The SPEAKER ( Hon. Tony Smith ) took the chair at 12:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
MOTIONS
Racism
Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (12:01): I seek leave to move the following motion:
That the House rejects the resolution put to the Senate yesterday which included a white supremacist slogan that is also used by hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Leave not granted.
Mr BURKE: I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Manager of Opposition Business from moving the following motion immediately:
That the House rejects the resolution put to the Senate yesterday which included a white supremacist slogan that is also used by hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
This resolution is one that they should have given leave for. We have put no political argument into this. We have put no attack on the government in this. We have simply said what the Minister for Finance claimed a few minutes ago was now the government's position. We've simply given the House the opportunity to resolve that we are opposed to a white supremacist slogan that the Senate debated yesterday. And, instead of the government having the good sense to take that opportunity and say, 'Okay, we'll give you leave and we will all vote for it,' they've decided not to give leave, completely undermining everything the finance minister said only about an hour ago.
This resolution does not condemn the government, but what they just did does, because they were given an opportunity just then to vote on a motion that says nothing more than that we reject what Pauline Hanson put to the Senate yesterday, nothing more than that we reject a white supremacist slogan that has also been adopted by the Ku Klux Klan. We gave them the opportunity to simply vote for a resolution that says that. Bear in mind we were sorely tempted to put in a resolution that carried a whole lot of argument in it, but instead we have provided a resolution for every member of the coalition such that, if you oppose what Pauline Hanson put to the Senate yesterday, that will be the only question before you—nothing else. There will be no other question before the House. If that's something the government wants to vote against then what has the Liberal Party become? What have you become?
The Attorney-General's excuses on this have been completely pathetic. We're talking about a motion that was put on the Senate Notice Paper in September, that the Attorney-General had had since September and had issued instructions to support. The debate occurred, and the Liberal and National Party senators sat there, hearing the debate and knowing what they were about to vote on, and none of them questioned it. None of them thought, 'Maybe we should be opposed to this white supremacist stuff that's coming from Senator Hanson.' And then, after the vote had occurred, the Attorney-General tweeted in support of the government's position. The Leader of the Government in the Senate did the same. And then, once the community backlash said, 'We will not accept this white supremacist rubbish from the Liberal Party', they started to back-pedal and try to change their position. I suppose they also think it's a coincidence that One Nation announced their candidate on the weekend in the Attorney-General's own seat—a candidate he'll be trying to get preferences from. And a hint to those opposite: when a motion is moved by Pauline Hanson about race, it's probably not going to be an antiracism motion! It will probably not be the case. Note to self: think about that one.
We had nearly a whole day of debate here when Malcolm Turnbull was Prime Minister and it was a good debate, because those in the other chamber, in the other place, the same senators who voted with Pauline Hanson yesterday, after Fraser Anning delivered his speech, all went up and congratulated him. They all went up and hugged him, embraced him, shook his hand. Not one of them had a problem with it. And yet, when everybody realised what happened, the government decided to back-pedal. When Malcolm Turnbull was Prime Minister, we were able to get bipartisanship on a resolution that said that shouldn't have happened. But now that we're in the days of the Morrison government, that doesn't happen anymore. Now that we're in the days of the Morrison government, when we have a resolution which says 'we reject what happened in the Senate yesterday', those opposite want to line up with it. The claims that were made by the finance minister about an hour ago amount to absolutely nothing. Don't pretend that you're suddenly opposed to what you voted for yesterday, if today you want to back-in yesterday's position, because that's what's in front of the chamber: that the House rejects the resolution put to the Senate yesterday which included a white supremacist slogan that is also used by hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan. That is what has happened to debate in this country.
I've got to say, when we on this side discussed amongst ourselves me moving this, we deliberately wanted to give the parliament the opportunity for a moment of unity like we were able to achieve under the Turnbull government. We deliberately took a whole lot of comments I've used in my speeches out of the resolution so that we had a resolution that will give those opposite, in good conscience—and there are some of them who can act in good conscience opposite; there are some of them who don't want to line up with what the senators did yesterday—an opportunity to vote that way in the parliament now. I let the government know that I was going to move a resolution about yesterday. I made sure the Leader of the House was listening as I sought leave so he could hear every word of it. The answer to, 'Will we have that moment of unity again now that we're in the Morrison government?' is no. The answer is no.
We're back to the pattern that has changed ever since One Nation returned to this parliament. The last time the Australian people voted, they were told that support for multiculturalism, support for modern Australia, was bipartisan and they were told that by both sides of politics. But after the election, when One Nation turned up back in the parliament, all of a sudden those opposite are saying, 'We need to have more hate speech again. We need to change 18C'. That was back on the agenda. Fraser Anning gave his first speech, and they were up congratulating him after he'd spoken about the final solution. Even John Howard refused to give preferences to One Nation, and we've seen what they've done in the by-elections that have been held this term. All those principles that people opposite like Philip Ruddock were once willing to cross the floor over have shifted this term.
This is a debate about whether the modern Liberal Party are willing to support modern Australia, because last night they didn't. Last night that was a vote. At the point when you start using the same language that the KKK is happy with, you've really got to ask a question. Your defence is that the Attorney-General hadn't read it. Of all the jobs, of all the ministers to not read the detail, the Attorney-General of Australia is the one who didn't check the language. That's what this has come to?
It is very rare that we have a moment in the parliament where there is a resolution that both sides have claimed they support and yet we are about to divide over it. Only about an hour ago, the Leader of the Government in the Senate claimed he supported exactly what we are about to put to the House. It's really simple. This doesn't happen in a vacuum. There was a great speech given some time ago by one of the members opposite, the member for McMillan. He made a comment about appealing to the lowest common denominator—has never given anyone a job, has never given anyone a fresh start, has never improved anyone's education. What we should be doing together is standing against that rubbish. Instead, on a resolution that says nothing more than 'We reject what happened in the Senate yesterday,' those opposite are lining up now to dig in, to keep those tweets going and to keep backing in the offensive position of yesterday. Every decent member of this House should support this motion.
The SPEAKER: Is the motion seconded?
Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business) (12:11): The motion is seconded. This is extraordinary in this House. The Liberal government, the government members, want to deny this House the opportunity to reject, in no uncertain terms, the extraordinary racism that was on display in the Senate of Australia last night. The Attorney-General of Australia must explain to this House why he supported a white supremacist battle cry being endorsed by the Senate last night. No-one should be in any doubt about the motion that was passed in the Senate with the support of 27 coalition senators and 10 ministers. Think about that: 10 ministers in the government supported that white supremacist battle cry, which, as the Manager of Opposition Business has pointed out, is supported by the KKK in the United States. That's what happened in the Senate last night. The motion was on the Notice Paper for 25 days. The government had 25 days to think about it. The minister who's got responsibility for matters to do with racism in the government, the Attorney-General of Australia, who's responsible for administering the Racial Discrimination Act, had 25 days on which to reflect and work out that this was, in fact, a battle cry of the white supremacist grubs in our country—that this was a battle cry, a slogan, a catchcry that they like to use. If he is the Attorney-General responsible for anti-discrimination, for fighting discrimination in our country, then it's his job to work it out.
There might have been a little bit of warning to him, because this was a motion about racism coming from, of all people, Pauline Hanson. Now he's asking the people of Australia to believe that this was some kind of administrative error. How pathetic. He's pointing to administrative error. Think about what happened in the Senate last night. Government senator after government senator filed in to cast their votes for a racist motion moved by Pauline Hanson, and the Attorney-General and Senator Cormann are now asking the people of Australia to believe that those 27 government senators are just dumb automatons, doing what they were told by the Attorney-General. Maybe they are dumb automatons, as that's what he's saying, but, in fact, this is meant to be the party—the Liberal Party—that boasts all the time about conscience votes and boasts all the time about how they think about the way they vote in this place and how they wouldn't dream of voting against their conscience. Well, they didn't think very much last night.
I think what's actually happened is that the true values of the Liberal Party of Australia have been put on display. I hope that the voters of Wentworth take a close look at what the Liberal Party of Australia did last night in voting for white supremacist slogans. This is a motion from Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. That should have been a little bit of an alert to the government to think a little bit.
Now they want to deny this House the opportunity to vote—the opportunity to vote to reject the Senate's motion passed last night. This, in fact, is the current Attorney-General's 'people have a right to be bigots' moment. The last Attorney-General said that ridiculous thing. This Attorney-General tweeted support. Last night at a quarter to eight, hours after the vote in the Senate, this Attorney-General tweeted support for the motion that he had instructed the dumb automaton senators to vote for in the Senate, because apparently that's what he's expecting the people of Australia to believe—that, because of an administrative error, the wrong instruction went out to 27 coalition senators, and they filed in one after the other to vote in favour of this white supremacist motion.
What happened, we're entitled to ask, to support for multiculturalism in this country? What happened to the rejection of racism? Not so long ago, under Prime Minister Turnbull, this House was prepared to unite to reject the disgraceful things said by Senator Anning in his first speech. What happened to that? What, indeed, has happened to the Liberal Party of Australia, which used to turn its face on racism, which used to say, 'We are a party that supports multiculturalism'? We've had silence from the government. The government have twice attempted to repeal section 18C. They should be ashamed of themselves for that, and they should be ashamed of themselves for their performance in the Senate last night. (Time expired)
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Minister for Defence and Leader of the House) (12:16): The government will not be agreeing with this motion to suspend standing orders. So far we have seen a pathetic case of overacting from the shadow Attorney-General and the Manager of Opposition Business. If there were an Academy Award for overacting, the Manager of Opposition Business would have won it today. This is one of the most embarrassing cases of over-egging the pudding that I've seen in a very long time.
The idea that the government would have done anything other than make an administrative error on this matter is quite clearly ridiculous. The Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Cormann, had a press conference this morning at 9.13 Australian Eastern Standard Time, and everybody on the Labor side knows it. The idea that the government has not come out today and disassociated itself from this motion is clearly untrue. Senator Mathias Cormann, I think, ate humble pie. He recognised that it was a mistake, and he took full responsibility for it in his press conference this morning, and everyone in the Labor Party knows it.
This is clearly just an attempt at another stunt from the opposition, ahead of the Wentworth by-election, to try to muddy the waters, to try to make sure that their candidate, Kerryn Phelps, gets elected on Saturday. We all know that's what this is about. This motion is about supporting Kerryn Phelps in Wentworth against Dave Sharma, the Liberal candidate for Wentworth replacing Malcolm Turnbull, hopefully, in the by-election on Saturday.
Mathias Cormann said this morning, and I quote from Senator Cormann:
"There was a vote in the Senate yesterday in relation to a motion put forward by senator Hanson which the government should have opposed …
"When the motion was first put forward in September, and we considered our position on the motion, we made a decision to oppose that motion and to make a statement in our words that as a government we deplore racism of any kind, but not to actually support the motion.
"Yesterday, as the result of an administrative process failure the government senators in the chamber ended up, on advice, voting in support of the motion.
"As the leader of the government in the Senate I take responsibility for the error and I'm sorry that that happened. It is indeed regrettable.
"As I indicated when this motion first came up, we made a very clear decision to oppose that motion. It wasn't voted on in September, it came back up yesterday and it slipped through. It shouldn't have and I take responsibility for that."
There could not be a more clear statement from Mathias Cormann that there was no support from the government for this motion yesterday in the Senate and that it was because of an administrative failure—which happens in this place just like it happens in every place of work around Australia, in schools and hospitals and all sorts of institutions; errors are made and they are fixed. The Leader of the Government in the Senate said he was asked whether he was embarrassed and he said: 'Yes, I am. Yes, I am embarrassed.' He went on to say: 'I do not support the form of words that is in that motion and, indeed, the government made a decision not to support that motion. We deplore racism of any kind. There is no question in my mind that the decision that we made in September to oppose this motion is the decision that should have been implemented yesterday. As a result of an administrative process failure, that did not happen and I regret that.' So it could not be clearer from the Leader of the Government in the Senate that this was an error made yesterday in the Senate that has been corrected by the statements of the Leader of the Government.
Nobody on this side of the House, or, I'm sure, on the crossbench or on the Labor side of the House, supports racism of any kind. Nobody in the parliament supports racism of any kind, in the Liberal and National Party party rooms.
But we are not going to fall for Labor stunts designed to distract people from the real agenda that people are concerned about in this country. They're concerned about their jobs, and that's why we're creating jobs in the Australian economy. They're concerned about growing the economy, and we are growing the economy so well, we're doing better than any other G7 country. They're concerned about housing prices and they're concerned about the cost of living. They're concerned about putting their parents or family members into aged-care facilities, and so we have the royal commission into aged care. They're concerned about the tax rates, and that's why we should be debating in this House today—and we will be, hopefully, before too long—the bringing forward of the small business tax cuts that the Treasurer is about to introduce, which I'm sure has the support of the Labor Party, so we can bring about tax relief for small businesses and medium-sized enterprises in this country so that they can invest in their own businesses, creating the jobs in our economy. So we're not going to be distracted.
The reason we're not supporting this motion being brought forward is that we're not going to be distracted by a Labor Party that will do anything to distract people from the real issues that people care about. In the bubble that is Canberra, there may well be members of the opposition and of the press gallery who think that the most important issue facing Australia today is an administrative failure in the Senate yesterday which led us to vote, incorrectly, for a motion that we didn't support, which we'd decided, in September, we would oppose, and that slipped through because of an administrative failure. There may be some people in the opposition and in the press gallery who think that that is the most important issue facing the parliament today. Well, I can tell you: it isn't.
The most important issue facing the Australian parliament today is reducing taxes on small businesses and medium enterprises, and that's the issue we want to get on with today. The most important issues facing Australia are economic security and national security—the defence of the nation. We're living in a region in a world that is much more unsettled today than it was at the end of the Cold War, and yet the Labor Party come into this parliament and want to waste our time with point-scoring and stunts. This is not the first time. It's what oppositions do. But we in the government are not going to fall for those pathetic stunts by the Labor Party.
We've apologised. The Leader of the Government has apologised. He has eaten humble pie in a press conference this morning. Everyone knows it. This issue is over. We don't support that motion. We regret the fact that an administrative failure led to voting for that motion. And, honestly—if we really did support that motion, why would Senator Cormann have gone out this morning and made that admission? Why would he have apologised and said that he was embarrassed? If we really supported that motion, we wouldn't be promoting and publicising the fact that we supported it by mistake yesterday. We're apologising for it because it was a mistake.
One of the worst things that could happen in this country would be for the bipartisanship—
Ms Plibersek: You apologised because you were found out.
Mr PYNE: We were found out? It's in the Hansard. It was hardly a secret. This is the problem with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition: she doesn't understand anything about the parliament and how it works. When we vote, there's a record.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members on my left!
Mr PYNE: The names are written down in a division so everybody knows who voted for what particular motion. It's not a secret. You don't get found out. There isn't a secret, hidden Hansard record somewhere where the votes are kept. The reality is it's public, and that's why we're talking about it. But the poor old member for Sydney never knows quite how the procedures work in this place. She can't do a matter of personal explanation, and now we discover that the member for Sydney thinks that there's a secret vote in the Senate and we were caught out voting for something, when everyone knows it is on the public record.
So we do reject that motion. We've apologised for it. We regret the fact that an administrative error caused us to vote for it. Before I was rudely interrupted by the member for Sydney, I was saying that one of the most important things we can do in this country is maintain bipartisanship around issues like racism. We've had many of these debates over the years. As the Manager of Opposition Business said, a few weeks ago we had an impromptu debate in this House, after Senator Anning's maiden speech, in which a number of members gave very good speeches deploring the speech of Senator Anning and reaffirming our bipartisan commitment in this chamber to abhorring all forms of racism.
Mr Burke: We had that when Turnbull was here.
Mr PYNE: And that is still the case. The Manager of Opposition Business should be very careful not to cast slurs about the current Prime Minister over an issue like racism or it will come back to rebound in this parliament. We are just as committed to opposing racism as any other member of this House. (Time expired)
The SPEAKER: The time allotted for this debate has concluded. The question is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business 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.
BILLS
Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018
First Reading
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Frydenberg.
Bill read a first time.
Second Reading
Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—The Treasurer) (12:28): I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018 will provide further tax relief for small and medium businesses in Australia.
This bill will continue our work of delivering a stronger economy and supporting the more than three million small and medium businesses employing around seven million Australian workers.
It will bring forward by five years already legislated tax cuts for small to medium companies and unincorporated businesses.
Under schedule 1 of this bill, companies with a turnover of up to $50 million will benefit from the tax rate being reduced from the current rate of 27.5 per cent to 26 per cent in 2020-21 and 25 per cent in 2021-22 and subsequent years.
This will benefit around 940,000 small to medium-sized companies (with turnover of up to $50 million), employing around 4.8 million Australians.
Schedule 2 of this bill will provide an enhanced tax discount for sole traders and other unincorporated businesses which have a turnover of up to $5 million. The unincorporated tax discount will increase from its current rate of eight per cent to a 13 per cent discount in 2020-21 and to 16 per cent in 2021-22.
This will benefit around 2.35 million unincorporated businesses (with turnover of up to $5 million), employing around 1.8 million Australians.
Schedules 1 and 2 bring forward the final tax rates by five years. This acceleration of tax relief will allow these small and medium businesses to plan on the basis of the new tax rates and realise the corresponding benefits earlier.
This bill is an investment in Australia. It is part of our plan that is delivering a stronger economy.
We believe in the more than three million small to medium businesses in Australia employing seven million workers.
Reducing their taxes will allow them to invest, grow and hire more Australians.
Since the coalition came to office, more than one million jobs have been created, including more women, more young Australians and more older Australians in work.
In the last financial year, more than 100,000 young Australians got a job—the largest number on record.
This is a great outcome and is an example of the real impact of a stronger economy and good macroeconomic policies that are being introduced and led by the coalition government.
We cannot be complacent when it comes to the economy, and this bill will ensure that small and medium businesses can continue to drive further economic growth and job creation.
Full details of the measure are contained in the explanatory memorandum, and I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Rob Mitchell ): I thank the Treasurer. Is leave granted to continue the debate?
An honourable member interjecting—
Dr Chalmers: No, leave is not granted.
Mr Bowen: To be clear, the opposition is happy to provide leave, but it's a matter for the House.
Leave not granted.
Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—The Treasurer) (12:29): I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the resumption of debate on the motion that the bill be read a second time being made an order of the day for a later hour.
Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (12:32): It is not urgent for this House to suspend all other business to give $2 billion to companies that have a turnover as high as $50 million. We can have a debate in this House, if you want, about what counts as a small business. That's something that the Greens would be up for, because we've been arguing for it for some time. We've been putting forward a series of measures to assist small business, including tax cuts. But what is being proposed here is something vastly different. The government now wants to redefine small business so that a business that earns up to $50 million is somehow going to count as a small business and therefore be worthy of a tax cut—and a fast-tracked tax cut at that.
We're talking about businesses like the St Kilda Football Club. It's not my team, but I'm not singling them out for that reason. The St Kilda Football Club has a turnover of just under $50 million. Does anyone seriously suggest that a big player in one of the national leagues in this country somehow counts as a small business that needs a tax cut because its viability, in some instances, is threatened? If you want to have a debate about which companies in this country are worthy of getting a tax cut then let's have that debate. But we don't need to fast-track it. I want to hear everyone from the government and the Labor Party, who are enabling the government to do this, stand up and explain why a company with a turnover of $50 million deserves a tax cut that is going to come at a cost of $2 billion a year to the budget. That is $2 billion a year less that's there to lift Newstart. That is $2 billion a year less to go to schools. That is $2 billion a year less to go to renewables.
But instead what we're seeing here is that, because we're getting closer to the election, the government is bowling up elements straight out of the trickle-down economics playbook and the Labor Party is signing up to it—and not only signing up to it but saying, 'How can we quickly get this through the parliament?' And, as sure as night follows day, the closer it gets to the election and the more that it looks like there is going to be a change of government—which I welcome because this mob has lost the right to govern—the more you are going to see Labor adopt the Liberals' trickle-down economics agenda. This is a prime example of it, because not only is Labor saying, 'Let's sign up and give tax cuts to $50-million-a-year businesses'; they're saying, 'Let's rush it through parliament so that we can avoid scrutiny.'
The trickle-down troika of Labor, Liberal and big business is at it again. Labor, Liberal and big business: the only threesome where it's everyone else in the country that gets screwed! That's what we are seeing happening here in this parliament. We are seeing today a call that it is somehow so urgent that we debate this that we have to put other matters off the agenda. I'll tell you what is urgent, because we're speaking here to the suspension motion at the moment. There are children on Nauru who are trying to kill themselves because of what this government, with the opposition's support, is doing. There are children there who have resigned themselves to dying. I'm speaking exactly about the suspension motion, because the government here, with Labor's support, is saying this is the most urgent thing we could be debating today and I'm saying it is not. There are other matters that this parliament could and should be debating.
If we're having a debate about the prioritising of the agenda, which is what this is—and I'll come to the substance of the bill when we get into the second reading debate, because it seems that Labor and Liberal are about to roll over and say, 'Let's smash this through parliament as quickly as we possibly can.' The question is what else should be on the agenda today. I will tell you what should be on the agenda today. If Labor and Liberal want to show cooperation, come in here and move suspension orders and reorder business, they should be asking why children are dying on Nauru; why it is that the AMA and thousands of doctors are saying that every day counts and that there are children that are now on the verge of death; and why we have reports that a 12-year-old girl set herself on fire. That is what is urgent. That is why we should be suspending standing orders. That is what the people want us to focus on. But no; we are back here saying that, in this bipartisan way, the best thing we can do is give companies that earn $50 million a year a tax break.
When inequality is at a 70-year high in this country and we know that wages growth is stagnating, we should be having a debate in this place about the best way to spend the $2 billion or so a year that this is going to cost. What is the best way to spend $2 billion to close the gap between the very rich and everyone else? Is it to lift Newstart? Is it to be supporting an increase to the minimum wage? Is it to be saying we need to rewrite our industrial relations laws to give people greater rights to bargain at work? What we should not be doing is fast-tracking and avoiding the usual debate and scrutiny of a tax cut to big business simply because an election is looming on the horizon.
So let's have this go through the proper process. The Treasurer could not even be bothered to speak to this suspension motion and explain why it is urgent that this all has to be done today as opposed to tomorrow or next week. The government cannot even front the parliament and say, 'Here's the reason why we need to reorder all business, stop debate about everything else and drop everything so we can focus on this.' Why? Because there's no argument. This is simply taken straight out of the Thatcher/Reagan/Trump playbook. 'We've got to cut taxes for all businesses.' They've worked out that they think they can get a wedge through and get the opposition to support it, so it's like, 'Well, let's just strike while the iron's hot,' presumably. It's all politically motivated. The Treasurer could have stood up and said, 'There's some urgent reason why it has to happen today,' but no, there's none. They're just asking for support to rip a couple of billion dollars out of Commonwealth revenue, and the Labor Party is about to give it to them.
This debate today and this forthcoming election should be about how we can secure the revenue we need to fund the services Australians expect. If we turn this into a tax cut arms race, if every time the Liberals say, 'We're going to cut taxes,' Labor jumps up and says, 'Where can I sign? Let me cut taxes,' then this country is going to run out of money to fund the services that people expect and we'll go down the road of becoming a US-style society.
Mr Frydenberg interjecting —
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Treasurer is not helping his cause.
Mr BANDT: So if we want to have the debate about how to support small business, then bring it on, because the Greens have a very proud record. We'd been out there arguing for small business tax cuts for some time and we're pleased to have secured them. We've been putting forward amendments to the small business and unfair contract bill. We've been arguing for prompter payments to small business. We've been putting forward the case for small-business-commissioner bills. We've been arguing—in the face of opposition from this government, mind you—for many years for changes to bring back the effects test. We've been arguing for all those things for some time, so we're very happy to stand on our record.
I want to hear the definition. I want to hear the case, put forward by everyone in this place, in accordance with the normal process, about why a company that has a turnover of $50 million a year suddenly deserves a tax break. Where did that number come from? Why $50 million? If the government had picked $40 million would Labor have signed up with $40 million? If they'd picked $30 million would Labor have signed up with $30 million? We've had no suggestion that this is somehow urgent. The Treasurer can't even bring himself to speak in support of that. But we do know it will have a hit to the budget.
I want us to have a debate, and to have this debate go through the usual process, about why it is that a tax cut for a $50 million turnover company is more important than lifting someone out of poverty by lifting Newstart. I want to hear from Labor and Liberal about why giving a tax cut to a $50 million company is somehow more important than lifting the minimum wage and closing the gap between the rich and everyone else in this country. I want to understand why it's more important to give money to that than to give money to schools and hospitals, because if this bill passes there will be less money available for schools and hospitals.
I suspect this motion will succeed, because there's one thing that we've learned: on economic policy, on adopting—
Mr Frydenberg: What have you got against the butcher and baker and candlestick maker?
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Treasurer would help himself if he stayed quiet.
Mr BANDT: neoliberalism, Labor and Liberal are indistinguishable. And we are going to see more of this trickle-down troika of Labor, Liberal and big business the closer we get to the election. Well, I and the Greens will stand proudly for at a more equal society. (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (12:43): The Labor Party will support this Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018 and will facilitate its passage through the House. As we indicated on Friday, the Leader of the Opposition and I, and the Labor Party, do support lower tax rates for small and medium enterprises. The government changed position and said that these tax cuts should be brought forward, and we were happy to facilitate that change of position. You wouldn't know it from the Treasurer's tweet following the announcement of the Labor Party's position. It was hardly the most constructive or welcoming or considered tweet. He said: 'You can't trust Labor when it comes to small business.'
I'd hate to see what he would have done if we'd opposed his legislation, if we'd come out and said, 'Small and medium enterprises will have the same tax rate regardless of whether you vote Labor or Liberal, but under a Shorten Labor government businesses will have access to the Australian Investment Guarantee as well, which is accelerated depreciation.'
Mr Frydenberg interjecting—
Mr BOWEN: We're trying to help you here, Treasurer. I'd hate to see what you'd do if we were being unhelpful.
Dr Chalmers: He's only got one speed!
Mr BOWEN: He's only got one speed, the old Treasurer, and it's not a very edifying one. Under a Labor government businesses will have access to the Australian Investment Guarantee, which will mean that they can write off 20 per cent of their investments in their first year, over and above existing depreciation, which is tax relief on the condition of investment. We say to Australian businesses: 'We'll work with you. We'll provide you with tax relief. We want to make that tax relief conditional on investment, when it comes to the Australian Investment Guarantee.'
The other difference between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party is that this is very much plan C for the Liberal Party, because their plan A was to give big businesses a tax cut. They're doing the small and medium-sized enterprise tax cuts only because they failed to get their big business tax cut through. Why did they fail to get them through? Because of opposition from this side of the House and, most particularly, this side of the Senate. The then Treasurer, now Prime Minister, said that this was his great economic plan. He brought down the budget and said: 'It's not like all those other budgets that treasurers like Peter Costello, Wayne Swan and Paul Keating used to bring down. This one is different. This one is a plan, unlike all those other budgets.' I'm not sure of the logic that went into that statement. But that was his big plan, his plan A, his only plan. His one-point economic plan was big business tax cuts—$17 billion to the banks, with 60 per cent of it going offshore. Having failed to get that through, they have now moved to this plan. We all know that if they ever get the opportunity to implement plan A—to return to their original intention and come back to plan A—they will do so. But, at this stage, the Labor Party and other parties have succeeded in blocking that plan.
The other key point of difference is that the government has thrown out any semblance of or attempt at fiscal credibility and any attempt at showing that they are compliant with their own budget rules. The member for Rankin and I have put in place budget rules for the Labor Party, as is our job, and we will comply with them. We don't hold the government to those budget rules. They are rules that apply to us. We just ask the government to comply with their own budget rules. That's all we ask: for the government to actually comply with what they have said is their approach to the budget. This has been a rolling farce and they can't even get their alibi straight. I grant the new Treasurer some leeway, a bit of slack, because he is new to the job. I accept that he is the third Treasurer I have faced and it will take him a bit of time to get into the swing of things. I won't hold him to account for everything he says in his first couple of days, but he came out and said, 'We don't need to offset new spending and tax reductions, because the economy is growing and we are going to pay for it out of growth.' Maybe he wasn't aware of the budget rules, which are printed in the budget papers, saying:
new spending measures will be more than offset by reductions in spending elsewhere within the budget;
the overall impact of shifts in receipts and payments due to changes in the economy will be banked as an improvement to the budget bottom line, if this impact is positive;
Then we had the finance minister come out and say that the budget rules still applied. He said, 'I don't know where all this speculation comes from.' Well, it comes from the Treasurer, who has basically thrown the rule out. Then—my personal favourite—the Prime Minister went on Insiders and said that we have rules but 'there are exceptions to the rules and the government reserves the right to exercise that discretion, but they are the rules'—that is: we have rules but we will choose when we break them! We've seen those rules broken with these tax cuts. I accept that there can be a debate about whether rule 1 applies, because it is a tax cut and not spending, but there is no debate about rule 2, that overall impacts in the shifts in receipts and payments in the economy will be banked as an improvement to the budget bottom line. Well, it is not improving the budget bottom line. It is going to these tax cuts. So the Liberal Party is exposed on the point of fiscal credibility.
Mr Wallace interjecting—
Mr Tim Wilson interjecting—
Mr BOWEN: Statler and Waldorf have woken up at the back there. TheMuppet Show act 2 is here. There they are, Statler and Waldorf, joking away. They have come alive. Welcome to The Muppet Show. It is good to see you, Statler and Waldorf. The fact of the matter is that the Labor Party's budget rules show that we will have bigger budget surpluses over the forward estimates and over the medium term as well. We can do that because of the tough decisions we have taken, including the decision we took to delay the Australian Investment Guarantee by a year—
Mr Wallace interjecting—
Mr Tim Wilson interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Rob Mitchell ): Keep going and you will have an hour to find out!
Mr BOWEN: Show no mercy, Mr Deputy Speaker! The Labor Party's fiscal rules make it very clear that we will be providing bigger budget surpluses over the forward estimates, as will be crystal clear when the member for Rankin and I outline the fiscal bottom line during the next election campaign. But it will reflect bigger budget surpluses because of the decisions we have made.
We actually think there is a problem. Without being overly alarmist about the situation, Australia is exposed. We have the second-highest household debt in the developed world. These are uncertain international economic times. The international environment is very benign at the moment, but that won't continue forever. We need to be building the policy buffers so that governments can respond to these uncertain times, and that means bigger budget surpluses than the ones we are projected to have under this government's budget.
We believe you can do that. You can provide small businesses and medium-sized enterprises with tax relief. You can make important investments in health and education, which is important for this side of the House, in particular—particularly our recent investments in schools and in preschool. You can make important social investments in things like the superannuation wellbeing of Australia's women. You can afford to do those things if you're prepared to make tough decisions, as we on this side of the House have done. But you can't do that if you're not prepared to make those tough decisions, as this government has simply failed to do.
This is the latest change in position from the government on tax. We're used to it now. We've got the now Prime Minister, who was Treasurer, who's had state income taxes, an increase in the GST, big swingeing personal income tax cuts and then smaller income tax cuts. Of course, this now Prime Minister, the then Treasurer, has not accepted and kept to one persistent and consistent economic position on tax for his entire term as either Treasurer or Prime Minister—not one, for his entire term. This is just the latest thought bubble. And we've seen plenty more thought bubbles today from this Prime Minister, who's in desperation mode about a certain coming event on Saturday—but that's a different matter for another time. It just goes to show that there is nothing consistent about this Prime Minister's approach.
We are prepared to facilitate this debate. We have said that we will facilitate the debate through this House and through the other house, because small and medium enterprises deserve the certainty to know that these tax cuts are locked in. But they deserve to know more than that. They deserve to know that an alternative government will provide them, as well as big businesses, with more tax relief through the Australian Investment Guarantee, if they agree to invest in Australia. They deserve to know there is an alternative government that is prepared to pay for it and have bigger budget surpluses.
But part of the problem is: the Prime Minister simply doesn't understand the basics of the budget. He says that tax cuts don't make the budget worse. Well, they do. They actually do increase the budget deficit or reduce the budget surplus; it's a statement of fact. We recognise that. We recognise that tax relief can be appropriate, but it has got to be part of an overall budget strategy. We actually do that by delivering on the tough decisions. The Prime Minister makes a virtue of not doing that. He makes a virtue of ignoring the fiscal reality. He is throwing money at all the political problems of the government.
Today we've seen a humiliating backdown by the Treasurer on the GST distribution. The week before last, I called for a guarantee to be written into the GST distribution legislation. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer got themselves in a lather, started hyperventilating and said it was 'unnecessary' and 'unworkable'. They said it meant we were selling out the people of Western Australia. I was told I was selling out the people of Western Australia—terrible! Terrible, it was! It was a 'calamity', the Prime Minister and the Treasurer said! We stuck to our guns. And, a couple of days later, the state and territory treasurers unanimously agreed with us. Dominic Perrottet, the Treasurer of New South Wales; Tim Pallas, the Treasurer of Victoria—all of them, Labor and Liberal, from Tasmania to Western Australia, agreed with federal Labor's position. And what has happened today? The Treasurer of Australia has agreed with that position. It's another humiliating backdown by the member for Kooyong, the Treasurer—a humiliating backdown when it comes to GST distribution. And it's a humiliating backdown by the Prime Minister. It underlines my point: there is nothing these guys will consistently stand up for and believe in. They will do what it takes from day to day.
But we, as a constructive alternative government, will facilitate the passage of this legislation and ensure that every Australian business has the same rate of tax, regardless of who wins the next election. Australian businesses will have access to the Australian Investment Guarantee under a Shorten Labor government as well.
Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (12:54): It's a great privilege to be able to stand and speak on this important piece of legislation, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018, because, at the heart of it—
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr TIM WILSON: I'm waking you up from your deep slumber from the boredom that comes from listening to the member for McMahon—the deep boredom that comes from regurgitating the whole, tired, pathetic talking points that give no weight or substance to the nature of the Commonwealth. I'm helping you, not hindering you.
It is a great privilege to get up and speak on this bill. When we think about who pays tax in this country, we think about the millions of Australians who wake up every day, get themselves out of bed, brush their teeth and feed themselves and their families breakfast, and go to work and make a stick of it. This bill is turning around to those millions of Australians and saying: 'We back you. We are going to support you. You are the foundation of our country. You are the foundation of its success. If you're prepared to have a go, we're prepared to back you every step of the way.'
We know there are millions of SMEs across the country; there are seven million people who work for them across this great nation. There are 668,000 in Victoria—millions of workers for companies of less than five million people. In the wonderful electorate of Goldstein, there are 22,117 SMEs. These are people, who, through initiative, endeavour and entrepreneurial spirit, come together to provide the opportunities for them and their families but also their fellow Australians. Because of the consequences of strong economic management by this government, by this Prime Minister, both as Prime Minister and as Treasurer, by managing the books carefully, by making sure we get people off welfare and into work—from tax consumers to tax contributors—we have been able to turn around the budget circumstance that we inherited from our political opponents. This is not just to slow the rate of growth of debt, not only to get us very close and within earshot of surplus for the first time in a decade; but it has also given us the policy flexibility to turn around to Australians and say, 'We get it. You've been doing it tough for many years, repaying the debt and deficit legacy of our political opponents'. Now is the time we turn around and say, 'We want to support you to realise your full ambition, your full capacity, to take Australia to its next wage of growth'. And that's why we're bringing the tax rate down for small and medium businesses to 25 per cent, because only people pay taxes. You can talk about companies, you can talk about international corporations or multinational corporations, you can talk about any other type of legal structure you want, but in the end there are only people who inhabit this country, and they're the ones who pay taxes.
Now, 25 per cent is a great start. I made no ambiguity throughout my political career; I would like to see it go further. Not because there are reasons of international competitiveness; although, there are. I would like to see it go much lower, because in the end that would be good for stimulating our economy and growth, but this is a fantastic start. More critically, we are able to bring it so far forward so people can have the opportunity to back themselves; they can take that extra cash and put it straight into employing more people, buying more equipment and backing themselves.
Of course, this is across a backdrop of many measures that this government has taken, where we have backed those who want to have a go. We, of course, have the $20,000 instant asset write-off, something that is used across the board in the Goldstein electorate and the nation, where people have been able to bring spending forward and invest in growing their business, their enterprise and their opportunity.
Now, of course, we see this in the Goldstein electorate every day. For example, at a simple retail business like Sports Conscious in Church Street in Brighton, Andy Stuart-Menteth has 10 employees. He said: 'The impact of this tax relief for small business creates a feeling the government actually cares about us; that incentives, investment and confidence matter. In retail small business we feel the key to success for us is providing good honest service. By incentivising our bottom line we're able to invest more in our employees to reach this goal, to serve Australians. The endowment effect in small businesses is immeasurable and all of us tend to re-invest in our businesses as a way of increasing their long-term value, but of course so they can go on and employ more people. This initiative is welcomed by someone who feels that small business is the heartbeat of everything that makes Australia a wonderful country.' Andy, good on you. You're part of making this great nation. You're part of employing the people who can then go and support themselves and their families. Andy, you're part of the future and continuing story of this great nation.
To The Owl & The Baker in Centre Road, Bentleigh: Nathan and Andrea have eight employees. Andrea said that a tax cut means she can employ an extra full-time employee. This can provide much-needed stability for other employees who work casually, placing less of a burden on them. Good on you, Andrea! Good on you, Nathan! That means, again, that you're not just backing yourselves but backing all those other people who want to have a go. It means more people are off welfare and that more people are contributing to the system and carrying the costs of our society.
Then, of course, we've got Gateaux by Marc Frissard in Hampton Street, Hampton. Marc Frissard has approximately 10 staff—Marc is the chef and owner, and Luana, or Lulu, is also an owner and the manager. There are Dylan, Kevin, Sam, Fiona, Kayla, Ashlea, Sylvian, Sancha and Kathleen. This bill backs all of them too, because they're able to get on with the job of producing the coffees and the cakes in Gateaux to meet the needs of the good people of Hampton.
So what we have in this bill is a measure that's in the best interests of this country. It has the capacity to contribute so that everybody can make their fair contribution. I say to the parliament that I'm supporting this bill because it's in our best interests as a nation, and that's why everybody else should support it too.
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin) (13:01): We on the Labor side enthusiastically support tax breaks for small business. We enthusiastically support what's being proposed in this Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018, because it means that 99 per cent of Australian businesses will get the same amount of tax relief under either side of this parliament. But in the event that Labor is elected, under a Shorten Labor government they will also get access to the Australian Investment Guarantee. When the small business people of Australia go to the polls at some point in the next six to eight months, they will do so knowing that Labor has a superior offering on small business than that of the Liberal Party, the so-called friends of small business.
When the shadow Treasurer and the Leader of the Opposition announced that Labor intended to support this bill on Friday, I happened to be at a local small business in my electorate: Rose Patisserie run by Abbas and Fatima. I was there with the state minister for state development, my friend the member for Woodridge, Cameron Dick. When we visited Rose Patisserie, at the same time as we were announcing our position, we could tell Abbas and Fatima that we are enthusiastic supporters of small business. We do understand that small business has the potential to create a number of jobs, not just in my community but, indeed, in all of the communities around Australia. If they have the potential—if they are properly supported, not just by government but by local people buying from local small and medium-sized businesses—then they have the potential to transform communities and to make an amazing contribution to the community in which they work, and in which they operate and run their businesses.
This bill will bring forward the reduction of the company tax rate for companies with income of less than $50 million. The rate will be reduced from 27½ per cent to 26 per cent, and then to 25 per cent for the year 2021-22 and ongoing. This will benefit something like 3.3 million businesses employing 6.6 million Australians. It will cost $3.2 billion over the forward estimates, and the difference over the medium term is about $10 billion.
I do think it says it all about the sorry state of those opposite that, when we announced Labor's intention on Friday to support the legislation that the government is putting forward today—having announced our intention to vote for these bills—the Treasurer's first inclination, his first reaction, was to bag the Labor Party. I think that after two months of this Treasurer and this new Prime Minister they do have a lot of form; they are obsessed with Labor and obsessed with what Labor is doing. You would think that on this occasion, having indicated our support for the small business tax breaks they're proposing, they would take a break from their usual practice of bagging the Labor Party. But they are incapable of focusing on anything other than the political ploys of the day. In that respect, small business is in many ways an afterthought for those opposite. When you read the newspapers around those couple of days where this was being announced, on the Thursday and Friday of last week and into the weekend, there were all these anonymous sources from the Liberal Party saying that what this is all about is wedging the Labor Party. It's not about looking after those 3.3 million small and medium-sized businesses. This is about wedging the Labor Party. It's all about creating a difference between the parties to take to the election. It was really quite extraordinary that creating a political difference seemed to be the highest priority of those opposite.
We are not in that caper. When this was proposed on the Thursday—when the government substantially shifted their position on the Thursday—within 24 hours we indicated our support. We convened the relevant meetings, we had the relevant consultations and discussions in our show and, within 24 hours, the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Treasurer were able to stand up and say that we enthusiastically support what is being proposed here. I think the small-business people of Australia do understand as well. In addition to the political ploy that was attempted by those opposite, I think people in small business also understand that, if the Liberal Party had their way, this money, this $3.2 billion, would be flowing instead to big business in this country, to the big banks and the foreign multinationals.
Mr Wallace: That's absolute rubbish.
Dr CHALMERS: That was their policy. Those opposite say that's rubbish. It was actually their policy. It was the policy in the budget. It's in the budget papers. Mathias Cormann actually said on Insiders that plan A was to give a big-business tax cut. It's only just dawning on those opposite that their policy for some time was to give a tax cut to big business in this country. Anyone who's wondering about the state of those opposite need only listen to this commentary from up the back. 'Nobody told us we had a big-business tax cut in the budget'. Weren't you listening? It's just absolutely incredible.
On Sunday Mathias Cormann, the finance minister, actually said that everybody knows what their plan A was. Plan A, of course, was that big-business tax cut, which would have seen $85 billion flow to the biggest businesses in this country, including $17 billion to the four big banks alone. We opposed that. We proudly opposed those tax cuts for big business and we prevailed. On this side of the House we're making a habit of winning the economic arguments. We're making a habit of winning the arguments over fairness and over responsibility. We know and the Australian people know that plan A, plan B and plan C of those opposite are to always give the biggest tax breaks to those who need them least. The difference between the two sides is that we have actually always said that, when you've got a budget in bad nick, as it is now, where debt has doubled under the life of the Liberal government, you need to be responsible with public dollars and you need to give tax breaks where they can do the most good. We've actually said that all along. We've always prioritised small business over big business, and those opposite cannot make the same claim.
As I said, within 24 hours of the government substantially shifting their position, we hadn't just said that we would support what's being proposed; we said how we would pay for it. We would make room in our alternative budget by shifting our Australian Investment Guarantee back a year so that we could afford to pay for what is being proposed here. We're now into the sixth day since the government announced this change of policy and we still haven't heard how those opposite intend to pay for it. We've been treated to this ridiculous spectacle of the finance minister of this country trying to pretend that the money for these tax breaks for small and medium-sized businesses doesn't come at a cost to the budget. It is an absurd proposition when we know it costs $3.2 billion.
I'm at great risk now because I'm about to admit to having been an avid watcher of the Pyne & Marles show—as everyone was! I was watching Pyne & Marles on Friday—we all were—and Christopher Pyne, the member for Sturt, actually said, 'Well, it costs us $3.2 billion and it's money well spent' at the same time as the finance minister was saying, 'It's not a spend; it doesn't come as a cost to the budget because it's tax forgone.' Is it any wonder that the Prime Minister of this country describes his own government as a muppet show when they can't even agree whether $3.2 billion for small and medium-sized businesses comes at a cost to the budget?
I know that's outed me as an avid watcher of Pyne & Marles, but that's what the member for Sturt said on his own show on Friday.
If on that side of the House they can't even agree as to whether this comes at a cost to the budget, is it any wonder that national debt has skyrocketed on their watch? When those opposite came to government, gross debt was $280 billion. It's now $541 billion. When they came to office, net debt was $175 billion. It's now twice that. With good global conditions, favourable economic conditions and moneys rolling through the door, they've still got debt that has doubled on their watch. When you see this bizarre spectacle, this argument about whether or not these tax breaks come at a cost to the budget, you can understand more.
As I said, small business and medium-sized business will get the same tax cuts under Labor and Liberal. Under Labor they'll also get the Australian Investment Guarantee, and under Labor those tax cuts for small and medium-sized businesses will not come at the expense of our schools and hospitals and will not see skyrocketing debt skyrocket even further. That's because our approach, for some years now, has consistently been to do three things: to make the tax system fairer, to pay down debt and to make room for the things that we, as a society, should truly value—things like preschool for three-year-olds and four-year-olds; things like proper, needs based funding for our schools; things like proper investment in the hospitals of this country. That is our approach to the budget: to make room for those things that we, as a society, truly value.
Because we've taken that responsible approach, because we've struck the best balance between fairness and responsibility, we have the capacity to give small and medium-sized businesses the tax breaks they need and deserve. We have done the work—and it's a tribute to the member for McMahon, the Leader of the Opposition and others—to make it possible for us to invest in small business; to invest in our schools, hospitals and preschools; and to do the right thing by the Australian people. Those opposite can't make the same claim.
Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (13:12): If that's Labor's way of being bipartisan in its approach, it's a very, very interesting way of showing it. I could stand here and talk about faults and criticise those opposite for the way they conduct themselves in relation to all things tax, but I won't do that, because I'm here to tell a good story. I'm here to tell about the impacts that this much-needed change will have on the small businesses in my electorate of Fisher. They've demonstrated to me time and time again just how important it is for small and medium-sized businesses to be able to pay less tax.
I have to say, I can't let this opportunity pass without commenting on the speech by the member for Melbourne, who would, it seems, enjoy nothing more than seeing Australians living in humpies under candlelight. The Greens just do not understand the concept of business, whether it be small, medium or large, and will not be happy until all businesses are driven into the ground. But that is not the approach that this government will take.
There are 18,651 small and family businesses in my electorate of Fisher. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill would bring their company tax rate down to 25 per cent five years earlier than is currently legislated. Mr Deputy Speaker, I know it will be of great interest to you that I have formed the Fisher Business Council to advise me on what our 18,000 small businesses need to succeed, and to help make Fisher the place to be for education, employment and retirement. My Fisher Business Council have helped me recognise that on the Sunshine Coast we need these tax cuts now. We had a meeting of the Fisher Business Council just last Monday night, and Michael Shadforth, who is the President of the Caloundra Chamber of Commerce, the largest chamber of commerce in Queensland, discussed with me how in his view—and I share that view—we have a growing number of businesses on the Sunshine Coast who are dynamic and on the cusp of very great things. What they need is a helping hand. What they need is a bit of a hand at the moment so that they get to keep some of their money.
Those opposite don't seem to understand. The Greens, in particular, have no concept that what we are talking about here is allowing small to medium-sized enterprises to keep more of their money. It's not my money. It's not your money, Mr Deputy Speaker. It's not Labor's money. It's not the government's money. It's their money. It's the small and medium-sized enterprises that break their back day after day, working hard, to provide for their families and their employees' families—advanced manufacturing companies like HeliMods, for example, run by Will Shrapnel. They need more revenue to invest in their capacity to export, to open up new markets and to bring much-needed overseas income into our community.
In a very different sector, growing local speech pathologist service, Chatter-boxes, owned by Kylie Martin, also have an urgent need to invest. With the NDIS coming to Fisher and the Sunshine Coast from January 2019, Kylie needs more office space to accommodate her growing number of speech pathologists, and she needs additional funds to invest in further staff who will provide other new therapeutic services. This bill will reduce their tax rate. It will reduce the tax rate for small to medium-sized enterprises and it will also reduce the tax paid by unincorporated businesses five years earlier than is currently legislated.
In this place, when we talk about small and medium-sized enterprises, we get hung up on company tax rates. Whilst that's very important, we can't forget our unincorporated businesses. I ran an unincorporated business for years, as a carpenter, as a builder and then as a barrister. We can't forget these small businesses—the microbusinesses—that, for whatever reason, don't think it's worth their time or investment to set up as a company. Those businesses will also be the beneficiaries of these tax cuts. To be able to bring those tax cuts forward by five years will be one of the outstanding accomplishments of the 45th Parliament, and I'm very proud to be part of it.
Last week I visited Maleny and spent time with Tony Gill and his partner, Jane Caraffi, at their business Art on Cairncross. Tony has big plans for the art sector on the Sunshine Coast. He has ambitions to turn the Sunshine Coast into an arts hub, and good luck to him. But, in order for him to do that, he needs to be able to pay less tax. This is a worthy goal. This is something that enables the government to say: 'You know what? We support you. We back you to the hilt. We believe in you. We want to take our hand'—the government's hand—'out of your pocket, and we want to bring that forward as soon as we possibly can.'
The Greens have a problem with that. Labor's obviously sniffed the political breeze and decided that they want to jump on board, but small businesses know that you cannot trust Labor when it comes to tax. You cannot trust them because they are just as likely to override this or turn this around if they ever get on the Treasury benches. You will pay more under Labor. You will pay more taxes. They've got $200 billion of tax stored up waiting for the Australian public. Small business, the LNP government is your support, and we will continue to back you to the hilt.
Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (13:19): In DC Comics in the 1960s there was a fictional place called Htrae which was the home of Bizarro World, a place in which everything was backwards. It feels like we are in Bizarro World today, as we look at a government behaving like an opposition and an opposition behaving like a government.
Over the course of the last five years Labor have been stable under the excellent leadership of Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, and we have been producing a suite of important economic policies that will take us to the next election as the most policy-focused opposition in a generation. We recognise that Australia faces significant challenges. While our unemployment rate is stuck at around 5½ per cent, countries like Germany and the United States have unemployment rates now below four per cent. If we had their unemployment rates, hundreds of thousands more Australians would have jobs.
Australia has a wage problem, with real wages essentially flatlining over the course of the last five years. Productivity growth has continued at a solid clip—not the racing pace of the 1990s, but we've had productivity growth. Yet it hasn't flowed through to workers. Australia has a 'real wage under-hang' in which workers haven't shared in productivity gains. We have challenges of the diversity of our industries, with the Harvard Atlas of Economic Complexity ranking Australia surprisingly low, in terms of the diversity of what we can do. We need better investment in research and development and skills in order to boost that.
As Jim Chalmers, the member for Rankin, has repeatedly pointed out, Australia faces the challenge of government debt. It's rising now at a more rapid pace than it did under the global financial crisis, when Australia took on debt to save 200,000 jobs and tens of thousands of small businesses. There was a time when we needed to take on debt. It is a tribute to the member for Lilley and the Rudd and Gillard governments, the work that was done in order to save the Australian economy from recession a decade ago. Yet now here we are, a decade on from the crisis, and debt per person in gross terms has gone to over $20,000 a person. Even in net terms, every man, woman and child in Australia has next to their name net government debt of more than $14,000.
Labor will support this bill today. We will support the small and medium-sized business company tax cut. But we'll go further than simply backing in the government. We will show how to pay for it. We'll do that by delaying for a year the introduction of the Australian Investment Guarantee. That is a policy which allows more rapid write-off of assets for firms, large and small, making investments over $20,000. The Australian Investment Guarantee is very good policy. Analysis by Victoria University suggests that it gets three times the bang for buck that a large corporate tax cut delivers. Labor's policy is grounded in the research that's been done overseas, looking at the value of immediate expensing to the US economy. Indeed, those commentators who have looked at the impact of the tax reforms that have passed the US Congress under President Donald Trump suggest that most of the benefit of that comes from the immediate expensing measure.
Labor is committed to the Australian Investment Guarantee just as we are committed to the instant asset write-off for small firms. We've supported the government's reinstatement of that instant asset write-off. But we're willing to defer that Australian Investment Guarantee measure by a year—because we are the party of fiscal responsibility. We are the party that recognises that you can't simply wave your arms around and say that you've got fiscal rules and say 'economic growth will cover it all' in the way that Treasurer Frydenberg has attempted to do. Labor also has a strong story for supporting small business. I will take the House to a handful of the measures supported by Labor, but not yet supported by the coalition, that will benefit small business. These are measures that have been championed by the member for McMahon and the member for Brand as the newly appointed shadow minister for small business.
Labor will ensure that independent mechanics have access to the data they need to fix modern cars. They would get that data on commercially fair and reasonable terms in a way that's been recommended by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Most Australian mechanics are independent mechanics, but without getting access to the data they need to fix modern cars they will go to the wall. Labor is committed to giving them access to that data. The coalition is committed to a process which may, some time down the line, produce a result for independent mechanics. It's just not good enough.
Labor is committed to a mandatory code for auto dealers, to assist them with the power imbalance they face with the large multinational manufacturers. We've seen too many instances in which the small and family-owned businesses that sell new cars find themselves over a barrel in their dealing with multinational manufacturers. Again, this is an issue to which the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has given careful scrutiny. It's based on that that I committed Labor, at the conference of the AADA, to a mandatory code that would govern their dealings with multinational manufacturers. I pay tribute to Milton Dick, the member for Oxley, for his championing of the cause of independent auto dealers.
Labor is committed to a mandatory code governing the relationship between dairy farmers and milk processors. We recognise the power imbalance in that situation, most egregiously demonstrated—as the member for Hunter has pointed out—when Murray Goulburn retrospectively asked farmers to pay money back. We're committed to that mandatory code to benefit that sector of the small-business community.
Labor believes that the ACCC should have a market studies power so that, of its own volition, it can use investigatory powers to explore anticompetitive conduct in any industry where it sees small business getting a raw deal.
We're committed to a policy of access to justice in which small businesses could go to the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and seek a no-adverse-costs order at the outset. Then they'd be able to take on the big end of town, knowing that, if they lost, they'd pay their own legal costs, but they wouldn't have to pay the bill of the sharp-suited QCs on the other side. They wouldn't have to potentially face bankruptcy for taking on the big end of town for anticompetitive conduct. I pay tribute to Michelle Rowland, the member for Greenway, for her work in putting together Labor's access-to-justice policy prior to the last election. It is a policy that enjoys the support of the Senate. The Senate has committed to Labor's access-to-justice policy. If only the government would allow it to be listed in the House, small businesses could get that access-to-justice policy, backed by Kate Carnell, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman.
But the coalition only really have a one-point economic plan for boosting growth in Australia. They are still, in their heart of hearts, committed to a big-business company tax cut—a big-business company tax cut which would send $3 out of every $5 offshore, a big-business company tax cut that would reward the big banks, who are facing a royal commission into their unprecedented scandals, with $17 billion in company tax cuts.
Labor haven't supported that big-business company tax cut, and we will not support that big-business company tax cut. We simply believe the economics don't stack up.
If you needed any more proof that we are in Bizarro World, we are seeing from former Treasurer Costello a critique of the Liberals' approach to tax reform. He said at the 2018 Economic and Social Outlook Conference:
I can promise you anything for 2026. The one thing they know is that they are not going to be in government in 2026.
It may be Bizarro World, but I'm sure many Australians are relieved to hear Peter Costello firmly predicting the demise of the coalition before 2026. I think many Australians would welcome that moment coming even today. If the Prime Minister were to hop in the car, drive down to Government House and call an election, it wouldn't just be those on this side of the House who'd be pleased. Many Australians would say, 'It's about time that this Bizarro World was sent on its way.'
Labor believes that we should close multinational tax loopholes. We're committed to closing the debt deduction loophole that currently sees multinationals able to ship money offshore to foreign subsidiaries. We believe in improving tax transparency by requiring large private firms with over $100 million turnover to be brought within the tax transparency net.
We're committed to a beneficial ownership registry so we can find out who really owns Australian firms. Labor believes that, when it comes to tax havens, if you're doing business in a tax haven, you should have to disclose to shareholders as a material tax risk those dealings.
We believe that, if you want to be tendering for government work over $200,000, you should disclose your country of tax domicile, because Australians should know where a company is domiciled if it's attempting to tender for government work. Only Labor can be trusted to get tough on tax havens. Only Labor can be trusted to crack down on multinational profit shifting.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
Makin Electorate: Tea Tree Gully Football Club
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (13:30): Last month, Tea Tree Gully Football Club won the division 1 seniors SA Football Association grand final, defeating Rostrevor Old Collegians. The win was dedicated to teammate Jon Birkin, who sadly died last December. Tea Tree Gully has a long history of successes, with many premierships over the years, across all age groups in a range of divisions, and now including women's football. The club has also been the breeding ground of many young footballers who have gone on to play in state and national football. I congratulate the players, who played superbly on the day, the coach, Justin Maschotta, and the club management, led by John Curley.
The win will likely attract more players to Tea Tree Gully, which is already bursting at the seams with over 500 junior players. It will raise pressures on the club to improve facilities, for which the club will need assistance from state, local and federal governments. Tea Tree Gully is a model sport and social club typical of so many others around Australia that make an enormous social welfare contribution to their local communities. I commend and thank the club for its service to the north-east of Adelaide for over 150 years.
Groom Electorate: Veterans
Dr McVEIGH (Groom) (13:31): Veterans are a very important part of the Groom electorate community—the Swartz Barracks, at Oakey Army Aviation Training Centre; Borneo Barracks at Cabarlah, north of Toowoomba; the RSLs in the electorate; and of course our proud military history, most particularly in Milne Bay, that Milne Bay campaign all those years ago. It was therefore very relevant and important to have a visit from the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Darren Chester. In the electorate just a few weekends ago, on a Sunday afternoon, we were able to catch up with the mayor, Paul Antonio, and Councillor Geoff McDonald, in relation to the future Soldier's Memorial Hall, to talk to the RSL sub-branch about that hall, and to catch up with various veterans' affairs representative groups in the community, even to talk to those concerned about a DHA development at Mount Lofty.
It was most enjoyable indeed to catch up with the Invictus competitor in archery, Mr Stephen Osborne. Medically discharged in 1999 from the Australian regular Army, Stephen is an Invictus competitor in the field of archery, which has been very important to his rehabilitation. To see the pride, the joy and the optimism of Stephen and his lovely wife, Wendy-Leigh, was certainly something to behold.
Gone Fishing Day
Mr GOSLING (Solomon) (13:33): On Sunday, before jumping on a plane to come down here, I attended Gone Fishing Day. Gone Fishing Day was held at the Darwin waterfront this year. Well done to AFANT, the Amateur Fishermen's Association of the Northern Territory, and to the Northern Territory government, which supported the event, and to the local fishing clubs. And well done to all the stallholders, but in particular, Darwin Game Fishing Club, Palmerston Game Fishing Club and Darwin Flyrodders. It was a fantastic opportunity for members of the public to have a go at the fishing clinics, for the kids to do some colouring in and just really have a bit of an entry into fishing.
Fishing is a wonderful part of the Northern Territory lifestyle. Even more than that, it's a great part of the Australian dream to be able to get out with your family and your mates and throw a line in. It's good for mental health but it's also good for our community. I really think that recreational fishing is important for our community. It's also good for tourism. Gone Fishing Day this year got off to a great start in that a local from Kakadu, Matt Rawlinson caught the first $10,000 fish and this season's million dollar fish. It's season 4 now. Well done to Matt. There are five $1 million fish out there to be caught. So come up to the Northern Territory.
Bonner Electorate: Lota House
Mr VASTA (Bonner) (13:34): A proposed aged-care development in Lota has united my Bayside constituents like few other issues. I phone-canvassed the area and stopped by the local Manly markets recently and the No.1 issue for locals by far was the proposed Lota House development. Lota House is a significant two-storey Queensland Heritage building that was constructed in the late 1800s. It's surrounded by heritage listed woodland. Now there's a development application in place to build three, and eventually seven, seven-storey high-rise retirement facilities on this heritage site. A development of this height and size is simply incompatible with existing development in Lota. It will present a traffic nightmare for surrounding residents and there are also adverse historical and environmental impacts on the area to consider. Every local I've spoken to about the proposal has raised these objections with me. Now they've started the Bayside Action Group to come out in force against it. It was great to meet with them last week at the site and see people power in action. It's a testament to people power that the lord mayor has said that the Brisbane City Council is very concerned about the proposal. I've written to the Minister for State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning, the Honourable Cameron Dick, on this matter. I've asked the minister to reject the current development application and asked him to ask the applicants to reconsider the development. (Time expired)
Skilled Agricultural Workforce
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (13:36): The Liberal-National government is hopeless. Another demonstration of how hopeless they are is their lack of planning when it comes to having a skilled agricultural workforce. We saw the debacle start to roll out last week. The National Party was saying, 'Yes, mates. It's all good. There will be an agricultural visa—a visa that's dedicated to ag,' and started to brief out about it, only to be whacked down by the Prime Minister, who said, 'That's not appropriate. Instead, we're going to force kids to work for the dole and pick fruit'—a proposal that has been condemned by farmers all round Australia. We have to point out again that the government created this current crisis when they messed around with backpackers. They introduced the backpacker tax, which scared a lot of people off working on farms. Not only did they do that; they expanded where you can work the 88 days to get the second-year visa. So they basically said to young backpackers in this country, 'You no longer work in agriculture to qualify for the extra year. You can work in hospitality; you can work in the tourism sector.' If you're a young backpacker who's here working in social work or in a school and you have to do 88 days in one of these locations, what are you going to choose? They're choosing to work in pubs in Cairns; they're choosing to work in hospitality. They are not choosing to work in harvest to help our farmers.
Fairfax Electorate: Cotton Tree Cenotaph
Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (13:37): As we approach Remembrance Day 2018, I wish to congratulate the government, together with Dr Brendan Nelson, the Australian War Memorial, the local councils, the not-for-profit groups, including the RSL and Legacy, and our veterans, their families and descendants around the country who have made the Centenary of Anzac not only a commemoration of great courage and sacrifice but also a fitting tribute to the spirit of freedom that burns hot in the hearts of Australians today, as it did for that generation a century ago. I was recently invited by the Maroochy RSL to inspect progress on the construction of the eternal flame—the memorial that will sit at the Cotton Tree cenotaph in Maroochydore. As part of the Armistice Centenary Grants Program, the Commonwealth has provided over $37,000 towards the development of that eternal flame for the Sunshine Coast to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the day that the guns fell silent on the Western Front. This is money well spent, not to glorify war but to ensure that future generations never forget the tragedy and the terrible high price paid for the freedom we enjoy today.
Kennedy Electorate: Diabetes
Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (13:39): Of all deaths, 2.3 per cent are attributable to diabetes. There should be four diabetes deaths amongst the people living in the Torres Strait and Cape York, and in the Aboriginal communities of the Gulf; there have been 18 in a period of four years. The real number of deaths over four years is around 100. Because these people get sick with diabetes, they go to live in Cairns and Townsville and are not registered when dying there.
So 100 people are dying from diabetes who weren't dying previously, because the incoming Labor government in Queensland closed down the market gardens on 28 communities. The Liberal government then banned all backyard gardens in the Torres Strait, so the people had all of their fresh fruit and vegetables removed. They do not have the money to buy the fresh fruit and vegetables because they're now all on welfare, and by the time the fresh fruit and vegetables get into the Gulf country—to Cape York and the Torres Strait—they are not fresh. On Warraber Island, seven per cent of the supermarket is rice: a Third World country! People are dying who do not have to die. I call upon the government to restore the market gardens— (Time expired)
Wide Bay Electorate: Maryborough Special School
Mr LLEW O'BRIEN (Wide Bay) (13:41): Last Wednesday, I was pleased to visit the Maryborough Special School with the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Darren Chester, to pay tribute to the students and teachers who produced the Stand Proud—Lost Heroes photographic portrait and student portrait exhibition. The students can be proud of their efforts which have been recognised through the national Anzac Day Schools' Award for the best local history research project.
The heroes project took six months to complete. The students, under the guidance of senior arts teacher, Rose Wright, researched the contributions of World War I Defence personnel and went on a tour through Maryborough to help them understand how the regional was involved in the Anzac story. The students told the stories of the soldiers from the region, thereby creating a living connection between the past and the present. The students also produced a number of framed portraits of the soldiers, and these were exhibited at Gatakers Artspace.
When I visited the school, I was presented with the portraits of Henry Harvey, Otto Schafer, James Rose and Frederick Kelly. In recognition of the students' work, and to respect and honour the service of the Anzacs, these portraits will be on display in my office in Parliament House.
Canberra Electorate: National Broadband Network
Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (13:41): I was recently contacted by Elliot, a member of my community who works in the IT industry, about the NBN in his apartment block. Elliot moved into a new apartment block in Coombs and contacted me, he said, after he had exhausted all other options. His building hasn't had any form of internet for months; he has been without the internet for months. Despite the fact that Elliot's building has been fitted with the devices needed to connect to the NBN, there is still no connection date in sight for this building. Think about it, Mr Deputy Speaker: thousands of dollars of boxes fitted beside this apartment block and doing absolutely nothing. And here is the kicker: NBN Co didn't know and had no record that these devices had actually been installed!
Elliot told me that NBN Co have been completely inconsistent and unprofessional in their requests. They have even requested photos of their own equipment on the property, as they had no record of ever installing anything on the premises. What is so appalling about this is that Elliot has been forced to stop work, as the costs of hotspotting with his phone have become too much. This is a small business owner in my community who has been forced to stop work because of the dysfunctional NBN rollout.
I fought tirelessly to get Canberra, our nation's capital, on the rollout map, and now this is what we're getting—a second-rate service. Prioritise the NBN in Canberra.
Flynn Electorate: Mining
Mr O'DOWD (Flynn—Deputy Nationals Whip) (13:44): In my electorate of Flynn, coal equals jobs and jobs equal growth. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change figures continue to show strong demand for high-quality Australian coal. We are seeing coal reclaim its place as a top exporter for Australia. It bypasses iron ore exports, which have been going well since 2010. But now coal is back on top. This is a great help to the Queensland budget and also to the New South Wales budget, which both reap huge royalties from this commodity.
The coal industry is a solid, dependable industry. Why aren't our four big banks and other banks supporting our strong, reliable coal industry? Are they taking the Greens' stance? Is that the answer? It's also providing many jobs in Flynn, and those people who work in the coal industry bank their money with these banks. The National Bank has arguably taken the strongest position in moving away from coal. Banks are happy to take wages from miners and staff of small businesses who rely on the coal industry but are not prepared to support the industry. The comments made by Westpac are nonsense. The banks are not supporting the coal industry. They're not supporting our economy, and they ought to have a good look at themselves.
'Girls Take Over Parliament' Program
Mr GORMAN (Perth) (13:45): On 11 October I participated in the Jasiri Australia and Girl Guides 'Girls take over Parliament' program with Amber Micale. As a result, last Thursday, Amber, in her capacity as the acting member for Perth, helped me write the following words for me to deliver on her behalf. Amber says:
The Girls Take Over Parliament program gives girls the chance to shadow a parliamentarian in order to learn about the parliament.
In Western Australia the program was expertly coordinated by Hannah Woodard from WA Girl Guides.
The Guides have a goal of empowering young women.
There is a new world coming and we need to prepare women and young girls to be part of it.
Empowering women to become parliamentarians is important because we need 50 per cent of our parliamentarians if we are to reflect 50 per cent of Australia.
Currently we only have 29 per cent of this House represented by women.
If we want to empower young Australian women we need to teach them from a young age they CAN do it—
Amber says—
When I was younger, my mum taught me that I can be the change I want to see in the world.
My mum Shelley is an inspiration to me.
She works closely with victims of domestic violence and homeless young people.
This has encouraged me to speak out on these important policy changes through the Girls Take Over Parliament Program.
Congratulations to Amber, Jasiri Australia and Girl Guides Australia.
HMAS Tobruk
Mr PITT (Hinkler) (13:47): On the weekend Minister Leeanne Enoch from the Queensland Labor government announced that HMAS Tobruk would remain on her side in 30 metres of water and that no attempt would be made to right her. However, it didn't take her long to sink in the slipper to me and the member for Burnett. There are serious questions to answer here. This is not about the quality of the dive. It's not about the standard of the dive. It is not about the ability of experienced divers to enter the ship. This is about transparency of ratepayers' money and taxpayers' money. If Minister Enoch has nothing to hide then she should open the books.
We negotiated $2 million of ratepayers' money from the Bundaberg Regional Council and Fraser Coast Regional Council to contribute to this project. If the Queensland Labor government has taken a refund, if it has claimed insurance, if it has not paid the full amount then it should say so, so these people can demand a refund. It is up to us. If the Queensland mayors of Bundaberg and Fraser Coast will not fight for ratepayers then I and the member for Burnett will do the job for them.
This is about transparency. We know the Queensland government are not big on that, but this is $2 million of ratepayers' money, and we demand answers from Minister Enoch. If you've got nothing to hide, open your books. If you've got nothing to hide, tell us what was spent and where. If you have nothing to hide, demonstrate you haven't claimed insurance and you haven't reduced the amount of payment. It is in our interest to find out.
Timor-Leste
Mr BRIAN MITCHELL (Lyons) (13:48): Today marks the 43rd anniversary of the murders of two Australian, two British and one New Zealand journalist in the town of Balibo in the early days of Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. Reporter Greg Shackleton, camera operator Garry Cunningham, sound recordist Tony Stewart, reporter Malcolm Rennie and camera operator Brian Peters, now known collectively as the Balibo Five, had been covering the imminent invasion for Australia's Seven and Nine networks when they were shot and killed by Indonesian military forces. I also mark the death of Australian journalist Roger East, murdered by the Indonesian military in Dili on 8 December of the same year, who had travelled to Indonesia to investigate the deaths of the five journalists. In 2007, an Australian coroner ruled the Balibo Five had been deliberately killed by Indonesian special forces troops. Indonesia's official story is they died in crossfire.
We are friends with Indonesia. We share bonds forged in blood, having marked, just four days ago, the 16th anniversary of the Bali bombings. As friends of Indonesia, it is my great hope that one day we can come to a shared and mutually agreed understanding of precisely what happened in Balibo on 16 October 1975. The family, the friends and the colleagues of those young men deserve that, at the very least.
Barker Electorate
Mr PASIN (Barker) (13:50): Last Saturday I had the pleasure of hosting the Prime Minister in my electorate of Barker. This is the third time he has visited Murray Bridge, first as immigration minister, then last year as Treasurer and most recently as Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister knows, the Murraylands punches well above its weight when it comes to very impressive businesses owned and operated in the region, supporting our local regional economy. Many of these are agricultural businesses or food manufacturing businesses, and these sectors present some exciting opportunities for growth.
This government's tax cuts are helping the businesses grow and employ in the region. But, like many businesses all over the country, workforce shortages are often holding back investment decisions, particularly in the horticultural and agricultural sectors. That is why on Saturday it was great to hear the Prime Minister announce action to back small and medium businesses in the region, taking an important first step in addressing these workforce shortages. The Prime Minister visited local business Aquasun, a family owned and run small business growing tomatoes in Murray Bridge. He also met with some of the region's biggest employers, officially opened my new office in Murray Bridge and enjoyed a beer at the Murray Bridge Hotel, where we got a chance to chat to locals. Thank you, Prime Minister, for the visit. Thank you to all in Murray Bridge who participated in the visit. It was a great weekend.
Intersex Awareness Day
Mr PERRETT (Moreton—Opposition Whip) (13:51): Friday, 26 October is Intersex Awareness Day. Intersex Australians are people whose biological sex characteristics at birth are not typically male or female. These people make up the 'I' in LBGTIQ. Most Australians do not hear of these people and have little understanding about them, yet being born with intersex characteristics is as common as being born with red hair. Too often intersex Australians are invisible. As a co-convener of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for LGBTIQ Australians, along with my co-conveners the member for Leichhardt and Senator Rice, I am hosting a delegation from the intersex community in Parliament House today. I acknowledge Morgan and the rest of the delegation in the gallery and welcome them to Parliament House. They will be meeting with many politicians from all parties to raise awareness of issues of concern for their community.
The Australian Human Rights Commission is currently conducting a project that will consider how best to protect the rights of people born with variations in sex characteristics and non-consensual medical interventions. Intersex Australians just want the same rights as all other Australians—bodily autonomy, self-determination and legal recognition. It is important that, as leaders, we have these conversations about the rights of all Australians, including intersex Australians. Next Friday, on Intersex Awareness Day this year, instead of being invisible, let's make sure intersex Australians are seen and heard and are proud to be citizens of Australia.
Death Penalty
Mr ZIMMERMAN (North Sydney) (13:52): Forty-four years ago this parliament passed legislation to abolish the death penalty for federal or territory offences, and it is 51 years since the last person in Australia was executed under state laws. While these reforms are longstanding domestically, we can now be even prouder of Australia's global role in campaigning for the abolition of what is fundamentally a scourge on any justice system that purports to use that name.
This week, parliamentarians from all sides of this place joined civil society groups to participate in the launch of Australia's new strategy for the global abolition of the death penalty. My opposition to the death penalty is founded on the view that the state should never take the lives of its own citizens. The death penalty is irrevocable, and any miscarriage of justice simply cannot be rectified. In the United States, for example, it is estimated that four per cent of Americans facing death row have subsequently been found to be innocent. As the foreign minister pointed out this week, it is used disproportionately on the poor, on minority groups and on people with mental disabilities. With this new strategy, Australia will continue to be a leading global voice for the end of the death penalty. It is never a fruitless cause, and I am very pleased that just last week Malaysia announced it would remove the death penalty from its own judicial system. I congratulate the foreign minister and her predecessor, the member for Curtin, along with Senator Dean Smith and the member for Fowler for their work on an issue I believe rightly unites us all.
Morrison Government
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (13:54): I would like to join my sentiments to those of the member for North Sydney and thank him for his contribution. It has been three weeks, but the Prime Minister's self-proclaimed muppet show is back in full swing in Canberra today. In those three weeks, Australians have had a good look at the front bench of this government. They have been appalled to see that the member for Fadden, who was forced to resign as the Minister for Human Services over a private trip to Beijing to oversee a mining deal involving a Liberal donor, which demonstrated that he doesn't understand the ministerial standards, has come back to the front bench, this time as the Assistant Treasurer.
That puts this man in charge of our country's life savings, our superannuation. That puts this man, who, as we've seen across the last three weeks, can't keep track of his internet bills, in charge of our life savings. This man is going to make a decision about the payday-lending situation for Australians. He is going to be responsible for our life savings, but he cannot be trusted to act appropriately with an internet connection—although he has a masters, apparently, in IT.
The muppet show continues in this place. I call on this government to sort itself out, fix up who's sitting where and who's responsible for what and act responsibly.
Forde Electorate: Beenleigh State High School
Mr VAN MANEN (Forde—Government Whip) (13:55): I rise to congratulate a great school in my electorate of Forde for its outstanding educational and training activities. Beenleigh State High School, led by principal Matt O'Hanlon, has amongst its many subject departments a hospitality and agricultural department. Not far from the classrooms, you'll see the school's farm, with show chooks, laying hens, pigs, sheep, around 40 Droughtmaster cattle and some goats.
The highlight of the school year for the hospitality and agricultural students has become the Paddock to Plate luncheon. Just in case you're not sure, when they say 'Paddock to Plate', that's exactly what it means. The school supplied its own beef, pork, lamb, honey, strawberries and kransky sausages, from Gotzinger Smallgoods, for this year's menu. Paddock to Plate is an outstanding team effort led by the head of both hospitality and agriculture, Peta Lenane.
They provide a level of education that is unrivalled in this space across Queensland, and not only for Paddock to Plate. A number of their students also recently went to China to study at one of the leading hotels in China. I want to applaud Beenleigh State High School, all the students, the principal and all the teachers involved for the great work that they do in hosting some 200 local businesspeople and community representatives, showcasing the best of what Beenleigh State High School, in our region, has to produce.
Racism
Dr ALY (Cowan) (13:57): It is not okay to adopt white supremacist neo-Nazi mantras in this parliament. It is not okay for 23 members of the Morrison government to endorse white supremacism in this parliament. Those opposite either are too lazy or just don't have the nous to actually research what the phrase 'it's okay to be white' means, so I did it for them, because I'm that kind of gal.
The slogan was spread by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, including the Ku Klux Klan's David Duke. It was used in 2001 in the title of a song by the white-power music group Aggressive Force. It has been used in fliers since 2005 and by Klan groups on Twitter since 2012. And it was used in a poster campaign to convert white Americans to the far right. Earlier this year, my office received one of those posters. It wasn't a nice little gesture of solidarity against racism, which is probably how this Attorney-General would have interpreted it; it was a targeted and sinister message.
Instead of joining Labor to condemn this silly motion and what can only be described as another 'look at me' stunt by Pauline Hanson and One Nation, the leaders in this government instead issued a mealy-mouthed statement because they're embarrassed by their own muppet show that continues to let down Australians and fails to represent a modern multicultural Australia.
The SPEAKER: The member for Cowan will resume her seat.
Deakin Electorate: Scouts and Guides
Mr SUKKAR (Deakin) (13:59): On a lighter note, one of the great institutions for young people in this country is the Australian Scouting movement, which of course includes Guides. In my electorate of Deakin there are a number of outstanding local Scout and Guide groups. I want to recognise some of them today. They include 1st Croydon Hills; 3rd Croydon; 2nd Maroondah; 3rd Ringwood East; 4th Ringwood; 7th Ringwood; Croydon Central, which is quite a large group; 1st Heathmont; 3rd Heathmont; 1st Heatherdale; 1st Mitcham; 1st Nunawading; 1st Vermont; 1st Forest Hill; 1st Tunstall; 2nd Mitcham; 2nd Vermont; 1st Mooroolbark; 1st Maroondah; and the Croydon West Guides.
The Scouting movement have done a phenomenal job over many years maintaining and upgrading their own facilities, but this government has sought to assist them in upgrading their scout halls. A few examples from the Deakin electorate—
The SPEAKER: Order! It being 2 pm, the member for Deakin will resume his seat. In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:00): The Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel will be absent from question time until 3 pm, and the Minister for Defence will answer questions on his behalf.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Liberal Party Leadership
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:00): My question is to the Prime Minister. The Liberal candidate for Wentworth said yesterday that he was appalled at the treatment that was meted out to Malcolm Turnbull. Does the Prime Minister agree that the way that he and his government treated Malcolm Turnbull was 'appalling'? When will the Prime Minister tell the voters in Wentworth why Malcolm Turnbull isn't still the Prime Minister of Australia?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:00): I thank the member for his question—
Mr Champion: You can make up some more foreign policy.
Mr MORRISON: as we've dealt with this matter before in previous question times. At the Wentworth by-election, the electors of Wentworth will have a choice before them.
Mr Champion interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield!
Mr MORRISON: They can support Dave Sharma—
Mr Champion: How about spinning the chocolate wheel on foreign policy?
The SPEAKER: The member for Wakefield is warned.
Mr MORRISON: the Liberal candidate for Wentworth, the candidate that is standing up for 29,000 small businesses in Wentworth. Over 60,000 taxpayers will be paying less tax as a result of the policies our government has had legislated and taken through this parliament. It is our government, first elected in 2013, our government, re-elected in 2016, that has been delivering the strong economic management that is ensuring that more than a million Australians have got jobs. More than 100,000 young Australians have got jobs in the last 12 months alone. That is the economic record of our government, and all of that—the certainty and the stability that are required to ensure that our economy can remain strong and we can guarantee the essential services Australians rely on—is what Australians in Wentworth can vote for this Saturday. And that would ensure the continued stability of our economy and the strength that Australians rely on for the services that they seek guarantees on.
Economy
Mr VASTA (Bonner) (14:02): My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on how the government's actions to keep taxes low are working to keep our economy strong? What are the risks and what is at stake by adopting an alternative approach?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:02): I thank the member for Bonner, who I have stood with on numerous occasions where we've stood together and stood up for small and family businesses in his electorate, as I have with members right across this chamber on our side of the House.
We believe that small and family businesses are the backbone of our economy. That's what we believe. And that's why we have acted to reduce the taxes of small and medium- and family-sized businesses right across the country. It is true that, on every occasion we have sought to do that, the Labor Party have opposed us. When we said that we wanted to broaden the definition of a small business from $2 million to $10 million, the Labor Party opposed us. When we said we wanted businesses of less than $10 million and more than $2 million to have access to the instant asset write-off, other small business tax concessions and pooled depreciation, the Labor Party opposed us. In fact, they even opposed the Henry report, under their own government, which said they should have lifted it to $5 million. The Labor Party opposed it.
When we said we wanted to have taxes fall to 27½ cents in the dollar for all businesses up to $50 million, the Labor Party opposed us. When we said we wanted all businesses under $50 million to have their taxes go down to 25 cents in the dollar, the Labor Party opposed us. On every single occasion we have sought to do this, they have opposed us because they do not believe that small and family businesses are the backbone of our nation's economy. They may be shamed and embarrassed and dragged kicking and screaming to now supporting the bill that was introduced by the Treasurer today to fast-track those tax cuts for small and family businesses to 25 cents in the dollar, but I know this: they're still going to hit small and family businesses with higher taxes. That's what they'll do. They've got $200 billion and more in higher taxes. There's $70 billion and more in higher personal income taxes. What they don't seem to understand is: if you're an unincorporated business, you pay off the personal income tax rate, and they're putting that up for small and unincorporated family businesses.
Mr Pasin interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Barker!
Mr MORRISON: There's $25 billion in higher taxes on their family trust package—
Mr Pasin interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Barker is warned!
Mr MORRISON: which is hitting family businesses. There's almost $46 billion in higher taxes to remove the dividend imputation credits that are used by small businesses during times of weak cash flow and low profitability, and they invest in those shares to support their businesses—that's another $5 billion a year going on the back of Australians accessing those credits. They're increasing the taxes on small businesses' and family businesses' superannuation contributions. They're increasing their taxes on housing. (Time expired)
Racism
Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (14:05): My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister honestly expecting Australians to believe that an administrative error was to blame for the government supporting a motion which used a white supremacist slogan, when it knew of the motion in September and directed its senators to vote for it yesterday? Cabinet ministers then tweeted in support of the motion last night. And today the government refused to allow this House to debate and reject it. Is this what the Prime Minister meant when he called his own government the 'muppet show'?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:06): I always expect the Labor Party to play politics with serious issues. That's what I expect.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members on my left!
Mr MORRISON: These are serious issues. The Leader of the Government in the Senate has made a statement to the Senate, and I'm pleased to table that for the information of members. And, Mr Speaker, I refer the matter to the Attorney-General.
Mr PORTER (Pearce—Attorney-General) (14:06): I thank the Prime Minister, and, for members opposite, I will give them the explanation that they seek. There are about 50 or 60 Senate motions that can be generated in any given sitting week. A great many are transmitted to my office—
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The Attorney-General will resume his seat.
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members on my left will cease interjecting. They expect me to hear the answer so I can rule on points of order. If members keep interjecting, I will deal with them in the normal way.
Mr PORTER: What appears to have occurred on this occasion is that an email advising an approach on the motion did go out from my office. It went out without my knowledge. That appears to have happened because of the large number of motions on which my office's views are routinely sought. This one was not escalated to me because it was interpreted in my office as a motion opposing racism. The associations of the language in the second part of the motion were not picked up. The fact is that the relevant email or motion—
Opposition members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members on my left!
Mr PORTER: was not seen by me. As Minister Cormann noted, that was an error. And that is an error which includes substantial error on the part of me and my office. That obviously put my Senate colleagues and Senator Ruston in a very difficult situation. I take full responsibility for that deficient process in my office.
To the extent that the tweet was in any way interpreted to support the motion, that's not what was meant by the tweet. The tweet said that our senators deplore racism of any kind. It was meant to support Senator Ruston's statement that she and the government condemn all forms of racism. So I simply want to say that the criticism of me and my office is a completely fair cop, and I accept and apologise for the process in my office.
I use the language 'fair cop' because that is precisely the language the Leader of the Opposition wisely used when he was criticised about a year ago for producing a full political television ad meant for the Queensland market with an all-white cast under the banner of 'Australians first'—
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Member for Isaacs!
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Isaacs is warned!
Mr PORTER: People might recall that the shadow Treasurer called that appalling—
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Isaacs is warned!
Mr PORTER: The member for Grayndler called that a shocker. The Leader of the Opposition will recall his explanation that, although the final ad was cleared through his office, he'd not seen the final product, and he said, 'That was a bad oversight that won't happen again.' So it's very interesting that the Labor leader is unwilling to accept an admission of a bad oversight on the part of my office with respect to an email, but an entire TV commercial went out of his office, starring him, which he says that he never saw, and we're meant to accept that.
Economy
Mrs MARINO (Forrest—Chief Government Whip) (14:09): My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on how the government's strong economic management, including providing tax relief for small and medium businesses, is delivering for all Australians, including in my electorate of Forrest? What are the risks and what is at stake from an alternative plan?
Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—The Treasurer) (14:09): I thank the member for Forrest for her question about the economy, because we don't get any from those opposite. The member for Forrest works hard for the people from Bunbury to Busselton, down to Margaret River, for the people of the vineyards, for the people on the dairy farms, and she is working hard to support the tourism operators across her electorate, like many on this side of the House. We have brought into the House a bill that will reduce the taxes for around three million Australian businesses that employ some seven million people. Our legislation will provide tax relief to these businesses five years earlier than first anticipated. So, when you go and see the butcher or the baker, the florist or the fishmonger, the cafe or the chemist, you can tell them that the Morrison government is reducing their taxes.
This builds on the legislation, which passed the parliament only a few weeks ago, to extend the $20,000 instant asset write-off for another year. As the former Treasurer, now Prime Minister, knows, in the most recent data the instant asset write-off was used by some 300,000 Australian businesses. That is what is happening out there in the real world, in the economy, as a result of the measures that this side of parliament has taken.
I'm asked if there are any risks to this approach? We know that the Leader of the Opposition has a five-point plan to increase your taxes: increasing taxes on your income, increasing taxes on your business, increasing taxes on your property, increasing taxes on your savings and increasing taxes on your electricity bill. That is the Labor Party's five-point plan. When it comes to small businesses, the Leader of the Opposition has had four different positions. His first position was to support tax relief only for businesses up to $2 million. Then he went to CEDA in June and said he was going to repeal the tax relief for those businesses with a turnover between $10 million and $50 million. Now he says he supports the tax relief for businesses with turnovers up to $50 million. As the Prime Minister said, he's got a fourth position. That fourth position is to increase taxes on family businesses by $25 billion. Until they come into this place and walk back from that increase in tax, the Labor Party will never be a friend of small business like the coalition is. (Time expired)
Morrison Government
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:13): My question is to the Prime Minister. The government claims its decision to endorse a white supremacist slogan in the Senate was an administrative error. Was it an administrative error when the government voted to cut $14 billion from public schools? Was it eight administrative errors when it voted to cut penalty rates? Was it 26 administrative errors when the Prime Minister voted against a banking royal commission? Is the government's message in Wentworth really: vote for a government that has absolutely no idea what it's doing?
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the House on a point of order.
Mr Pyne: Mr Speaker, the preamble to that question is deeply offensive. I would point out to the House that the Senate has just recommitted the motion from yesterday and has unanimously voted against it. To continue to repeat that canard is quite offensive and I'd ask the member to not do so.
The SPEAKER: Manager of Opposition Business, I don't think I need your point of order. I understand the point the Leader of the House is making, but it's really not for me to judge those matters. It's really not. The question is in order. The Prime Minister has the call.
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:14): The electors of Wentworth have an important choice to make on Saturday. They can support a government that has delivered economic growth that has been the envy of the developed world. They can support a government that has created, in working with business and those all around the country, more than a million jobs over the last five years. And they can support a government that has ensured we've been able to keep Australians safe.
The Labor Party likes to talk about bipartisanship on these sorts of issues. But what I know about the Labor Party is that they subcontract the hard decisions on national security and the economy to the government. They're happy to support us on occasion, but what would actually happen if the Labor Party were sitting on these benches when it comes to Australia's national security? When it comes to our border security? When it comes to our economic security? When the Liberals and Nationals are not there to make the decisions about taking down taxes for individuals and small business? What would happen if the Labor Party—
Ms Butler interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Griffith is warned!
Mr MORRISON: got one step closer—this leader of the Labor Party, who thinks that his vision of Australia and his version of leadership is to divide Australians on one side and the other, into winners and into losers: into those who employ and those who turn up and work for wages; between parents who want to send their kids to an independent school and parents who want to send their kids to a state school? The Leader of the Opposition only has a plan to divide this country for his own political interests and purposes.
Our government has a plan to keep our economy strong; to ensure that we can guarantee the essential services that Australians rely on; and to take the difficult decisions to keep Australians safe, whether it's in the playground, or overseas or on our borders. We have the record for achieving that; it's our plan and it's our record as a government that we are keeping Australians together. That's the plan that Australians can vote for in Wentworth on Saturday.
A vote for anyone other than the Liberal candidate puts the wrecker, the leader of the Labor Party, one step closer to taxing you more, slowing our economy, making you less safe and driving Australians apart.
Asylum Seekers
Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (14:17): My question is to the Prime Minister. Today the crossbench gave notice to introduce a bill to temporarily relocate children from Nauru for medical treatment. Prime Minister, there is an urgent crisis unfolding on Nauru. Of the 77 children on Nauru, 20 are suffering a critical medical condition. A further 28 need urgent medical treatment. There is widespread self-harm and suicidal ideation. The AMA believes children on Nauru must be immediately relocated and given access to specialist physical and mental health care. Prime Minister, will you support the call of the crossbench, and some of your backbench, and temporarily relocate children from Nauru so that they can receive the medical care that every child deserves?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:17): I thank the member for Mayo for her question. I'd be very pleased for the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection to provide the member, and other crossbench members who are interested, with an update on the issue of transfers that continue to take place on a case-by-case basis on the basis of medical advice provided to the department by those who are responsible for providing medical care on Nauru.
There have been quite a number of transfers that have been undertaken—recently and over a longer period of time—and so I think that the statistics which you've quoted can be readily updated as a result of such a briefing. We'd be very happy to provide an update to the figures that you have available to you because some work has been done further over the last month on these issues, as you would expect it to.
Where there are cases that require attention then members of this chamber have the opportunity to raise those with the minister for immigration, and they can be dealt with. We will continue to do that and we will continue to take advice from those medical practitioners who are resident there—who are based there and who are providing the advice about when transfers should take place. We act in accordance with that advice, we welcome the opportunity to consider each and every case on its merits and we will continue to do so.
I will tell you why: it's because we do care about the children. We took more than 6,000 children out of detention in this country. We stopped children getting on boats. We stopped those tragedies occurring. We are dealing with the dreadful legacy of a government prior to ours that failed so terribly, and we will continue to do that and we will work very closely with you and any other member who brings these cases forward in good faith. We will ensure that those issues are addressed as they should be.
But I would also urge the Labor Party, and the crossbenchers in the Senate, to reconsider their opposition to the bill—
Mr Burke: Your behaviour on Malaysia was appalling!
Mr MORRISON: I note the interjection from the member who was previously only the second most failed immigration minister in Australia's history. He does hold the record for seeing more boats turn up in one month than any other immigration minister. The failure, the failure, the failure, the failure, the failure that I lived through as the shadow immigration minister while they just sat there and failed and the bodies piled up is an absolute disgrace. He can sit there in all of his outrage and all of his squawking, but he has to live with the fact he failed on his watch.
Taxation
Mr DRUM (Murray—Nationals Whip) (14:20): My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development. How does strong economic management allow the Australian government to deliver tax cuts for individuals and small businesses in regional Australia? What are the risks and what is at stake if our plan to deliver a strong economy is put in jeopardy?
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Infrastructure,Transport and Regional Development and Leader of The Nationals) (14:21): I thank the member for Murray for his question. Strong economic management means that people who pay taxes, people who earn money, can actually have a bit more money in their pocket, a bit more money to spend on the things they want to be able to spend it on. They keep more of the money that they earn. Strong economic management means we can reward hardworking small businesses and hardworking individuals. We know that 3.2 million small businesses and family enterprises make up seven million hardworking Australians. That's who they employ. Certainly in the member for Murray's electorate there are many, many small businesses—18,000, in fact—employing many hardworking Australians.
They are businesses such as LDK Trailers & Truck Trays in Shepparton. It's owned by Bob Johnson. Bob's a good bloke. He says that LDK takes great pride in providing quality trailers and tray bodies not only to the Goulburn Valley area but to Victoria and Australia-wide. As you travel around the roads, you can see those great examples of the trays and trailers being constructed right there in the member for Murray's electorate. They're travelling around on the great roads being provided by the great infrastructure package—$75 billion, that pipeline of investment—that is making sure we build better roads, making sure that we get people home sooner and safer.
LDK started in 1987. It's grown into new, larger premises. It employs 25 local and experienced staff. There's Bob. He's having a go. He's backing himself. He's taking risks. That's what small-business owners do. They take a risk. They back themselves. They don't need to be told that their whole workforce needs to be unionised. They don't need to be told that they have to pay higher taxes, because that's what will happen under those opposite. At LDK they use highest-grade quality materials. They've got an emphasis on Australian-made materials. How good is that? Fantastic. They're job creators. They're growing our economy. They're making sure that they're creating jobs. They're creating opportunities for young people, for apprentices and even, indeed, for older Australians. They're the sort of people that we want to back. They're the sort of people we are backing. They're the sort of people we know we need to back, because we on this side of the House run small businesses. Unlike those on that side of the House, we don't want to run them into the ground.
Those opposite have never seen a business they didn't want to run a picket line out the front of. They have never seen a small business that they didn't want to unionise. Whether it's in Cobram or Euroa, whether it's in Kyabram or Numurkah, we're backing small businesses. We know that those opposite—for those people in the member for Murray's electorate, in Yarrawonga—want to tax them longer. That's what they want to do. They want to run small business into the ground. We back them. We back them all the way and we will continue to do so. (Time expired)
Goods and Services Tax
Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (14:24): My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer confirm that, when Labor said Western Australia wasn't getting their fair share of the GST, the government denied it and then accepted it; when we said the GST floor needed to be legislated, the government ignored it and then agreed to it; and then, when we called for that legislation to ensure that no state or territory is left worse off, the government rejected it but today accept it?
Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—The Treasurer) (14:24): I'm glad to report to the House that it is a Liberal and National government that is delivering a fairer and more sustainable GST. And those opposite did nothing for six years when they were in office.
The member for McMahon has had four positions. The member for McMahon's first position was, 'We want to top up Western Australia but we don't want any broader changes.' That was his first position: 'Don't change the formula'. His second position was that he supports the government's proposal. He wanted to support us to legislate it. That was welcome. Then his third position was: 'I'm not so sure about this. I might take a step back.' His fourth position was, 'I want more information.'
The best, though—and I have to say David Speers is always pretty good for an interview—was David Speers's interview with the member for McMahon on 8 July. David Speers asked him about the GST, and he couldn't give an answer 10 times. Ten times he was asked for a straight answer on the GST. So David Speers said, about Labor's position on the GST: 'How quickly are you going to work through this?' Member for McMahon: 'Well, constructive criticism, David, is our position.' I will repeat that, 'Constructive criticism, David, is our position.'
The Labor Party took no action when they were in government. We, on the other hand, led by the then Treasurer, now Prime Minister, came up with a policy reform that is now being supported by states and territories, which will avoid a repeat of the situation where Western Australians only got 30c in the dollar and will ensure a much fairer and more sustainable system, which will leave every state and territory better off. We're putting more than $9 billion to the states and territories. We're legislating a floor at 75c in the dollar. We're equalising to the stronger of Victoria and New South Wales and we're ensuring that all Australians, regardless of their postcode, are better off under the Liberal and National parties' reform to the GST.
The SPEAKER: Member for Mackellar.
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Yes, we alternate, Member for Isaacs.
Economy
Mr FALINSKI (Mackellar) (14:27): Sorry to detain the member for Isaacs. My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer update the House on how the government is backing older Australians by providing economic security and certainty, including in my electorate of Mackellar? What are the stakes and what is at risk for taxpayers if other approaches prevail?
Mr FRYDENBERG (Kooyong—The Treasurer) (14:27): I thank the member for Mackellar for his question, because I know that he is working hard to support the 28,000 seniors in his electorate—more than 28,000 people over the age of 65 in his electorate. Those seniors in his electorate, like all people in his electorate, are benefiting from the stronger economy under the Liberal and National government, a stronger economy which has seen GDP growth of 3.4 per cent through the year, at its fastest rate since the height of the mining boom, a stronger economy which has seen our AAA credit ratings reaffirmed by the three leading rating agencies, a stronger economy which has seen us recently announce the smallest budget deficit in a decade, on track to come back into balance a year earlier than expected in 2020, a stronger economy, which has delivered on our promise to the Australian people, to create more than one million new jobs, or more than a thousand jobs a day. That is the record of the Liberal and National governments.
We know that those opposite have a plan to tax and spend, a plan to tax more on your income, more on your company, more on your savings, more on your property and more on your electricity bill. But it really is the retirees' tax that is punishing those senior Australians in the seat of Mackellar and around the country who have worked hard and prepared for their own retirement. We know the Labor Party's retirees' tax will hit 900,000 individuals across the country, and will affect 200,000 self-managed super funds and 2,000 super funds.
It's not the rich that the Labor Party are targeting; it's actually the hard-working seniors who have saved for their retirement. I wonder if the Leader of the Opposition knows that 84 per cent of those affected by his retirees tax have a taxable income under $37,000. I wonder if the Leader of the Opposition knows that his retirees tax affects 96 per cent of people who have a taxable income under $87,000? I thought it was put best by this respondent to the Wilson Asset Management survey—an inconvenient truth for those opposite—who said, 'Why bother working hard and saving for retirement? I might as well spend and enjoy life and then go on the pension.' That is what's going to happen: more Australians are going to go on the pension, more Australians will be worse off and the Labor Party will tax aspiration, they will tax hard work and they will tax hope.
Religious Freedom Review
Mr DREYFUS (Isaacs—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business) (14:30): My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, when asked about laws which allow discrimination against LGBTI teachers, the Treasurer said, 'I don't think these laws are right,' and today Liberal senator Dean Smith has said he supports 'amendments to remove discrimination against LGBTI teachers'. Will the Prime Minister join with Labor to ensure that teachers can't be sacked just because of who they are and whom they love?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:31): I thank the member for his question. What I said yesterday, and I'll say it again today, is that the issues relating to the broader religious freedom report will be dealt with once we've had the opportunity as a government to provide our response and release the full report. There will be time enough to deal with those important issues down the track, and we look forward to doing that. What I have written to the Leader of the Opposition about is ensuring that we act right now in an area of absolute consensus when it comes to the issue of children who are in schools and may have fears or anxieties related to the way that this issue was misrepresented over the last couple of weeks. We can deal with that once and for all. We can practically deal with this issue and we shouldn't be playing politics with it. We should just be able to get on and do it.
Even the member who asked me the question today has admitted, in his interview today with Fran Kelly, 'The question of the exemption for staff, teachers and other staff working in religious schools is a complex one.' That's what he said. He said, 'We're going to continue that conversation that the Leader of the Opposition, Bill, spoke of with religious organisations that run schools, as to how to deal with this complex problem.' There are many views on this and we will deal with those views, and we will do it an orderly way and we'll do it in an adult way with proposals before us that can be consulted on and discussed. But what I think we should be doing now is legislating—taking the opportunity of this sitting fortnight to legislate to ensure that children are protected from the laws that were introduced, I remind those opposite, by the Labor Party. They introduced them. The member for Sydney said in only January that there were 'no plans' to change anti-discrimination exemptions, and she said on 12 October that it is 'not Labor's plan to reduce any of the existing exemptions'. Now, I am happy to concede that there are many positions on this and this is a complex issue, as the member for Isaacs has said, so we will deal with it in a methodical way when there is a proposal on the table from the government in response to the review and then we can deal with that matter. For now, the Attorney is working with the shadow Attorney to ensure that we have a legislative amendment to honour what I wrote to the Leader of the Opposition about. It was flagged on the weekend and I wrote to him on Monday.
Employment
Mr ALEXANDER (Bennelong) (14:33): My question is to the Minister for Jobs, Industrial Relations and Women. Will the minister update the House on how the government is helping more Australians to get a job? What are the risks and what is at stake if a different approach is adopted?
Ms O'DWYER (Higgins—Minister for Jobs, Industrial Relations and Women) (14:34): I thank the member for Bennelong for his question. He, like all of the members on this side of the chamber, stands for jobs—for more jobs for millions of Australians. It was a great pleasure to join him in his electorate only the other week to visit the hard-working businesses in Macquarie Park that are employing so many Australians. He is proud of our record since coming to office: the creation of the economic conditions that have seen more than 1.1 million Australians employed as a result—new jobs created. And under this government there are more people in work than ever before and more women in work than ever before. We have seen record levels of young people employed in this last financial year alone—100,000 jobs created. And there are more and more older Australians who are wanting to remain engaged in the workforce. Thanks to the new job creation that we are seeing, more and more of them have the opportunity to do so.
Under those opposite, we would see, with their economic mismanagement, a great risk to job creation in this country. Those opposite couldn't be trusted to run a bath, let alone an economy! When they were last in office unemployment was going backwards. Full-time employment for women was going backwards. And I remind the House that they have not delivered a surplus in this millennium. So, as we know, the Leader of the Opposition has completely given up on having sensible economic management. He is completely and utterly under the thumb of militant union bosses and their extremist demands.
Already, he has said he will get rid of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which is providing protection for small and family businesses and their workers right across the country. This, of course, is the dream of militant union bosses—like John Setka, who has already 59 convictions against his name, including convictions for assaulting police officers. But he is not done yet. As we see revealed in The Australian today, he will also shut down industries at a time. After years of industrial peace, the opposition leader wants to usher in industrial anarchy, and it will mean seeing our cities grind to a halt and gridlock on our roads. Hospital beds will close. Surgeries will be cancelled. Parents will not be able to go to work because the schools will be closed and their childcare centres will be closed. He wants to return us to the industrial disputation of the 1970s, and no-one wants to— (Time expired)
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
The SPEAKER (14:37): I'd like to inform the House that we have joining us in the gallery this afternoon a parliamentary delegation from the Dominican Republic, led by the President of the Senate, Senator Reinaldo Perez. On behalf of the House, I extend a very warm welcome to you.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Religious Freedom Review
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:37): My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is refusing to act on removing discrimination against LGBTI teachers until after the government has released the Ruddock report. Why is the Prime Minister keeping the Ruddock report a secret until after the Wentworth by-election? After five months, why do Australians, including voters in Wentworth, have to wait until after the by-election to know what the government will do? If the Prime Minister isn't planning anything harmful, what does he have to hide?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:38): All the recommendations of the report have been reported in the press already, and they're out there. They're well known. They're out there. What I am doing is ensuring that the government's response will be prepared and will be provided in an orderly way, and that will provide the opportunity for this parliament to properly consider what are very sensitive and complex issues that the member for Isaacs has properly recognised as being quite difficult to work through. There are many different views in this chamber and outside of this chamber, and I think we should work together to resolve those and deal with these matters in an orderly way.
It was only a week ago that the member for Sydney, when asked, 'Should these laws be abolished and should we have this discrepancy?' said, 'Look, it's not Labor's plan to reduce any existing exemptions.' That was her policy a week ago. Now she's coming in here and lecturing us on laws that the Labor Party introduced and took through their cabinet, which provided the very discriminations that she is now saying should be reversed and only a week ago said shouldn't be reversed. So forgive me if the government is going it take a more responsible and orderly process to provide our response. Seven weeks ago, just over, I took on the role of Prime Minister. I had not seen that report prior to that time. It had not been to cabinet to be considered at that time. In the last seven weeks, I've been focusing on the drought, I've been focusing on small- and family-business tax cuts, I've been focusing on a royal commission into residential aged care, and I've been focusing on electricity prices and bringing them down. These are the issues that I have been focusing on as Prime Minister, with our team.
We will deal with these very important issues around religious freedoms in an orderly way and in a way that is respectful to all the participants. What I would ask, and what I have written to the Leader of the Opposition and asked him to do, is, in the area of most acute anxiety because of the misrepresenting of the proposals in the Ruddock review that created unnecessary anxiety with students because of their sexuality or their gender identity—we would like to see that issue resolved and these matters come before this parliament. I think we should operate in the area of obvious consensus, get it done and not allow other issues to distract us from that task.
National Security
Mr LEESER (Berowra) (14:41): My question is to the Minister for Defence. Will the minister update the House on how the government is strengthening Australia's national security through building strong international relationships, particularly with the state of Israel? What are the risks and what is at stake if the government doesn't prioritise our national security?
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Minister for Defence and Leader of the House) (14:41): I thank the member for Berowra for his question. In the 24 years since I first visited Israel, our relationship with Israel has grown stronger and stronger. As I was actually the minister at the time, we put our first innovation landing pad in Tel Aviv.
A government member interjecting—
Mr PYNE: Yes, I was. We now have a regular two-star defence dialogue with Israel, which I initiated in the portfolio. In July, I held the first Australia-Israel Defence Industry Cooperation Joint Working Group and, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out, yes, I actually initiated that as well. And we have genuine defence industry partnerships with companies like Elbit, IAI, Rafael—which has just created an Australian subsidiary here called Varley Rafael, which would be well known to people in the Newcastle area—and of course Plasan. So we have put a lot of effort into that relationship over the last quarter of a century. It has been getting better and better.
But one thing that hasn't changed has been our longstanding respect for the values of the state of Israel and the Israeli people. They are a beacon of liberal democracy in the Middle East like no other, and today's announcements by the Prime Minister reaffirm that relationship. It's very important to think of what is at risk if a Liberal-National government is not re-elected at the election next year? If a Liberal-National government were not in power, Australia would not be open to a discussion about where our embassy should be in Israel. If a Liberal-National government were not in power, we would not be reconsidering our support for the JCPOA Iran nuclear deal. If a Liberal-National government were not in power, Australia would not be announcing reciprocal defence attaches in Tel Aviv and in Canberra. That's the reality of democracy.
This side of the House knows its view on Israel and national security. Those on the other side of the House have subcontracted their views on national security out to the Liberal and National parties. They keep claiming bipartisanship on national security. What is their position on the announcements we have made today? What is Labor's position on the announcements that we have made today to strengthen our relationship with Israel? The truth is Labor is riven by division over Israel. Bob Carr and the New South Wales Labor Party have taken control of the agenda on Israel inside the Labor Party, and it's time for the Leader of the Opposition to stand up and support the government's announcements that we made today.
Israel
Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:44): My question is to the Prime Minister. In June when asked whether Australia would follow President Trump and move its embassy from Tel Aviv, the now Prime Minister said: 'No, no, it's not the government's policy. It has never been under review and we're not doing it.' Does the Prime Minister stand by this statement? Or is the Prime Minister really so desperate to save Wentworth that he will say and do anything, even if it means overturning 70 years of bipartisan foreign policy?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:45): My statements in June reflected the policy of the government at the time.
Opposition members interjecting—
Mr MORRISON: It did. As Prime Minister, I've made announcements today which flag that our government is open to considering, in the context of a two-state solution, which we do not resile from—in fact, it was because of our commitment to a two-state solution that we believe that we need to be open to more innovative ways to progress that agenda and that should involve consideration not only of the recognition of the capital of Israel being Jerusalem, but also of a Palestinian state in East Jerusalem, and for an embassy to potentially be located in West Jerusalem.
Tomorrow morning the United Nations will vote on the G77 decision that would allow Palestine to take up the chair of the G77. Our government will not be sitting on the fence. We will be voting no on that decision. In addition to that, as has been explained by the Minister for Defence, we are reviewing without prejudice our position on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal. This is an issue of real concern within the Jewish community, as I'm sure members opposite know and are being silenced by members like the member for Sydney or the member for Watson, or the faction within New South Wales, controlled by Bob Carr, who is making the Labor Party walk away from their support of Israel which was once understood and was once appreciated, and now the Labor Party cannot form a view on this.
Well, our government can form a view. We are for a two-state solution, and we are for our support for the nation and state of Israel and we are for working together to go and achieve that solution in a way that considers the proposal that we could potentially have recognition of the capital in Jerusalem and potentially have embassies located in Jerusalem. Now, the Labor Party won't even allow that thought to pass their minds. All they have simply said today is, 'We have not made progress, and we are not making progress to a two-state solution in the Middle East.' If you keep doing the same thing, as the Labor Party wants to do, you will not get a different outcome.
We believe in a two-state solution, and we're prepared to listen to innovative ideas, like those from the former ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma, who would know more about this issue than any single person sitting on those benches. And I would welcome his contribution in this chamber as someone who understands the sensitivities and the complexities of achieving a two-state solution. So we know what Dave Sharma stands for. We know what I stand for— (Time expired)
Ms Butler interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Griffith, who has been warned yet again, will leave under 94(a).
The member for Griffith then left the chamber.
National Security
Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (14:48): My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister update the House on how the government is keeping Australians safe through a robust national security agenda? What are the risks and what is at stake for our national security from a different approach?
Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Home Affairs) (14:48): I thank the honourable member for Hughes for his question. Well, to update the House, I can advise that 90 people now have been charged as a result of 40 counterterrorism-related operations around Australia. That is since 12 September 2014, when the national terrorism threat level was raised. We know that around 230 people in Australia are currently being investigated for providing support to individuals and groups in the Syria-Iraq conflict, and we also know that there are many other threats, not only in terms of national security, but in terms of our border security as well.
We know that the threat of terrorism has not gone away and it will not go away for our lifetimes. We need to make sure that we deal adequately with it. What people know of the government is that we will put the resources behind our national security agencies and we will have the capacity to make the decisions that are necessary to keep our country safe. We demonstrated it when we were in government in the Howard years, when the boats were stopped, and yet changes were made to border security by Labor when they were in power. We saw 50,000 people arrive on 800 boats. Twelve hundred people tragically drowned at sea. Thousands of children ended up in detention. What we saw under Labor was a complete disaster, because not only did they lose control of our borders but they ripped money out of our national security agencies, including the Australian Federal Police.
Why can't people trust the Leader of the Opposition? Why do they have a doubt in their mind when they hear him speak? Because they know he is not sincere when he says that he is will stand up for the national security and border security of this country. Labor always play a big game in opposition, but whenever they get into government they fail on these key tests. The fact is that these threats will not go away. If Labor were in government after the next election, we know they would again mismanage the economy and they would rip money out of national security. We know, even in relation to the listing of pharmaceuticals, that they ran out of money and stopped listing pharmaceuticals. No wonder they ripped money out of the Australian Federal Police, out of customs, out of AUSTRAC. They took billions of dollars and put it into trying to patch up the disaster that was their border protection policy. The reality is that if they are elected at the next election they will do it all over again.
They default to us when we are in government—they hide behind the decisions that we make on national security and border security—but when they move into government they have no idea what they are doing. There are many people on the front bench of the Labor Party that have their heads hanging low right now because they know that they were a disaster on border protection and national security. The Australian public should never ever trust this Leader of the Opposition or a Labor government. (Time expired)
Israel
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:52): My question is to the Prime Minister. The Secretary of DFAT has said that the US decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem had not been helpful and had made what was already a very, very difficult process even harder. Why is the Prime Minister ignoring the view of Australia's top diplomat and making up foreign policy on the run? Does the Prime Minister seriously expect anyone to believe that this stunt was about anything other than Wentworth? Is he really so desperate that he will say and do anything to save Wentworth, including overturning 70 years of bipartisan foreign policy— (Time expired)
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (14:52): The Leader of the Opposition is not being truthful with the House. It is true that, for decades and decades, the Australian Jewish community could trust the Labor Party when it came to support for Israel.
Mr Dreyfus: And they still can.
Mr MORRISON: That cannot be said anymore. There is not a bipartisan position on these issues anymore. The former Premier, Bob Carr, has ripped that up—
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Isaacs has been warned.
Mr MORRISON: and anyone who lives in New South Wales knows that very, very well. The former Premier of New South Wales, and his advocacy inside the New South Wales Labor Party, has torn up any bipartisanship between this side of the House and the other side of the House when it comes to these essential questions. So the Leader of the Opposition can come to the despatch box and he can beat his chest, but what he can't do is say that he supports the announcements that I've made today. He cannot say that. He is not open to the question of whether we could recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He is not open to the question of ensuring that we review our position on the Iran nuclear deal. He is not open to the question of voting no on the question of Palestine taking up the chair of the G77. These are not the positions of the Labor Party, but they are the positions of our government.
I table for the benefit of the House an excellent article which has been written by Dave Sharma, who was Australia's ambassador to Israel—not a passing commentator on this topic but someone who was appointed to that job by the Labor Party when they were in government. And I table for their benefit the article which he wrote back in May. In that article he puts forward the argument—which I think is a persuasive one—that pursuing that agenda is consistent with a two-state solution and it can be pursued on that basis. And so we can have a commitment to that important principle which Australia, I think, will never move away from and our government will never move away from, but we need to be addressing this issue in different ways.
Now, the comments made by the secretary of the department were made in relation to the decision made by the United States. A decision made by the United States is different to a decision taken by Australia on these matters. We have taken this decision independently to be open to these questions. I have had no discussions with the President of the United States or with their officials on this issue. This is a matter that we have considered ourselves.
Now, I went to Israel with the Leader of the Labor Party. I seem to remember what I learnt there. He seems to have forgotten. (Time expired)
The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition?
Mr Shorten: I just seek leave to table the remarks of the DFAT secretary, Frances Adamson.
Leave not granted.
Defence Industry
Mr EVANS (Brisbane) (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry. Can the minister outline to the House how our government is growing Australia's defence industry? What are the risks and what's at stake from alternative approaches?
Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff—Minister for Defence Industry) (14:56): I thank the member for Brisbane for his question because everyone on this side of the chamber is absolutely passionate about what it is that the Liberal and National government is doing for Australia's SME sector and, in particular, the way in which we're delivering for Australian small and medium-sized businesses through our $200 billion build-up of sovereign capability when it comes to Australia's defence industry. The fact is that the Liberal-National government is repairing the damage that was done to Australia's defence posture as a consequence of six years of inaction by the former Labor government.
The way we are doing it has two prongs. The first is to ensure that we build our domestic capability. We are doing that with a substantial investment—
Dr Mike Kelly interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Eden-Monaro is warned.
Mr CIOBO: an investment that we're able to make in Australia's defence posture as a direct consequence of the strong economic stewardship of the Liberal and National government. It's only because we've been able to get the budget back under control that we've been able to invest in building up Australia's defence industry. We are deeply committed to businesses like those found in the member for Brisbane's electorate—businesses like Explosive Protective Equipment, a family-owned business in his electorate that employs 22 hardworking Aussies. All across Australia we've got so many examples of great Australian SMEs. There are some 3,000 or so that employ around 13,000 hardworking Australians in this sector. And, because we've got the budget under control, we can invest this $200 billion.
The second prong of our strategy is to make sure that we provide direct support to boosting the prospects of Australia's SME sector. We are doing that through policy settings that ensure that we have overcome the challenges that were left behind by the Australian Labor Party.
When the member for Brisbane asks about risks, there are substantial risks not only to Australia's economic position from the Australian Labor Party if they are elected at the next election but also to Australia's defence and Australia's defence industry. What we saw when Labor was last in power was six years of inaction. We saw the Australian Labor Party preside over a situation where they did not put in a single order for a new boat while they were in government, and so we saw the peaks and the troughs of a lack of investment in Australia's defence industry. It has taken now the Liberal-National government to build capacity by $200 billion and to put in place the continuous shipbuilding plan, which will create 15,000 jobs and see an investment of $89 billion. Only a strong Australian economy can make that kind of investment, and only the Liberal and National government can, through prudent economic management, make sure that we create opportunities for small business, create employment for Australians and make sure there is a strong, continuous pipeline of new opportunities.
Indonesia
Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:59): My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of reports that Indonesia is reconsidering its trade deal with Australia as a result of the Prime Minister's rushed announcement today? How many jobs could be at risk as a result of today's 'foreign policy on the run' announcement about moving the embassy?
Mr MORRISON (Cook—Prime Minister) (15:00): It may not be known to the Leader of the Opposition but I've been in direct contact with President Widodo over the course of last night and through this morning, as has the Minister for Foreign Affairs been in direct contact with the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs. This is all part of our regular management of these relationships. I've been pleased to be able to explain very clearly the nature of the announcements I've made today, and I've been very pleased with the response I've received from President Widodo. We will continue to work closely and cooperatively with our allies and with our partners all around the world on these issues. What I'm looking forward to over the next few months as we go through the summit season is canvassing these ideas with other leaders to gain their views before the government forms a particular view on this issue. That is actually how you make decisions. You consult with your friends, with your neighbours, with your allies. You commence a process. You don't unilaterally make this decision. We have commenced this process. We are doing it in good faith. We are open to the possibilities of what can be achieved.
But what this shows, given the way the leader of the Labor Party has sought to undermine the announcements that have been made today, and to scaremonger on this issue, is the recklessness with which he would adopt a policy in government. In 2007, if I'd gone and knocked on someone's door and said to them, 'If you elect the Labor Party 1,200 people will die at sea, 50,000 people will turn up on 800 boats, they'll implement policies that set fire to people's roofs, they'll ensure that the budget goes into deep deficit and the debt will go off the charts,' people would have locked me up. I heard the Leader of the Opposition saying, 'The chicken won't lay eggs,' and all the rest of it. The last Labor government the people of Australia elected made a complete hash of it, and the Australian people will not forget that.
Health Care
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (15:02): My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister update the House on how a stronger economy enables the government to support, through the listing of new medicines on the PBS, Australian patients living with severe inflammatory spinal arthritis? What are the risks and what is at stake from alternative approaches to the supply of medicines, as recommended by the experts?
Mr HUNT (Flinders—Minister for Health) (15:02): I want to thank the member for Bowman, in particular for his continuing work as an ophthalmologist, where he provides voluntary services to patients, free of charge, in the South Brisbane area on a periodic basis. As well as that, he has been a longstanding advocate for better access to more medicines for patients around the country. He's right, though, that there are risks to the continuous supply of new medicines. He knows that because he's seen the history from 2011, when, in the very budget papers of that year, Labor declared:
… given the current fiscal environment, the listing of some medicines would be deferred until fiscal circumstances permit.
Just to remind the House, these were medicines for deep vein thrombosis, for in vitro fertilisation, for severe asthma and for schizophrenia, amongst other things. I asked myself, 'Who would have been the decision-makers who stopped the listing of new medicines?' Of course, the Treasurer of the day was the member for Lilley, now elected as the president of the Labor Party, so he is in charge of the party. But I was wondering who the Assistant Treasurer was at that time who was responsible for that decision. I was reminded that the Assistant Treasurer when Labor stopped listing new medicines is now the Leader of the Opposition. The current Leader of the Opposition, the would-be Prime Minister of Australia, was present at the table when Labor decided to stop listing new medicines for asthma, for deep vein thrombosis, for IVF and for schizophrenia, amongst other things. So there's a simple question for the Leader of the Opposition: will he apologise now to those patients who were denied medicines on his watch? Will he apologise, and, if not, will he explain why he deliberately made a decision to deny them medicines? The correct answer is that Labor could not manage the budget, but nor could they care about the patients.
By contrast, we have made a decision and have just listed Simponi, a medicine which is going to help with chronic inflammatory spinal disease. I met a beautiful young man, Casey, who was unable to get out of bed; now, he is back training with Subiaco in the WAFL, running, because has been given compassionate access to this medicine. Simponi will be available on the PBS from 1 December but is already available on a compassionate basis, because of a deal we've struck, for 4,000 patients, saving them $15,000 a year, but, above all else, giving them access to a medicine which will transform their lives for the better.
Morrison Government
Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (15:05): My question is to the minister for regional development. Is the minister aware of a report today headed: 'PM walking all over McCormack, Nats say'. The same report revealed that, in an attempt to garner support for an ag visa, and his own position, a very well-known Nationals stakeholder has been ringing around for about three weeks in the face of ineffective representation on the ag visa. What is the minister's response to that stakeholder? And, yes, Minister, we all know who he is!
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina—Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Infrastructure,Transport and Regional Development and Leader of The Nationals) (15:06): I thank the shadow agriculture minister for his interest. I have to say that, back when we first got into government, I always put my name—I always have—to a story. I don't take any countenance of, and I certainly don't listen to, anything people are not prepared to put their name to. And you should listen well, too, Member for Maribyrnong, because, while they're picking on me, they're leaving you alone! But rest assured, I've always been prepared to put my name to everything I've ever spoken to a journalist on. You can ask any journalist in the gallery. If I've got something to say, I put my name to it.
We've got the member for Warringah sitting up there, and he can full well account for the fact that, when I've said things, I've put my name to them, because I know he phoned me a couple of times to ask me why I had made certain statements about things that the government were putting forward, and I said, 'Well, Prime Minister'—he was the Prime Minister at the time—'at least I put my name to it. You don't have to worry about somebody who puts their name to something. You should perhaps worry more about people who background journalists.'
I will never, ever background a journalist, and I think there is a cancer in Canberra at the moment, and it's people who background journalists. It's no good for politics. It's no good for parliament. It's true. I have to say: there are people opposite who also background journalists. You'll find out. You'll find out for sure. You already are finding out.
But you know what? The Australian people expect better. They expect better from politicians. I see the member for Sydney nodding, because she agrees. Whether it's the Nats or whether it's the Liberal Party or whether it's the Labor Party, you know what? The Australian public just want us to focus on what's important to them. Do you know what's important to them? It's the cost of living. It's power prices. It's the price of petrol. It's national security. It's border security. They're the things that the people out there, watching this telecast or listening to the broadcast, want us to be focused on. I am focused on those things. The Prime Minister is focused on those things.
And you know what? Those opposite, instead of asking these sorts of questions, should be asking questions about the economy, because that's what's important. These inside Canberra games that you're playing—well, you know what? They'll come back to bite you too. Don't worry about that.
As to people who background journalists: well, quite frankly, they have to look in the mirror and ask: 'Is that really serving the people of Australia? Is that really what I should be doing today?' No. I'm focused on making sure that the people of Australia get well served, and I put my name to everything I ever say to a journalist. (Time expired)
Education
Ms FLINT (Boothby) (15:09): My question is to the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology. Will the minister update the House on how the government is promoting the participation of women in science, technology, engineering and maths? What are the risks and what is at stake from alternative approaches?
Mrs ANDREWS (McPherson—Minister for Industry, Science and Technology) (15:10): I thank the member for her question and I note the great work that Flinders University is doing through their program Women Branching Out in her electorate of Boothby. This program supports women studying science, technology, engineering and maths subjects by providing role model workshops, leadership skills, to help women in their careers.
As a mechanical engineer who graduated quite a number of years ago through the Queensland University of Technology, I was one of two women in that class. As it turned out, I and the other female there were the first two women ever to graduate from the Queensland University of Technology. Some years later, the figures haven't changed dramatically. What we need to be conscious of is the fact that if we don't encourage more women to study science, technology, engineering and maths—
Mr Hill interjecting—
The SPEAKER: The member for Bruce is warned.
Mrs ANDREWS: we are limiting their opportunities, the opportunities of women, to take their rightful place in the workforce, because we know that 75 per cent of the jobs of the future will require skills in science, technology, engineering and maths. At this point in time, we don't have that skill set here, and we must develop it. The coalition is absolutely committed to making sure that we support women entering science, technology, engineering and maths subjects at school. Part of that announcement that I made on the weekend was to ensure that we gave every opportunity to young people, young women, to be inspired to do these subjects by appointing Australia's first ever Women in STEM Ambassador.
We have appointed Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith. Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith is an outstanding advocate for women in the STEM fields. She is an award-winning astrophysicist holding a PhD in radioastronomy, from Jodrell Bank Observatory at the University of Manchester, and a masters degree in physics with honours in astronomy and astrophysics, from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. She is a public advocate for science and has presented on numerous radio and television broadcasts, including ABC Television's Stargazing Live. She won the 2016 Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Australian Science Research.
Those opposite have shown their true form, because they—
Mr Morrison: I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
DOCUMENTS
Presentation
Mr PYNE (Sturt—Minister for Defence and Leader of the House) (15:13): 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.
QUESTIONS TO THE SPEAKER
Questions in Writing
Mr HILL (Bruce) (15:13): On 22 May I asked you to chase up the minister for immigration on outstanding questions 934, 937 and 941, which were on the Notice Paper from 26 February. No answer has been received. Could you write again? On 21 June I asked questions 992, 993, 994, 999 and 1,000, which also remain outstanding, along with question 995, which asks whether he plans to respond to 934, 937 and 941. I was wondering whether you could also chase him up on those. Thank you, Speaker.
The SPEAKER (15:14): I'll so write this afternoon.
MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Discrimination
The SPEAKER (15:14): I have received a letter from the honourable Deputy Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The need to remove discrimination against LGBTI students and school staff.
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 PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:14): We're very pleased, on this side of the House, that the Prime Minister has accepted Labor's overtures to remove the existing exemptions in antidiscrimination law that would allow discrimination against children in non-government schools on the basis of who they are. But we are very disappointed about two things: firstly, the government's refusal to work with Labor to remove discrimination against teachers and other school staff and, secondly, the timing of these moves.
The Prime Minister said very clearly today that he would like to see legislation passed in this sitting fortnight. I'm not sure if he's aware of this, but I believe the Senate's not sitting next week. That would mean passing legislation through this chamber and the Senate by Thursday this week. My understanding is that no legislation went to the Liberal party room today. So, if no legislation has gone to the party room, it is very difficult to believe that the Prime Minister is sincere in his claim that legislation can go through this sitting fortnight—so that would mean waiting until November. The Prime Minister has said a lot about the insecurity that children and teenagers are feeling and about putting this beyond doubt. Well, to do that, we need to see legislation now.
Schools have been very clear that they don't want to discriminate against children on the basis of their sexuality. They want to nurture and protect and support their students. I think it's very important to listen to what the schools have been saying. I've consulted very widely with schools, parents' organisations, principals, the Independent Education Union, teachers and representatives of teachers, and the universal view is that schools do not wish to—and do not in practice—expel students on the basis of their sexuality. In fact, Dr Andrew Watson, the president of Catholic Secondary Principals Australia, said:
Catholic Secondary Principals Australia welcomes changes to anti-discrimination laws that remove any right religious schools have to expel students because of their sexuality.
This is a very welcome comment. But if it's not right to discriminate against children on the basis of their sexuality then it can't be right to discriminate against adults on the basis of their sexuality. Many Liberals support our view. Dave Sharma, the Liberal candidate for Wentworth, has said:
I'm fundamentally opposed to discrimination in schools, for pupils or for teachers, on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, or really anything else for that matter.
The Treasurer has said: 'I don't think these laws are right.' Senator Dean Smith has said he supports 'amendments to remove discrimination against LGBTI teachers'.
We can get on with this. In 2018, allowing discrimination on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation and relationship status is completely out of step with community expectations. It is not the best way to safeguard the mission and identity of religious schools. We propose to remove from the Sex Discrimination Act exemptions for religious schools in relation to discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation or gender identity, because no-one should be sacked because of who they are or who they love. No-one should be denied employment because of who they love or who their partner is. But schools are also entitled to have rules that ensure that staff—and I'm quoting one of the organisations that wrote to me—don't 'deliberately and wilfully behave contrary to the values of the school'. I believe this parliament, working together, working with schools and working with representatives of the LGBTIQ community can ensure that we achieve both aims. As the Australian Council of Jewish Schools put it, and I think they put it very well:
None of our schools discriminate against staff employed or to be employed on the basis of their sexuality, gender or sexual preferences.
However, they do need to have the capacity to insist on a public lifestyle that is consistent with the ethos of the school.
… as to discrimination in enrolment and employment, we do not need or support any continued exemption.
So when making these decisions, we'll consider commonsense, current practice and human rights, because it is very clear, in current practice, that schools don't wish to and don't generally use these provisions.
And when we're looking at, for example, Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the Convention on the Rights of the Child or the Convention against Discrimination in Education, parents and families have the right to choose a religious education for their children. However, we cannot accept discrimination against whole groups of people for a characteristic that is intrinsic to themselves: who they love. That is completely out of step with modern, mainstream Australian values.
Labor's record has always been strong when it comes to removing discrimination. Premiers like Don Dunstan led the way on decriminalisation of homosexuality. In 1992, the Keating government removed the ban on LGBTI people serving in the military and, of course, that was opposed by the Liberal Party at that time. In 2009, the Rudd government, which I was part of, removed discrimination against same-sex couples from 85 areas of Commonwealth legislation.
Mr Tim Wilson: It must burn, Tanya!
Ms PLIBERSEK: What have you ever done? Not a thing! And in 2013, Labor expanded the protections under the Sex Discrimination Act to cover sexual orientation and gender identity. We did that in 2013, with those opposite supporting the legislation that retained the discrimination exemptions to the Sex Discrimination Act that were there from the time that the SDA was written in 1984. Those opposite have been very conveniently forgetting that in the debate this week. They have been pretending that we inserted discrimination into the act. We extended protections that were welcomed at that time by the LGBTI community.
Now it's time to take the next step. I'm proud that we on this side are ready to take that next step; yes, in favour of removing discrimination against children—and we welcome the support of those opposite on that—but also to remove discrimination against adults, because if it's not right to discriminate against kids then it's not right to discriminate against adults.
The government are saying that they can't change this until we've released and debated the Ruddock review. Well, I mean, honestly? This government has had that review for five months. It cannot be so hard to read that they need longer to have the review sitting on their desks. Philip Ruddock; Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM; Hon. Dr Annabelle Bennett AO SC; Father Frank Brennan SJ AO; and Professor Dr Nicholas Aroney received 15,500 submissions. They've obviously given some thought to this issue of religious schooling. We would love to be able to benefit from the consideration that these eminent Australians have given this issue. Why can't we? We can't because it's not politically convenient for the government to release this review before the Wentworth by-election. Nobody thinks for a second that if this had not been leaked last week we would have any inkling of what the recommendations are. The fact that it was leaked was very inconvenient for the government, but it has brought this debate on. Let's have it with the full benefit of this report.
The government should immediately release the review to give this parliament and the Australian community the benefit of the thinking of these eminent Australians, because if the government are sincere in saying they want to see legislation introduced this week then that legislation could rightly comprehend not just students but also teachers and school staff. We are up for that conversation. I've held discussions with representatives of religious schools and I'll continue to do so, but their very clear message is that they don't want to discriminate against students. They don't discriminate against teachers and school staff. I've got to say this: I think it is beyond time that we deal with this—one of the last areas of discrimination against LGBTI Australians. It is beyond time that we get this done, and all we hear from those opposite is delay, excuse and obfuscation.
Mr TEHAN (Wannon—Minister for Education) (15:24): Can I make very clear at the outset that the government believes that no student should be discriminated against on the basis of their sexuality. I would like to provide some background to this MPI today. In 2013, the Gillard government amended the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to provide an exemption for religious schools to discriminate against students and employees on the basis of their sexual orientation in certain circumstances. The explanatory memorandum of Labor's bill, circulated in March 2013 by then Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, said:
The Bill will extend the exemption at section 38 of the SDA, so that otherwise discriminatory conduct on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity will not be prohibited for educational institutions established for religious purpose. Consequently, the Bill will not alter the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief in respect of the new grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity.
This was reiterated in the second reading speech to Labor's bill, where, on 21 March 2013, the now shadow Attorney-General said:
The bill also amends existing exemptions as appropriate to reflect the new grounds. This includes exemptions for religious bodies in relation to employment and the provision of education that have been in place for many years. These exemptions will continue under this bill and encompass the new grounds.
I think it's very important that we put this in context. This was the question that was put by David Speers to the shadow education spokesperson on Sunday in the interview which got a bit of publicity today: 'Well, that's true, and certainly those I've spoken to this week agree. That's true, but it still leaves the question as to why Labor did this at all in 2013.' 'But, look, anyway, it's 2018,' the shadow education spokesperson said, 'so let's talk about 2018.' They then go on, and David Speers says: 'Okay, all right. On Friday morning, you said it's not Labor's plan to reduce any of the existing exemptions. Then a few hours later Bill Shorten said it was, and, as you've just articulated, you're going to back the changes. What happened there? Were you on the same page on Friday morning?'
The shadow spokesperson then says: 'Well, we've been talking about this for some time. We hadn't made a decision at the time. We were looking particularly at exemptions for teachers, which is something that is raised with us a lot—all the time, in fact—so we're talking to school communities about how kids—
Mr Champion: Wrap yourself in the transcript.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The member for Wakefield is warned.
Mr TEHAN: We've clarified that schools don't want the ability to discriminate against students, and I think it's also now been raised with us that the schools need to consider whether they actually want the ability to discriminate against teachers as well.' And then Speers goes: 'What is your position on that? Do you think schools should be able to sack teachers for being gay?' The shadow spokesperson: 'We've got Louise Pratt, who is our spokesperson on equality, and Mark Dreyfus, who is our shadow Attorney.' It goes on and on and on and on.
Eventually we get back to this: 'Well, we're back to the Ruddock review. It's just spent months listening to people—15,000 submissions. You've got a number of very sensible and thoughtful people on that review. Could we please just take a deep breath, see the report, see the logic that has taken them to where they are, see whether there's any room for movement from the recommendations they have made. I don't support discrimination. I think discrimination on the basis of sexuality is wrong. But I also understand that you're talking about organisations that have a particular ethos, and they want to reflect that ethos in the way they conduct the work of the organisation. So, you know—calm, deep breath. Let's just work through it methodically.' That is exactly what the government wants to do. We want to work through this methodically.
Our government knows what it wants to do and we will be taking action. As the Prime Minister announced on 13 October, our government will introduce amendments as soon as practicable to make it clear that no student of a religious school should be expelled on the basis of their sexuality. Our government does not support expulsion of students from religious non-state schools on the basis of their sexuality. This view is widely shared by religious schools and communities across the country. Our government is focused on protecting the best interests of children.
As the Prime Minister has said, our focus is to ensure that the children at the centre of these issues are at the centre of consideration. The law that we currently have, which the Labor Party brought in, actually doesn't do that. The government, more broadly, is considering the religious freedom review. The government will release the report with a comprehensive and balanced response to ensure the needs, interests and protection of the child are central. The government will consider recommendations concerning employment related decisions of educational institutions established for religious purposes as part of its consideration of the review. This is a very important fact: what the government wants to do is exactly what the shadow minister said on David Speers on Sunday: work through this methodically, work through the process and look at the recommendations. As the Prime Minister has said, he wants to make sure that, as Prime Minister, he has time to look at it. He wants to take it through cabinet processes, which is the right thing to do, and he wants to make sure that the government has a response to all the recommendations.
I also wanted to make it very clear, while we're talking about education and students and teachers, that our focus as a government is also on ensuring that we look after our teachers and make sure that we continually improve teaching quality. It's why we established the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group, to provide advice on how teacher education courses could be improved. We are now implementing its recommendations to deliver a teacher education system that will ensure all teaching graduates are classroom ready, no matter where they study. These reforms are strengthening the selection criteria for entry into courses, quality assurance of teacher education courses and professional experience placements. From next year, all pre-service teachers must complete a robust and rigorous assessment of teaching practice against the graduate teaching standards as a requirement of graduation.
Our government has also introduced literacy and numeracy tests for all trainee teachers, to ensure graduate teachers have personal literacy and numeracy skills equivalent to the top 30 per cent of the Australian adult population. From next year, all primary initial teacher education students will graduate with a broad range of teaching skills and knowledge as well as a subject specialisation. The government's High Achieving Teachers Program will bolster our future teaching workforce by supporting the growth of alternative pathways into teaching for high-quality individuals with the skills, knowledge and commitment to become high-quality teachers. National induction guidelines and supporting resources have been developed to support the successful induction of teachers into the profession. Our government has established the Australian Teacher Workforce Data strategy to improve the quality of data which will help enable governments to better understand their teaching workforce and better manage workforce needs.
So, in conclusion, ensuring Australian students get the education that empowers them to be the best they can be is our focus. The Labor Party should join with the government, make sure that we end discrimination when it comes to students, and then in good faith enter into discussions with the government when the Ruddock review is released, so that we can consider all matters pertinent to that review at that time.
Mr GILES (Scullin) (15:34): The Minister for Education, near the end of that riveting contribution, said the words 'in conclusion'. This was remarkable because he hadn't actually begun to talk about the subject matter of the debate. To be fair to him, though, it was a balanced speech we just heard. He spent five minutes reading out Labor transcripts and five minutes reading out departmental documents. This isn't good enough. What we need to be doing in this place, as lawmakers, is talking about freedom from discrimination, not licensing further discrimination.
I want to set out my values and views, as the minister has seemed reluctant to do and the Prime Minister has refused to do. I believe that everyone should feel proud to be who they are, especially so at school. I think everyone understands how important that is for children at school, for young people finding their way in the world, who are finding out about their sexuality and gender identity and whose relationship status should not shape the quality of the education they receive. It's also, of course, true for teachers and staff. They should not be discriminated against in the course of their employment.
What we heard today in question time from the Prime Minister, though, was no statement of his values, no statement of how he sees these issues. He talked about the Ruddock report, of course, and I'll come back to that. He said of that report that there are many views on these issues, but he did not say what his are. That is unacceptable. We shouldn't be licensing hurtful and harmful discrimination against children or against adults, and the Prime Minister should clearly set out what he thinks about this.
It is also utterly inappropriate for the government to hide this question of discrimination behind the Ruddock review, for two reasons. One is that this is a secretive process that has sat in government for five months—for five months! And, fundamentally, the Ruddock review, the Ruddock investigation of so-called religious freedom, should not be the basis upon which we decide whether or not to continue discrimination against LGBTI young people or LGBTI workers. Their rights should take prominence. Their rights should be pre-eminent in this debate.
It is also disappointing in circumstances where we have seen some movement from the Prime Minister in response to the Leader of the Opposition's letter and in response to the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition reaching across the aisle so this parliament can join together in rejecting discrimination. We welcome the Prime Minister's movement as far as it goes, but it could, should and must go further, for plenty of reasons that go to the principle here but also to the standard that we set in this place.
I was disturbed by comments today by the member for Petrie, who talked about this issue as being an absolute beat-up. How callous, how wrong and how hurtful not to recognise the harm that is being done to lives—to the lives of young people and to the lives of teachers, some of whom have been discriminated against in the course of their employment by reason of their sexuality or by reason of their gender identity. It is utterly shameful that a member of this place would describe this issue as an absolute beat-up. Of course it is not. It is a challenge for all of us who are lawmakers to respond to. It is a challenge for the leadership of this government, in particular the Prime Minister, to clearly set out what his views are, what is right and what is not right. What is not right in this place is to allow continued discrimination for children or adults.
The minister in his contribution talked about context. What he means by 'context' is giving us a history lesson. What we are talking about here are provisions which have been substantially in place since 1984 and which were amended in 2013 by all of us. This is a law on the statute books that belongs to all of us as lawmakers. It is a law that is no longer fit for purpose. It is a law that should be changed. I invite government members to think about whether they can continue to stand up for this discrimination, whether it's in education directly or in employment.
The last point I want to make is to respond to something the minister said. He said the government is focused on protecting the best interests of children. Well, he's got a chance to make that right. He's got a chance to actually ensure that discrimination in schooling comes to an end. When he talks about teachers, too, it's fine for him to talk about the work that he's doing, but he could not once mention in a 10-minute contribution whether he is concerned about discrimination against LGBTI teachers. That isn't good enough.
Mr IRONS (Swan—Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) (15:39): I rise to talk on this matter of public importance today. I thank the member for Scullin for his respectful contribution, and also the member for Wannon. I think that in this area where we're dealing with discrimination of any sort, whether it be in education or whether it be in other walks of life, we will always have differing points of view and we'll always have the opportunity to be respectful in our discussions with each other and to listen to those views.
I must admit I have not seen the report as yet, so I have not achieved a decision from that report—
Mr Champion: You've read the leaks.
Mr IRONS: but obviously I have my own personal views as well. I hear the member for Wakefield.
Mr Champion: Read the leaks?
Mr IRONS: Member for Wakefield, I'm sure there's more to it than just the leaks from that report.
The fact is that I had a religious background. My father was a minister of the Methodist Church back in my early days. I can remember when religion was nearly a war at times, and I'm sure there are places around the world where there are still wars going on because of religion. We had a Catholic church across the road from our Methodist church, and there were constant battles after school between the Catholic schoolkids and those attending the public schools. It's something that has been happening in our society, in Australia, for a long time.
To get back to the subject—discrimination—my personal view is that there shouldn't be any discrimination. But the question of discrimination shouldn't be open-ended; we should have some form of protection for children. I say this as we approach the national apology following the royal commission into the sexual abuse of children in institutions. In those institutions, which were run by different organisations and also run by churches and charities, there were people employed who abused children. If your position on discrimination is open-ended, where we can't discriminate against anyone's sexuality or preferences—which is what I'm hearing from the other side—will you take the risk of employing all sorts of people who aim to work in areas where there are children?
Mr Champion: Come on; is this really what you're going to say?
Mr IRONS: I'm just stating my point of view. You might not want to listen to my point of view. I'm very concerned—
Mr Champion interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The member for Wakefield!
Mr IRONS: He's been warned twice now, Mr Deputy Speaker. The matter for discussion today, according to the opposition, is the need to remove discrimination against LGBTIQ students and school staff. As we know, all Australians are free to choose their religion and are entitled to express and practise their religion and beliefs without intimidation and without interference, as long as those practices are within the framework of Australian law. We hear from those opposite that they want to change the law, which they're entitled to say. And we're entitled to have an open and honest debate about it.
In 2013, the Gillard government amended the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to provide an exemption for religious schools to discriminate against students and employees on the basis of sexual orientation, in certain circumstances. As the Prime Minister announced on 13 October, the government will introduce amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 to ensure that religious schools are no longer permitted to expel students on this basis. In the drafting of the amendments, the government will carefully consider how to protect the best interests of children. The amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act are necessary and appropriate to provide greater certainty to students and their parents.
We heard the member for Scullin talk about certain instances and certain practices where there has been discrimination against teachers. I must admit that in my electorate of Swan I have a mixed bag of religion based, full religion and public schools. There are 64 schools in my electorate, and in the 10 years I have been there not one example of a teacher being discriminated against because of their sexuality has come to me. I am saying not that it doesn't exist but that in my particular electorate I've never seen it. In the discussion we're having today, on the matter proposed by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, we should talk about these things in an open forum and we should have the respect that everyone needs to have when it comes to discussing religion and, in particular, discrimination.
As I said, Labor changed the laws back in 2013. If you look at what Mark Dreyfus said in 2013 in his explanatory memorandum to the bill, you'll see it was:
The Bill will extend the exemption at section 38 of the SDA, so that otherwise discriminatory conduct on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity will not be prohibited for educational institutions established for religious purpose.
That bill was passed, and I'm sure it had the support of the opposition at that time. I look forward to contributing to and hearing the rest of the arguments on this. (Time expired)
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (15:44): It is my absolute pleasure to rise today on this important matter of public importance. As a classroom teacher and school principal for 27 years in the state system, after a wonderful local education in the Catholic system, I rise today to make my contribution and to focus that contribution on what I know about what happens in classrooms and in schools. What I know, from my many, many years in classrooms and in schools, is that our bright, curious children don't only listen to what they're told in the hours of nine until 3.30. They hear us, and they see us.
One of the proudest moments I had as a former teacher who joined this parliament was when we voted for marriage equality in this place. It made me proud because I knew that children around this country were watching us and could hear us. And what they heard was that, no matter who you are and no matter who you love, in this country you won't be discriminated against.
So this debate this week is incredibly important if we look at it through that lens. We told children that we valued them all. We told every adult in the country that, regardless of their gender or their sexual preference, we valued them all. What we're doing today is setting up to confirm that to the children around this country—that we value them all.
I worked in schools for a long time. That means that I have worked with children struggling with their sexual identity. I have seen what can happen where they don't feel included—where they feel that they're being asked to deny who they are. We know what the consequences of that world can be. We've seen it firsthand in schools around this country: the damage it can do to a person's self-worth; the damage it can do to their mental health; the damage it can ultimately do in terms of young people taking their own lives. So this debate today is really important.
I welcome the government's support to remove discrimination for children. I welcome it. But children hear us. If we agree to remove discrimination against them, they have to hear that we've removed it against the adults who work with them. It really is that simple.
I'm reminded of my own education. I'm reminded of the gay teachers who taught me in my Catholic school. I had the privilege of catching up with a few of them at a recent reunion, and it was a fascinating night because all we girls—it was an all-girls school at the time—couldn't wait to chat to our teachers because, of course, we always knew that our teachers were gay! They lived, and held to what they were asked to do in their workplace, and they never discussed it with us. It was never spoken of.
Children are not stupid. They are insightful. They are curious. They test parameters. They know these things.
I'm reminded of teachers that I've worked with—young teachers that I have worked with in the state sector, who were allowed to be openly gay in the school that they worked in. Their experience was vastly different from that of the teachers who taught me those many years before. And I'm reminded of the students who interacted with those teachers.
Kids are not born into a place where they come into classrooms with prejudice. It's exactly the opposite. Our children hear us and see us. They see their teachers in their classrooms. They value them. This place needs to be reminded that in classrooms we do more than the stated curriculum. They are human places of human interaction. The best schools get the best results because of the quality of that human interaction.
What we're debating today—the decisions that we are going to make going forward in this space—is critical. We can't, on one hand, say we have to stop discrimination against children, and continue to allow active discrimination against the adults who will be working with them. It really is that simple.
I want to make this one final point today. Many people have made it, and it's about federal funding. I think it is really important because kids know that too. They know that what we fund is what we care about. I want to fund inclusion. I want to say today that this debate has raised the importance of a strong, state, inclusive secular system of education in this country. (Time expired)
Mr RAMSEY (Grey—Government Whip) (15:50): Obviously, in the light of the leaking of the Ruddock report, there has been quite a flurry of activity around this particular subject, and concern about laws in this place in recent times. It's worth reflecting, of course, that until the report was leaked so many people were pretty much unaware of the laws as they exist at the moment. But I, like other members in this House and other members in the government, completely reject discrimination of all types, including on sexuality.
At the moment, religious schools do have the right to discriminate against both students and teachers on the basis of sexuality, which, as I said, was something most Australians were blissfully unaware of until the last week or so. In fact, the ability to do so was legislated in 2013 by the Labor Party, and that position was supported as recently as January this year by their deputy leader. So at that stage there was no great urgency to change things.
I'm not aware of any schools within Grey—indeed, I don't think any have been raised Australia-wide—that have actually been discriminating on this basis or been using those laws. If there is—certainly, on my own patch—I will be highly surprised. But because of the leaks, apparently, it needs to be fixed yesterday.
Dr Aly: The Baptist college in WA!
Mr RAMSEY: Well, there you go. But the government has announced that it will move immediately, certainly on the discrimination against children. And there will be further indications on the government's moves on any changes in this area, or intent, when the report is officially released.
There are great calls that the report should be released immediately. There is a long history in Australia of governments taking their time to consider reports, particularly ones that don't have that pressing implication of something having to be done tomorrow. And in the case of this, whilst those laws might be offensive to some—and most of us actually recognise they need to be changed—the fact that nobody has been using those laws, and that religious organisations and schools have not been using those laws to discriminate, would tend to indicates it's not as urgent as others might say.
But we are committed to religious freedom. We most certainly must be, because, of course, it is our Constitution, in section 116, that prohibits the making of laws to establish religion. It prohibits the making of laws to impose religious observance and it prohibits the making of laws that impact on anyone's ability to freely exercise their religion. It's very important. It prohibits anything that impacts on the provision of the freedom of religion. And so it is right, particularly when we change laws or when we consider change in this place, that we review what the likely impacts will be and, indeed, what the impacts have been when the laws were made.
When we get a change of legislation, like the same-sex marriage legislation that went through this place earlier this year, it is quite right that we should review it. It is right and proper that we should consider those implications. And that is exactly what the Ruddock report—well, I believe that is exactly what the Ruddock report is doing, Of course I haven't read it; no-one has leaked one to me! But we must consider those implications if we don't deliver on the intent of that section of the Constitution.
While many of us are concerned with things like that, I think the concerns are about the Catholic bishop in Tasmania who was pursued legally for publishing the views of the church. They should be allowed to do that. And I think that people in the public are concerned about the ability for schools to use Christmas carols, those that include religious content. I think they're pretty sick of the idea that the meanings and the reasons and the origins of Easter and Christmas have been drummed out of schools and pushed upon.
Mr Champion: Come on, Rowan.
Mr RAMSEY: You should go down to the pub and have a talk to your people and see what they reckon, because I say they'll be— (Time expired)
Mr PERRETT (Moreton—Opposition Whip) (15:55): I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. We've called on the government to support the notion that we should treat teachers in non-government schools—all schools—the same way that we want children to be treated. There is no magical time, when you turn 18, that it's okay to be discriminated against for who you are and who you love. That's the notion we're putting forward. But I do thank the Morrison government and the Turnbull government for bringing on this debate.
I do have some background in this area, not only having been a teacher in Catholic and state schools but also having worked as a union organiser in non-government schools. I dealt with schools grappling with religious tenets—Jewish schools, Islamic schools, Catholic schools, even closed brethren and evangelical schools, Anglican schools and many others. I gave advice to members of the union who were, perhaps, contemplating coming out at school. I gave advice to members of that union when they even took a discrimination case to court. Religious belief or activity is protected under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 in Queensland. One of its attributes is that people can go to court and say, 'I was discriminated because of that.' I've run a case where someone was discriminated against because of their religious belief.
The starting point for this whole MPI was the idea that we should look after our children in schools and, similarly, we should look after the staff in those schools. No-one would have seen this coming. The religious report was commissioned by the Liberal government. The person they put in charge of it was a former Liberal Attorney-General, a Liberal politician. That Liberal-engendered report was given to the Liberal Party. Yet we have a Prime Minister who says, 'This has nothing to do with the Liberal Party. This has nothing to do with us.'
I look forward to reading the report from Ruddock, Brennan, Croucher et al. I am sure it will provide some good insights. All the people who have prepared this report are well respected in their own disciplines. But it comes in the context of modern Australia. We do know the reality that the chances of suicide are two or three times higher for gay children. Lived experience at school has the potential to be so much more traumatic for gay children. Hopefully, now that we have marriage equality, that journey might be a little bit easier for some.
Maybe it will get better much quicker now that the nation has finally recognised, in law, what we always had in the Constitution the power to do. The parliament has finally recognised the vote of the Australian people and said, 'Yes, we will get this done.' However, the government has been strangely quiet on recognising that we should not be discriminating against someone as soon as they have their 18th birthday, that it's not okay to discriminate against someone because of who they love or who they are.
We know this would not be the state imposing its will on religious schools. Obviously, there are sensitivities there. There are taxpayer dollars—secular taxpayer dollars, from the secular state that is modern Australia—being put into these religious institutions, and they should be able to run their schools according to the 'tenets of their religion', which is the term used in the Queensland Anti-Discrimination Act. But that might mean that, for a person mowing the lawn at a religious school, it would not be an inherent quality that they must have the same faith as the religious school. And, like any teacher, irrespective of their sexuality, what they do in their private life would not have anything to do with their classroom, I would hope. I would hope that my children, one at a state school and one at a Catholic school, know nothing of the lifestyles of their teachers.
Mr LEESER (Berowra) (16:00): In recent days there's been some public controversy about whether students can be expelled from religious schools on the basis of their sexuality. Our government doesn't support the expulsion of students from religious schools on the basis of their sexuality, and that view is widely shared by religious schools and communities right across the country. Because of this public controversy, the government has been taking action to ensure that no student of a non-government school can be expelled on the basis of their sexuality. The Attorney-General is working through amendments and the Prime Minister has invited the opposition leader and the shadow Attorney to help work through this so that we can provide certainty in this area and remove the anxiety that is being created by this public debate.
Last year the government commissioned my distinguished predecessor, Philip Ruddock, and a panel of eminent Australians to look at issues of religious freedom in this country. That panel received 15,500 submissions—that must be something of a record—and held 180 consultations, and I think we owe it to the people who made the submissions to that panel, and to those who attended the consultations, to seriously consider the recommendations of that panel in a sober and careful way.
The broader issues of freedom of religion, I think, should be considered by the government's proposed response in due course, whilst it's been through the appropriate deliberative processes. If this were easy it would have been done already. The government is going to deal with this in an orderly way and I think we'll release the report and its response in due course following consultations.
On Sunday, the member for Sydney, who has initiated this motion, said Labor would wait for the release of the report before considering the issue. She even praised the members of the panel—and I agree with her. Today, the member for Isaacs said that the question of exemption for staff and teachers and other staff working in religious schools is a complex one—and I agree with him, as well. He said, 'We in Labor recognise the need to protect the right of religious schools to run their schools in accordance with the tenets of their faith.' Yet, instead of adhering to the process, today's motion has put the politics before the process.
I want to use the remaining time available to talk a little bit about the place of religion in Australia, because I think too often we hear only one voice about religion in Australia and it's often not a fair or accurate voice. Australia is founded on a Judeo-Christian condition, the font of liberalism, which has two notions at its core. The first is that life is a sacred gift from God and, secondly, that human beings are all created in the image and likeness of God. If all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, then all human beings should have the freedom to worship God in their own way. This notion has underpinned much of Western theological thinking since the Westphalian settlement and has had a particular resonance in the postwar era through such statements as Nostra Aetate, the Vatican's declaration on relations with other faiths.
For people of faith, their particular faith is fundamental to who they are and how they see the world. For people of faith, the idea that a tradition or a set of beliefs is ordained by God, or whatever supreme being they might believe in, makes that tradition or set of beliefs fundamental. Therefore, the right to practice your faith according to its traditions, customs and beliefs is fundamental to a believer's very existence. That is why true believers seek to leave countries where people are not able to freely exercise their religious beliefs or, worse still, are persecuted for doing so. Australia has never been that sort of country.
Although I'm not a Catholic, prior to entering the parliament I spent the best four years of my working life at the Australian Catholic University, the largest mission of the church in Australia, where I spent time thinking not only about education policy but also about the future of the church in Australia and its place in our national life. I also had the privilege of serving on the board of Mercy Health, a large Catholic health organisation run by the Sisters of Mercy. While Catholicism isn't my faith, in order to support the mission of the university I would often attend mass, celebrated by the university chaplain, Father Anthony Casamento. There's something quite beautiful about sitting quietly and watching people of deep faith observing the rituals and hearing the biblical readings, some from my own Bible and some from the New Testament, and reflecting on what that wisdom means for each of us. Rituals of this sort provide clarity and calm in what can often be a chaotic world.
Today, as a parliamentarian I regularly attend church services, as well as services at Hindu temples, Buddhist temples, gurdwaras, Baha'i temples and mosques. Despite the increasingly questioned place of religion in the public square, religion continues to survive. The former chief rabbi of the Commonwealth, Jonathan Sacks, reminds us:
Religion survives because it answers three questions that every reflective person must ask. Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? We will always ask those three questions because homo sapiens is the meaning-seeking animal, and religion has always been our greatest heritage of meaning.
… … …
We stand to lose a great deal if we lose religious faith. We will lose our Western sense of human dignity. I think we will lose our Western sense of a free society. I think we will lose our understanding of moral responsibility.
Religion retains a key importance in our life, and we should give it some respect.
Mr KEOGH (Burt) (16:05): When it comes to discrimination, this government's been nothing but own goals. It railed against marriage equality, beginning fights with itself before and after, eventually requiring a divisive and conclusive plebiscite to decide the matter. Then the government called the Ruddock review on religious freedom, and after 15,000 submissions a report was delivered to government in May of this year—a report that the government has refused to release and which has now been leaked against the government. What have they got to hide? Why don't they think the voters of Wentworth, let alone the rest of Australia, deserve to see it? The Liberals must release the Ruddock review immediately and respond to its recommendations. That will inform a proper discussion of religious freedom.
Despite all of this, we are pleased that the Prime Minister has accepted Labor's call to remove existing laws that could allow religious schools to discriminate against schoolchildren because of who they are. It is wholly unfair to discriminate against students because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, just as it would be unfair to discriminate against them based on race, skin colour, height or the colour of their eyes. All aspects of our schools must be about the best interests of those students.
But Labor is also disappointed at the refusal of the government to work with Labor on removing the exemptions as they apply to teachers. We hope that the government will reconsider its response to this as well as the matter that it debated in the Senate yesterday. Clearly, the government at this stage should start seeking advice from some other sources, so I suggest they bear in mind the classical view of the always erudite Dead Kennedys about what Nazi punks should do!
We respect the right of religious schools to run their schools in line with their beliefs. Despite what those opposite try to say about us on this side of the House, we also respect the right of parents to send children to the schools of their choice and to have their children educated in accordance with their religious convictions. These rights are not inconsistent with our position on discrimination. We also understand that the mission of a religious school is delivered not just in a religious education class but also through the culture of the school via religious services, sporting activities, community service, student leadership and the many areas of the education curriculum. In fact, removing these discrimination exemptions actually buttresses the freedom of thought, conscience and religion as well as the liberty of parents to ensure the religious and moral education of the children in conformity with their own conviction. Resolving this will make clear the basis for actions concerning enrolment, hiring, discipline and termination as well as stop some gross overstepping.
When it comes to employment, we understand that religious schools and parents of students expect that teachers and staff support the ethos, values and principles of the particular faith of that school and not act in a way to undermine the school's mission. That's no different from saying that all schools are entitled to have rules that govern the conduct of staff—all staff, not just teachers—in the way in which they relate to students and in the way in which they go about their work at the school. Just as all employers are entitled to require employees to act and perform their duties in accordance with the stated policies and mission of their organisation, religious schools have the right to conduct their schools in accordance with the tenets of their faith. This is actually broader than the issue of gender identity. The reality also is that staff who choose to work in these religious schools understand this too.
But our LGBTIQ students and their teachers don't deserve to live in fear that they may be kicked out of a school merely because of who they are. Our schools should be a place of learning, safety and flourishing fun for all. In 21st-century Australia, exemptions from discrimination law are no longer appropriate, nor are they the best way to safeguard the mission and identity of religious schools. That is a discussion that should be ongoing. The government's amendments must not stop at students—they must include the abolition of exemptions as they apply to teachers and other staff—and the government should work with Labor to ensure that this is done in a holistic, workable and acceptable way to the Australian community that affirms the ability of religious schools to operate consistently with their mission.
Mr LAMING (Bowman) (16:10): Like two gangs turning up and looking to have a fight and realising there's actually nothing to fight over, everyone's scratching their head and asking whether it's someone's haircut or the footy team they support. We have fabulous schools across this nation. We have independent and state schools doing an incredible job. Today, we have managed to have a completely hypothetical debate over Labor Party exemptions—not just federal ones—in every state and territory that provide an exemption for religious schools to allow them to hire people who share their views. And today we find ourselves tied up in knots, detaining the great parliament of Australia to try and reverse a Labor exemption from 2013 as if something's changed in the last five years.
There's one thing I'm not going to let happen from this debate, and that is that our independent schools—faith based and non-faith based schools—will not be traduced and cast by the Labor Party as being places of bigotry and discrimination, because nothing could be further from the truth. There are a lot of MPs in this chamber who know nothing more about schools than when the next P&F meeting is, but, in reality, inside those schools are incredibly hardworking staff and they are teaching students they love. It has been made very clear in the last week that this is really about the Labor Party egging on a debate to make themselves look good with their minorities—that they're fighting to remove something that they introduced themselves as recently as five years ago.
I don't always find myself jumping in to defend the views of independent education, but I do need to read into Hansard the views of some of the most senior educators in this country, who are saying, 'Why on earth are we having this ridiculous debate?' The answer is that a report was leaked. We've got the results of the leak and those opposite need to desperately create some kind of debate to try and get the report released. The reality is that most people involved in education are not professional politicians. I can't think of a solitary example of someone being discriminated against in an Australian school based on their gender preference or their sexuality—not a single case. You're welcome to bring one forward. That might be a reason for the debate, but nothing has initiated this debate except a political gain from the other side.
The Uniting Church has said, 'Our current commitment'—like other churches—'is that we would not seek to discriminate except in key leadership roles'. It's absolutely self-evident, as Christian Schools Australia have said, that they want to be able to ensure that staff who share the values of their school and share the beliefs of their school teach in their school. One would think, if you listen to the Labor Party over there, that the whole game was about trying to find a single student that you could jam into a school that least wants them and use legal tactics to make sure the school has to take them. In reality, students of all different gender preferences, sexuality and backgrounds are being taken in by schools right across this country, and proudly so, and we're not going to let extremists in the Labor Party try and embarrass this great nation by claiming this is an endemic problem—'We just can't possibly protect all of the students who have gender and sexuality preferences and are fundamentally unsafe in independent schools.' That is a complete creation for Labor Party convenience.
In interviews, we've heard the most senior people in education saying, 'I cannot see any reason for expelling any student on the basis of sexual orientation.' They've said, 'I cannot even think of a particular example where it has ever happened.' Why are we having this ridiculous debate? I've got no problem with changing Labor Party exemptions from five years ago—no problem at all. I just don't want to allow this to ever turn into a debate where we corrode or erode the great achievements of independent education in this country, because you just don't find that quality of education in any other comparable OECD nation.
There are a few things we could be focusing on. We could be focusing on the school in my electorate that cannot find a grade 6 teacher. There have been five teachers for grade 6 because no-one will teach at that school, because the department cannot provide a qualified teacher. We could be talking about opportunities that simply aren't there or available to do postgraduate research as a teacher to get higher pay by doing an extra qualification or about ways to manage teachers that can't function within the system or are struggling and can be not paid increments automatically.
Lastly, we can't be the only nation where teachers hit, at the age of 29, the highest wage they'll ever get as a teacher. How will we ever retain great teachers with those issues? Instead, the Labor Party over here detains this parliament on this ridiculous debate.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The time for the discussion has concluded.
MOTIONS
Racism
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Watson from moving the following motion immediately:
That the House rejects the resolution put to the Senate yesterday which included a white supremacist slogan that is also used by hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ) (16:15): In accordance with standing order 133, I shall now proceed to put the question on the motion moved earlier today by the honourable member for Watson on which a division was called for and deferred in accordance with the standing order. No further debate is allowed.
Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (16:19): (In division) Mr Speaker, under standing order 67 and given the nature of how this issue has been dealt with in each house, I ask that you read the question that is before the House so that all members know exactly what we're voting on.
Government members interjecting—
The SPEAKER: Members on my right aren't assisting. Whilst this is not normally done, given it's already in the Hansard and stated this morning and time has elapsed with the deferred division, I will. I would have presumed most members want to be able to vote in the division; even though the doors are locked, you can be excluded from voting. The question before the House is the motion moved by the member for Watson, which was:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Watson from moving the following motion immediately:
That the House rejects the resolution put to the Senate yesterday which included a white supremacist slogan that is also used by hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
The House divided. [16:19]
(The Speaker—Hon. Tony Smith)
COMMITTEES
Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights
Report
Mr GOODENOUGH (Moore) (16:28): On behalf of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I present the committee's report entitled Human rights scrutiny report 11 of 2018.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
Mr GOODENOUGH: by leave—Of the new bills examined in chapter 1 of this report, 21 have been assessed as not raising human rights concerns as they promote, permissibly limit, or do not engage human rights. The committee has also requested further information in relation to the human rights compatibility of three bills and has concluded its examination of a number of other pieces of legislation.
A number of bills examined in chapter 1 are scheduled for debate this week, including the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission Bill 2018. As set out in the report, this bill includes provisions relating to public interest disclosure of personal information by the proposed Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner. The committee has sought further information from the minister as to the compatibility of these measures with the right to privacy.
A number of other bills scheduled for debate this week have been assessed by the committee as not raising human rights concerns, including in relation to:
veterans' affairs;
treasury laws amendments (including in relation to gift cards, and black economy taskforce measures);
customs and excise amendments relating to tobacco duties; and
maritime legislation.
Chapter 2 of the report contains the committee's concluded examination of a number of bills. In relation to three of these bills, following further correspondence from the relevant minister, the committee has been able to conclude that the legislation may be compatible with human rights. Of these, I would like to highlight the Court and Tribunal Legislation Amendment (Fees and Juror Remuneration) Regulations 2018. As set out in the report, these regulations increase the court fees payable in the High Court of Australia. The committee had sought further information from the Attorney-General as to whether the increase in fees was compatible with the right to an effective remedy and fair hearing, as an increase in the fees may preclude persons from being able to access the court and access justice. The Attorney-General's response provided useful information as to the safeguards in place to minimise the impact on persons facing financial hardship, which enabled the committee to conclude that, on balance, these measures may be compatible with the rights to a fair hearing and effective remedy. This illustrates the constructive process of liaising with legislation proponents to assist the committee in its assessment of legislation.
I encourage my fellow members and others to examine the committee's latest scrutiny report to better inform their consideration of proposed legislation.
With these comments, I commend the committee's Report 11 of 2018 to the chamber.
BILLS
Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr FALINSKI (Mackellar) (16:31): I rise to speak in favour of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018 because of its critical nature for the future of our country, our economy and our community. Just prior to this debate being delayed, the member for Fenner was on his feet. He started by quoting from the DC Comics and Bizarro World—and, indeed, his speech was from the very centre of Bizarro World. He told us that in his world the Labor Party is the party of lower debt, the Labor Party is the party of lower taxation, the Labor party is the party that can be trusted on the economy and the Labor Party is the party of responsibility. This would need to be a world so far removed from any world that the rest of Australia lives in that to describe it as bizarre would not just be the case; it would be a very strange world. It would be the strangest of strange worlds, because the fact of the matter is that the Labor Party has always hated business and has always loved taxing them to death. That is why, when it was in government, it took all of three months to undo a $25 billion surplus and billions of dollars that the Howard government left it in surplus in the kitty. It left this country in absolute ruin.
Mr Keogh interjecting—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Howarth ): Order! The member for Brand will speak next, so just be quiet. I call the member for Mackellar.
Mr FALINSKI: What's his seat again? Is it in Western Australia? It's so far away. Anyway, I notice the member over there complaining. He claims that somehow they saved us from the global financial crisis, ignoring the massive reduction in interest rates and ignoring the Chinese government's huge and giant stimulus package, the largest in the history of humanity. In fact, the only things they gave us were school halls no-one asked for and pink batts that ended up killing people. That's what the Labor Party gave us. That's their testament to saving us from the global financial crisis. Then they stand up here and say, 'Why is this so urgent?' Let me tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker: there is the urgency of now. They will always find an excuse to keep other people's money. They will always find an excuse to spend money on useless projects. But what they won't ever do is find an excuse to come into this parliament—I love your socks by the way, Matt; they're very good.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! You've got to use correct titles.
Mr FALINSKI: I know. I understand, but I can't remember the seat he's got. What they will never find, though, is an excuse to act like a party of responsible economic managers, because they don't have it in themselves to do it. The fact is that they are a party that now say that they will pay for this corporate tax cut. They will pay for it by abolishing the instant asset write-off. That's what the member for Fenner told this House. So, when they take with the left hand, they will take more with the left hand. That's what the Labor Party stand for. They're not going to give small businesses in this country a tax reduction. They're going to create more complexity. They're going to make it harder for people to create jobs, create work, create products and services that consumers want and create competition in our market. They will punish people.
The member for Fenner said that they can be trusted and then read a list of the ways that the Labor Party will intervene in our economy that, frankly, the Venezuelan government would be proud of. There isn't any nook or any cranny left in this economy that apparently the member for Fenner doesn't know how to manage better than the people running the businesses themselves. This bill, Mr Deputy Speaker—
Mr Keogh interjecting—
Mr FALINSKI: Oh, well, we've all seen the member for Burt's attempts at the Standing Committee on Economics. No-one does Rumpole of the Bailey better than the member for Burt!
There are 23,687 small and medium businesses within my electorate. Such businesses are predominantly family run and provide jobs for half of Australia's workforce, nearly seven million Australians. We know that, when we make it easier for businesses to invest and reduce red tape, they reinvest in their staff and our economy. Small businesses like Matt and Lisa's Tramshed cafe, in Narrabeen; Ryan's Stay Grounded cafe, in Collaroy; John Beale consulting in Mona Vale; and Becky's Enliven Coaching will benefit from this tax relief that we have brought five years earlier than planned. Not only will they benefit; so will the people who work for them and so will the consumers who use their products and services.
This is good for our community, and this is good for our nation. By fast-tracking this tax relief, we will see a more immediate difference in their cash flow and benefits for everyone in our community. These businesses with a turnover below $50 million will face a tax rate of just 25 per cent in 2021-22. ANT constructions, Alice hairdressing, The Bored Monkey, Incat Crowther and many more local businesses that have cash flows of $500,000 will have an additional $7½ thousand in 2021 and $12½ thousand in 2022 to invest back into business or staff and provide for consumers.
I'm here to tell those opposite that this government and my party will always give a fair go to those who are willing to have a go. There are people right across Australia who make sacrifices to get to work, and what do we give them for all the effort that they put into that? We tax them. We tax them so that they can fund social welfare programs and other such matters. Since this government was elected, 1,100 jobs have been created per day in our economy. That's 1,100 people every day who are better off under this government. The fact is that those opposite can keep taxing those people, or they can start encouraging them to do even more for our community and create a better Australia that all of us can be proud of.
Ms MADELEINE KING (Brand) (16:38): I too rise here today to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018. In essence, this bill accelerates the reduction of the corporate tax rate for small to medium enterprises, which for the purposes of this legislation means businesses with a turnover of less than $50 million. The corporate tax rate will be cut from 27.5 per cent to 26 per cent in 2021, then later to 25 per cent from 2021-22. In addition, this bill increases the current small-business income tax offset rate of an eligible individual's basic income tax liability that relates to their total net small-business income, first to 13 per cent and then later to 16 per cent. This bill seeks to benefit 3.3 million businesses, which employ 6.6 million Australian workers. This tax relief will provide Australian small businesses with confidence to undertake new investments and to deliver more jobs across the country.
Growing up with my mum having run a local drapery store in my hometown of Rockingham, I have experienced and know firsthand the unique challenges facing small business owners across this country. These are the people you will see first thing in the morning; they are opening up a drapery store, a cafe or a hardware store—although, sadly, those are getting fewer and fewer. They are the people who you will see who might be filling in for a worker who has had to call in sick, or they have their unwell younger children in the workplace with them because they are not able to take the day off. Or they have the kids in with them at work because they are not able to pick them up from school, or because they are unwell or for unforeseen circumstances. They help to run our economy and employ by far the majority of employees throughout the country, and they keep the country running—there is no doubt about that.
Since my time of being elected, and in my time assisting in the small business portfolio, I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting with local businesses and conducting round tables in my electorate of Brand—in Rockingham and Kwinana. I am always happy to hear from my local small business community. The Rockingham Kwinana Chamber of Commerce is a remarkable resource for local businesses. They have many members, and I'm always pleased to speak to them whenever they'd like me to. Sometimes I turn up at their fantastic functions unannounced, because they are such fantastic functions.
I have to say that the Rockingham Kwinana Chamber of Commerce has been helpful in facilitating engagement opportunities for and with these businesses. Small businesses are the driving force of our local economy across the communities of Rockingham and Kwinana. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the chamber and its hardworking CEO, Tony Solin—we went to the same school, at Rockingham Beach Primary School—and his hardworking offsider, Diana White; president, Basil Paperone, who runs one of the best grocery stores across the district, down at Malibu Fresh Essentials; and vice-president, Rob McGavin, who of course went to school at Rockingham High School with my brothers.
I look forward very much to working with this community and the Rockingham Kwinana Chamber of Commerce for many years to come. I thank them for their ongoing support and for the work they do in helping small businesses access various bits of advice from the state government and also from the federal government and local government.
Through my engagement with this small business community I have heard their primary concerns. I've heard they have a lack of cashflow at times due to late payments—delayed invoicing and payments of invoices from big business—and also sometimes from the lack of capital from banks. They are simply not able to access that, and this does cause them issues. These small businesses are the bread and butter of this nation. They employ millions of people, and this tax relief package is one that we support. It will help to mitigate some of these challenges. It will drive investment and support new jobs in growing industries for owners and workers alike.
I would like to reflect for a moment on this government's economic plan. As we know, it's the one-point plan for economic growth, and that one-point plan was a big business tax cut, $17 billion of which was going to the big banks and 60 per cent of which would have travelled offshore. Yes, plan A for this government was a big business tax cut, and didn't that go well? The signature single-point plan cost the former Prime Minister his job. Now, with that plan thoroughly off the table, they have another plan, which is to help out small and medium-sized enterprises.
The government has brought these tax cuts forward, and Labor will support the legislation to bring them forward. It's important that we provide small business with certainty. The Australian people need to know, and small businesses across Australia need to know, that it doesn't matter who wins the next election: taxation for small business will remain the same. Labor is a strong supporter of small business and we always have been. With a Shorten Labor government, 99 per cent of businesses will receive a tax cut, no business will have their tax rate increased and all businesses will be able to plan and invest with confidence and certainty.
Labor supports the small business taxation legislation as it provides certainty to small businesses ahead of the next election. However, unlike the coalition, Labor will deliver tax relief for small businesses without cutting funds to schools or hospitals or increasing the national debt. Labor has taken difficult decisions to be able to fund its policy commitments, such as making multinationals pay their fair share of taxation and reforming negative gearing, the capital gains tax discount, the tax treatment of trusts, managing tax affairs and, of course, dividend imputations. The Liberals have not paid for bringing forward these tax cuts to small and medium-sized businesses, but rest assured that Labor will.
The Liberals have abandoned their budget rules and they have no fiscal credibility. They've doubled net debt since coming to office, and the deficit for this year is double the amount compared to what they first forecast in the 2015 budget. As outlined by my colleagues before me, our Labor team will accommodate the cost of this bill in our budget bottom line by delaying the introduction of the Australian Investment Guarantee by 12 months, building on our record of hard and sensible budget decisions to pay for our priorities.
Once implemented—acknowledging a delay of 12 months—Labor's Australian Investment Guarantee will allow all businesses in Australia to immediately deduct 20 per cent of any new eligible asset worth more than $20,000, with the balance depreciated in line with normal depreciation schedules from the first year. Unlike previous asset write-off schemes, the Australian Investment Guarantee as promised by Labor will be permanent. It means businesses can continue to take advantage of the immediate tax deductibility whenever they make a new investment in an eligible asset.
Labor is a great supporter of small business, in contrast with the Liberal government's record—they've delivered five years of chaos and division on energy policy, which has seen Australia's wholesale power prices double. Australian small businesses now pay among the highest electricity prices in the world, reducing their cash flow, productivity, profitability and ability to maintain employment. They dropped the National Energy Guarantee, another signature policy that cost the former Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, his job. Now it's a policy vacuum costing Australian small businesses across the nation.
This is the same Liberal government that has mismanaged the most critical infrastructure project of the 21st century for Australia's small businesses: the National Broadband Network. Despite promising universal access to minimum speeds of 25 megabits per second by 2016, the Turnbull government's technologically inferior NBN will not reach many small businesses until 2019 or later, and then it will deliver speeds that are well behind those of key trading partners and competitors, such as Korea, Japan and New Zealand.
The most fundamental change facing small businesses around the world is the rise of ecommerce. You can and often do compete with businesses around the world, not just those in your neighbourhood. NBN Co recently released its updated pre-election corporate plan containing yet another $2 billion cost blowout to the Liberal's second-rate NBN. In 2018-19, 1.3 million premises will have their connections delayed. The project is now $22 billion over budget and four years behind its promised delivery date.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Howarth ): Order! You've got to link it to the bill.
Ms MADELEINE KING: Small businesses.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It's a long bow but, all right, keep going.
Ms MADELEINE KING: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I'm really pleased that you let me know about the bill and brought me back to it. We know the NBN and the internet are essential for the operations of small business. In fact, in my electorate of Rockingham, there is a local pool shop that I struggle to contact because their phone has been down. Their NBN line has been connected improperly, and they continue to pay phone bills to both Optus and Telstra because they are unable to sort through the mess that this government's NBN has introduced. So that's the relevance of what I was saying: if you're going to introduce an inferior national broadband project and introduce it very poorly, small businesses—like the pool shop that I have to go to to help my mum maintain her pool—cannot do business. It's really difficult. They don't have fibre lines. They have to use dongles. They pay extra. Despite trying to help them, they are still working in a maze and a mess of a failed NBN service in Rockingham. I wasn't going to mention it, but thank you very much for reminding me.
The NBN is a critical productivity answer and all businesses rely on it. Ninety-five per cent of businesses have internet access, with internet income estimated to be worth $394 billion annually. As we know, we've been going backwards. Australia now ranks below countries like Kazakhstan when it comes to broadband speed and we're ranked 55th internationally, which is no good for small businesses.
I'm going to talk about the NBN service guarantee. Again, that is really important for small businesses. In addition to a lower tax rate for small business, Labor will deliver a better experience for NBN consumers and small businesses so that they may work within the regulated time frame, and wholesale service standards will be set for the benefit of small businesses for things like fault rectification, installations and missed appointments. Labor will also establish stronger penalties to protect small businesses on the NBN so that they might get a better service more quickly and improve their bottom line and therefore, hopefully, drive further investment in those small businesses and further employment, which is what we want to happen.
Labor does have other small-business policies in addition to supporting the government's current proposal for the taxation reduction for small and medium enterprises. We support and have announced implementing a second commissioner of taxation, which we predict will help service that small-business community and set up an appeals process within the ATO that is separate from the decision-making processes of the ATO, which, as we have seen in some media reports, seems to be targeting sometimes small businesses that don't have quite the financial wherewithal to tackle some of the challenges that the ATO puts out to them.
In other small-business policies, the shadow Assistant Treasurer, the member for Fenner, has recently announced 'Your car, your choice' policy, which will ensure car manufacturers share their technical information to ensure that vehicles can be serviced by any mechanic, creating a level playing field for independent mechanics. As we know, independent mechanics are small businesses all around all electorates across this country. This policy, in addition to lowering taxes for small and medium businesses, will benefit them.
Labor will also improve access to justice for small business and level the playing field in cases of anticompetitive behaviour by big business. We will restore the balance by letting a small business request a no-adverse costs order early in a court case. Similar to the lower taxes for small and medium businesses that we are talking about today, improving access to justice for small business in this manner will be of advantage to small and medium businesses.
We also seek to take action against phoenixing activity, and we hope the government might also take some action to make phoenixing activity more difficult for some corporations. We know that some small businesses don't do the right thing and they create an unlevel playing field by cheating, quite frankly. They dodge their own bills which are the bills that need to go to other small businesses, which, of course, tend to employ people. The problem is that some companies decide to not pay their invoices, not pay their employees, dodge superannuation, dodge penalty rates and then go into a phoenix-like arrangement, which of course is basically cheating on the community as well as on all small businesses in the community which have to participate alongside them.
I would like to reflect on another policy that the government can feel free to take up—that is, to establish an independent Australian skills authority that will advise on skills shortages and prioritise training investment in skills shortages in areas that are identified by the authority. We anticipate this will also be of great benefit to small and medium businesses, in addition to the taxation package we are talking about today. Skills of all sorts and the practical and vocational education that goes through TAFE are essential for small businesses right around this country, whether it be mechanics, carpenters, all sorts of trades—and trades that participate in the mining industry. There are small and medium-sized businesses right across the country that use trade training centres to participate in the defence contracts supply chain—in Henderson, for example, south of Fremantle and north of Kwinana, but also into the mining and resources sector in Western Australia.
All in all, there is no doubt Labor has and always will be a friend of small business. Sometimes misinformation is put around by our parliamentary colleagues on the other side about how we do not know much about small business. I grew up in a small business. I know many colleagues here have run and owned a small business, or their partners have. They have grown up in small businesses. I know there are sons of butchers and sons of newsagents that work in this place as members of parliament on the Labor side. We know small business, we believe in small business and we'll support small business.
Dr GILLESPIE (Lyne) (16:53): I rise to speak in favour of Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill because it is in our DNA to let hardworking small and medium enterprises keep more of the money that they earn. As you can see from the litany of speeches from the other side, they have an attitude problem. Honestly, the concepts of small businesses and large businesses are treated with contempt. All the proposals that I've seen coming out of the other side seem to work on the proviso that they're all operating a tax dodge and that reasonable costs incurred in earning your income in a business is somehow diddling the tax scheme. That is so wrong. It just demonstrates clearly how they misunderstand issues like revenue and turnover, as opposed to profit and tax on profit.
We have delivered many tax deductions already. For individuals, there is our low-income tax offset of $530 for each low-income earner, as a rebate, so that they're paying less tax. There is also our legislated reform to company tax for small and medium businesses with turnover of less than $50 million. They are not promises. They have been delivered from 1 July. Also, we have set in train this bit of legislation to bring forward by five years the proposed reduction in tax from 27.5 per cent down to 25 per cent. We have dragged the opposition kicking and screaming to it. I hear the member for Brand now saying they're going to support this legislation. But it's not what they say they will do; it's what they do. They have a track record of going after small and medium businesses. They have an attitude problem—that the government should keep all the money and then let us as individual taxpayers, and small and large businesses, keep a small bit. It's back to front. Their thinking is so odd.
This legislation will allow small and medium businesses, of which I have about 12,000 in Lyne electorate, to keep more of their profits. In fact, it will be $3.2 billion less tax over the forward estimates. We reduce taxes because we know that by reducing taxes on small businesses they will get a better return on their investment. It allows them to grow and to invest in their business, and growth of business leads to growth in employment. Unincorporated businesses—and I have many of those in Lyne electorate—such as sole traders, tradesmen or just small businesses, get a benefit from this. It brings forward to 2020-21 a 13 per cent reduction in their tax rate, and 16 per cent by 2021-22. It has been brought forward because we realise that a lot of these small businesses have neither the wherewithal nor the need to incorporate themselves. Labor puts tax up, we put tax down. It's a pretty clear delineation. You can rely on the coalition government to reduce the tax burden for small businesses.
Many policies have been announced by the other side. They have given the green light to remove the brakes on growth in taxes. In fact, they have announced policies that will mean $200 billion is raised from individuals and companies, like the small and medium businesses that are the engine room of regional Australian employment. They have ruled out putting limits, or the so-called speed limit, on tax growth. They want to repeal our personal income tax cuts that we've already legislated and delivered. They're on the record saying that they want to repeal that and make it less generous. They want to reintroduce the two per cent budget repair levy, which we said we would repeal when the situation was better, and we did that last year.
So many in parliament have come from family companies. They have left their family businesses and have brought their knowledge and experience down into parliament for the betterment of the nation. They know what small and family businesses are, because it's in their DNA. You only had to see the hands-up situation in the last fortnight of sitting. About 80 or 90 per cent of the people on this side have been involved in small businesses, whereas over the other side there were just three or four. I'm sure that if you go back through the family lineage, somewhere you'll find a parent or grandparent who has been in a small business, but it is in the DNA of the members on this side, because they've run businesses—as did you, Deputy Speaker Howarth, and other members here. They want to attack trusts. They don't understand that trust distributions then get taxed by the individual. It's almost like they need to do a basic 101 tax course. They are proposing a 30 per cent tax on all distributions out of trusts, so are they going to double-tax profits? It's so ridiculous, it's scary. Imagine that: you pay 30 per cent on distribution from the trust to individuals in the trust and then they have to pay tax again. It's crazy stuff, but it's more scary. It is actually scary.
That's where they are going to get the money to pay for all these promises. They are going to do the classic Labor Party phenomenon: tax and then spend it. Redistribute income from hardworking individuals that take a risk with their families' house and mortgage, run a small business, employ people, grow things, and deliver goods and services. And then what do they get for it? They get a proposal from the other side that says, 'No, we're going to get rid of these tax cuts and we're going to make it more difficult for you to keep the profit from your labours.'
There are many proxies that float ideas in the body politic and from which some other scary proposals have come. ALP proxies in GetUp!, Ben Oquist of the Australia Institute and the Grattan Institute are some of the people that float ideas. That gives you the way they're thinking on the other side. The Grattan Institute has proposed that the family home be used in the pension assets test. That would possibly lead to a lot of people being excluded from the pension. It sounds like it's a wealth redistribution tool, and that's probably what it is, but there are many people who've got an asset that they can't sell, because they've lived in it all their life, but, by virtue of population growth in the cities, they are now worth a whole lot more than when they started off in the fifties, sixties and 1970s. But they want to get a slice of that as well.
As I mentioned, a fellow—Ben Oquist from the Australia Institute—in March this year said:
All things being equal, surely people would prefer to be taxed when they were dead than when they're alive.
Connect the dots. What he's referring to is death duties. I fear that the other side want to bring back death duties by stealth.
The other thing is GetUp! and—
Mr Thistlethwaite: Where'd you get that from?
Dr GILLESPIE: These are all quoted. The capital gains tax—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Howarth ): Order, everyone! Keep it relevant to the bill, but the member for Lyne has the call.
Dr GILLESPIE: Another issue that's been floated by GetUp! is that we should be taxing the business use of fuel. I can only assume they're referring to the fuel excise rebate, which is justified because most of the business use in agriculture, mining and other things isn't on public roads; it's on a mine site or it's on a farm, and that's why the discount or the rebate on the excise is there. If the proposal is to tax petrol and diesel use for small businesses, that would really be a big tax grab, because, again, the principal of costs incurred by a business in earning income is netted off against their income. It is a deductible expense. That would go right to the heart of tax practice since the federation has existed.
But that is all a giant tax grab, and we in this legislation are proposing to bring forward the tax cuts for small and medium businesses that have less than $50 million turnover to 25 per cent by 2021. The reason we've been able to do that is that we have grown the economic pie. The other side seems to look at a fixed pie and they slice up where it all goes, but we have grown the economy. That's why we've got over a million new employment positions out of the economy: we've made the settings right for the economy to grow. We have had increasing company tax receipts because of our anti-avoidance legislation and auditing by the tax office.
We've also empowered small business. We have cut their tax rates. The biggest growth in tax income and the biggest growth in employment have been in the small business space. So it's not like we're going to reduce our income from small business. I think we will get more tax income by cutting the rate, because it empowers business owners to work harder and invest in their business, like the instant asset write-off that we did and the tax treatment changes that we did in agriculture, in the ag white paper. The same principle applies. We understand how tax modifies decisions. Every government needs to raise taxes, but we try to make them as small as possible to let everyone flourish and to let employment grow and business grow.
I am so pleased that it's people on our side who are arguing the case for this and are putting up the legislation for this, and I'm very scared by the $200 billion tax grab, because everyone will suffer under that. There won't be the growth that we've seen. It's like death by a thousand cuts. They're pinching bits from here. Like I said, they want to get rid of capital gains tax. That's a really negative step, a backwards step. You have to allow people to aspire to get ahead. Most people who invest are mum-and-dad investors, perhaps investing in property. Even if they just quarantined people who've already negatively geared, when they sell that property the value of it will be reduced. You can already see the property market reducing—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Negative gearing isn't related to the small-business bill. Thank you, member for Lyne.
Dr GILLESPIE: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Getting back to the bill, this bill reflects the DNA of the coalition government. It reflects the understanding that, if you punish people with taxes that are too high, their incentive to work harder goes. It's the same in a business. For those on the other side who don't understand the difference between turnover and profit, the profit is what you have left to distribute to your shareholders—and, usually in these small mum-and-dad family businesses, that's their wage. Unless you give them a reward for the risk of the investment, for the responsibility of providing employment for their employees, the whole exercise is negatively affected.
This is a very empowering bit of legislation and it's not going to run the country broke. The income from small and medium businesses will probably grow, which is the phenomenon seen in other decades and generations, both here and overseas. We're bringing taxes down, and those opposite have a track record of putting taxes up. What they're proposing is very, very scary. People out there need to realise what would happen to our booming economy if the other side were given the responsibility of running the Treasury. It would be a different world altogether. I support this bit of legislation 100 per cent because it's good for all of Australia and it's good for small businesses.
Mr THISTLETHWAITE (Kingsford Smith) (17:08): I speak in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018. Labor are pleased to support lowering tax rates for small to medium enterprises. We've got a good track record of supporting such enterprises throughout the country, and that's why we've offered support to the government to provide certainty in the lead-up to the next election. But the government have been checkmated on this. They tried to use this issue as a political wedge. They tried to use this as something to drive a wedge between the Labor Party and the small business community, but it's backfired. It's backfired tremendously on the government because, in announcing this policy, they failed to find a way to fund it in the budget. They announced these tax cuts for small to medium enterprises, but there's no announcement about how they're actually going to find the money in the budget to fund this type of reform.
When you talk about being fiscally responsible, when you talk about understanding the running of a business, the No. 1 factor in being successful is knowing how to budget, knowing how to make sure that the amount of money that's coming into the budget is more than is going out and that the business remains successful, but they've been unable to do that with respect to this bill.
Labor, on the other hand, have demonstrated that we are fiscally responsible. In supporting this bill, we've found a way to fund this particular tax cut and bring it forward early, and that is to delay, by one year, the Australian Investment Guarantee that Labor proposes—another solid policy that will support small businesses.
This government likes to talk a big game when it comes to the business community. They like to travel around Australia saying—and we've just heard it—'We're the ones who support small business.' They use the words, 'It's in our DNA.' Well, ask the small business community how they're feeling about that DNA at the moment. Ask them: how are they feeling about skyrocketing electricity prices because of this government? How are they feeling about the two-year delay to the banking royal commission because of this government? How are they feeling about the disaster that is the NBN and most small businesses being unable to get high-quality broadband to ensure that they can run an enterprise that has a connected approach to doing business? Ask this government about the delays that they've instituted because of the disaster that is the National Broadband Network. And ask them about the on-off, stop-start approach to asset write-offs that this government has brought about.
When it comes to electricity prices, we all know that this government has been an abject failure. The No. 1 cost impost on small businesses in this country at the moment is skyrocketing electricity prices. You travel anywhere around Australia and ask small businesses what their No. 1 issue is and why they're struggling at the moment. It's because of electricity prices increasing, and that's due to the 5½ years of this government failing to implement a decent policy that provides certainty to ensure that the private sector invests in electricity. We've got the minister sitting here; what has he announced since he has been the minister? Nothing—a big fat zero! But I've got to give it to him—he is not alone in that, because he's following in the tradition of his predecessors who have done exactly the same thing. For five years they've announced nothing—a big doughnut—when it comes to helping small businesses reduce their electricity costs.
First, the government asked the Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, to come up with a policy that would provide certainty and reduce electricity prices. And he did that. He came up with the clean energy target. He put that to the government. The Prime Minister at the time, Malcolm Turnbull, and the energy minister at the time, Josh Frydenberg, said, 'This is a great policy. This is the right thing to do. It will reduce emissions and cut electricity prices.' They even put a figure on the amount of reductions in electricity prices. Well, that lasted a day. The member for Warringah and those like the minister sitting at the desk here went to work to undermine that policy, and that was off the table. So they asked the Chief Scientist to go away and have another go at it. And he did. He came back with a second version of that policy. Once again, the Prime Minister and the minister for energy said, 'This is fantastic. This is great stuff from the Chief Scientist. We will reduce electricity prices and we'll ensure that we meet our emissions reduction targets.' Well, that one lasted about a week, and then that was off the table.
Then they went into this policy vacuum and argued amongst themselves for a number of months, and then they came up with the National Energy Guarantee. They appointed a board of specialists, the Energy Security Board, to come up with a proposal that would provide a guarantee for a reliability mechanism and, at the same time, hopefully, reduce electricity costs. That body went away and did a fair bit of work—and it cost quite a bit of money, in the nature of $10 million; that is not cheap by anyone's standards—and they came up with a report, and they recommended the National Energy Guarantee. Once again, the Prime Minister said, 'This is fantastic. This is great work,' and the energy minister said, 'This is fantastic. This will ensure that we can reduce electricity prices and meet our emissions targets.' And then those in the right wing of the Liberal Party again went to work, and what did they do? Over a series of months, they undermined that particular policy. It was actually voted up in the party room and became policy.
The Labor Party took the approach of trying to work on a bipartisan basis with the government. It wasn't our ideal policy but we said, in the interests of ending this war around climate change and energy policy in Australia, we would negotiate and look to agree with the government on this issue to try and put this to bed and provide certainty for the private sector. The private sector has been screaming for that certainty for a number of years and welcomed the commitment that Labor gave to working with the government. What happened? Once again, this rabble within the Liberal Party undermined the Prime Minister, took him out and then took out the policy at the same time. The policy lasted about a day after the last Prime Minister was removed from office.
The small business community and the larger business community in Australia are so fed up with this government that they've said, 'You guys can't even work as a government anymore. You're so incompetent that we'll go out on our own. We'll come up with our own energy policy.' These businesses of Australia, the small businesses that are the subject of this particular tax reform that we're negotiating here today, have given up on this government, completely given up on them and said, 'We'll go out on our own'. They announced last week they're going to develop their own energy policy. They're going to do the work that government can't do and announce their own energy policy because they know that this lot are incompetent and can't even agree on a policy to reduce electricity prices. That is the reason why the small-business community are up in arms in Australia about this government's approach to supporting them.
Labor have been listening to the small-business community. For the past few years in opposition, we've been travelling around the country talking to small businesses and listening to them. The message has been very, very clear: they do want some tax relief, and Labor agreed to support tax cuts for small business. But they also wanted the ability to invest in their businesses and government support to grow their businesses to ensure that they could look at buying new capital to expand the opportunities for growth in new markets and look at buying new equipment to ensure that their businesses are more efficient and can operate more effectively.
Labor listened to those pleas and those requests and we instituted a policy that responds to them. The Australian Investment Guarantee will provide businesses with the ability to immediately deduct in the first year particular assets up to a value, to ensure that businesses get that immediate relief and that incentive to invest and grow their businesses. That's the way you listen to the small business community. That's how you make sure that you're listening to their concerns and working in their interests. We've also said, as I mentioned earlier, that we'd be willing, in the interests of small businesses, to look at a National Energy Guarantee and do something about electricity prices.
Labor have been calling for the last three years for a royal commission into banking and financial services. Access to banks and financial services and to credit to grow a business is vitally important. But businesses want to know that, when they access that credit, they're getting a fair deal. And some of the anecdotes that have been coming out of the royal commission don't represent a fair deal at all. This government and Australia have known about this for some time but this government and this Prime Minister voted 26 times against that royal commission, against providing the opportunity to have a look at what was going on in financial services and provide some relief for small businesses and some certainty for them to invest.
It's Labor that have been listening to those small businesses and it's Labor that have been acting fiscally responsibly in supporting this particular amendment because we found a way, in our budget, to fund this particular proposal. Unlike the government, we've done the thing that all small businesses in Australia do—that is, find a way to fund new expenditure, find a way to ensure that your books balance at the end of the day—and that's a far cry from the response that they'll get from this incompetent and out-of-touch government.
Mr PITT (Hinkler) (17:19): While the previous member's still in the chamber, I'd like to point out the best thing he can do for energy in Queensland is ring Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Queensland Labor Premier. There is one owner of the retailers in regional Queensland, there is one owner of the poles and wires, and one owner of 70 per cent of the generators—that is, the Queensland Labor government. It sets the price and is robbing over a billion dollars from consumers. I find it outrageous that, in his contribution on Treasury laws, the member for Kingsford Smith would spend half of it bagging the government out about electricity prices when, where I come from, they are set by the Labor Party—100 per cent. They could do something about that today.
But I turn to the bill in question. Like you, Mr Deputy Speaker Howarth, I am a former small-business owner. I do know your family is still operating your small business, and I'll give a shout-out to your wife, Louise, while I have the opportunity. I know she has taken up the slack while you're in your role as an MP. Congratulations to your family business. It is great news for small business in Australia to have a tax reduction brought forward substantially. The bill means small and medium businesses will have a reduced tax rate of just 25 per cent, and unincorporated businesses will have a 16 per cent tax discount, sooner. As a former small-business operator—for more than a decade—I know that this is about stability, this is about reliability, this is about strength of the bottom line and the capacity to make decisions based on risk. The stronger your business bottom line is, the more likely you are to employ someone else, the more likely you are to borrow money and expand, and the more likely you are to continue to increase your business and its operations. So this is great news for small businesses across Australia. In Queensland, that's some 426,000 small businesses, each employing fewer than 20 people. They represent over 97 per cent of businesses statewide and employ approximately 44 per cent of all private sector workers. This is a substantial change for them. It is a very, very considered move by the government and it will make a real difference to the Australian economy and to the ability of these small businesses to employ.
I do want to speak about some of the small businesses in my electorate while I have the opportunity. Cutting Crew men's hairstylists, a new business, happen to be a group of ladies I have known for a very long time. I congratulate them on taking the risk to open up their own facility. Avenell Bros gift shop has been a local institution in Bundaberg for two generations. J & R McCracken is a family owned irrigation business that continues to employ locally and deliver all of the equipment, particularly around irrigation, needed for our growing agricultural offering, particularly macadamias and avocados. There's a new gourmet kitchen and catering firm, Water Street Kitchen, which we trialled just last week with the British high commissioner, Menna Rawlings, who happened to be in town. I think she enjoyed herself thoroughly and certainly thanked the young team that owns this new business. In Hervey Bay there are a couple of beachfront institutions, Aquavue and Enzo's, where last week we had Minister Fletcher addressing the local Hervey Bay chamber on the cashless debit card. Ulton accountants in Hervey Bay continue to support those local businesses.
I want to mention a couple of special ones. Buck's Butcher Shoppe in Childers is another locally run business that provides fantastic service to the people of Childers, a small community centre. There's the Naughty cafe in Howard, which is a new opportunity. And then there's Billy Beans Coffee in Torbanlea. Torbanlea is a small regional centre between Bundaberg and Hervey Bay. It's about an hour from Bundaberg. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, sometimes we have a very early start. If you're passing through the town of Torbanlea and the coffee van is there and open, it's very welcome at half-past five in the morning, after a 4 am kick-off. I'm very pleased that all of these businesses will receive a benefit as a result of the changes from the coalition government.
Can I also say I'm very pleased that the Labor Party has seen sense on this and decided it will take a bipartisan position. I think that is a great indication for our country. And those sorts of things should continue, because it is business, and particularly small business, that is the backbone of this country. Small business drives our regional economies. It is small business that employs Australians. It's not government. Government have a number of public servants, obviously, but we can never employ everyone in Australia. It is business that employs, it is business that takes risks, and the more that we can do to strengthen its bottom line the better it is for our nation and its growing economy.
I congratulate all of our local businesses who are out there working hard. I've got to say that nearly all of them take the same approach that I always did in business—that is, pay your staff first, pay your bills second and pay yourself last. With that, I commend the bill to the House.
Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (17:24): I'm pleased to stand to support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018. These amendments to the taxation law will provide small and medium-sized businesses with a turnover of up to $50 million a year with a reduced tax rate of 25 per cent by 2021-22.
I'm also pleased to see the government drop its one-point plan—its plan A, as it was referred to by a number of ministers this week—to give a $60 billion tax cut to big business and delay the tax cuts to small business until seven years down the track, 2025, supposedly committing future governments to delivering a tax in what the previous Treasurer Peter Costello called a weird alternative universe. I'm pleased to see them drop that one-point plan and bring forward these small business tax cuts to 2021-22.
We on this side of the House are pleased to support this bill for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it provides certainty and avoids an ongoing scare campaign from the government side about what will or won't happen to the tax act or the tax rates over the next seven years. It puts in place a framework that small business can rely on and that's supported by both sides of this House, and that's a very good thing.
It's an interesting strategy that the government has taken up here, to have a plan to grow the economy simply by reducing tax rates. When I talk to small business, I get quite a different story. I get a concern from them about what helps them grow—what helps them increase their size and increase their profit. Many of them have said to me that they would forego a two per cent reduction in the tax on profit if they could grow their profit much more—if they could find a way through the pressures on price, on electricity, on gas or on wages and if there were good access to capital, better competition law, better planning et cetera. There are all sorts of things: better coordination across the states would allow them to move across state borders without additional multilayers of red tape. There are many things that they ask for to get the barriers out of their way so that they can grow and so that they can pay their staff, pay their costs, pay themselves and get a profit.
I take exception to something that one of the earlier speakers said, that a profit is the wage of a business owner. Actually, it's not. If there are businesses out there for whom the profit is actually how the business owner is paid then they should go and talk to their accountants, I think, and check that out, because that should not be the case. It was said in the context that we on this side of the House don't understand business but that speaker does. I would just suggest that that particular speaker on the government side go and talk to a few business owners and accountants, because that's not the case.
We on this side of the House believe that we have a better taxation policy than the government. We support this cut in the tax rate to 25 per cent by 2021-22. This is to provide certainty and because it's within the range of what you'd expect from this government, given what it campaigned on before the election. As a responsible opposition, we don't just oppose everything; we try to find policies in the frame that we can support. But we believe we have a stronger policy because we have an additional policy for small business, which is known as the Australian Investment Guarantee. It's a superior tax policy to what the government is offering because it provides tax concessions when businesses invest in their own growth. It's a 20 per cent tax deduction and accelerated depreciation on all investments and new assets that are over $20,000 in value. That means that, if you buy an asset or build an asset worth a million dollars, you get 20 per cent of that—$200,000—in depreciation in the first year, plus the remaining 80 per cent depreciated in the usual way from the first year. So if you're on a 10-year depreciation schedule then you get another 10 per cent of the remaining 80 per cent in the first year, and if you're on a three-year depreciation schedule then you get one-third of that remaining 80 per cent in the first year.
It's a policy that rewards and assists investment that small businesses make in their own growth. It dramatically improves cashflow at a time when businesses are investing. If you talk to businesses out there, they're incredibly appreciative of this and they've been calling for this sort of support for quite some time. It's also been well received by the peak bodies across the accounting sector and most of the peak organisations around the country. So we're really proud of the Australian Investment Guarantee, which will sit in conjunction with the tax cut down to 25 per cent as a strong support for small business.
We will delay the introduction of the Australian Investment Guarantee by a year. That's our method of paying for the tax cuts that we're supporting today. The government, of course, hasn't stated how it's paying for them, but we have. We will delay the Australian Investment Guarantee by 12 months in order to pay for our support for the cut in tax today.
We've also announced an additional second commissioner of taxation to assist small businesses that have been struggling in their relationship with the ATO. We've had many businesses tell us that they've complied with the rules as they understood them but have found themselves in dispute with the ATO. We know that not everything's perfect—we've heard some dreadful stories lately—and we believe that there's a fundamental principle that those considering the appeal should not be the same people from the same business unit as those who made the original decision which is being appealed. This will provide separation and change the power relationship, and we believe this will be very good for small business.
But there are also a number of other policies that have been called for by small business, and I want to talk about some of those. Changing the rate of tax on profit doesn't necessarily grow a business. There will be some businesses that will reinvest it; there will be many others that will just take it, bank it and use it to buy another investment property or whatever. There will be some that will reinvest, but there will be many others that won't. So cutting the tax rate for small business does not necessarily provide the bang for the buck that our small-business community needs.
Previous speakers have talked about energy policy, and I will move through it very quickly. Investment in new sources of energy took a nosedive when the current government came to power, essentially because of uncertainty, and we need certainty. The only way to reduce power prices in the long run is to have certain policies that encourage investment in new power and the replacement of old assets, some of which are well past their use-by date but are still in operation simply because new sources of power haven't come online. As we see those older assets becoming more and more expensive to run and as we see the older power plants crashing in heatwaves—the very time we need them to be operating at their full capacity—we will see prices continue to rise. We need certainty and we need it now, and, quite frankly, the government has let down business seriously in that field.
We also have a plan to revitalise and refresh vocational education and training, with 100,000 TAFE places to be provided free of charge. Small business is telling us every day—and they must be telling people on the government side as well—of their difficulties in finding and attracting appropriately trained staff.
We announced, quite a few years ago now, an access-to-justice policy. It's all very well to have unfair contract provisions. It's all very well to have effects tests. It's all very well to have the laws. But if small business can't afford to take on a big business because of the legal costs then you don't have anything that's worth having. You have a law which cannot be used. We've heard over and over and over again for many, many years the problems that small business have in taking on big business, because big business can just wait them out and appeal—and the small business will go broke while the court case is underway.
We know that access to justice matters. I would encourage the government that's introduced the effects test and has made the adjustments to consumer law to allow unfair contract provisions to apply to small business to consider what small business needs to make use of those laws, because without access to justice the laws are not viable. The review on unfair contract provisions is due in November, and I know there will be many people saying exactly what I'm saying—without access to justice, without the money or the process that allows small business, if they're being treated unfairly, to take on big business, the law is just law. It's just paper.
We have a very strong phoenixing policy. It's good to see the government starting to respond to that, but we've been talking for years now about unique identifiers for directors. We've been talking about cracking down on the dodgy fly-by-night businesses that fold up one day, palm their employer entitlements off to government, re-emerge the next day in a flash of flame, and then they're in business again. We know it's not just the employees of that business that are damaged but all the people down the chain. When a business doesn't pay its suppliers then that business can't pay its suppliers and then that business can't pay its suppliers, and so we get this domino effect down the supply chain, one small business after another.
Anyone who has been in small business knows how fragile your cash flow can be. If you have a large contract that is not paid for several months, that can kill you. Cash flow kills you. Viable businesses can disappear simply because the cash flow is not there because another business did the wrong thing. We need to address that, and I urge the government to do so. I know they're starting to move on phoenixing and move on all that sort of stuff—quite a few years after we did. But, please, take this seriously. The government must act. It's incredibly damaging for small business. Again, I would urge the government to look at Labor's policy on sham contracting and wage theft as well. And Labor has offered a service guarantee for the NBN that offers financial penalties if the NBN does not meet its service obligations. We have set those penalties and we will expect them to be met.
In summary, I support this tax cut. It's a good move by the government to walk away from the big business tax cuts at this stage. I hope the government is serious and I hope it doesn't return at some point in the future. I know the government has been committed to it for a long time but it will be good to see small business receive this tax cut in 2021.
Mr VAN MANEN (Forde—Government Whip) (17:36): It's always a pleasure to rise in this House and speak about the terrific things that a coalition government, once again, is doing for small business. And it's interesting to listen to the contribution from the member opposite. As much as I like her, and we serve on a number of committees together, she interestingly failed to mention a range of policies that those opposite are proposing that are going to directly impact small business. For example, she forgot to mention the capital gains tax increases or the changes to capital gains tax arrangements. She forgot to mention the changes to dividend imputation rules. For many small-business owners who reinvest their wealth over their lifetime running their small business, when they get to retirement and they generate a tax-free income stream, they'll never be able to use the tax credits they have accumulated. I bet the member hadn't thought of that one. And, in addition to that, the tax on trusts will affect many small businesses that are run through trusts and other unincorporated structures.
The member opposite failed to mention a few of those pertinent facts that are directly going to impact small-business people if those opposite ever have the pleasure of sitting on the government benches again. But on this side of the House, we can stand here safe in the knowledge that the things that we are doing for small to medium business, for the long term, are going to assist them to build and grow their businesses and give them incentives to do so.
We know that many small-business owners, as a number of speakers have touched on, take risks every single day just to open their doors. If their business is supported with finance, if their house is mortgaged for the business, all their finances for their whole family generally come from that business. But not only is it their personal finances that are supported by that business, it's the finances of their employees. And they recognise that as the owners of that business, it is critically important that they run the business well and continue to grow the business so not only can they build wealth for their families but, equally, they can continue to maintain and grow the number of employees they have and, by extension, then help those employees build the wealth of their families. That is what this country is built on.
Small and medium businesses in this country employ the majority of the Australian workforce. In my electorate of Forde, some 15,500 small and medium businesses will directly once again benefit from this tax cut. And we've seen already the benefits they have received not only from the first tax cut but also from things such as the instant asset write-off. I was at Beaurepaires in Beenleigh last week with the Minister for Small and Family Business, Skills and Vocational Education. Ronnie, who runs it with his wife, Karen, told me about how they bought a new air compressor to replace their old compressor and they used the instant asset write-off for that. This new air compressor fits into a third of the space of the old one and it has assisted in reducing their electricity bills by some 25 per cent. That is a clear example of the benefit of the things we are doing for small businesses that will allow them to grow and prosper.
In addition, from 2016 we extended unfair contract terms to small businesses. And, as I've already touched on, we as a government are not changing the dividend imputation rules, which protect the value of the reinvested capital of many small businesses across the country, when they get to retirement. In this debate, the changes that those opposite propose to dividend imputation have not been well ventilated. Many small business people probably don't realise that at this point.
Looking at some of the great small businesses around the electorate of Forde, there is Poppy's Chocolates, which makes a range of wonderful tasty chocolates, enjoyed by our local community and a wide range of clients right around South East Queensland. I have already touched on Beaurepaires at Beenleigh. True Blue Glass, one of our great local businesses that provide services over the greater Brisbane area, is benefitting from the instant asset write-off and also from our over $1 billion investment in upgrades to the M1. It will mean their employees, their trades people who go out on the road to fix the glass on shop fronts and homes, will not be stuck in traffic for as long each day. Look at great businesses like Noonan Race Engineering, which builds and designs engines, predominantly for the drag-racing industry, not only here in Australia but also in the United States. Look at Better Batteries, which is developing a range of batteries to provide storage capacity as we move towards more renewable energy in our energy sector, or Lumineye, which makes and exports nail polish. They have the capacity to make small runs of nail polish for high-class fashion houses around the world. These small runs can't be done by the big companies in China. They can turn those new colours around in some six weeks, so they're exporting around the world. Concept Safety, which saw a gap in the market in the mapping of safety in buildings, has just received a $650,000 grant from the federal government to develop a completely online database map of an entire building with all its safety exits, where its fire extinguishers are and so on. There are many other great businesses like those we all have in our electorates, such as Luv a Coffee, where I regularly go for a coffee, and Mitre 10 Loganholme, which is one of our great local hardware stores. There are other great businesses, like Stellarossa in Park Ridge, and there are our pharmacies, which do a terrific job looking after and supporting those in our community who are struggling with health issues.
All of us in this place can list a great number of businesses that benefit from the fact that we're taking the opportunity to reduce the tax they're paying. Not only are we doing that but, in regard to pharmacies, because we have the budget in order and we have a strong economy, we've taken the opportunity to increase the number of medicines that are on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. That benefits a wide range of the constituents in our community who have difficult health conditions.
All of this ultimately benefits Australian people. Over the past five or six years we've seen over a million jobs created in our community. Governments don't create jobs. Businesses like those that I've mentioned create jobs. That is what is so valuable and so important about the work that we're doing in this place, because we're creating the incentive and the opportunity for the small to medium businesses across Australia to take the risks and take the opportunity to grow and to employ more Australians. We know that the greatest thing for Australians is to be able to work in satisfying, fulfilling jobs, because that gives them the opportunity to build wealth for themselves and their families. It gives them personal satisfaction, personal wealth and the knowledge that they're contributing.
We also know that, if people are working, they are more likely to have their kids playing in sporting groups and they are more likely to be involved in the community. So there is an enormous number of add-on benefits to the fact that people are working and contributing. It also means that we don't see as many people on welfare, and that is an enormous advantage to our community. When people are working, they're involved in the workforce and they're building skills, developing capability and realising their potential. That's what we want to see. We want to see people build their potential and contribute to our society in a positive way. That is, ultimately, what all these measures that I've spoken about do. They create the opportunity for business owners—but importantly they create the opportunity for Australians—to build their capacity, live their dreams and contribute to our society in the best way they can. It is through that that we build a stronger, more cohesive community for everybody in this country, and that's why I commend this bill to the House.
Mr GORMAN (Perth) (17:46): Opportunity and freedom are fundamental values of the Australian Labor Party. Starting or building a small business grasps these freedoms and the opportunities that this country offers our citizens. I'm proud of the small, medium and family businesses in the electorate of Perth. Equally, I'm proud to be a taxpayer. Paying tax is a symbol of being an advanced economy, and small businesses paying tax is a symbol of their success in our market economy. I would note that the opposition is supporting this bill but also supporting the restoration of penalty rates for some 700,000 working Australians. We believe that you can support small business and working Australians at the same time.
Perth is an entrepreneurial city; equally, I want it to be an international city. Our history is international; it's entrepreneurial. You only need to look at the history of Northbridge and the Italian and Greek migration that powered the businesses in that area to know that Western Australia, and Perth in particular, has a proud entrepreneurial and multicultural history and a proud entrepreneurial and multicultural future. There are some 25,000 small businesses in the electorate of Perth, including 1,700 businesses earning between $2 million and $10 million, who will all benefit from these changes. It's those local small businesses that make Perth, in my opinion, the best place in Australia to live, work and raise a family.
Like many of the other speakers in this debate, I would have to say there are certain small businesses that help you more than others. I'll start by giving some shout-outs to the small businesses that keep me caffeinated on a regular basis: Modus, Bossman, Finlay & Sons, Mary Street Bakery and Wine Rooms by Harvey Leigh's. I also note those businesses that don't just do retail but have a role in education, places like Beaufort Street Books, The Stripey Horse, Planet Books, Luna cinema and early childhood centres owned by small business operators. And, of course, there are those businesses who welcome tourists—The Queens Hotel, The Royal, Fraser's Restaurant at Kings Park—a range of independent hotels based in the CBD, and even places like McDonald's, where I once worked, have an important very important role in tourism and welcoming new visitors to Australia. I think we should also remember, when we talk about small businesses, that often it is those large businesses, particularly in the mining industry in Western Australia, that provide the ballast and the stable regular business that small businesses rely on and enable people to make that first leap out on their own.
I hope that this bill doesn't just drive business owners to deliver more but that it also encourages them to create more and get closer to their dream, whatever their business is aiming to do. Equally, I would say to young people who are possibly listening to this debate or may have me passed on to them at some time in the future: note that this bill is being dealt with in an urgent and bipartisan fashion. I hope this sends a message to young Australians that we are relying on them to start the next generation of small businesses. Many young Australians are currently completing their year 12 exams and having conversations about what they want to do next. The conversation should not be just about university, TAFE or work. The conversation must include: 'What sort of a business would you like to build now or in the future?'
Building new businesses is fundamentally Australian. It's going to be key to our future. It's also a key part of our history. In my family, my late grandfather Alan and my grandmother Joan built a home and then a home business in Gosnells in the foothills of Perth. WA & J King is now a large, successful family business supplying sawdust, woodchips and other supplies to farms and gardens around Perth and the inner regional areas of Western Australia. They also proudly supplied the woodchips for the gardens at the Perth Optus Stadium. It was this small business that allowed Joan and Alan to raise my mother and fund her education. It has provided intergenerational stability and employment for the family. It has given back to the community through employment and philanthropy and by helping build institutions like a local community bank in Gosnells. I'm so proud of what Alan and Joan built and Joan continues to lead, and I'm proud to have such a successful small business as part of my family's story.
In concluding my remarks, I commend the shadow Treasurer for his leadership in supporting small business and family business. Some of the other measures that Labor has introduced will ensure that we provide the skills necessary for those businesses to grow and reach their potential—uncapping university places and investing in research to ensure that we have the intellectual capital so that businesses, small, medium, family and large, can achieve all they want to; providing 100,000 TAFE places with no up-front fees to make sure we have that skilled workforce; investing in the early years of education for three- and four-year-olds; investing in clean renewable energy; and ensuring multinational companies pay their fair share. I commend the bill.
Mrs WICKS (Robertson) (17:52): I rise to speak briefly in support of this important bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018, because this bill is going to mean that, for 15,015 small and medium businesses in my electorate of Robertson on the Central Coast, they will pay less tax sooner. With this legislation our government is delivering tax relief for small and medium businesses five years earlier, with fast-tracking of cuts meaning that businesses with a turnover of below $50 million will benefit from a reduced company tax rate of 25 per cent in the financial year of 2021-22 rather than the originally planned 2026-27.
Our businesses are the backbone of our local economy, and the success of small and family businesses in our local community helps to build a strong national economy. This government knows that without a strong economy you cannot guarantee the essential services that Australians rely on. It's why we're so focused on delivering an even stronger economy, because it's a strong economy that guarantees investments in education, health care and the NDIS.
In line with fast-tracking of company tax relief, we're also bringing forward the changes to the unincorporated small business tax discount. This measure is set to benefit around 2.35 million unincorporated businesses across the country, including sole traders with a turnover of up to $5 million.
As the Central Coast Express Advocate reported last week, locally around 2,000 women on the Central Coast are juggling a small unincorporated business with their family life. These 'mumpreneurs' are giving it a go. They're juggling work and family life. And these changes will mean that local unincorporated small businesses will now be able to access the maximum discount of $1,000 five years sooner.
So many families, mums and dads, on the Central Coast operate small businesses or work in a small business, and I'm proud to be part of a government that is delivering tax relief for these businesses and for their workers. I'm proud to be part of a government that's saying to local businesses who are having a go, 'We're on your side.' We're backing businesses that have been giving it a go and getting ahead on the Central Coast. The Prime Minister visited just last week to meet with two of the more than 15,000 small and family businesses on the coast, and it was great to share with the Prime Minister some of our local success stories—businesses having a go and succeeding locally on the Central Coast, like Six String Brewing Company in Erina, a locally owned and operated craft brewery. Six String produces a number of craft beers, as well as cider and lemonade, that are stocked in restaurants, bars and supermarkets across Australia. They employ 15 Central Coast residents and, since opening just five years ago, they have been growing year on year. Six String is already benefiting from the measures that this government has implemented, including the instant asset write-off and changes to the alcohol excise that put brewers and distillers on a level playing field. This bill adds to these measures and will mean that the owners, Chris and Ryan, can continue to grow their business, invest in new equipment and expand their team.
It's the same for Kombucha Zest at West Gosford. It is a business that employs 11 people from the community and distributes fantastic kombucha to cafes and restaurants around the country. Since starting three years ago, Nathan has seen his business grow exponentially and said that, as a new business, profits are always being reinvested back into the business to continue growing. For Kombucha Zest the tax relief delivered sooner means that they'll keep more of what they earn and they can invest even more back into a fantastic local business that really does have an outstanding, fabulous product as well.
For Bambi, a leading bedding manufacturer with a 30-year a history on the Central Coast, the measures in this bill will mean that they can continue to develop into international markets and remain competitive. Bambi is a family business that's got big dreams and aspirations and is working to compete with imported products and champion Australian manufacturing. I look forward to seeing them go from strength to strength as well.
These are just some of the stories of some of the local businesses on the Central Coast, and I'm looking forward to meeting with even more business owners and hearing their stories over the coming weeks.
This bill builds on our already legislated tax plan, and our plan is all about making sure that Australians and businesses that have a go get a fair go. This government's economic plan is working, and I'm proud to be part of a team that's investing in the future growth of the economy by backing small and medium business, the backbone of our economy. I commend this bill to the House.
Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (17:57): If you had a spare $2 billion lying around, how would you spend it? Would you spend it in Australia by trying to close the gap between the very wealthy and everyone else and acknowledging that inequality is on the rise and is at a 70-year high? Would you use the $2 billion as a down payment towards lifting Newstart so that everyone who has fallen on tough times is no longer forced to live below the poverty line? Would you put $2 billion, if you had it, into schools—public schools that have struggled under successive underfunding to the point where we've had report after report telling us that, for Australia to join the rest of the pack, we're going to need to massively lift the amount that we spend on our public schools? Would you put $2 billion into renewable energy so that we can avoid the worst of climate change that the scientists have told us is coming as early as 2030 if we don't switch off coal and onto renewables?
I think most people in this country would have some pretty good ideas about how to spend $2 billion. Not that many of them would say, 'Well, if there's a spare $2 billion lying around, let's give it to companies that have got a $50 million turnover.' There aren't that many people in the country who would think that those companies count as a small business. When you are talking about St Kilda Football Club, for example, with a turnover of just under $50 million, not many people would look at that and say, 'There's a small corner store that could do with a handout.' Most people would probably say, like the Greens have been saying, that there's a very strong case for those genuinely small businesses to get some assistance. We can get some assistance, as the Greens have pushed for and we've now seen converted into law, by, for example, stopping the big duopoly supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, from having such massive market power that they can crush some small businesses.
They might say that there would be some merit in changing the law to ensure small businesses get prompter payment, including from government departments. They might say there's a case even for a tax cut, as the Greens have been arguing for a long time, for those very small businesses. But most people, when they think of a small business, don't think of a company that has a turnover of $50 million. Under the rhetoric of 'We're going to help out small business,' which most people agree with, this government is taking $2 billion from the kitty that could be going to schools or hospitals or to lifting people out of poverty or to renewable energy. Instead it's giving it to corporations that are already doing quite well.
You'd expect that from the Liberals, but what I think would surprise a lot of people is that this trickle-down economic theory, that's straight out of the Ronald Reagan-Margaret Thatcher textbook—this trickle-down theory that says, 'We keep cutting company taxes and all of a sudden wages will grow and employment will grow'—is now getting the full-throated support of the Labor Party. We are here rushing a bill through parliament today that is going to take $2 billion that could be going to reducing inequality or could be going to our public schools. Instead, it's going to be given to companies that have a $50 million turnover, and Labor is asking, 'Where do I sign?'
We expect this from the Liberals, but what we're going to see as the election gets closer and closer is Labor, in trying to curry favour with big business, signing up with the Liberals and big business on a unity ticket to ask, 'How can we implement more trickle-down economics in this country?' For those of us who have been watching this for a while, it probably doesn't come as any surprise. Whilst we know that the government and the Liberals do whatever big business asks them, we also know, as we look back over history, that it was the Labor Party, when they were in government in the eighties and nineties, that brought Reagan and Thatcher to Australia and implemented neoliberalism in Australia.
There's been a brief pause for a couple of months as Labor has looked at what's happened around the world and realised that, actually, maybe people don't like it. But that pause is evaporating the closer we get to the election, with Labor wanting more to go to big business and say, 'Don't worry, we might say lots of bad things about you but we're not going to implement any of them.' Labor then turns around and asks, 'How can we sign up to whatever the government wants?'
We're seeing it now with the TPP. As we know, there's a deal on foot with Jacinda Ardern, over the ditch, who has managed to negotiate some exceptions. But here we're seeing them going with full knowledge that under this Trans-Pacific Partnership there will not have to be local advertising for jobs and that there will be loopholes so big that you could fly planeloads of exploited overseas workers through them. It's just as we found with ChAFTA and just as we found with the other free trade deals. Now we're about to do the same. Why? Because the Labor Party is helping the government get that neoliberal agenda through as quickly as possible. And now we're seeing it with tax cuts, to the point where the opposition is so desperate to say, 'We're on a unity ticket with the government on refugees, we're on a unity ticket with the government on the TPP and now we're on a unity ticket with the government when it comes to corporate tax,' that people will be wondering what, if anything, is actually going to change?
I hope that we see the back of this government at this election, because they've shown that they don't care about the life that is left for our kids. They are quite happy to stand up here and say, 'We have no new renewables policy,' and then boast about it. They are quite happy to stand up and say, 'We think we're doing well,' as pollution goes up and up, and, 'We don't care if kids now, when they're adults, go through every summer wondering where the next bushfire's going to hit.' They don't care, because they're taking their instructions from the coal lobby. So I hope that there's going to be a change of government. But people will be asking that if, in opposition, Labor is signing up to the TPP, signing up to the government's position on corporate tax and signing up to the government's position on refugees then, when there's that change of government, is anything meaningful going to change at all? And they'd be entitled to ask that question.
There is a very real problem facing this country. With a growing population, we are going to need to secure the revenue to fund public schools and public hospitals, and to grow the clean economy. To do that, we're going to need to stand up to corporations in this country and say: 'You have to pay your fair share of tax. You have to pay your fair share of tax so that we can fund the services that people rightly expect and so that we don't go down the road of becoming a US-style unequal society.' But that's the way that we're going at the moment. We seem to be saying, 'Well, if other countries like the US think it's a good idea to cut company tax, let's do the same.' We ignore the fact that the countries where people are the best looked after, the countries where people report that they feel the best because their kids get to go to school and they've got a decent job, are ones where people pay tax because they know it's going to make life better.
We are at a fork in the road in this country at the moment. Do we want to go down the US road and say, 'We'll just keep cutting taxes until there's nothing left in the budget to fund universal services, so, if you get sick, bad luck, just hope you have enough money to look after yourself and, if you want to go to school, to college or to university, your parents had better start saving now'? Do we want to go down that road, or do we want to say, 'Provided that our tax is well spent, we want companies to pay it, because we know that the way of making a more equal society is to provide universal services, universal public health, universal public schools and even universal housing'? Let's start treating housing as a human right instead of an asset class.
If we want to do those things, we need the revenue. We're not going to keep getting the revenue if, every time the Liberals fire the gun and say, 'We want to have a bit more of a cut in income taxes,' the opposition just says, 'Where do I sign?' If we keep going down that road, if that kind of trickle-down economics ends up becoming the norm no matter who is in power, then we are all going to suffer. We are all going to suffer.
It's time for us to have a sensible discussion about tax. Talk about small businesses, and let's have the debate about how we look after small businesses. I think that's going to get near universal support from across the parliament. But don't come in here and pretend that a $50 million company is a small business.
And I plead with the opposition to rethink their willingness to fast-track so much of the government's trickle-down neoliberal agenda, because, at a certain point in time, it's not enough to just say we oppose it and say we don't want our society to become more unequal. At a certain point, it kicks in. It kicks in around the economics, and you have to have an alternative economic vision.
The Greens will say enough is enough. We're sick of this dog-eat-dog society. We want one where everyone at the top pays their fair share of tax, and we want corporations to pay their fair share of tax so that we've all got public schools and we've all got public hospitals that we can be proud of. We say no to going down the US-style route. There are many good things about the United States, but inequality, education and health are not amongst them, because they are one of the most unequal societies in the world.
Let's instead look at those countries that do it well. Let's look at those countries where no-one has to dip into their pocket for so-called voluntary school fees to send their kids to school, because everything is looked after, where no-one has to worry about out-of-pocket expenses when you get sick, because that is looked after. That is where people feel the happiest. How does it happen? It happens because they've had an honest discussion about tax, and they accept that paying a bit more tax, if it comes with the trade-off of knowing that your kids get to go to school and you don't have to dip into your pocket, is a fair trade-off. That's the discussion we should be having, rather than fast-tracking bills through parliament to give tax cuts to big companies that don't need them.
Mr HOWARTH (Petrie) (18:09): I rise in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018. Before the member for Melbourne walks out of the chamber: he conveniently left out the 'medium businesses' part of the bill. I support it wholeheartedly because I myself and the government that I'm part of believe in lower taxes. Lower taxes are essential to ensuring that Australians get ahead. Lower taxes are essential to ensure that, in our egalitarian society, everyone continues to profit. We've seen that, to date, by the results of the company tax cuts that the government have already legislated. We've already legislated company tax reductions for small and medium businesses—small businesses up to $10 million, medium businesses up to $50 million. It was a plan we took to the last election and what do the results show? In the last 12 months, some 430,000 jobs were created. Where? In businesses up to $50 million. That's where the jobs are being created. The evidence is there.
I remember clearly in the other place, the senators from the Nick Xenophon Team or Central Alliance—whatever they're called—saying, 'Where's the evidence?' The evidence is on the table now. In the last 12 months, from when those company tax cuts were passed, all the jobs have been created there. Do you know what? The Labor Party voted against lower taxes. The Greens voted against lower taxes. No surprise there with the Greens, but yet another backflip from the Labor Party. It was just a few weeks ago that the Labor Party wanted to put small business taxes—small businesses up to $10 million—back up to 30 per cent. They're currently at 27½ per cent and those opposite—the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, and the Labor Party—wanted to put taxes back up to 30 per cent when we have evidence that in the last 12 months all the jobs have been created in those businesses up to $50 million. Open your eyes, those opposite.
If those opposite are going to support the bill now, then I say, 'Well done, congratulations; that's good.' Those extra jobs created in the last 12 months help provide essential services. As we create more jobs, the government receives more income tax. More income tax means higher school funding—the $24 billion plus that we've increased in the last few years on top of current funding. It means more funding for health care. When the Minister for Health gets up in question time and talks about all the drugs we're listing on the PBS, we're able to do that because of increased jobs and extra people employed mainly, in the last 12 months, in those small and medium businesses. We're able to increase funding for the environment whether it's on the Great Barrier Reef or for a small project like I've just implemented on Moreton Island with a cane toad sniffer dog to keep Moreton Island, in South-East Queensland, free of cane toads.
We've also been able to increase funding for the Australian Defence Force. As a former SAS commander, you would know about that, Mr Deputy Speaker. This is in stark contrast to what those opposite and particularly the member for Melbourne just spoke about. His vision for the country is higher taxes right across the board, when already we see those that earn the most in this country pay by far the most tax. What does concern me most is that we see a little bit of support here from the Labor Party where they're going to support this bill, which is good. But what they don't tell you is their plan, should they win the next election, which is not just higher company taxes across the board but higher income tax.
Do you know that we have legislated that everyone in this country who earns $180,000 or $150,000 or $130,000 or $80,000 pay no more than a third of what they earn in tax? It is very simple. If you earn $200,000, you'll be paying roughly $66,000 in tax. But if you earn $50,000 you'll be paying roughly $15,000, or probably even less, with the first $18,000 tax-free. Those opposite want to whack it up to 45 per cent. For everyone who earns over $180,000, it would be 45 per cent plus the Medicare levy, plus a high-income levy. You'll be looking at 49 per cent under Labor compared to 32½ under us, or 34½ per cent with the Medicare levy. Labor want to whack up for everyone in this building who earns over $90,000 or for everyone in my electorate who earns over $90,000 back up to 39 cents with the Medicare levy. That is what Labor stands for—higher company tax, higher income tax, higher housing tax. For people in my electorate who are renting, their rents will go up. If they cannot negatively gear, investors will have to positively gear, which means rents will go up.
They can't have it both ways. They can't make all those big savings and then talk to people in my electorate and say their rents won't go up, because they will. If people own an investment company and they, for whatever reason, keep rents low, they may think, 'If I make a profit, that's good. If I lose a little bit, I can negatively gear. Interest rates are low.' But if interest rates go up and they're not allowed to negatively gear, they'll have to positively gear, which means people who rent in my electorate, in Deception Bay, Kippa-Ring, Fitzgibbon and Clontarf, where I live, will have their rents go up under a federal Labor government. Let's not muck around on this; that's what they're going to do—not to mention capital gains tax. If someone in Newport, Margate, Aspley or Bracken Ridge wants to make a few dollars, they'll take another 25 per cent. That's the Labor Party.
Then there's the retirees tax. If you've worked hard and you've got a few shares, these guys will tax you more. And if you have a self-managed super fund anywhere and you live in Australia, you will effectively be taxed at 30 per cent. If you invest in Australian companies like Fortescue Metals or something, you will pay 30 per cent tax. It used to be taxed at 15 per cent in your super fund and you would get a 15 per cent return. They will keep it. Thirty per cent tax for you and your self-managed super fund. But if you're in an industry fund, that's cool—no worries. That's where their $200 billion in new taxes is coming from—$20 billion a year. So, Labor Party, don't come in here and tell me you're here for small businesses. Your policies will drive down investment and will see less work and higher taxes.
I support the small and medium business tax cut. If the Senate doesn't want to pass it for big business—banks and all of those—fine; take it off the table. But there are literally thousands of smaller businesses. In the member for Brisbane's electorate, 31,775 businesses will benefit from what we're doing now, which will mean more jobs and then more income tax to fund essential services. In the electorate of my friend the member for Bowman, there are 14,827. Going to Western Australia and the electorate of Canning—Deputy Speaker Hastie's electorate—11½ thousand businesses will benefit from this. In the electorate of Longman, just north of my electorate, at Bribie Island, Caboolture, Wamuran and Ocean View, some 12,201 little businesses will benefit. These aren't global corporations, as the Greens member says. These are family businesses: plumbers, bakeries, barber shops, bull bar manufacturers and small chemical companies. There are businesses all around my electorate as well—some 12,000. There are seven million Australians employed in these small and medium businesses that we're reducing tax for now. This is a good bill. I encourage all members to support it.
Mr EVANS (Brisbane) (18:18): I'm very pleased to speak briefly in this debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018 and add my support for lower taxes for small and medium businesses. Small business plays an incredibly important and central role in the life of so many of us around Australia. Having grown up in a small-business family, it was one of the formative experiences that drives my work and my priorities in this place, as it did in my previous work for the National Retail Association, representing the interests of so many small and family businesses in the retail and hospitality sectors. So small business is a very big part of why I'm here. Small business is also a very big part of why the Liberal Party was founded. Coalition governments have the track record and bring the experiences of hardworking small business owners, tradies, contractors and professionals into this parliament and to discussions around the cabinet table. In coalition governments, we understand both the opportunities and the challenges faced by small businesses, many of us having lived those challenges and opportunities.
Small business is collectively the biggest provider of jobs and opportunities right across Australia but also at a micro level in each of the suburbs and the streets in all of our electorates. Last year, small and medium businesses contributed most to all of those new jobs being created faster than jobs have ever been created before in Australia's history: a record of about 1,100 jobs a day on average. That's what happens when those small and medium businesses have the confidence to invest and to grow. I've said in this place before that if we could somehow encourage every small business out there to employ one additional worker our unemployment rate would be effectively zero.
All the jobs, all the opportunities and the prosperity that small businesses create only come about through the commitment, the risks, the sacrifices and the hard work taken by over three million small business owners and operators around Australia. As the member for Petrie just said, there are over 30,000 small and medium businesses in my electorate of Brisbane, and last week we were very lucky to have the Minister for Small and Family Business, Skills and Vocational Education visit Brisbane. We met with local businesses in the Paddington shopping strips. Those businesses in Paddington are a perfect example of what we're talking about here. They are, incidentally, not just a beautiful and unique shopping precinct in inner Brisbane at the very heart of our community; they are the places where the next generation will get their first opportunities, will get their first foot in the door of the workplace and will gain the foundational skills they need in areas like service, sales and whatever it is that they will take with them and further develop into their future careers or wherever their future takes them. These businesses are the biggest source of opportunities for the next generation and they're also, right now, a very big driver of the prosperity that we need to see in the heart of all of our communities. That's the secret power of small businesses if it can be unlocked, and unlocking the secret power of small businesses involves governments trying to make their burdens lighter, not heavier.
With this bill here today, millions of small and medium businesses across Australia will have their burden lightened. They'll get the tax relief this government has been promising them sooner, five years earlier than was first planned. This bill means that businesses with a turnover below that $50 million threshold will face a tax rate of 25 per cent in the year 2021-22 rather than 2026-27, and similar timing changes will be applied to the rollout of the 16 per cent tax discount for unincorporated businesses in that very important unincorporated business sector. What it means is that all of those small businesses in places just like Paddington in the hearts of all our electorates—retail shops, cafes, family owned pubs—will have thousands of extra dollars to invest back in their businesses, to invest in their staff or in new staff or the capital expenditure that helps make their staff and their operations achieve more.
This is the reality that, sadly, too many commentators and decision-makers don't fully understand or appreciate when they talk about tax in Australia, because they don't really understand how it is that small businesses work. Most small businesses want to grow. They invest their profits back into their business, creating more investment, more jobs and higher wages, including through higher productivity.
Today is another very serious day when the political contrast in this country becomes clearer. We can't forget that those opposite do have a history of welching their promises on tax cuts, and even then their formal position right here and now is that they promise $200 billion of additional taxes across our economy. In contrast, this bill reduces the burden on small businesses in our local communities, reinforcing the job creation and the growth we're starting to see re-emerge right across Australia. Our government's economic plan is working, and this bill's fast-tracking of tax relief for small, medium and household businesses right across Australia is the next step to delivering that economic plan.
Mr ROBERT (Fadden—Assistant Treasurer) (18:24): Let me thank those members who've contributed to the debate. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018 will bring forward the small and medium company tax reduction to 25 per cent, delivering on the government's commitment to reduce taxes for these businesses around five years earlier. In line with the cuts in the company tax rate, the bill will also bring forward the already legislated increase in the unincorporated small business tax discount rate for unincorporated small businesses with an aggregated turnover of below $5 million. Passing the bill will help businesses by providing certainty about the tax consequences of their investment decisions. Over three million small and medium businesses stand to benefit from these tax cuts. These businesses employ around seven million Australians. Companies with a turnover below $50 million will enjoy a company tax rate reduction to 25 per cent on an accelerated time frame, with a 26 per cent rate in 2020-21 and a 25 per cent in 2021-22. For unincorporated small businesses with an aggregated turnover below $5 million, the increase in the unincorporated small business tax discount rate will be brought forward. The unincorporated small business tax discount rate rises from eight per cent to 13 per cent in 2020-21 and then again to 16 per cent from 2021-22. I commend this outstanding bill to the House.
Question agreed to, Mr Wilkie dissenting.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Mr ROBERT (Fadden—Assistant Treasurer) (18:26): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hastie ): The question is that this bill be read a third time.
A division having been called and the bells having been rung—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: As there are fewer than five members on the side for the noes in this division, I declare the question resolved in the affirmative in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
Question agreed to, Mr Bandt and Mr Wilkie voting no.
Customs Amendment (Product Specific Rule Modernisation) Bill 2018
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (18:32): I rise to speak on the Customs Amendment (Product Specific Rule Modernisation) Bill 2018. I say from the outset that Labor will support this bill. Australia is a trading nation and economic growth is underpinned by our ability to sell our goods and services overseas, particularly in our region. It's undeniable that trade creates jobs, with one in five Australian jobs linked to trade.
This bill amends the Customs Act to streamline the product-specific rules of origin, otherwise known as PSRs—product-specific rules of origin—for four of Australia's free trade agreements. These agreements include the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement, SAFTA; the Agreement Establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area, AANZFTA; the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, JAEPA; and China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, ChAFTA.
PSRs are essential components of free trade. They must be met by importers seeking preferential treatment for goods or products that include materials not originating in the territories covered by the agreement. For instance, you might have a piece of technology being imported into Australia that is made up of many components; however, some components are from territories not under the agreement. If the goods meet the requirements of the PSRs, they are considered to originate in the FTA party or country and are entitled to preferential treatment of customs duty, on import into Australia, under the Customs Tariff Act.
The PSRs are based on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding Systems. This is an international naming system for the classification of traded products. It currently covers thousands of commodity groups and is used by more than 200 economies as a basis for customs tariffs and the collection of international trade statistics. The amendments before the House seek to implement a functional and more streamlined system of PSRs. Each FTA has a separate PSR annex made of thousands of pages and is implemented domestically in rules-of-origin regulations for each agreement. However, there are also five-yearly revisions of the international harmonised system by the World Customs Organization. These revisions require countries that are signatories to free trade agreements to update their PSRs, which then means there are subsequent amendments to the rules-of-origin regulations.
The Customs Act recognises PSRs which were used at the time the agreement was negotiated, but then requires legislative change each time a new PSR is created. To combat this problem, the Customs Amendment (Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement Amendment Implementation) Act 2017 allows for changes to be made to the PSR without requiring additional legislative changes to the Customs Act. The bill before the House means that product-specific rules of origin can be updated without requiring subsequent legislative changes for the remaining free trade agreements Australia is a party to. The bill also has a number of subsequent amendments, including extending the recent update to the SAFTA to the chemical chapter origin rules. These minor amendments will ensure consistency between our legislation and the free trade agreement text in the Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, China, ASEAN and New Zealand FTAs. I want to make it clear that the amendments before the House are technical amendments and do not have any impact on the budget over the forward estimates.
Whilst the bill before the House deals with PSRs for four of Australia's free trade agreements, I want to take this opportunity to speak about Labor's plans to fix trade, broadly, in the context of the legislation. The Liberals have eroded Australia's trust in trade by signing trade agreements that have been negotiated in secret. The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government have not considered enough input from parliament, industry, unions and civil society groups, or the community about free-trade agreements they've entered into and bound Australia by. They're out of touch and they've neglected to undertake independent economic modelling. They've waived labour-marketing testing, meaning that companies can bring in overseas workers without checking if there is an Australian to do that job. They have included clauses that allow foreign companies the capacity to sue the Australian government, such as ISDS provisions. These are the types of things that make Australians, particularly those from my electorate of Blair in South-East Queensland and all the way across to Perth, very upset and even rightly angry. If you want more people in Australia to support free trade and open markets, then the government of the day has got to be more open and honest and trustworthy.
This is why yesterday the shadow minister for trade and investment introduced a private member's bill entitled A Fair Go for Australians in Trade Bill 2018. The bill will permanently fix the way Australia does trade agreements by putting Australian workers first and will stop future governments from signing up to trade deals that include clauses that allow foreign companies to sue the Australian government.
Our commitment is to ensure transparency, and the analysis of trade agreements doesn't stop there. We will strengthen the role of parliament by briefing the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties at the end of each round of free trade agreement negotiations; legislate to establish a system of accredited trade advisers from industry, unions and civil society groups who would provide real-time feedback on draft trade agreement text during negotiations; provide public updates on each round of negotiations and release draft text during negotiations, where this is feasible; and legislate to require an independent national interest assessment be conducted on every new trade agreement before it's signed, to examine the economic, strategic and social impact of any new trade agreement. These are all measures to make future free trade agreements Australia is signed up to better and fairer, and I commend the shadow minister for trade and investment, the member for Blaxland, for his tireless work to ensure a fair go for Australians in trade.
In conclusion, we urge the current Liberal government to take more care in negotiating free trade agreements. If they don't, Labor is committed to fixing these shortfalls should we be elected to government. Labor believes in a functional and streamlined trade system generally which delivers for all Australians and Australian businesses. This is why Labor will support these largely technical amendments in the bill before the House today.
Mr BROAD (Mallee—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (18:39): The Customs Amendment (Product Specific Rule Modernisation) Bill 2018 amends the Customs Act 1901 to streamline the way that the product-specific rules of origin of four existing free trade agreements are given effect in domestic legislation. The amendments in this bill apply to the ASEAN-Australia Free Trade Agreement with New Zealand, the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement.
The amendments in the bill are technical in nature and enable the automatic updating of the product-specific rules schedules for the free trade agreements in domestic legislation immediately after they are adopted by the relevant parties, and after completion of any domestic treaty-making processes. These technical amendments will not affect the operation of any of the agreements that are the subject of the bill or the operation of the domestic legislation. The amendments will remove the need for regulation to prescribe the PSRs that already exist in the treaty text.
If the bill is passed, the Customs Act will apply the PSRs in each of the four FTAs by reference to the treaty rather than duplicating the PSRs themselves. As such, the bulk of the current rules-of-origin regulations, which total more than 2,500 pages, will be repealed, and a customs amendments regulation is proposed to commence if and when this bill is passed by the parliament. These amendments will specifically reduce the amount of time and resources that would otherwise be needed regularly to update the PSRs in these agreements. The bill also makes minor amendments to existing FTA divisions in the Customs Act to ensure consistency between our legislation and FTA text in the Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Chile and New Zealand FTAs.
The government is committed to the passage of these amendments in 2018 to facilitate through regulation the transmission of the PSRs scheduled. Failure to pass the legislation in 2018 would put Australia at risk of not being able to meet the commitments we have advocated to other parties. In passing the bill, the government honours the commitments made to its free trade agreement partners to ensure our agreements remain up to date, supporting our jobs and growth agenda as well as reducing red tape for Australian traders.
I also want to touch on the importance of trade. Trade does create wealth. We have a population of 25 million people, but we produce enough food for 75 million people. The electorate that I represent, the electorate of Mallee, is very much a food-exporting electorate. But we also benefit from trade. I know that nearly every member of the parliament will carry an iPhone or a Samsung phone. These are not made in Australia, and this is great technology we benefit from.
But trade also does something else that's important; trade ensures that people have closer interaction with each other, and interaction creates understanding. Countries that trade together very rarely fight. I'm very conscious of this through the legacy in the seat that I have the privilege of representing. I'm the fourth member for Mallee since 1946. Sir Winton Turnbull was the first member for Mallee. He was a prisoner of war in Changi—the horrors of Changi. In 1946, still with those war wounds in his body, he was walking around in the House of Representatives in the Old Parliament House, and yet he and the leadership of that day were able to develop the closer working trade relationship with Japan. The great legacy of that is that they were ultimately able to come from what was war to Japan being a major trading partner with Australia. The outworking of that is that Australia and Japan are close friends and we understand one another better than we ever have. We have never been in conflict ever again.
And so whilst we always spend a lot of time talking about what the economic benefit of trade is and how we ensure we get the best outcome for Australian businesses and Australian households—and that's something we should occupy our minds with—we must also remember that when we think of trade there is a human benefit. There is a benefit for the world. It does worry me that increasingly there are some in our political leadership across the world who think that they can put up walls and pull away from one another—that they can put their interests first and solely without thinking more broadly about the region.
I say that it is good that Australians value trade. I hope that the Australian population values what that brings to us. And I hope that members of this parliament always remember that when people share the goods they produce then they interact with one another and they grow in a greater understanding of one another. The real fringe benefits of trade are better standards of living for both countries and a more prosperous and peaceful world. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading
Mr BROAD (Mallee—Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) (18:45): by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Treasury Laws Amendment (Gift Cards) Bill 2018
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Ms MADELEINE KING (Brand) (18:45): Labor will support the Treasury Laws Amendment (Gift Cards) Bill 2018. I am pleased to address the House in support of a bill which seeks to address unfairness for Australian consumers. This bill seeks to enfranchise gift card recipients who have been adversely affected by a previously disjointed state-by-state approach to Australian gift card regulation.
In Australia, 34 million gift cards or gift vouchers are estimated to be sold each year by national retailers and small businesses, with an estimated value of $2.5 billion. The majority of gift cards sold are for large national businesses, with the Australian Retailers Association—Australia's largest industry association, representing a $310 billion retail sector—estimating its members represent approximately 68 per cent of gift cards and vouchers in the Australian market. One of the commonly used terms and conditions of gift cards are expiry dates, and many consumers' gift cards expire before they get the chance to use them, resulting in financial loss and disappointment for gift card recipients. The current disparity in state and territory legislation means there are no uniform requirements for minimum expiry dates on gift cards, creating complexity for consumers and businesses alike.
Currently, the length of an expiry date on a gift card may vary considerably, depending on the preferences of the trader issuing the gift card, meaning there are no reliable rules of thumb for consumers in determining how long their gift cards may be valid for. Some recipients of gift cards may not know the expiry dates for gift cards they are given, and those consumers may expect their gift cards to last for a reasonable time. Nevertheless, losses from Australian gift card expiry are estimated to be $70 million annually. This bill implements a minimum three-year expiry period for Australian gift cards, improving fairness for consumers and ensuring they have an appropriate period of time to redeem the balance of a gift card, leading to a reduction in breakage. There is no prohibition on a retailer providing a longer expiry period.
In addition, this bill includes increased disclosure requirements, including expiry information prominently displayed on the card to ensure the consumer is aware of the expiry date. This is largely consistent with industry practice, with the majority of gift cards fortunately already displaying this information. This bill will also prohibit gift card suppliers from charging certain post-supply fees which can erode the balance on a gift over time and can operate as a de facto expiry date. This includes charges that are deducted automatically without an explicit communication of the request or demand. This bill also voids existing terms and conditions on cards already in supply if they breach any of the above changes.
The proposed three-year minimum expiry period does not change consumers' rights in the event the supplier of the gift card becomes insolvent or bankrupt. They will continue to be treated as unsecured creditors. Concerns have been raised surrounding the rights of recipients of gift cards for businesses that have since the point of purchase experienced insolvency, and this bill does not address that circumstance. I urge the government in future to consider this consumer protection concern at the upcoming consumer affairs forum of state and territory ministers—if that ever occurs, it having already been delayed since late August.
However, at large and generally, the bill seeks to ensure there is a viable gift card market that meets the needs of consumers. Labor is pleased the government has finally brought forward new legislation in the consumer affairs space. This government, with its sixth minister responsible for consumer affairs in five years, has let Australian consumers down by deferring the national consumer affairs forum scheduled for August, due to its leadership troubles. Though Labor is pleased with the introduction of this bill, it is mind-boggling that it had be approved by circular resolution instead of at the cancelled national COAG consumer affairs forum. That is one reason why I am going to move as part of this debate the following second reading amendment that has been circulated in my name. I move:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes the Government's lack of support for, and failure to protect, Australian consumers; and
(2) calls on the Government to reinvigorate the national Consumer Affairs Forum process, to enable the much-needed reform of Australian Consumer Law".
This is a government far more interested in its own party than Australian consumers. Labor understands the importance of safety and protection for Australian consumers and will continue to work on policies that are in the best interests of Australian consumers.
To be frank, the Assistant Treasurer seems quite disinterested, at best, in the portfolio. The Assistant Treasurer, to be fair, is quite new at the portfolio, but nonetheless he has done next to nothing in the consumer affairs realm, continuing the practice of the five ministers responsible for consumer affairs who came before him. Where was the Assistant Treasurer when news of the honey-laundering scandal broke? And it continues. Recent reports of Australian honey being adulterated with unknown substances have gone pretty much ignored. Last month's Fairfax and ABC investigation found worrying and very concerning evidence of adulteration in imported honey blends, and recently Australian Border Force tests have confirmed the worst: Australian honey may be adulterated as well. The integrity of Australian agriculture and food production itself is in question, and Australian consumers are at risk from this food fraud. However, the Assistant Treasurer is nowhere to be seen on this issue.
Where was the Assistant Treasurer last month when a couple from the United States visiting my home state of WA went to watch the best game in the world, the AFL finals series, and they were refused admission at the gate due to dodgy ticket scamming? This happens time and time again in this country, and this government continues to do nothing. This government's own inquiry of November 2017 into ticket scalping confirmed shady practices by resellers claiming to be authorised sellers, as well as evidence of ticket-buying bot software employed by ticket scalpers to infiltrate ticket-selling systems and artificially inflate prices. However, this government has failed to act.
The Assistant Treasurer is not only loath to respond; the Assistant Treasurer postponed the consumer affairs forum, where recommendations on how best to deal with the scourge of ticket scalping were scheduled to take place. States like Victoria and New South Wales are going it alone, introducing major-event legislation to combat rip-off ticket scalpers, and Western Australia is set to follow soon. Because of government inertia, inconsistent legislation is emerging across the country, making it confusing for consumers and for legitimate ticket sellers for major events in this country.
What is the Assistant Treasurer doing to protect vulnerable Australian consumers who have fallen prey to payday loan rip-off and rent-to-buy schemes? Recent data has shown that there are now 800,000 Australian households who have fallen victim to payday loan sharks. This number has more than doubled in the past decade, including 150,000 new households signing up for payday loans in the last 18 months alone. While the Assistant Treasurer promotes his self-led tours of Israel and surfs the web, Australian families continue to be ripped off every day by the loan sharks in this out-of-control industry.
The government have known about this growing crisis for more than two years, but they are so out of touch that they refuse to do anything about it. It has now been 1,166 days since the government themselves started a review into payday loans and rent-to-buy schemes. Despite repeated promises and supporting the 24 recommendations from the review some 686 days ago, the government are yet to show any action to clamp down on these vicious loan sharks. Following the release of their draft legislation, which sought, nobly, to enact the recommendations of the review, the 'parliamentary friends of payday lenders' right wing rolled Minister O'Dwyer and withdrew the legislation. They then refused to support their own legislation when it was introduced, word for word, as a private member's bill by my colleagues the previous member for Perth and the current member for Oxley. This process has been a complete shambles, and they have utterly abandoned vulnerable Australian consumers who are preyed upon by payday lending sharks.
And where is the Assistant Treasurer right now as Aussie manufacturing jobs are put at risk over confusion over 'Australian made' labelling on Australian complementary medicine products? The complementary health sector generated $4.9 billion in revenue last year, including exports, primarily to Asia, of $320 million. Our complementary health export market is at risk if Australian companies are unable to market their products as 'Australian made' in Asian markets.
The Assistant Treasurer has the power and ability to step up and deliver clarity to the ACCC and to the sector, but again he is nowhere to be seen—out to lunch. But, of course, this is the Assistant Treasurer of the same government, albeit with a different figurehead, that fought for more than 600 days against Labor's calls for a banking royal commission, the government that voted against a banking royal commission 26 times. In fact, it took the banks themselves to get this government behind a royal commission, having to write to the Prime Minister themselves to bring it on.
It took this royal commission to bring the Australian Banking Association to adopt a new banking code of practice for the benefit of consumers. We in Labor, of course, welcome the code as a step in the right direction, with the message getting through to the banks that the community demands and deserves better conduct from the financial institutions they put their trust and their life savings in. But we hear story after harrowing story of Australian consumers falling prey to the greedy and downright unethical banking practices and products, and it beggars belief that the government argued against this royal commission for so long and voted against it so consistently.
Again, this is a government far more interested in their own party and their own mates at the big end of town than ordinary, everyday Australian consumers. Although I have mentioned the Assistant Treasurer, he is not solely to blame for the government's failure to protect Australian consumers; there is a conga line. I've said this before, but allow me to say it again: the Assistant Treasurer, the member for Fadden, is the current minister responsible for consumer affairs and the sixth minister in five years of the Liberal-National government.
So who are the other stars of the Liberal-National cacophony of consumer affairs ministers? In 2015, our current Treasurer, the member for Kooyong, had custody of the consumer affairs portfolio. As we know, he then went on to do very measured and appropriate things in the environment space—and kudos to him for his commitment to the Great Barrier Reef; I'm a keen snorkeler myself, so I somewhat appreciate his misguided efforts. And, of course, he sculpted the National Energy Guarantee. Though he never did get that off the ground, I do commend the member for Kooyong's efforts. Well, I guess he kind of did get the NEG off the ground, having got it through the party room twice, but that's not quite good enough for the Liberal Party—such a shambles it even cost Prime Minister Turnbull his job, didn't it. How did that happen? It took this government tearing itself apart for the member for Kooyong to receive yet another promotion, to the position of Treasurer, and good luck to him. He can wave consumer affairs goodbye.
Of course, we had the Minister for Jobs, Industrial Relations and Women, the member for Higgins, oversee the consumer affairs portfolio. To her credit, had she not been strongarmed by the right-wing bullies in her own party, perhaps she could have achieved some greater policy wins for Australian consumers. The minister actually released the much-needed report of the government's review into small-amount credit contracts, and she did say at the time:
… the panel found that refinements to the law are needed to improve consumer outcomes and that, the current regulatory framework for consumer leases of household goods is not effective in promoting financial inclusion.
So, had she a little bit more power and some more influence in her party room—and perhaps if there were more reasonable heads there—perhaps the hundreds of thousands of Australians who have since fallen victim to the scourge of payday loan sharks would have had more of a chance to make financial decisions that were actually in their own interests. But, alas, as the tired political melodrama of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government played out, she was moved sideways out of the portfolio before she got the chance.
Then our current Deputy Prime Minister had a crack at consumer affairs. If you believe the media, he won't be our Deputy Prime Minister for much longer, but let's not go into that. Our esteemed Deputy Prime Minister, in his capacity as Minister for Small Business, took over the guardianship of the consumer affairs portfolio and said of the much-needed small-amount credit contract reforms to protect Australian consumers at the time that 'things are moving on this front'. That was 18 months ago, and have things moved? No, there's no reform for small-amount credit contracts. It hasn't moved at all. It's glacial progress at best and backwards downhill fast at worst.
And who could forget the contributions of the member for Deakin? It is understandable if you did, of course! Other than campaigning at anti-marriage-equality rallies and running the numbers for the hard right during the leadership crisis, it's hard to identify what the member for Deakin actually proposed, let alone achieved, in the consumer affairs space. Well, I guess he did achieve something for the payday loan sharks, of course: ensuring that the legislation got absolutely nowhere.
Now, of course, we have our current Assistant Treasurer, who is making waves among the constituency for all the wrong reasons. The Assistant Treasurer just a few days ago was forced to pay back to the taxpayer a whopping $38,000 internet bill. This Assistant Treasurer and his government are all very happy with themselves, but they don't give a damn about protecting vulnerable Australian consumers. While families are struggling to make ends meet and being lured into dodgy repayments, further entrenching them in debt, the Assistant Treasurer seems blindly and blissfully unaware of the reasonable cost of Netflix and chilling.
But it is good that the Liberal-National government has been reminded of the dreadful rollout of the NBN through the Assistant Treasurer's outrageous internet bills. Maybe the good people of the Gold Coast will now get their NBN more quickly than expected. This rabble sometimes feels like an episode of the House of Cards and not the good House of Cards—the British one or the early part of the American series—but more like the House of Cards from the fifth season, where the quality goes exponentially downhill, the characters get increasingly more shallow and desperate to maintain any semblance of relevance, and the executive eventually fire the headline act. We've seen that before, haven't we, member for Goldstein? This show—some would call it a muppet show; the Prime Minister himself calls it that—to be frank, is more of a Greek tragedy. As entertaining as it may be at times to some, it has nothing less than a detrimental effect on the lives of everyday Australians as this government fails to act in the consumer affairs portfolio and to protect vulnerable Australians.
This insular, entitled soap opera of a government has failed Australian consumers utterly. I am proud to be part of a united Labor team and look forward to the valuable contribution to the protection of Australian consumers that a Shorten Labor government will deliver for Australian consumers. We will protect vulnerable Australian consumers where this government has failed to do anything in their interests.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Vasta ): Is the amendment seconded?
Mr Giles: I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.
Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (19:01): I was going to leave the speech of the member for Brand alone but how could I not with that enticing invitation at its end, the idea that a Shorten Labor government would somehow be interested in the consumers of Australia? What a beautiful piece of sophistry, of eloquence, from the member for Brand, the wannabe minister who has created a falsehood right at the heart of everything that they stand for. Because there's one thing you know when you get a Labor government: it's that the consumer and the Australian taxpayer come not first, not second, not third, not fourth—in fact, I'm trying to think which is the pecking order of the many unions, the trade union interests, the various vested interests, where they like to bring together a corporatist, unionist, big government agenda—but the people of Australia fit somewhere down kind of the bottom of the pile. The bottom.
Just take the agenda of those opposite on energy, where they, frankly, couldn't give two hoots about the price of electricity bills that actually hit Australian households. In fact, they dismiss the idea that this is even an important part of the discussion and the agenda. The shadow consumer affairs minister not being worried about the prices of household bills is one of the most incredible statements you will ever hear in this place. But these are the difficult realities that we must confront, that the Australian people must confront in the coming months and weeks and, scarily, if they get their chance, years.
What we know always with Labor governments is their interest is to talk to the top end of town and sort out cushy deals and sign the deals away. The same is true with the trade union movement. We see this no clearer than in the great state of Victoria, where nothing is impossible, so long as you take the tax dollars of average Victorians and chuck them on the table to the benefit of unions and their members. You could achieve anything, just don't ask who's going to pay. And, of course, who's going to pay? It's going to be the Australian people. We know this from the NBN, where they're just going to build things without any costings whatsoever and lumber future generations. By the time the technology is completed under their plan, people will be paying thousands of dollars for their bill to get basic access to internet services—thousands for what will probably, by then, be outdated and redundant technology. It doesn't seem to matter what the Labor Party touches. They have an anti-Midas touch, which you've almost got to admire for its capacity to kill and destroy the aspirations and hopes of Australian consumers and households.
What we've got today, in front of this parliament, is a very simple bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Gift Cards) Bill 2018. It's a bill that understands the aspiration of many Australian consumers, which is that gift cards will be able to be redeemed when they seek to use them. I'm not going to try and pretend I don't have some philosophical conflicts about whether government should be involving itself in the gift card market. But the intention of this bill is that, when somebody goes off and buys their loved one a gift card as a Christmas present—as a reflection of sentiment without determination of the gift, because they don't know what their loved one wants—and the loved one goes, in 12 months time, to the Christmas sales, which might have just fallen past the 12 months, the gift card can still be redeemed.
We've all been there. We've all been given gift cards for Bunnings. We've all gone on to redeem them, and sometimes—
Ms Madeleine King interjecting—
Mr TIM WILSON: You're mocking me, member for Brand! I go to Bunnings and I do gardening too. It's the satisfaction of watching plants grow and seeing the beauty of our natural organic environment. It's about going to Bunnings, putting the gift card on the table and having confidence that it's going to be redeemed when you seek to do so.
Many Australians have had the experience of going to JB Hi-Fi, having got their gift card and waited for the latest technology, only to realise that the gift card expired months ago. What this bill does is create a standardised system across the whole of the nation so that, if you buy a gift card, it will be honoured for a minimum of three years. Gift cards already stipulate the contract terms, but what we're doing is making sure that even those who have purchased them before will be able to go and have them redeemed in the future.
Yes, there's an issue around competitive federalism, which I have some issues with as well. I'm a great believer in federalism. I'm a great believer that the source of power of this country isn't in this room, or, as Menzies said, with the 'chattering classes', but around the kitchen tables of the nation—individuals who come together to form families as a foundation for community and statehood and country. That's how we should govern our nation. We need competition and different laws, because there is nothing more offensive in this country than the monopoly of big government centralised in Canberra. But all we are seeking to do is reflect the sentiment of what has already been enacted in state law so that consumers can have confidence that, in the future, they will be able to redeem the gift cards of so many national businesses today that cross state boundaries.
Having this consistency and time frame are two of the most important issues confronting the consumers of the nation. I hear this from people and consumers who are frustrated. I hear it from the opposition. That's why this government is making passing this legislation today a priority.
Mr DICK (Oxley) (19:08): I'm pleased to follow Labor's shadow minister for consumer affairs in speaking on this legislation, from this side of the House, and I want to acknowledge the work she's done in advocating for better protections for Australian consumers—something which, unfortunately, this government has continually proven not to be trusted with time after time. However, on the matter we are debating today, I'm happy to see the government come forward with a bill which seeks to address unfairness for Australian consumers.
The Treasury Laws Amendment (Gift Cards) Bill 2018 seeks to enfranchise gift card recipients who have been adversely affected by a previously disjointed state-by-state approach to Australian gift card regulation. As we've heard, we know that in Australia a million gift cards, with an estimated value of $2.5 billion, are estimated to be sold each year by national retailers and small businesses. One of the commonly used terms and conditions of gift cards is the expiry date. If you're anything like me or the thousands of Australians who receive gift cards every year, whether they be from Bunnings or the retailer of your choice, you'll know it's quite easy to be caught out by an expiry date, with the value of that gift diverting straight back to the retailer without any goods being purchased. Losses from Australian gift card expiry are estimated to be around $70 million annually. Whether it be Christmas, a birthday, Mother's Day or Father's Day, it's easy for anyone to fall into the trap of it happening, much to the disappointment of both the giver and the receiver of the gift card.
Research by CHOICE found in a survey of 1,000 Australian that 88 per cent have given or received a gift card in the last 12 months. On average, Australians received and gave two gift cards in the last year. Their report on gift cards stated that, while gift cards might seem like a convenient option, selecting the wrong one can see your loved one wrapped in tricky terms and conditions and stuck with nothing more than a piece of plastic by next Christmas. The current disparity in state and territory legislation means there are no uniform requirements for minimum expiry dates on gift cards, creating complexity for consumers and businesses. This bill implements a minimum three-year expiry period for Australian gift cards, improving fairness for consumers and ensuring they have an appropriate period of time to redeem the balance of a gift card, leading to a reduction in breakage. Basically, you've got a longer period to redeem your gift card.
My sister sends an email out around October each year and says all of her Christmas shopping is done—one of the few Australians I know. Like most of us, I leave my Christmas shopping until perhaps the day or two days before and dramatically run around the stores.
Mr Buchholz: Sensible!
Mr DICK: Well, the member for Wright might get a Christmas card this year or even a gift card, but he'll have three years to redeem it. That is what this bill is doing tonight, while the added bonus is that there are no restrictions on retailers providing a longer expiry period. It will also enforce rules to make expiry dates more visible and easier to understand for consumers so there are no unexpected surprises.
However, there are some shortcomings in this bill. Concerns have been raised surrounding the rights of recipients of gift cards from businesses that have, since the point of purchase, experienced insolvency, which this bill unfortunately does not address. I ask the government tonight to consider the consumer protection concerns at the consumer affairs forum of territory and state ministers, whenever that may occur. The government, with its now sixth minister responsible for consumer affairs in five years, has let Australian consumers down by deferring the national consumer affairs forum, which was scheduled in August, but something like a leadership coup overtook events, which meant that, unfortunately, those discussions did not take place.
On the matter before the House today, on this side of the House we are pleased the government has finally brought forward new legislation in the consumer affairs space. I'll get to it in a moment. It can be a long time coming with other matters of importance. This bill will provide greater clarity, protections and conditions for consumers when it comes to gift cards. It's a move that will be warmly welcomed, I'm sure, by anyone fortunate enough to receive a gift card as a present.
However, when it comes to consumer affairs, I'm afraid that this is where the good news ends for the government. I note the shadow minister's second reading amendment. I want to spend some time in tonight's debate outlining for the House the government's lack of support for and failure to protect Australian consumers and the calls on the government to reinvigorate the national consumer affairs forum process to enable the much-needed reform of Australian consumer laws. All we've seen from the government so far when it comes to consumer laws is let-downs and broken promises. On the other hand, Labor understands the importance of safety and protection for consumers, which is why we, unlike the government, have dedicated a shadow minister for consumer affairs, who continues to, in my opinion, do the job the government should be doing and is leading the way in reform and ideas to support consumers while the government lets them down.
I want to spend some time speaking tonight about an area of consumer reform that I have been following closely and tens of thousands of Australians have been following closely, and that's the issue of small-amount credit contracts or, as they're better known, payday lending or the loan sharks rip-off. It's now 1,165 days since the government announced a review into the out-of-control payday loans sector, and basically that's how long this government has known there's been a problem with loan sharks. Yet the Morrison or Turnbull or Abbott government just have simply refused to shut the door on this issue. Let's be very clear: the reckless behaviour of payday lenders has gone on long enough.
I want to bring to the attention of the House tonight new data released by the Consumer Action Law Centre, which shows the number of households with a payday loan has continued to skyrocket and now sits at around 800,000. This number has more than doubled in the past decade, including 150,000 new households signing up for payday loans in the last 18 months. Why is that a critical figure? Why does that 150,000 in 18 months mean something? Because it's been a year and a half since we've been promised action and reform to crackdown on payday lenders. If the government had honoured its word, if the ministers of the day had actually followed through with the legislation, we would have seen that number reduced; instead, we've seen the number explode by 150,000.
Whilst the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government sits by and does nothing, these Australian families continue to be ripped off every day by loan sharks in this out-of-control industry. Examples of people being exploited are endless. This includes heartbreaking stories like that of the Queensland mum who was approached by a payday lender and signed up to rent a fridge on the spot. After her electronic signature was captured, she was only told how much she would pay a fortnight, $81.44. Just two weeks later the full story was revealed, with the fridge costing an astronomical $6,352 over three years. Think about it: she was promised one thing, that the goods were going to cost a couple of hundred dollars, but she was then left to pay $6,000. Families, young people and pensioners are being ripped off by loan sharks who are exploiting an industry which preys upon vulnerable people.
Payday loans are exclusively used by people who are on low or very low incomes to try and keep their heads above water, often falling into a debt cycle. This is due to the outrageous fees and interest rates of almost 900 per cent. Further recent research has shown that, over a five-year period, around 15 per cent of payday borrowers will get into a debt spiral which leads to events such as bankruptcy. On that basis, an additional 249,000 households have been allowed to enter a debt path which leads to this unfortunate end—in the last three years alone. These households are part of the three million additional loans written, worth an estimated $1.85 billion since 2016.
Parliament's now been sitting for two days. We're coming to the second day of the sitting. I have spoken on this matter already three times in the parliament this week, and so far I've spoken probably more than a dozen times about this. I would yield my time, I would sit down on the spot, if the minister would just once come in here and speak about this and update the House. In fact, I'm now at the point where I'm pleading with the minister. I've written to them; I've written to the Prime Minister. And, look, I get it. In the multitude of issues that this chaotic and dysfunctional government is dealing with—whether it be supporting white supremacy motions by administrative error, whether it be tying themselves up in knots about ripping up the two-state solution which has had bipartisan support for 70 years, whether it be as simple as working out who's responsible for what portfolio in this government—I would simply ask that this government take this issue seriously.
I don't know if I'm out of line here, but I don't think this minister has taken one question or spoken in the parliament since he's become a minister. I do know, however, that he has charged the taxpayer $38,000 to download and binge on internet services. This is the person responsible for $38,000 billed to the taxpayer. Time and time again, we're seeing this minister involved with what I could say are scandals from time to time. I understand that he's got his hands full managing his internet bills, but, when it comes to consumer protection, I'd like him to worry a little less about what his internet bill is and more about the consumers and customers that are being ripped off. As I said, in my opinion, he's nowhere to be seen when we're protecting Australian consumers from loan sharks.
I'll give this: the previous ministers responsible in this portfolio did have some interest in standing up for consumers. About three or four ministers back, Minister O'Dwyer—I lose track of the number; it's like, what do you call a gaggle of consumer ministers? What is the collective noun for that? There are so many of them. I was going to make that point, but we're seeing ministers who have said, 'We will take action to protect consumers.' We saw the draft explanatory memorandum for consumer protection around payday lending exposed, but then that was withdrawn. We've seen ministers say that legislation will become enacted, and that's been withdrawn. There has been broken promise after broken promise.
Fast forward to 2018, this year. I was really proud to introduce the government's own piece of legislation. It was, word for word, sentence for sentence, the government's exposure draft legislation in a show of bipartisanship. Not a single member of the government chose to speak on the matter, and I may be corrected, but not one member of the government since then has ever spoken about payday lending. I get it. It's not an issue that's a priority for the government. I wish it would be, because the hundreds of thousands of Australians who are being preyed upon by the loan sharks deserve this parliament's attention and action to ensure that they are protected. The cost of living has risen drastically under this government; 1.8 million households are now financially distressed and, as I mentioned earlier, 800,000 families have turned to payday loans just to get by. It's time the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government drew a line in the sand and stood up for these vulnerable Australians.
Whilst it is good to see the government taking some minor action when it comes to consumer protection and gift cards, we have an opportunity with this second reading amendment that the shadow minister has moved in the parliament to send a really clear message to the consumers of Australia that they deserve better and that this government has let them down. For those great financial counsellors out there that are helping—and I've met with many of them in my electorate and across Australia who are guiding and helping people deal with the fallout of the debt spiral that comes from dealing with loan sharks—I've launched a national campaign around this, including a web site: stoptheloansharks.com. I've issued a series of videos surrounding this, highlighting church leaders, the victims of payday lenders, some of the community organisations that have dealt with the fallout and, more importantly, the financial counsellors, who all say the same thing: unless we take action to deal with this, the problem is only going to get worse. So, whilst this small step tonight will receive bipartisan support, the bigger picture for consumer action across Australia deserves our respect and support.
Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (19:23): I speak in support of the amendment moved by the member for Brand in respect of this legislation, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Gift Cards) Bill 2018. Having said that, I welcome the legislation and I note that it is indeed long overdue. In fact, the issue of gift cards, as far as I'm aware, has been a matter of public concern for several years, and I suspect it's been getting worse in recent years. Ultimately, that's brought this House to the point where it needs to deal with legislation, as the states of New South Wales and South Australia have done. In fact, the South Australian legislation went through its parliament about an hour ago, so it's quite timely that we are now dealing with the matter here in the federal parliament, particularly given that both the New South Wales and the South Australian legislation is limited, effectively, to those states. What is required is national legislation.
Even then, my concern is that this legislation doesn't commence until 1 November 2019—that is, over a year away. Given the government has already been tardy in bringing the legislation to parliament, to then say that it won't apply for another year or more is also of some concern. I would have thought that, having reached the point now where we have legislation before the House, we could have dealt with it quickly so that it would be there to protect consumers in readiness for Christmas, which is when most of the gift cards around the country are likely to be bought.
I believe that most retailers do the right thing. There are millions of small businesses out there. I would expect that a great many issue gift cards in one form or another and I believe most of them do the right thing. Regrettably, too many don't, and the numbers are probably increasing. There are always going to be unethical businesses out there that look for any opportunity to fleece consumers. They do so by sometimes using the fine print in contracts and at other times in any other way they possibly can. Even worse, however, is that in recent years, in my view, the exploitation is being perpetrated by businesses that, in the past, one considered to be in reputable industry sectors. I refer to insurance companies that today use the fine print, whether it's in household insurance or even health insurance, to avoid paying out or protecting the people who have taken out policies with them. We see that banks are now the subject of a royal commission because they too have been ripping off their customers and because of their unethical conduct.
We have airlines ripping off consumers when they can. One of the worst examples I've seen was only a couple of weeks ago, when the AFL grand final was being played in Melbourne and the cost of tickets to get to Melbourne, particularly from Western Australia, skyrocketed. They didn't just go up by what you might call a reasonable amount within the fluctuation of prices one expects; they skyrocketed. It was pure gouging of those football fans who wanted to get to Melbourne to watch the grand final. That kind of behaviour ought to be stopped. It's as bad as ticket scalping, which some states have introduced legislation to try to prevent. I think the same ought to happen with respect to gouging by the airline companies.
Then we have, right here and now, oil companies each and every day causing prices to fluctuate, which can in no way be justified on the basis of fluctuations in the price of crude oil around the world or their refinery or transport costs. Their prices go up and down on a weekly and monthly cycle, which tells me that it is purely an opportunity for companies to make the most profit they can, to exploit their customers by putting up their prices. It's not surprising that they pretty much all do it together. Regardless of which company it is, the prices go up almost in a synchronised way. That kind of behaviour has to stop.
As the member for Brand referred to, with the honey adulteration concerns, it also occurs with respect to food products, internet providers and substandard building products that are coming into this country, because those who sell them know they're in effect going to rip off their consumers. The list of examples of consumer exploitation happening around the country today is endless.
And so we come again to gift cards. I've seen some of the most unethical operators also using gift cards as a way to exploit their consumers. According to finder.com.au, in a report they released only a couple of months ago—in August this year—some $2.5 billion is spent on gift cards each year. Fourteen per cent, or one in seven, of those gift cards are never used. They are never redeemed; they are allowed to expire. With an average value of $77 per card, that equates to around $74 million in gift card value being lost to around 1.9 million Australians each and every year. There are many reasons why those gift cards are never redeemed: there may not be an appropriate product in-store, the card has unintentionally been allowed to elapse, or perhaps the full value of the card is not redeemed.
ADJOURNMENT
The SPEAKER (19:30): I propose the question:
That the House do now adjourn.
Norman, Mr Peter
Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (19:30): Fifty years ago today, a young Australian did two extraordinary things. At the Mexico City Olympics Peter Norman won silver in the 200 metres with a time of 20.06 seconds. In the half-century since, no Australian has run faster. It's still a national record. But the best was yet to come. As he walked out to the medal ceremony with Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the two African American runners, they told him they planned to bow their heads and put their fists in the air in support of human rights.
When Carlos revealed their plans he said, 'I expected to see fear in Norman's eyes, but instead I saw love.' Peter Norman told the two athletes, 'I'll stand with you.' He borrowed an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge and pinned it on his chest. The famous photograph shows Peter Norman standing silently alongside the two athletes giving the Black Power salute. When he returned to Australia, Peter Norman should have been treated as a hero for racial equality, but he wasn't. He wasn't highlighted in the 2000 Olympics' opening ceremony. And when he died in 2006, Smith and Carlos were among his pallbearers.
In 2012 I moved a motion in this place that parliament apologise to Peter Norman for the way in which he'd been treated upon his return. It was passed unanimously. Melissa Parke, Rob Oakeshott and the members for Wannon, Bennelong, Swan and Moreton spoke in favour of the motion. It enjoyed strong bipartisan support. It was a particular pleasure to me that Peter's mother, Thelma Norman, sister, Elaine Ambler, and her husband, Michael, could be here to listen to the national parliament acknowledge Peter Norman's great achievements.
I pay tribute now to the Australian Olympic Committee, which has, somewhat belatedly, begun to recognise the heroism of Peter Norman; not just his athleticism but this stance for racial equality. Peter Norman will be honoured with the striking of a bronze statue at the Lakeside Stadium in Melbourne, a partnership of Athletics Australia and the Victorian government. It's a project that's been championed by Peter's coach, Neville Sillitoe, now in his 90s.
Earlier this year, the Australian Olympic Committee announced a posthumous Order of Merit, which was presented to members of Peter's family in June of this year. Athletics Australia has adopted 9 October as Peter Norman Day. They've inaugurated the Peter Norman Humanitarian Award. The inaugural recipient, most fittingly, is two times Olympian distance runner Eloise Wellings for her work with the Love Mercy Foundation, which undertakes charitable work in Uganda.
Peter Norman's family has been touched not only by his athleticism but also by his stance for racial equality. His daughter Janita said:
My father was someone who held strong beliefs and who spoke his mind and yet it's the image of him standing there silently on the podium that has made such an impact on our lives.
You can't help but look at the young Peter Norman standing there silently without thinking of the impact it's had on the lives of so many Australians.
When he returned from Mexico City, he had an influence on my own family. It was only after the parliamentary apology was passed that my dad told me about our own family connection to Peter Norman. My grandfather, Keith Leigh, was a marathon runner and a minister at Rosanna Methodist Church. When Peter Norman returned, Keith invited him to speak from the pulpit about racial equality and the events in Mexico City. I never got to meet my grandfather, but my dad said that not everybody in the somewhat staid Rosanna Methodist Church congregation appreciated the gesture of having a Salvation Army member speaking to them from the pulpit.
Peter Norman's actions continue to inspire. After parliament passed the apology, a Queensland teacher wrote to me about a project that his class had engaged in. He had asked students in the class to think about when they could have Peter Norman moments in their own lives, where they could take a stance for racial equality, speaking out against an off-colour joke, saying the right thing when you know it's not going to be popular with the group.
On this 50th anniversary of Peter Norman's blisteringly fast run and extraordinary stance for racial equality, it is fitting that this parliament stands tall for our apology for the way he was treated six years ago and recognises his extraordinary achievement as a great national champion for racial equality.
Groom Electorate: Agriculture Industry
Dr McVEIGH ( Groom ) ( 19:35 ): My region of Toowoomba and the Darling Downs, which makes up the Groom federal electorate, has long been a leader in agriculture and agribusiness. In fact, that's our heritage. It's the very reason that pastoralists initially focused on our region from the mid-1800s.
Grain, pulses, cotton, horticulture, grazing, intensive livestock, feedlotting, food processing, packaging and freight to domestic and international markets remain to this day among the mainstay activities in our region. And, of course, with the Wellcamp Airport, the continued upgrades of the Warrego Highway and other highways in the region—the Gore Highway and the New England Highway, that intersect around our city, Toowoomba—the pending Inland Rail and of course, the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing that is nearing completion, marketing and logistics opportunities will only develop more in the future, in the years to come, leading to more businesses and, of course, more jobs throughout our region.
And now an array of new research and innovation will take our region to new heights. Robust and high-technology sensors, accessible computing power, robotics and automation in agribusiness and of course, the existence of the smart device we all carry nowadays, are increasingly making our farms more productive and with less environmental impact. Ultimately, this leads to greater international competitiveness. This competitiveness is very significant, especially when we consider the fact that whilst we are not the largest agricultural producers in the world, we are certainly world leaders in productivity, quality of produce and, of course, food safety.
In terms of the agricultural technologies, or agtech, that support and drive such initiatives, we are seeing more and more start-ups in the market. And of course the agribusiness giants are also taking notice. It's particularly exciting that FKG's $40 million Pulse Data Centre is leading Toowoomba's digital future. Given our agricultural heritage that I referred to, and the interest of agribusiness, universities and farmers, this will very much be an agtech future. This data centre, the first of its type in regional Australia, has unsurpassed security systems as well as cooling and power supply guarantees, and has really positioned itself as a hub for agtech across our famous Darling Downs and further afield.
I'm pleased, therefore, that just today local agricultural consultant Tim Neale was announced as the 2018 Rural Consultant of the Year at the Australian Farmer of the Year Awards held here in Parliament House. As was explained during his presentation, Tim has more than 20 years experience working in Australian agriculture, with a focus on sustainable agriculture and precision agricultural technology. During his time he has supported farmers and agronomists to move into this space. To quote Tim:
By knowing variability in crop or pasture production, farmers and agronomists can help manage their farming activities by rectifying mistakes, track crop growth, varying fertiliser and chemical rates across a field, reduce input costs, and predict productivity before final harvest.
This means just that for the whole supply chain. It means opportunities in the future, from input suppliers, producers and contractors to shippers, marketers and financiers. More precise information and greater predictability will lead to an even more competitive future for our livestock and crop producers right across the board. Our burgeoning trade deals around the world provide opportunities for our agribusinesses, armed with these skills and data, to compete even more strongly.
This is great for the nation's economy. It's great for job opportunities in regional Australia. It's great when we consider the grains research. One example, Tosari, is a new research property in the central Darling Downs, led by the Grains Research and Development Corporation. With the support of the federal government, this means that we will see continued initiatives into the future, and it is therefore fantastic to see my region leading the charge once again.
Asylum Seekers
Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (19:40): Australia is overseeing a medical emergency, and it requires an emergency response. I am proud of the work that the Greens and many in the community have done over many years to call out the appalling way that Liberal and Labor have treated refugees. Even though it's too late for the people who have died under Australia's watch, who have been separated from their families under Australia's watch and who have been broken under Australia's watch, there are glimpses of progress. Today I stood with my crossbench colleagues to announce that we will co-sponsor a bill to get children and families off Nauru to receive urgent medical treatment in Australia. If the Labor Party shifted from their current position, which the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre today said fails every critical test, and finally stood up for what is right then this bill could pass the House.
We are reaching a tipping point. The thousands of doctors around Australia who signed an open letter calling on the government to take emergency action to remove children and families from Nauru have played a huge part in making this happen. These doctors collected signatures within their profession at a grassroots level with no media or formal support, and I'm proud that the organisers of that letter live within my electorate. At the time that I am speaking, 6,000 doctors have signed this letter. I understand that this represents five per cent of all registered doctors in Australia, an amazing grassroots effort.
When a doctor tells you there is an emergency, you should listen. But, shamefully, the Prime Minister's office yesterday refused to even accept the letter. It was sent by internal mail, and there has not yet been even a formal response. So tonight I would like to read into Hansard the open letter, and may this stand as a testament to what Liberal and Labor support for cruel offshore detention of adults and children has led to. It says:
Dear Prime Minister,
We call on you to transfer the asylum seeker and refugee children and their families off Nauru for medical care appropriate to their needs.
The medical situation is urgent for this vulnerable group of children. Medical experts, including doctors who have worked on Nauru, have spoken repeatedly about their concerns. They report widespread, significant deteriorations in physical and mental health. There are disturbing reports of young children attempting suicide by lethal means and withdrawing from their environment until they are almost comatose (increasingly called resignation syndrome). This is an extreme physical response to sustained psychological trauma, and is life threatening. A growing number have been transferred by order of the Australian Federal Court for treatment.
We are aware that there has been substantive investment by the Australian and Nauruan governments who provide health care on Nauru. We are aware that this includes provision of specialist mental health professionals including child psychiatrists. While we are grateful that these services continue to be extended, this will never bring resolution to these children's symptoms. The circumstances of an involuntary and indefinite stay on Nauru directly contributes to their deterioration in mental state, which is why extending services on the island can never be the solution.
We wish to state explicitly that our call to transfer should in no way be viewed as a negative reflection on Nauru's population, government or physical environment. The severe adverse physical and mental health effect of involuntary and indefinite stays have been widely reported around the world.
While we acknowledge the complexity of the situation, and that this in part results from a sincere desire to stop deaths at sea, we cannot accept that one policy necessitates harm to innocent children.
Our peak bodies have repeatedly offered to work with the government to provide independent oversight and expertise. This offer was repeated as part of the AMA President's letter that you received on September 19, 2018.
We ask that you reconsider.
We are deeply uneasy that expert medical recommendations are unheeded by our government. It is a dangerous precedent for other areas of great health need across our communities.
It falls within our mandate as doctors and medical students to comment on and advocate for those requiring care within our health system. We undergo years of rigorous training and ongoing oversight to provide the Australian community with excellent medical care. We believe that this care should be delivered without regard for race, age, gender, ability level, or location.
We call on you to show your commitment to the strong health care system we have in Australia, which we are the guardians of, by accepting the recommendations of many medical experts and bringing these children and families to Australia so their health care needs can be met adequately, and with appropriate clinical oversight.
I seek leave to table that document and all the signatures attached to it, because these are doctors who are calling out this government and the opposition for supporting a policy that is killing children.
Leave not granted.
Mr BANDT: I'm not surprised that the government doesn't want to hear from the doctors, but you are hearing from the Australian people that killing children does not justify any policy.
Newton, Mrs Joyce, OAM
Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (19:45): As members and senators in the Australian parliament, we all come into daily contact with people in our community who go above and beyond to support various community groups and organisations. In my own electorate of Fisher, I'm surrounded by selfless volunteers who dedicate more of their time to community groups than they do to themselves. They are the unsung heroes of our communities, the people who make things tick and keep the fabric of our community together.
This evening, I rise to speak about Mrs Joyce Newton from Maleny, who well and truly dedicated much of her adult life to giving back to others and supporting those in need. Sadly, the world and the small but very close township of Maleny lost Joyce Newton on Thursday, 11 October after a courageous battle with motor neurone disease. Joyce Newton and her husband, Greg, enjoyed 45 years of married life. Greg has been left without his best friend and his partner in life, and I pass my deepest condolences on to Greg and their children, Ty, Jennifer, Daniel and Carl, and their grandchildren at this time.
Joyce reflected recently that her greatest passion throughout her life was education and working at the two local schools in Maleny. In her early teaching years, she taught maths and science, but once her family started arriving she went on to work as a relief teacher. She also ran the tuckshop and sat on both schools' P&Cs. When Joyce retired from her career as a schoolteacher, she threw herself into assisting many of our hinterland community groups. This included restarting the Maleny community kindergarten, running the blood bank at the hospital, keeping the Maleny guides and the playgroup going, building an indoor activity centre at the high school, setting up the Maleny Hospital Auxiliary and overseeing the soccer club's transition from Churches to the Maleny Rangers soccer club. She also, remarkably, found time to sit on the advisory group of the Maleny Community Precinct.
Realising that she couldn't be everywhere at once, Joyce eventually decided to focus her efforts on helping the Maleny swimming pool committee and the Maleny Girl Guides. Up until her diagnosis and even beyond, Joyce was dedicated to ongoing fundraising and other events linked to those clubs. Joyce's commitment and dedication to the Maleny swimming pool in particular were well known. She was instrumental in establishing the committee that oversaw the construction of the Maleny community swimming pool in 1983 and was involved in keeping it running until recent years. Joyce's ultimate dream was to see the project to upgrade the Maleny community pool funded and delivered. Joyce's dream was to one day be able to look down from above and see this project completed.
Joyce was also a fierce supporter of the Liberal National Party, having been a member for 37 years, and in 2017 was recognised for her service with an honorary life membership. When Joyce accepted her award at the annual LNP conference, there was not a dry eye in the room. Just before she was presented with this award, Joyce was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. As many in this place would know, there's no cure for motor neurone disease. Motor neurone disease is the name given to a group of diseases in which the nerve cells degenerate and die. Joyce certainly fought to the end and even agreed to participate in medical trials to provide research into the complexities of this disease in an effort to one day find a cure.
In what will no doubt be remembered by many of her closest friends and family as one of the most special days since her diagnosis, on 4 June 2018 Joyce was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia.
Joyce's nearest and dearest gathered at the Newton home to see the Governor of Queensland, His Excellency Paul de Jersey, AC QC, personally present her with this prestigious award. Joyce wasn't able to speak herself on this momentous occasion, but she prepared a speech that was delivered by voice prompter, in which she reflected on her life journey and the gratitude felt at being acknowledged in this way. She thanked the governor for making the trip and also thanked those in attendance. In summarising her community service and the efforts that had led to this award, Joyce had this to say: 'I can look back now with pride at what the Maleny community has accomplished.' Vale Joyce Newton. We love you.
Western Australia: Tourism
Mr GORMAN (Perth) (19:50): One of my goals in my time as a parliamentarian is to assist with the transformation of Perth to becoming a world-class city—in other words, to take it from dullsville to Perth-fect, a world-class city which is a Perth-fect place to live, work and raise a family, a world-class city that is full of thriving local businesses and that is driving the national economy, and a world-class city with truly spectacular tourist attractions, both natural and built.
Last month, in my first speech, I raised the issue of the decaying East Perth Power Station site. It is embarrassing that the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority has allowed an historic building on prime riverfront land to sit unloved and unused. In my view, the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority should either use it or lose it and hand it over to someone who will take care of that beautiful building and that prime river frontage. Many ideas have been bounced around for this building. It could be a sports museum, a mining museum, or a home for fine arts or performance art. The Sydney Powerhouse Museum and the Brisbane Powerhouse are two fantastic examples of how former power stations can become part of our present and part of our future. Whatever happens, it shouldn't be decaying on the banks of the Swan River. It's disrespectful to the river and it's disrespectful to my community of Perth.
The other thing I believe is that Perth needs to proactively look and host internationally competitive built tourist attractions. I like to say 'world-class, built, family-friend tourist attractions'—in other words, some people call them theme parks. Mickey, Donald and Goofy would all be welcome, as would Marvel's X-Men, Thor and Spiderman. Whatever it is, if we are going to be serious about tourism in Western Australia, we need to make Perth a more family-friendly tourist destination.
One of the great achievements of the Rudd-Gillard government was investment in the Perth City Link project, now known as Yagan Square, which has a beautiful family-friendly playground at the top of it—a $1 billion project. I'll raise a billion dollars to sink a train line just to tell you what else you can do with a billion dollars. Research from Kelly Kaak, a researcher at the University of Central Florida tells us that the cost of Disney California Adventure was only $1.4 billion and had five million visitors in the first year. In other words, there is something worth investigating about having a world-class internationally competitive built family-friendly tourist attraction.
Whatever the case is, when it comes to tourism in Australia, and particularly in Western Australia, we need to think big. I know the Tourism Council of Western Australia have also advocated for built family-friendly tourist attractions, including an Aboriginal cultural centre and a cable car to link Kings Park and the Perth CBD. Western Australia, Perth in particular, has hosted the Commonwealth Games and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2011. But many younger members of the Perth electorate are very excited that this Friday, Perth will host its most important visitor yet, Taylor Swift.
But Western Australia has suffered the tyranny of distance when it comes to tourism policy. As Tay-Tay would say, there is a 'Blank space' in Tourism Australia's approach to WA. The recent Crocodile Dundee campaign featured next to no footage of Western Australia. There was nothing of the Western Australian outback and nothing of Western Australia's Indigenous heritage, nothing from our award-winning South West or Great Southern regions that were so finely on show on Monday night when the member for O'Connor and the member for Burt hosted the Showcase WA event in the Mural Hall. I commend them both and everyone involved, including their staff, for pulling that event together.
But, when you look at the Crocodile Dundee campaign that was run by Tourism Australia, not even a quokka featured. There was nothing from Rottnest Island, a beautiful part of Western Australia, a tourist destination for hundreds of thousands of people every year. And, if anyone needs advice on quokka selfies when they visit the west, I am more than happy to assist, and I am sure the member for Fremantle would be too.
I will conclude on this thought: the Prime Minister has a background in tourism, and some of his colleagues were less than complimentary. I note that Fran Bailey even said:
… sometimes things work out in an organisation, and sometimes they don't. In this case, Scott Morrison didn't work out.
Maybe that's okay when you're heading up a government agency. It's definitely not okay when you are heading up the entire government. Western Australia needs leadership on tourism. We need leadership on built family-friendly tourist attractions. We need a Labor government.
Newton, Mrs Joyce Ann OAM
Mr TED O'BRIEN (Fairfax) (19:55): It was with much sadness that I received news last Thursday advising of the passing of Mrs Joyce Newton. Joyce led a full and giving life, a life claimed too early by the cruel ravages of motor neurone disease. Joyce, together with her husband and soulmate of 45 years, Greg, have been loyal friends and valued advisers not just of mine but of many, many people, including many parliamentarians for many years.
Joyce had a personal brand of commitment that always went well beyond what one would typically expect of the average person. But there was nothing average about Joyce Newton. Whether in her professional career as a teacher at the Maleny State School, or later, when she really stepped up the pace after resigning from the education department, Joyce was always driven to go that extra mile. Her boundless energy and passionate commitment are legendary on the Sunshine Coast, especially in the community of Maleny. From the swimming pool committee to the Girl Guides, the soccer club, the P&C, the hospital auxiliary, a kindergarten playgroup and the blood bank—they all relied on Joyce for years, as did the National Party and, later, the Liberal National Party in Queensland. Branch meeting after branch meeting, convention after convention, election after election—Joyce would be there, as always, in the front line, rallying the members and rallying the community. And, as a candidate and later as a member of parliament, I knew that Joyce's views were not only highly informed but they were ones of great conviction, and so you always listened and took note.
It was actually Joyce's husband, Greg, who I first met, and that's only about eight years ago. Now, the last word you would use to describe Greg Newton would be 'soft'. Greg's a tough bloke and has a hard exterior, a touch of wildness, maybe, and he shoots straight—straighter than any dairy farmer I've ever met. I was delighted, therefore, to meet Joyce, because Joyce Newton took no cheek from her husband, Greg, and you could say that Joyce knew how to tame Greg, if you like, but not in a way that would quieten him; in a beautiful way, because Greg could still completely be himself. And, to me, it reflected a love and devotion between Greg and Joyce that I have admired and I always will. And that devotion we saw more and more as that tragic, tragic condition took hold of Joyce. The devotion shown by Greg said it all.
It was after more than 36 years of dedicated service to the cause of conservative politics in Queensland that Joyce was awarded honorary life membership by the LNP. Earlier this year, in recognition of a lifetime of tireless work in the Maleny community, she was awarded with the Medal of the Order of Australia. It was a sign of Joyce's selfless character that these awards delighted but humbled her.
To me, Joyce was a person with enormous experience and a big intellect, yet she remained highly inquisitive and keen to learn the views of others. Joyce was a person who fearlessly wore her beliefs on her sleeve, yet she was naturally humble and never sought to be the centre of attention. Joyce was a person who was good at organising, great at managing, yet was also prepared to selflessly do the hard work. And it's in that spirit that I acknowledge the remarkable life of Joyce Ann Newton in this House today.
The SPEAKER: It being 8 pm, the House stands adjourned until 9.30 am tomorrow.
House adjourned at 20 : 00
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs Wicks) took the chair at 16:00.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs Wicks) took the chair at 16:00.
CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
McCartney, Mr Charles
Mrs MARINO (Forrest—Chief Government Whip) (16:00): I'm really pleased today to talk in this chamber about Margaret River resident Charles McCartney, who contacted my office around four months ago. As we all know, as members of parliament, sometimes you work so hard to help people with the issues they come to you with. Sometimes you can help them but there are other times when you cannot. In this instance I was able to help Charles and his family. Charles had a really unique request. He wanted to know what had happened to the many plaques that had adorned the walls of Princess Margaret Hospital in Perth. The Princess Margaret Hospital has recently closed down and the new children's hospital has taken its place.
Charles is 87 and he had a very special interest in the plaques, because one of those plaques had his daughter's name on it. Charles and his wife, Verna, who passed away around four years ago, had four sons and then a precious little girl they named Christine Jean. This was the little daughter they had always wanted. Unfortunately, on 16 June 1967 little Christine escaped from the yard in Dianella, ran out onto the road and was hit and killed by a truck. She was 2½ years old at the time.
The Save the Children group, of which Verna was a member, called and rallied around the family, as did many other locals. Collectively, they raised enough money to contribute to the building of the playground at Princess Margaret Hospital and also to get a brass plaque made to commemorate little Christine. The plaque hung on the wall at PMH until the new hospital opened in Perth.
I was keen to help Charles find an answer to his question. After many phone calls between my office and the WA state health minister's office, we found that all the plaques were in storage with no time frame as to when, or if, they could be put up in the new hospital. Charles decided that he would like to have his daughter's plaque returned to him—so we requested that this be done. We worked with the state health minister and we asked for the plaque to be sent to my office, where it was cleaned and polished. Vickie, in my office, did an extraordinary amount of work with Charles and worked very closely with him. This was very precious to him. With Vickie, I personally delivered the plaque, which weighs between eight and 10 kilos, to a very grateful and emotional Charles at his home. Seven of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren were present as well. Mr McCartney intends mounting the plaque on a wood backing and to position it under the verandah of his Margaret River home, where he has lived for 19 years. I am very pleased for Charles.
Immigration Detention
Mr KHALIL (Wills) (16:03): So many hundreds of my constituents have spoken to me of their concerns about the health and welfare of kids on Nauru—sentiments expressed many times since being elected in 2016. I have had so many conversations with community groups—#RightTrack, Grandmothers Against Detention of Refugee Children, Academics for Refugees, Ducks for Detainees, Labor for Refugees, Doctors for Refugees, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and Northsiders with Refugees—many NGOs and, importantly, hundreds of individual constituents all concerned over the great distress people, particularly children, experience on Nauru. I share those concerns.
As I argued in my very first speech to this parliament, Australia has a moral obligation to take responsibility for the care of those refugees who have been physically or emotionally damaged by the long-term detention that they have been submitted to. I have been working towards that goal, alongside my Labor colleagues, since elected two years ago.
That's why I'm so pleased that Labor today has announced the introduction of legislation to the parliament to address the failures and ensure that all children on Nauru receive the urgent medical care that they need. Under Labor's proposed legislation, children will be transferred with their families to Australia to receive the treatment that they need. The legislation will also ensure that the recommendations of treating clinicians are the primary consideration when determining a temporary medical transfer for a child. It will ensure that the minister, not the bureaucracy, is the final decision-maker and, importantly, require the minister to make a determination on medical transfers within 24 hours. It will introduce greater transparency and accountability over decisions to approve or deny medical transfers of children and strengthen the Independent Health Advice Panel by establishing it in legislation, entrenching greater independence and mandating transparency in its reporting. Labor's bill includes practical, reasonable and responsible measures for medical transfer of children from Nauru. A Shorten Labor government, if elected, will also cut temporary protection visas and reinstate the Status Resolution Support Services, which are designed to help vulnerable migrants, including people seeking asylum.
I would like to thank all those constituents in my electorate who have worked so hard, been so passionate and been such energetic advocates for those less fortunate. Your commitment and your dedication, as well as that of tens of thousands of Australians across the country who have contributed, have made these policy changes possible today. We have much work to do, but today was a good day for the Labor Party, which believes that the light on the hill shines for all humanity.
Coalmining Industry
Mr O'DOWD (Flynn—Deputy Nationals Whip) (16:06): Good times are returning to the coal industry, and that's particularly important to my seat of Flynn and the Bowen Basin. Jobs are returning, and coal is now the biggest export from Australia to our overseas customers. Jobs supply good wages. Small businesses also benefit—motels, hotels, engineering workshops, bus companies, transport companies. They all are great beneficiaries when the coal industry is booming, as it is now. Empty houses in places like Blackwater, Emerald, Mackay and Moranbah are all being filled up, where previously they were left empty.
There are issues in the way of the coal industry, and I would like to touch briefly on some of them, although they really deserve more time. Our Australian banks are refusing to come on board to finance coal projects. They say it's against their policy, which is obviously a green policy, where they don't like the coal that comes out of the ground, although everyone in Australia, Queensland and the Bowen Basin benefits from our coal. The wages of the coalminers certainly go back into their banks, and that is a big benefit to the banks. But they still refuse to finance some projects. There are some very viable projects that exist, and yet still they put up the gate.
The other thing that is concerning to the coal industry is the Mexican stand-off that exists between Aurizon, the coal carriers, with the trains, and the Queensland state government. There is a maintenance issue there, and it's got to be resolved. This has been going on for six months. From my latest contact with Aurizon management, I understand that it will be Christmas before they can even hope for a result and resolve the issue. This is unacceptable. Our coal contracts are not being filled. We've lost coal contracts in Japan to other nations who are willing to supply their contracts, and we are left sitting idle, sitting on our hands, with nothing to do but procrastinate, and we do not look at fixing the problem. Surely it can be fixed. It's a matter of maintenance. Aurizon and the state government have got to come on board and fix this problem, otherwise our coal industry will be immobilised as it is.
Pilbara: Mining
Ms MADELEINE KING (Brand) (16:09): Although the Pilbara region is thousands of kilometres from Perth and from Canberra, it is at the heart of Western Australia's economy. To get to work in one of the many Pilbara mines, you'll find yourself spending a lot of time on planes, in buses and driving around in cars. It surely is a trek, but every week thousands of my constituents make that journey. They fly in and they fly out to take up the working opportunities in the region.
Last week, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the FIFO workers of my electorate. I made my way to the Pilbara to see for myself the extraordinary scale and magnitude of the mining and resources operations there. I thank the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia and the Minerals Council of Australia for making this possible and for facilitating an exhaustive series of visits. Over three days, I saw some of the largest mines in the world and met some of the incredible people driving these extensive mining operations. I want to thank my parliamentary colleagues from Queensland and Victoria who took the time to make the significant journey to witness these activities that drive the WA economy and that of the nation.
The scale of operations in Western Australia's Pilbara region are remarkable, and is hard to fathom their scale without seeing them for yourself. Giant super pits dot its expensive red-earth landscape. High-grade runways that can accommodate heavy commercial aircraft stretch out into what can sometimes feel like the middle of nowhere. While these runways might seem out of place in that vast landscape, they are essential to the movement of the Pilbara's workforce. They enable workers from across WA and even further afield, from across the country, to make their way to this remote region to help run the facilities that drive WA's economy.
We visited the Newcrest Telfer gold and copper mine, which has been in operation for over 40 years. We were fortunate to see the massive Roy Hill Ginbata iron ore mine, one of the largest in the country, and to visit BHP's Nelson Point operations at Port Hedland. Port Hedland is the port in Australia with the largest exports by volume, which accounts for 2.5 per cent of Australia's overall GDP. I was able to visit Woodside's landmark North West Shelf facility, which has been WA's largest producer of domestic gas for over 30 years and accounts for more than one-third of Australia's oil and gas. It sits alongside the relatively newer Pluto LNG plant for exports. Near to them both, the Yara Pilbara ammonia plant is one of the largest ammonia production facilities in the world. We also got to meet FMG trainees and staff who have learned their skills at North Regional TAFE and we got to visit Chevron's Wheatstone project in Onslow, part of Chevron's $80 billion investment in Australia and the production of Australian LNG.
In 2015-16, the resources sector directly contributed $32 billion to WA's economy and $14.6 billion to the rest of Australia. Over 9,000 businesses Australia-wide were supported by the sector, and Australians working in resources earned $8.2 billion. These are big numbers, and I'm proud to say the constituents of Brand did their part in making them even bigger. In 2015-16, over 3,000 Brand constituents were employed in the resources sector, and they brought in $460 million in wages and salaries to the electorate.
Castec Rural Pioneers
Mr PASIN (Barker) (16:12): I've spoken previously in this place about the success of the Castec Rural Pioneers basketball team in Mount Gambier. In fact, last year the team won their third championship in four years. Their fifth consecutive conference crown and third championship win in four years places them as arguably the most successful South Australian sporting team competing on a national stage. After such a strong record of success, and with a proud and parochial south-east community backing them in, it was devastating to learn that Basketball Australia had made the decision to abolish the South East Australian Basketball League, or SEABL, in which the Castec Rural Pioneers of Mount Gambier play.
The Pioneers are the only team in South Australia at this level. I should also point out they're the only sporting team in my electorate that plays on the national stage. Of course, this is one level below the Australian national league. There is no other state based league to join for the Pioneers in South Australia. The SEABL encompasses games played in Mount Gambier and throughout Victoria, Tasmania, North Albury and Canberra. The decision to abolish the league was made by Basketball Australia in early August, with no plan around what would happen to those teams based outside of Victoria. Victorian teams will be invited to enter the newly established Victorian league, but there remains uncertainty about what will happen to teams such as the Pioneers. I understand that there are three Tasmanian teams and an Albury-Wodonga team that are also unsure of their future. The Pioneers are a huge part of my community. The uncertainty around their future is affecting the whole community, from the leadership of the club to the players, the volunteers and the supporters. As the Pioneers are an integral part of encouraging talented South Australian basketball players to move through from grassroots sporting clubs into the national league, I suspect it will have far-reaching consequences for the game in South Australia.
Just as we don't want talented South Australians moving interstate for jobs, we don't want to see our sporting talent leave either. The Pioneers have been responsible for seeing very talented young Australians move from Adelaide to Mount Gambier to stay, and they have stayed permanently. It is a great thing for a region like mine and many regions around the country.
It is an ill-thought-out decision by Basketball Australia, and the consequences are reverberating throughout the Mt Gambier community and the state. Quite frankly, I'm disgusted by the actions of Basketball Australia. They should think more about grassroots basketball in Australia.
A division having been called in the House of Representatives —
Sitting suspended from 16:15 to 16:30
Racism
Dr MIKE KELLY (Eden-Monaro) (16:30): I rise to discuss the rise of the extreme Right in Australia and their activities around the country. I have mentioned before an attack on my electorate office. There have now been three consecutive attacks on my electorate offices in Bega and Queanbeyan—based on the fact that my wife and son are Jewish—by elements of the Antipodean Resistance movement, who are flat out Nazis in Australia, who claim Nazis association and affiliation.
The first of these incidents involved placing a poster on my Bega office which displayed a racist image of a Jewish person, blaming them for multiculturalism in Australia and calling it 'Jewish poison'. That was followed by posting up swastikas on my Bega office and also on signs welcoming refugees in the Bega Valley. The final act happened recently, when the front door of my Queanbeyan office was smeared with pig's blood, and pigs entrails were spread on the front door. This has been very distressing for the staff, of course, and it is part of a series that fits in with a pattern of events that have been happening in this country.
In the last week we have had reports by Alex Mann from the ABC, who did a very good series of investigative activities that formed the background for Background Briefing. What was deeply concerning about that was the operation of these people to try and insinuate themselves into organised politics in this country and, in particular, their efforts to penetrate the young Nationals. These efforts were succeeding, and quite a number of them had gained membership of the young Nationals. I'm pleased to hear that the leadership of the Nationals in New South Wales is starting to take action on this. The Nationals need to do it, and they need to do it thoroughly and quickly. It is critically important that we are all vigilant about denying these elements the opportunity to insinuate themselves into our political processes.
These people claim to be defenders of our national heritage, and they'd no doubt salute the Anzac tradition. My family—my grandfathers, my aunts, my uncles—fought the fascists in World War II specifically to oppose the beliefs and ideologies of these people. That is the Anzac tradition. That is what thousands of Australians fought and died to defeat and preserve our country from.
I was disappointed to see pass today the opportunity for the coalition to argue in the House the motion confronting Pauline Hanson's disgusting effort to associate herself and signal to these extreme right-wing elements. There was an opportunity to take that motion, to debate it and to reinforce and make clear statements, as we did quite recently. I'd ask them to stand up and take every opportunity now to make the right statements and the right defence of our liberties. (Time expired)
Hinkler Electorate: Anniversaries
Mr PITT (Hinkler) (16:33): I rise to speak about four significant anniversaries that occurred in my electorate in recent weeks. Bundaberg Brewed Drinks had their 50th anniversary—50 years making the famous Bundaberg ginger beer and other products. Steinhardt Family Farms had their 60th anniversary. Better known as Macadamias Australia, they are currently investing some $22 million in an additional processing and tourism facility at their facility in Goodwood Road in Bundaberg. Bundaberg Fruit and Vegetable Growers had their 70th anniversary dinner on Saturday night. Of course, that other icon of Bundaberg, Bundaberg Rum, turned 130 in the last few weeks.
As we in this place all know, longevity is a difficult thing to achieve, so I congratulate Bundaberg Brewed Drinks, and particularly the Fleming family. It is still a family owned company after 50 years. Their patriarch, Cliff Fleming, features in their most-recent product advertising. I've got to say that Cliff loves a chat; he tends to talk considerably. It was a great event that they held for their 50th anniversary over the series of events in recent weeks. I've known Cliff for a very long time. I've got to thank him and put on the record my thanks. He gave me some work at a period of time when I didn't have a lot to do. That was always appreciated—way back in 1990.
I congratulate the Steinhardt family—Janelle and Andrew Gerry, who are the current owners of Macadamias Australia, along with other family members. In particular, I have got to recommend to those in the Federation Chamber their chocolate-coated macadamias. Get out and have a look at Macadamias Australia.
Bundaberg Fruit and Vegetable Growers—I congratulate Bree Grimer and the team for putting together another fabulous ball on the weekend. It was well attended by hundreds of local fruit and vegetable growers in our district. As I said to the group on that night: they are the core of our economy. They are the ones who drive local jobs. They are the ones who take risks. They are the ones who continue to export our fabulous products right around Australia. I congratulate all of them for the work that they've done.
Finally, the Spirit of Bundaberg Festival on the weekend—Bundaberg Rum. I have to say it was famous not just for their product that they were putting out but a 50-kilo Bundaberg-Rum-shaped mud cake. It was quite an incredible thing. It was very, very difficult to move around, obviously. It was celebrating their 130 years in the district. They have always been a very strong part of our community. They continue to contribute to our community and provide local jobs through such a famous icon right around the world. In a previous role, I've travelled the world in trade, and I see our products everywhere I go. Whether it is in India, Saudi Arabia, China or any of the South-East Asian countries, you can find a Bundaberg ginger beer, in particular, in the shops, consumed by locals, which is driving local jobs in my home town.
National Carers Week
Ms KEAY (Braddon) (16:36): As we all know, this week is National Carers Week. With approximately 2.7 million people providing unpaid care for family and friends in Australia this week, I am pleased to be able to recognise this amazing contribution. The unsung work of carers is not always recognised. A sudden illness, a road accident or injury at work can throw another person into the role of a carer. Carers may also support a loved one living with disability, who is sick, who is elderly or with a mental illness. Every one of us in this building would know someone who is a carer. Consider for one moment the time, effort and value of the contribution carers provide to our nation. Family carers provide around 1.9 billion hours of care each year, with an annual contribution of $60.3 billion per year. Each and every day family carers contribute the equivalent of $165 million to the Australian economy.
In my state of Tasmania, there are 85,500 people who are primary carers. That is a lot for a little state. About 7,600 Tasmanians under the age of 25 are family carers. One such young carer I would like to briefly talk to you about is Jaeyden from Devonport. I've been fortunate enough to get to know Jaeyden over the last few years and have spoken about him in this place before. The sacrifices young people like Jaeyden make deserve recognition. They also deserve greater support. At 19 years of age, Jayden looks after his mother, who has been diagnosed with a heart condition. Besides having the responsibility for looking after his mum's medication, Jaeyden also manages his family's finances and cares for his siblings. He's been his mother's primary carer for five years now and has helped to manage her chronic condition since he was 10 years old. Jaeyden has faced a pretty tough journey caring for his mum. At school when his grades were starting to slip, the teachers thought Jaeyden might be getting involved in drugs or crime. As a result, Jaeyden dropped out of school in grade 8. Jaeyden was constantly told he wouldn't achieve anything because he wasn't attending school, but that has not stopped him. He is currently enrolled part-time at TAFE studying nursing. He has also been the Tasmanian representative on the Australian National Young Carers Action Team, a group of young carers raising awareness.
Carers like Jaeyden, who are contributing so much, need a helping hand. They need support for both planned and emergency respite. This is an issue that this side of the House is very serious about doing better with. They need some support and understanding from our general community about the role they play as carers and their skills and responsibilities that can take them into future employment. I know under the leadership of shadow minister for carers, Senator Carol Brown, Labor is working hard to give carers a better deal. I hope that in National Carers Week government does the same.
Mental Health
Mr EVANS ( Brisbane ) ( 16: 39 ): It's a sobering fact that almost one in two Australians will experience a mental health condition at some point in their lifetime. For young Australians in particular we know that that challenge can be devastating. According to beyondblue, who I've worked with in Brisbane before, over 75 per cent of mental health problems occur before the age of 25. One in four young Australians experience mental illness in any given year. Tragically, young people are less likely to seek professional help than any other age group. That's why our government's $51.8 million funding boost to headspace is so important and should be welcome news to young Australians facing mental health challenges and their families and loved ones.
Since 2006 headspace has helped almost half a million young Australians to manage their mental health and wellbeing. And for the 35,000 young people in my electorate of Brisbane, our government's funding boost announced on Sunday will mean more staff and shorter waiting times at nearby headspace centres in places like Nundah, Taringa and Woolloongabba. Across Australia, it'll mean 14,000 additional services are provided every year, including through headspace's online portal, eheadspace, so that more young people can get the information, advice, counselling and treatment when and where they need it. This funding boost is on top of the $95.7 million our government has already committed to the 107 headspace centres currently right across Australia.
As important and timely as this funding is, we should also recognise that when it comes to mental health not every service is right for everyone. We need a diversity of services to meet a wide range of needs across our community, as well as generous support from government, so that no Australian is forgotten. That's why our government is spending an unprecedented $4.7 billion on mental health this year alone. When combined with state and territory government funding, that means Australia, in total, invests around $9 billion in mental health each year. Obviously, more than half of that is coming from or through the federal government.
In my home patch in Brisbane we're fortunate to have a number of fantastic mental health services and advocates. Out of so many people and organisations doing such great work in this critical area, I want to give a shout-out to my very dear friend Tanya Kretschmann, who is doing great work as Queensland's consumer representative on the National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum. I also want to give a shout-out to everyone at Mates4Mates. It's a fantastic charity, headquartered in Brisbane, supporting current and ex-serving ADF members and their families.
Child Care
Ms KEARNEY (Batman) (16:42): I rise today to speak about the government's overzealous crackdown on family day care providers. Let me say from the outset that there's been some dodgy and illegal behaviour in the family day care sector, and the crackdown on that is valid. But I worry that an entire sector is now suffering for the crimes of a few. It is casting the net so widely it is now ensnaring honest, quality providers.
Faduma Jama, a brilliant young woman who runs the East African Women's Foundation, came to tell me about the effect this is having on the sector and her community. Over the past five years the family day care sector has been subjected to numerous legislative changes and unfairly applied compliance measures. These changes have netted the government $2.8 billion since 2014, with another $1 billion to come—a very significant amount when family day care only comprises 13.9 per cent of early education services. That is money that is now gone from the provision of early childhood education services. It has resulted in a significant number of family day care service providers losing their funding approval because of minor data errors and issues that service providers are not able to control. Shockingly, some services are being breached for error rates that are the equivalent of 0.1 per cent and many who lost their approvals were assessed as running services meeting or exceeding the national quality standards.
Can you imagine the effect this has had on so many people—workers who lost their jobs, parents who lost their care arrangements and kids who are missing their carers? This is happening on a huge scale. Thousands of educators all over the country are out of work. Many of these educators are women from low-socioeconomic and/or culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. For many women in the sector, early education is their first qualification and their first job, and it has had a huge effect on these women's self-confidence. They establish small businesses serving local families. They provide flexible, affordable and culturally appropriate care. Now so many have lost all of that.
As a result of the family day care compliance crackdown, East African Women's Foundation have indicated women in their network are now dealing with increased stress due to dealing with Centrelink, discrimination in getting work, an inability to pay bills, increased domestic violence rates, increased instances of homelessness and increased mental health issues—all because of an overzealous crackdown.
I am proud that Labor have said that we will adopt a reformed, more targeted and more collaborative approach to compliance. But this is too urgent for the government to ignore. They must assist the genuine providers who have been caught up in their crackdown. For the children, for the workers and for the parents who have had their lives turned around by family day care, this is way too important.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mrs Wicks ): In accordance with standing order 193, the time for constituency statements has concluded.
STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE
West Gate Bridge
Consideration resumed.
Ms O'DWYER (Higgins—Minister for Jobs, Industrial Relations and Women) (16:45): Today we recall the tragedy of the West Gate Bridge collapse. The West Gate is a bridge that is dear to every Melbournian because, as you drive over the top of this bridge, the marvellous sweeping vista of our great city is unveiled, from Port Phillip Bay all the way to the Dandenongs. But it is also a bridge that has an unforgettable and tragic history, not only for Victorians but for all Australians.
The West Gate Bridge accident happened two years into construction of the bridge at 11.50 am on a windy Thursday, on 15 October 1970. A 112-metre-long span weighing 2,000 tonnes of steel and cement collapsed into the Yarraville mud below. Thirty-five construction workers were killed and another 18 were injured, most of them with life-changing injuries. Eighty-eight children lost their fathers in a few seconds on that awful morning. This was Australia's worst industrial accident. Many of those killed were on a lunch break in workers huts when the falling span crushed them. Others were inside the girder when it plummeted into the river. Descriptions of how the men were killed are too horrible to detail.
The following morning the then Premier of Victoria, Sir Henry Bolte, called a royal commission into the cause of the disaster. The royal commission reported eight months later, attributing the failure to multiple human errors and to flaws by the designers of the bridge, Freeman Fox. The royal commission also blamed the unorthodox method of construction undertaken by the bridge's original contractors. The designers at the time believed that they were constructing a bridge that pushed the boundaries of engineering knowledge. But, in doing so, their negligence cost a great number of lives. Error begat error, the royal commission concluded. The men who died and were injured were the innocent victims of these dangerous and calamitous failures, the royal commission found.
As Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations, I want to lend my deep sympathies to the families, relatives and colleagues of those who were killed and injured in this terrible tragedy. Like all of us, I believe unsafe workplaces are unacceptable and that we all have a responsibility to be diligent in finding ways to make our workplaces safer. Many lives were changed that day, and any Victorian who lived in the city has never forgotten that tragedy.
It is a fitting coincidence that every year in October Australian employers and workers participate in National Safe Work Month. This event began as National Safe Work Week in 2005, but five years ago was extended to National Safe Work Month. It is a particular time of the year when we all renew our commitment to building safer workplaces in Australia. This tragedy also helped shape our national focus on ensuring safety on all worksites and a shared commitment to people returning safely from a day on the job. We are indeed fortunate that Australia is one of the safest places in the world to work, but no industry should be unsafe to work in and no death or injury is acceptable. Injury or death in the workplace changes individuals' and families' lives forever. So we must do everything in our power to prevent accidents and unsafe workplaces.
The West Gate Bridge disaster was a tragic example of multiple factors contributing to a terrible accident. Our current health and safety laws provide an effective approach that has been shown to reduce workplace fatalities. We hold companies and managers accountable for any breaches of their duty of care to workers, regardless of whether an accident occurs. There are criminal offences on those who breach their duties, with fines of up to $3 million for companies and $600,000 for managers. Under our current criminal offences, individuals can be jailed if they are reckless or negligent and it leads to loss of life.
While every workplace death is a tragedy, the level of fatalities has been falling. Workplace fatalities have been reduced by 48 per cent, from 310 in 2007 to 190 in 2017. The rate of fatalities has halved from three fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2007 to 1.5 fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2016. In the construction industry, the fatality rate has fallen by 45 per cent since 2007 and by 20 per cent since 2015. The rate of serious workers compensation has fallen 16 per cent over the five years to 2016-17. The evidence shows our model work health and safety laws are driving the right focus on preventing deaths and injuries.
The coalition government has been taking action across the country to ensure that workers and all Australians are safer in workplaces. To ensure that building sites are safer and fairer, we re-established the Australian Building and Construction Commission and implemented a strong Building Code for the industry. Our laws protect one million workers and over 300,000 small businesses from bullying and lawlessness in the industry. We have introduced mandatory drug and alcohol testing on Commonwealth-funded building sites to improve safety. We are completing a review of work health and safety laws and their effectiveness in the industry. The Federal Safety Commissioner has set new safety standards on Commonwealth-funded building projects. There has been a 24 per cent increase in companies under the WHS Accreditation Scheme cutting red tape while increasing safety.
We are also taking unprecedented action on asbestos. We have more than doubled the funding for the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency, providing an extra $1.7 million for 2018-19. We have negotiated the first ever National Strategic Plan for Asbestos Management and Awareness, with all states and territories signing on. There are 150 activities taking place across Australia under the plan. We have strengthened border requirements to stop asbestos reaching Australia, and the Australian Mesothelioma Registry has been established.
Furthermore, we are taking urgent action on silicosis. As a result, Safe Work Australia will be updating the exposure standards for crystalline silica; requiring employers to monitor health of at-risk workers; developing an awareness campaign to help the industry manage risks; and hosting and broadcasting virtual seminars on silicosis risks. Safe Work Australia has already commenced a groundbreaking review of the workplace exposure standards; published national guidance on psychological health and safety in the workplace; developed nationally consistent policy on key areas of explosives regulation; transitioned Australia to the globally harmonised system for labelling chemicals; and commenced a comprehensive review of the model work health and safety laws. Our work is comprehensive but it is constantly evolving and it is constantly being updated.
In conclusion, the anniversary of the West Gate Bridge tragedy is a reminder to all of us to be ever vigilant in our efforts to reduce workplace accidents, because one death in our workplaces is one too many.
Ms BIRD (Cunningham) (16:53): I want to take the opportunity to support the comments made in the House by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition recognising the 48th anniversary of the West Gate Bridge collapse—an extraordinarily tragic occurrence that affected so many families so dramatically and, no doubt, for so long. There were 35 killed and 18 injured. The flow-on effects of that through a family and a community are significant.
As I listened to our leaders speak about this in the chamber, it very profoundly reminded me of occasions in my own electorate where we come together to commemorate, sadly, the significant number of lives lost in work based disasters. That's why I wanted to endorse the sentiments that were expressed on the anniversary of this particular disaster. Whilst it occurred in Melbourne and not in my own state of New South Wales, I think the repercussions and the feelings that people are reflecting in supporting the motion occur in any area where we've seen this sort of terrible tragedy occur. I absolutely heartily endorse the comments of both of our leaders.
I come from the Illawarra, which is obviously a long-time mining area. We've been doing underground coal mining for well over 100 years. On 31 July each year, a great local group of people at Mount Kembla gather together to put a commemoration service in place. It's always on a very, very cold evening at a place called Windy Gully but it's a very moving and very significant occasion. In 1902, the Mount Kembla Mine explosion occurred. As a result of that explosion, 96 men and boys were killed. I ask people in this room to imagine how small communities were in 1902. This is a little mining village. There wasn't a family who was not directly affected by that level of loss of life. If you look at some of the unofficial toll of deaths that occurred after the direct deaths caused, it would have been even higher, but 96 was an extraordinary number of lives to have been lost in a small community.
It's significant to me because my mum's family had direct ties to it. In fact, three of our ancestors were killed in that explosion: Claude Stafford, who was 17; David Stafford, who was 17; and William Stafford, who was 25. Whilst William was only 25, he was a widower with small children. The implications for these families were devastating and so we come together to commemorate that occasion.
Why is that so important? It's important to do that because, as I reflect each year as we meet, it reminds us starkly of the importance of ensuring that we do everything we possibly can to guarantee that people who pack their lunch bag or grab their wallet as they're going out the door and off to work in the morning, the afternoon or the evening—whenever they're working—come home to those families who are seeing them off and they don't die at work as a result of things that should be preventable.
Sadly, in 1979, we also saw the Appin coal mine disaster in our area, which was a significant loss of life again. In that time, my dad was employed at the mine, and I was actually living on the mine site. That occasion is profoundly burned in my memory. In fact, I'd been to a high school dance that night, and mum had come to pick us up. The father of one of the young guys who came back with us in the car was subsequently killed that evening.
These are really, really important reminders. Each of these resulted in inquiries, investigations and recommendations on better work health and safety. They are profound reminders of how vigilant we have to be on these issues not only for those workers but also for their families and communities. I do want to put on the record that I think one of the most important interventions that increases the likelihood that we are better at health and safety in our workplaces is the role of the trade union movement.
I know that some of those opposite see only bad in the union movement. I would ask them to look very, very closely at the significant work of unions. The Leader of the Opposition in his comments on this very motion reflected the fact that the West Gate Bridge disaster created a generation of activists, because of their dedication to improving safety. I look in my area at the miners' union and the critical role it has played in the introduction of better protective technologies, clothing and work practices. It is a critically significant and important role. Look at the role of unions like the Transport Workers Union. We all share the roads, but they are a workplace for these workers. It has worked continually for safer roads for its members and the general public, including in recent times very important work around mental health challenges as a workplace issue for drivers. Look at the work of the construction unions. Many of their industries are highly dangerous environments, and those union representatives spend a great deal of their time working directly with members on ways in which they can ensure that safety is improved. It is very important to recognise that that is really tough work sometimes. Sometimes those union representatives are doing home visits for families who have lost people, to extend the union support, the members' support, to them. They take on sometimes very recalcitrant employers who may not want to hear messages about safety, unfortunately.
There are a lot of really good employers in my region. Like me they come from families who've worked in the industry. They are great. They understand it and work really well, but you do come up against those with whom you have to have a bit of a battle to make sure that safety remains the dominant issue.
I wanted particularly, in this debate, to reiterate those sentiments and to express my support for the point that the Leader of the Opposition made that every time and on every occasion we're in a place in our community where there is a memorial as a result of a workplace disaster, when we speak in this place on these issues or when we watch another report on the news about another tragic workplace death—every single time—we make a commitment and a dedication that in this place in our roles as we currently perform them we remain vigilant and do everything we can to ensure that people are able to go to work safely and return home to the families that love and care for them. I extend my great sympathy and support to the members of families and communities that were affected by the West Gate Bridge collapse.
Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (17:03): I'm really pleased to be in the parliament today, to join those speaking on indulgence on the 48th anniversary of the West Gate Bridge collapse. Just before lunch on 15 October 1970 an eerie pinging noise filled the air. Moments later the West Gate Bridge fell, claiming the lives of 35 workers. All Melburnians remember that day; it is the worst industrial accident in our history.
In my primary school years there are three times I remember the broader world crashing into our classrooms. The first was man walking on the moon, and we were all in a classroom to watch it. This was the next. I was in a classroom in Melbourne's west, at St Andrew's primary school in a working class area with lots of children of British, Irish and Italian migrants. Lots of them had family members who were working on the West Gate Bridge. I will never forget our classroom that day or over the coming weeks. That sense of the world crashing around us was real in our classrooms across that week.
My first memories of looking at a newspaper are about the West Gate Bridge. I remember the shock. I remember thinking about the people who had gone to work on the bridge that day—the great people who were going to build this marvel for Melbourne. In the west of Melbourne, we didn't have a bridge to get to the city. It was a long, long journey. This bridge was going to be innovative, brave and bold—it was going to be all of those things. When it fell that day, families and communities were absolutely shattered—the day 2,000 tonnes of steel plummeted into the Yarra with an explosion that shook buildings hundreds of metres away and that could be heard more than two miles away. I think it's poignant that right now in Victoria, at a time when we're looking at major infrastructure projects and when young people and working-age people are excited about the jobs being created and excited about the training they might get, that this anniversary reminds us all about the importance of, in the excitement for these infrastructure projects, having at the forefront of our minds the safety of the workers who are going to deliver these projects.
In research for this, I came across George Tsehilios. He was 32 years old. He'd sold his blacksmith shop in Greece to come to Australia and had saved for eight years to buy a home in Altona for his wife and two sons. He lost his life that day. The stories of those 35 men who lost their lives needs to be remembered not just this year but every year. Every year the catastrophe is commemorated with a wreath laying in Melbourne at the ceremony at the foot of the bridge. In the words of Danny Gardiner from the West Gate Bridge Memorial Committee:
The legacy of those who lost their lives has been safer workplaces. This bridge is a monument to them all and a reminder that we all must work safe.
I have equally strong memories of the eventual West Gate Bridge opening and of going across it for the first time. Going across that bridge for the first time, like all members of the public from the western suburbs, our thoughts that night were for those people who lost their lives. The fall of the bridge was well and truly in the forefront of our minds, as it is for me every time I go across that bridge.
In a time of major infrastructure projects, I think it's really important that we take with us the lessons that we in Victoria learnt that day. We don't want to stop being bold and innovative. We don't want to stop designers from finding new ways to do things, but we do want to and we must make sure that, in all of that planning, occupational health and safety is given pride of place. In the words of Bill Shorten, 'Until every Australian workplace is safe, until every Australian has the right to come home to the people they love, there is more for all of us to do.' Every workplace death is a tragedy, and no workplace death is acceptable.
As the mother of sons who work in the building industry and as a sister who lost a brother driving his truck in his workplace, I have lived the reality of workplace deaths and of getting the phone call to tell you that a loved one hadn't come home from work. That's with me every day when my sons go to work. It's why I stand in this place and it's why I am so offended when people in this place deride unionism and collectivism. The falling of the West Gate Bridge is a poignant and compelling reminder of why we join unions and why we work collectively for safety and for fair remuneration. It is why all of us on the Labor side come together in this place to ensure that lives lost in workplace accidents are always remembered and are used to drive us forward to ensure that it is in the forefront of our builders' minds and in the forefront of all of the work we do to ensure that, as a workforce, we know we're going to leave our home in the morning, go to work and then come home.
Mr WATTS (Gellibrand) (17:09): The collapse of the West Gate Bridge is an event etched in the psyche of Melbourne's west and of the people who live in my electorate, where this accident occurred. At 11.50 am on 15 October 1970, a 114-millimetre gap between spans 10 and 11 of the West Gate Bridge gave way, and 2,000 tonnes of steel and concrete fell over 50 metres into the Yarra below. On that day, 35 West Gate Bridge workers, many of them migrants, never returned to their families. Another 18 men suffered life-changing injuries. The 35 men—fathers, husbands and sons—lost their lives falling with the bridge, being hit by metal and concrete shrapnel or by the fire. The collapse of the West Gate Bridge remains the worst industrial accident in Australian history. The almighty crash of 2,000 tonnes of steel and concrete plummeting into the ground below could be felt and heard as far as 20 kilometres away. That's basically the entire area of my electorate.
Vincent Rosewarne, at the time a 24-year-old crane operator, was close to the site on the day. He was one of the few workers who, incredibly, extraordinarily, rode the span to the ground and survived the impact. His story, told to journalists from his hospital bed, is simply amazing. Vincent recounted a big rumbling and everything flying towards the centre of the bridge. He grabbed a piece of steel and held on as he fell, with the bridge, 50 metres to the ground below. Witnesses saw him strike a wire mesh at ground level. Then he bounced back into the air, while steel crashed around him. Vincent suffered broken arms and a fractured leg.
George Bastecky, then a factory clerk, watched the bridge fall from his window overlooking the river. He recalls thinking that he would not have liked to have been working up on the bridge on such a windy day. He recalls seeing a crack appear in the bridge's support column. He saw the crack widen and then the column tumble into the Yarra. He also recalls seeing, almost in slow motion, the bridge section first dangling perilously and then collapsing in a heap of rubble, with a bang that shook him out of his chair.
About half a kilometre from the bridge, Ray Melroy remembers hearing a similar rumble. He then heard five explosions in succession and quickly rushed to the site of the collapsed bridge, as so many nearby did. At the site, Ray found death and destruction. He remembers finding men lying dead in the wreckage, smoke smouldering everywhere and dozens of men screaming. The sights, sounds and smells of the disaster and chaos stay with us and the residents of Melbourne's west forever. For the victims' families and survivors, the bridge collapse was a moment that changed their lives. For the rest of Australia, it was a catalyst for change in our nation's work health and safety laws and practices.
Noel Baker, a rigger during the construction of the bridge, has devoted his life to ensuring a West Gate accident never happens again. Noel recalls that 'in those days workers looked after their own safety'. He remembers that you did what you were told, management ruled with an iron fist and, if you thought something was unsafe, you kept it to yourself, because you had no say. A royal commission was established to investigate how this collapse could have happened. The commission's findings, together with longstanding union efforts, paved the way for strengthening occupational health and safety in Australian workplaces. In 1985 we passed our first Occupational Health and Safety Act. Australian workers now have elected health and safety representatives. Workers now have the right to talk about their safety and have their concerns addressed.
Australian workplaces are safer today than they were 48 years ago, but we still have work to do. In 2018 alone, 97 people have died at work—97 too many, 97 people who never returned to their partners, to their parents, to their children. The fight to improve workplace safety will not end. Australian unions were at the forefront of that fight when the bridge collapsed, and they continue to lead that fight today.
It is events like the West Gate Bridge collapse that drive the obsession with workplace safety that we see in so many trade unions in Australia. It's an insight into why Australian trade unionists are so passionate about these issues. They've seen the consequences, and they know how to fight to learn the lessons of the past. Noel Baker says that he hopes that no-one has to go through what he saw and experienced on that day 48 years ago. He says: 'At the end of the day, I'd hope that, when I leave the industry, it is a safe industry for anyone to come into. We'd like to see everyone go home.'
The West Gate Bridge is used by almost all of my constituents every day and is a Melbourne icon. The collapse is memorialised every year at the memorial at the base of the bridge by Australians who want us all to learn the lessons of this terrible tragedy. To my constituents across Melbourne's west: when you drive over the West Gate Bridge, when you cycle or walk under it or when you see the bridge from your homes or your places of work, I ask that you spare a thought for the workers who were killed that day and for the ongoing task of ensuring that all workers work in safe workplaces that enable them to return home to their families at the end of the day.
Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (17:16): As previous speakers have said, it was 48 years ago on a windy Monday, 15 October at about 10 minutes to 12 that, 50 metres above the Yarra, 128 metres of concrete and steel began to shudder and then fell, taking with it the lives of many workers. Then 2,000 tonnes of concrete and steel fell onto the muddy ground below. Mixed within the steel and the rubble were the bodies of 35 men, and 18 more were injured.
Today you can actually see the bridge from a CFMEU training facility that they've built to ensure, with best-practice training, that such a tragedy can never happen again. I've had the opportunity to go to this facility that's been built. They train workers on safe practices of using rigging equipment and cranes. They work closely with all in the sector to ensure that this tragedy, which affected so many families, can never happen again.
Construction is a dangerous industry. Every year, not just the year 48 years ago, too many construction workers lose their lives because of unsafe work practices. Far too often we hear that it wasn't just a random accident and that, prior to the incident occurring, there's been a safety report that's been ignored. There have been workers who have raised it with co-workers or with family members but are sometimes too nervous to raise it with their bosses, or they have raised it with their bosses only to be told to get back to work.
Too many construction workers have lost their lives this year and last year. Since the reintroduction of the ABCC, we've unfortunately seen workplace deaths on construction sites increase, not decrease. There was a period where they were starting to decrease, when safety officers, union officials and union delegates did have the freedom to speak up and, by speaking up, weren't subject to draconian, authoritarian ABCC thug-like tactics.
I raise this because it's important. Whilst this parliament stops to remember the greatest industrial accident in our country's history, which took the lives of 35 men who turned up for work and didn't return home that day and injured another 18, what have we really learned from that time?
How many workers continue to lose their lives because we're not listening and working together to ensure that every worker returns home safe?
There was the incident that occurred in Melbourne when a worker, who was a CFMEU delegate, was in an accident at work. The young man lost his life. But, rather than the ABCC, created by this government, investigating to make sure that it was an accident and to make sure that everything had been done to ensure proper safety on the site, the CFMEU was fined. They were issued notices to show cause about why they entered the site; it was to hold, in one of the official's arms, his dying mate. That's the nature of what happens in our workplaces when we politicise safety and when we politicise industrial relations like the government have.
We need to do more to rebuild trust in our workplaces and to rebuild trust around safety. Workers need to be able to raise issues of safety when they're worried—like that moment of seeing the wind blow and hearing those creaks. Workers need to feel safe to speak up about it, particularly in dangerous industries like construction. But it's not limited to construction. Construction is one of the most dangerous industries in our country, but an industry that sits just above it in terms of workplace death and injury is our road-transport industry. Unfortunately, it's another industry where far too many people working in that industry have lost their lives this year whilst at work. Farming and agriculture is another industry where, again, far too many workers and farmers have lost their lives during the course of their workday.
Day to day, many of us in Victoria would use this bridge. I know, during my own travels from Bendigo into town, you do see the bridge, and you do see it when making the trip across to Altona and the western suburbs. It is one of the most used traffic routes in our country, but rarely do we stop, think about and reflect on the worst industrial disaster that we've had in this country. I know that those families affected still reflect on it regularly. They still tell those stories. I know, from meeting with many of those families and many of their children, who are now the leaders in the union movement in Victoria, they speak about the nightmares and the horrors that their parents had. And it was not just the ones who lost a father or a brother but also the ones who were lucky to survive. As the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, some of them had survivor guilt—why were they the lucky ones?
It shouldn't come down to luck in our workplaces. Surviving a day at work shouldn't be about luck; it should be a given. We need to do more in this place to ensure that our laws support safety and encourage safety and that an employee knows exactly how to work, how to behave and what to do to be safe. Equally, we need to ensure that employers are held to account and that they know what to do and what they aren't doing so, when workers raise safety concerns, they're not dismissed and, when workers stop work because that concern hasn't been properly addressed, it's not dismissed, the ABCC is not called in, the Fair Work Commission is not called in and it is worked out constructively and fairly.
Until every Australian workplace is safe and until every Australian has the right to come home to their family and to their people, there is more for us to do. Beyond just construction, farming and agriculture, in all industries there's more work for us to do when it comes to industrial diseases like asbestosis. The third wave of asbestosis is just starting to hit, and we are learning more and more about men and women working in small businesses who are contracting the disease. Beyond just asbestos, there are other carcinogenics. Unfortunately, black lung is back in Queensland, and we're hearing of more and more coalmining workers being diagnosed with that disease.
Then we have the case of the workers involved with silicosis, which some in the medical community are calling the 'new asbestos'. They estimate that at least 300 workers will be diagnosed with this lung condition and possibly die of this lung condition in the next 12 months. As one of the workers in this industry said to me: 'It's dying for fashion. It's fashionable for people to have benchtops that look like stone, but this is not stone. The product that we're using in these homes is not stone; it's a composite which, when it is cut, is creating dust particles that can lead to this insidious disease which causes death.' There's a lot of work that we need to do here in relation to Safe Work Australia, industrial relations and the work that we do with the states.
Around 10 Australians have died at work since the parliament last met, and at least 30 in the construction industry. If this place is genuine about learning from the mistakes of the past and genuine about honouring the memory of the anniversary of the West Gate Bridge disaster, we all should do more to ensure that every workplace is safe and that every worker returns home at the end of the day.
Debate adjourned.
BILLS
Electoral Legislation (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017
Report from Committee
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That the House take note of the report.
Mr DICK (Oxley) (17:26): I rise as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters to speak on the second advisory report on the Electoral Legislation (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017, which was tabled yesterday. The matters concerning electoral funding and disclosure have received much scrutiny in recent times—and, in my opinion, rightly so. I'd like to start by acknowledging the work of my fellow Labor colleagues Senator Ketter; Senator Brown; the member for Scullin, who is the deputy chair of the committee; and, in particular, Senator Don Farrell, who, as Labor's shadow special minister of state, has worked tirelessly with the committee to ensure that all views are heard and taken into consideration to ensure that we deliver the right outcome for the Australian people.
It is essential for a properly functioning democracy that donations to political parties are transparent and in line with community expectations. That is exactly what this committee has tried to do over the past months; however, it appears the Morrison government may be more interested in creating back doors for donors than ensuring our donation laws are a level playing field for all. This report is due to further amendments made by the government which were not a part of a bipartisan report which was agreed upon in April this year. I will say that very clearly: this report dealt with some significant foreign donations and reform that the parliament was very keen to deal with and, out of nowhere, without any consultation, any evidence or any advice to the committee—not once raised by the former chair, Senator Linda Reynolds, or any government member—the government dropped in new amendments. They did that without any consultation or any reference to what we were dealing with—completely unacceptable. It seems the Morrison government have since had a change of heart and have instead opted to try and, in my opinion, sneak in changes that would mean donors would gain immunity from state and territory laws prohibiting gifts and imposing obligations to disclose donations, provided there is a connection to federal election spending.
As my federal colleague and friend the member for Scullin noted in the dissenting report tabled yesterday, Labor members of the committee do not support, in particular, recommendation 10 of the report and are deeply concerned that it has been proposed by the government. There has been no explanation given by members of the government or by the chair, and I think it should be of great concern to even members of the government that these provisions have now come in. I would like some answers particularly on what the impact will be in Queensland. These recommendations are especially relevant to my home state of Queensland, and I will give the chamber a little bit of history regarding donation reforms in the Queensland context.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and the state Labor government have been at the forefront, leading the way in disclosing details about how and when political donations are made. The first bill the Palaszczuk government introduced into the parliament in 2015 decreased the donation disclosure threshold from $12,800 to $1,000, which mirrors Labor's federal policy to lower the disclosure threshold to a fixed $1,000, which has been violently opposed by members of the government.
This meant that my home state of Queensland now has some of the most progressive, open and transparent political donations laws in the country. Why was this necessary? I remind the chamber of the toxic dissenting years of the LNP Newman government, which wound back donation laws in Queensland, which was an article of faith for the LNP in Queensland. In fact, the LNP in Queensland are now challenging those laws in the courts, so I won't refer to those. Nonetheless, the LNP have a very poor track record when it comes to open and transparent political reform in Queensland.
But the amendments proposed by the federal government to the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill seek to circumvent these open and transparent state laws by ensuring that Commonwealth laws would not apply to money that is directed towards non-federal campaigns, including state, territory and local government campaigns, as noted in recommendation 10 of yesterday's tabled report. This recommendation would have a significant impact in the Queensland context, where the Liberal and National parties are represented as one entity.
As Labor members of the committee, we do not believe interference with state and territory laws, properly made, which have put in place caps on political donations and bans on particular donors, like property developers, is warranted. We note that some of these provisions potentially affected have been put in place on the recommendation of anticorruption commissions. Professor Tham, of the University of Melbourne, has supported this stance by stating in his submission to the committee that the amendments would undermine the states' ability to 'protect the integrity of representative government from the dangers of political money' and that there are serious problems with proposed sections.
Professor Graeme Orr, an electoral law expert at the University of Queensland, supported this by stating that the coalition had at the last minute included sections that would 'limit existing and future state and territory laws'. He went on further to say that 'this will reduce transparency, which is ironic because the whole point of this bill is it was supposed to be about increasing transparency'.
Once again, there are no explanations from the government. When I questioned the department about where this came from, who dreamt it up and why it was even in our report, when we had not been discussing this in any way, shape or form, there was silence—no explanation. So I'm glad there are members of the government here who will be speaking on this, who clearly are going to outline where this came from and why it was dumped in this. You've got to remember that this report has been going on for months and months. There has been no fanfare from the minister about why these amendments were put into place. There has been no explanation or media release by the relevant minister. The minister was quoted yesterday as saying that the provisions were intended and necessary to clarify the relationship between the federal and state laws. I believe that, on the contrary, these amendments will have quite the opposite effect. They will only create more confusion and complexities between federal and state laws, leading to donations falling between the cracks and ultimately being made behind closed doors.
In closing, I'd like to acknowledge and give my thanks and appreciation particularly to the charities, the non-profit sector and the interested and professional academics who gave evidence throughout this process. I want to say to them: your ongoing contributions to this important piece of legislation are vital and will help shape the future of political donations. Additionally, Labor remain committed to wide-ranging democratic reforms beyond those contained in this legislation, to restore trust in politics. We will continue to pursue the introduction of a national integrity commission and further donations reforms as priorities in line with community expectations. I thank members of the committee and the secretariat for their hard work to make sure that this report has now come so far. But in my opinion we still have more work to do in this important reform area.
Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (17:34): I rise to speak on the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters which deals with the Electoral Legislation (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017. Principally, the proposed amendments which arise out of this bill, firstly, ensure that key political actors that have significant amounts of electoral expenditure are subject to appropriate disclosure obligations, with obligations commensurate with their level of electoral expenditure; secondly, clarify that spending solely on issue advocacy is not treated as electoral expenditure when that spending is not aimed at influencing voting in a federal election—and this has been the main concern for charities and other organisations that lobby on laws where those groups do not also seek to influence voting in elections—and, thirdly, override state laws to the extent that they would prevent donations or compel reporting of donations that were made for Commonwealth electoral purposes or are available for Commonwealth purposes.
I listened intently to the member for Oxley, who is on the committee. I'm not on the committee but this is an issue that I have been following closely. I also note that the Labor members of this committee provided a dissenting report in respect of recommendation 10. The reasoning for the dissent of the Labor members of this committee is unclear, and it's important that we pull this apart. During the committee hearings, the committee heard evidence from Professor Anne Twomey, who, as most of us would know, is a constitutional law expert. Specifically in relation to recommendation 10, she said:
These provisions need to be altered to ensure that the Commonwealth law does not purport to override the State law where the donation concerned is used for the purpose of State electoral expenditure—
She then went on to say—and this is important:
Certainly, if it is used for Commonwealth electoral expenditure, then the Commonwealth law should prevail over the State law.
Of course, section 109 of the Australian Constitution provides:
When a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid.
The committee recognises that, to the extent that any proposed amendment of the Commonwealth seeks to override a state law in relation to state electoral matters, that would be overreach on the part of the Commonwealth. But where a state law seeks to effectively override a Commonwealth law on Commonwealth electoral matters, then section 109 will rule that state law to be invalid. Those members opposite want to talk about transparency and consistency. Well, they can't get much more transparent than section 109 of the Constitution. Section 109 of the Constitution is patently clear. It is patently clear that where this state law—or any state law, for that matter, or a territory law—is inconsistent with a federal law, then that state law should be ruled down.
This is a fundamental issue that has been identified by the committee. I don't quite understand why the committee is concerned in instances where recommendation 10 accepts that the original proposal of the Commonwealth may have overreached to the extent it may seek to impact upon state laws. That is not the case now.
The Commonwealth recognises that, and the government wants to work closely with the opposition to ensure that section 109 is protected and that it is made very clear that these federal electoral laws—to the extent that we are talking about the Commonwealth's right to enact legislation which impacts upon federal electoral matters—cannot be impacted deleteriously by state legislation. If those members opposite want to try and argue something different then they can go for their life. I'd like to say, though, that a first-year law student would be able to identify that that position is absolutely untenable. Should the need arise that the Commonwealth has to expend taxpayers' money on fighting this matter in the High Court, that is assumedly what we'll do. And I hope it is what we would do, because the right thing to do is to ensure that the federal parliament's right to enact legislation on federal matters takes precedence over a state or a territory.
An honourable member interjecting—
Mr WALLACE: I will take that interjection! It's important to recognise that the recommendations that have come out of this committee are not just in relation to this one issue. It is vitally important that we as a federal government and we as a parliament ensure that we have open and transparent provisions, particularly in relation to our electoral laws. We want to ensure that to the best of our ability. If we have situations where foreign players—whether they be a foreign government or a foreign party—are making electoral donations to perhaps try and influence the outcome of a federal election, it is only right and proper that the Australian people are notified that a particular company, a particular government or a third party from another country is identified as being just that. Without that clear transparency, a cloud will descend upon this parliament, as we have seen in other countries.
I, for one, want to ensure that we don't head down the same route other countries have. We want to have what I believe are the strongest electoral laws in the world to ensure that we have that openness and transparency, to ensure that foreign players are identified as exactly what they are and so that the Australian public can be assured that any donations that are made are clearly identified as coming from an international third party. I don't think that that is too much to ask.
I call upon those members opposite who provided that dissenting report on just this one issue, on recommendation 10, to work with the government to ensure that the primacy of the Australian parliament is protected. Those members opposite can't have it both ways. Irrespective of the merits of what that state law might be, the simple fact of the matter is you cannot escape section 109, and those members opposite would know it or at least should know it. They ought not try and argue that a state law, irrespective of what they would regard to be the merits of that case, should somehow override a federal law where it is inconsistent. That's not rocket science; it's something that is very, very plain and simple. This federal government, our federal government, will act to protect the primacy of any Commonwealth law.
Debate adjourned.
GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That grievances be noted.
Prevention of Violence Against Women
Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (17:44): Last February in this place I paid tribute to each and every one of the 49 women who were murdered violently, usually by someone they knew, in 2017. To our great shame, we have already surpassed this figure in 2018. Fifty-five women have already been brutally murdered so far this year, and we're in mid-October. We still have 2½ months to run before the end of this year.
The impact this is having on communities across Australia cannot be overstated. I'd like to share with the House a message I received last Thursday from Nova for Women and Children. It's a really important community based service organisation in my electorate of Newcastle that works tirelessly to support women and kids who are at risk of homelessness or are escaping family and domestic violence. Before I read that message to the House, I want to note that the women involved in this organisation have decades and decades of collective experience working in this area. These are women who have really dedicated their lives to trying to stop the scourge of violence against women and kids. Last Thursday, as I said, out of complete exasperation they reached out to me and sent me this message, which I'd now like to share with the House:
Thought I'd flag an issue which is causing us at Nova and many other organisations in our sector a great deal of distress and concern.
It's the issue of the spike in the number of women dying by male violence recently, nine times out of ten at the hands of a current or former partner or someone related to or known to them.
Seven women have been murdered in the last eight days, with the latest being in the small hours of last night.
If seven young men died in eight days (think of the outrage over the king hit issue)—
they quote—
Australia would be up in arms.
The silence so far from the Minister for Women, Kelly O'Dwyer, the police commissioner and the media has been deafening.
When I read that message my heart stopped a few beats, because I know how incredibly strong the women of this organisation are. When they are feeling that deflated, that demoralised, then it's time for action.
Fifty-five women have been slain in Australia already this year, with seven women losing their lives to domestic violence in an eight-day stretch this month alone. This is intolerable by any measure. But what's perhaps equally appalling is that this catastrophic tragedy looks set to pass with barely a blip, let alone an urgent call, and response, for national action. If anything else was killing Australians at such an alarming rate, our airwaves would be filled with community fury. Imagine if 55 young men had been murdered by terrorists, or struck dead with single punches as Nova for Women and Children suggested. Quite rightly, there would be unbridled fury, which would quickly force action. Experts would be enlisted, inquiries would be launched, legislation would be drafted and resources would be allocated. Governments would report daily on how they were turning things around.
Their fates would rest on the effectiveness of these responses. Indeed, that is exactly what's happened when these events have occurred in the past. But, despite seven women being murdered in the last eight days of this month alone, this is not happening. It is utterly baffling. There is a palpable lack of urgency about what is unquestionably a dire national crisis. This is so demoralising and so utterly disrespectful of every woman who has been killed and of their families, of their loved ones and of every one of us who have known a woman whose life was tragically taken at the hands of violence.
This is a national emergency, and it should be treated as such. No more excuses. No more delays. It's time to step up and stop this scourge of violence against women and children. It is unconscionable that, while the number of homicides in Australia is decreasing, the number of women and kids killed by partners or former partners has been growing. The 2016 Personal Safety Survey by the ABS found a 13 per cent increase in domestic violence against women since 2012. Each year Australian police deal with around 264,000 domestic violence matters around the country. It's almost an unfathomable figure. It's more than a quarter of a million calls each year that Australian police men and women have to go out and confront. That is 5,000 cases on average every week, or one case every two minutes. At the end of this speech that would have represented five call-outs on a domestic violence case. That means that today police in Australia have probably already dealt with around 550 domestic violence matters. That is worth thinking about. It is worth understanding the profound consequences not just for those women and those children but for each and every one of us and for our communities we live in.
In my region, local government areas of Cessnock, Maitland and Muswellbrook have each recorded domestic violence related assault rates in the top 25 per cent of the state, according to the data from the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. This brings me back to where I began: on the impact that this has for frontline workers in our communities. Nova for Women and Children, along with a number of other women's organisations in our region, are now organising a rally in protest of these horrendous crimes. It will take place in Newcastle on 27 November. Regretfully, the federal parliament sits on that day, so I will be here in Canberra, but I can assure every single one of those women that I will be with you in spirit on that day. Moo Baulch, the CEO of Domestic Violence New South Wales, will be the guest speaker and John Gralton from the New South Wales Police Force will give a presentation.
What needs to happen? It is simply unacceptable for there to be a continuation of inaction and inactivity on this issue. Yes, we need to have programs that really address the kind of imbalanced gendered relationships that currently exist in Australia. We need to be able to build respectful relationships in our schools and in our communities, from when kids are as young as possible, to understand those important boundaries and how to have respectful relationships with men and women in Australia. These are programs that must deliver cultural change. We've got some important law reforms going on in family law in a bid to try and stop the cross-examination of domestic violence victims in court. I welcome that. The government has agreed with Labor's policy on that front, and that's a welcome achievement. We've got to seriously invest in legal services. We've got to ensure there are adequate housing options for these women, as well as counselling services and support. Ten days of paid domestic violence leave is essential. We should aspire to be a nation where women and their children live free of all forms of violence. (Time expired)
Page Electorate: Community Events
Mr HOGAN (Page—Deputy Speaker) (17:55): The Glee Hockey Club was established in Lismore in 1928. This year the club is celebrating not only its 90th anniversary but also the retirement of veteran coach Rhonda Mathers, who has called time after three decades of coaching success. In 1989, Rhonda joined the club as a player and a coach. This was the first of many years where the Glee Hockey Club's A grade women's team would take out the far North Coast premiership.
Lauded by players as the heart and soul of the club, Rhonda's 30-year coaching tenure includes an impressive record of 21 minor and 22 major premierships, including the team's record 16 consecutive far North Coast major premierships from 2001 to 2016. While Rhonda and her teams have enjoyed these successes, what she cherishes the most is developing junior players and seeing them perform at high levels in A grade. Rhonda's love of hockey is a family affair, with her husband, Paul, and children Brad and Rachael involved in the sport also.
After 30 seasons and 650 games, Rhonda will not be lost to the sport she loves. Whether it is through her role on the board of Far North Coast Hockey, umpiring matches, working in the canteen or managing the New South Wales over 60s masters team, Rhonda's legacy is cemented within far North Coast hockey. Congratulations, Rhonda.
Every year Disneyland offers an opportunity for dance studios to perform during one of their shows. In early October, the Studio One Dance Academy from Grafton was lucky enough to have such an opportunity. After submitting an audition video, the studio was selected from the hundreds of applicants to perform at Disneyland in Hong Kong during Golden Week, China's seven-day national holiday. Twenty young performers—boys and girls, ranging from five to 18 years of age—flew out on 29 September for the eight-day tour. They were accompanied by 35 parents and supporters. The troupe performed their own choreographed piece during the parade at Disneyland and then performed a 30-minute routine at Ocean Park and K11, the world's first museum retail complex.
The dancers and their families also got to sample the local culture, which was a first for many of the young performers. I would like to congratulate the young dancers: Jessica Sear, Lucy Sear, Gypsy Rose Biggs, Ryder Biggs, Mikayla Lolic, Indi Parbery, Emmy Paterson, Amali Cone, Elle Cone, Havana McBeath, Abby McBeath, Aiden McBeath, Chantel Claydon, Tayla Graham, Halle Graham, Kayla Ellis, Alana Madden, Sasha Van de Boogard, Amber Van de Boogard and Lily Sanders, and principals Gail Harding and Alison McBeath. I'd like to congratulate the Studio One Dance Academy on this wonderful achievement.
The Coraki Public School celebrated its 150th anniversary on the October long weekend. I would like to congratulate the organising committee who put the celebrations together. They are Shesne Olive, Barb Gifford, current school principal Jane Cottee, Norma Thomas, Maureen Maleckar and Donna Scurr. They started organising the celebration 18 months ago.
Around 400 people turned up for the celebrations. The committee received a $3,000 grant from local business Quarry Solutions to help with the day. A museum was set up in one of the classrooms, displaying the history of Coraki. The hallway became a gallery of photos of past and current students. The success of the weekend is testimony to the strong community bonds that have been forged in Coraki over the last 150 years. Well done to Coraki Public School for quality education and community involvement.
I would like to congratulate St John's College Woodlawn under 15s rugby sevens team, who are now the 2018 state champions. The team played in Newcastle late last month, and went through the final series undefeated. The team included Jack Elmore, Kyle Maluta, Jye Davis, Harry Sivewright, Cooper Love, Riley Cox, Ryan Walton, Blake Davis, Gabe Taylor, Marco Andonov and Jake Coleman. The team was coached by Mick Melino. In the grand final match, Woodlawn beat Hills Sports High School 24-14. The teams played extremely well on the day and should feel very proud of their efforts, as we all are of them. Congratulations to the Woodlawn team.
The New South Wales state BMX championships took place on the long weekend, and 22 competitors from the Casino and Clarence Valley BMX clubs travelled to Sydney to take part in the two-day event. The Clarence Valley BMX Club, led by president Marnie Brighton, won a staggering 19 individual plates. A plate is representative of a rider's state ranking, and no other rider can hold that plate in the category for the calendar year. They are only awarded to the top eight in each division. Marnie herself won two plates. The other plate winners were Glen Swain, Tahlia Marsh, Taleah Robertson, Sharnii Bosbach, Kelly Brown, Stacey Brown, Britney Cole, Ben McDonald and Breanna Robertson. Also well done to those who competed at the championships: Darcy Fowler, Harley Fowler, David Landenberger, Riley Landenberger, William Chisholm, Alyssa Chisholm, Tyrhys Fowler-Robinson, Brendan Brown and Kai McGregor. It is a small club by most standards, but that didn't stop it from taking out the Loudest Club Award to cap off a great weekend. The Casino BMX Club also had three competitors at the championships, with Dana Jordan winning seventh in the state. Dean Sneesby also competed, making it to the quarter-finals, and his younger sister, Penny, competed in the Sprocket Rocket category, doing very well against the boys. I congratulate all those competitors and those who gained their top eight plates.
Grafton's wonderful Jacaranda Festival starts next week. As always, it will be a colourful, fun and friendly festival with an array of exciting activities for everyone to enjoy. I would like to extend my congratulations to all the Jacaranda Queen contestants: Jessie Dean, Jorga Turner, Ebonee Weavers, Bronte Cameron and Caitlin Leak. This year the candidates for the Junior Jacaranda Queen are Whitney Moon, Mia McGrath, Caitlin Granger, Saskia McGrath, Emily Paterson, Mikayla Chaffar and Hope Endean. I wish all the contestants all the best for this year's crown. We started off with a wonderful ball, held last Saturday night. This festival is about the local community, and there are many people who help shape and create this wonderful festival. I'd like to congratulate this year's organising committee, especially the Matron of Honour, Bernadette Basset, and the Jacaranda Ball Team, for all their ongoing efforts and enthusiasm. The team includes Jeff Smith, Dave Mackey and Wendy Gibbs. Your dedication makes this event a success. I encourage everyone to come along to the festivities from 27 October to 4 November. This is the 84th year of the Jacaranda Festival, the oldest of its kind in Australia.
At the end of term 3, Wooli Public School travelled to Sydney after qualifying for the state soccer finals in the Small Schools Knockout. In a very proud moment, they won the title. Forty-one teams from across the state started the knockout competition, with Wooli progressing to the finals after scoring 25 goals and only conceding four. The team played the grand final at Valentines Sports Park at Glenwood, which is the home of Football Federation Australia. Congratulations to the team: Regan Howard, Isaac Bibby, Ari Cave, Sienna Molloy, Hunter Armstrong, Ethan Skennar, Teak Turnbull, Samuel Plowman, Sava Dobra Garrett, Jasper Waern, Bailey Cochrane, Levi Skennar, Talyn McConnell, Rhada Blemmings-Turnbull, and Ash Blemmings. The team was supported by coach Jamie Trevillian and principal Robyn Parnell. For a small school of no more than 100 students, such an outstanding achievement requires a lot of work in the background. I'd like to thank the P&C for their efforts to raise the money needed to allow the students to travel and fulfil their goals. I thank the president, Annette Gill; the vice president, Melitta Marr; the treasurer James Bibby; and the uniform coordinator, Nicole Gall. I'd also like to thank Glennis Small and Kathy McAteer from the Wooli Hotel-Motel Social Club, which contributed to the cost of the trip. Congratulations to all involved.
Lawrence Public School will celebrate its 150th anniversary this Saturday. I'd like to thank the organising committee for their fantastic work in celebrating this wonderful milestone: principal Jackie Menzies, relieving principal Joe Cooper, Debbie Davis, Lorna Reeves, Wendy Squires, Dulcie Reeves and Roger Reeves. The students also had an active role in organising the celebrations. They've chosen to have games from yesteryear and have included local community groups in the activities. They've recorded online interviews with past students to be played during the celebrations. There will be a picnic lunch, a bagpiper and a rural fire brigade display. I want to thank the staff for the great job they do: Andrew Davison, Sharon Nelson, Lisa Smith, Anna Cooper and Erin Gallagher. Again, congratulations and happy birthday to Lawrence Public School.
Tasmania: Mental Health
Mr WILKIE (Denison) (18:05): I wish to bring to the parliament's attention the recent report by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine. Just this month they released the report The long wait: an analysis of mental health presentations to Australian emergency departments. I regret to say that what the report contains is not good news. It's in fact a damning report on the situation for mental health patients in emergency departments in Tasmania. Indeed, the college has found in this month's report that about 50 per cent of mental health patients in Tasmania are not being seen within the standard waiting time, or the required waiting time, at the hospitals. Moreover, the college found that Tasmania is the worst of the states when it comes to the large number of mental health patients who are being transported to the hospital by police and correctional service vehicles rather than ambulances. This is obviously on account of the poor resources for the ambulance service and the over-reliance on police and correctional officers.
They are damning figures. About half of the people who are presenting at emergency departments in Tasmania while having a mental health episode are not being seen in the required time. They are some of the most unwell members of our community—members for whom timely treatment is absolutely critical. No wonder there have been some horrid stories in Tasmania in recent times. In fact, one of the most horrid stories came out in recent weeks when the media reported that a man named Seth—I won't give you his surname—couldn't get seen at the Royal Hobart Hospital. He took the remarkable step of cutting off a finger with a pair of pruning shears so that he could go back to the hospital—minus a finger—to be seen, to simply get admitted to the emergency department.
I'm delighted to say that, in Seth's case, he was seen and did receive treatment, so hopefully the future is better for Seth, but what sort of medical system, what sort of place, forces someone to take such drastic action just to get seen in an emergency department? And Seth is just the tip of the iceberg. In the Tasmanian media in recent times, there have been more remarkable reports and even photographs in the newspaper of people sleeping on the floor of the emergency department at the Royal Hobart Hospital, staying there for two or three days or even longer. For heaven's sake, Australia is the 13th richest country in the world! We're a fabulously wealthy place. Tasmania is a fabulously wealthy place. It beggars belief that the state government thinks it's okay—or unremarkable at least—that people are forced to maim to get seen at the hospital.
Sleeping on the floor of the ED isn't an uncommon sight, believe it or not. Other stories that we've seen in the media and that I've heard about by talking to constituents—either people who suffer a mental illness or those who love them—is it is not unusual that, once someone is admitted and goes to one of the mental health wards, they are only admitted for seven days. I'm told by psychiatrists that they really need to be an inpatient for perhaps three weeks, but because of the pressure of the shortage of beds they are routinely being discharged in as little as a third of the time that is required. And then, when they're released, they're released into the community while they are still not fully well—a community where there is a chronic shortage of support for such people. In fact, in Tasmania, we used to have mobile support teams that would keep an eye on people who are mentally unwell and would support them in the community, would give them that ongoing support. Of course, like a lot of other resources in Tasmania, those mobile support teams were axed some years ago and haven't been replaced. In other words, I'm describing a mental health system in Tasmania which is chronically under-resourced, resulting in some of our most unwell members of the community not getting seen or being seen very late, or not being fully treated and not being supported in the community afterwards.
It helps to explain that, in the recent figures on suicides, Tasmania is again the worst of the states. I know this is a dreadfully painful thing to talk about. A lot of people shy away and even say to me, 'You shouldn't talk about suicide,' but we've got to talk about these sorts of things when you can so clearly see a link between under-resourcing for people with mental health and a jurisdiction with such a high rate of suicide. In fact, that's why in recent weeks I have written to the Chief Coroner in Tasmania and asked her to conduct a thematic inquiry into the connection between the under-resourcing of mental health services in Tasmania and Tasmania's very high suicide rate.
One of the main problems, of course, is that this area of medicine is nationally under-resourced, and it's even more under-resourced in Tasmania, so much so that the state government—and I would add, the state opposition too—have failed to commit to stage 2 of the Royal Hobart Hospital rebuild, which includes a dedicated mental health facility. That's the sort of forward thinking and extra resources that we really should be throwing into the sector in Tasmania. Regrettably, instead, the state government seems to be seeing for the long-term solution what others would really regard as an interim solution—squeezing mental health into two of the floors of the new K-block that is currently being built, and which I expect to open by the end of next year or thereabouts. Squeezing those two floors of mental health into K-block was always meant to be an interim solution pending completion of stage 2 of the rebuild. No-one is talking about stage 2. There's no funding for stage 2. And I'll bet that that interim solution will be the long-term solution, to the detriment, again, of all of those Tasmanians suffering a mental illness.
I'll come back to the issue of resources and money. In fact, there was a state government report which was kept under wraps for months but was released just recently. It said that public health in Tasmania is under-resourced by close to $100 million a year. I reckon that's a very conservative figure. I've heard from hospital insiders at the Royal Hobart Hospital that the forecast operating budget just for the Royal Hobart Hospital just for this financial year is already estimated to be an overspend of $100 million.
Interestingly, and very relevantly, the Commonwealth Grants Commission has already raised with the Royal Hobart Hospital and other health professionals that Tasmania is clearly not spending all of the GST it receives specifically for health care and the state is sending it elsewhere into its budget, including the fact that the state budget is now running at a surplus. That was a long-winded way of getting to the bottom line, which is: the state government at the moment is crowing about delivering a surplus at the same time that it's not spending on health all of the GST money that's coming to Tasmania for health. That is a very worrying issue. At a time when we are talking about the GST, it does give ammunition to some of Tasmania's critics: why are we getting so much GST if we're not spending it all on what it's intended for? I say again to the Tasmanian state government: 'You're getting that money for health. Spend it all for health and stop this fixation with a budget surplus.'
In closing I will offer an observation about the Tasmanian health minister, Michael Ferguson. When he took on that role some years ago I felt very optimistic about it. I think he did a good job in rescuing the rebuild of the Royal Hobart Hospital, but since then he has taken his eye off the ball and shown that he's really not up to the job. I think part of the process of fixing health care in Tasmania has got to start with getting a new health minister. The Premier, Will Hodgman, has to look at his parliamentary members and identify the very best individual to be the health minister for Tasmania. The Premier has to tell that health minister, 'We're going to give you the budget surplus and we want you to pour it all into health and to do everything you can to help health in Tasmania and, in particular, mental health in Tasmania.'
The figures that I started with from the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine showing the terrible circumstances at the emergency department at the Royal Hobart Hospital for people with mental health issues are unacceptable and the situation really must be remedied. That's the job of government. That is our job as human beings.
Gippsland Electorate: Health Workforce
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC and Deputy Leader of the House) (18:15): Mr Deputy Speaker, you, like me and the member for Cowper, representing regional electorates, are very familiar with the challenges in attracting a regional health workforce. The difficulty in securing doctors or specialists in regional areas is something that is well understood by all members who represent regional electorates. Gippsland is no different in that regard.
The issues that I want to raise tonight relate to the pathway for young people in Gippsland to study medicine in our community and to pursue a career within our community. My concern, which I have raised previously in the chamber, is about the way Monash University is conducting business in Gippsland. It is my fear that Monash University is actually dudding Gippsland students who want to study medicine. I will refer to some correspondence that I received from a staff member from Federation University, which exists in the Gippsland region. I will quote from the staff member's letter. It reads:
We once had a perfectly adequate system in Gippsland. When the campus of Federation University was part of Monash University we had students who completed their Bachelor of Science, specialising in biomedical sciences, who gained entry into the Monash post-graduate medical degree. When Monash University withdrew from tertiary education in Gippsland, they retained the medical school, and Monash University has since changed the eligibility criteria for entry into the medical degree, stipulating that students must do an undergraduate degree at a Melbourne campus of Monash University.
That means that any student from Gippsland who has a desire to study medicine and has the capacity to achieve a good score in their VCE can't study medicine in our community. They need to first move away for three years to attend the Clayton campus of Monash University and then potentially return at some later date to go to the Churchill campus. I think Monash is doing an enormous disservice to the people of Gippsland. There is a biomedical degree at the Federation University Churchill campus which students are studying right now, but those students cannot, at the end of that degree, transfer to the Monash medical degree.
Last week I had the chance to have a cup of coffee with two of those students, and to say they are furious would be an understatement. These are young country kids with the capacity to study medicine who want to return to our regional areas, where we know there's a workforce shortage for the health professions. They wrote to me earlier this year, and I will quote from their letter as well. They wrote:
We are writing to you as a group of Federation University students to express our concern and disappointment at the current lack of a pathway to access the Monash University graduate entry medical degree.
They go on to say:
The Monash degree is largely a Gippsland based degree. The entire first year is run by Monash on the Federation University campus. Following the first year of pre-clinical studies, much of the clinical placement in subsequent years is hosted by Gippsland health providers.
So get this: Gippsland health providers are providing the clinical placements and the Gippsland students can't study at the Federation University campus and transfer across to the Monash degree without, of course, spending three years in Clayton.
This is a problem on many fronts. Firstly, we are creating another barrier to country kids. Keep in mind, Gippsland has the second-worst university participation rate in Victoria. So there is a barrier to the students. Secondly, we are creating a cost barrier for their parents. The cost of sending your child away to attend university is in the order of an extra $20,000 for living-away-from-home costs. If students had the capacity to stay in the Latrobe Valley and maybe stay in their own family home rather than relocate to Clayton, there would be a direct injection of more resources into our local economy. Thirdly, we are also breaking the students' association with their regional communities. Once they move to Melbourne, for whatever reason—they may end up finding they enjoy city life or maybe they are in relationships with people who come from the city—and they've broken that association with those regional towns in the first place, they are then less likely to return to their regional communities.
The students go on in the letter:
We consider it grossly unfair that students choosing to do their undergraduate degree at a regional university are excluded from their local medical school.
This is what's particularly offensive to the students. This is a school that was created for the very purpose of getting more regional students to study medicine and then return to those regional communities. It was the former coalition government that funded this school at the Churchill campus in, I think, 2006.
The students go on to say:
We have demonstrated commitment to this region by choosing to stay in our region or to move to this region to gain a tertiary education. It is people like us who are most likely to commit to medical practice in regional and rural Australia. The current requirement for people from Gippsland and other regional areas of Victoria to spend three years in Melbourne to attend university in the hope of gaining entry into a medical degree is likely to decrease the likelihood of these people practising medicine in rural areas after graduation. We acknowledge that our entry would be dependent on high academic achievement at Federation University and are not seeking a guaranteed entry. All we seek is fair and reasonable access to a regionally focused medical degree—our regional medical degree.
It's signed by 20 or so students.
I'll go back to where I started. We have a shortage of health professionals in regional areas. We know that students who come from regional backgrounds, or who do their clinical placement in regional areas, are more likely to return to those regional areas in the future. Here we have Monash University, a big city university, treating Gippslanders like their poor cousins. They're splitting students and denying them a pathway into the school that was created by the federal government for the very purpose of attracting regional students into medicine. I say to Monash University: either commit to Gippsland or get out of the way and let another university that's prepared to invest in regional students take it on. If we are the orphans of this big city university, and they don't really want this regional campus, then tell us, get out and let another university take over—perhaps even Federation University. Let it take over the school and get on with the job of educating regional students to practise in our regional areas, if that's their desire.
Mr Deputy Speaker McVeigh, you can probably sense that I'm frustrated by the behaviour of Monash University. I've had correspondence with Monash in the past. I won't go through every aspect of the letters they've sent to me but it's fair to say that some aspects of the correspondence they've sent to me would be—I will be kind—factually incorrect.
Then there is a separate but related matter in relation to the Monash University Bairnsdale medical school teaching program. It's related in the sense that we are trying to attract health professionals to regional areas by giving them the opportunity to do their learning in Bairnsdale, and in the sense that we know that the students who undertake those placements in a place like Bairnsdale are more likely to return there in the future. I've had concerns presented to me from local health professionals in the East Gippsland community, from the hospital itself, about how Monash is approaching that program as well. Monash has apparently advised the Minister for Rural Health that the proposed changes have been well received by students and staff alike, with the university committed to an ongoing presence in the Bairnsdale community. As much as I would suggest that some of the letters I've received from Monash are factually incorrect, I think Monash is misleading the minister as well. The doctors, students and hospital board members I've spoken to are not happy with Monash's approach to the Bairnsdale community. One doctor wrote to me:
Your letter states—
This is the Monash letter—
that there will be no change to the current funding model or reduction of commitment to the Bairnsdale community with respect to medical training or any change in funding to support the existing local staff.
This is actually untrue. The number of year 4 students involved in the Bairnsdale program for 2019 has already been reduced from 10 to six. The students will be spending only one semester in the region rather than the whole year, and they will have less involvement in local hospitals because of the change in the model of the curriculum delivery. Staff members who have lost their jobs have contacted me and said they've lost their jobs, so someone's not telling the truth. I've got to say: my local community is becoming increasingly angered and frustrated by the behaviour of Monash University not just in Churchill and Latrobe Valley but also right throughout East Gippsland.
My challenge here this evening is to Monash University itself: either make a long-term commitment to the training of medical students in the Gippsland region or leave the region altogether. This gradual withdrawal from the region is harming student pathways and threatening some successful community partnerships which have been built up for the best part of 20 years. I've been approached, as I've said, by local doctors and community members who've expressed a strong concern about the reduction in local training opportunities for students from the Monash Gippsland medical school. Students are simply begging us to have the opportunity to stay in their own homes, to study, to fulfil their ambitions, to become a doctor and to practice in regional areas like Gippsland. My request is pretty simple: Monash University, get serious, or get out.
Racism
Payday Loans
Mr DICK (Oxley) (18:25): There are several issues I'd like to raise tonight in the parliament that, as a result of this government's chaos, division and dysfunction, are having a huge impact on everyday Australians not only in my electorate of Oxley but right across this country. This includes what we've seen unfold over the last 24 hours with the government supporting Senator Hanson's motion in the Senate that 'it's okay to be white'. It was a motion that spent more than a month on the Notice Paper, giving the government ample time to consider both its contents and its consequences. In response to the widespread public condemnation and backlash, we've seen somewhat of a pathetic attempt at a clean-up of what the government supported less than 24 hours ago—a motion that included a phrase that everybody knows is used by white supremacists.
In The Courier-Mail, Dennis Atkins quite rightly posted 'Prime Minister's biggest tactical error in brief time in top job'. The respected journalist went on to say:
But when Hanson's motion hit the Senate floor the government sided with Hanson. The leader of the government in the Senate Mathias Cormann led his Senators to vote for the white supremacist language of the One Nation dog whistling filth.
They all lined up, including every Queensland LNP Senator—those people who will ask you for your votes in about six months. Do not reward them. By their actions they are supporters of the racist Hanson.
Just for your information the Queensland LNP Senators who supported blatant racism were Amanda Stocker, Barry O'Sullivan, James McGrath and Matt Canavan.
Shame on them all.
That was from The Courier Mail as of today.
I couldn't believe it when we saw the member for Petrie on Sky News before question time—I feel sorry for the member for Petrie; he's always one step behind everyone else—
Ms Henderson interjecting—
Mr DICK: I'll take that interjection: he's not going to be here much longer, just like you, Member for Corangamite.
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 18 : 27 to 18 : 34
Mr DICK: When the member for Petrie went on Sky News before question time, he said about the 'it's okay to be white' motion: 'I believe the government has made a mistake. We should have let the issue die yesterday instead of backtracking.' So my question is: does the member for Petrie agree with the Leader of the Government in the Senate and the Prime Minister?
Or does he think that the motion moved by Senator Hanson—and you'll recall in his interview he said, 'Well, the reason why we supported the motion is because, if we didn't, Senator Hanson would go all around Queensland saying that we don't support white people.' Can you believe it! Members of parliament not only back in this motion—as an administrative error or as an act of laziness in refusing to look at the motions they are voting for—but then backbenchers actually say that the government shouldn't have walked away or backtracked from it. I'm extremely disappointed that the government did not join us in the House today to condemn this motion and go some way towards helping to fix the mess they have created.
This is a government that, when they are not focusing on themselves or worrying about Senator Hanson's white motions, are focused on the top end of town, attempting to give huge billion-dollar handouts to big businesses and big banks. But when they are not throwing around billions of dollars to big business, there are reports that won't go away that the government are still continuing with their push to throw more taxpayer money at installing e-voting. Whilst Labor is open to improving our voting systems, you have to ask yourself the question: why do this Prime Minister—the current Prime Minister, who temporarily holds this role—the Leader of the House and members of the government want to spend millions of dollars on a system that will save MPs allegedly a handful of minutes per day? The hypocrisy of this out-of-touch government never ceases to amaze me. Earlier this year we saw money being wasted on ridiculous projects time after time, and now we're seeing that the government are seriously looking at investing up to $8 million to $10 million on e-voting while they are cutting funding across the board for schools and hospitals so they don't have to turn up in the chamber to vote. I note the remarks of the Clerk on page 5 of the 2016 Standing Committee on Procedure report into electronic voting:
… the benefits expected to flow from the introduction of electronic voting appear relatively modest and would need to be considered in light of the cost of installation and maintenance …
Where is the cost-benefit analysis? Where is the sense in the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House persisting with this vanity project while cutting funding to schools and hospitals?
So today I ask the government a very clear question: what is happening with e-voting in the parliament? What is the full cost to the Australian taxpayer? What cost-benefit analysis has been done to justify this outrageous abuse of taxpayers' money on a vanity project, spent because members of this government don't want to spend time voting in the House of Representatives? They need to come clean with the Australian people about exactly what this project is going to cost. I ask members of the government today: how much is it going to cost the Australian taxpayer? There is complete silence from members of the government. They don't know. Nobody seems to know exactly what this weird project of the Leader of the House is going to cost the Australian taxpayer. We know that this is a government that is continually divided and is without a plan for Australia. There can be no more evidence of that than their being asleep at the wheel on payday lending.
The final issue I want to raise tonight is the growing crisis of the out-of-control payday loan sector and the loan sharks who continue to rip off Australian consumers. We on this side of the chamber know it was back on 7 August 2015 that the government established the Review of the Small Amount Credit Contract Laws. They knew then, as they know now, there are serious problems in this industry. Since that review there have been 1,155 days of inaction on clamping down on loan sharks. That is despite promise after promise from minister after minister that we would see legislation brought before the House to clean up the industry, with sensible reforms and protection for consumers.
We know that the consumers and customers of Australia are being ripped off by these shady characters. Introducing a cap on total payments on consumer leases is both a sensible change and a fair change to protect consumers and customers. The members of the government and the current minister may think it's okay for a consumer to pay up to $4,000 for a whitegood that should cost $350 or $400. Those opposite may think it's okay that small interest rates can be ripped off up to around 884 per cent. I don't think that's acceptable. I know the member for Lalor, the members of the government and the Leader of the Opposition agree that we must crack down on these loan sharks. We know that the current minister appears to have absolutely no interest in reform in this area.
Since the government first began this talk about reform, matters have only become much worse, with three million additional loans written that are worth an estimated $1.85 billion and with 800,000 households today holding a payday loan. This number has more than doubled in the past decade, including 150,000 new households signing up for payday loans since the government received that report a year and a half ago. The government doesn't even talk about this as an issue. They don't think it's a priority. They don't believe that consumers and customers getting ripped-off is somehow important. Well members of the opposition certainly do. Since 2016, 'around one-fifth of borrowers or around 332,000 households were new payday borrowers'. We also know that 'over a five-year period around 15 per cent of payday borrowers will get into a debt spiral which leads to events such as bankruptcy' and, 'on that basis, an additional 249,000 households have been allowed to enter a debt path which leads to an unfortunate end'.
We're seeing this minister caught up with not paying his internet bills, wanting to rip-off the taxpayer around $28,000 because he expected the taxpayer to pay his internet bill. Time and time again, when this minister was in charge of human services, when it came to people receiving welfare payments, he said, 'What these individuals don't appreciate is they are actually stealing from their neighbours.' This hypocrisy is staggering. I once again call on the government to bring forward the full and proper legislation so that we can stop the loan sharks and end the payday rip-off in this country.
Corangamite Electorate: Rail Infrastructure
Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite—Assistant Minister for Social Services, Housing and Disability Services) (18:41): I am delighted to rise and celebrate Matthew Guy and the Victorian Liberal's bold vision to transform regional rail services in Victoria. This is an incredible plan. High-speed rail for all of regional Victoria: a 32-minute service from Geelong to Melbourne, a 45-minute service from Ballarat, a 70-minute service from Bendigo, a 117-minute service from Shepparton to Melbourne, and a 62-minute service from Traralgon to Melbourne. The state Liberal's plan to deliver a fast train will mean a 32-minute service between Geelong and Melbourne. This is a game-changing investment which builds on the very strong work the Morrison government has done to demonstrate a rock-solid commitment to improving passenger and freight rail services in regional and suburban Victoria, including in Geelong and across the Corangamite electorate.
Of course, in the Geelong region, we're also getting metro rail under the state Liberal's plan, which is so incredibly exciting. That includes a service from Colac directly to Bannockburn and a reopening of the line between Waurn Ponds and Werribee. What a shame that the member for Lalor, who's here in the chamber, does not support this plan. Under her watch, the Labor Party has shut down the Werribee line and has absolutely abandoned the Regional Rail Link, which had many failings.
This incredible package is so exciting and transformational for Victoria. Our commitment is very well-known. I've been speaking about rail for a very long time as the local member in Corangamite, and we very proudly have delivered $254 million for the Warrnambool to Geelong rail line. That includes $150 million to duplicate the track between South Geelong and Waurn Ponds, as well as to upgrade second platforms at Waurn Ponds, Marshall and South Geelong.
What's incredible is, in the last four years, in all of that time, all we have seen from state Labor is an initial tranche of only $20 million. This Labor government—led by Daniel Andrews and with poor local Labor members like Lisa Neville, John Eren and Christine Couzens—has delivered no other budgeted funding to upgrade our local rail services, and that is simply unacceptable.
Commuters in Geelong and across Corangamite understand that the Regional Rail Link has become a disaster. Many of these services during peak hour are now slower than services which were offered in the 1950s. It is an absolute disgrace. I've been calling on Daniel Andrews and state Labor to fix the Regional Rail Link and our services ever since I was elected. It is incredible that all we have got from Labor is an election commitment of 20 per cent funding—an election commitment only; nothing in their budget. I was absolutely blown away. I thought that Daniel Andrews would have a huge slab of investment in the last state budget, but there was absolutely nothing.
And, of course, we've now seen the farce of today's announcement. We know this is a farce. I refer to a report, hot off the press, on the Geelong Advertiser website. The Geelong Advertisergot hold of a leaked document from Transport for Victoria—which is a statutory body responsible for planning the state's transport systems. This document, dated 14 August 2018, suggests that 'the Andrews government was not planning to deliver any upgrades needed for fast rail for Geelong until at least 2025'. There has been no talk of the plan that he announced today, because it's not a plan. It's a cobbled together, desperate measure from a state Labor government that has totally failed the people of Geelong, the people of South Barwon, the people of the Bellarine, the people of Corangamite and all people living in regional Victoria.
It is quite ironic that two weeks ago Labor attacked Matthew Guy's fully-funded plan for high-speed regional rail throughout Victoria, and now we have seen Labor announcing a half-baked, panic alternative with no money for construction for at least four years.
Ms Ryan interjecting—
Ms HENDERSON: The member for Lalor said that it has got me upset. Absolutely. What a shame the member for Lalor is not upset. I am desperately upset, because I think it's an absolute abomination that this state Labor government has deserted the people of Geelong and Corangamite, Member for Lalor, on the biggest infrastructure project in our state. It is a disgrace.
The choice could not be clearer: under Labor there will be four years of talking about high-speed rail; under the Liberal-Nationals there will be four years of building it. After four years, if Matthew Guy and the Liberals are voted in on 24 November, we will deliver a service that the people of Geelong and Corangamite deserve. What we have seen today from Daniel Andrews is a C-grade plan by a D-grade government. The only thing for sure out of that is a massive tax bill for Victorian families. The Liberal-National commitment in Victoria is $19 billion. That's the sort of commitment we want and we deserve.
Do you know what Daniel Andrews has committed today? He made an election commitment of $147 million to complete 20 per cent of 11 kilometres of duplicated track. But, today, to deliver fast rail between Geelong and Melbourne, he has only committed $100 million. The whole thing is a joke. As we've seen, the only thing that is in this plan for the foreseeable future is the Geelong rail duplication project. It is an absolute joke. To put $100 million as a pathetic, paltry election commitment, with zero dollars in state Labor's budget in May of this year, shows that this Labor government does not deserve another go. It has let down Victorians on so many levels. We are suffering incredibly badly from the fact that Daniel Andrews ripped up a contract, costing Victorians more than $1 billion not to build the East West Link. That is an absolute disgrace. It is so tough. It used to take an hour to travel from Geelong to Melbourne by car in peak hour. Now, if you are lucky, you'll get there within two hours. It is an absolute disgrace.
As I say, this is an incredible commitment from Matthew Guy. This demonstrates—through the Liberal shadow transport minister, David Davis, who I hope will become the transport minister in Victoria—that an incredible amount of work has gone into this plan. It is exciting. It is visionary. At the election, Victorians will have a choice: more taxes under Daniel Andrews and Labor, or they can vote for a Liberal-National government which will get the budget, the economy and the population growth back in control.
What has Labor done in four years to manage our population? It's done absolutely nothing. It has not provided the infrastructure we need in either roads or rail. We in the country are hurting. We in the country deserve the same respect as those who live in metropolitan Melbourne. In metropolitan Melbourne, in all of the Labor seats that Daniel Andrews wants to shore up at the coming election, they are getting Metro Melbourne. There is a massive amount of money and, I have to say, a significant amount of waste going into Metro Melbourne. There is a huge budget blowout with their level crossing program upgrade, and yet you've got level crossings right across regional Victoria that are being ignored.
The choice is stark and it is clear. A vote for the Victorian Liberals and Nationals on 24 November is a vote for this incredible investment in fast rail for our region. For Geelong commuters, this will be delivered within four years. I say to Daniel Andrews: I condemn this Labor government. I condemn this pathetic, scrambling attempt to try and recover from a situation where this Labor state government in Victoria has completely turned its back on the biggest infrastructure need in regional Victoria. I condemn Daniel Andrews and I say to all Victorians: please back Matthew Guy, back the Liberals, back the Nationals and vote Liberal-National on 24 November.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr McVeigh ): There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 18:52