though it went through a very rigorous process of Infrastructure Australia's assessment.
You would think that, if there is a project the National Party could support, it is inland rail. If only we had a sleeper laid every time they mentioned inland rail, the project would be up and running now. Warren Truss, the former transport minister, said on 28 August 2013 that construction would start 'within three years'. It is now into the fourth year and still we have not seen any construction. Indeed, the new minister, Darren Chester, Mr Truss's replacement, said to the Australian Logistics Council on 8 March 2017:
… my challenge in this term of government is to build momentum on this project and make its development inevitable.
So they have gone from, 'Construction is going to commence in 2016,' to saying in 2017 that they just want it to be inevitable down the track. This is a government that simply cannot do it properly.
It is not just rail. Look at their dud toll roads. We had the East West Link delivering 45c return for every dollar invested. An advance payment of $1½ billion was made and was criticised by the Australian National Audit Office. The government committed exactly the same mistake and received exactly the same criticism from the Australian National Audit Office over the WestConnex project, where, again, advance payments were made. Milestones were changed to suit payments after the milestone had already been reached. The project was supposed to reach a milestone in order to receive a payment. When it did not reach that, the New South Wales government said, 'We'll just change what the milestone is to something that has already been achieved and, therefore, justify the payment being made.' The proposal for the Sydney Secondary College at Leichhardt, in my electorate, to be turned into a construction dive site still remains. The school's one oval, which serves 1,000 students at Leichhardt and is right next to the tram sheds, is to be turned into a major construction site. This is an absurd proposal which would damage the educational capacity of that school. The government would never think about doing it at one of the wealthier private schools in my electorate, but Leichhardt high school is fair game. There has been no consultation with parents or the school community. Indeed, a letter delivered to the suburbs of Leichhardt and Lilyfield was how residents first found out about it—and, indeed, how I, as the federal member, was first informed about that. I have had productive meetings with the minister, Stuart Ayres, about making sure that that proposal goes off the table. But at this stage it is still there, which is similar to the lack of proper consultation and the concern that parents have had at St Peters Public School, at Haberfield Public School, and at a range of schools, institutions and community groups around the inner west.
But, in terms of funding, the most extraordinary thing is that the letter to the suburbs of Leichhardt and Lilyfield indicated that the government would consult about the final route of the project. That might not seem unusual, except for the fact that they have started building the tunnel. They have literally started building a tunnel without knowing where it is coming up and without knowing what the route of the tunnel will be. You could not make this up. This is a $16.7 billion project that has blown out—the original costing was $10 billion—by $6.7 billion, and they do not know where it is going.
Then we have in Perth the Perth Freight Link, a project rejected by the people of Western Australia just a couple of weeks ago. It was a project that was supposed to take freight to the port, except that it did not go to the port; it stopped three kilometres short of the port. The route goes through the Beeliar Wetlands. It is a project that simply does not stack up and one where the government's response has been to threaten the $1.2 billion of funding for the people of Western Australia to have proper infrastructure in terms of roads and, of course, the vital Metronet project to expand public transport.
When it comes to cities, in spite of the fact that there was a change of prime ministership and allegedly a change of policy, we have no replacement for the Major Cities Unit, no return to the producing of State of Australian cities reports, a City Deals process that is just matching commitments to previous commitments made by Labor to build the new stadium in Townsville and in Tasmania around the University of Tasmania, and, in Western Sydney, a vague commitment of a small amount of money without any proper engagement with the local community.
Could I say in conclusion that this record stands in stark contrast to when we were in office, when we doubled the roads budget, we increased the rail budget by more than 10 times, we built or rebuilt 7,500 kilometres of roads and 4,000 kilometres of railways, we delivered the nation's first aviation white paper, we created Infrastructure Australia, and we delivered— (Time expired)
Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (17:43): I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2016-2017 and Appropriation Bill (No.4) 2016-2017. These bills made me think about what budgets need to do. Along with giving businesses the confidence to employ people, supporting infrastructure, funding healthcare and schools, and giving communities the opportunity to address particular issues they face at a local level, the budget should also be looking to provide the services that people need when they are at their lowest, and yet again this government has failed. It has failed time and time again.
I want to talk about the funding of one service that steps up when women in particular are at their lowest. Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia have been internationally recognised as the best practice service delivery for women, men and children who have experienced sexual assault and family violence, and they currently provide counselling through the 1800RESPECT hotline. In fact, their service is of such a quality that the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse relies on their expertise and on this service.
Victims of domestic violence and sexual assault who call 1800RESPECT are calling because they need professional and often urgent help. This is the only specialised sexual assault and domestic violence service in Australia. The 1800RESPECT service has a model where trained counsellors answer the phone; they do not just park you in a queue or pass you to the next available operator. They talk to you, find out what is going on and identify the best way forward.
In early 2016, RDVSA asked for an additional $2 million in funding to cope with the dramatic increase in calls. Instead of providing the funding, the federal government paid Medibank Health Solutions, part of the Medibank Private health insurance group, to provide a triage service at a cost of $3.5 million. This is the call centre approach. It drives us crazy when we are calling our local phone provider, a bank or an insurance company, so you have to wonder why anyone would think it was the right model for victims of rape or domestic violence.
The minister seems to think that just because a phone call gets picked up it is automatically a better service. He clearly does not have a clue about what is involved in trauma counselling. Unfortunately, last month RDVSA was given four days to submit their expression of interest to continue their contract to run 1800RESPECT—four days to prepare a lengthy submission, a time-consuming application that in the end will determine whether or not this vital service remains a specialist counselling service or becomes a call centre.
One of the claims to the ABC's 7.30 by Medibank Health Solutions last week was that they have only received 64 complaints about the service. The minister tells us that the number is actually 62 and that there is no inconsistency between that and the number revealed at the Senate estimates hearings recently of 33 complaints. However, it would be good to confirm that every one of those complaints has been conveyed to the Department of Social Services. What the minister has not explained is the discrepancy between these numbers and the more than 200 complaints about the new service logged directly from distressed women who are unable to get through to a trauma counsellor.
While the people who phone this number might not, at the time, always recognise their own needs for counselling and specialist advice, they are giving a cry for help; they are turning to a service. We have a responsibility to recognise the fragility of these situations and to have adequate resources at the ready for each and every person who manages to reach out. The minister needs to explain how the $9 million in funding allocated in 2015-16 was spent. What proportion of that money stayed with MHS? What proportion went to RDVSA? How much of that $9 million went to KPMG?
Most importantly, Minister Porter should reassure the people of Australia that the current tender process for 1800RESPECT will not result in any loss of quality, loss of expertise or loss of service to people who need help. Rather than vilifying ASU secretary Natalie Lang, who is in parliament today with her frontline members—people who work every day with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence—the minister should be working to ensure their expertise is acknowledged and valued, and he should learn from it. He says that their campaign is disgusting. But what I think is disgusting is when you have a minister who allows a for-profit company to profit from women and children who have been raped or are victims of sexual and family violence.
Of all the measures in the 2016 budget, the other areas I want to talk about are homelessness and housing affordability. These are issues that in some ways were not really looked at in that budget. Housing affordability is an issue this government has failed to address consistently. It claims it will deal with it in the coming budget, but without dealing with negative gearing and capital gains tax you cannot have much hope of a comprehensive approach.
I was disappointed last week to hear, at a breakfast hosted by the Australian Institute of Architects, the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer again rule out dealing with negative gearing. These are people who have given some thought to the housing situation in Australia. At that breakfast the president of the institute, Professor Ken Maher, joined the very long list of experts saying that the way property is taxed, including negative gearing, is in need of reform.
Let's keep in mind that the government has done nothing in its budget to assist home building or home renting. It was this government that closed down the National Rental Affordability Scheme, which was one of the best schemes delivering good housing at reasonable cost. Thanks to that program, across the country there were 30,000 new affordable units constructed, and it was on track to achieve 50,000. That is a pretty big improvement for rentals. In my community, in 2010 we saw the first 18 new units in Springwood, which then Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek and the then member for Macquarie, Bob Debus, opened. This was all about making housing accessible for seniors, and I take pride in that building that I walk past in Springwood, operated by Uniting, in the heart of our community. Sadly, the program funding was not continued.
This government also scrapped the first home saver account, which was helping people save for their first home. It does not even have a minister for housing and homelessness, as our shadow minister in the other place, Senator Cameron, is good at reminding us. As recently as last week, the Prime Minister delivered a cruel blow to Australian first home buyers who might have been hoping that, even though the previous budget did not take action, the coming budget would. When asked to show some leadership on housing affordability, he declined. He said it was overwhelmingly a state responsibility because the states control planning. Well, that is only one part of the equation. The supply side, the demand side and the tax side are all going to fit together. So, in spite of promises hinted at by a variety of government ministers, I do not hold much hope that we will see a comprehensive approach to this issue.
Let's look at the other side of the issue, again barely addressed in the previous budget: homelessness. We have really well-intentioned groups across the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury who receive some funding—sometimes not very much government funding and sometimes none—to provide meals and support to homeless people, and they provide support in so many ways. But the good people who run these services really should not even have half the job that they have to do. We should not be in a situation where people cannot access a roof over their head. As beautiful as our mountains and riverbanks are, people should not be sleeping there because they have nowhere else to go.
A report by the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute has found that, for every dollar spent on helping people avoid homelessness, $2.70 will flow to the community over 20 years. In fact, they show that, by providing one last-resort bed, you get a net benefit of $10,800 a year. So you would have to wonder why the coalition has cut $44 million a year in capital and development funding for emergency and crisis accommodation, starting in the disastrous 2014-15 budget and remaining in place in subsequent budgets. This has led to a shortfall of $132 million for homelessness support.
A survey that was held in my electorate last year, overlapping into the electorate of Lindsay, showed the enormous cost of homelessness to the health system. Homelessness across Penrith, the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury cost the health system almost a quarter of a million dollars in just six months, according to the Heading Home—Ending Homelessness Here! project. The project, which was led by Wentworth Community Housing in partnership with Platform Youth Services and Mission Australia and supported by the Mercy Foundation, surveyed 78 individuals and families. It found that, of the 66 individuals surveyed, 63 had one or more interactions with emergency departments, ambulance transport and hospitalisation over that period. The survey showed not only the significant social and health challenges of homelessness but the economic cost to the community. The cost of $250,000 to the health system relates just to the people who were surveyed. If we take into account the people who were found but were not able to be surveyed, the cost is significantly greater.
Wentworth Community Housing suggests that a model of community collaboration on housing solutions and support for people experiencing homelessness to reduce this financial burden on the health system would be an effective way to end homelessness in our region. As research from the University of Queensland shows, the cost to government of homelessness is greater than the cost of providing permanent supportive housing. They also subscribe to a principle of housing first. It is pretty hard to deal with the physical, mental and social issues of homelessness without a bed to sleep in. I would hope that we will see some moves towards addressing these issues as we move into the next budget period.
I also want to talk specifically about youth homelessness. Some of the reasons young people experience homelessness are domestic and family violence and relationship or family breakdown. Youth unemployment does not help, nor does youth underemployment. We also know that those who first experience homelessness at a young age are more likely to experience persistent homelessness in adulthood, and the cost to the community, as I have said, increases the longer a person has been homeless. It blows out. According to Homelessness Australia, these young people are more likely to disengage with education and employment and be exposed to other factors which damage their health, such as drug use, poor nutrition, limited access to medical care and exposure to violence. If intervention happens early, there is enormous potential for young homeless people to succeed.
I know one young woman in the Blue Mountains who found herself couch surfing just before her 18th birthday. Thanks to supportive friends and a network of caring mountains people, she was able to live safely with a family while she finished her HSC and went on to not only complete her university honours degree but also find employment in the social policy area of the Public Service. She is a very good friend and I know she will use her experiences to ensure good policy is being developed to support individuals and families who find themselves in the most challenging circumstances. However, without a Centrelink system that provided support for her as she finished school and studied at university and HECS that allowed her to study without a $100,000 debt, it would not have been possible. Government safety nets have a key role to play here, but the circumstances for young people like this remain fragile for quite a period of time. I hate to think what the consequences would have been had she received a Centrelink robo-debt letter as she was tackling these challenges.
My point is that we should not be content with simply funding services that assist the homeless. We need to see programs that reduce homelessness. At the last census there were 105,000 people identified as homeless and over 5,000 people were sleeping rough every single night. That is a disgrace. That is a crisis. If those 5,000 people who sleep rough could be accommodated in safe places, the net benefit to the community, based on the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute's research would be $54 million a year. Their solution involves constructing new, permanent, last-resort accommodation stock, protecting existing accommodation. All levels of government must take a hand, including this one.
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (17:58): I welcome the opportunity to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2016-17 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2016-17 this evening, and I am honoured to follow the member for Macquarie, who so beautifully demonstrated exactly the difference between us on the Labor side of the parliament and those opposite. Our priorities on this side of the House are about ensuring equality in our society, looking after the most vulnerable in our communities and giving people a hand up, while those opposite are intent on making sure that the big end of town receives the largess that they seem to think they desperately need or desperately deserve. The member for Macquarie has given us a framework around homelessness and the priorities of this government as we think about their economic credentials and their economic record to date. The homelessness statistics reflected in my electorate of Lalor are similar to those in Macquarie. Those stories are what I think about before I fall asleep at night—the stories of what is happening to the most vulnerable in our suburbs across this country. That is also why I welcome the opportunity to speak on these bills.
Of course, Labor will support this package of bills in order to ensure the ordinary functions of government continue for the remainder of the 2016-17 financial year. We cannot, on this side, miss an opportunity to stand and ensure that everyone across this country understands the actual economic space that this country finds itself in now. It has been so few years since the global financial crisis, where we received that AAA credit rating—where we were hailed around the world as a country to look to for economic management—and, of course, it was a Labor government that led us through that crisis. Now, in 2017, we find ourselves having a 75-year high for inequality in this country.
It is an absolute indictment on this government that this is something that they refuse to acknowledge and refuse to address. This 75-year high in inequality is no surprise when you break those statistics down. We have wages growth at record lows and we have business profits at record highs. This government seems completely oblivious to those facts as it continues with its commitment to $50 billion worth of tax cuts to the largest companies. Much of those tax cuts would go to the big four banks or to offshore companies. This week, the government persisted with the suggestion that it will scrap the deficit levy that was imposed when the deficit was a third of what it is now. On 1 July, millionaires will find themselves $16,400 better off, while the most vulnerable in our communities will bear the brunt of the priorities that this government refuses to let go and continues to try to push through this parliament.
Labor always have been and always will be committed to budget repair that is, first and foremost, fair. We will support sensible measures and oppose measures that attack the most vulnerable, which this government keep dishing up. We also have a series of alternative saving measures that are clearly on the record and that we took to the last election. We encourage this government to consider them as they prepare for the 2017 budget. The Treasurer really needs to take some time out over the next six weeks to think about the priorities of this government and what their continuation of looking after the big end of town will actually mean down the track in suburbs like mine in the electorate of Lalor.
Some of the ideas that we took to the last election included measures that would address the housing affordability crisis that is happening across a lot of our country, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne. In Melbourne, young people in my electorate are now being locked out of the dream of owning their own home. We took a capital gains tax discount and our proposed reforms to negative gearing, which would result in an additional $32 billion in savings over the next 10 years and would go a long way to budget repair. But this government obstinately refuse to look at those options because they are somebody else's ideas. We are able to demonstrate the way we are prepared to work constructively to improve the budget by working with the government. We secured $6.3 billion in budget savings—more savings than the government initially put forward in its first omnibus bill. We were able to do so while protecting vulnerable people targeted by cuts and saving the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. In doing so, we demonstrated that there are ways to improve the budget bottom line without attacking the most vulnerable in our society.
While those opposite love to pretend that they have superior economic credentials, the reality is that their record is abysmal. If we take a quick look at some of the government's failed economic policies, the fact of the matter is that the budget is in a worse position than it was when the Liberals declared their budget emergency. We all remember that—most of us were here—and since then they have tripled the deficit. The 2013-14 budget predicted the deficit for 2016-17 to be at $10.6 billion. Now, they say that it will rise to $36.5 billion this year. Net debt is up over $100 billion since the 2013 election. The 2013 Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook confirmed the net debt was $184 billion. The MYEFO for 2016 shows it has now blown out to $317 billion this year, and this, of course, puts the AAA credit rating at risk. We need to look at that through the frame of the fact that we have 1.1 million underemployed Australians and over 700,000 unemployed Australians—that is 1.8 million under- or unemployed Australians, yet this government insist that they have the policies and the plans to drive this country and to create jobs and growth.
To implement their policies they are insisting on going after the most vulnerable—they are attacking students, pensioners and, in general, people receiving any payment from Centrelink. They refuse to lower the deeming rates for our pensioners, they refuse to adequately fund our schools and they will not do a thing about the glacial rollout of the NBN. We saw their desire to drain middle- and working-class Australians manifested in their manufactured debt recovery debacle. This goes to the core of demonstrating their priorities. In chasing the dollar, they are prepared to put people through the wringer. They are prepared to have Australians receive a debt notice from Centrelink six years after they were receiving support.
I have previously spoken about a constituent of mine, and I will do so again this evening, because her story is representative of the type of person this government has deemed appropriate to attack in order to get out of the hole that they have dug for themselves. I sat with this person over the summer period while Minister Tudge was on leave and not available to come back and address this issue when it broke across this country—when people went to their letterboxes and found that thousands of them a week were receiving debt notices. Many of them later found that they had no debt at all.
Most of us in our electorate offices were dealing with the human face of this planned failure—a reported 40 per cent failure. I sat with this resident who had been told that she owed the Commonwealth more than $5,000. She is now working full-time, so the debt was supposedly related to a period six years earlier. She had had Centrelink support six years ago while she was seeking work as a teacher after retraining, while she was applying for jobs. She says the second call she made after getting a job, after being successful in an application process to a school, was to Centrelink. The first call was to her mother, to share the celebration, and the second call she made was to Centrelink to say: 'I no longer need support. I have secured full-time employment.' It was a day of celebration for her.
This is a person this government should be celebrating—someone who was retrained and then sought and found full-time employment. But, instead of being left alone in peace, she was spending her half-hour lunch break on the phone to Centrelink. This was a person who, after gaining full-time employment and working for six years, had bought her house, had got herself into the housing market and had a mortgage—and she was now being told that she had a debt of over $5,000.
After speaking to and getting support from my office, she was then told that she did not have a debt of that size; she had a debt of $100. After one more phone call it was reduced to zero. There was never a debt—there was never a debt. This robo-matching had thrown up a supposed debt, when one check of her Centrelink file would have shown them the date she made the call and the date she started work, which, of course, was when the school year began. It was clear that one human being involved in that process would have avoided this person being put through this situation. Her Christmas was ruined; her summer was ruined and her emotional wellbeing was destroyed while she thought that she may have been guilty of defrauding the Commonwealth in some way. This story typifies this government's priorities. Their priorities are to chase people down rabbit holes for whimsical notions of a debt rather than dealing with their own issues, which is that their priorities are wrong and that they refuse to take on sensible measures to fix their mess in the budget.
Housing affordability is a really important issue in my electorate. Lalor sits in the growth corridor of the outer west of Melbourne and in the city of Wyndham 5,000 houses a year are built and thousands of residents are added every year. People come to Wyndham because the housing is affordable. Well, that is now a joke because it is no longer affordable. Even on the outer fringes of Melbourne, it is not affordable for young people to break into this market. Addressing housing affordability will help to alleviate some of the pressures that force people into homelessness, as the member for Macquarie was talking about. This government really do not think there is an issue with housing affordability and this is shown by the distinct lack of policy on the issue. They are calling for the states to take action when we all know in this place that unless we pull those federal levers, the states will continue to release land and continue to use the things that they can use at their disposal. But the federal levers are the ones that are really going to make a difference in housing affordability, and we really need to address this issue. Labor have the answers on the table around housing affordability. We have put those to the government and there has been a flat refusal to take up those measures and build them into their platform. Hopefully in this budget, they might see sense and adopt those sensible measures from Labor.
We stand in this House day after day and we hear about the measures that they think will help to solve what they claimed was a budget crisis back in 2014. I do not know what words they use for it now since it has clearly spiralled out of their control. We stand here in this framework of a 70-year high of inequality. I know from my experience that one of the answers to address that inequality is to address housing affordability. It is about job creation. It is about reducing the 1.8 million Australians who are either underemployed or unemployed. It is about turning back the tide on the casualisation of the workforce to give people certainty about their futures. It is about education. It is about early childhood education. It is about school education. It is about tertiary education. It is about VET and TAFE education. Yet, this government continue to cut in all of those spaces, or fail to take seriously the issues it needs to address.
We saw that this week with what the government calls their 'childcare package', which I refuse to call such and will call 'child care and early education package', which will see the most vulnerable children limited in their ability to access early education. In my electorate, 30 per cent of four-year-olds do not attend kindergarten and this government have put no answers on the table to support those families. They continue to attack families using family tax benefit A and B, and we saw that again this week with their freeze. This government offer no modelling around its penalty rates. It needs to take a good hard look at itself across the next six weeks and come up with a budget that addresses some of the issues confronting this country.
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (18:13): It is good to follow the member for Lalor in this debate because I think the matters that she raised go to the heart of what Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2016-2017 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2016-2017 are all about. After almost four years in office, the Turnbull government—firstly, led by former Prime Minister Abbott and now by Prime Minister Turnbull—has clearly demonstrated to the Australian people that it cannot manage its budget and has lost control of its finances. This government cannot continue to tell the Australian people that the state of the budget is all the fault of the previous Labor government. It might have been able to get away with that for maybe its first six months, perhaps even the first year. But when it has been in office for nearly four years, it is time the government took responsibility for its own budget. The truth of the matter is that it has lost control of its finances.
If we look at the figures, the deficit has trebled from the government's first year in office and now is about to hit $36.5 billion. The national debt has gone up by almost $100 billion to $317 billion. The reason the deficit and the debt have blown out is because the government simply cannot manage the economy. If you have a strong economy then your finances usually end up in good shape. But if you cannot manage the economy, and this government has shown that it cannot, then you end up on a downward spiral.
It is clear from my own observations and observations of many others that this is a government that does not have a coherent economic strategy. In turn, both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer of the day jump from one thought bubble to another, trying to find savings or new revenue-raising measures—revenue-raising measures that simply will not work or that will be totally rejected by the Australian people. Indeed, every time this government has come up with a thought bubble it has very quickly, after testing public opinion out there, retreated from it and dropped the idea—just as we saw happen again last week. Last week, we saw the Prime Minister and the Treasurer refusing to commit to the $50 billion in corporate tax cuts, and yet this week we see that it is back on the table. Again, it was a case of the government wanting to go in one direction and then getting spooked and doing the opposite.
The other clear observation about this government is that it is a government that simply does not understand the unfairness of many of the measures that it wants to pursue. What this government has still not worked out is that every time payments are cut to low-income Australians, the economy is harmed even further. Every time jobs are lost, the economy is harmed even further. It should have been clear to this government, from what happened overseas in many other countries, that austerity measures simply do not work. And then you add to all of that the Turnbull government's ideological stupidity in refusing to acknowledge some of the good ideas that Labor has put forward, ideas that have been supported by many other sectors within society as being sensible and reasonable, that would, in turn, help with the budget repair. But because Labor initiated them, this government says, 'No, we can't do that.' Again, it is their foolish ideology!
From my observations, Australians are not blind to the Turnbull government's spin when it comes to the budget and the economy. That is probably why they have stopped listening to this government and, in particular, to this Prime Minister. People do not accept or believe in this government's trickle-down economics because the reality is that it does not happen. People do not believe that increased company profits mean that there will be more jobs created. They do not believe that cutting penalty rates will result in more jobs. They do not believe that giving big business another $50 billion in tax cuts, much of which will go offshore in the first place, will add, in any way, to the Australian economy. And they do not believe that because most people are aware of the realities of what is happening in life. These tax cuts, in many cases, will go to companies that are already doing very well; entities like the big banks who, over recent decades, have not only made massive profits but simultaneously offshored jobs. They have not created jobs; they have reduced their workforce by offshoring jobs to places where they can get the work done much cheaper. That would suggest to me that if they were to make even higher profits, it would not result in more jobs being created in this country.
What it might result in are greater payments for the already overpaid CEOs and other highly paid executives because their incomes and their salaries are quite often directly attached to the bottom line of the entities' profit at the end of the year. So if the entities make more money then they get bigger bonuses or higher salaries. That is who will benefit from this, and that is who this government continues to listen to as though those people speak for the whole sector they represent. Perhaps the government should take a reality check. The people the government speaks to speak for themselves and not for the rest of their organisation. And I have no doubt that they do not speak for the workers they employ.
The other matter that this government seems to be obsessed with but does not want to face the reality of is its spin in respect of the free trade agreements. If the free trade agreements were as good as the government claims, and has been claiming for the last three years, why is it that our economy is still struggling? After all, in the last three or four years we have signed free trade agreements with our major trading partners—with Japan, with China and with the USA prior to that, the three countries that we do most of our trade with. We, supposedly, should be doing better because we have now entered into free trade agreements. The reality is that they were our strongest trading partners before the free trade agreements and they would have continued to be, just as trade with China had been increasing well and truly before the free trade agreement was signed. I accept that there may be some entities and some Australian firms that will benefit even further from free trade agreements, but the truth of the matter is there will also be many that will lose out, and it is the losers, in most cases, that were employing mainly Australians within their businesses. So, if we are going to make a realistic assessment of free trade agreements, then we need to look at the net effect of the agreement and not just look at one particular sector—which the government always does and then crows loudly about, without looking at the global picture that has been created.
The truth of the matter is that from my observations—and I have not done this in recent months, but some months ago I did do an exercise where I looked at the trade figures before the free trade agreements and after—in most cases the real beneficiaries of those free trade agreements are the other countries and not Australia. We live in a globalised world and the reality is that, if we have a product that another country wants, it will buy it regardless of whether there is a free trade agreement or not. It comes down to availability of the product, whether it is fit for purpose and whether it is sold at a cost that the other country can afford to pay. If it is, those other countries will buy our products, as they always did before the free trade agreements came into effect. What these agreements often do, in fact, is result in us having to be tied to international rules and regulations which in turn do not do our own economy very much good at all.
The other concern that I have with the way this government manages the economy—and it has been a trend of conservative governments in this country for a long time—is that it has relied on the sale of our resources, in particular, in recent years, gas and mineral resources, to prop up the Australian economy. That was well and good when those resources were highly priced and there was a lot of money coming into Australia, because Australia is, indeed, blessed with resources, whether it is gas, oil, coal, iron ore or the like, but the reliance by governments on those resources to prop up our economy has been foolish because, when the price of those resources falls, as it has in recent times, then our economy also suffers and suffers badly. It is also what I would term as lazy economics. It is the kind of economics you do when you cannot really manage your economy. We should be looking for a stable economy where things like our resources become a bonus and not relying on resources to ensure that we have a sustainable economy, as we have done.
We now hear, almost every day from members opposite, that our high energy prices are also undermining our own industries in this country. This is also a matter of real concern because the truth is our industries here in Australia are competing globally and, therefore, energy prices are one of the core costs of every industry that operates both here and overseas. It is not the only cost, and I have to say I am not entirely convinced that it is just energy prices that are causing industries difficulty in this country, but I, nevertheless, accept it is an important issue. It seems to be an extraordinary position to have in this country when we are blessed with coal, blessed with gas and blessed with sunlight and wind energy options, and yet we are now in a situation where we are paying more for our energy than the very people we supply the oil, the gas and the coal to. That is, again, because of lazy economics and the fact that we do not have an energy policy from this government. Again, the government has been in office for four years—where is our energy policy? It was about four or five years ago that this became the important economic issue of the day. It is not as though it only arose two or three months ago; it is an issue that should have been brought to the attention of this government from the day it took office, and yet it has been sitting back doing absolutely nothing.
It seems to me that what we now have is a Prime Minister who is not only beholden to the four major banks; he is also now beholden to the gas companies, as we saw a couple of weeks ago when the best he could do was say that he would talk to them about gas prices. Indeed, it goes further than that. It seems to me that one of the reasons the gas companies are holding out on supplying Australian gas is that they want to put pressure on the state governments to lift their bans on fracking, Therefore, by creating a shortage, they are putting the pressure on the state governments to lift those bans. And who was the greatest salesman for the gas companies in doing that—the Prime Minister. He is the one who has been going around the country saying that the state governments need to lift the bans on fracking. He is doing the gas companies' bidding for them.
But there is another critical issue associated with all of this, which time will hopefully allow me to talk about. I want to refer to an article by Ian Verrender that was published only a couple of weeks ago. Ian is an ABC Business editor:
AGL is actively considering buying Australian gas in Japan and shipping it back home. And why not? It's cheaper there.
That means energy-rich Australia is subsidising Asian manufacturers while penalising our own, a situation likely to force many to the wall …
Just to rub salt into the wound, the ramp-up in exports has not delivered the resources rent tax bonanza once promised by US giant Chevron. In fact—
and this is the critical point—
… thanks to a shifty cash shuffle, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell until two years ago were booking around $3 billion a year in profit, tax free.
That's seen our Petroleum Resources Rent Tax proceeds, which in the past delivered around $2 billion a year, plummet. In fact, by the time we overtake Qatar for global gas domination, it's anticipated our resources tax will collect just $800 million.
Qatar, on the other hand, is expected to receive $26.6 billion in royalties that same year for roughly the same volume of exports.
The critical point there is this: this is the government that went in to bat for the big mining companies over the tax that we were hoping that they would pay on top of their profits each year, and yet these very companies are now not even paying to this government the royalties and the taxes that one might have expected them to pay had they not been shifting their profits overseas. They have turned on the very political party that supported them when we were talking about the superprofits tax a few years ago.
The fact that we are not even getting from these companies the $2 billion a year that we were getting from them only a few years ago is part of the reason why this government cannot manage its budget. That is money that is being lost because of this government's incompetence, and because of this government's support for the very people who are literally pulling the rug out from under their feet.
Dr FREELANDER (Macarthur) (18:28): I commend the previous speaker for a wonderful exposition on why this government's economic management is so poor. Firstly, let me say that I am very proud to belong to a federal Labor Party that has one of the best financial teams in federal parliamentary history, led by shadow treasurer Chris Bowen, shadow finance minister Jim Chalmers, Matt Thistlethwaite, Senator Katy Gallagher, shadow minister for housing Senator Doug Cameron, and former Treasurer emeritus Wayne Swan. They have a budget plan that will raise revenue and address one of the most pressing social needs of the last 20 years: that of housing affordability.
This government appears confused, conflicted and unable to formulate policy in any coherent way. Yes, there is a lot of anger and shouting from the other side, but little in the way of meaningful policy. They seem to want to act as reverse Robin Hoods: punishing the poor, but supporting the more advantaged. Everyone I have spoken to understands the increase in inequality, underpinned by the reduced housing affordability that has occurred in the last 20 years. This includes senior bankers, economists, politicians on all sides, business leaders, health experts, senior police, architects, academics, teachers and young people.
There is also a generational aspect to this. Many of my generation, the baby boomers, have done well out of the property market, but this is now at the expense of subsequent generations. We are developing a nation of older landlords, and younger renters who cannot get a toehold in the housing market. Maybe it is my age, but the more time I spend in this chamber the deeper my appreciation is for silent movies. There is something a little reassuring about anything that has stood the test of time, and silent movies have more than a little in common with this government's approach to housing.
For much of the Menzies era and a little after, federal coalition governments more or less got away without having to worry too much about housing. Up to the late 1960s, a policy of benign neglect pretty much worked. It was underpinned by lots of available land, high levels of migration that included significant numbers of skilled tradespeople, and an expanding economy. Federal coalition governments recognised that what they did with macropolicy might affect housing prices, but beyond that they pretty much left it to the states and the market to deal with issues as they arose.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a reawakening of interest in housing policy. At the time, there was no absolute shortage of housing, but the rapid rise from then on of interest rates, in anticipation of higher rates of inflation, soon reduced the proportion of households that could afford to buy a home from the mid-1960s peak of around 75 per cent. At the same time, scholars and writers, such as the 1974 Boyer lecturer, Hugh Stretton, began popularising the idea that access to housing, in particular a house of one's own, was good for individuals and good for society in many ways. I certainly agree with him. Quality housing was a productive asset for the community, not just another consumer good. Good housing meant a better quality of life, better health and an even longer life expectancy. It also meant, for children, a much more stable life and a much more stable schooling environment.
I am by nature an optimist, but I am very bewildered by and more than a little despondent about this government's abject refusal to address the ticking time bomb that is the east coast property market. There are many issues involved in this. As I have already stated, housing is an important social need and a social good. It affects families in very positive ways. There is even evidence that a stable housing environment improves health and improves long-term life expectancy.
Were this government to act—and there are plenty of sensible options open to it—it could simultaneously ease the pressure on the federal budget by many billions of dollars; provide genuine help and hope to many currently shut out of the housing market; allay the fears of those already under mortgage stress and who now see the banks starting to raise home loan rates independently of any Reserve Bank action; and also relieve the mums and dads of the dread that comes from the prospect of their kids not having a stable home, and with that stable housing and stable lives. Many families of course now see their kids staying with them until they—the kids, that is—reach pensionable age.
The government, though, continues to take action at the edges of policy rather than facing up to the challenge of dealing with housing markets now running totally out of control in two of our largest constituencies. That is not my view or the Labor view. You would be hard pressed to find an economic commentator, public official, international agency or financial industry regulator who seriously believes that the housing affordability crisis can be solved with this do-nothing approach. House prices in Sydney and Melbourne continue to rise at double-digit rates, fed by an investor tax subsidy that has the federal budget leaking in the vicinity of $10 billion to $12 billion a year to fuel this ridiculous fire.
The situation is unacceptable and fraught with risk, and everyone, including many on the conservative side in the government, know it. The government's response, or lack thereof, amounts to the most wrongheaded piece of fiscal policy in living memory. And that is not just my view; that is the view of many well-recognised and well-respected financial commentators. You shudder to think what would have happened if this lot had been in charge during the global financial crisis.
Being an economic realist in the Liberal Party these days is akin to being seen as the rotten apple in the barrel. They are not respected, their views are not taken seriously and it leaves the government in a complete mess in terms of housing policy and the budget. Like some of the brave souls opposite, including those who have been fighting this good fight on housing affordability for years, we all know that it is only a matter of time before nervous markets impose the very sort of shock therapy solution on this government that it says it wants to avoid. House prices in Sydney, in particular, cannot continue to defy gravity for ever. As the head of ASIC, Greg Medcraft, noted this week, global house prices generally sit comfortably around a ratio of four to one to annual income. That ratio in Melbourne is now around 9.5 to one and, in Sydney, an astounding 12.2 to one.
Policy, as is generally agreed, left the rails when the Howard government coupled negative gearing to very generous capital gains tax concessions. As I have mentioned, many of the baby boomers, myself included, did very well out of that. In 1988-89, the year that the two were joined, there were 1.3 million taxpaying landlords, making a collective return of $700 million in tax to the government. By 2010-11, there were, all up, 1.8 million landlords, making a combined tax loss of $7.8 billion. That is astounding and is not hard to see how it happened. In the early 1990s, investor demand accounted for about 16 per cent of home loans. After dipping during the GFC, it climbed to a 55 per cent share before APRA controls were tightened in 2015. But now, again, it is over 50 percent. Investor demand for loans now is over one in two of all loans.
Domestically, the RBA, the chair of ASIC and the head of APRA have expressed heightened concerns about high levels of house prices and high levels of housing related personal debt. Back in November 2016 the IMF observed:
A major concern is that external risks with a large impact, including a sharp growth slowdown in China, could interact with or even trigger domestic risks, especially a housing correction.
The IMF issued a similar warning earlier this year. In a consultation paper issued in February, it warned that Australian:
Financial regulatory authorities would need to stand ready to intensify targeted prudential matters, if lending or housing price growth were to reaccelerate.
And it has reaccelerated. In the last few weeks, two new OECD reports have also sounded the alarm bells on the risks for our economy. That is largely because of high levels of personal and housing debt. The Reserve Bank has issued warnings about the possible consequences of personal debt growing faster than incomes and the limitations placed on monetary policy by an overheated east coast housing sector. Household debt in Australia is now indeed at record highs, and housing debt is now the equivalent of 132 per cent of annual household disposable income. That is well above the peak in the global financial crisis. Home owners are very worried. The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research have reported that general public confidence in property as a safe investment has hit 40-year lows. It has now plummeted from 28 per cent confidence levels in September 2015 to 11 per cent recently. It is hardly surprising that the head of ASIC has weighed into this too. The blunt message from everyone is that it is a bubble, with heightened nervousness amongst new home owners and mortgagees, again a symptom of where things may be headed.
Government inaction also places it firmly in the camp of the property investors and speculators. Soaring house prices—for example, 16 to18 per cent in Sydney and 15 per cent in Canberra—are largely being driven by the rapid growth in investor demand. The growth rate in investor borrowing has accelerated from nine per cent growth to now 27 per cent growth. Investors again now account for more than half the money borrowed for housing, and we all know what that means for first home owners. There is no way increased supply of housing can ever hope to keep up with these sorts of numbers. Investor and tax-fuelled demand makes it impossible for first home buyers to get a look-in. To fill the policy vacuum, we are now seeing a fair number of people rushing about desperately in search of alternative ways of giving first home owners an even break. Some of those ideas may be worth exploring, some are disastrous but each comes with its own baggage. And many do not really address either the cost of current policies to the federal budget or the inherent unfairness of subsidising investors at the expense of first home buyers. I would like to repeat that: we are subsidising investors at the expense of first home buyers, mostly young families. The government simply refuses to recognise that housing is simply unaffordable because of the interaction of two policies that only it can reverse or ameliorate.
State government cannot do much. It tries to do some things but it is nibbling at the edges. Where there is plentiful supply of flats and units, for instance, tipping the scales back a bit in the direction of first home owners through stamp duty concessions might work for a time but may just increase prices more.
The key levers for change rest squarely in the hands of the federal government because only it can alter the negative gearing and capital gains tax rules. Labor has a plan for this which we took to the last election. The government still has absolutely nothing. Even if it did not want to follow Labor's approach of limiting future negative gearing and capital gains concessions in housing to new home owners while grandfathering the existing arrangements, there are plenty of options that it could pursue. For instance, it could just limit tax right-offs from negative gearing in any year to a set amount, or limit claims to a maximum of one or two investment properties. It could phase out some of the current concessions. That would help genuine, non-speculative home buyers and it would help the budget bottom line too. Allowing young people to potentially squander what little superannuation savings they have on dodgy home loans in an overheated property market is such bad policy it is almost bordering on the ludicrous. Only a truly desperate or clueless Treasurer would have allowed that one to be floated much less seriously considered.
The problem with this government will be getting it to act. The first step along that path is the government realising that what have lasted of the Labor and 'Menzian' housing policies of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s are the goals and the aspirations and the outmoded means of achieving them. Yes, it is a difficult and complex area that is not getting easier. But, Treasurer, if you do not like Labor's approach, design a better one; do not just squib it. Do not try to push it all off on the states. The states do not make federal tax laws; we do.
Sydney reportedly already has over 80,000 vacant investor owned properties. If that is not a case of excess demand, I do not know what is. Building more unaffordable housing of the wrong sort or in the wrong spots will just add to underutilised capacity if you do not deal with what is driving investors and speculators to treat housing as a one-way bet.
With their well documented false starts, pratt-falls and back-offs, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer are to housing affordability what Laurel and Hardy were to piano moving—you feared for the piano even when you were distracted by the sideshow. This government has little idea about housing policy, economic policy or any of the other important structural problems that are besetting our economy such as climate change, energy policy and certainty of supply of the things like energy and jobs that our society needs. It is time this government developed some proper policies that would help the young generation, the future of our nation, to get ahead.
Ms BIRD (Cunningham) (18:43): I start in my contribution to this cognate debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2016-2017 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2016-2017 by commending my colleague the member for Macarthur. The issue of housing affordability is a very significant one, and it is no different in my electorate. The Wollongong area has seen a significant increase in the cost of housing and, flowing from that, the cost of rental accommodation. That has put great pressure on young people in particular trying to get into reliable permanent housing. Very sadly, many young people in my area are now expressing to me the view that they will never own their own home. I think that is a very sad state of affairs. The member is right: we have not seen any real action or determination by this government to address this matter. Simply buck-passing it off to this states as state issues is not sufficient. Simply buck-passing it off to parents saying, 'You should dip into your life savings to help you kids onto the housing ladder,' does not reflect the reality that many parents are not in a position to do that. So the member's contribution, I think, was very important to this debate.
Today I want to touch on a number of issues in my electorate that require urgent attention by this government. They are things that are relevant and related to the issues that the member for Macarthur was outlining. I want to talk first of all about the very important issue of community legal centres as we approach the next budget. On 14 March, I and the member for Whitlam visited the Illawarra Legal Centre. While we were there we put out a public call for the government to reverse their very cruel cuts to legal centres, including our own in the Illawarra. From 1 July the Illawarra Legal Centre will be forced to turn away about 500 Illawarra locals, thanks to the government's devastating cuts to community legal centres through the national partnership agreement.
Community legal centres, as many of my colleagues in this place on all sides would know, are critical for thousands of people around Australia who desperately need free legal assistance but do not qualify for legal aid. They are, indeed, on the front line of the battle against domestic violence and they assist people with diverse problems, such as Centrelink—we certainly had a lot to do with the robo-debt disaster at the beginning of the year—tenancy disputes and employment issues. In my area, the South Coast Labour Council has worked to highlight the extraordinary and disgraceful level of exploitation of young workers. I know that the legal centre is closely involved in working to protect young people in those positions. They and their dedicated staff have been providing free legal advice and assistance to people in the Illawarra for 30 years. They have helped around 5,000 people every year.
In 2016-17, the federal government contributed 65 per cent of Illawarra Legal Centre funding from the national partnership agreement and the rest came from the New South Wales government. However, 85 per cent of the centre's cases are related to federal issues. So they were already funding less than the caseload that the Illawarra Legal Centre was dealing with. Now, on top of that, the legal centre faces a 21 per cent cut in their funding, thanks to this government. This will seriously jeopardise their ability to help vulnerable locals. It is a cut of $166,000, as well as the loss of the corresponding administration and support that goes with it. It is the only free legal service in the entire Illawarra. It provides a one-stop shop for assistance in a variety of areas, as I have indicated. Many of their clients require assistance across multiple areas, often finding themselves with a range of difficulties when they get into financial trouble. Many require assistance in an urgent capacity. They have nowhere else to go and they turn to the legal centre. These cuts will have a very serious weakening effect on the ability of their programs to deliver for very vulnerable people in my area. As I said, as we approach the budget, I call on the federal government—I call on Malcolm Turnbull and the relevant minister—to reinstate funding for these community legal centres because they do such critically important work. Again, we do not need to see the most vulnerable in our society being the ones who are paying the price when the government is prioritising big tax cuts to big business, big banks and wealthy individuals. They are the wrong priorities and we should make sure these community legal centres do not suffer as a result and the people they help miss out on that assistance.
The second issue I want to talk about in this debate as we look at appropriation and budget bills is the very important area of supporting pensioners in our community. On Tuesday, 7 March, the member for Whitlam and I had a forum which was attended by over 200 pensioners from across the Illawarra and Southern Highlands. We were joined by the shadow minister for families and social services, Jenny Macklin. We wanted to give people the opportunity to tell us what their current situation was and to express their views on changes that are proposed to the age pension, and they were certainly more than willing to do that. Their message was loud and clear: they are very fed up with proposals by the Turnbull government to cut funding and support for older Australians.
Almost 4,000 pensioners across the Whitlam and Cunningham electorates have seen an average cut to their pension of $130 a fortnight. When you are living on such a small amount of money, every dollar counts, and this has had a huge impact. Indeed, one lady broke down in tears as she was telling us about some of the effects it has had on her ability to manage. A further 1,500 local pensioners have lost their pension entirely. This leaves them, on average, worse off by around $180 a fortnight. The legislation to change the pension assets test and cut the age pension passed the parliament in June 2015. This was the result, I have to say, of a very unhappy backroom deal between the Liberal Party and the Greens. In the last session of parliament, Liberal Party members voted to scrap the energy supplement for pensioners, and if the government gets its way the energy supplement will be scrapped for new pensioners from September this year. That will mean a cut of $14.10 per fortnight to single pensioners, which is $365 a year. That could be a repair for a car; it could be a new whitegoods item, if, say, a washing machine breaks down. At that amount of money, I tell you what—they are already shopping at second-hand stores. So that makes a big difference to their annual income. Couple pensioners will be $21.20 a fortnight worse off, which is around $550 a year.
This government's track record for age pensioners is nothing short of atrocious. We all well remember the promise before the 2013 election that there would be no cuts to pensions, but we have seen exactly the opposite. It is funny how this government trumpets that it cannot reverse its commitments made at the election, except for ones like this. It is a really appalling priority and it shows just how out of touch the government is with real people. I thank all those pensioners who came along and shared their experiences and stories with us and I am very pleased to give them a commitment that I, along with the Labor Party, will continue to campaign to protect their income because we understand how tough they are doing it.
The other issue I want to touch on today is also about very vulnerable people in my community. I had a meeting today with representatives of the Australian Services Union. They are at the front line of really important work with the most vulnerable in our community. I want to start this part of my contribution by paying great respect to community sector workers. They are not very well paid, they work in very difficult circumstances, they work with very vulnerable people and their contribution to our national effort is invaluable. We should all recognise how significantly important they are because of the work that they do and the vulnerable people that they directly work with. But we should also understand that those vulnerable people have families, and those families often would not be able to get by without the support of these community sector workers, and that would pull them out of the workforce and out of community service and activities that they are involved in, and we would all be the poorer for that. I want to start by paying my respect to the work done by community service workers in this country.
I want to finish my contribution by talking about a couple of issues that the Australian Services Union representatives and workers wanted to talk to me about which I think are really important. They are in desperate need of serious attention from this government and a commitment to ensure that they are viable into the future. The first issue they raised was around mental health services. Not only did I meet with the Australian Services Union people today, but last week in this parliament I met with a delegation from Mental Health Australia, and they raised very similar issues with me. They are very concerned that programs, such as the Personal Helpers and Mentors and the Partners in Recovery programs, are potentially under great threat because of the way they are being managed by this government.
It is really important to understand that the vast majority of the work of these programs involves dealing with people who may have periodic episodes of mental health problems or may have lower-level mental health problems. That early intervention and support ensure that they are able to manage and, hopefully, get themselves back on the road to recovery from that mental health episode. Sometimes it is about working with people with mental health issues to provide them with ongoing support, a safe place and a safe person to deal with to get them through the tough times. That enables them to be more fully functioning members of a family and members of our community. It really is important work.
I want to recognise that there are many of these organisations in my own area, particularly working in the Partners in Recovery program, that are doing great work. I am very concerned that the government has not addressed the concerns of such organisations and has not delivered a national plan that gives priority to mental health to ensure that these sorts of programs are not under threat. We have seen funding cuts; we have seen a government dragging its heels around dealing with a mental health plan. All of these sorts of decisions are taking a toll on our communities, and the fact that I had one group from Mental Health Australia and another group from the workers in that field visit me during these two weeks of parliament indicates how critically important it is. The government really must give attention to those issues.
The other area that these groups particularly wanted to talk to me about was, obviously, disability services, in particular making sure that we recognise the importance and the work of the workers in the disability field. These people are just amazing—they are so caring and they go above and beyond—but they are not very well paid, and there are some real concerns about the future workforce in the disability sector. Of course, as the National Disability Insurance Scheme rolls out there will be increasing demand for workers in this field. That should be a good thing. That should be an opportunity, particularly in areas like mine, where unemployment rates and particularly youth unemployment rates persist higher than state and national averages, to create a real job and career opportunity for people to enter that sector. But you cannot do that if you are driving the workforce at a pace and with a remuneration that so undervalues the work that they do. How are you going to attract people into a sector when they see that that is the reality?
It is also impossible if you are not actually committing to workforce planning and workforce training. This is not unskilled work. This is very, very skilled work, and it is the sort of work that people need to be supported and trained in to do effectively and safely. We need the government to pay attention to this and to get on with addressing these issues.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.
Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2016-2017
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.
MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Last Veterans' Mission to Korea
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That the House take note of the document.
Ms RISHWORTH (Kingston) (19:00): I rise today to speak about the last veterans' mission to Korea, to acknowledge the brave men and nurses who served in the Korean War. Often considered the forgotten war, the Korean War began five years after the Second World War and lasted three years in the defence of South Korea.
The Korean War was a major conflict, with far-reaching implications for Australia and the world. It was the first war between major parties during the Cold War period and the first fought by the United Nations. Twenty-one countries committed personnel from South Korea, Britain, New Zealand and the United States. Australia became the second nation—behind the United States—to commit personnel from all three armed services. Over three years some 17,000 Australians served with 1,216 Australians injured and a further 29 were taken as prisoners of war. Ultimately, 340 Australians were killed and an additional 43 would go missing in action. Tragically, there were an additional 16 individuals killed in the post-armistice period. In total, as a result of the Korean War, 399 Australians would make the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country.
Perhaps one of the most well-known battles of the Korean War is the Battle of Kapyong, which occurred in April 1951, which became one of the most significant and important battles for Australian troops in Korea. The 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment—more commonly known as Old Faithful—distinguished themselves in Korea through their bravery and fierce determination, and the Battle of Kapyong is one of the finest examples of this.
On the night of 22 April 1951 Chinese forces launched a major offensive against the United Nations forces defending Seoul. The next morning the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade, which included 3RAR, was ordered to the valley of the Kapyong River, about 60 kilometres northeast of Seoul, where South Korean forces were being driven back. Over the course of the night and day the Australians and a Canadian battalion, supported by a New Zealand artillery regiment, stalled the Chinese advance before eventually withdrawing after dark.
The men of 3RAR suffered significant casualties with 32 men killed, 59 wounded and three taken prisoner. The Australians had helped hold up the Chinese 60th Division and inflicted heavy casualties, which totalled more than 500 killed. For their contribution to this action, 3RAR was awarded a US presidential citation. In addition, Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Ferguson was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his skilful leadership.
This is just the efforts of one battalion in a commitment of 17,000 Australians in this war. They are 17,000 people who left their families and friends behind to put their lives on the line, some never to return. But while the war was overshadowed, the contribution of the brave Australians who served in Korea is not forgotten. They placed their lives on the line and we owe them a debt that can never be repaid.
Last year, the Minster for Veterans' Affairs, the Hon Dan Tehan MP, and the shadow assistant minister for cyber security and defence personnel, Ms Gai Brodtmann, travelled to Korea on a 65th anniversary commemorative mission organised by the Department of Veterans' Affairs.
Eight Korean War veterans accompanied the minister and the shadow assistant minister on this important trip. The Magnificent Eight, as they are known, represented each of the three Australian services who fought in the Korean War. Gordon 'Taffy' Hughes was a naval aviator flying operations from the deck of HMAS Sydney. Spencer `Ray' Seaver was a pilot in No. 77 Squadron, and Graham Connor and Les Hall served in the 1RAR. They were joined by John 'Jack' Lang, Les Powell, John Murphy and Peter Scott from 3RAR.
Both the minister and shadow assistant minister spoke in the parliament recently of the honour of accompanying these men on their return to a country that they only knew as a theatre of war. They spoke of the reception the men received and of how moving the experience was for them. I had the privilege of talking to a number of those men on the floor of the parliament, and for some of them it was the first time they had been back to visit Korea since that very difficult time. In her speech, the shadow assistant minister recalled a story told to her by Graham Connor about being recognised by an elderly man near a market. Graham recalled, 'He came over and said to me, "Are you a Korean War veteran?" and I said, "Yes," and he threw his arms around me and burst out crying and said, "Thank you, thank you."' This was a very touching story told by the shadow assistant minister. It reflects the gratitude expressed by the Korean people. What a remarkable experience and fitting tribute to the brave men who served in the Korean War.
Listening to the stories told by the minister and shadow assistant minister in the chamber last week, I can tell you that it is not an experience they will forget soon. The Korean War played a significant role in the formation of Australia's identity, as the traditional ties to Britain and the Empire were fading and the growing bonds with the United States were reshaping how we considered our place in the world. The significance of this service and sacrifice by all Australians who served in this war cannot be underestimated. On behalf of this chamber, we thank you for your contribution, we thank you for your sacrifice, we acknowledge those who fought and we acknowledge those who never returned. Lest we forget!
Dr MIKE KELLY (Eden-Monaro) (19:07): I thank the shadow minister for veterans' affairs for setting the scene and the historical background for these comments. The Korean War has been described as a forgotten war. I would like to address my remarks to a forgotten aspect of the forgotten war, which it was my great privilege to work to resolve and remediate during the period of trying to establish the Defence Honours and Awards Appeal Tribunal when Labor was last in government. We dealt with a lot of outstanding issues over a long historical period for various veterans and groups.
One of those groups was the veterans who had served during the so-called Korean War armistice period. When we think back on the conflict, it is poorly understood in the historical context. This was one of the very first of the hot phases of the so-called Cold War period. Aggressive international communism was on the march, and we would be confronting that again in Vietnam. The extra dimension that was at play in the Korean War was, of course, the potential for that conflict to escalate into a nuclear confrontation. There were discussions during that war about getting nuclear weapons used during that conflict, and General Macarthur was quite forward leaning in attempting to do that, so there was a real risk of an escalated nuclear conflict. We have to look at the service of our veterans in the context of having averted that catastrophe and having staunched the tide of international communism as it flowed through the Korean peninsula. There has been a lot of focus on that hot phase of the war, through to 1953, as if it were all that was involved in the conflict. But the period of the armistice, beginning in July 1953 and going through to 19 April 1956, was a very difficult one for our forces serving there, and it went completely unrecognised. We lost up to 18 soldiers during that period of time.
Some of the veterans have laboured long and hard to try to redress that lack of recognition, in particular Shoalhaven resident Bob Morris, who became the president of the Korean War Veterans Recognition Committee. He described the Korean War as 'one of the dirtiest, bloodiest and coldest conflicts of the 20th century'. We have to understand the extremes they had to survive while dealing with the threats they were facing during that static phase of the Korean War period.
Bob Morris was one of those dynamic, wonderful Australians who really put body and soul into achieving recognition at the same time as many of these veterans were passing on. He wanted to make sure that there were enough of them and their families who understood that that mission had been accomplished, that recognition would be achieved. When Bob first came to see me he estimated that there were about only 3,000 of these veterans left.
A Korean post-armistice service review was established in 2005 to investigate and recommend appropriate recognition. The panel comprised Rear Admiral Ian Crawford AO, AM; Gary Nehl AM; Ms Colleen Thurgar AM; and Brigadier Gordon Jones AM. They went through the whole process of analysing the campaign and the period and came up with a couple of recommendations with regard to general service medal recognition and returned from active service recognition.
Of course there was some degree of antipathy and opposition to doing this. The matter tended to atrophy for a while, but Bob Morris, Rod Coupland, their wives and supporters never gave up on the cause. It was my privilege to work closely with them. In spite of some of the advice that I received, I was determined that they would get their recognition. I was delighted in October 2008 that we did manage to get approval to issue a Returned from Active Service Badge. It was my call to make that decision, even though we did not get the review of the conditions of service at the time that we were looking for. I did have the ability to make that determination and I did. We also sought royal assent to create a new medal recognising those who had served during that period. That assent was given and those proud veterans did receive that award.
It was wonderful to see the sheer gratitude and difference that that made to those very proud veterans and their families. Afterwards we were trying to get the message across that all the Korean War memorials really needed their inscription changed to 1950-56 rather than to 1953. We should be enormously grateful for what those proud veterans endured, what they put up with, and what they achieved in fending off what could have become a much more dire situation for not only our country but the world. I pay tribute today to Bob Morris and the team who achieved that outcome.
Also talking on the Korean War gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to one particular great soldier who passed away on 13 January this year—Thomas Lloyd Muggleton MBE. Tom Muggleton was a legend in the Australian Army. He had an amazing career. He was one of those soldiers who were the definition of all the values of soldering that we would hope to emulate. He had an amazing career. At the age of 19, as part of the 2nd AIF, he fought at the end of the Second World War in Wewak-Aitape campaigns with the 2nd/5th Infantry Battalion. He then carved out a career in the Army, serving right through the postwar period into the early 1950s, when the Korean War broke out. He was in the Japanese occupation forces when he met his future wife, Thelma, who was Australian Army nurse. What a wonderful woman Thelma was as well.
Tommy Muggleton went back to Korea and fought the Battle of Broken Bridge on the Taeryong River. He was also involved very intimately in the Kapyong Battle—and we heard details of that referred to—as part of 3RAR as a company sergeant major. He did become quite legendary for his efforts during that battle. He brought a lot of the learnings from those experiences to future recruits and future soldiers. He was also at Maryang San in October 1951. This man endured a great deal through the dying phases of World War Two through the major confrontations and battles of the Korean War.
Tom went on to fulfil many postings and duties in his illustrious Army career. He was the RSM of the Royal Military College Duntroon. And he also went on to serve in 5RAR in Vietnam to finish his period of active service. Later, he was also the OC of Headquarter Company at Duntroon as a major on promotion, and at the same time his son was a cadet at RMC, Paul Muggleton—I will come back to him. But when Tom left the Army, he actually worked in the House of Representatives tabling office here in this very building before ultimately retiring to the Gold Coast.
What a great couple they were, Tommy and Thelma, and their children were very special too and imbibed all the values of this great pair. In particular, my closest friend, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Muggleton, was the son of Tommy and, unfortunately, he passed away in December 2013 from bowel cancer and it was a great tragedy to the family. Thelma passed away in 2015. But Tommy Muggleton will never be forgotten. The Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove was at his funeral and delivered an eulogy and said, 'On behalf of all Australians, I have to say, Australia has lost one of its finest.' And no truer words were spoken. Tommy and Thelma left behind some surviving children, daughters MaryRose, Denise and Alison. They also have obviously done their parents proud and I know their parents were very proud of them.
Today, my thoughts turn to not only those wonderful veterans who finally got recognition after so many years of neglect but also a truly great soldier who built the Army, shaped the Army that I ended up joining, and that we salute and pay tribute to today; and also a very fine man whom I will never forget, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Muggleton, who was also in his own right a fine man and a fine soldier.
Mr HART (Bass) (19:16): I rise to speak in response to the statement by the Minister for Veterans' Affairs delivered to the House on Wednesday, 22 March 2017. As the minister referred to in his statement, the Korean War is often referred to as the forgotten war. I had cause to reflect upon the speech delivered by the minister. The minister very carefully explained the significance of the Korean War and outlined Australian action in the Korean theatre. It was, nevertheless, very difficult to imagine the times when the Cold War was in its infancy and when, due to an accident of history, the United Nations took up arms in a conflict—a conflict with proxies for the superpowers and a nascent superpower, a conflict which might have escalated to nuclear conflict at any time.
In my legal practice many years ago, I undertook a quite substantial practice in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal addressing DVA claims, which were then appeals from the Veterans Review Board. That was in the 1990s. I was still dealing with World War II veterans, Korean War veterans and of course veterans from the Vietnam War. It always seemed to me that the veterans of World War II easily fell into a particular class, that is with respect to the type of claim and the type of person I was advocating for. Similarly, there are a lot of claims arising out of Vietnam which had similar characteristics.
Korean veterans not only fell between the two in a chronological sense, but also with respect to their profile. There was something about the Korean veterans which spoke of a different experience, something which bound them even more tightly together than the World War II veterans, many of whom had fought in completely different theatres in Europe, North Africa, New Guinea or as prisoners of war, which carried with it another level of complexity. There also seemed to be a historical aspect of the Korean War bracketing the end of the 1940s and the early part of the 1950s. The popular culture that we see that infected Australia, from, in particular, the United States, had not entered into public consciousness until the mid to late 1950s. Even Menzies had yet to consolidate and impose his authority on the Australian electorate at this time. There were big issues yet to be resolved between labour and capital, big issues which were elevated by the tensions of the Cold War.
As the minister notes in his statement, it is more than 60 years since the last of the conflict had ceased. Nevertheless, we are constantly reminded that the conflict has not been formally resolved in that no treaty has been negotiated to put an end to the formal conflict. I wonder, therefore, whether the experience of our troops was similar to that of Vietnam veterans, who had a delayed welcome home because of the public's view as to the merits of the Vietnam War. Whilst it is useful to consider what a totally different world we now live in, from the perspective of more than 60 years after the conclusion of hostilities, we must never forget, when we send our defence forces into harm's way, what it is to serve in the Australian Defence Force. There have been conflicts and peacekeeping missions since Vietnam and, in all cases, the Australian Defence Force has served with distinction. None of these missions and none of these conflicts are entered into lightly. I can readily imagine that the decision of a government to send our armed forces into danger must require careful consideration and, most importantly, accurate information.
My involvement with the veterans community arose primarily through the representation of veterans and their families in determining their entitlement to pension and/or compensation. Not withstanding that the veterans entitlements legislation is beneficial legislation, there are often lengthy delays in assessing and determining a veteran's entitlement to a pension or a benefit. There are very few remaining Second World War veterans, slightly more Korean War veterans and larger populations of veterans of subsequent emergencies and warlike operations. It pains me, and it should pain all of us, that particular veterans are denied entitlements because they have failed to demonstrate that their service—and, in particular, their operational service—or any of the other service preconditions for eligibility have been satisfied.
It is time for the government to accept the claims of veterans, irrespective of whether they meet the narrow requirements set up by the bureaucratic system. It is without doubt that the men and women of our Defence Force have devoted their very lives to the service of this country. On discharge of that duty, they should find a grateful Australian government that is prepared to assist with their rehabilitation, if that is required. It is a bitter pill to swallow that, whilst the Australian Defence Force has had to lay to rest 41 defence personnel on active service between 2000 and 2014, the veteran community has experienced 292 deaths by suicide. It is time that we—all of us—work together with our veterans to benefit our veterans.
Debate adjourned.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:23