The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Scott Ryan) took the chair at 09:30, read prayers and made an acknowledgement of country.
STATEMENTS
Dastyari, Senator Sam
Senator DASTYARI (New South Wales—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (09:31): by leave—I rise to make a short statement. Let me begin at the outset by saying that I have never had a briefing by any Australian security agency, ever. I have never passed on classified information and I have never been in the possession of any. As I have repeatedly said, if I was ever given any security advice from any agency, I would follow it to the letter.
I want to be absolutely clear: I could not be a prouder Australian. My family was lucky enough to leave a war-torn Iran to start a new life in this amazing land. I find the inferences that I'm anything but a patriotic Australian deeply hurtful. Nonetheless, I am not without fault. In June last year I held a press conference where I made comments that were in breach of Labor Party policy. I have never denied this. The price I paid for that was high but appropriate. More recently, my characterisation of that press conference was called into question. A recent audio recording shocked me, as it did not match my recollection of events. I take responsibility for the subsequent mischaracterisation.
When a public official makes a statement that contradicts events, there are consequences. For me, the consequence was being called last night by Bill Shorten and being asked to resign from my position in the Labor Senate organisational leadership. With the indulgence of the Senate, I want to acknowledge my amazing wife and two daughters, who keep having to put up with the heightened spotlight. Hannah is now six and has to answer questions in the playground. That breaks the heart of any father.
Today we have the news of a royal commission into Australian banking, which is a victory for the many victims and those of us who have fought for justice. With the upcoming New England and Bennelong by-elections, I always intend to put the party first and do not want to be a distraction. I will continue to work as I always have done for the people of New South Wales.
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (09:33): by leave—I move:
That the Senate take note of Senator Dastyari's statement.
What Senator Dastyari has just announced is, I'm sorry to say, not the end of the matter. Whatever human sympathy one may feel for Senator Dastyari, who, I must say, I like personally, we are, all of us, in this chamber and in this parliament, accountable for our conduct. The conduct of Senator Dastyari that has been disclosed in the last two days by the ABC and Fairfax and other media outlets falls so far short of the expectations of people who serve in parliament that it is a scandal. It is a scandal, and there is no nice way of putting that than to say: call it for what it is.
What have we learned about Senator Dastyari's conduct in the last two days—disclosed, by the way, by serious investigative journalists writing for serious newspapers and media organisations? We already knew that Senator Dastyari had a relationship of financial dependency upon a man called Huang Xiangmo, from whom he took money last year, and after an unacceptably long delay was required to resign his position from the Labor Party frontbench then. What has been revealed in the last 36 hours are two more aspects of the relationship between Huang Xiangmo and Senator Dastyari—both of which are shocking. First of all, it was credibly alleged in the Fairfax papers yesterday, by serious investigative journalists, that at a meeting at Huang Xiangmo's Mosman home Senator Dastyari, believing that Huang Xiangmo may be under surveillance by the Australian intelligence services, sought to interfere with what he presumed to be that surveillance. Obviously, Mr President, I cannot confirm or comment on any investigations by the Australian intelligence agencies, and I do not. But whether or not there was surveillance of Mr Huang Xiangmo is not the point. The point is that Senator Dastyari believed there might be and he advised Huang Xiangmo how to avoid it—to engage in countersurveillance behaviour.
Mr President, one has to ask the question: what is a man doing in the Australian parliament, let alone occupying a senior and influential position in the alternative government, if he is prepared to thwart what he believed to be an investigation by the Australian intelligence agencies and to advise the man who he thought to be the subject of that investigation how to thwart that investigation? How is it possible that someone who is guilty of that behaviour should remain in the Australian parliament? I don't speculate on Senator Dastyari's motives. It may merely have been terrible judgement or it may have been another motive. We don't know, but we do know the conduct that has been credibly alleged, and that conduct is a scandal.
Furthermore, at the meeting at Huang Xiangmo's home that day not only did Senator Dastyari coach him in how to engage in countersurveillance activities so as to thwart what he presumed to be an investigation by the Australian intelligence agencies; he also indicated to him that the reason he wanted to do that was that he wanted to have a covert conversation with him that could not possibly be detected by the Australian intelligence agencies—and he had that conversation. We don't know what passed between those two men in the course of that conversation, but what we do know is that it was something that Senator Dastyari was very concerned that the Australian intelligence agencies not hear. There is no doubt about that, because he said to Huang Xiangmo, 'Leave your mobile phone over there; let us go outside so that we can have this conversation without the risk of being detected if there is surveillance on your telephone.' That is what has been credibly alleged. And we can only wonder why. That is the first episode that has come to light in the last 24 hours.
But even worse than that, last night, on the broadcast news programs, there was disclosed an audio of a press conference that Senator Dastyari held for Chinese-language media only during the course of the 2016 election campaign. Astonishingly, as the photographs of that press conference reveal, Huang Xiangmo was standing beside him while he gave the press conference. This was a press conference in the press conference room of the Commonwealth Parliament Offices in Sydney.
What on earth is a senior Labor politician doing giving a press conference with his financial benefactor, Huang Xiangmo, standing beside him? He is obviously giving this press conference at Huang Xiangmo's behest. What was the press conference for, Mr President? Well, we know. The press conference was convened for the deliberate, conscious, advertent purpose of undermining the Labor Party's foreign policy. That's why it was given.
Only a couple of days earlier, the then shadow minister for defence, Senator Conroy, had addressed the National Press Club in the course of the 2016 election campaign. The National Press Club address in the middle of the election campaign was the signature occasion for the Labor Party to lay out its alternative defence policy for the Australian people. Senator Conroy, the then shadow defence minister—the man who, had there been a change of government, as there nearly was, at the 2016 election, would have been the defence minister—set out a very hard line on what is arguably the most difficult issue in the relationship between Australia and China. That is the question of the reclamation by China of islands in the South China Sea, the Spratlys and other island formations, to turn them into military bases. Senator Conroy said in his speech to the National Press Club that, were there to be a Labor government, a Labor government would instruct the Australian Navy to conduct freedom of navigation exercises through that contested sea, through that contested space. That was a very strong position, by the way, that Senator Conroy took. It was evidently within the Labor Party not uncontroversial.
Two days later, at a press conference convened explicitly only for Chinese-language media and standing shoulder to shoulder with the man to whom he was under a financial obligation, Huang Xiangmo, Senator Dastyari specifically and deliberately undermined that policy. He sent to China, through the Chinese-language media, the only ones invited to the press conference, a contrary message. Senator Dastyari, as we know, is a very intelligent man. He is a person deeply steeped in the ways of politics. A man like Senator Dastyari doesn't do something like that by accident. He doesn't do it flippantly or fecklessly. He does it by deliberate intent. And he did.
Here we have a situation in which the man who was competing to be Australia's defence minister at the time, Senator Conroy, set out a strong position in relation to the most difficult issue, arguably, in the Australian-Chinese relationship, about navigation through the contested space in the South China Sea and the island chains that have been reclaimed. And then his senior colleague, messaging directly to the Chinese, convenes a press conference at the behest of Huang Xiangmo—who is there beside him—and sends the opposite message. Why? We're entitled to know why Senator Dastyari undertook that deliberate, advertent act of sabotage of the Australian Labor Party's foreign policy position at the behest of the man upon whom he was financially reliant: Huang Xiangmo.
If that were not bad enough, the fact of that press conference subsequently came to light. On several occasions, in various interviews, Senator Dastyari said: 'I spoke flippantly. I garbled my words. I didn't mean to undermine Senator Conroy's position.' They were words to that effect. He tried to make light of it, just as at that embarrassing press conference last year he tried to make light of his financial relationship with Huang Xiangmo in the first place. That excuse fell to the ground last night when—as a result of, plainly, some very thorough investigative journalism—the audio of the press conference came to light. We all heard it broadcast on the news last night. These were not flippant words. These were not words that were garbled. These were deliberate, considered and, evidently, scripted words. We know—and I'm sorry to say—that Senator Dastyari lied to the public about the press conference.
This is a deeply serious matter. Last year, I and other ministers challenged Mr Shorten to remove Senator Dastyari from the position he then had on the Labor Party frontbench. Mr Shorten delayed, temporised, dithered and dragged his heels. Eventually, excruciatingly days later, he acted and sent Senator Dastyari to the backbench, where he remained for all of 4½ months—4½ months including the Christmas and summer holiday period of 2017! When the parliament resumed at the beginning of this year, Senator Dastyari had been rehabilitated not to a position in the Labor Party shadow ministry but into a position in the Labor Party Senate management team—one of the senior executive positions in the Labor Party leadership group. That is where he has remained all year until the announcement that he just made a short while ago.
This time, it is not enough. How absurd to reflect that, in this Senate, over recent months, we have seen one senator after another forced to resign from the Senate because of section 44 of the Constitution in circumstances which have reflected no discredit on a single one of them. For a technical reason, unbeknownst to them, they were deemed to owe allegiance or acknowledgement to a foreign sovereign. Meanwhile, in the Senate, in a senior position in the Labor Party, there sat Senator Dastyari who, evidently, by his conduct, was actually under a foreign influence. But he kept quiet. He stayed mum. He maintained his position until his position was exposed by the media in the last 24 hours or so, and now he has been forced to resign—again.
This is not good enough. It is not good enough that people who are innocent of any foreign allegiance, except in the most technical way like Senator Ludlam or Senator Waters or Senator Nash or Senator Kakoschke-Moore and others, Senator Roberts, should have to resign from the Senate on a technicality but Senator Dastyari stays here on an actuality. It is unacceptable. If Mr Shorten thinks that he can staunch the damage to the Australian Labor Party by, once again, benching Senator Dastyari for—
Senator McKenzie: For the summer break.
Senator BRANDIS: Yes, for this summer. Thank you, Senator Bridget McKenzie. This is the Dastyari summer sabbatical: get caught under a foreign influence, spend the summer months on the backbench and then be recalled by Mr Shorten—this pathetically weak leader—and be re-instated onto the frontbench or into the senior leadership team.
Senator Canavan: He can write another book.
Senator BRANDIS: Thank you, Senator Canavan. The interjections keep on coming from my National Party friends. That's right; it could be volume 2, Sam's Chinese holiday! This is a matter of great seriousness because, in a real way, it goes to the integrity of this chamber. In a purely technical, legalistic way the resignation of seven senators who breached section 44 of the Constitution went to the integrity of the chamber—for legal and technical reasons. But it didn't go to the integrity of those senators themselves—many of whom, of course, have very different political views from my own; not one of them behaved without integrity. But, I'm afraid to say, the same thing cannot be said of Senator Sam Dastyari, who has not once, not twice but now three times fundamentally compromised himself.
It is not good enough for Mr Shorten to think that he can overcome this latest embarrassment merely by, once again, temporarily benching Senator Sam Dastyari. It is not good enough because Senator Dastyari has not only compromised himself; he has compromised his office and he can no longer remain.
Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (09:52): It's unsurprising that we saw that level of rhetoric and theatrical behaviour from Senator Brandis. It's utterly clear what's happening on the government side: they've had to back down on the royal commission into the banks after engineering a letter from the banks, 'By the way, we've changed our mind'—magically. Did you see? The letter came in, cabinet met and the Prime Minister was up by 9 am. In the meantime, we've got members of the coalition being quite clear publicly, telling the media and the public what they think of Mr Turnbull and what a leader he is or isn't.
Senator Brandis says Senator Dastyari is well-schooled in politics. Well, I'll tell you what Senator Brandis is good at: he's good at trying to create a distraction. He's good at trying to blow things up, to distract from the government's woes. That's his job, we understand that. But there was a lot of that in that contribution. I think people, again, will see that Senator Brandis has been a little inclined to overreach on this and a number of other matters. We all remember the New Zealand conspiracy. He has reprised that again today.
Senator Brandis interjecting—
Senator WONG: I did listen to him in silence, Deputy President. I did give him the courtesy of listening to him in silence on this.
I want to deal with some of the matters which have been raised, and I will do so, I trust, without political shine. National security information and the operation of national security agencies are of paramount importance. I am pleased that one boundary the Attorney-General didn't cross was to suggest that the opposition doesn't deal with those matters appropriately, seriously, as an alternative government should. He knows that we do because he engages with us, as do the agencies in his portfolio, in these matters.
I make this point, firstly, on the South China Sea. I want to reiterate what Labor's position is: Labor's position is the government position. There is a bipartisan view on how we deal with the South China Sea. I again recognise that Senator Brandis did not assert that there is any deviation between the opposition and the government. Senator Brandis's rhetoric was probably a little harder than Ms Bishop might like. What I would say is that Labor, like the government, has called on all nations to abide by and respect the decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which held that Chinese claims surrounding the artificial islands were a breach of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. We continue, as does the government, to support the UNCLOS, which includes, obviously, freedom of navigation.
The hypocrisy in some of what the Attorney was saying is self-evident. Yesterday we saw the Attorney, Senator Brandis, being asked about a donation by a Chinese donor. Mr Turnbull was sitting next to him, and he professed he didn't have any knowledge of it, despite the fact this has been well publicised in the media. He also waxes lyrical about—I'm not sure what he said; was it foreign influence inside the parliament? I just remind the government that Labor has had a bill to ban foreign donations in this parliament since November 2016. In fact, I think it was put in before Senator Conroy left; is that right?
Senator Kim Carr: That's absolutely correct.
Senator WONG: Senator Conroy has come up a couple of times today, which he'll probably be very pleased about. I'll probably get a text: 'See—I'm gone but not forgotten.' He was very clear about the need to do that. Senator Farrell has been clear about the need to do that. What are we—a year and a bit down the track? Despite the fire and brimstone we see from the government, that bill has not been progressed, and the government's approach to the issue, which it keeps promising us, still hasn't appeared. I think the last thing we had was: 'It'll come in the spring session.' Well, here we are, still waiting. And I note today on radio Senator Brandis was asked quite directly about the person in question, Mr Huang, donating to both sides of politics, and I think he effectively conceded that Mr Huang has been a donor to the Liberal Party as well. He says, again, that it's not the issue. I do enjoy the way Senator Brandis decides for everybody what the issue is and what the issue isn't.
Senator Dastyari did the wrong thing and he has had to pay a price, as he should have. He's had to stand up in the chamber and explain himself, as he should have. It was appropriate that he resign from the frontbench on the previous occasion, and it is appropriate, given what has been disclosed, that he resign as Deputy Opposition Whip and from other parliamentary positions, in light of what has been disclosed. He has done the wrong thing and he has fronted up and he has done what has been asked of him by the Leader of the Opposition, which is to resign from his position. I would, though, remind those opposite—I understand the overreach, but calling the deputy whip a senior frontbencher does make Wacka Williams a senior frontbencher. And, Senator Fawcett—he's a good South Australian colleague; we disagree on many things, but he's a hard worker and a decent operator—that makes you a senior frontbencher too. So there you go!
Good on you, Senator Fawcett!
Senator Brandis: Senior member of the leadership team.
Senator WONG: I actually think that the Prime Minister might have used the phrase 'frontbencher'. So let's keep it in perspective: when you say he came back, he was given the same position as Senator Williams, who has made some pretty strong comments over the years about banking royal commissions and, more recently, Mr Turnbull's leadership; and Senator Fawcett, who hasn't made such comments—he is a much more disciplined operator. I want to remind people that the position Senator Dastyari holds is that of deputy whip; it is an organisational position.
Finally, I make this point—and I don't wish to discuss this much publicly: it does appear from media reports that national security information, or information from national security agencies, has made its way into the public arena. I would trust, given the history of such matters and given the legislative framework applying to such matters, that Senator Brandis, as the Attorney-General, will be as persistent and determined in finding out how that has occurred as he has been to point the finger at Senator Dastyari.
Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (10:01): I feel I need to make a contribution to this debate because I belled the cat about Senator Dastyari asking for his personal overexpense for his travel bills of some $1,200 or $1,800 to be paid for by a donor linked to the Chinese Communist Party. It was disclosed in his register of interests, as if that were some sort of virtue. It was not just an oversight; it was an indication of the New South Wales Labor Party culture of getting other people to pick up your tab that has crept into this place. It is a cancer, a cancer that destroyed the New South Wales government—which was the most corrupt government in my memory—and which saw Kristina Keneally become the puppet Premier to mop up the mess left by the corruption of the New South Wales Labor mob. It was as crooked as it gets; they know that. And that corruption, that stench, has crept its way into this chamber and has manifested itself in Senator Dastyari.
Look at the track record here. This is not just about one transgression; this is about an individual who thinks it's okay to have their personal bills picked up by a donor who is allegedly an agent of a foreign government. This is a political party and an organisation that is defending an individual when they have been warned that this person risks compromising Australian political life through their abundance of money. They are defending Senator Dastyari—as if it's some sort of penalty to punish him by sending him into purgatory and banishing him from being the Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate. It is a mockery and it makes a mockery of this place. He not only had his personal bill picked up but he also had his legal expenses picked up, to the tune of $5,000. We know from media reports that Senator Dastyari's office in his time as the 'fixer' in the New South Wales division has been the Chinese diaspora, if I can put it like that. We've seen people resign from New South Wales parliamentary places and then Senator Dastyari's people and his conduits into the Chinese community installed in their stead. We've seen reports of Senator Dastyari and his staff's involvement in infiltrating councils. We've seen Senator Dastyari give a dubious and outright false account of his press conference given to Chinese media in Commonwealth parliamentary offices—ostensibly about safe schools, when it was all to do with Chinese foreign policy. And it's only because video evidence has emerged that contradicts Senator Dastyari's claims that we're in this position today.
You cannot trust what Senator Dastyari says. You cannot rely on what he says—unless you are a Chinese billionaire and he's come around to your house to have a covert chat and he says, 'Can we leave our phones here and go outside, because you're under surveillance from ASIO.' What a disgrace. What an absolute disgrace. And he tries to turn it into some sort of virtue; he comes in here and says, 'Oh, Mr Shorten rang me last night and told me I need to stand down from my frontbench position, and my daughter has been having to explain my behaviour at school.' Welcome to the world, Senator Dastyari. Those of us with children know that they are, unfortunately, sometimes in the frontline of abuse because of the sins of the father. I know that, because I've gone through the vicissitudes of public life myself. But to use that and to tear up in here and say, 'Oh, it's been so hard on my family'—because of his crooked behaviour, his dodgy behaviour! And it's repeated again and again. There is a pattern of abuse. It is the migration of New South Wales corruption into this place.
It's not good enough for Mr Shorten to run a protection racket for Senator Dastyari and say, 'I've admonished him for his summer holidays,' as Senator Brandis put it. It's not good enough. You've got to cut him loose. You've got to cut those ties—cut those crooked ties—and boot him from the Labor Party. But they won't do that, of course, because Senator Dastyari knows where the skeletons are buried. He's got too much dirt on Mr Shorten, too much dirt on the New South Wales group, and they need him. Mr Shorten needs him as a counter, as a foil, to the threats from Mr Albanese for the leadership.
This is a real test. It's a test for this place. It's a test for Mr Shorten. It's a test for the Labor Party. We know that both the major parties are on the nose. The Australian people do not trust them; they do not believe them. And yet here we have a blatant case of a senator being dishonest, colluding with the agent of a foreign government. You can't put it any more succinctly than that. They are colluding. They're telling them how to avoid surveillance by our very security agencies. It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a flippant comment. It was: 'I don't want our security agencies or our intelligence agencies to know what we're going to talk about, so we're going to leave our phones here and we're going to go outside.' Why would you do that? Why would you do that unless you had something to hide?
The problem is that Senator Dastyari continues to come in here and go with the line, 'I'm a little kid who doesn't know much of what he's talking about,' and pretend that it's just some sort of hiccup in the road. It's not. This is wilful. This is deliberate. This is a culture, a culture that is permeating politics, and it's emanating out of New South Wales, and we cannot stand for it here. And the Labor Party cannot stand for it here. It's interesting to note that Senator Wong didn't defend Senator Dastyari. She obfuscated. She said that Senator Brandis has overreached. He hasn't overreached in this at all. In fact, I would say that Senator Brandis has understated the problem, and it's probably by virtue of the fact of his role as Attorney-General and information he may have that he's not prepared to actually bell the cat. Well, I don't have the information that Senator Brandis might have in his arsenal of knowledge, but what I do have is an acute sense of something that stinks to high heaven. Senator Dastyari can brush it off all he likes with his one-minute statement, but it's not good enough. And Mr Shorten can come out and say, 'Senator Dastyari has paid a heavy price.' It's not a heavy price at all!
What Senator Dastyari has suffered is some public humiliation, which is not good, but it's humble pie; you've got to eat that. He might have suffered a small cut to his salary of some $10,000 or thereabouts, which is probably a fraction of the money that he's received from donors and benefactors to pay his personal expenses. He hasn't suffered anything within the Labor Party organisation itself. He will still be pulling the strings. But it's not good enough for the country. I don't care about Labor and Liberal. I don't care about team blue and team red, but I really am deeply concerned about the integrity of this place.
People may excuse the scandals, the corruption, the crookedness that has been at the heart of some state politics, but we cannot allow that to compromise the standing or status of the Commonwealth parliament. It is a disservice. It would do us a disservice to allow that. And no amount of likability, jocularity or media-friendly persona should allow this to get through, because the pattern is clear to anyone who wants to see it. I should point this out: Mr Shorten and others have said that Senator Dastyari lost his job on the frontbench because of the South China Sea policy. That's not true. Senator Dastyari lost his job on the frontbench because he asked a Chinese billionaire, whom the Labor Party had been warned had close links to the Chinese Communist Party, to pay a personal bill. It's not even a bill that could bankrupt someone.
We're not talking about how Senator Dastyari facilitated the bankrolling of crooked Craig Thomson. We're talking about a travel account of some $1,400 or $1,800—less than a couple of grand and a fraction of Senator Dastyari's weekly salary. Rather than have to dip into his own pocket or suck a bit of cash out of the mortgage, he thought he'd just ring up a Chinese billionaire and say, 'Hey, look, I've got a personal account. Would you mind fixing it up?' That would be wrong no matter the nationality of the person involved. It would be different, I guess, if it was your father and you said, 'Hey, I'm a bit short. Can you give me a couple of bucks to pay my electricity bill?' or something. That would be different. But if I rang my friend Mrs Rinehart and said, 'Can you please pay my personal bill for a couple of thousand dollars?' I would say that's wrong, too. If I rang a billionaire from any other country, a millionaire, or people I didn't know who were political players and said, 'Can you pick up the tab for something?' it would be wrong. And, yet, that's what Senator Dastyari did. He did it with an agent of a foreign government. He did it with an individual whom the Labor Party had been warned—warned!—about by our intelligence services. That is not just bad judgement; that is flat-out crooked. That's why he lost his job. Let's not pretend it's some virtuous thing about policy. It wasn't. The policy was subsequent to that.
Where does it end? If we keep tugging at this thread, where is it going to end? Is it going to lead all the way to Sussex Street? That's the question I'm asking myself. Where does it end? And why is it being defended by those on that side of the chamber? Why is it? How can it be? How can they gloss over the significance of what we've got here? We have an individual, a fixer in the Labor Party, who has been at the very heart of Labor culture. He has been at the centre—the epicentre—and he has been boasted about and revered within the Labor Party for his ability to raise funds out of the Chinese community. Former foreign minister Bob Carr, I think, wrote about how Senator Dastyari managed to raise $200,000 at a function. That may be entirely reasonable and legitimate, but what are the things we don't know about? What we do know is that Senator Dastyari cannot be relied on to tell the truth. He can gloss it up by talking about 'recollections' and things of that nature, but he's not the type of bloke that forgets anything. He stores it all away so he can use it against other people later.
In this case, unfortunately, Senator Dastyari has been hoist with his own petard. This is not strike one, strike two, strike three, strike four or strike five. You can go through the litany of influences on Senator Dastyari from the Chinese community and it leads to only one conclusion—Senator Dastyari has been thoroughly compromised. Whether it is money, prestige, influence or a promise of some job after he leaves this place, he has been compromised. Every time he stands in this chamber, we have to presume that his words are the product of that compromise because his character has now been diminished to such an extent that we cannot rely on what he says. We cannot rely on his public actions because they contradict what is discovered subsequent to the event.
If anyone in this place thinks that it is good enough for a member of this place to be here while they're compromised in such a manner, I will disagree. Just as I've said in recent months over citizenship scandals and all sorts of things, when you know someone here is not telling the truth it brings into question the entire standing of this place. Senator Dastyari has been caught, again, not telling the truth. He's been caught trying to subvert alleged surveillance activities for our national interest, he's been caught siding with a foreign power in a policy dispute against our national interest and he's been covered up for again and again by the machine men on the other side.
This is a character test. This is a character test for the Labor Party, it is a character test for Mr Shorten and, ultimately, it's a character test for Senator Dastyari himself. I bear him no ill will—
Senator Kim Carr: You just imply it!
Senator BERNARDI: but I care more about the integrity of this parliament, confidence in the body politic and the future of this country than I do about the short-term pain of Senator Dastyari. When I said, 'I bear him no ill will,' I heard mocking laughter from Senator Kim Carr. That is just extraordinary, but it goes to the heart of the problem that eats away at Labor. It's always about them. It's always about the tribe. Unfortunately for Senator Carr and others, the country is much more important than their political status or tribalism. By supporting Senator Dastyari, by allowing him to stay in that red tribe on that side of the chamber and by allowing him to pollute the integrity of the body politic here, they are diminishing the standards that are expected by the Australian people.
Words like 'traitor' have been used; I don't want to get into that. But the point is that Senator Dastyari has been acting in his interest against the national interest. He's been acting in the Chinese interest against the Labor Party's interest. He's been acting in his financial interest against the interest of the country and this parliament. What more do we have to know to say he shouldn't be here? He shouldn't be here because we deserve better and Australia deserves better. If the Labor Party want to continue to defend him, it's an indictment on their character and their integrity. They would be much better served, the country would be much better served and Senator Dastyari would be much better served, quite frankly, by cutting the strings. Let him go and work for some Chinese billionaire outside of this place, if that's what he wants to do. Let him peddle his brand of influence in politics outside of this chamber. Let him influence the Labor Party and be promised whatever he likes from Mr Shorten should he attain government later on, but let's cut the thread that stinks to high heaven—the thread of corruption, the thread of crookedness, the thread that always seems to lead to Sussex Street. That is the problem. Do not defend it, I say to the Labor Party. Do not defend it to yourselves. Do not defend it to the Australian people. Do what's in the interests of the country. Do what's in the interests of your party and do what's in the long-term interests of Senator Dastyari. Cut him loose. Tell him to announce his resignation and tell Mr Shorten to actually grow a spine and say something powerful rather than demonstrate how captured he is by the power of the Sussex Street mob.
Senator KIM CARR (Victoria) (10:20): I rise to take note of the statement in relation to Senator Dastyari resigning his position as deputy whip in the context of a number of media reports where he has acknowledged a fundamental lack of judgement in his engagement with the Chinese community in Sydney. We've heard the government response that people in this place should be accountable for their behaviour. I think it is entirely appropriate that senators are accountable for their behaviour, and I believe that Senator Dastyari has made that undertaking himself today. That proposition, of course, would be so much stronger if the government itself were able to uphold those principles with regard to the behaviour of the Prime Minister, the behaviour of the Attorney-General and the behaviour of many other ministers in this government. It would be a so much stronger proposition if it were clear that the government was beyond reproach when it came to the question of its dealings and financial relationships with donors. I think Senator Wong made the point that the issue around the integrity of our political system has been crying out for redress.
Senator Farrell: We've got a bill.
Senator KIM CARR: And a bill has been presented by the Labor Party to ban foreign donations—a bill which the government has failed to respond to. It is a proposition, a policy position, that the Labor Party will implement in government, which I trust won't be too far away. It would be, of course, a much stronger position for the government to maintain in terms of its criticisms of others in this place if the Prime Minister himself, just last week, had not dined with Mr Liu Xiaodong, a wealthy Chinese benefactor of the Liberal National Party in Queensland who provided $40,000 to the Liberal National Party's campaign in Queensland. It would be a much stronger case if the government had not, in the past, been subject to criticisms with regard to education. I see the education minister is with us today. I recall only too well the matter of the Top Education Institute, where Minshen Zhu had provided very substantial financial support to the Liberal Party and had sought changes to the visa arrangements, the policy position on automatic entry of students from China, under a Liberal government. It was a policy position which we opposed. I opposed it as minister—I was briefed quite extensively by the department—on the basis that that policy position would seriously undermine the quality assurance regime of our education institutions, but it was granted by this government. The SVP arrangements were shown to be such a circumstance. If one wants to talk about security implications when colleges are able to import students very much under their own supervision, one would have to ask a question or two. But of course that wasn't the issue that was ever raised in regard to this circumstance. It is quite clear that the Liberal Party would be in a much stronger position to criticise others if they had acted consistently.
Let's take the case of the Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Mr Laundy, who has received very substantial assistance from a Chinese benefactor. As reported in a Chinese media article, he has allowed a Mr Yang to act as an adviser and representative for him and provide advice. Mr Laundy has, in turn, appeared alongside Mr Yang waving Chinese and Korean flags, criticising the position of this government and supporting the Chinese position in regard to what his consultant has said about the position of the Chinese government on a number of foreign policy matters. So the Liberal Party's position would be so much stronger if it was more consistent.
It would also be more consistent, I would have thought, if this government wasn't itself the subject of some pretty serious questions about its misjudgement. The Prime Minister, I'm reminded, has sought to use the police on a number of occasions now. I'm reminded of the circumstances of the election night, where the Prime Minister told the entire country that he thought there ought to be a police investigation into the Labor Party over the Labor Party's campaign on Medicare. He, of course, was a man of great Liberal principles who came to office and this parliament as a man who was committed to these great Liberal principles. He then was part of a government that had three Labor leaders before royal commissions, costing many, many millions of dollars—Kevin Rudd on a pink batts royal commission, a $20 million display of vindictiveness; the trade union royal commission, a $45 million display of vindictiveness directed at Bill Shorten; and the royal commission with Julia Gillard about her time with Slater and Gordon.
We've had a government that feels it's quite reasonable to have police raids on national union offices, as we saw with Senator Cash. This is a government that doesn't seem to mind using the police. Minister Cash never managed under normal parliamentary conventions to come forward with some pretty simple propositions in regard to her behaviour and actions in these events Of course all of this was done in the context of the full blare of media publicity and the full blare of a police raid on a union office in the run-up to an opinion poll survey. We remember the situation in the last election campaign when we had police raids on leaders of the Labor Party—shadow ministers, in that case. The deputy leader in the Senate had the temerity to criticise the leader of the Liberal Party over the NBN in the full public glare, with television cameras on. Advisers' homes were raided—again in the full glare of publicity. And the Privileges Committee said that the AFP's actions constituted improper interference in the work of a senator. So we've got a pattern of behaviour here with this government's use of the media and use of state apparatus to try to belittle opponents.
If we want to talk about judgement, we can talk about this Prime Minister's judgement. We can talk about the circumstances of today. Why are we debating this today, when Senator O'Sullivan—who is Acting Deputy President at the moment—was going to have a bill before this chamber on a bank royal commission? What happened to that bill? The Prime Minister got his instructions from the banks, and I've got no doubt that they've got their terms of reference already drawn up. So we have the circumstance where the cabinet met this morning—and isn't it better to talk about this than to talk about what's going on inside the government?
Senator Brandis was very jovial in his reference to the National Party—very jovial indeed—but they've spent a lot of time putting the skids under Senator O'Sullivan's proposal for an inquiry into the banks. Isn't it much better for this sort of matter to be discussed than to be discussing what's happened with the government's backflip on that matter? So that is the circumstance. The government is desperate for a distraction. The government's only too happy to look to any possibility of a distraction. In the context of the government having form in election campaigns of using whatever desperate measures they can find, I think I'm entitled to ask: if the government are consistent about assessing people's behaviour, they ought to be consistent in assessing their own behaviour.
I think it's of interest—and Senator Wong made reference to this—that Fairfax Media reported this morning, and it's in yesterday's press as well:
Fairfax Media has confirmed that intelligence collected by national security officials corroborates that Senator Dastyari planned to make the comments before he delivered them …
That's a direct quote. I have absolutely no reservations in saying that I have enormous regard for Mr Duncan Lewis, the head of ASIO. I have dealt with him for many years. He is a person of utmost integrity and a person I have the very highest regard for. But I find it extraordinary that there are a number of references to security agencies in these reports when it is unusual, to say the least, for security agencies—and I don't specify which ones; I emphasise that—to engage in domestic political activity. If those reports are accurate, I think the Attorney-General has some other responsibilities as well. If we want to assess character and we want to have an assessment of judgement, then what's going on with these reports? What is the provenance of this information? We have not seen any transcripts. We have not actually seen any information that goes to the detail of these claims. We've seen media reports, electronic and printed, citing references to security officials. What's the Attorney-General or the security tsar, Mr Dutton, doing in regard to this intervention? I repeat: what sort of judgement allows that to go on?
There is a broader question here. Going again to questions of judgement, the Prime Minister has suggested the proposition, which we heard reflected again here by conservative senators, that there is an issue of patriotism. 'Whose side is he on?' asked the Prime Minister, suggesting that our No. 1 trading partner—I emphasise this point—is an enemy of this country.
Senator Birmingham interjecting—
Senator KIM CARR: I've seen the reports—and, Minister for Education and Training, you made these points yourself—about international students. We understand just how important our international education system is and how important Chinese students are in particular. The cavalier way in which these questions have been treated by government ministers and so-called security experts defies description. I only hope you know what you are doing. There are major universities in this country for which your use of security in a partisan political way may well have serious implications. You may think it's in your interests to wrap yourselves in the flag for temporary advantage, but you should think carefully about the consequences.
The relationship between this country and China, our No. 1 trading partner, will evolve. It's evolving all the time. It requires a little bit more care than to suggest, in this cavalier way, that we can make a proposition such as, 'Which side are you on?' when there has been no suggestion whatsoever of breaches of national security—no suggestion whatsoever—by the Attorney-General in his statements to AM this morning, no breaches of the law, not even a suggestion that they've had access to those things.
You ought to now ask yourself what the consequences are of playing these party political games. Do you think you can influence an opinion poll? Do you really think that's the nature of the national interest these days? You are a government that's disintegrating before our very eyes, and you think that these party political games you are playing are in the national interest? Do you think, with the sorts of games you are playing, where you won't deal with the issues of foreign donations, where you won't deal with the questions of the influence of a number of countries operating within our political system, where you won't deal with the substantive issues in regard to our economic relationships with the region, that you can influence Newspoll next Monday? Do you think that's in the national interest?
I'm sorry to say that that is a very perverse view of the way in which politics should be conducted, and, frankly, I don't think the Australian people will reward you for that. We have seen this happen on various occasions in our history. It doesn't work. But it has to be called out for what it is: a desperate attempt to divert attention away from a government that is disintegrating and a Prime Minister who has no authority even in his own party room. It is a government that's not capable of actually managing this country anymore, a government that is failing dismally on just about every possible level and thinks it can play these petty little games. Particularly, the Attorney-General—who has responsibilities and has called upon this parliament to act in a bipartisan way on some really serious questions that go to national security—thinks that we can play out these sorts of issues in this petty, putrid attempt to influence an opinion poll.
Senator HANSON (Queensland) (10:40): I've listened to comments in this chamber this morning from Senator Brandis, Senator Bernardi and now Senator Carr. The whole fact is that One Nation does not take the view of either side but looks at a clear debate on this. Listening to this debate this morning, I think Senator Brandis and Senator Cory Bernardi have made some very strong arguments with regard to this. I was listening to Senator Carr and his last comment, on the Prime Minister making the comment, in relation to Senator Dastyari, 'Which side are you on?' I think it's quite important for the Prime Minister to ask that question. Why shouldn't he? I think it's a very important matter.
Let's look at it. There are allegations of seeking donations from a foreign power. Also, the fact is they have received moneys for bills or remuneration. This is a serious matter. As Senator Brandis said, we have had people lose their positions in this parliament under section 44 of the Australian Constitution, and they should be here. But, here again, Senator Dastyari has been looked after by the Labor Party. These issues were raised last year—over 12 months ago—and now they're being raised again because of investigative journalists. Now he has admitted, again, that he's done wrong. But the Labor Party thinks that this is a big blow-up, this is a distraction. I know for certain that, if the shoe were on the other foot, they'd all be on those benches there and they would be criticising, as they have done every time, with anyone else in this chamber other than themselves.
Let's deal with the facts. To actually hear Senator Carr say about our trading partner China, 'How dare we question this, because they are our largest international trading partner'—that alone sends shivers up my spine, as it would for many other Australians. What has that got to do with it? Why do international students have anything to do with it? They should not. This is the heart of our democracy, and people of Australia are fed up with the politicians. They are asking me all the time—they are concerned about political donations from foreign powers and the buy-up of our land by foreign ownership. What is happening to our country? We're losing our infrastructure—we are losing everything—and they are questioning: 'Are there deals being done by our politicians and by our governments?' They have a right to ask that question. So for Senator Carr to make these comments—I am very, very concerned about that.
When Senator Dastyari made his comments this morning, I don't take those crocodile tears, because that's all they were. When he makes a comment on the impact that it's having on his children—a six-year-old—I know about the impact on children. I've copped it for 20 years from political parties and the media and know the impact that's had on my children. But he says that there is an impact on a six-year-old in the schoolyard in less than 24 hours? I don't think that's the case whatsoever, so I don't accept his crocodile tears.
This is very important. It's not a distraction either. Let's go to the facts of that. The Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the Labor Party, Bill Shorten, rang Senator Dastyari and asked him—actually, he didn't ask; he dumped him. He dumped him from the junior role as deputy whip and Senate committee chair. Why? Because he knows he's wrong—that's why he was dumped, because the Labor Party knows.
This is not all about the coalition taking the stance because of next week's polls and all the rest of it. This is very important, and it's not the first time it's been raised. Are they going to reward him? This is a big question. Are they going to reward Senator Dastyari by having him lead the Senate ticket for New South Wales at the next election? Is he going to be top of the ticket, which will assure him of getting his seat back in this parliament? His allegiance is questionable. I do not believe that he should have his place in this parliament, considering other good senators have lost their positions here. Yes, this needs to be debated. No, I don't think that it's a distraction from the bills and there are more important things. Pointing the finger at the other side for the things that have happened in this chamber I think is weak and pathetic. Deal with the issue. If the shoe fits then wear it.
Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (10:45): This is one of the most curious debates that I have witnessed in my long period in the Senate. Like most Australians, this is a matter, as reported, that very much concerns me. I'm not an insider. I don't know what happened. I can only go on what I read in the newspapers. I was very pleased that Senator Dastyari was given the opportunity first thing this morning to make a statement in relation to this matter. But he didn't address the allegation at all that he had told a person that he thought he was under surveillance by Australia's intelligence agencies and that, consequently, that person should leave his phone inside while Senator Dastyari and that person went outside to further a conversation about which we know nothing.
I would have thought that Senator Dastyari had the classic opportunity this morning to debunk the report of the investigative journalists or to give an explanation. He did neither. In fact, he didn't even mention it. I find that very, very curious, but what I have found more curious in this debate has been the contribution from Senator Wong and Senator Carr. I've seen Senator Wong and Senator Carr in action in this chamber over a long period. I know Senator Wong was a lawyer working for the CFMEU. I don't know exactly what she did for the CFMEU or as a lawyer, but I assume that she's had a lot of experience in defending members of the CFMEU. I've seen her in this chamber and at estimates defending her people on various issues. I have seen Senator Carr over a long period of time in this chamber and in estimates defending his government when he was a minister, defending individuals and defending public servants. In all cases, both Senator Wong and Senator Carr have done credible jobs as defenders. But the effort that came forward this morning from both, in allegedly defending their colleague on the frontbench, Senator Dastyari, was just incredible. Could I say, if ever I'm in trouble, I'm not going to go to Senator Wong to be my defender.
Senator Wong spoke about everything else except the allegations that have been made against Senator Dastyari. I don't know anything about Senator Dastyari. I made a resolution, as I often do with members opposite, that the less I have to do with him and the less I have to know of him the better. I've never had any personal contact with Senator Dastyari. He once approached me and said he wanted to be my friend, and I said: 'Go away. I'm not interested. You've got nothing in common with me. I don't like the way you operate, so don't approach me.' And he never has since. I don't know much about him, but I know what I read. I would've liked him to tell me today that some of the allegations that have been made are not correct, but he didn't do that.
Senator Carr's defence was one of the most curious defences I've ever seen. He defended Senator Dastyari by, unfortunately, talking about a ban on foreign donations—yet newspaper reports show that Senator Dastyari, of course, has been the recipient, as the general secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party, of substantial donations from foreign individuals, including the one that's mentioned in this particular story. Senator Carr, in somehow defending Senator Dastyari, went onto a discussion about what the Labor Party wants to do with banning foreign donations. He forgot to mention, of course, just as an aside, that they want to ban foreign donations except when it comes to unions and GetUp!, both of which we all know get huge amounts of money from overseas and donate it directly to the Australian Labor Party. Senator Carr was wanting to muddy the waters by talking about that, but, by indicating that he was going to ban some foreign donations but not those from the unions or GetUp!, he couldn't even muddy them properly.
What this has to do with Senator Dastyari I'm not quite sure, but, in Senator Carr's defence of Senator Dastyari, he then talked about the LNP in Queensland and the recent election. What Senator Carr didn't bother to talk about, of course, was that if Annastacia Palaszczuk forms government in Queensland, as looks likely but not certain, she will do it because of preferences from the One Nation political party that went to the Labor Party to give them the numbers to form government. He criticises One Nation but forgets to mention that there is yet another Labor government in power in Australia because of preferences from One Nation being readily accepted by the Australian Labor Party. But what that had to do with the defence of Senator Dastyari, I do not know.
He then made some obtuse accusations or attacks on my friend and colleague Senator Birmingham, who is, without doubt—and I've seen a lot of education ministers come and go—clearly one of the best education ministers this country has ever seen. What that had to do with the defence of Senator Dastyari, I'm not sure. He then talked about someone named 'Lundy' from the other chamber. I don't know any 'Lundys' over there. I guess he's talking about Mr Craig Laundy, a multimillionaire in his own right who, through his own efforts, has made a lot of money. He accused Mr Laundy of somehow wanting money from the Chinese or someone else. I'm sorry: if that's who you're talking about, Senator Carr, I can assure you that Mr Laundy doesn't need money or donations from anyone else.
Senator Carr then chose to defend Senator Dastyari by attacking the Australian Federal Police. He knows, I know, and anyone who has anything to do with the Australian Federal Police will know that they are beyond reproach. I chair the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee at estimates, which interrogates, amongst others, the Australian Federal Police and the intelligence agencies—as you know, Mr Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan, because you've been involved as well. At all occasions, every senator acknowledges the honesty and integrity of the Australian Federal Police, and yet Senator Carr, in his defence—somehow—of Senator Dastyari, sort of accuses the Australian Federal Police of being agents of the government in political campaigns. That is an outrageous accusation which Senator Carr knows is wrong and yet chooses to make to muddy the waters as part of what was supposed to be a defence of Senator Dastyari.
He then talked about the trade union royal commission. How that was a defence of Senator Dastyari I don't know, because the royal commission into trade unions showed the length and breadth and depth of corruption within the union movement and within the Australian Labor Party. He then spoke about Senator Conroy and accused the Australian Federal Police of being part of a political campaign to raid his office. He didn't mention, I might say, that that raid—and I know a bit about this because I'm on the Privileges Committee and I've got to be careful what I say, but I think what I'm saying is public knowledge—wasn't on Senator Conroy and had nothing to do with politics. It was a raid by the Australian Federal Police seeking to find evidence of a criminal act not by Senator Conroy but by one of Senator Conroy's staff. A criminal act: that's why the AFP were there—not as part of a political campaign, as alleged by Senator Carr, but investigating a criminal act. Senator Carr, in his defence of Senator Dastyari this morning—and this is so curious—then went on to attack the banking royal commission. I thought the Labor Party were in favour of it, but Senator Carr used his defence, so-called, of Senator Dastyari to attack the banking royal commission. What that has to do with Senator Dastyari I fail to see.
Fairfax Media today said that there were a number of references to security agencies. Senator Carr, in his defence of Senator Dastyari, said that, first of all, he has the highest regard for ASIO and the intelligence agencies and their leaders, and he mentioned them by name. He said he has the highest regard for them; then he went on to accuse them of being part of a political campaign. He then did, in fact, return to the subject and said there was no breach of security. But, as Senator Bernardi quite rightly pointed out, if the allegation in the Fairfax papers is true, Senator Dastyari did say to this person he was with, 'You might be under surveillance, so what I advise you to do to avoid that surveillance is leave your phone inside and let's walk outside and have a conversation.' Senator Carr says that's no breach of security. Is that what Senator Dastyari, a senior member of this parliament, would tell anyone about how to avoid what he thinks might be surveillance by the intelligence agencies?
Senator Carr completed his defence of Senator Dastyari by calling the allegations against Senator Dastyari 'petty little games'. That's Senator Carr's description of this. 'Hey, mate, you're under surveillance by the Australian intelligence agencies'—no doubt for good cause, if this is true—'so I'll tell you how to avoid the surveillance: leave your phone here; let's go outside under the trees, way away from everyone. Then we can have a conversation that you know won't be heard by anyone else.' What was that conversation about? Why did it have to be in a place where, according to Senator Dastyari in his great knowledge of security matters, no-one could hear? What was being said that was so secret that it had to be done outside?
I had hoped that today, when Senator Dastyari was given the opportunity, he might have said, 'Well, perhaps I shouldn't have told him to leave his phone there. The conversation wasn't terribly important. It was about XYZ.' But he didn't take that opportunity. One can only surmise what that conversation might have been about. We know, from Senator Dastyari's own admissions, that he had personally accepted money from a Chinese businessman, not for the ALP—although he does that too, and I will get to that—but for his own personal bills; they were paid for by a Chinese benefactor. It doesn't matter whether he is Chinese, but he is a benefactor paying the personal bills of a well-paid parliamentarian.
We know that Senator Dastyari was the general secretary of the Labor Party at the time of the Craig Emerson scandal. We know how the Labor Party, which Senator Dastyari was general secretary of, stood by Craig Emerson for days and weeks and months, even years, defending him—
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Sullivan ): Senator Farrell, on a point of order.
Senator Farrell: I think Senator Macdonald is badly misrepresenting Craig Emerson. I think he's talking about somebody else and I think he ought to withdraw any reference to former member Emerson.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Macdonald, if there is a correction to be made, you should make that.
Senator IAN MACDONALD: It wasn't an accusation. I thank the senator for pointing out my error. I certainly didn't mean Craig Emerson. I meant Craig Thomson. Anyone listening would know who I was referring to—the New South Wales member, who I think is now serving time in jail, who lied to the Australian people and to this parliament and said that he was guilty of no misdoings. The Labor Party, which Senator Dastyari was then running, funded him. We know that the Labor Party in New South Wales were broke at the time, but they were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal costs to defend Craig Thomson. There were media reports at the time: 'Where is this money for Craig Thomson's defence coming from?' There were suggestions at the time that it was from Chinese interests. I don't make those allegations, but there were newspaper reports suggesting that.
We heard Senator Carr's defence of Senator Dastyari—nothing about Senator Dastyari, everything about everything else. Senator Wong's defence was equally obtuse and irrelevant. She spoke about the South China Sea policy of the Australian Labor Party. She spoke about a banking royal commission. In a long debate, she spoke in defence of Senator Dastyari—not about what he might or might not have done but about the definition of a senior parliamentarian in the leadership group of the Labor Party. That was her defence of Senator Dastyari—not to mention the accusations made by the Fairfax press but to have this obtuse, arcane debate on what a senior member of the Labor Party frontbench might look at.
I often think of my old mate Graham Richardson's book, Whatever it Takes. I was in the chamber when Graham Richardson was here, but he left rather suddenly. There was talk about Offset Alpine—I don't know what that was all about. Graham Richardson was the general secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party. So was a guy named Senator Arbib. Remember him? He was here for six or nine months, was appointed a minister, then suddenly left. He was the general secretary of the Labor Party in New South Wales. Then we have Senator Dastyari, who, straight from being the general secretary of the Labor Party, came here. I must reread Graham Richardson's book Whatever it Takes. The title of the book tells you all you need to know about the culture of the Labor Party in Sussex Street: whatever it takes to be in power is okay. Former Senator Richardson's words always ring in my ears when I hear of some of the works of people like Senator Dastyari. My namesake, Ian Macdonald, a former Labor Party member of the New South Wales parliament, was accused and convicted of criminal wrongdoing during the time that Senator Dastyari was in charge of the Labor Party in New South Wales. We've all heard of Eddie Obeid, also a Labor Party politician in New South Wales, who is currently serving time for dishonesty and corrupt practices in New South Wales. All of this was during the time that Senator Dastyari was in charge of the New South Wales Labor Party.
Senator Dastyari had a great opportunity to tell us his side of the story, but he didn't. Senator Wong had the opportunity of defending him, but she didn't. Senator Carr had the opportunity of defending him, but he didn't. Senator Dastyari used the coward's defence of bringing his children into it and trying to garner some sympathy, but everybody knows that Senator Dastyari puts on social media videos with him and his children talking about political matters like banking royal commissions. And he comes in here with crocodile tears about involving his children in political matters when he does it himself. I think this shows the depth of despair within the Labor Party.
Senator Brandis made an excellent point. There are seven or eight senators who have been forced to leave this parliament through no fault of their own, no misdoing whatsoever. Yet, here we have a senator who, by all accounts, has done something heinous as far as Australian society is concerned, and he won't resign.
Senator PATRICK (South Australia) (11:06): This is not my first speech. National security is a matter that NXT takes very seriously. Indeed, it's a matter of paramount importance—for me, in particular, noting my defence background. Before I speak in relation to Senator Dastyari, I want to clear the air on a matter that relates to me such that other senators can see that I stand on very solid ground when I say what I say. Back in 2013, I received a disc from a foreign national that included data that described in great detail the combat system on India's new Scorpene submarines. At that time, I did the responsible thing. I had a security clearance. I had the opportunity to meet with a senior naval officer inside the parliament, and I attempted to hand back that disc. There were certain conditions that I expressed in relation to handing over that disc, which the officer wasn't prepared to acquiesce to, and as such I took the disc—it was encrypted—and I put it in a locked filing cabinet.
Last year, when the DCNS won the CEP to be our partner for the Future Submarine, I became concerned. I knew that there was a security breach inside DCNS and so I, in consultation with my then boss, Senator Xenophon, went to the media. In fact, I went to Cameron Stewart of The Australian. I did so because he had a defence intelligence background. I showed him some of the material that I had in my possession. I then provided him redacted copies of some of the documents that I had in my possession. I never provided anything to The Australian newspaper that was classified. When the story broke, Senator Xenophon and I contacted the office of the Minister for Defence and made them all aware of who had the disc—that being me—and we made it very clear we were going to return that disc to Senator Payne's office at the first available opportunity, and that's exactly what we did. At no stage was classified information ever passed to anyone other than the defence minister. I will briefly also describe the motive for doing what I did. The motive was to make sure that security around our Future Submarine was not jeopardised. With that in mind, I wanted to clear the air to say that I take security extremely seriously.
I now want to talk very briefly about the matters that have been raised in the chamber this morning. The allegation that Senator Dastyari provided countersurveillance information to a foreign national is very disturbing. At the very best, it shows a lack of judgement. I'm glad Senator Wong acknowledged that there was a problem with what happened. However, I'm of the strong belief that people can and do make mistakes, but the rule is that you should only make new mistakes. There have been previous incidents with Senator Dastyari and the Chinese. They were dealt with, in my view appropriately, by Mr Shorten. This is a repeat and, perhaps in some sense, more serious. To Mr Shorten, and perhaps to the Labor Party: Lieutenant General Morrison once said, 'The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.' This is a very serious matter, and I respectfully suggest that a temporary suspension on a second incident is probably not enough.
Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (11:11): I rise to speak on the motion to take note of Senator Dastyari's statement. There have been a number of speakers from the government, One Nation and, now, the Nick Xenophon Team. I thank all those people for their contributions, but I think a number of things need to be said about this matter.
The first point I'd like to make is that the opposition has been arguing, for more than 12 months now, that this whole issue of foreign influence and foreign donations needs to be dealt with by this parliament. In order to facilitate that debate, my predecessor in this role, Senator Conroy—and this morning we've heard Senator Brandis speak glowingly of the position that Senator Conroy took in respect of foreign policy—when he was the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, came forward with a way of dealing with the issue of foreign influence and foreign donations in this country. He proposed, more than 12 months ago, a piece of legislation which would—had it passed this parliament—have dealt with many of the issues that we've been talking about today.
I'd like to refer to some of the things that are in that legislation. One of them is to reduce the donation disclosure limit from the amount that the government has set for it, of $13,500, to $1,000. The government has routinely resisted this. Under the former Labor governments, the figure had been more than $10,000. It was Prime Minister Howard who reduced it from $10,000 to $1,500. Significantly, the bill that I introduced and that is before the parliament would prohibit foreign donations from occurring. The Labor Party believes that we need to deal with this issue and we need to deal with it promptly.
I appreciate that there have been some changes on the other side in terms of the area of Special Minister of State, but, for now more than nine months, we have heard that the government is on the cusp of bringing forward a piece of legislation, and it hasn't appeared anywhere. The Prime Minister routinely issues a press statement saying: 'We've got a piece of legislation and we're about to introduce it into the parliament.' Attorney-General Brandis keeps saying: 'Yes, we've got a piece of legislation and we're going to introduce it into the parliament.' The suggestion was that this legislation was going to be introduced in the spring session of the parliament. Well, it's nowhere to be seen. Of course, as we know, Prime Minister Turnbull is so frightened of his own shadow he didn't even call the lower house of parliament this week, so there was no prospect whatsoever of any legislation from the government on this issue.
This morning we've seen Senator Dastyari rise in this place and indicate that he is standing down from his position as Deputy Opposition Whip in this place, and he's done so as a result of the issues that have been raised in the press over the last couple of days. I'd like to contrast Senator Dastyari's actions this morning with the actions of the government whenever it's confronted with actions which might be considered to be worthy of resignation. Can I go back to the events of a couple of weeks ago, when we saw that the offices of the Australian Workers' Union had been raided by the Australian Federal Police. Prime Minister Turnbull and Minister Cash made a big song and dance about all of this. But what did we discover on the ensuing day? We discovered that, after this raid had been authorised, somebody had leaked to the Australian media that the raid was about to occur. We didn't know who it was, but there was speculation. In fact, Prime Minister Turnbull called Senator Cash and her media adviser, Mr De Garis, to his office and said, 'This leak that enabled the media to get to the offices of the Australian Workers' Union even before the Federal Police had arrived—is there any chance it came from your office?' Senator Cash emphatically denied that it could've come from her office, and Mr De Garis also denied that it could've come from Senator Cash's office.
Senator Bernardi: What's this got to do with Senator Dastyari?
Senator FARRELL: Thank you for that interjection, Senator Bernardi. This has got a lot to do with Senator Dastyari. I'm going to contrast the behaviour of Senator Dastyari this morning, who resigned his position as deputy whip in this place, with that of Senator Cash. What we discovered was that she went before a Senate committee and not once, not twice, not three times, not four times but five times denied that her office had been the source of this leak to the media. Leaking details of an AFP raid is quite an inappropriate thing to do, and on five occasions Senator Cash denied that she had ever done this. But it turns out that, despite her and her staffer, Mr De Garis, denying it in the presence of the Prime Minister, in fact, her office had leaked this information. So we had a minister of the crown admitting that her office leaked information about a so-called important police raid to the media that enabled the media to tip off the organisation that was being raided, the Australian Workers' Union. In fact, the media turned up there, as I understand it, before the police arrived and had to ring their source just to confirm that there was, in fact, going to be a raid.
I'd ask you to consider the subsequent behaviour of Senator Cash, Mr Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan, because I'm sure you were concerned about that. She's responsible for her office. It's become very clear that on five separate occasions she's misled the parliament as to her actions and behaviour. What did she do? Did she come into this place and say: 'I'm taking responsibility under the Westminster system for my office. I've misled the parliament about this matter. It is my duty and my obligation to resign my ministry'? Is that what Senator Cash did? Did she follow the behaviour of Senator Dastyari this morning?
Senator Bernardi: Oh, please!
Senator FARRELL: Senator Bernardi, let me make it very clear to you what happened. A police investigation was damaged and embarrassed as a result of the behaviour of people in Senator Cash's office. What did she do? Did she do the honourable thing, as Senator Dastyari has done this morning? Did she follow that precedent? Did she follow the traditional precedent of the Westminster system where ministers take responsibility for their actions and those of their staff? No, she didn't do that at all. She dug in. She refused to take responsibility for her actions. I ask you to contrast that with Senator Dastyari and whether—
Senator Bernardi: You're lost for words. I understand.
Senator FARRELL: No, I'm not lost for words, Senator Bernardi. Did Minister Cash follow the actions of Senator Dastyari? No. She dug in. Then for not one day, not one week, not one month but more than 40 days Senator Cash refused to turn up before the committee investigating this matter so that they could ask her further questions about what she did and about what people in her office did. Senator Dastyari didn't wait 40 days. He was in here first thing today, and he has resigned his position. So let's not take lectures from this government about proper behaviour. Senator Dastyari resigned; Senator Cash continues.
This is not the only example of—let's call it what it is—bad behaviour. What happened to Senator Fifield? Senator Fifield was apparently advised, although he's not exactly sure when, by the former occupant of the seat that you are now sitting in, Mr Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan, that he thought he had a problem with his citizenship. What did Senator Fifield do? Did he go and speak to the Prime Minister and say: 'Look, Prime Minister, I think we've got a problem. Another one of our members—in fact, the President of the Senate—may be in breach of section 44 of the Constitution and be ineligible to sit in this place'?
Did Senator Fifield do that? No. He sat on that information. He didn't disclose it—so he said—to his Prime Minister. Apparently, he didn't disclose it to the Attorney-General.
The Attorney-General, at that point, was conducting a case in the High Court on this very issue where he'd received some advice from his Solicitor-General, apparently—we don't know this for sure, because we haven't seen this advice—that all of the members of the government on the issue of citizenship were in the clear. Senator Fifield didn't tell the Prime Minister. He didn't tell the Attorney-General and, based on some evidence he gave to a committee the other night, he didn't tell any of his other ministers.
So we have a situation in which the President of the Senate has done absolutely the right thing. He's gone to the Manager of Government Business and said, 'Look, I think I've got a problem.' What's he told by Minister Fifield? We don't know for sure—I have to admit that—but the other side are very happy to rely on newspaper reports when it suits them. The reports that I saw, SBS and Michelle Grattan, made it very clear that what Senator Parry had said, had confided, to Minister Fifield—we at least know he spoke to one minister because he's admitted it—was that he believed he had a problem with his citizenship and he was following it up. Now what did Minister Fifield say when he found out this information? It's a good question. We don't exactly know. But if you believe the reports by SBS and journalist Michelle Grattan, he was told: 'Keep quiet. Don't say anything. Keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut.' When this became public, did Senator Fifield say, 'Okay, I've tried to cover up a breach of section 44. I'm going to do the honourable thing in accordance with the Westminster system and resign my commission'? Did he do that? No, he didn't do that.
Again, I ask you to contrast him with Senator Dastyari. There are a couple of newspaper reports. What does Senator Dastyari do? He does the honourable thing. He comes into this place at the first opportunity and he resigns as deputy whip of the opposition. I don't think there could be any greater hypocrisy on the part of this government—
Senator Bernardi interjecting—
Senator FARRELL: I know you're laughing, Senator Bernardi; I'd laugh at them too. I know you were wise enough, Senator Bernardi, to leave that group. However, the rank hypocrisy of members of the other side, members of the government, getting up and criticising the Labor Party is breathtaking—I don't think there's any other word that I could use. When confronted with issues, the Labor Party does the right thing. When confronted with issues, invariably, on every occasion, members of the government do absolutely the wrong thing.
Senator BIRMINGHAM (South Australia—Minister for Education and Training) (11:29): As we move towards the latter stages of this debate on the motion to take note of Senator Dastyari's statement, I think it is important, having heard Senator Farrell, Senator Carr and Senator Wong seek to speak about anything but Senator Dastyari's behaviour, that this chamber comes back to Senator Dastyari's behaviour. Senator Farrell just gave a long list of the usual political argy-bargy that we hear in this building. But there is nothing usual about what Senator Dastyari is alleged to have done. There is nothing usual about Senator Dastyari's behaviour. In fact, it is quite extraordinary, nigh on unprecedented, for a senator in this place to stand accused of seeking to subvert the operations of Australian intelligence agencies, such that that senator can then conduct secret conversations with foreign nationals. That is what Senator Dastyari stands accused of doing, and he has not denied these allegations. These allegations were made by Fairfax Media yesterday that Senator Dastyari, in a secret meeting with a foreign national, said: 'I believe your phone may be being bugged. I believe this meeting place may be being bugged. You may be being tapped by Australian intelligence agencies. I suggest that you leave your phone here and that we step outside to another location to have this meeting.'
It is decades since an Australian parliamentarian has faced allegations of this type of severity in any way, shape or form like the ones that Senator Dastyari faces right now, and he has not denied those allegations. Mr Shorten has not denied those allegations. It is very clear that, if that is true, if that is what Senator Dastyari did, then simply resigning as the Deputy Opposition Whip is a woefully inadequate response by Senator Dastyari—and a woefully inadequate response by Mr Shorten in terms of upholding the standards of this parliament and upholding the standards of the Labor Party and the credibility of the party that seeks to be the alternative government of Australia.
How could we have any confidence in the Australian Labor Party to act in Australia's national interests, when senior, influential serving members of the Australian Labor Party's parliamentary caucus decide that they can undertake, on their own basis, activities that, frankly, they should not have, that were clearly a subversion, or an attempt to subvert the activities, it seems, of Australia's intelligence agencies?
The quick point that I just want to emphasise, which Senator Brandis made in his statements in a very compelling way, is that over the last few months we have seen former Senators Ludlam, Waters, Nash, Roberts, Parry and Kakoschke-Moore all leave this place because, technically, they were in breach of the Australian Constitution and the provisions of the Constitution that relate to whether or not you are under the influence of a foreign power. They upped and left. Nobody ever made any allegation against any one of those former senators that they were actually under the influence of any foreign power. But Senator Dastyari stands accused of conspiring with a foreign citizen, a foreign national, in a way where he sought to actively subvert the operations of Australian intelligence services. These are serious allegations.
I see there are now further allegations about what Mr Shorten knew and when, and whether Mr Shorten, indeed, through any back channels, may have passed information on to Senator Dastyari. Mr Shorten clearly has very serious questions himself to answer, but, first and foremost, he should show the standard that this parliament expects, which is that Senator Dastyari—like the senators who have done the right thing on a technicality and have left this chamber—stands accused of actually conspiring in such a way that he ought to leave the building.
Question agreed to.
PARTY OFFICE HOLDERS
Nick Xenophon Team
Senator GRIFF (South Australia) (11:34): by leave—I wish to advise the Senate that, following the resignation of my colleague Senator Kakoschke-Moore, I will be acting as the whip for the Nick Xenophon Team.
DOCUMENTS
Tabling
The Clerk: Documents are tabled pursuant to statute. Details will be recorded in the Journals of the Senate and on the Dynamic Red.
Details of the documents also appear at the end of today ' s Hansard.
BILLS
Nuclear Fuel Cycle (Facilitation) Bill 2017
Second Reading
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (11:35): It gives me great pleasure to stand here today to correct what I consider to be an egregious wrong. It was an act of economic vandalism, and many would argue—I'm not one of them—if you accept the anthropogenic climate change arguments, an act of environmental self-harm perpetuated on the Australian people, with the principal architects being the Australian Greens, of course. What's more, when you consider a zero-emissions scenario that a nuclear industry, particularly a nuclear power industry, would bring to this country, this wrong is the second own goal that the Greens have kicked in the environmental space.
They pretend that the environment is their thing, but it's not. It's actually economic vandalism. That's their thing. They kicked their own environmental goal when they refused to endorse Mr Rudd's emissions trading scheme. But the most telling argument is that 19 years ago they dogmatically insisted that there be a prohibition on even the investigation, on even entertaining the thought, if I can put it like that, of nuclear power in this country. That has compromised our ability to achieve some of their other goals in limiting carbon dioxide. More importantly, it has put Australia behind the rest of the world when it comes to reliable, sustainable, power generation to fuel economic growth and sustain prosperity. Instead, it has foisted upon us this utopian ideal that wind and solar power is going to be able to generate our power needs in this country.
I ask you, if you love the Greens' ideology and you think that climate change can be mitigated through diminishing carbon dioxide, to just imagine for a moment how the landscape in Australia would be different if we were allowed to have nuclear power. We would have zero emissions power in this country. We would have reliable, constant and affordable power in this country, instead of intermittent, unreliable, expensive power, driven by the ideology that has prevented us from pursuing a nuclear industry. So we're burdened with this, and I think it's time that this parliament remove the prohibition on even entertaining the thought of a nuclear industry for Australia. I say that not because repealing these two modest prohibitions is going to deliver a nuclear outcome—nothing could be further from the truth. But surely nuclear power in this country should be able to be assessed on its potential environmental impacts, on its potential economic impacts and on its potential to deliver reliable baseload power for Australia. Regrettably, other parties have been complicit in this. I think it's time for us to revisit it after 19 years.
I look at my own state of South Australia. It was the late state MLC Norm Foster who, by crossing the floor to enable the development of the Roxby Downs mine, effectively repealed a ban on uranium mining in South Australia. Aren't we fortunate for that, because many thousands of jobs have been created and many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of economic activity has been generated, and all thanks to the strength of one individual doing that. It's very disappointing, of course, that federal Labor hasn't followed suit, but I do want to acknowledge the contribution of the Premier of South Australia, Jay Weatherill, who was at least prepared to investigate a nuclear industry for South Australia. He knew then, as he does now, that, in order to allow that to progress, he needed bipartisan support. Originally that was forthcoming, but then, of course, those with hearts the size of peas decided that it was a bit politically contentious and pulled support from it, which resulted in the Premier of South Australia having to walk away as well. What is proposed in this bill would mean that there would be no federal prohibition on a nuclear industry in this country. It would still have to go through environmental approvals. It would still have to be approved by the respective ministers. It would still need, from a political sense, community support or engagement. But we need to be able to have that conversation.
For the uninitiated, I'm a supporter of what I call the nuclear fuel cycle. It is a multistep process. It involves the exploration, mining and milling of uranium. It enables further processing such as the enrichment and fuel fabrication of uranium. It allows electricity generation via a nuclear power plant. It provides for the option of reprocessing a mixed-oxide fuel fabrication to create even more electricity. Ultimately, we will have to confront the great elephant in the room, which is the management, storage and disposal of spent fuel in repositories, just as we have had to confront the requirements for medical nuclear waste—low- to medium-level nuclear waste—that needs to be stored. But, rather than looking at this as something that we want to shunt under the stairs and hide away in the cellar, we should be embracing it and looking at the potential economic opportunities that would open up as a result of it, and I'll come to this a bit later on.
This nuclear fuel cycle doesn't even mention the associated research, the development, and the education and skills training that come with a fully functioning nuclear fuel cycle. Let me begin by touching on the mining aspect for a moment. It's been estimated that the mass of minerals required per terawatt hour for the generation of electricity is something along these lines: if you want a solar photovoltaic cell, it requires about 16,000 tonnes of minerals, effectively, to generate a terawatt hour; if you want hydro, it's about 14,000 tonnes; if you want wind, it's about 10,000 tonnes; geothermal is about 5,000 tonnes—and nuclear? Nuclear requires less than 1,000 tonnes, or mass of mineral tonnage, per terawatt hour. So, even those who are in the anti-mining space, even those who are saying they don't want the Adani mine for whatever reasons, even those who are hopping up and down about digging things up, have to acknowledge that if they don't like mining then mining a thousand tonnes of material to generate a terawatt hour of electricity is better than 16,000 tonnes, which is what is required if you want to go down the solar path.
Importantly, speaking as a South Australian senator, South Australia has a world-leading abundance of uranium. It would last, for our power generation, almost in perpetuity, if necessary. As I said, a thousand tonnes of minerals would generate a terawatt hour. In essence, if I can put it visually, uranium the size of a sack of potatoes could fuel our energy needs for a year. That's extraordinary—a sack of potatoes! You'd be familiar with that, of course, Acting Deputy President Williams. Uranium the size of a sack of potatoes could fuel our energy needs for a year. That is extraordinary. When you think that South Australia is effectively the world's superpower on uranium resources, with 25 per cent of the world's economically viable uranium resources, this is a potential bonanza for the state of South Australia. Let's compare that with some of the other leading uranium sources in the world. Kazakhstan has about 12 per cent—so South Australia alone has twice what Kazakhstan does—Russia has about nine per cent and Canada has about eight per cent. That puts in perspective just how massive this economic opportunity, this resource opportunity, is for the state of South Australia.
And let's not forget history. What fuelled the Industrial Revolution and pioneered so much was the abundance of easily available coal in the United Kingdom and its proximity to the surface, where it could be mined and used for industry. Yet here we have, abundant in one of our states which is most economically challenged, one of the cleanest, greenest, largest sources of fuel that is environmentally friendly because it requires less movement of tonnage of resources to generate the electricity requirements that we have, and we're not even allowed to entertain the thought, because of some federal legislation.
I'm reflecting on this, and there are many in this chamber who lament the economic state of South Australia. I do; I think it could be better and I think it needs to be better. But there are others who are unkind and refer to it as a mendicant state or refer to us as a drain on the economic nation. I disagree with that; I think we contribute an enormous amount, and that's very important. But imagine the contribution South Australia could make to the national economy if we opened up that 25 per cent of the world's useable or mineable uranium resources, invested in a nuclear fuel industry in this country and embraced the nuclear cycle. We are blessed with a geologically stable continent—South Australia very much so. We have large expanses of land which would be suitable for it. It would prove to be an economic bonanza for our country, and we shouldn't close our minds to it.
I made a point earlier about the Premier of South Australia, Mr Weatherill, who did launch a royal commission to investigate the potential of the nuclear fuel cycle in South Australia. It was established in May 2015. It had over 250 submissions and it reported a year later. The critical finding was that South Australia could safely increase its participation in nuclear industries and was capable of managing the attendant risks. The report and the publicity surrounding it centred on the immediate economic opportunities, which promised to potentially generate $100 billion in excess of expenditure over the life of its operation. If the accumulating profits went into a state wealth fund, for example, and annually reinvested half the interest generated, a $445 billion fund could be generated over the next 70 years. That potentially would secure South Australia's economic prosperity for centuries to come if it were well managed.
The difficulty is that the Premier of South Australia walked away because the opposition leader, Mr Marshall, chickened out and ran away from it. This is a perfect illustration of the major parties not being prepared to tackle issues such as this because they have some potential for political ramifications. Rather than do what's in the national interest or the economic interest, sometimes they choose to do what's in their political interest. It's disappointing, but I commend the South Australian government for at least being brave enough to have the discussion and open it up. We now need to have that discussion and open it up by amending federal legislation.
The Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission report said that installed nuclear capacity is actually going to grow from 380 gigawatts to 450 by 2030. So it's going up by 70 gigawatts internationally. To put that into context, the Australian National Energy Market's generation capacity has never been higher than 48 gigawatts. So, in effect, the increase in nuclear generation globally will be Australia's national generation capacity plus 50 per cent, and Australia is denying itself this opportunity. It's the equivalent of nine Australian energy grids in global nuclear capacity being functional by 2030. We'll be building windmills and tipping in $60 billion worth of subsidies in wind and solar to have a fraction of the results that will be being delivered around the rest of the world. Until 2030 is about how long it would take to get a nuclear fuel cycle up and running in Australia. But, I hasten to add, the evidence from China, India, South Korea, Japan, Russia, Argentina, Iran, Pakistan and Romania shows that it would take about 9½ years to get a nuclear power plant up and running. It could be done within six years, but let's just err on the side of caution and say that, if we got on with it next year, we could almost certainly have operational power plants by the middle of the next decade.
As can be inferred from the list of the countries that I just mentioned, Australia would not be a global pariah in exploring nuclear power. In fact, we would be embracing what the rest of the world is embracing. There are 447 nuclear reactors currently operating, in 30 countries worldwide. A further 511 of them are under construction, planned or proposed. Not one of the future total 958 nuclear power stations worldwide will be based in Australia. Doesn't that say a lot about the myopic vision of the future we have for our country, unless we support this legislation? Eleven per cent of the world's energy is sourced from nuclear—three times more than solar, wind or geothermal. Indeed, of the countries with the highest electricity consumption, the top 11 all use nuclear energy. Australia sits at 19th, possibly because we don't have reliable electricity or possibly because our manufacturing industry is deserting us because our electricity is too expensive. If you want prosperity, you need reliable, efficient and inexpensive baseload power. That is the challenge. Nuclear delivers that, and we're closing our mind to it. Look at France, for example. A large-scale nuclear energy user, it has power prices that are about 17 per cent lower than the EU average.
The royal commission stated, 'It would be wise to facilitate a technology neutral policy for Australia’s future electricity generation mix.' I agree. To make a range of technologies available, action is required now. In the case of nuclear power, these actions include amending existing legislation; setting key policies to send relevant signals for private sector investment; developing electricity market infrastructure; and developing a new regulatory framework that addresses key principles of nonproliferation, safety and security in the use of nuclear energy. If such preparatory steps are deferred, nuclear power would continue to be precluded as an option, meaning that it would always be an option on the horizon.
We can't afford to put it out onto the horizon. We often hear senators in here talk about jobs—about creating jobs, saving jobs. 'Jobs, jobs, jobs,' is the mantra. But, if you compare us with Canada, for example, which has nuclear energy, we have 3,000 uranium and nuclear related jobs in this country; Canada has 60,000 jobs—60,000 jobs in the very industry that could sustain Australia's energy and generate enormous prosperity for this country. Our industry has a value of approximately $600 million. Canada has a value of Can$5 billion. So this bill is about helping Australia and about helping my home state of South Australia to develop a nuclear fuel cycle, to get about signalling to the world that we are a 'yes' nation, not just on social issues but on economic issues. Let's be a 'yes' vote to economic opportunities for our children—and our grandchildren too. Let's say yes to lowering emissions, if that's your thing. Let's say yes to repealing archaic, narrow-minded bans, if that's your thing. Let's say yes to affordable, reliable energy. Let's say yes to Australia becoming to uranium and nuclear what Saudi Arabia has been to oil: a mineral supply that is the envy of the rest of the world. Let's say yes to investment in new technologies, yes to leading-edge research and improvements on the technology and yes to limitless energy so that we can have high-energy manufacturing and extractive industries to develop lifetime and multigenerational prosperity.
I encourage the Senate to see this as being a yes—to say, 'Yes, this is a can-do nation, not a nimby nation, not a nation that says, "We'll sell you the resources that we have so you can value-add," and cannibalise Australia's future prosperity.' Let's say, 'Yes, we can do it here.' We are being left behind due to crazy, illogical ideology that emanated from this place 19 years ago. We need to fix it. That's why I say there is a better way. We can start that better way by supporting this legislation, repealing the ban on nuclear energy and repealing the ban on a nuclear fuel cycle in this country that promises to deliver so much and make South Australia, and our nation, an energy superpower. Australia deserves nothing less.
Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (11:54): I thank Senator Bernardi for raising this matter for discussion today. It's certainly a debate that needs to be had. Perhaps Senator Bernardi has been following the urgings of Josh Frydenberg, the Minister for the Environment and Energy, who said that a national debate on domestic nuclear power is needed and essential. I have to say Senator Bernardi has just presented a very persuasive argument on why his bill should be passed, and, having listened intently to Senator Bernardi's speech, I can't say I disagree with anything he said.
The Nuclear Fuel Cycle (Facilitation) Bill 2017, which Senator Bernardi has introduced, aims to remove the prohibitions on nuclear facilities contained in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act. It should be clear that the removal of the prohibitions in itself wouldn't automatically allow for the construction and operation of nuclear facilities. The bill seeks to remove the automatic bans in the EPBC and the ARPANS acts which prevent the minister, or others, from approving certain nuclear activities. Under Senator Bernardi's bill, the environment minister would still have to consider applications to establish facilities under the EPBC Act, and the foreign minister would retain the power to decide whether or not to issue a permit for a proposed facility under the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act.
Minister Frydenberg, on behalf of the government, has welcomed and encouraged a national debate on domestic nuclear power. Typically, the Labor Party, in their usual negative way, and in responding to threats from the Greens political party, who keep them where they are in the political spectrum, have said, 'Nuclear power is not a viable option for Australia.' Labor's spokesman, the Hon. Mark Butler, MP, said that. It is typical Labor negativity—they are not arguing against it through any great enthusiasm but simply because the Greens don't want it. The Labor Party are where they are in this parliament because of the Greens political party and their preferences. Certainly in my home state of Queensland, without Greens preferences the Labor Party would not be in power. The one thing that attracts the Labor Party more than anything else is power. They are not terribly interested in good governance, but they are interested in power for the party and for the union officials who, really, run the Labor Party and who effectively run governments where the Labor Party are in power.
As an aside, whilst the Greens political party preferences keep Labor in power in Queensland so too do preferences from the One Nation Party. Without preferences from One Nation to Labor candidates in many electorates in Queensland, the Labor Party would have no chance of forming government in Queensland. So, as an aside—not at all related to this bill—I hope the Labor Party in this chamber will cease its relentless attacks on Senator Hanson, which I tire of a bit, I have to say, because effectively Senator Hanson and her party have put the Labor Party into power in Queensland again. That was done inadvertently, I'm sure, but nevertheless that's what they've done, and it's to be regretted. The Greens, on the other hand, don't do it inadvertently; they do it very, very deliberately. They pretend they are opposed to the Labor Party on some things, but, in effect, they will always put the Labor Party into power where they can, because they know that the Labor Party are an easy target for their ideological stupidity, which they exercise on this and on many, many other issues.
It always amuses me, when we talk about uranium and nuclear power, that the Greens don't want carbon emissions, don't want coal-fired power stations and don't like hydro. They want to save the world, and there's one way to give reliable, cheap, plentiful energy without any carbon emissions at all, and that's through nuclear power—but do the Greens want that? No. My view of the Greens—and this is a long-held view from the times I was forestry minister—is that they just want to destroy Australia's economy in whichever way they can. I'm not quite sure what their ultimate aim is, but they are hell-bent on destroying the Australian economy and the jobs of Australian workers. Yet, they still seem to attract some—I might say ever-diminishing—political support, mainly from those in the capital cities whose jobs are always secure because they usually work for the governments and get a pay cheque at the end of the month. They're the people who can be holier than thou and sidle up with the Greens with some of their ridiculous policies on many things, including power and electricity prices in Australia.
The Labor Party show complete hypocrisy on uranium as well as their subservience to Greens' pressures. Remember that they had the three-mines policy: uranium from some mines was good uranium, but if it came from more than three mines it was bad uranium. Tell me the common sense, the justification behind such a ridiculous policy. I'm not sure if the three-mines policy is still a Labor Party policy—perhaps some Labor contributor to this debate could alert me to that—but certainly in the time I've been in this chamber that was the thing: uranium from three mines was good uranium but uranium from other mines was bad uranium, and so you couldn't have it.
I know he won't mind me saying this, but a former Labor energy minister in my home state of Queensland was the mines minister and energy minister in one of many Labor governments—the too many Queensland Labor governments—totally opposed to nuclear power, but, when he left the state parliament and went back to his home town of Mount Isa, he became mayor of Mount Isa and, on the way through, became an advocate, a lobbyist for the uranium industry. I don't criticise him for that. I agree that it was not only a job but also something that I think he personally firmly believed in—yet he was the one that oversaw 'no nuclear' when he was the minister in the Queensland government. In private conversations—well, I shouldn't repeat them if they're private conversations, should I? But I think he would tell everyone that he never thought it was such a very good policy, but that was the way of the ALP: you do what they say or you're out on your ear. Now, in his more independent stance, he acknowledges that nuclear power is good. It can be cheap in the long run and it can provide Australia with unlimited clean energy. He's no longer the mayor, but the council area he was mayor of—Mount Isa City Council—is the biggest city in Australia, I might say, because it goes far beyond the town of Mount Isa. There is a lot of uranium in that area that could be extracted very easily. In fact, in Queensland, generally, there is a great deal of easily obtainable uranium that could be used.
Senators will know that Australia is already the third-largest producer of uranium, and the Turnbull government supports the sustainable development and responsible use of this important energy service and source. But, as Senator Bernardi very articulately said, we find it okay to export Australia's uranium to other countries who then use it to produce cheap power but we don't allow it in our own country. Senator Bernardi's bill seeks to address some of the impediments to allowing nuclear power in Australia.
I make it clear that the government has no plans currently to introduce nuclear power into Australia, but we do acknowledge that nuclear energy is a proven technology. It can deliver baseload electricity with very, very low or no carbon emissions. We also acknowledge nuclear is an important energy source for many countries around the world. In fact, most of Europe used to rely on nuclear energy, and then we had that scare in Japan with a nuclear power plant that was old and not very well constructed, I'm told. Suddenly some nations pulled out of nuclear power; it's always amused me. Germany—which I've always admired, post war, in their energy and the way they were dedicated to improving their economy—used to have nuclear power and, for some reason that I've never been able to understand, following the Fukushima incident in Japan they shut down their nuclear power stations. They then had to buy all their electricity from France, which, of course, produces its power by nuclear energy.
I remember at one stage going and having a look at a tidal power plant in France many years ago and being shown around by EDF, Electricite de France, who ran the plant. I said, 'Gee, this tidal wave power is impressive. It must be good. It must be efficient and save you some money.' The official said to me, 'Actually, it doesn't save us anything. It's very expensive to run. It doesn't produce much electricity, but we keep it going because it looks good to the world. We get all our power from nuclear.' That's a pretty telling conversation. It encapsulates some of the arguments that you hear in this chamber and elsewhere opposing nuclear energy.
There are other forms of energy, but they're very, very expensive. There is one energy of course that's not expensive, and that's coal. I'm still hopeful that the Adani coalmine in Queensland will proceed with the railway line that will create so many jobs that are desperately needed in central and north Queensland. I'm hopeful that at some time in the future—clearly, not under the current Labor government—there will be a coal-fired power station in Collinsville, as promised by the LNP in the state election, that will provide cheap, affordable but certain baseload power in the north which we lack at the present time.
As I've said before, there are emissions from coal—I acknowledge that—but the emissions from Queensland coal are lower than from coal elsewhere around the world. If we don't export our coal around the world, those who need coal will buy it from other sources that don't have the same coal as Australia—high-quality, cleaner coal—and the emissions will continue. There'll just be more of them and come from a different place.
We have this ridiculous opposition by the Greens political party—and, it appears, the Australian Labor Party these days—who don't want cheap power from the plentiful supplies of high-quality coal that we have in Queensland. I very much regret that, in the electorate of Burdekin—which is where I live and, under a redistribution, goes down into Collinsville, Moranbah and into the areas where this mine and railway line would be also encapsulates Bowen where the Abbot Point port is—the sitting member, who's one of my party, is struggling to hold that seat even though the coal-fired power station would have been there and there would have been lots of jobs for workers, miners and railway people. Yet, One Nation, regrettably, in that seat gave their preferences to the Labor Party, and the Labor Party have indicated that they're not interested in a coal-fired power station, not really interested in coalmines and don't want Adani. So all those coalminers who voted for Labor or One Nation are effectively putting themselves out of a job and condemning their fellow Australians and their fellow Queenslanders to higher electricity prices under a continuing Labor government.
Senator Bernardi's bill, which aims at removing the blanket Commonwealth prohibition on nuclear power, is a welcome addition to debate in this chamber, but any decision to establish a nuclear power plant would, given the way the Australian political system works at the moment, require bipartisan support and community acceptance. I would imagine that community acceptance could be garnered if the debate were truthful, but you will have the Greens political party and those on the left of the Labor Party coming out with horror stories about what nuclear may or may not do, often forgetting that in Australia, whilst we don't have nuclear energy, we have over 60 years of experience with nuclear technology. In the last 60 years, we as Australians have benefitted enormously from nuclear science and technology, particularly in the production of nuclear medicines to diagnose and treat serious illnesses. I give a shout-out to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, who are a wonderful group of great Australian scientists. Unfortunately, many more that we could've had, who were leaders in that field, have had to go overseas, but those who remain with us do a wonderful job at ANSTO in helping all Australians with nuclear medicine. If you listen to the Greens, I think they're against that, but that shows their hypocrisy and inconsistency so usually they don't want to talk about those sorts of things.
I've mentioned that my own state of Queensland would benefit from greater activity in the uranium mining, export and usage area. Senator Bernardi mentioned his state of South Australia, and I might say, with not a great deal of respect, that South Australia certainly needs a hand-up somewhere, or even a handout, which is what it gets from the Commonwealth government now. I know that my colleague Senator Fawcett has very strong views on this subject, and I hope that he will be participating in the debate. I also know that my friend and former colleague Sean Edwards is a South Australian with a real vision for how nuclear energy, nuclear science and nuclear technology can change the face of what is now the mendicant state of South Australia. I wish Sean all the very best as he pursues—as I hope he's still doing—some of those very interesting and original ideas he had in relation to the storage of nuclear waste and the way to sustainably and carefully use nuclear energy in Australia.
I again thank Senator Bernardi for introducing this bill. As I said earlier, Minister Frydenberg, who is the government spokesman in this area, has welcomed a national debate. We do need informed, rational, non-ideological debate on this, and Senator Bernardi's bill is certainly a step in that direction. I thank him again for bringing this matter to the Senate for debate.
Senator MOORE (Queensland) (12:14): Senator Bernardi, unsurprisingly, has put on the agenda this issue around nuclear energy. In his contribution to this debate on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle (Facilitation) Bill 2017, he seemed to indicate that this was something that came as a huge surprise to everyone who's involved in the debate on energy in this country. I find this hard to understand, because, as we know, the issues of nuclear power and nuclear energy have been part of discussion in this space for a very long time. Indeed, there has been a wide range of debates through the community, through the scientific community and through the economic community about the advantages, disadvantages, costs and processes of a whole range of energy sources, including nuclear energy. It's as though Senator Bernardi and Senator Macdonald believe that there's been a box with a closed lid and this shall not be talked about, which is just not true.
Over the years, issues around nuclear energy have come before this place and they have been part of the wider community discussion. Through that process, a number of investigations have taken place, and, as our shadow minister, Mark Butler, has said, the simple fact is that nuclear power in Australia simply doesn't add up. The arguments do not add up now and they didn't add up in the past. Sometime in the future they may, but at this time they just don't add up. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, which is well skilled and well knowledgeable in this space, noted: 'It's difficult to envisage traditional nuclear power plants being established on the NEM given the current grid structure.'
We meet regularly here with CSIRO and we have the Friends of CSIRO group and on a number of occasions people have come here to talk about a range of energy options for our country, which is a significant discussion and one we need to have. CSIRO have noted the challenges to nuclear power in Australia, and they have been on the public record for many years. Senator Bernardi would be well aware of these, but I'm going to run through them again, because I think it's more important in this debate to talk about what's on the record about nuclear power, rather than to talk about how preferences operate in the Queensland state election. Interesting as that is, I could not see the absolute relevance to this debate.
In the CSIRO publications out there on the public record, the issues surrounding challenges to nuclear power in Australia include the legislative and regulatory framework development, including for protection, operational safety, waste storage and decommissioning. I'll go back to some of those later, but they are areas of concern that would need to be considered when debating further implementation or consideration of nuclear energy in our nation. Another area is education, science and technical skills development in this area. Amidst a range of university and developmental areas of research across Australia—a very competitive field, as you know—there has not been a focus on nuclear energy. I'm led to believe that there are no universities in Australia offering courses in nuclear engineering and that there's little nuclear engineering experience in our nation. Again, that is not to say that there should be an absolute denial; it's a statement on the reality of the knowledge base in our country at the moment.
Another concern raised by CSIRO is the commercial and economic framework to support significant up-front capital costs and eventual planned decommissioning. There has been considerable debate over the years about the various costs of different forms of energy in our nation and, consistently, the costings that have come forward about introducing a nuclear energy process in Australia have led to very significant calculations of the costs that would be involved. These costs need to be taken into account when you're looking at the various forms of energy options that we have. The expense of getting a new industry started, the expense of the technology needed and the expense of the actual infrastructure needed are very important elements for consideration. Currently, the indications we have and the data that's available to us indicate that the significant up-front capital costs are a major concern for anyone who is looking at this discussion around nuclear energy. Also, we have seen overseas—and, naturally, a lot of our experience is from overseas—that the cost of plant decommissioning has been found to be extremely expensive. Where countries have had to decommission nuclear power stations, nuclear power plants, it has caused a great deal of concern in terms of how much it costs to make them safe and also in terms of being able to continue operating in the area after they have gone through the process of closing them down.
Another major issue, if a decision were made to build a nuclear energy facility at a particular point, would be how long would it take for it to be operating on the ground, providing the kind of energy that we, as a nation, require? The CSIRO calculations say that it's a 10- to 15-year interval from the commencement to the start-up of a reactor. I know that Senator Bernardi gave other figures. I understand that it would be part of a discussion in this area, but the data that we have before us on the current knowledge that's out there from the CSIRO says that the time frame from commencement to completion and to operation is a 10- to 15-year process, and that, of course, is a very long-term plan, if we're looking at a transition to another form of energy.
There is also the issue of reactor locations. When we talk about nuclear reactors and nuclear waste facilities, a massive community discussion occurs when proposals are put up for these types of facilities. If Senator Bernardi—and I'm not trying to be too direct towards Senator Bernardi, but he has brought forward this bill—and other people as proponents of this form of energy want us to talk about it then they need to consider and clearly identify when putting forward a proposal to transition to any form of nuclear power where they would locate the infrastructure that is necessary to make such power operational. Our personal experience in Australia has been that when these things are brought out into the open—when finally, after discussions that often take place in secret, I'll say, and when finally decisions are made public as to where a nuclear reactor or a nuclear waste facility could be located—there does seem to be a reaction from the community that is not positive.
Certainly, I'm interested that Senator Bernardi has brought forward this issue, as he is a senator for South Australia. I remember the amount of community reaction it caused when a proposal was made several years ago for nuclear waste facilities to be located in the South Australian geography. The local community was not supportive of that. Then there were further discussions about possible locations in the Northern Territory. Again, the Northern Territory government and the Northern Territory communities that were involved in those discussions were very unhappy with their community areas being identified as possible locations. So, when you're looking at issues that need to be considered when you're going in this nuclear direction, you have to look at where you would actually place the infrastructure, where there would be support for that infrastructure and—from overseas experience—where it would be physically safe to have the infrastructure of the type that you would need. I do not have all the knowledge, but I have read papers about the kind of geography that is necessary for such a plant to be placed in, including access to water and access to other forms of technologies.
This leads to a very sensitive issue, which is water use. CSIRO has done a lot of work generally on the issue of water use in our community. They've used that knowledge in the discussion on what would be necessary for nuclear plants or nuclear operations. The indications that they have—and this is available on their website—is that nuclear plants use more cooling water than coal and gas plants. In terms of the sensitivities in our community and also the necessities of our climate and our access to water in Australia, that is a really important issue. Where would you be able to ensure that there were appropriate water sources, that would be safe and that would provide the support that would be necessary for the implementation of nuclear energy? The last point that they discuss at length—and this is after many, many years of community engagement—is the political and social acceptance of nuclear power, and that is not agreed and it is not clear in our community. In fact, there continues to be a wide range of opinion about the acceptance of nuclear power and that form of energy in our country.
Even if you were to overcome the community, legal and political barriers to nuclear energy, it's clear that due to the skills and other technical barriers it would take very many years, over a decade—and that's the optimistic option—for Australia to be ready to begin construction of a nuclear power plant. That also does not take into account, as I said, the real need existing in our nation, and I am very much aware of strong community opposition to nuclear power. It is important that we engage on those issues and—rather than dismissing them quite sarcastically as, I believe, Senator Macdonald did in his previous contribution—understand that there is community knowledge, understanding and frustration around the issues that are important. I know that there are other things happening in this place and I seek leave to continue my remarks later on this issue.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Gallacher ): Is leave granted?
Senator Leyonhjelm: Leave is not granted.
Senator MOORE: There does not seem to be acceptance that we end this debate.
Senator Abetz: We want to hear your pearls of wisdom!
Senator MOORE: I know, Senator Abetz, that you yearn to hear what I have to say!
As I was saying, that remains a major issue within the community in terms of any acceptance of a change to the current position that we have in the country around nuclear power. Senator Macdonald did allude to the 'issue' or 'incident'—I should have written it down—of Fukushima. His dismissal of the significant issues around what happened at Fukushima was, I think, indicative of the lack of genuine understanding of the concerns in the community around this issue. Certainly over a long period of time one of the clear issues that has been raised within the community about anything around the further development of nuclear energy in our country has been a concern around a guarantee for safety and that there not be the kind of environmental, social and serious damage that occurred as a result of a series of nuclear incidents over many years. The most recent of those was in Fukushima, but the Chernobyl situation, of which we've just passed a significant anniversary, caused immense damage all across northern Europe and into the Arctic. In parts of Europe and the UK—I know that the UK are probably not referring to themselves as part of Europe any longer—there is still monitoring being done of ongoing issues around environmental damage in that area as a result of an incident that happened well over 20 years ago.
We've had Chernobyl identified and national and international reviews of what occurred at Three Mile Island and the significant safety issues that occurred. When something goes wrong in a nuclear energy facility, the resultant impact is much more serious than we see when things go wrong with other forms of power in the power industry. Certainly no-one can ever offer a guarantee. It doesn't matter what form of energy we're talking about, there's a possibility that there can be problems and that dangerous and destructive things can occur. However, our international experience at this point in time is that the resultant impact of a disaster, if something goes wrong with nuclear power, is significantly greater than what has occurred with other forms of energy problems. That has a major impact for the community and also for security in our nation. If anyone heard the number of submissions that Senator Ludlam made on the issue of post-Fukushima Japan from his many visits there and his interactions with community, parliamentarians and scientists, they would understand that the lessons to be learned by what happened in Fukushima must continue to be part of the ongoing debate on this issue.
I know that Senator Bernardi alluded to the very significant issue of nuclear waste that continues to bedevil our community even with the nuclear processes that we have, particularly in the medical field, already in Australia. Coming to an effective, agreed process for how we should operate the increasing amount of waste has proven to be a major obstacle already in our society. I'm not sure whether Senator Bernardi has been involved in any of the discussions around this issue, but I have. I know there are other speakers, so I'll end my contribution there.
Senator LEYONHJELM (New South Wales) (12:31): Two atoms are walking down the street. The first atom says he thinks he's lost an electron. The second atom asks, 'Are you positive?' All things nuclear don't need to be scary.
Nuclear power evokes the fear of the unknown, because nuclear science is so extraordinary and because we don't have nuclear power here in Australia. But nuclear power is an unremarkable feature of energy markets around the world. Nuclear power has grown from 3.3 per cent of global electricity generation 40 years ago to 10.6 per cent now. Nuclear power is relied on in countries like South Korea and Sweden. In France, 75 per cent of electricity generation is nuclear, and countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and China are further expanding their nuclear power by developing small modular reactors which generate little waste.
Over 60 nuclear reactors are under construction right now, and China plans another 200 by 2050. There are 400 nuclear reactors in the world and, within 10 years, there will be over 500. The global growth in nuclear power is ongoing, despite the 2011 disaster in Japan, where an earthquake and tsunami killed 20,000 people and the resulting meltdown of an old and poorly sited nuclear power plant prompted significant upheaval but killed no-one. It goes against what hippies want to believe, but the nuclear power industry is significantly safer than any other large-scale, energy-related industries. Fossil-fuel power, hydro power and wind power are more deadly both in absolute terms and relative to the power they produce. That was the conclusion of the 2006 review commissioned by the Howard government, and it remains true today.
When I hear Luddites speaking about the dangers of nuclear power, I'm reminded of a joke. A guy walks up to a girl and says, 'Let's chat.' She says, 'What about?' He says, 'How about nuclear power?' She says, 'Let me ask a question first. A deer, a cow and a horse all eat the same stuff—grass—yet a deer excretes little pellets, a cow turns out a flat patty and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you think that is?' The guy thinks about it and says, 'Hmm. I have no idea.' To which the girl replies, 'Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don't know crap?'
Today we are debating a bill a version of which I was drafting but Senator Bernardi beat me to it. It is the Nuclear Fuel Cycle (Facilitation) Bill 2017. I heartily support the bill and I congratulate him for bringing it forward. The bill removes Commonwealth bans on nuclear power and on nuclear fuel processing, reprocessing and enrichment. These bans are found in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act. Removing these blanket bans still leaves nuclear power heavily regulated. Nuclear activities and installations would still need to satisfy the generic environmental approval requirements in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. They would also need to be licensed under the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act. Any nuclear activities in Australia would also continue to be subject to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act, the Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulations and the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations.
This bill, quite rightly, removes Commonwealth bans on nuclear fuels and power, but I think we can go further to show to the parliament, the government and the people that we can manage the nuclear fuel cycle in Australia. So I would seek to add to this bill by moving amendments at the committee stage. These amendments would establish a regulatory framework for nuclear fuels and power. They would allow the existing nuclear safety regulator, called ARPANSA, to issue licences to undertake nuclear activities, not just to the Commonwealth bodies that they currently issue licences to but more generally. They would require ARPANSA to make disallowable regulations regarding health, safety and environmental standards, and minimum disaster insurance requirements. My amendments would also remove Commonwealth interference in state and territory decisions on uranium mining and the transportation and storage of nuclear power. This involves amendment of the Environment Protection (Northern Territory Supreme Court) Act 1978, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, the Environment Protection (Alligator Rivers Region) Act 1978 and the National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012. None of my amendments would trample on states' rights, so to get rid of the various bans on nuclear power that exist in state law, voters would need to vote at state elections for the Liberal Democrats, or, if they weren't quite such strong supporters of freedom, they could vote for the Australian Conservatives.
Let me finish as I started, with a cheesy joke, to remind us that all things nuclear don't need to be scary. A neutron walks into a bar. He orders a beer and asks the barman, 'How much do I owe you?' The barman replies, 'For you, no charge.' Nuclear power must have a future in Australia. If we are serious about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, we have to embrace nuclear power. There is no other option. We cannot generate low-emissions electricity and keep the lights on and the costs down using wind power and solar power or hydro power. It cannot be done, and the countries that are trying to do it are failing. Only the countries that are investing in nuclear power are, at the same time, reducing their emissions and keeping the lights on. There is no other alternative. We must embrace nuclear power.
Senator ABETZ (Tasmania) (12:39): The Australian government is seeking to implement the National Energy Guarantee, a policy that is concentrating on affordability, reliability and lowering our emissions. In that context, we as a nation should be embracing every type of energy production available to mankind to ascertain whether or not it can live up to those three criteria of affordability, reliability and potentially lowering our emissions. To deliberately say, for bizarre ideological reasons, that we will not even look at or countenance one particular source of energy is to really put our heads in the sand and potentially deny ourselves the very best source of energy production that science has to offer the world.
We as a country have the benefit of at least 25 per cent or more of the world's uranium resources. We are exporting that resource to many countries around the world. Indeed, France and many other European countries have their energy supplied courtesy of our uranium. In the Western world, nuclear power has been part of the lifeblood of the economy and standard of living. Why should Australia be denied the opportunity of even looking at it and contemplating the potential that it might have for our own country? That is the issue in this debate. It's not about actually establishing a nuclear power station; it's only asking: can we engage in and have a mature discussion about this and ask the fundamental questions.
If we look at how much money we have spent, thus far, on the so-called renewable energy sector in this country and the forward trajectory of that expenditure, and if we were able to wind back the clock and grab all those taxpayer subsidies and put them into a nuclear power station, today—
Senator Bernardi interjecting—
Senator ABETZ: and I accept Senator Bernardi's interjection—we could have had 20 of them. I'm not sure if that calculation is correct, but I am more than willing to accept it. Therefore, our fellow Australians could have had affordable and reliable energy, with no emissions at all. It is accepted that nuclear power stations have the lowest emissions footprint of any energy source. Indeed, in my home state of Tasmania, wind farms are being built, and, in conjunction with hydro, that seems to work relatively well. But, as we know in Tasmania—and this is something the Greens will never talk about—the wind farms are responsible for the demise of dozens of wedge-tailed eagles, a threatened species. A little badge that a former senator wears on his lapel all the time, whilst he keeps promoting wind power—
Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—
Senator ABETZ: And talking about wind, it's good to see Senator Whish-Wilson in the chamber. But I say to this chamber and to the Australian people: to deliberately say that you don't want to talk about nuclear power is as foolish and irresponsible as saying you don't want to talk about solar power or hydro power or coal power. This is what this legislation that has been introduced by Senator Bernardi seeks to do. What can be the problem, other than if you've got some bizarre ideological objection to the delivery of affordable, reliable and low-emission energy for the benefit of our nation, with us looking at the options? This is where the Australian Labor Party really needs to come to grips with whether or not they represent the workers of this country, the pensioners of this country, the manufacturers of this country, who are always on the lookout for a reliable energy source.
Sadly, those who live in the state of South Australia, such as Senator Bernardi, know the consequences of an over-reliance on solar and wind power. On one day those two sources can provide over 100 per cent of the need, but on another day only three per cent—I think that is the lowest they've ever produced. What happens when the Greens stop talking and the wind stops blowing, or the sun stops shining when Senator Bernardi stops smiling?
What happens? They are reliant on brown coal power from Victoria. And what happens when too much is required? The whole infrastructure falls apart. Nuclear is potentially an answer. It should be explored and allowed to be given the opportunity to be part of our energy requirements.
The PRESIDENT: Order, Senator Abetz! Pursuant to order, debate is interrupted. You will be in continuation at the resumption.
MOTIONS
Dastyari, Senator Sam
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:45): I seek leave to move a motion relating to Senator Dastyari.
Leave not granted.
Senator BRANDIS: Pursuant to contingent notice standing in my name, I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Brandis moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to provide that a motion relating to Senator Dastyari may be moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate.
I'm sorry that the Leader of the Opposition has declined leave to move this motion, because the purpose of the motion is to give an opposition senator, namely Senator Dastyari, an opportunity to explain himself. The terms of the motion are these:
That—
(1) Senator Dastyari be required to attend the Senate chamber at 3 pm on 30 November 2017 to make a statement of not more than 20 minutes, addressing:
(a) the nature of his relationship with Mr Huang Xiangmo;
(b) the allegations made by Fairfax media on 29 November 2017 that Senator Dastyari gave Mr Huang counter-surveillance advice and conduct a covert conversation with him during a meeting at Mr Huang's home in October 2016, including full details of the covert conversation;
(c) the press conference held by Senator Dastyari on 17 June 2016, and in particular:
(i) the nature of Mr Huang's involvement in the decision to hold the press conference;
(ii) full details of what was said by him at the press conference;
(iii) the reason why he used the press conference to specifically contradict official Labor Party policy on Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea;
(iv) the reason the press conference was restricted to Chinese language media; and
(v) why he subsequently gave untruthful accounts of what he had said at the press conference;
(d) the nature and value of all payments made to or on behalf of Senator Dastyari by Mr Huang or at his direction.
(2) That any Senator may take note of Senator Dastyari's statement for a period of up to 90 minutes.
Senator Watt interjecting—
Senator BRANDIS: I heard Senator Watt interject a moment ago that Senator Dastyari has already given a statement. We all know that Senator Dastyari gave a very brief two-minute, rather self-pitying statement and then immediately left the chamber before the debate occurred. During the course of the debate, I raised a number of very specific questions in relation to Senator Dastyari. Senator Dastyari was not present in the chamber to hear those allegations, and he has not responded to those allegations. It is for that reason that it is appropriate and, indeed, it is owed and due to the Senate as a matter of proper professional conduct, not to mention professional courtesy, for Senator Dastyari to address the allegations that have been made against him.
In saying that, I might point out that it is notable that, when the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate rose to her feet this morning in response to my speech and when Senator Carr also spoke on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, neither of them offered a word of defence of Senator Dastyari—not a word. So Senator Dastyari, a colleague who is the subject of very serious allegations made, in the first instance, by the media and now, quite properly, raised by the government in this chamber, has not yet afforded the Senate the courtesy of responding in detail and with particularity to those allegations. This motion provides for an opportunity in the Senate's program immediately after question time today for Senator Dastyari to respond. He should be given the opportunity to respond. We will listen very carefully to what Senator Dastyari has said, and other senators may choose to take note of Senator Dastyari's statement.
This is a commonplace procedure that this chamber has adopted on several occasions, including earlier this year in relation to myself, when allegations were made against me in relation to the Bell litigation, as senators will remember. And I had no difficulty attending the chamber and responding to a long series of questions from Senator Pratt. So, it's a proper procedure. The Senate is entitled to something more than the two-minute, self-pitying statement that came from Senator Dastyari this morning, and I would ask honourable senators to give favourable consideration to the motion.
Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (12:50): I think I'll be the only opposition speaker on this. We're happy to proceed with voting and with dealing with this. I just want to make this point: (1) Senator Dastyari has already made a statement; (2) I am going to be clear publicly what I've also made clear privately to the Leader of the Government in the Senate, that it is the opposition's view that if there is an appropriate inquiry that the government believes Senator Dastyari should be cooperating with then he should so cooperate, and I'm sure he would so do.
Instead of going down that path of an appropriate inquiry, the government is choosing to engage in what we know is a political stunt, and that is disappointing on such matters. I know the government wants this to be a distraction from the fact that Mr Turnbull has effectively lost control of the government. He has reversed policy in that he has, I think for some 600 days, said that there will be no royal commission into the banks. He has now been driven by Mr Christensen and Senator O'Sullivan to reverse that position. He has backbenchers openly undermining his leadership. And his government is desperately using the issues in relation to Senator Dastyari as a political distraction. I again say: the opposition's view is that, if the government believes that there are matters here that ought be considered and inquired into and puts that reasonably to the opposition, then a reasonable inquiry would be cooperated with. This is not such a reasonable inquiry. This is a political stunt, and I think everybody understands that.
Senator FIFIELD (Victoria—Manager of Government Business in the Senate, Minister for Communications, Minister for the Arts and Acting Minister for Regional Communications) (12:52): I rise to speak in favour of the motion moved by the Leader of the Government in the Senate. This is a motion that we have seen similar versions of in relation to other matters that have related to colleagues in this place. The motion seeks to give Senator Dastyari the opportunity to come to the chamber at three o'clock in order to address a number of issues, which are canvassed in the motion itself and which colleagues would be well aware of through the media. Senator Dastyari did, it should be acknowledged, come into the chamber at the start of today and make a very brief statement. This motion will give the opportunity for a fuller statement from Senator Dastyari. I should note that the motion that is before colleagues is one that is time limited so that there is the opportunity for other colleagues to take note of Senator Dastyari's statement for a period of up to 90 minutes. So, I think this is an appropriate motion that does two things. It provides the opportunity for Senator Dastyari to give a fuller contribution. It also provides the opportunity for colleagues in this place to take note of what Senator Dastyari says.
These are serious matters that have come to the attention of colleagues. These are matters that Senator Dastyari himself has acknowledged are serious. These are issues that are of such significance that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, required Senator Dastyari to resign his position as Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate and to resign his position as chair of a parliamentary committee. That action required by the Leader of the Opposition indicates that these matters have reached something that passes a threshold of concern for opposition members and senators.
It has been noted by a number of colleagues that this is not the first occasion upon which the judgement and the actions of Senator Dastyari have been called into question. Senator Dastyari himself has acknowledged that, and yesterday the Leader of the Opposition also acknowledged that this was not the first occasion. We have, over recent days, discovered new information about the events which this motion refers to, in particular the issue of the South China Sea and what Senator Dastyari said at his press conference. The recording of those comments is now available. That is new information, and we have new information in terms of the conversation that Senator Dastyari had about mobile phones and their capacity to be used as devices by particular agencies. These are both new pieces of information. As I say, these are not just matters that have passed a threshold of concern for the government. They have passed a threshold of concern for the Leader of the Opposition himself and for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Ms Plibersek. So this is an appropriate motion to give Senator Dastyari the opportunity to talk more fully to these matters and for colleagues to have a reasonable opportunity to take note of what it is that Senator Dastyari has to say. I encourage my colleagues to support the motion.
Senator HINCH (Victoria) (12:57): I want to explain very briefly why I will be supporting the Attorney-General on this issue today. I thought that Senator Dastyari's two-minute-noodle address this morning was insufficient and left a lot of questions unanswered. Yesterday I was asked about the issue by Rafael Epstein out of the blue on the ABC, and I genuinely thought that the latest transgression by Senator Dastyari must've occurred before he was stood down by the opposition last year, before the Christmas break, before his summer holiday. I was shocked to discover that the latest transgression occurred after he'd been 'punished' by Bill Shorten, the opposition leader—made to resign from his position and then restored five months later. I thought surely it must've happened before that and he'd learnt his lesson. He hadn't. He's done something again. He is possibly in breach of national security. He certainly had a different attitude, privately, to his own party on the South China Sea issue. I also support this motion because I'm intrigued to find that Senator Dastyari and Bill Shorten have found a whole new word to describe lying—'mischaracterisation'.
Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (12:59): I'm always uncomfortable when these issues involving individual senators are raised. I know it often happens. There have been two instances in the last few months where the Labor Party have personally attacked individual ministers. I might say that the attacks have gone absolutely nowhere, but I'm always uncomfortable when this chamber is used in that way. I think Senator Dastyari, in fairness, should be given the opportunity to answer the allegations made in the Fairfax press. He had an opportunity this morning, Mr President, but he talked about everything except for the serious allegations that have been made. Now, I personally am not an insider—I really don't know whether the allegations are true or not; I can only go on what I read in the newspapers. I thought that Senator Dastyari, when he got to his feet this morning, was going to explain all of the quite serious allegations, if they are true. I don't know if they're true, but the journalist is apparently prepared to face defamation action if they're not true, so I assume that they are.
I thought Senator Dastyari this morning might take the opportunity to tell us exactly what it was and why and try to assure us that there were no breaches, but he didn't mention that. He went to the basest of excuses, involving his children and confecting some sadness, when we know that Senator Dastyari actually puts on his own social media videos of his children talking about political matters like banking royal commissions. He didn't address the allegations that have been made. That's fair enough.
I then thought his leader, Senator Wong, who had quite a long time to then defend and explain the situation, might say something that could explain to the chamber Senator Dastyari's activities and actions. But, no: Senator Wong spent almost 20 minutes talking about everything else except the allegations. It clearly seems to me that the Labor Party leadership in this chamber have lost confidence in Senator Dastyari as well. Then there's Senator Carr, who spent another 20 minutes supposedly in defence of Senator Dastyari, but he said nothing about that issue. He raised every other issue, every red herring he could raise, but didn't address the issues that are before the public at the present time.
Senator Dastyari, I have to say, had the opportunity but didn't do it himself. He may have assumed, as I assumed, that Senator Wong or Senator Carr would then come forward to explain exactly what the facts are, how it all happened and what the purpose was. But, no: two of the senior members of the Labor Party, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and Senator Carr, spent 20 minutes saying absolutely nothing. That, to me, as I said earlier today, is a very curious state of affairs. It seems to me that even the Labor Party are concerned about what has happened. The leader in the Senate and Senator Carr were not prepared to enter into a full-scale defence of, or a vote of confidence in, Senator Dastyari.
So we're left in the position where a colleague of ours in this chamber has had some very serious allegations made about him. I don't know whether they're true or not, but I think that Senator Dastyari should be given the opportunity of addressing the serious issues in the public area at the present time. To do anything else would be a denial of what I would assume anyone's civil and public political rights might be—to be able to answer these questions. I don't know whether Senator Dastyari will have another opportunity in the debate today or the debate next week, but it is in the public's attention at the moment. I think, in fairness, we should allow Senator Dastyari to make his statement. The motion moved by Senator Brandis clearly gives him the opportunity and identifies what needs to be said, and we would all be better off with that. (Time expired)
Senator DI NATALE (Victoria—Leader of the Australian Greens) (13:04): The Greens will be supporting part 1 of this motion, but we don't see a need for part 2 of this motion. We think Senator Dastyari should be afforded the opportunity to come and address the very serious nature of the allegations that have been raised today and explain more wholly some of those issues and the nature of his relationship with the individual involved. It must be noted that it's not just Senator Dastyari who has a relationship with Mr Huang Xiangmo; it's understood that this individual also has a direct relationship with and has been a donor to the Liberal Party, as well, so it would be good to be able to hear an explanation from the Liberal Party as to the nature of that relationship, who Mr Huang Xiangmo has communicated with within the coalition side, what he has expected to get out of that relationship and so on, because this is a very serious issue.
The allegations that were made about Senator Dastyari presenting a position on foreign policy that was at odds with his own party and in support of a financial donor are very serious matters. It is rather ironic that we spent the last few months in here debating individuals who allegedly had a conflicted allegiance to Australia as a result of their dual citizenship, yet here we have a very real and material case where it appears that an individual has made decisions that may have been influenced by the financial relationship that he has with this individual.
We also have very serious concerns about how this material came to light. We are concerned that information like this might be made public not simply through the diligent and hard work of the individuals in the media who exposed it but through complicity from our intelligence agencies. That's a very serious question: how was this information gathered? How was the information obtained? I think that warrants a very serious investigation. We would be extremely concerned if our security agencies were being politicised in some way or inserted themselves into what is, obviously, a very serious issue, so we need to get to the bottom of that. But, for the moment, the facts do appear clear: Senator Dastyari's previous statement was completely and wholly inadequate. He should be afforded the opportunity and, indeed, be asked very directly by the Senate to come in and explain in much more detail many of the issues that were raised.
We won't be supporting part 2 of this motion, which effectively gives an opportunity for individual senators to continue making political points, because we also had that opportunity this morning. We had a long debate this morning where individuals were able to make their points. We don't think we need to repeat that, and we think it's very important that this place gets on with the business of legislating. There are important pieces of legislation that need to be debated by the chamber.
We will support requiring Senator Dastyari to attend the chamber. We will be supporting a requirement that he outline the nature of the relationship he has with this individual and, indeed, account for the fact that he appears to have given conflicting evidence to the media that's not supported by a later account of events. We will in time, though, be asking more questions about how this information came to light, whether the security agencies had any role in obtaining this information, whether there was any conversation with members of the government about that and whether that evidence was used against Senator Dastyari, but they are questions for later. For the moment, it is important that Senator Dastyari gives a very clear and whole explanation of events.
Senator REYNOLDS (Western Australia) (13:09): I too rise to discuss this very important issue. In the time I've been in this chamber, I have not heard or been aware of any issue that is more serious than this. As many of us know in this chamber, the threat of covert foreign interference—
Senator Watt interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left, Senator Watt. Senator Reynolds, please continue.
Senator Ian Macdonald: Why didn't you jump in and say something?
Senator Wong: How obvious is the government—we've only had one opposition speaker.
Senator REYNOLDS: Mr President, if Senator Wong would like the call, then she should ask for the call. But I do have the call at the moment on this most serious of issues.
The PRESIDENT: Order, Senator Reynolds! Senator Wong, on a point of order?
Senator Wong: I have spoken. If the government were serious they'd proceed to a vote, but they've got Macdonald and Reynolds up. It shows it's a political stunt.
The PRESIDENT: Order, Senator Wong! Senator Reynolds.
Senator REYNOLDS: As I was saying, I can't recall any issue that has struck at the heart of our democracy more than this issue does today. There is no doubt that the threat of foreign interference is a problem of the highest order and is only getting worse. As the D-G of ASIO has recently advised, foreign intelligence activity against Australians and Australia is occurring at an unprecedented level. Both espionage and covert foreign influence can cause immense harm to our national sovereignty, to the safety of our people and to the integrity of our democracy.
As the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, I know our committee has reviewed this issue extensively, on a bipartisan basis. We've reported already on foreign donations, and I know the government is looking at both increasing in legislation anti-espionage and foreign interference measures and measures in relation to the electoral process. But what is very clear to me as the Chair of JSCEM is that only Australians should have the power to influence Australian politics. One of the issues we grapple with in the committee all the time is the public perception of the integrity of our own democracy and of corruption within that democracy. While Australia globally—
Senator Cameron: So you'll support foreign donation bans, will you?
Senator REYNOLDS: Senator Cameron, I will not take that interjection. You are the last one to talk about this issue in terms of respect of this place.
Senator Watt: We could be debating foreign donation legislation right now!
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left!
Senator REYNOLDS: You might not like to hear this, but it is absolutely true. This is a serious matter. It is a matter of national security and the integrity—
Senator Wong: Treat it seriously, not as a political stunt!
Senator REYNOLDS: You can run all the interference you like for Senator Dastyari and his pathetic two-minute explanation this morning on one of the most serious questions of integrity and of compromise by a foreign power we've ever had, that I can recall, in this chamber—
Senator Wong: That's a big allegation.
Senator REYNOLDS: Absolutely, they are big allegations, and that's why Senator Dastyari's pathetic excuse this morning—he didn't even try to provide explanations for not only his past conduct but the new allegations. To come into this chamber and make reference to his children and then make some reference to a royal commission is despicable. He has not in any way answered any of the serious questions of national security that have now arisen.
I would just like to read out what Senator Dastyari should be answering—and it's very good to see the Greens are supportive of this as well:
(1) Senator Dastyari be required to attend the Senate chamber at 3 pm. on 30 November 2017 to make a statement of not more than 20 minutes …
Two minutes was patently inadequate—
(b) the allegations made by Fairfax media on 29 November 2017 that Senator Dastyari gave Mr Huang counter-surveillance advice and conduct a covert conversation with him during a meeting at Mr Huang's home in October 2016, including full details of the covert conversation;
This morning, Senator Dastyari clearly reiterated that he has got a bad memory. He was at a press conference that he had convened on Mr Huang's behalf at a Commonwealth office, with Commonwealth podiums, with the Chinese media the only ones there, and he couldn't even remember. 'It didn't accord with my recollection of this discussion,' he said. I have never, ever heard such a piece of baloney in this chamber. He has either got such a bad memory on such an important thing or he is simply not telling the truth.
Senator Dastyari must come back to this chamber today and actually explain to us the nature of these allegations. Are they true? If they're not true, he needs, given the gravity of the situation, to come and explain to all Australians, who need to have faith that those in this chamber are not subject to foreign interference or influence in our democratic processes. For those opposite to run a protection racket on Senator Dastyari not once, not twice but now three times shames us all in this chamber. Senator Dastyari, come here and provide a proper explanation as outlined in these terms of reference.
What do we want to know from Senator Dastyari? We want to know: the nature of Mr Huang's involvement in the decision to hold the press conference; the full details of what was actually said by him at the press conference; the reason he used the press conference to contradict Labor Party policy; and, why he gave subsequent accounts untruthfully. (Time expired)
Senator HANSON (Queensland) (13:14): I stand to support Senator Brandis's motion. I believe there needs to be accountability in this chamber. Senator Dastyari has not explained himself. I find the Labor side to be so hypocritical. They are so ready to point the finger at One Nation at any time on accountability issues, especially Senator Murray Watt. They are constantly going at One Nation. So I believe that, in all fairness for the chamber, there should be an explanation here. It is a protection racket. Why don't they just let him explain himself and satisfy the people not only in this chamber but in all of Australia. Where is your accountability now in this—in protecting someone like your senator?
The PRESIDENT: The question is that the suspension motion moved by Senator Brandis be agreed to.
Senator Dodson did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Parry.
Senator Gallagher did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Nash.
Senator Brown did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Kakoschke-Moore.
The Senate divided. [13:20]
(The President—Senator Ryan)
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:22): I move:
That a motion relating to Senator Dastyari may be moved immediately and determined without amendment.
Question agreed to.
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:23): I move:
That—
(1) Senator Dastyari be required to attend the Senate chamber at 3 pm. On 30 November 2017 to make a statement of not more than 20 minutes, addressing:
(a) the nature of his relationship with Mr Huang Xiangmo;
(b) the allegations made by Fairfax media on 29 November 2017 that Senator Dastyari gave Mr Huang counter-surveillance advice and conduct a covert conversation with him during a meeting at Mr Huang's home in October 2016, including full details of the covert conversation;
(c) the press conference held by Senator Dastyari on 17 June 2016, and in particular:
(i) the nature of Mr Huang's involvement in the decision to hold the press conference;
(ii) full details of what was said by him at the press conference;
(iii) the reason why he used the press conference to specifically contradict official Labor Party policy on Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea;
(iv) the reason the press conference was restricted to Chinese language media; and
(v) why he subsequently gave untruthful accounts of what he had said at the press conference;
(d) the nature and value of all payments made to or on behalf of Senator Dastyari by Mr Huang or at his direction.
(2) That any Senator may take note of Senator Dastyari's statement for a period of up to 90 minutes.
I understand, Mr President, that paragraphs (1) and (2) of the motion will be put separately.
The PRESIDENT: They will be put separately.
Senator BRANDIS: I'm not going to rehearse what was said in the chamber this morning, but I do want to explain why it is that the government is moving this motion, why it is important that Senator Dastyari attend the chamber and why it is that the government regards this as a very serious matter indeed. As several senators have pointed out in this debate—indeed, senators from all interests represented in the chamber other than the Australian Labor Party have pointed it out—every senator is accountable to this chamber for their conduct. There can be no dispute about that proposition. We have had the Australian Labor Party move against government senators and ministers, as they're perfectly entitled to do, to require them in various ways to account to the Senate. At the moment, my colleague Senator Fifield is the subject of a requirement that he attend the Privileges Committee in relation to certain allegations.
Senator Jacinta Collins: No, not Privileges, George.
Senator BRANDIS: I'm sorry, a Senate committee in relation to allegations—untrue allegations, I might say—that have been made against him. Senator Fifield willingly—perhaps not gladly but willingly—submits to the wish of the chamber that he attend and will do so.
Senator Fifield: Has done.
Senator BRANDIS: Has already done so, I'm told. Earlier this year, the Senate moved a motion requiring me to attend in the chamber to respond to a series of questions from Senator Pratt concerning my involvement in litigation concerning the Bell group of companies. I willingly and quite happily attended the Senate chamber and answered every single question that Senator Pratt asked of me, and there are other examples as well.
Senator Jacinta Collins: How much notice did you have, George?
Senator BRANDIS: Virtually none, Senator. So, Senator, the obligation that you demand of my side of politics is not an obligation that lies only upon the government. The obligation of senators to the chamber is broader than the obligation of the government to be accountable to the parliament. All senators have an obligation to the chamber to account for their conduct, and if allegations of misconduct, particularly allegations that, to put it plainly, go to the fitness of a person to serve in the Senate, are made then that senator against whom those allegations are made has an obligation to give an account of himself.
I want to stress that the allegations are not made by the government. The allegations were made by Fairfax Media and the ABC—two media organisations that have never been regarded as particular friends of my side of politics, by the way—but, given the gravity of the allegations, they have been raised by me and by other members of the government in the Senate this morning.
Senator Jacinta Collins: You said they were credible.
Senator BRANDIS: Yes, the government does consider that these allegations are credible—in other words, believable. We are not determining the allegations. We are not endorsing them. They are serious allegations made by serious media organisations, Fairfax Media and the ABC, and, in relation to the latter, by Mr Nick McKenzie, Mr James Massola and Mr Richard Baker, three serious journalists. We raised these allegations in the chamber this morning because we take them seriously.
Senator Kim Carr interjecting—
Senator BRANDIS: It is the clearest possible demonstration of the fact that the Labor Party are not taking this matter seriously that they constantly interject. If they were taking the matter seriously, they would not be interjecting. Senator Dastyari came into the chamber this morning and gave a very brief explanation. It was not even an explanation; it was an attempt to dismiss the matter in the course of announcing his resignation. It took all of two minutes. He then left the chamber and hasn't been seen since. He hasn't even been seen in the chamber for the purpose of this motion. He owes it to this chamber to show his face and answer specifically the specific allegations that were made by Fairfax Media and raised by the government and particularised in this motion.
Senator JACINTA COLLINS (Victoria) (13:31): I move:
That the question be now put.
Question agreed to.
The PRESIDENT: We will now move to the substantive motion, and I'll be putting clauses (1) and (2) separately as requested and as indicated in the debate earlier. The question is that clause (1), paragraphs (a) to (d) inclusive, of the motion moved by Senator Brandis be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The PRESIDENT: The question is that clause (2) of Senator Brandis's motion be agreed to.
Senator Dodson did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Parry.
Senator Gallagher did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Nash.
Senator Smith did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Kakoschke-Moore.
The Senate divided. [13:36]
(The President—Senator Ryan)
BUSINESS
Days and Hours of Meeting
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:41): I seek leave to move a motion to vary the hours of meeting and routine of business for the sitting week commencing Monday, 4 December 2017 to provide for the consideration of bills.
Leave not granted.
Senator BRANDIS: Pursuant to contingent notice standing in my name, I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Brandis moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to provide that a motion relating to the hours of meeting and routine of business for the sitting week—
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left! Senator Brandis has the call.
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left! Let us conclude the beginning of this before we commence debate.
Senator BRANDIS: Thank you, Mr President. Let me start again. Pursuant to contingent notice standing in my name, I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Brandis moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to provide that a motion relating to the hours of meeting and routine of business for the sitting week commencing on Monday, 4 December 2017 may be moved immediately.
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left! I'm having trouble hearing Senator Brandis. Senator Brandis, please continue.
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Senators Carr and Collins, I have just asked for order. I haven't heard a word from Senator Brandis. I'm having trouble hearing the motion being moved.
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Thank you. There will be an opportunity to participate in this debate, but we must get to the point where it has commenced.
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left. There will be a chance to participate in this debate, but it must commence first, so I urge those on my left who wish to speak to allow it to commence. Senator Brandis.
Senator BRANDIS: Thank you very much indeed, Mr President. The purpose of the motion I sought leave to move is to set out the order of business for the Senate next week, the week commencing Monday, 4 December. The motion I sought leave to move orders the business in the manner which I will read into the record when I move the motion. As we all know, it is for the government to determine the order of business of the chamber. That, of course, is subject to the chamber, but the convention is that it is the government that pre-eminently sets the order of business of the chamber.
There was a motion, notice of which was given, in the name of Senator Cameron, which appears on today's Notice Paper—general business notice of motion No. 625—which purports to vary the order of business for today and next week, and I understand that another motion has been circulated in the chamber this morning by Senator Cameron which—
Senator Wong interjecting—
Senator BRANDIS: I'm sorry, Senator Wong, I was told it was in Senator Cameron's name, but it also purports to order the business of the chamber next week. That is not the way the Senate conducts its business. We all know that particularly in the last sitting week of the year, which next week will be, there is a great degree of busyness in getting through the government's legislative program. It is, frankly, preposterous for the opposition to attempt, as Senator Cameron's foreshadowed motion and now Senator Wong's foreshadowed motion would seek to do, basically to seize control of the business of the chamber in the last sitting week of the year. The government very seldom has a majority in this chamber. In the 17½ years I've been here, it's only had a majority for three of those years. During periods of Labor government and during periods of coalition government, it has always been accepted that the role of the government is to order the business. On occasions, that is subject to variation. We acknowledge that but, as a general proposition, it is true that it is for the government, not the opposition or other political interests represented in the chamber, to order the business. The idea, particularly in the last week of the year, that the order of business in the chamber should be taken entirely out of the government's hands is unprecedented. It is unconventional. Frankly, as I said a moment ago, it is preposterous.
If Senator Wong's motion or Senator Cameron's motion is reached, we will, of course, be opposing them. But, in the meantime, the government moves its own hours and routine of business motion for the last week of the year. There is a lot of business to get through next week. There are a lot of time-sensitive measures to get through next week. There are a lot of measures that are, of course, very beneficial to the Australian people to get through next week. Were this motion not to be passed, those beneficial, time-sensitive measures would not be able to be reached, or at least there would be a significant risk that they will not be reached.
So I commend the motion to the chamber. All it seeks is to reinstate the orthodox practice of the government ordering the business of the chamber, something that is orthodox in any Senate sitting week but is even more orthodox and indeed, from a pragmatic point of view, necessary in the busy final week of the year.
Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (13:48): We have today a very clear demonstration of the political priorities of Malcolm Turnbull in the Senate chamber: stop the Senate protecting penalty rates. That's what this has all been about, Senator Cormann and Senator Brandis. If you were wondering why, in the debate in relation to Senator Dastyari, there was one opposition senator—me—who did not speak for the full time, it is because we understood where the numbers were in the chamber. If you wonder why they roll out Senator Macdonald and Senator Reynolds, it's because they wanted to delay debate for as long as possible to prevent this Senate from protecting penalty rates.
Senator Reynolds interjecting—
Senator WONG: Senator Reynolds says that's not true. Well, have the debate. The majority in the Senate chamber want to debate the four-yearly review bill that Senator Cash is summing up, which has had many hours of debate. There will be an amendment moved to that to protect Australian workers' penalty rates. The government knows that. So the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, the Minister for Finance of the Commonwealth and the Manager of Government Business all come in here and run as many procedural arguments and delaying tactics as possible. They make sure the Leader of the Government in the Senate is here so he gets the call over me. They make sure he's here, because he's not off doing important things but he's got to come in here and stop workers getting their penalty rates.
Well, I tell you what: you might win in here today, but Australian workers know what your priorities are. They will know that Malcolm Turnbull's priority today in the Senate chamber is to ensure that this chamber is not able to vote on the protection of Australian workers' penalty rates. Isn't it amazing? What a government, hey? What a government. They've had to backflip on the royal commission—oh, here's the relevance deprivation himself!
Senator Ian Macdonald: Mr President, on a point of order, Senator Watt is shouting, I assume at Senator Hanson, and calling her or her colleagues 'frauds', which is unparliamentary. Not only is it unparliamentary but it is quite unfair, seeing that One Nation delivered the Labor Party government in Queensland.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Watt, I did not hear you say something unparliamentary, and I've generally taken the view that interjections from behind a speaker aren't as problematic as those coming from opposite a speaker. But if you did say something unparliamentary, I'd ask you to withdraw.
Senator Watt: [inaudible]
The PRESIDENT: I think imputing a motive reflecting on someone personally as opposed to behaviour—it may well be.
Senator Watt: I withdraw.
The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Watt, for facilitating the operation of the chamber.
Senator Burston interjecting—
Senator WONG: I'll do it on the record, Senator Burston, while you're here. If One Nation continues to vote with the government on these procedural tactics to try to avoid bringing protection of penalty rates on, every Australian worker will know that One Nation saying that they're for the battler is just not true.
Senator Reynolds: The only protection order is the one protecting Senator Dastyari.
Senator WONG: Senator Reynolds, you can scream as much as you like. I know you're all in bed with One Nation politically. What I am saying is this: One Nation prides itself on standing up for the battler but comes in here and votes with the Tories to ensure that this Senate cannot debate and vote to protect workers' penalty rates. That is what is occurring.
I will be moving an amendment to this motion to ensure that we bring on the Fair Work Amendment (Repeal of 4 Yearly Reviews and Other Measures) Bill, first to ensure that this chamber can debate and protect penalty rates. And if the Leader of the Government in the Senate seeks to move the motion without amendment or debate, his motives will be clear for everybody to see. He doesn't even want it debated. If he seeks to gag debate, his motives will be clear. The political priority of the senior members of the Turnbull government and of Mr Turnbull himself are to ensure that this Senate can't protect the penalty rates of low-paid workers. What a pathetic government.
I will respond to one point in the short period I've got left—the pontification from Senator Brandis that somehow the government gets to control everything. I gave notice of a motion, which as a matter of courtesy I sent some time ago to the government and to the crossbench, which made clear that the only day we would be seeking for government business to deal with a particular matter is Monday. We just said: 'On Monday we want to debate penalty rates until it finishes. You get to do whatever you want on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.'
So, regarding all of this pontification from Senator Brandis that somehow it's unprecedented for a government to have its legislative agenda taken over, I make two points. (1) It's your bill. It's the bill that you wanted—I won't point at you Senator Cash; she's not there. It's the bill the government brought into the chamber that is summing up and that they haven't brought back because they're scared of the numbers. (2) We wanted to debate it only for the Monday. That is the great taking over of government business! You can do what you want on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but that's not enough, is it, because you're worried that you don't have the numbers on the penalty rates bill, and this government's priority, as always, is not to look after the interests of working people. That's who you've walked away from, and every Australian at the next election will know it.
Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:53): Mr Shorten doesn't care about workers. If he cared about workers he wouldn't have sold them out in deal after deal, as he did as a union leader. He sold workers out, including the trading away of their penalty rates again and again, and that is of course a matter of public record. This motion that the Attorney-General, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, has moved is about the very orthodox proposition that it is the government that determines the prioritisation of government business during government business time. There's absolutely nothing inappropriate about that.
Senator Wong indicates that all she's proposing to do is have a debate on Monday in relation to a government piece of legislation—as if this was quarantined and contained to a debate on Monday. She knows that that's not true. The way the motion that she has circulated is worded means the debate could go from Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday to Thursday—all the way to Saturday. It doesn't say anywhere in the motion that the debate on the government bill, which Senator Wong is trying to bring on, would finish on Monday. It doesn't say that anywhere at all in the motion she has circulated. She knows that that is true. This is actually all about the Labor Party running a protection racket for union-dominated industry super funds. They have quite a cosy arrangement—we keep reading in the newspapers about how there's money going to the Labor Party from union-dominated industry super funds.
There is legislation before the Senate that is a high priority for the government, a high priority for the Senate and, we believe, a high priority for a majority of senators in the Senate, but the Labor Party is prepared to do anything to protect the racket of union-dominated industry union funds and unions channelling money to the Labor Party. We've got legislation here to improve corporate governance, improve trustee arrangements and improve integrity. Why? It is because we want to protect the retirement savings of Australian workers. The Australian Labor Party never cares about workers. The Australian Labor Party cares about the unions. It cares about the vested interests of the unions. It cares about protecting its own vested commercial interest.
Look how sanctimonious they are about the fact that we moved a motion asking Senator Dastyari to properly explain himself. Clearly Senator Carr has forgotten when, together with Senator Xenophon at the time, he moved a motion to summons the Minister for Defence into this chamber, asking the Minister for Defence to provide an explanation in relation to naval shipbuilding matters—of which the Senate took note. All the government has proposed to do in this chamber is entirely consistent with that. What we have here in front of us is essentially the government saying, 'Here is a list of bills that represents the government priorities for government business time.' I shared the list with the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate earlier today. I would argue that the reason the motion that was initially circulated by Senator Cameron, and which is on the Notice Paper,was adjusted to become the motion that Senator Wong circulated in the chamber somewhat later was a direct result of me sharing the government priorities with the opposition, which we, of course, would want to see reflected in any motion of ours for next week.
Senator Wong said, 'They don't want to have any amendments or debate.' That was precisely what Senator Wong was about to do. Senator Wong was about to move a motion on government business, in relation to government business time, without letting the government amend it to add government business items. We accepted that there would, most likely, be a majority in this chamber to deal with Senator Cash's Fair Work bill. All we had asked for, which was entirely reasonable, was to be able to add the government list of bills to that particular motion. Labor is not prepared to support and improve corporate governance for superannuation and they're not prepared to increase the level of integrity and accountability for industry super funds, and that is the only reason they're not prepared to entertain an amendment from the government to an opposition motion on government business. It is absolutely unprecedented that not only would an opposition move an hours of meeting motion seeking to order government business, but they would actually seek to prevent the government from amending the motion—not to remove anything but to add items for government business for consideration by the Senate next week.
The proposition that somehow the Labor Party should be able to stop the government from dealing with government business next week is absolutely preposterous. It is arrogant. It is a complete and utter overreach. That is the reason the Leader of the Government in the Senate has moved the motion we have before us. It is entirely up to the government to move a motion on government business. If the opposition wants to seek to amend it, go for it.
Senator CAMERON (New South Wales) (13:59): The absolute hypocrisy of the coalition, along with One Nation, in trying to avoid debate on workers getting protection for their penalty rates shows exactly what a rabble this government is. To talk about looking after workers and superannuation—they have never done it.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Bernardi, on a point of order?
Senator Bernardi: Yes, Mr President, I thought this motion was about debating the hours of the Senate for next week. It has nothing to do with penalty rates. I'm not sure that Senator Cameron screaming into the microphone about things that are not relevant to this debate is in any way helpful now that we are going to enter into question time.
The PRESIDENT: On the point of order, Senator Bernardi: a number of matters were raised in prior debate, and I do consider Senator Cameron to be relevant to the suspension motion that was before the Senate. But it being 2 pm, we will move to questions without notice.
MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:00): I advise the Senate that Senator Birmingham will be absent from question time today. In Senator Birmingham's absence, Senator Payne will represent the Minister for Education and Training, and Senator Canavan will represent the Minister for the Environment and Energy.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Wong.
Senator Wong: I apologise; I was a little late to the chamber. Was there a reason given for the absences, because in the letter to me there wasn't? I just want to make sure the chamber has been advised.
The PRESIDENT: I couldn't quite hear all of Senator Brandis's statement myself. There were some interjections. Senator Brandis, do you have anything to add?
Senator Wong: I'm not going to inquire, but usually it's courtesy to say whether it's personal reasons or ministerial reasons.
Senator BRANDIS: Yes, I'm advised it's personal.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Banking and Financial Services
Senator KIM CARR ( Victoria ) ( 1 4 : 01 ): My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. I refer to the Prime Minister, who only eight days ago, said, 'No, we're not having a banking royal commission.' How does the Prime Minister explain his capitulation to the National Party?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:01): It's scarcely necessary to say, in relation to a question coming from, of all people, Senator Kim Carr, that I don't accept any of the premises of the question. Nevertheless, I can advise the Senate that the Prime Minister announced this morning that the government will establish a royal commission into the alleged misconduct of Australia's banks and other financial services entities. The commission will consider the conduct of banks and insurers, financial service providers and superannuation funds, not including self-managed superannuation funds. It will also consider how well equipped regulators are to identify and address misconduct. It will not inquire into other matters such as the financial stability or the resilience of our banks.
The government has taken this action to further ensure our financial system is working efficiently and effectively. All Australians have the right to be treated honestly and fairly in their dealings with banking, superannuation and financial services providers. The highest standards of conduct are critical to the good governance and corporate culture of those providers. The royal commission will take a sensible, efficient and focused approach, investigating misconduct and practices falling below community standards and expectations. It will not be a never-ending lawyers' picnic. Let me make this clear: we will ensure the commission will not defer, delay or limit any proposed or announced policy legislation, or regulation that we are currently implementing. The government will complement the existing actions—
The PRESIDENT: Senator Brandis, please resume your seat. Senator Macdonald, on a point of order?
Senator Ian Macdonald: I'm seriously trying to hear what the minister is saying. Could you ask the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, just for today, not to interject continuously or, alternatively, could you ask the leader to speak up? I simply cannot hear Senator Brandis over Senator Wong's continuous shouting and screeching.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Macdonald, without naming any particular people, there was a lot of noise coming from the left. I was calling the left of the chamber to order whilst Senator Brandis was answering the question because I could not hear him either. Senator Hinch?
Senator Hinch: This is very unusual, but I actually support what Senator Macdonald said.
The PRESIDENT: It wasn't a point of order, Senator Hinch. Could I ask senators, again, to keep in mind courtesies to their colleagues so we can hear the answer.
Senator BRANDIS: Where was I? Mr President, the commission will complement the existing actions the government is taking in the sector which I've explained to senators in answer to questions earlier in the week. This includes establishing the new one-stop shop for resolving customer complaints, significantly bolstering the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's powers and resources.
The PRESIDENT: Order! Your time has expired, Senator Brandis. Senator Carr, a further supplementary question.
Senator KIM CARR (Victoria) (14:04): While the Prime Minister's press conference did not mention the National Party, he did claim that his backflip on the banking royal commission demonstrated leadership. Isn't it clear that the leadership was actually demonstrated by the 14 coalition MPs and senators who were willing to cross the floor, the National Party room's revolting against the government's position and the Labor Party who has been fighting for a royal commission for some 601 days?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:05): Senator Carr, this is the eighth day on which the Senate has been the only chamber which is sitting and, therefore, the eighth day on which this is the chamber, and only this chamber, where the Labor Party gets to ask questions about policy. This is the eighth day on which you haven't asked a single question about policy, not one. Not one policy question in eight days because, Senator Carr, you are so obsessed with playing the politics that you always miss the point. Senator Carr, the reason the government established this royal commission was to protect the integrity of our financial system, in particular, from some of the wild and foolish statements that had come from your side of politics. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Carr, a final supplementary question.
Senator KIM CARR (Victoria) (14:06): Isn't Mr Christensen right to question why:
… it took …a number of National Party backbenchers to drag the prime minister kicking and screaming to this decision.
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:06): That's what your deputy—
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Stop the clock please. Order across the chamber! Senator Brandis.
Senator BRANDIS: I want to correct my answer from a moment ago. Senator Wong did yesterday actually ask me quite an important foreign policy question about North Korea. It was not one of those contentious questions; it was a constructive question asked not in a partisan spirit. Speaking of a partisan spirit, Senator Carr, why are you so obsessed with politics? You never, ever asked about policy—
Senator Wong: My point of order goes to relevance. It was a direct quote from a member of the government that the leader of the government has been asked whether or not he agrees with and whether Mr Christensen was right. So the commentary, whilst interesting, is actually not directly relevant to the question.
The PRESIDENT: I will note that there was a little bit more of commentary in the question than that, Senator Wong, but I remind the minister of the question. Senator Brandis.
Senator BRANDIS: Thank you. Senator Carr, what I support is the decision the government has made. I've explained to you in answer to your first supplementary question why the government felt that it needed to make this decision—because a number of very wild and foolish statements were being made about the Australian financial system. It is very important that the government move to protect the integrity of the financial— (Time expired)
National Security
Senator FAWCETT (South Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (14:08): My question is to the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis. Can the Attorney-General update the Senate on the national security implications of media reporting over the last 24 hours relating to foreign political influence?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:08): Yes, I can. In the last 24 hours, we have seen a rerun of the events of last year, over a year ago now, when the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, provided a wholly inadequate response to the conduct of Senator Dastyari—and I note that Senator Dastyari is not in the chamber at the moment. We know that he has been here today, because he came in to make a very brief resignation statement and then left immediately. He didn't come into the division before, which was a division to require him to appear before the chamber at three o'clock, and he's not here for question time. It is time that Senator Dastyari actually showed his face and—
Senator Farrell: On a point of order: the government has demanded that Senator Dastyari present himself at three o'clock to answer questions. That's exactly what he's doing.
The PRESIDENT: That's not a point of order; it's a point of information.
Senator BRANDIS: Going more directly to your question, Senator Fawcett: the seriousness of this matter is obvious to almost everyone who follows Australian political affairs, but it still does not seem to have dawned upon Mr Shorten. This, for example, is what Mr Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said yesterday, and I quote, 'As a senior public servant, if you found yourself in a situation where you were seen to be collaborating with a foreign power and endangering the operations of the Australian intelligence community, there would be career-ceasing implications that would flow from that, and quite possibly criminal sanctions as well.' I think it puts Senator Dastyari into, frankly, an impossible position as far as continuing his political role is concerned—not from the coalition, not even from the media, but from Mr Peter Jennings from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and he is, of course, correct.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Fawcett, a supplementary question?
Senator FAWCETT (South Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (14:11): Can the Attorney-General advise the Senate on the adequacy of the response from the opposition to these allegations?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:11): The response has been wholly inadequate. Senator Dastyari had to be compelled by a resolution of the Senate to give an account of himself and respond to the serious allegation made by Fairfax Media and the ABC, and I accept Senator Farrell's assurance that he will do so. But Senator Dastyari seems otherwise to have been put in witness protection by the Labor Party. Yesterday, the Australian Labor Party published on its website 'Christmas Trivia with Hon. Kristina Keneally and Senator Sam Dastyari'. It says:
… the night is set to be very entertaining—
and—
filled with laughter and joy. So book a table—
$150 a table—
with your friends today!
That sounded like a very interesting function, so imagine my disappointment when we looked at the same webpage this morning to discover that 'This page was not found'!
The PRESIDENT: Senator Brandis, we all know that props are not allowed in the chamber. I remind senators of that provision of the standing orders.
Honourable senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left! Order on my right! Order around the front of the chamber!
Senator Wong interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: I called attention to all sides of the chamber but not the rear of the chamber today; they've been very well behaved. Senator Fawcett, a final supplementary question?
Senator FAWCETT (South Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (14:13): Can the Attorney-General advise the Senate of the implications for national security of recent media reporting by Fairfax and the ABC?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:13): They are potentially, if these allegations are true—and they have been made by serious journalists and therefore they must be regarded as credible allegations. They are very serious allegations made by serious journalists and serious media organisations. Potentially, if the allegations are true, they are very serious indeed. In these circumstances, it is just not adequate for the alternative Prime Minister of Australia, the alternative chairman of the National Security Committee of Cabinet, Mr Shorten, merely to think that giving Senator Dastyari a slap on the wrist is enough. Last time Senator Dastyari misconducted himself, he was benched for less than five months—as I said this morning, barely a summer semester. For the Leader of the Opposition to think that benching Senator Dastyari again for a few months is an adequate response, it just goes to show how unfit for high office Mr Shorten is.
DISTINGUISHED VISITORS
The PRESIDENT (14:19): Order! Before I proceed to the next question, I'd like to draw to the attention of honourable senators the presence in the President's gallery of a delegation made-up of officials from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal and the Philippines. On behalf of all senators, I welcome you to Australia and in particular to the Senate.
Honourable senators: Hear, hear!
The PRESIDENT: May I also draw the attention of senators to the presence in the President's gallery of former senator and party leader Natasha Stott-Despoja, and note that today is in fact the 22nd anniversary of her first swearing in to this chamber. I welcome you back to the Senate on behalf of all senators.
Honourable senators: Hear, hear!
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
DASTYARI, Senator Sam
Senator PRATT (Western Australia) (14:15): My question is to the minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Brandis. I refer to TheSydney Morning Herald, which last year stated:
Chinese businessmen with links to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have donated half a million dollars to the West Australian division of the Liberal Party during the last two years …
Can the minister advise the Senate how many times Foreign Minister Bishop has met with Chinese businessman Dr Chau? Can the minister confirm that Dr Chau's business Hong Kong Kingson Investment Ltd has donated $200,000 to the Western Australian Liberal Party in 2014-15?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:16): No, I can't confirm that because I don't know. But I can tell you, Senator Pratt, that members of the government, and I'm sure members of the opposition, meet with businessmen, including—
Senator Pratt interjecting—
Senator BRANDIS: Senator Pratt, would you like me to answer your question?—meet with businessmen, including Chinese businessmen, all the time, as we should. That is not the point. Sometimes those business people make donations to political parties—to the Liberal Party, the National Party, the Australian Labor Party, the Australian Greens—as they are entitled to do and as, indeed, the High Court has said is part of the implied freedom of political communication. But those donations are subject to a rigorous disclosure regime, and what I can confirm to you, Senator Pratt, is that the Liberal Party, in all its state divisions, is absolutely compliant with its disclosure obligations under the Commonwealth Electoral Act. What we are talking about in the case of Senator Dastyari is not political donations, it's undue influence. It's about undue influence, about the fact that Senator Dastyari has, so it is alleged, engaged in covert behaviour in a way to potentially frustrate the operational activities of the Australian security agencies. Senator Dastyari has sought to undermine the foreign policy position of your own party on an issue of the greatest foreign policy sensitivity, namely the South China Sea and freedom of navigation exercises through islands in the South China Sea—nothing whatever to do with political donations but everything to do with undue foreign influence.
The PRESIDENT: A supplementary question, Senator Pratt.
Senator PRATT (Western Australia) (14:18): Can the minister advise the Senate how many times Foreign Minister Bishop has met with Chinese businessman Mr Huang? Can the minister confirm that Mr Huang's business, the Yuhu Group, donated at least $230,000 to the Western Australian Liberal Party in 2013-14?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:18): No, I can't confirm that because I don't know, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. As I said in answer to Senator Pratt's primary question, the Liberal Party receives donations, including in Western Australia, from business people, including Chinese business people. By the way, there is no rule against business people donating money to political parties because they're Chinese, and I wonder what you're getting at. The fact is that we have a very rigorous disclosure regime for political donations under the Commonwealth Electoral Act, and I can assure you that the Liberal Party is strictly compliant.
Senator Wong: It’s the same Mr Huang that Sam met; it's the same bloke.
Senator BRANDIS: I'll take that interjection, Senator Wong. The issue we raise about Senator Dastyari is not in relation to the disclosure of donations, it's in relation to the conduct of Senator Dastyari, plainly at the behest of Mr Huang, and why it is that Senator Dastyari conducted himself in that way. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Pratt, a final supplementary question.
Senator PRATT (Western Australia) (14:19): When will the Turnbull government take action and follow Labor's lead to ban foreign donations?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:19): We've already announced that we are going to be introducing legislation to ban foreign political donations as part of a broader and sweeping series of legislative reforms to protect Australia and Australia's democratic system from foreign influence. Senator Pratt, far from following Labor's lead, it has been the government's position to do that since before the Labor Party made its announcement. So you, Senator Pratt, have been following the government's lead.
Senator Pratt, let me return to your earlier observation. The allegations made by Fairfax Media and the ABC about Senator Dastyari aren't about the receipt of political donations; they are about being subject to undue foreign influence and then lying about it. It was enough for your leader to demand his resignation, so I wonder why you seek to deflect attention from his conduct. (Time expired)
Banking and Financial Services
Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (14:21): My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Cormann. Senator Cormann, the letter from the bank CEOs to the Treasurer was dated this morning. Did you make a decision to call a royal commission this morning or have you had other discussions with the banks? If so, will you provide the details of those discussions to the Senate?
Senator CORMANN ( Western Australia — Minister for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate ) ( 14:21 ): I can confirm that the government made a decision this morning.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Whish-Wilson, a supplementary question.
Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (14:21): When this parliament set up two parliamentary commissions of inquiry, we consulted with not only the financial sector but also victims of misconduct and other stakeholders, including community legal centres. You've already said that you've consulted with Treasury, the RBA and the banks on this royal commission. Will the government commit to consulting with other victims for their terms of reference?
Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:22): The government's announcement today is self explanatory. We did not believe—and it is a matter of public record—that a royal commission was the appropriate way forward. But, given how this debate has evolved and given the increasingly political nature of the debate and how it was impacting on a very important sector for the future success of our economy, we made the judgement that, in the circumstances that Australia had reached and in the national interest, it was appropriate to make the decision that we have made. All of the appropriate consultations have taken place, and the Prime Minister and the Treasurer will continue to make relevant announcements as appropriate.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Whish-Wilson, a final supplementary question.
Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (14:23): Currently, banks are only required to keep financial records for seven years. We've seen catastrophes like forestry managed investment schemes in 2009, eight years, ago, and the Storm Financial collapse in 2009, eight years ago. People walking down Collins Street or in Martin Place today might be wondering if it is the sound of shredders that they can hear. Minister, will the government request that the banks do not destroy any documents relative to this royal commission?
Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:23): It is interesting that Senator Whish-Wilson is going through the list of years that all these various financial disasters happened, because they all happened under the watch of the Rudd-Gillard Labor-Green government—and, of course, the Labor Party did nothing. In fact, the Labor Party in government said that there was no need for a comprehensive inquiry into the financial system. When former shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey recommended a comprehensive financial systems inquiry, the Labor Party dismissed it and said that that wasn't warranted and wasn't appropriate. We know why the Labor Party has been pursuing this: it is purely politics. Mr Shorten doesn't care about people who are victims of financial—
Senator Whish-Wilson: Mr President, a point of order on relevance: I asked a specific question about whether the government would be requesting that the banks don't destroy any relevant documents.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Whish-Wilson, the minister is directly addressing other issues that you raised in the preamble to your question.
Senator CORMANN: Firstly, we expect, and we are confident, that the banks will comply with all the relevant laws, and we will expect them to cooperate with the royal commission. It's going to be a matter for the commissioners to determine all of the relevant terms— (Time expired)
Banking and Financial Services
Senator BILYK (Tasmania) (14:24): My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. On Monday, this minister said:
The problem with a royal commission is that it will take forever and achieve nothing.
What changed between then and now, aside from the banks agreeing to a royal commission?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:25): Senator Bilyk, the fact is that a lot of very irresponsible and very foolish statements were being made about the Australian financial system. There is no doubt that establishing a banking royal commission was not the government's preferred option, for all the reasons I outlined, but the government made a decision, based entirely on the national interest, that we needed to protect and defend the Australian financial system from some of the foolish and extravagant statements that were being made in the course of this debate. For that reason, the government decided that it would accede to the will of many in this parliament to establish a banking royal commission, with very specific terms of reference and set up in such a way that it won't last forever.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Bilyk, a supplementary question.
Senator BILYK (Tasmania) (14:26): My first supplementary question is: why would the Prime Minister capitulate to demands from the CEOs of the big four banks when he was not willing to listen to their victims, Labor or even his own backbench?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:26): The Prime Minister listens to everybody. He mightn't agree with them all, but he listens to everyone. As I said, Senator Bilyk, in answer to your primary question, establishing a banking royal commission was not the government's preferred course, for all of the reasons that I've explained in this chamber earlier in the week and in previous weeks as well. But, in view of the way this debate was developing, the government does have a concern about the effect that some of the wilder and more foolish claims were having on the Australian financial system. For that reason and, at the request of the banks, to staunch the damage that was being done to confidence in the Australian financial system by some of the foolish claims made in the debate, a royal commission with a certain reporting date and specific terms of reference was necessary. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Bilyk, a final supplementary question?
Senator BILYK (Tasmania) (14:27): I would just point out to Senator Brandis that there's a huge difference between listening and taking action. When was the Prime Minister first advised of the shift of the banks' position, and was the meeting of cabinet this morning called prior to or following the decision by the banks to support a royal commission?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:28): I don't know the answer to the first part of your question, because the correspondence of the CEOs of the banks was correspondence to the Prime Minister, not to me. Nor is it the practice of governments of either political persuasion to announce the agenda or program of cabinet meetings.
Aged Care
Senator HANSON (Queensland) (14:28): My question is to Senator Fierravanti-Wells, representing the Minister for Aged Care, the Hon. Ken Wyatt. Aged-care bed licences are allocated each year through the aged-care allocation round at no cost.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Senator Watt: How many people have you sold out today?
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left! Can we hear the question please?
Senator HANSON: Can I please start the question again?
Senator Wong interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Wong, if you let me get to it, I'll ask for lack of interjections during questions from right around the chamber, including on my right. Senator Hanson, start your question again, because I missed part of it myself.
Senator HANSON: Thank you very much, Mr President. My question is to Senator Fierravanti-Wells, representing the Minister for Aged Care, the Hon. Ken Wyatt. Aged-care bed licences are allocated each year—
Senator Watt interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Senator Watt, I have asked you before: please can we hear the question? You did this previously, and Senator Hanson had to start again. It is traditionally time for the opposition. It will cost the opposition time if I have to ask her a third time. Senator Hanson, please continue your question.
Senator HANSON: They clearly don't care about aged people. My question is to Senator Fierravanti-Wells, representing the Minister for Aged Care, the Hon. Ken Wyatt. Aged-care bed licences are allocated each year through the aged-care allocation round at no cost to regions based on projected future need. An aged-care provider operating 10 facilities, employing 675 people, wanting to expand in regional areas requested 314 places in the 2016 round and was allocated only 60.
Opposition senators interjecting—
Senator HANSON: By contrast—Mr President, I'm sorry, this is becoming very—
Senator Polley interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order! Order! Senator Polley! If a senator requests the protection of the chair, they're going to get it. I want to hear this question in complete silence.
Honourable senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order! A senator has requested the protection of the chair. The burden on all senators is to be silent. Senator Hanson, I heard all of that question and I saw Senator Fierravanti-Wells listening intently. Please continue your question. I will grant you some flexibility regarding the clock—sorry, Senator Hinch is on his feet.
Senator Hinch: Back here, Senator Bernardi and I could not hear Senator Hanson's question.
The PRESIDENT: I will ask Senator Hanson to continue and I will show some flexibility with the timing on the clock.
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left! This is to be heard in silence.
Senator HANSON: I don't even know where I'm up to now. There's been total confusion, and the time is down to 10 seconds.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Hanson, I said I would give you some flexibility with the clock. Please continue your question. You got to a number of places that had not been granted.
Senator HANSON: By contrast, Signature Care—a developer, not an aged-care provider—was allocated 640 licences. This is handing them an estimated market value of around $41.6 million on top of their profit, based on a per-bed value of $65,000. Why are developers with no track record of aged-care provision allowed to compete in a process which provides a significant financial benefit, to the detriment of aged-care operators? (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Hanson, I have shown you flexibility with the clock. That is well over the minute you were granted.
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: On my left—I said I would grant Senator Hanson some flexibility because you had interrupted the question on numerous occasions and she had sought the protection of the chair.
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (14:32): I thank Senator Hanson for the question and for advance warning. Can I start by outlining the process—
Senator Wong interjecting—
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: Not all of it, I didn't.
Opposition senators interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Order on my left! I need to be able to hear the answer for the inevitable point of order on relevance.
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: The Aged Care Act and the aged-care principles set out the process for the places for allocation under the ACAR round. It consists of three clear steps: (1) the creation of a number of places in each jurisdiction by the minister, using the government's targeted aged-care planning ratios; (2) the targeting of places to special needs; and (3) key issue groups in each state and territory, determined by the secretary and the secretary's allocation of those places to specific providers after a competitive selection process is conducted.
In the 2016-17 ACAR round, over 45,000 residential places were sought, and so 10,000 new residential places were allocated. That means that, for every 4.5 applications that were put in, there was one place, so it's a very competitive process. The year before, there were 3.6 applications for every place allocated, so we have increased it. Therefore, this year, we allocated places worth $649 million and nearly 500 restorative care beds, worth $34 million, and we have recently provided $64 million in capital grants.
The act provides for this process, and this ensures that a large amount of the funding it provides is allocated, and it's allocated in a rigorous, fair and impartial manner. The minister, the minister's office or any other parliamentarian do not have a role in the assessment of the allocation process. The act establishes this as a function of the department. The ACAR— (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Before I call Senator Hanson on a supplementary question, I remind senators that the senator sought the protection of the chair for the previous question. Senator Hanson.
Senator HANSON (Queensland) (14:34): Minister, we're talking about a developer that got 640 licences, and there were 45,000 applications. But the developer is not in the aged-care business. And, in the previous allocation round, they also received about the same amount of places. So, what provisions are in place to stop developers who are not genuine aged-care providers from profiteering when they are able to sell the investment within a day of completion of construction?
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (14:35): Senator Hanson, the process is open to all applicants who are or who will become an approved provider under the act. So you have to be an approved provider. You have to go through a process under the act to be able to apply for places in an ACAR round. What sometimes happens is that they apply for places, they bring them into operation and then they on-sell those places to other people. I am instructed that of the approved provider entities that are known by the department to engage—in effect, property developers—14 per cent of residential places were allocated to them. The practice of applying for the places and bringing them into operation is actually provided for under the act. Therefore, first of all, to get a place, you have to go through a competitive process— (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Hanson, a final supplementary question.
Senator HANSON (Queensland) (14:36): Minister, we're actually talking about a developer that can make $41.6 million on the 640 beds that they are getting, plus the development profits. The program is intended to operate for the benefit of those needing aged care, not developers. Has the government considered limiting eligibility under the scheme to registered operators who have an established track record of at least three years?
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (14:36): Senator Hanson, the competitive process under ACAR is open to all applicants, as I've indicated. Under the act, all providers must demonstrate their capacity to deliver aged care. They have to be in a residential, in a home or in a flexible setting. Under the act, the department must ensure that the ACAR process delivers diversity of choice in the care options available to consumers. This is available and this is done by opening the ACAR round to both new and existing aged-care providers. Limiting the eligibility to applicants with a set number of years of operating residential aged-care services would effectively block any new entrant from entering the sector. It would, in turn, dilute the care options available to consumers. As I've indicated, it is a competitive process, but it is one where the providers themselves, in effect, trade their places. (Time expired)
Private Health Insurance
Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia) (14:37): My question is to the Minister for International Development and the Pacific representing the Minister for Health. Will the minister outline to the Senate the Turnbull government's commitment to the 13.5 million Australians that have private health insurance?
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (14:38): I thank Senator Brockman for his question. Private health insurance helps 13.5 million Australians. On 13 October this year, the Minister for Health announced the largest reforms to private health insurance to make it simpler and more affordable. The government has negotiated $1 billion worth of services with the medical devices industry, and younger Australians will benefit from discounted hospital premiums of up to 10 per cent and savings of up to $200 a year on a $2,000 policy. We will provide greater access to mental health services for people in regional and rural areas, with insurers offering travel and accommodation benefits. We are making private health insurance simpler by requiring insurers to categorise products as gold, silver, bronze and basic, with easy-to-use definitions. We will continue to support affordable health insurance via our private health insurance rebate, currently worth $6 billion a year. Our actions have helped to keep the pressure on private health insurers and help drive the lowest premium prices in 10 years—lower than any years under the Rudd and Gillard governments.
Can I just compare our record to Labor's record. The Labor Party wanted to rip out the heart of private health insurance with destructive cuts. You are ideologically driven in shutting down private health insurance. You would force millions of Australians, millions of Australian families, onto higher costs of private health insurance premiums. Before the 2007 election, we had all these promises by Nicola Roxon: 'We're not going to touch private health insurance.' As soon as you got into government, you cut, cut, cut— (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Brockman, a supplementary question.
Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia) (14:40): Can the minister update the Senate on feedback the government has received since the private health insurance reforms were announced?
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (14:40): Thank you, Senator Brockman. Key stakeholders have supported the government's reform practice. The AMA president, Michael Gannon, has said:
… the changes will provide better coverage for mental health services and for people in rural and regional Australia.
And:
The framework for positive reform of the private health insurance industry is now in place.
Consumer Health Forum of Australia CEO, Leanne Wells—no relation—said:
The Government's health insurance reforms appear likely to deliver not only lower premium increases in the medium term but hopefully clearer consumer-friendly policies.
I say this because, before Kristina Keneally tells us another lie about what's happening in Bennelong—and the reason I'm stressing Bennelong is that some of Australia's major pharmaceutical and health companies have their base in Bennelong, so I want to make sure that the people of Bennelong have the truth, not the lies that are being peddled by Kristina Keneally. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Brockman, a final supplementary question.
Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia) (14:41): Thank you, Minister, for that answer. Is the minister aware of any risks that will undermine the private health insurance industry and raise premiums for hardworking Australians?
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (14:41): As with Medicare, it's those opposite—
An opposition senator interjecting—
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: Absolutely—your ill-informed policies on private health insurance will ensure that Australian families, especially including those in Bennelong, will have to pay higher cost for their premiums, with potential increases of 16 per cent. This is on top of the premium increases that they suffered—a rise of over 28 per cent—during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. Just as you've flip-flopped and done all sorts of things in relation to the Medicare offices, you have flip-flopped on private health insurance as well. When you were in power, you cut $4 billion from private health insurance when you introduced means testing, and you were even proud of it, because— (Time expired)
Medical Devices
Senator GRIFF (South Australia) (14:43): My question is to Senator Fierravanti-Wells, representing the Minister for Health. I refer the minister to the prostheses pricing agreement with the Medical Technology Association of Australia, which took effect from last month. In this agreement the government committed to reduce the time to market for implantable devices by removing the current requirement for clinical evidence with two years of follow-up data for some devices. Is there a reason that the government is exposing consumers to increased risks from prostheses that have not been demonstrated via two years of safety data?
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (14:43): I thank Senator Griff for the question and for advanced warning of the question. There are two key components that underpin the safety of medical devices in Australia. Firstly, the Therapeutic Goods Administration operates a risk based system for the assessment of the safety of regulatory devices, where the highest threshold of evidence is required for the highest risk products. Changes to the Prostheses List will not alter this rigorous approach. The requirement for clinical evidence with two years of follow-up data does not apply to application for all devices on the Prostheses List. It is important to note that, within the government's agreement with the Medical Technology Association of Australia, the commitment to remove the current requirement for clinical evidence with two years of follow-up data for some devices will only occur where this is appropriate by 1 August 2018. This is designed to deliver new medical devices to Australians while maintaining strict clinical evidentiary rules.
Secondly, the Prostheses List Advisory Committee, known as PLAC, works with its clinical subcommittees to develop guidance for applicants on appropriate evidence to support listing devices on the list. There is a wide range of devices listed on the list, from simple fixation devices to complex cardiac devices. They require different levels of evidence and follow-up data to be able to determine whether they are clinically effective and cost effective. The PLAC will still require evidence demonstrating that devices are at least as clinically effective as devices on the prostheses list or other alternative treatments. The type of evidence and length of follow-up will differ depending on the type of device.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Griff, a supplementary question.
Senator GRIFF (South Australia) (14:45): Is the minister aware of failures using a fit-for-purpose assessment for new prosthesis applications? For instance, is the minister aware that the Johnson & Johnson ASR hip replacement, the cause of the largest recall in Australia to date, which I believe was a class action in Australia alone of in excess of $250 million, was initially approved as a comparative device before failing spectacularly? How will the government avoid the repeat of such a disaster?
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (14:46): Currently, all applications to list devices on the prostheses list are subject to the processes outlined in the Prostheses List: Guide to listing and setting benefits for prostheses. The list advisory committee intends to review and strengthen the arrangements and processes to ensure that medical devices are assessed for comparative health outcomes that will inform private health insurance listing and benefits. The PLAC is also working cooperatively with the Therapeutic Goods Administration to look at use of post-market surveillance to inform review of device listings.
As I said, this is a two-pronged process. It is the TGA, not the PLAC, that assesses whether devices are safe to use. The TGA is informed by the independent Advisory Committee on Medical Devices, established under regulation 38 of the Therapeutic Goods Regulations 1990. The PLAC, on the other hand, assesses devices to determine what benefit levels private health insurers should be required to pay for the device. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Griff, a final supplementary question.
Senator GRIFF (South Australia) (14:47): The Australian Orthopaedic Association National Joint Replacement Registry is held up internationally as the benchmark for best practice in providing quality information on joint replacement. Can the minister confirm that joint replacement and long-life prostheses will not be listed unless they have a minimum of two years of clinical data?
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (14:47): As I outlined in my first answer, Senator Griff, the Prostheses List Advisory Committee has asked its clinical subcommittees to advise on the appropriate level of evidence in order to set appropriate private health insurance benefits for devices. All devices approved in Australia must go through a rigorous assessment through the TGA. Changes to the prostheses list will not alter this rigorous process. As I've said, the TGA is informed by its independent Advisory Committee on Medical Devices and the PLAC, on the other hand, assesses devices to determine what benefit levels private health insurers should be required to pay for the device.
Banking and Financial Services
Senator KETTER (Queensland) (14:48): My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Cormann. Can the minister confirm that the letter from the four major Australian banks supporting a royal commission was received at 8.30 am and that the Prime Minister and Treasurer stood up just half an hour later to announce their policy backflip? What discussions occurred between the Turnbull government and the banks prior to the letter being released?
Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:48): I can confirm that a letter from the banks was received this morning. As to the precise time, I'd have to take that on notice and check with the Treasurer. I can also confirm that the government made the decision in relation to the establishment of a royal commission this morning, which is a matter of public record and which I've already indicated in response to the question by Senator Whish-Wilson. Thirdly, I can confirm that the government always has ongoing consultations on a whole range of matters with all stakeholders across Australia, including the very important stakeholders in relation to important financial institutions.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Ketter, a supplementary question.
Senator KETTER (Queensland) (14:49): Did the Treasurer or any other member of the Turnbull government economic team request that the banks revisit their opposition to a royal commission?
Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:49): As you know, the government's position, until we made a decision otherwise this morning, was to oppose a royal commission, and that is a matter of public record. We did not believe that a royal commission was in the national interest. But, given the way the politics of this debate have evolved, we took the view that it was important for the government to take control in the national interest, and that is, of course, what we've done. In relation to the other matters the senator has raised, I will consult the Treasurer.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Ketter, a final supplementary question.
Senator KETTER (Queensland) (14:50): Can the minister confirm that banking victims groups were not even consulted on the royal commission terms of reference prior to the announcement this morning? What does it say about the Turnbull government that it works with the banks on a royal commission and not with the victims of the banks' misconduct?
Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:50): My advice is that the banks were not consulted in relation to terms of reference in relation to the royal commission. This is something that was developed by the government. It was announced by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. It is something, of course, that will now go through all of the appropriate steps to give effect to it.
New South Wales Government
Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales—Nationals Whip in the Senate) (14:51): My question is to the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Canavan. Can the minister advise the Senate of how past New South Wales governments have interacted with the resources sector?
Senator CANAVAN (Queensland—Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) (14:51): I think there are some very pertinent facts about that past relationship that deserve to be placed on the record. In 2008, Doyles Creek Mining was awarded an exploration licence by the then Minister for Mineral Resources in New South Wales, Ian Macdonald. The licence was awarded to former CFMEU national president John Maitland, who is now serving six years in prison. Ian Macdonald had granted the coal exploration licence without opening it to competitive tender.
On 15 November 2009, the then Premier, Nathan Rees, sacked Ian Macdonald from cabinet. A few months before that sacking, on 20 July 2009, Mr Andrew Clennell wrote in an article for The Sydney Morning Herald:
… Minister … Macdonald … has been accused of doing more favours for mates after he approved a coal mining exploration licence for a mine run by a former union boss …
Mr Clennell also said in that article:
Craig Chapman, a community representative at the site of the proposed mine, Jerrys Plain, said it was clear the mine had been treated differently to others and he was sceptical of Mr Macdonald and Mr Maitland's claims that the mine was simply for "training" mine workers.
Five months after that article was written, on 8 December 2009, Ms Kristina Keneally, after being hand-picked by the corrupt trio—Eddie Obeid, Joe Tripodi and Ian Macdonald—to be the Premier, immediately promoted Ian Macdonald back into the cabinet, where he continued to engage in corrupt conduct. Ian Macdonald is now serving 10 years in jail for criminal misconduct and has been found corrupt by the New South Wales ICAC. In sentencing, Justice Adamson said that the people of New South Wales were betrayed by Mr Macdonald's conduct.
The question for Ms Keneally is: what questions did she ask about the allegations before reappointing Mr Macdonald to cabinet? They were made five months before she did. She has never answered what due diligence she did before appointing someone who was under allegations of corrupt conduct back to be in charge of the New South Wales government resources sector. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Williams on a supplementary question.
Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales—Nationals Whip in the Senate) (14:53): Can the minister inform the Senate what action was taken by law enforcement in response to this conduct?
Senator CANAVAN (Queensland—Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) (14:53): The New South Wales ICAC found that Mr Ian Macdonald, Mr Eddie Obeid, Mr Joe Tripodi and Mr Tony Kelly had engaged in corrupt conduct. Later, in December 2016, the New South Wales Supreme Court found that Eddie Obeid was guilty of misconduct and sentenced him to five years jail. In 2017, the New South Wales Supreme Court found Ian Macdonald guilty of criminal misconduct in office and corruption and sentenced him to 10 years in jail. It goes on. ICAC have found that both Joe Tripodi and Tony Kelly were guilty of corrupt conduct through separate dealings. ICAC cancelled the three mining licences that were issued corruptly, worth up to $1½ billion, and said that they were so tainted by corruption they should be expunged or cancelled. Reports have stated that the conduct of Mr Obeid and Mr Macdonald cost the state of New South Wales over $90 million and, again, Ms Keneally has not answered questions about why she did not inquire about these allegations before reappointing Mr Macdonald to cabinet.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Williams, a final supplementary question.
Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales—Nationals Whip in the Senate) (14:54): I thank the minister. Can the minister outline any risks that this kind of conduct can occur again.
Senator CANAVAN (Queensland—Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) (14:55): It's important that (1) those engaged in such conduct pay a penalty, and (2) those who may have aided and abetted such conduct, similarly, do not get elected to public office again. If Ms Keneally has not aided or abetted this corrupt conduct, she needs to answer what she did before appointing Mr Macdonald back into cabinet when, five months before that date, there were credible allegations by investigative journalists in a major New South Wales newspaper that he had engaged in such conduct which was later proven to be true. Maybe we could have gone and asked Ms Keneally some of these questions at a Christmas trivia event that was due to be held in a few weeks time with Senator Sam Dastyari. We could have asked her those questions but, as Senator Brandis outlined earlier, unfortunately, that particular event has been cancelled and is no longer on.
Donations to Political Parties
Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (14:56): My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. I refer to the Prime Minister's statement in February of this year where he said:
In the course of this current financial year, which is why it hasn't been disclosed on the AEC, I contributed $1.75 million. That was the contribution I made.
Has the Prime Minister now declared what is said to be the single biggest individual donation in Australian history?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:56): It's not, as a matter of fact. I'm sure the Prime Minister's compliant with all his obligations.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Farrell, a supplementary question.
Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (14:57): Section 305B(1) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act requires a person who makes a donation to a political party totalling more than the disclosure threshold during any financial year to furnish a return to the AEC within 20 weeks after the end of that financial year. Given this means the Prime Minister's disclosure was due last week, why has the Prime Minister breached the Electoral Act?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:57): I'm not aware that he has, Senator.
The PRESIDENT: A final supplementary question, Senator Farrell.
Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (14:57): Given the Prime Minister claims to support transparency in political donations, isn't it now apparent that, as well as failing to disclose his own donation, he has also broken his promise to deal with the donation reform in the spring session?
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:58): No, and the spring session has not concluded.
Telecommunications
Senator McKENZIE (Victoria) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Communications and the Minister for the Arts, Senator Fifield. Can the minister update the Senate on how the Turnbull government is delivering much-needed mobile coverage to rural and regional Australia?
Senator FIFIELD (Victoria—Manager of Government Business in the Senate, Minister for Communications, Minister for the Arts and Acting Minister for Regional Communications) (14:58): Thank you, Senator McKenzie, for your question and for your ceaseless advocacy for regional Australia. I am very pleased to advise colleagues that the government is delivering on its commitment to improve mobile coverage in 106 priority locations around the country. The government's commitment to regional Australia will ensure that communities have better access to wider and more reliable mobile phone coverage.
The recently announced tender process for the priority locations round of the Mobile Black Spot Program will deliver improved mobile services via an additional 106 mobile phone towers. This is on top of the 765 mobile towers already being delivered by the government. If we want to see our regions continue to grow, we know that they've got to have the best communications possible. Reliable communications and mobile telephony are things that people take for granted these days. They are important for business, important for customers and important for families and are particularly important at times of emergency and natural disaster. That's why as a government we have invested $220 million into the Mobile Black Spot Program. It's also worth noting that this investment has unlocked a funding pool worth more than $650 million from the private sector and governments—federal, state, territory and local—to improve mobile coverage in the regions. It's important to recognise that this is the most significant one-time increase of mobile network coverage to regional and remote Australia delivered by a single public funding program in the history of mobile communications.
The PRESIDENT: Senator McKenzie, a supplementary question.
Senator McKENZIE (Victoria) (15:00): Can the minister update the Senate on how this will help residents, specifically in New South Wales?
Senator FIFIELD (Victoria—Manager of Government Business in the Senate, Minister for Communications, Minister for the Arts and Acting Minister for Regional Communications) (15:00): I acknowledge that Senator McKenzie takes an interest in things across the border from Victoria, in New South Wales. New South Wales will receive 211 mobile towers to deliver critical services to regional areas. These will provide new handheld coverage to thousands of homes and businesses; that wouldn't have been the case under our predecessors. I might make a brief reference to the electorate of New England, which is an example of the success of the program. Under rounds 1 and 2 of the program New England has 33 towers being rolled out. Ten of these are already switched on and providing a much-needed boost to mobile coverage, and a further seven towers in New England are expected to go live by March next year. To date, a total of 319 mobile base stations have been switched on across the country—that's a new mobile tower every three days.
The PRESIDENT: Senator McKenzie. a final supplementary question?
Senator McKENZIE (Victoria) (15:01): Is the minister aware of any risks to mobile phone coverage for regional Australians?
Senator FIFIELD (Victoria—Manager of Government Business in the Senate, Minister for Communications, Minister for the Arts and Acting Minister for Regional Communications) (15:01): Unfortunately, I am. It is those colleagues who sit opposite us. Despite being in office for six years, our colleagues across the way didn't invest a single dollar. I am very pleased to advise colleagues that under the coalition we have invested $220 million in this program, compared to zero by those opposite. I am very pleased to say that we are supporting the establishment of 871 towers, compared to zero by those opposite.
This is a program that is warmly embraced by regional Australia. We do hear colleagues slinging off at it occasionally, but I would like to reference Dr Mike Kelly, the member for a seat near this place, who stated that the Mobile Black Spot Program is an important investment and it is good for rural and regional Australia. Well said, Mike.
Senator Brandis: I ask that further questions be placed upon the Notice Paper.
STATEMENTS
Dastyari, Senator Sam
The PRESIDENT (15:02): Pursuant to order adopted earlier today, I call Senator Dastyari.
Senator DASTYARI (New South Wales—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:03): I thank the Senate for the opportunity to speak again on this matter. I note that only limited opportunity was provided to me to prepare this response.
As I've previously stated, I became acquainted with Mr Huang Xiangmo as he was a prominent local Chinese community leader in Sydney. As the Senate will appreciate, there are over one million Chinese Australians. It is not uncommon for there to be large community functions regularly at which Chinese community leaders are present. As the general secretary of the Australian Labor Party New South Wales Branch I would regularly be in contact with representatives of every community in New South Wales. These included ethnic, corporate and community organisations. Mr Huang Xiangmo was also a regular attendee at Labor Party functions. I note he attended many Liberal Party functions, too. I have a document of donations data downloaded from the AEC website I would like to table for the benefit of the Senate.
Leave granted.
Senator DASTYARI: A series of allegations were published in the Fairfax media on 29 November 2017 regarding a meeting between myself and Mr Huang. As I told Four Corners months ago, after the events of last year I spoke to Mr Huang to tell him that I did not think it was appropriate that we have future contact. I thought it was a matter of common courtesy to say this face to face. Neither my office nor I have spoken to Mr Huang since. This information has been publicly available since June. I utterly reject any assertion that I leaked intelligence information to Mr Huang. Let me reiterate that I have never been provided intelligence information by any Australian security agency. I have never passed on intelligence information; I have never been in possession of any.
In June 2016 I held a press conference that was targeted at Australian-Chinese media and the Chinese-Australian community. Mr Huang was included in the press conference, as the presence of a prominent Chinese community leader would help attract better media coverage from Chinese-language media and their target audience. This is standard media practice for Australian political parties from across the spectrum when seeking to engage with multicultural communities. I do not have the full details of what was said at the press conference; however, I understand footage has been disseminated to media outlets. The topics that were prominent in the Chinese media at the time of the press conference included the Australia-China FTA, negative gearing, the new Chinese ambassador, the South China Sea, Pauline Hanson before she became Senator Pauline Hanson and, significantly, controversy over the Safe Schools program.
At the press conference I made comments that were in breach of Labor Party policy on issues relating to the South China Sea. While I do not have a copy of the transcript of the press conference, I understand a copy of those comments has been disseminated to media outlets. I have never denied that contradicting Labor policy was a significant mistake, and I resigned from the Labor Party front bench over it last year.
I have been a member of the Labor Party since I was 16 years old. I've held numerous positions, including the general secretary of the New South Wales branch, and have had the privilege of being elected as a senator. I understand the importance of collective policy development and the consequences of breaching party discipline. I let myself down and my party down by contradicting party policy, and I paid the appropriate penalty.
More recently my characterisation of the press conference was called into question. A recent audio recording shocked me, as it did not match my recollection of events. I personally take responsibility for the subsequent mischaracterisation. When a public official makes a statement that contradicts events, there are consequences. For me the consequence was being called last night by my leader, Bill Shorten, and being asked to resign from my position in the Labor Senate organisational leadership. I accept the decision of my leader and, accordingly, today I resign my Senate leadership positions.
On 20 November 2014 I declared to the Register of Senators' Interests that Mr Huang's Yuhu Group had made a payment on my behalf for settlement of an outstanding legal matter. This payment has been on the public record for over three years. The existence of this payment has been reported in the media as far back as an article published by Mr James Massola in The Sydney Morning Herald 18 months ago on 28 March 2015 entitled 'Chinese donor steps in to help Sam Dastyari,' which I table for the benefit of the Senate, by leave.
Leave granted.
Senator DASTYARI: For the sake of completeness, other gifts and hospitality from companies associated with Mr Huang are also disclosed on my statement of interests for this parliament and the previous parliament in accordance with my obligations to the Senate, noting that I first entered the Senate in 2013. I thank the Senate.
BUSINESS
Consideration of Legislation
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (15:09): by leave—I move:
(1) That in the week commencing Monday, 4 December 2017, the following bills shall have precedence over all government and general business until proceedings on the bills are concluded, and proposals under standing order 75 not be proceeded with:
Treasury Laws Amendment (Improving Accountability and Member Outcomes in Superannuation Measures No. 1) Bill 2017
Superannuation Laws Amendment (Strengthening Trustee Arrangements) Bill 2017
Treasury Laws Amendment (Improving Accountability and Member Outcomes in Superannuation Measures No. 2) Bill 2017
Treasury Laws Amendment (Reducing Pressure on Housing Affordability Measures No. 1) Bill 2017
First Home Super Saver Tax Bill 2017
Treasury Laws Amendment (Putting Consumers First—Establishment of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority) Bill 2017
Regional Investment Corporation Bill 2017
Migration Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2016
Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017
Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017
Industrial Chemicals Bill 2017
Industrial Chemicals (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2017
Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Amendment Bill 2017
Industrial Chemicals Charges (General) Bill 2017
Industrial Chemicals Charges (Customs) Bill 2017
Industrial Chemicals Charges (Excise) Bill 2017
Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Amendment Bill 2017.
(2) That, if by 4.30 pm on Thursday, 7 December 2017, the bills have not been finally considered then:
(a) the hours of meeting shall be 9.30 am to adjournment;
(b) the routine of business from not later than 4.30 pm shall be the bills listed above in paragraph (1) only;
(c) divisions may take place after 4.30 pm; and
(d) the Senate shall adjourn without debate after it has finally considered the bills, or a motion for the adjournment is moved by a minister, whichever is the earlier.
I commend the motion to the Senate.
Senator PATRICK (South Australia) (15:10): As circulated in the chamber, I move:
That the motion be amended by—
(1) adding in paragraph (1) after the words "proceeded with":
"Fair Work Amendment (Repeal of 4 Yearly Reviews and Other Measures) Bill 2017"
(2) at the end of paragraph (1), add:
"(1A) That the Fair Work Amendment (Repeal of 4 Yearly Reviews and Other Measures) Bill 2017 shall be considered before the other bills listed in paragraph (1)."
Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (15:10): I will be moving a second amendment to omit the following bills: Treasury Laws Amendment (Improving Accountability and Member Outcomes in Superannuation Measures No. 1) Bill 2017; Superannuation Laws Amendment (Strengthening Trustee Arrangements) Bill 2017; and Treasury Laws Amendment (Improving Accountability and Member Outcomes in Superannuation Measures No. 2) Bill 2017.
Just for the chamber's clarification, Senator Brandis has moved a motion which obviously goes to what government business will be considered and some hours at the conclusion of that. Senator Patrick has moved the amendment I had previously foreshadowed, which was to bring on the penalty rates protection bill first. I indicate that, given we foreshadowed it, the Labor Party will be supporting Senator Patrick's amendment. In addition, Labor does not wish to proceed with the superannuation legislation that the government has put into the program, and we will oppose that. We are also seeking to move that the superannuation bills not be included in the bills which must be dealt with before the Senate rises. I trust that assists the Senate.
The PRESIDENT: The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Patrick be agreed to.
Senator Dodson did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Parry.
Senator Gallagher did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Nash.
Senator Birmingham did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Kakoschke-Moore.
The Senate divided. [15:17]
(The President—Senator Ryan)
Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (15:19): I move:
That the motion be amended to omit the following bills: Treasury Laws Amendment (Improving Accountability and Member Outcomes in Superannuation Measures No. 1) Bill 2017, Superannuation Laws Amendment (Strengthening Trustee Arrangements) Bill 2017 and Treasury Laws Amendment (Improving Accountability and Member Outcomes in Superannuation Measures No. 2) Bill 2017.
The PRESIDENT: The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Wong to the motion by Senator Brandis be agreed to.
Senator Dodson did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Parry.
Senator Farrell did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Nash.
Senator Sterle did not vote to compensate for the resignation caused by the vacancy of Senator Kakosch k e-Moore.
The Senate divided. [15:24]
(The President—Senator Ryan)
The PRESIDENT (15:27): We now move to the substantive motion. The question is that the motion of Senator Brandis, as amended, be agreed to.
Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (15:27): Mr President, as a consequence of the Labor Party not being successful in that amendment, we would ask that you divide the question because the position we will take in relation to paragraph 2 will differ.
The PRESIDENT: I will do so. The question now is that clause (1), as amended by the Senate, of the original motion of Senator Brandis be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The PRESIDENT: The question is that clause (2) of the motion moved by Senator Brandis, as amended, be agreed to.
The Senate divided. [15:32]
(The President—Senator Ryan)
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Banking and Financial Services
Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (15:35): I move:
That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Brandis) and the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to questions asked by Senators Carr, Bilyk and Ketter relating to banking and financial services.
Well, today is a good day for ordinary Australians. It's a good day for farmers. It's a good day for small business owners. It's really a very good day for everyone except the big banks. But it's a very sad day—a very sad day—for the Prime Minister, because the Prime Minister has backflipped on the one point of principle that he had left. Marriage equality, climate change, tax, social policy: he has shown himself prepared to cave in on every single one of those things that he once held dear. But there was just one issue, one issue of principle, that he was apparently prepared to go to the wall on, and that was protecting the big banks.
Well, not anymore. The Prime Minister has folded. It is 601 days since Labor called for a royal commission into the banks. Over those 601 days, we have gone on a fascinating voyage of discovery. We found out exactly what it takes for this Prime Minister to change his mind. When Labor first called for a royal commission, we already knew about the illegal activity, the misconduct, the inappropriate financial advice, the insurance claims unfairly declined, the fraudulent activity, the cover-ups, the targeting of whistleblowers and the irresponsible lending. But apparently that wasn't enough for this Prime Minister.
Would appalling exploitation of ordinary Australians change the Prime Minister's mind? For example, back in 2016, in October, ASIC's Financial advice: fees for no service report revealed that Australia's four big banks and the AMP had spent years charging over 200,000 customers fees for services they did not receive. ASIC's report said that they were going to have to pay back nearly $180 million to customers. But the Prime Minister wouldn't budge—not at that point. What about cartel conduct? In December 2016, ANZ was fined $9 million by the Federal Court for attempted cartel conduct in relation to manipulation of the Malaysian ringgit. Justice Wigney of the Federal Court said that the attempted contraventions were very serious. He went on to say that the conduct of the traders in question was deliberate and systematic. The Prime Minister wouldn't budge.
Or what about rigging financial markets? Recently, NAB and ANZ settled with ASIC for $50 million each over the bank-bill-swap-rate rigging case. Justice Jagot of the Federal Court is reported to have said that the conduct was a gross departure from basic standards of commercial decency, honesty and fairness, and that the Australian public had a right to be shocked and disgusted at what took place. Not this Prime Minister, because he wouldn't budge—not even then.
Allegations of money laundering: in August this year we had incredibly serious allegations from AUSTRAC, alleging significant breaches of anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing laws by the Commonwealth Bank. The PM wouldn't budge. We asked then: 'What about political embarrassment? Perhaps that would be motivating for our Prime Minister?' The member for Dawson was threatening to cross the floor, threatening to reveal the Prime Minister's lack of authority. What did he do at that point? Still he backed the banks. He doubled down and he declared on national TV that there would be no royal commission under this government. There is public support up at levels of 60 and 70 per cent for a banking royal commission in a number of polls. The public wants one. Would the Prime Minister budge in the face of overwhelming public support for a royal commission? No.
But now there is going to be a royal commission. So, what has changed? From all reports, what's changed is that the Prime Minister received a telephone call from his friends at the banks. They relieved him of his duty to continue to throw himself in front of the train for them. That is what it takes to change this Prime Minister's mind—not corruption, not collusion, not exploitation of Australians, not even money laundering, not political embarrassment by disgruntled members of the National Party who finally cottoned on that they're on the wrong side of this argument, not even a compelling poll. All it takes for this Prime Minister to change his mind is a phone call from the major banks.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator McAllister. Could you just remind me who it is you're taking note of answers from?
Senator McAllister: I rose to take note of the answers given by Senators Brandis and Cormann to questions asked by Senators Carr, Bilyk and Ketter.
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales—Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (15:40): I too rise to speak, first of all, on the question of banking, superannuation and financial services, but, more importantly, to counter the misrepresentations that Senator McAllister has just provided to the Senate. We have one of the strongest and most stable banking, superannuation and financial services industries in the world. They perform a critical role in underpinning the Australian economy. Our banking system is systematically strong, with internationally recognised world's best prudential regulation and oversight. However, the ongoing speculation and fearmongering about a banking inquiry or a royal commission has been disruptive, and it risks undermining the reputation of Australia's world-class financial system. This is what those opposite have been doing. They have been going out there deliberately and systematically fuelling fearmongering and speculation about this banking inquiry and, therefore, in so doing, they are risking and undermining the reputation of our financial system. As a consequence of this, we have decided to establish this royal commission to further ensure our financial system will work efficiently and effectively.
The royal commission will inquire into the alleged misconduct of Australia's banks and other financial services entities. All Australians have the right to be treated honestly and fairly in their dealings with the banking system, with superannuation entities and providers and with financial service providers. The highest standards for these institutions is vitally important to the good governance and corporate culture of those providers and of our system so that the best outcomes possible are provided for Australian consumers. I think that this banking inquiry will also afford the opportunity to look at what this government has actually been doing in its steady program of addressing misconduct by the banks. We have embarked on a reform agenda and we will be continuing that reform agenda. We will take action, where necessary, to hold banks and other financial service entities accountable. The royal commission will not defer, delay or limit in any way any proposed and any announced policy, legislation or regulation that we are currently implementing.
Senator Gallagher came into this place today at an appropriate time, given the circumstances that we are facing today. I will say for the record: Senator Dastyari's comments as he came into this chamber in relation to his conduct fall very short of what is required for this Senate. It was very clear that Senator Dastyari has a lot more to say on this matter. He has failed to do so and, I think, failed to provide adequate explanation in relation to his dealings with Mr Huang.
Whilst we are here and we are talking about issues, I also want to have a look at Mr Dastyari's—
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Fierravanti-Wells, this is taking note of answers, and it is taking note in response to the senators as outlined by Senator McAllister.
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: I think Senator McAllister did make reference to—
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Please resume your seat. Senator Polley.
Senator Polley: Madam Deputy President, a point of order. You were correct in trying to advise the minister that the issue now before the chair is taking note of answers to questions on the banking royal commission and the lack of leadership from Malcolm Turnbull. It has nothing to do with Senator Dastyari.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Polley. Do you wish to continue?
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: I do. I think, as Senator Reynolds correctly points out, it is also about transparency and honesty, and we have seen very little of that in this place today. Of course, we are talking about the transparency and honesty of those opposite, and that's really what I was focusing on. In question time, some of the answers were also in relation to that, and objections to some of the comments I made about Kristina Keneally.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Fierravanti-Wells, please resume your seat. Senator McAllister talked about answers to questions from senators at question time today, and you are not one of the people that the opposition is taking note of. I appreciate it's a broad-ranging debate, but it's a broad-ranging debate within those parameters. So please continue.
Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: It's a broad-ranging debate, Madam Deputy President, and it does go to transparency and accountability. I was going to say that what would one expect with the sort of conduct that Senator Dastyari is alleged to have been involved in? (Time expired)
Senator POLLEY (Tasmania) (15:46): In rising to speak to the motion to take note, I think ending where the good minister did was quite inept. You talk about transparency. The Australian people see the Prime Minister for the failed leader that he is. Here is a man who promised, if he became Prime Minister, to be agile. This morning he proved that, yes, he is agile. It didn't matter what happened with our work in trying to get the government to come to terms with the fact there should be a royal commission into the banks. No. Was he ever concerned about the consumers, the mums and dads, who were being ripped off by the banks? No, he wasn't. But he was very agile when he got a letter from the four big banks giving him his riding instructions, outlining what they wanted so that they can keep control of any investigation or royal commission into the banks.
We saw the Prime Minister act very quickly: after getting that letter at 8.30 this morning, 30 minutes later he was doing another backflip. This is a Prime Minister who is so desperate to save his own job. It's not just the opposition saying that. It's not just the Australian people who understand what a failed leader he has been for this government; it's his own backbench that have been coming out and saying that. They're in so much trouble. They're in disarray. There is no unity of purpose. This is a man who has taken instructions from the four major banks in this country. They have outlined what they want in the terms of reference. It is not the government that is showing any leadership. It's not taking up the campaign that was run by the consumers who have been ripped off or after the opposition, Mr Bill Shorten and Mr Chris Bowen, had been saying for 601 days how badly this country needed to see transparency in the operations of Australian banks. No. As soon as he got that letter from those four big banks, he acted. It was 30 minutes later. It took him 30 minutes. But how many days have we been campaigning for? It's 601. This government is so dysfunctional that it's hard to describe. They are full of chaos.
It was the Prime Minister himself who, not so very long ago, liked to tell us all that he was a strong leader. Well, he is anything else but a strong leader. He is trying to govern a rabble of a government. We have the National Party senators and members dissenting from the government's policies. They have been calling for a royal commission. Did he listen to them? No, he didn't. So, as I said, he hasn't worried at all about consumers. He hasn't worried at all about the mums and dads. He hasn't worried at all about farmers. The only people he's been concerned about are the banks, and the reason he changed his position on having a royal commission into the banks is that the banks told him he should do that.
Why did they tell him he should do that? Because they know that they're getting all the heat from their customers. That's why. They knew that, if they gave the direction to the Prime Minister, they could control the terms of reference. The banking victims in this country have not been consulted, even on the terms of reference, because this is a stitch-up by the big banks and the Prime Minister of this country. He's trying to do whatever it will take to keep his job, because he knows that, as a result of poll after poll after poll, backbenchers in marginal seats on the government's side are concerned about their own positions.
I want to also respond to the latitude that was given to Senator Fierravanti-Wells to come into this place. It's all within the bounds of this place to talk about the concerns about Senator Dastyari, but those on that side that brought his children into this debate and criticised a father for talking about his children and the impact on his family should be ashamed of themselves.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Polley, resume your seat. I have already spoken once today about what taking note is about. It is in response to answers given by Senator Brandis and Senator Cormann broadly around the banks. I appreciate there can be latitude but, when I've already pulled up one senator for going beyond, I don't expect another senator to do so. So please continue your remarks.
Senator POLLEY: Thank you, Madam Deputy President. When it comes to the Prime Minister and his lack of leadership and vision, he has been renowned as a Prime Minister of backflips and thought bubbles—thought bubbles that he tries to grasp as they float by to give him another opportunity to try to save his position. Time and time again the Prime Minister said, 'We will not be having a royal commission.' As I said at the outset, this is a government that is being controlled, in this royal commission, by the banks themselves. (Time expired)
Senator REYNOLDS (Western Australia) (15:52): I too rise to take note of comments by my ministerial colleagues during question time, and I will absolutely address the banking royal commission. The first comment I'd make is that, unusually, I wholeheartedly agree with Senator McAllister's comments commending the government for introducing this royal commission on banking and financial services. I also commend the government on the terms of reference and, in particular, on the timing of it to get in, get it done and implement the recommendations of the many inquiries that have been happening since then.
Despite the demonisation by those opposite of the Australian banks, there is no question that our banking system and our financial sector in general are strong and robust. However, there is also no question that there have been many issues that have to be addressed by this parliament and by our agencies. That is particularly why I commend the government for their approach on this. As early as a few days ago, I was still unconvinced. I was open to the idea, but I was unconvinced it was necessary given the depth and breadth of activities the government has already been taking, and I've said so on the public record. But, after having a look at the terms of reference today and how they intend to go about it, I think that it is the right thing to do at this time, and I will explain why.
Senator Polley was just telling us that those opposite have, for 601 days, been calling for a royal commission into the banking and financial sectors. Guess what? This government, for those 601 days, hasn't been calling for a two-, three-, four- or five-year royal commission which would mean that nothing would have happened in relation to reforms until the end of the inquiry. So, Senator Polley, in the 601 days during which you have been calling for yet another inquiry, what has this government been doing? Let me tell you that what we have been doing is really substantial. In those 601 days during which you were proposing a lawyers' picnic, this government has conducted the Murray financial system inquiry, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority has been established, there are additional resources and powers for ASIC, the Banking Executive Accountability Regime has been introduced, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics has done a significant amount of work, and we have increased competition in the banking sector. So, instead of waiting 601 days for an inquiry, we have taken substantive action which I commend the government for.
But now the government is saying that, given the political events surrounding us, we need certainty for our banking sector. It is a sector which is absolutely vital for our economy, for our national sovereignty and for every single man, woman and child in this country, who need a strong, reliable and secure banking system. All of these reforms and actions that have occurred to date—and if I had another half an hour, Senator Polley, I would happily go through—
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Reynolds, I will remind you to make your remarks—
Senator REYNOLDS: Through the chair, my apologies.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: No, to the chair.
Senator REYNOLDS: To the chair. I would happily remind those opposite, including Senator Polley, of all the achievements that have been implemented and are still in the process of being implemented. What the government has done with this announcement today is absolutely in the best interest because those reforms that wouldn't have happened under your regime and your proposal are still being implemented. We will have a 12-month inquiry while all of the other reforms are happening, and then additional reforms will be brought in at the end of that time. Again, I thoroughly commend the government for that very sensible approach.
So, why now? The government has been very clear, and the Treasurer and the Prime Minister both said today, that ongoing speculation—quite often generated by those opposite—about a royal commission is causing disruption and uncertainty and has the potential to impact and to undermine Australia's reputation as a world-class financial system. It's got to such a point that even the major banks have today asked for that uncertainty to end, which is not, as they suggest, some grand conspiracy. It is actually in the national interest for our banks to have certainty and for all of the millions of Australians—not only the hundreds of thousands of Australians employed in our banking and financial sector, but also every single Australian—to know that their money, their superannuation and all of their other financial affairs are managed, and managed very well and transparently. Most Australians, as I said, are consumers of banking, superannuation and financial services and they all have the right to be treated fairly. I commend the government's action to the Senate and I congratulate them.
Senator KETTER (Queensland) (15:57): There is nothing clearer: this is government by the banks, for the banks and of the banks. There is no other conclusion that can be reached as a result of the government's incredible backflip today. It is an important day. There will be many thousands of Australians greeting the news of a royal commission. But they will also be very, very sceptical that it has come to this: within half an hour of receiving a letter from the four major banks—a letter, if you care to read it, setting out all of the prescriptions the banks would like to see in the royal commission—the government has complied, in lightning swift time. It is absolutely incredible. We have a weak Prime Minister and an incompetent Treasurer finally waking up to the fact that their facade, their smokescreen of so-called action, was not the change that victims and the community demanded.
The press conference was a sight to behold. We had the Prime Minister describing the royal commission as 'regrettable' and desperately trying to show off an aura of control when the reality is that this government is in total chaos. We today heard Senator Brandis talk about the fact that the need for the royal commission came about because there were 'wild and foolish' comments being made in the public arena. Since when was it just wild and foolish comments that went so far as to undermine confidence in our financial system? This clearly overlooks the many, many scandals that have taken place over some five to 10 years, which have been ignored by this government.
Dennis Shanahan wrote in The Australian today, 'No leader who has to say he is leading, is leading.' Even at this late hour, this weak Prime Minister and his incompetent Treasurer are still trying to run a protection racket for the big banks. They still want to ramraid the budget with $60 billion of corporate tax cuts, which significantly benefit the big banks. This government is at the bidding of those major banks. Only when the major banks wrote to the government did it finally choose to jump on this issue. When the big banks say, 'Jump', this Prime Minister asks, 'How high?'—don't worry about consulting with the banking victims about the terms of reference. What an insult to those people who have fought so hard for justice.
It just goes to show who has the ear of this government: it's not the ordinary people who've been ripped off; it's the big banks. This government has no excuse for not hearing the voices of these people. It's the work of this Senate over a number of years that has highlighted some of the most egregious examples of banking misconduct. It's amazing to me, as a senator who's been involved in the process, that a government can have such a hard heart when it comes to listening to ordinary Australians yet when it comes to Collins Street getting on the phone or dropping a line we see immediate action. And the government could be in no greater chaos than it is today. Let's be clear: the relationship between the Nationals and the Liberal Party has broken down. Day by day we see the sniping, the games and the disunity. No-one could be blamed for thinking this government is nothing but a rabble. It's clear to me that the Nationals party members have given up on being in government and have given up on the Liberal Party because they know deep down that the government wants to stand up for the big banks and not ordinary Australians.
I just want to touch on those scandals that have emerged. Where was the Prime Minister when each of those occurred? He was still running the protection racket for the banks. If you want to take a snapshot of just one of the banks, let's look at the CBA—CommInsure and the denial of insurance claims. It took a whistleblower to expose what is really going on: refunding CreditCard Plus insurance customers who purchased coverage, refunding home loan protection insurance customers, ongoing discussions with ASIC over the regulator's concern about advice given to Essential Super customers, and charges on disputed card transactions. And let's not forget the AUSTRAC scandal: 53,000 breaches of our anti-money-laundering legislation.
And that's just one bank. Those who are interested can read the submission by the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees to the Economics References Committee for a more complete list of banking scandals. So, even the banks have now acknowledged the need for action: the recent spate of sackings for misconduct; the removal of ATM fees in a desperate attempt to buy back goodwill. And now we have a government weakly— (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
Banking and Financial Services
Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (16:02): I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Treasurer (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Whish-Wilson today relating to banking and financial services.
I might surprise a few people in this chamber by saying that it's actually time to put the politics aside on this issue around a royal commission. A number of us in here have campaigned for a full parliamentary inquiry or a royal commission. Certainly I've been campaigning for it for nearly four years, and the work of the Senate is where this started. In fact, it started with the Future of Financial Advice debate in this chamber, when we managed to claw back a weakening of the FoFA laws. And then the Senate itself was the first institution to recommend a royal commission into the Commonwealth Bank. Since then, the good work of this place, this chamber, has uncovered a number of incidences of financial misconduct, and a number of our senators who have been involved in these inquiries and committees have felt a sense of frustration that, as good as our Senate people are, we haven't had the resources, the time or the powers to get to the bottom of some of these financial scandals.
For example, just with forestry management investment schemes, I know how frustrated I felt that we couldn't actually help the hundreds of witnesses and victims we met. This is a really important point, because these people are still not being compensated for the way they were treated by the banks and other players in the managed investment scheme scandal—or should I say Ponzi scheme collapse. The reason they're still not being compensated is that this misconduct has never been properly investigated. The Senate did the best we could, but it was just too much work for us. It really needed someone dedicated, with the resources and the powers to compel witnesses, to offer immunity to whistleblowers, to seize documents and to search premises—all the things we can't really do as an institution.
Now that we have a royal commission established, I hope we can get it right. This is the most important point that I want to make today: if we've got a chance of actually doing this properly, then we can restore the Australian people's trust in the banks and in our financial system, we can restore the reputation of the banks and we can get some justice for the victims of financial crime that, so far, have been let down by the system. We can also change the culture in the banking sector. I and the Greens have made it really clear that that culture starts at the top. It's the culture of putting profits before people. It's a culture of excessive remunerations, chasing returns in every division, taking shortcuts, charging inappropriately, all the way through to direct fraud, misconduct and unconscionable conduct. These are the kinds of things that this Senate has uncovered.
We have a regulator that we know is under-resourced. They do a good job. I'm a supporter of ASIC and APRA and all of our regulators—I always have been—but, when I asked Greg Medcraft, before he left, whether he supported a royal commission, he didn't answer my question. He'd never answered the question all the way along; he was a consummate professional to the end. He just said to me, 'I'll just point out what I've already pointed out publicly, Peter—and that is, the culture hasn't changed. No matter what the government's done in recent years to try and tackle the banks, their culture hasn't changed.' I've heard the same comment from some of the big investors in the banks. Some of the bank's biggest investors—the superannuation funds, the pension funds, the hedge funds—have told me the same thing. So this inquiry, a well resourced inquiry with the right powers, will certainly let the banks know that they're on notice and they have to change some of their ways.
We want to see systematic issues looked at, because, if we don't fix some of the systematic issues, the kind of misconduct we've seen is going to continue. We've got to look at whether we've got the settings right and why the legal system has failed some of these victims. There's a lot we need to do in this inquiry, and I ask everybody, including the government, to come together and listen to all the stakeholders—the victims of financial crime, the community centres, the farmers, those who've been campaigning for years—to get this right. This is a chance to get good terms of reference that we can all use and actually get this right.
Today, I wanted to thank a lot of the people who have been out there on this journey with the Greens and other parliamentarians. I'll have to do that probably at an adjournment next week. But I want to say that a number of people inside this building and outside this building have finally achieved a fantastic result; let's not waste an opportunity. (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
COMMITTEES
Selection of Bills Committee
Report
Senator SMITH (Western Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (16:08): I present the 14th report for 2017 of the Selection of Bills Committee. I seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The report read as follows—
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
REPORT NO. 14 OF 2017
1. The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 29 November 2017 at 7.15 pm.
2. The committee recommends that—
(a) the Bankruptcy Amendment (Enterprise Incentives) Bill 2017 be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 19 March 2018 (see appendix 1 for a statement of reasons for referral); and
(b) the provisions of the Commonwealth Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2017 and Commonwealth Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2017 be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee but was unable to reach agreement on a reporting date (see appendix 2 for a statement of reasons for referral).
3. The committee recommends that the following bills not be referred to committees:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Amendment (Regional Australia) Bill 2017
Customs Amendment (Safer Cladding) Bill 2017
Nuclear Fuel Cycle (Facilitation) Bill 2017
Parliamentary Business Resources Amendment (Voluntary Opt-out) Bill 2017.
4. The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting:
Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Operational Efficiency) Bill 2017
Clean Energy Finance Corporation Amendment (Carbon Capture and Storage) Bill 2017
Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding for Proprietary Companies) Bill 2017
Imported Food Control Amendment (Country of Origin) Bill 2017
Judiciary Amendment (Commonwealth Model Litigant Obligations) Bill 2017
Live Animal Export (Slaughter) Prohibition Bill 2017
National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits – Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2017.
5. The committee considered the following bills but was unable to reach agreement:
Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2017 Measures No. 1) Bill 2017
Therapeutic Goods (Charges) Amendment Bill 2017
(David Bushby)
Chair
30 November 2017
Appendix 1
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
Proposal to refer a bill to a committee
Name of bill:
Bankruptcy Legislation Amendment (Enterprise Incentives) Bill 2017
Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:
Ensure detailed scrutiny of implications of the bill and consequences, including timeframes for bankruptcy
Possible submissions or evidence from:
Financial industry, individuals impacted, community stakeholders, relevant government departments
Committee to which bill is to be referred:
Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee
Possible hearing date(s):
To be determined by the committee
Possible reporting date:
(Signed)
Senator Anne Urquhart
Appendix 2
SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE
Proposal to refer a bill to a committee
Name of bill: Commonwealth Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bi/12017 Commonwealth Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2017
Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:
A number of stakeholders including survivor groups have raised concerns with aspects of the Bill. A Senate Inquiry would ensure these issues can be properly examined and all relevant stakeholders are given the opportunity to participate in decision making on this important issue.
Possible submissions or evidence from:
CLAN - Care Leavers Australia Network Alliance of Forgotten Australians Micah Project
Blue Knot Foundation Australian Lawyers Alliance
Committee to which bill is to be referred:
Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Possible hearing date(s):
To be determined by the committee
Possible reporting date:
19 March 2018
(Signed)
Senator Anne Urquhart
Senator SMITH: I move:
That the report be adopted.
Senator CHISHOLM (Queensland) (16:08): I seek leave to move an amendment to the motion that the report be adopted.
Leave granted.
Senator CHISHOLM: I move:
That—
At the end of the motion, add, "but, in respect of the provisions of the Commonwealth Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Bill 2017 and the Commonwealth Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2017, the Community Affairs Legislation Committee report by 13 March 2018."
Senator SIEWERT (Western Australia—Australian Greens Whip) (16:08): I seek leave to move an amendment to Senator Chisholm's amendment to change the reporting date, as circulated in the chamber.
Leave granted.
Senator SIEWERT: I move:
That—
At the end of the motion, add, "and, in respect of the provisions of the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2017 Measures No. 1) Bill 2017 and the Therapeutic Goods (Charges) Amendment Bill 2017, the provisions be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 2 February 2018."
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I will just explain how we are going to move. Because your amendment, Senator Siewert, is to the unamended motion moved by Senator Smith, it's my intention to put Senator Chisholm's amendment first. The question is that the amendment as moved by Senator Chisholm be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The question now is that the amendment moved by Senator Siewert to Senator Smith's motion be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The question now is that the motion, as amended, be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
CONDOLENCES
Hutchins, Mr Stephen Patrick 'Steve'
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT (16:10): It is with deep regret that I inform the Senate of the death on 24 November 2017 of Stephen Patrick Hutchins, a senator for the state of New South Wales from 1998 to 2011. I call the Leader of the Government in the Senate.
Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (16:10): by leave—I move:
That the Senate records its deep sorrow at the death, on 24 November 2017, of Stephen Patrick Hutchins, former senator for New South Wales, places on record its gratitude for his service to the Parliament and the nation, and tenders its sympathy to his family in their bereavement.
When we commemorate the life of a former senator, we take part in an important and solemn tradition of this chamber. It's a tradition that gives us cause to reflect on the varied achievements of those who have come before us to this place from every walk of life and from every corner of our nation. It's a tradition that allows us, in a small but significant way, to pay our respects to these important contributions to public life. But this tradition, while always solemn, is made all the more poignant when we pause to commemorate those of whom our memories are much less distant—the men and women who have been our colleagues and cherished friends in this chamber. Today is such an occasion.
Steve Hutchins left this chamber only a little more than six years ago. Most of us will still remember his valedictory speech. It is still fresh in my mind. I served with him in this chamber for some 11 years. I felt I knew him well but, of course, not nearly as well as those who I know were his close friends in the Labor Party, like Senator Farrell and Senator Sterle and others for whom this must be a particularly difficult day.
Steve Hutchins was born in Sydney on 22 April 1956 and grew up in Cronulla, in the Sutherland shire. He attended De La Salle College, that great nursery of New South Wales Labor politicians, joining the Cronulla branch of the Labor Party while still a schoolboy. After studying for a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney, he later went to Harvard, where he completed Harvard University's Trade Union Program. He worked for a year as a forklift driver and for another year as a garbage collector—perhaps the only Harvard educated garbage collector in Australia—garnering the kinds of blue-collar credentials that would set him apart as a credible and authentic advocate for the rights of workers through his long and accomplished career in the union movement. He was a trade unionist to his bootstraps. In 1980, after two years at that coalface, Steve Hutchins became an official of the New South Wales branch of the Transport Workers' Union. He rose through the ranks, serving as assistant secretary from 1989 to 1993 and then as state secretary from 1993 until his appointment to the Senate in 1998. He also served as federal president of the TWU over the same period.
These were turbulent years for industrial politics in Australia. Steve Hutchins's time at the helm of the New South Wales branch coincided with successive Liberal state governments' attempts at industrial law reform. However, his ire was not limited, nor his opponents confined, to the non-Labor side of politics. Steve Hutchins was an outspoken critic of the creation of so-called 'megaunions' by amalgamation in general and of the Australian Council of Trade Unions in particular.
We know that internecine fights within the industrial wing of the Labor Party can be very bitter indeed, and Steve Hutchins was plainly a very active warrior for his point of view in many of those disputes. He baulked at many of the economic reforms spearheaded by the Keating government. An early profile of Steve Hutchins from the Canberra Times described his heresies in the following terms: he regards mega unions and enterprise bargaining as a sell-out of Australian workers; he regards the ACTU as little better than an arm of government; and he regards most Melbourne based left-wing union officials as power-obsessed failures. Well, I could not but agree. Fighting words, indeed, but there is more than an element of truth in them.
However, Steve Hutchins' reputation for toughness did not obscure his genuine compassion and sense of integrity. One employer with whom he dealt gave pause to reflect that Hutchins can be hard and will use any tactic to get what he wants but, at the end of the day, you can rely on a deal being a deal. I must say, unaware as I was when I served with Steve Hutchins in the Senate, I was not unconscious of his ferocious reputation in the industrial wing of the Labor Party. I always found him a very gentle man.
In October 1998, Steve Hutchins was appointed to fill a casual vacancy in the Senate resulting from the resignation of Senator Belinda Neal. He was elected in his own right in the 1998 election and would go onto be re-elected in 2004. In his first speech to the chamber, Senator Hutchins evoked the lived experience of forgotten Australians, those left behind by the quickening pace of globalisation, those whose interests he thought had been subordinated to the pursuit of abstract economic ideals. 'While our economy is at the heart of our society,' he said, to heartlessly pursue our economic objectives in isolation is to ignore the needs of our community and to undermine the social fabric of our nation. Where some seek to diminish the role of government, I say the need for good government has never been stronger. In a society grappling with the uncertainties of today's world, governments must provide reassurance and direction in the face of an increasing cynicism and disillusionment throughout our community.' I can almost hear him saying that today.
By any measure, Senator Hutchins' contribution to the parliament lived up to his ideal and his values. The first inquiry he chaired on the Senate Community Affairs References Committee examined the extent of poverty across the nation and called upon the Commonwealth to establish a national poverty strategy. However, the inquiry that was to have the most profound effect upon Steven Hutchins was the Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs inquiry into children in institutional care, of which he was first chair. The inquiry's findings of widespread abuse and neglect left a lasting impression upon him. Of the inquiry process, Senator Hutchins would reflect in his valedictory speech it was one of the most harrowing periods of his time here. 'These people's stories are etched in my memory—the most reprehensible experiences and impossible to forget. We were all shaken to the base of our souls. Our hearts sighed. We were bewildered. We wondered time and time again how adults could do such things to children. How could men and women of faith routinely abuse boys and girls sexually, physically and psychologically? Why didn't someone step in? Why were they able to get away with it?' It was a marked departure from Steve Hutchins' public persona as a hard-nosed factional warrior, a hard man of the trade union movement, and testament to his overriding desire to see justice done to those to whom it had been denied.
As was the case in his former life as a union leader, it was often his own side of politics that felt the brunt of Steve Hutchins' rebukes. He challenged the Rudd government to reverse its policy of not sending ministers to Taiwan as well as labelling Labor's cuts to criminal intelligence agencies as 'pretty lame' while he was the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australian Crime Commission.
A devout Catholic, his socially conservative views often put him at odds with the majority of his caucus colleagues on issues like euthanasia or same-sex marriage. I must say I always thought that Steve Hutchins was more right wing than me—at least on most matters.
I remember very early in my career as a backbencher, I made a speech about the Greens and I made some rather aggressive remarks about the common philosophical roots of radical environmental philosophy and German fascism—
Senator Bartlett: I remember.
Senator BRANDIS: Senator Bartlett, thank you, you remember—a concept caught by the phrase ecofascism. It was a speech that attracted a lot of criticism, but I remember Steve Hutchins drew me aside one day and he said to me—he was sitting in fact in the chair probably during one of these debates—'I thought it was a great speech.' I will also, as will we all, remember him with his friend Mike Forshaw, also from the New South Wales Labor right. They were very much a pair.
He fell out with his faction and was positioned third on the 2010 New South Wales Senate ticket—his defeat all but assured. His term would end on 30 June, 2011. In his valedictory speech to the chamber, Steve Hutchins reflected on the battles fought; of his spectacular falling out with the New South Wales ALP and the opportunism of its leaders; poignantly, of his long battle with the cancer that had overshadowed his parliamentary career and which ultimately was to claim him; and of the countless, vulnerable Australians for whom he had always fought the good fight.
Australia is a fairer country because of the battles people like Steve Hutchins fought. It is his family who have been the closest witnesses to his most courageous fight, his fight with cancer, and must now bear the deepest loss. So, to his colleagues and friends who are in the chamber today, I know what you must feel, because I lost a great friend and colleague of mine earlier this year when Russell Trood succumbed to cancer. I know how you must feel and how sad you must be. So, to you; of course to his wife, Natalie; his children, Lauren, Julia, Michael, Georgia, Madeleine and Xavier; and his grandchildren Jacob, William, Edie, Nathaniel, Rorie and Audrey, I express my profound sorrow and to whom, on behalf of the government, I offer my deepest condolences.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: As senators would be aware, the standing orders provide for general business to be called on at 4.30 pm. I understand it is the will of the Senate for this condolence debate to have precedence and continue. With the concurrence of the Senate, it is so ordered.
Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (16:22): I rise to speak on behalf of the opposition on the condolence motion for former Senator Steve Hutchins and thank the Attorney-General for his kind words on behalf of the government.
I have often come into this chamber and listened to these motions. Mostly they are about someone who has long since left this place. That's not the case with Senator Steve Hutchins. He's a contemporary of many people in this chamber and had many friends on both sides of the house. I am very proud to say that I was one of those friends.
My history with Steve, though, goes much back earlier than his career in the Senate. I first met 'Hutcho', as he was known in the Australian slang that he so loved to use, as the first snowflakes were falling in Boston in the winter of 1984. Steve had been sent by his union—that great union, the Transport Workers Union—to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Massachusetts. Living at Soldiers Field Park, we would traipse through the snow and cross the Charles River, often to the sound of a lone Scottish piper, on our way to classes at Harvard Square.
We had the privilege of being lectured by people who had been in President John Kennedy's cabinet. It was during these lectures that I began to understand that, despite his rugged exterior, Steve Hutchins had a brilliant mind, a very brilliant mind. At Harvard, Steve saw firsthand in American industrial relations what would later become Work Choices under the Howard government in Australia. It was at Harvard that Steve honed the keen skills that would make him a formidable state and national leader of the Transport Workers Union on his return to Australia. It was also at Harvard, at the Boat House Bar, with Frank Sinatra singing New York, New York playing on the juke box, that my wife met only her second Australian male—a wild, blue-eyed larrikin called Steve. She said goodbye to Steve last Thursday at his home in the picturesque Blue Mountains, and he squeezed her hand and gave her his trademark wink.
In the 33 years between those events, Steve Hutchins lived a very full life. His friend, journalist Brad Norington, has, over the last few days, written in The Australian about Steve's life. Steve went to school at De La Salle College Cronulla with two life-long friends—John Della Bosca and Michael Lee. At his solemn requiem mass at St Finbar's Catholic Church at Glenbrook, his daughter Lauren laughingly recounted that he had claimed that a stubbed toe was caused by a crocodile bite when in fact it had resulted from Michael Lee dropping a desk on his big toe. Michael, of course, denies this!
After getting a bachelor of arts degree from Sydney University, Steve worked in a variety of jobs, including garbage collection. That qualified him for membership of the Transport Workers Union, where he rose to become the New South Wales state president and the federal president. Many TWU officials paid their respects yesterday, including federal president Tony Sheldon. Steve Hutchins entered the Senate to fill a casual vacancy in 1998. His political skills, his brilliance and his compassion should have seen him rise quickly in this place to become a minister or even a leader, but his first bout of cancer struck and derailed his progress. It was to strike him twice more and, after he had fought bravely and without complaint for 20 years, this terrible disease finally took him in the early hours of last Friday.
He made a significant contribution in his time in this place, which was too brief. Steve leaves behind a significant body of work through Senate committees. In his valedictory speech, in 2011, he was proud but deeply saddened by what had been uncovered in the inquiry into children in institutions, the so-called forgotten Australians. This finally led to an apology by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on 16 November 2009.
Steve was also very proud of his six children—Lauren, Julia, Michael, Georgia, Madeleine and Xavier—and his grandchildren, and they all did him very proud yesterday at the service solemnly led by Father Bob Sheridan. Xavier, Steve's youngest, has also taken a keen interest in politics, his favourite documentary now being the ABC's The Killing Season.
Tributes to Steve have been plentiful. Our federal leader, Bill Shorten, on hearing of his passing, said:
He believed, fundamentally, in the dignity of work, the right to organise and the vital role unions play in improving conditions and lifting living standards.
On hearing of Steve's death, former Prime Minister Julia Gillard tweeted that he was a 'passionate Labor true believer'. A letter from former Labor leader Kim Beazley was read out yesterday. He described Steve as 'having that rare combination of both physical and moral courage'. When I first came to this place Steve gave me some prophetic advice on leadership challenges. He said, 'Choose your candidate early and stick with your decision.' That was sage advice.
Steve was married twice—firstly to Diane Beamer and then to Natalie Sykes. Steve spoke of his love for Natalie in his valedictory:
What sort of person marries a cancer survivor? What sort of person uproots her life, her comfortable existence in Victoria, to venture north? What sort of person acts as a nurse, caretaker, confidant and motivator? What sort of person takes on five stepchildren as friend and adviser? Only one very much in love, and one I love very much.
Yesterday Natalie read her last love letter to Steve to a crowd of about 500 mourners.
Many of Steve's friends travelled to attend his funeral yesterday—Leo McLeay, Mark Bishop, David Feeney, Wayne Swan, Chris Hayes, Craig Emerson and many others, including senators who will no doubt speak in this debate. Also included was Ian Meldrum, who ran the Holy Grail in Kingston, Steve's favourite watering hole. A maudlin Danny Boy played as we left the church. Steve has been awarded a medal by the St Vincent de Paul Society, posthumously, in recognition of his work assisting the poor and the homeless. At 61 years of age, Steve has left us too soon. I will, as he did, quote the book of Timothy:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.
May he rest in peace.
Senator CAMERON (New South Wales) (16:30): I rise to express my condolences to Steve's family and his friends. I first met Steve in about 1988 when I moved to St Marys from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. I joined the St Marys branch of the ALP when I moved to Sydney, and Steve and his team ran the branch. I must say that I don't think I ever won a vote on anything I moved at that branch! I then moved to the Blue Mountains some years later. Steve lived in the Blue Mountains, and I know that he was very fond of the Lapstone pub in the Blue Mountains. He was a very popular patron of the Lapstone pub.
Senator Payne: Better known as 'the Lappo'!
Senator CAMERON: The Lappo, yes. He was also a member of the ACTU executive when I was on the executive, so I did have lots of discussions with Steve. Again, I don't think I voted at any time in the same way that Steve did at the ACTU executive. But when I came to the Senate, I was voting with him all the time!
Senator Jacinta Collins: At least in here!
Senator CAMERON: Yes, at least in here! Certainly not at the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party! Steve and I had some good set-tos, and he is fondly remembered for that. He was a tough, uncompromising, smart trade unionist and politician. He is sadly missed.
It was unfortunate that, because of circumstances, I and a number of my colleagues could not attend Steve's funeral in the Blue Mountains yesterday. So I just want to place on record my thanks for the friendship he gave me here, even though we were factional opponents. Steve gave me great friendship and a great deal of support. He was friendly and welcoming to me when I came here. It's a sad loss to the New South Wales Labor Party, a sad loss to the federal Labor Party and a sad loss to the Australian public, for which he has done so much in his time in this place. Vale, Steve, and commiserations to Natalie, his family and friends.
Senator JACINTA COLLINS (Victoria) (16:33): I too would like to join in the condolences to Steve's family at his loss. I feel for the loss of Natalie and Xavier and his family because I know the loss we have had in this place. I was in the Senate when Steve joined us here. I didn't know him well from his New South Wales Labor Party days, but he became a very close friend in this place. I regret the lack of opportunity to see more of him since he moved to Melbourne and I regret the inopportunity to attend the funeral yesterday.
'Juanita' was Steve's term for me. It was a very affectionate name. For some reason or another, he did not ever impose on me the trials that he did on some colleagues. Steve loved—
Senator Bilyk interjecting—
Senator JACINTA COLLINS: No, Senator Bilyk, I did sit next to him on many occasions. He loved a good lark, whether it was removing people's notes, pulling on their skirt as they were asking a question or any of those types of things. For some reason, Steve decided to leave me free of those types of larks. We had a very affectionate relationship.
Steve was a strong supporter. I would hear debates about internal opportunities within the Labor Party fed back to me and, interestingly, Steve would be sitting on one side saying, 'No, no, Jacinta's going to win.' It would surprise many people that the caricature of Steve Hutchins was as a hard New South Wales Labor man. He could form relationships that were well beyond that caricature. As Senator Brandis said, he was a gentle man. His respect for people went well beyond what most people would assume. Steve worked not only to support Natalie in the Victorian parliament but also worked with St Vincent de Paul—badgering people like me to make a contribution to assist—and yet he still caught up with colleagues for many years.
People have referred to the Holy Grail as Steve's favourite watering hole here. There was many a night that Mark Bishop and I would share many hours with Steve, mostly assisting Mark Bishop deal with the time difference from Western Australia but also debating the politics of the day.
Senator Bilyk interjecting—
Senator JACINTA COLLINS: Yes, fortunately those days were in opposition and the responsibilities that we carried weren't quite the same as when we moved into government. Steve, as Senator Farrell has highlighted, made an enormous contribution to this place and to the Labor movement more broadly. I hope his legend in this place lives on in terms of more progress in the many issues he worked on.
Senator BARTLETT (Queensland) (16:37): I'd like to make a few brief comments on behalf of the Australian Greens on this condolence motion. Steve Hutchins came into this chamber not long after I first came here, and he was here throughout all my time previously in this chamber. Others have reflected on the events that led to him finally departing in 2011. On behalf of all of the Greens, I want to put on the record our appreciation for former Senator Hutchins' work in this place. As a few people have already said, there is that caricature of hard-nosed machine people from the New South Wales Labor Party in particular. I think it is a general caricature of party apparatchiks, which sometimes has some truth to it, but, occasionally, it unfairly narrows people down to a single description and ignores the wider aspects and contributions they can make—and understanding the operations of your own party is often quite a helpful thing.
On top of that, I think Senator Hutchins' work, within this chamber and particularly within the committees, is something that does need recognition. Through that he demonstrated not only his capacity and ability to do the job well but also his ability to recognise, appreciate and get in touch with the human side of an issue and the human impact of policies and legislation. I served with him on a number of committees in that community affairs sort of area. It was clear that he did have a genuine concern for the wellbeing of people, and he demonstrated that in a lot of the additional comments he made in committee reports—often thoughtful and often just extra reflections beyond the position of the party on a particular issue or bill. It is that aspect of this chamber that is often forgotten, because the focus is on the conflicts, the big personalities, the stoushes, the insults et cetera. Often it's the constructive contributions that can make the most long-term impact, even though they get little attention in the short term. Certainly, Steve Hutchins in his time in this place deserves to be recognised for his contribution to that.
I very rarely pass on private side comments that people make to me in the course of my activities around this place—which people might be relieved to know—but in this context there is probably a reasonable one to mention. It goes back to the caricature of the hard man. Some of you who have been around a while may recall that former senator Bob Brown often used to stand up and make points of order about things that he had absolutely zero support on and would get howled down from all around the chamber, including from some of the people in the Democrats seats in those days, most likely. After a few of those experiences, I remember Steve Hutchins saying to me: 'I think I'm pretty tough, but that guy's got seven hides of rhinoceroses on him.' It was a comment of admiration, I might say. I'm certainly not suggesting he was a softy, but as people have said, and I would reflect, his contribution to this place showed that he did have the ability to recognise—that soft side—and people noted that in his valedictory speech in this place. It is an important contribution to be able to have that aspect of your character be able to inform your judgements, your comments and your work in this place.
My condolences to his family, his friends and his colleagues— in particular, in the Labor Party and the labour movement, which he was so active in for so long. I recognise and respect his contribution to this chamber.
Senator SCULLION (Northern Territory—Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) (16:42): I rise on behalf of the National Party to express our condolences to the family and friends of the late Stephen Patrick Hutchins—'Hutchy' to me and our mates. He was a senator for New South Wales and an all-round decent bloke. He was born in Sydney on 22 April 1956, barely a fortnight before I was born.
Steve was a man who never shied away from hard work, and a battle if necessary, to look out for a fellow mate. He was a man in tune with the everyday Aussie. Steve Hutchins prided himself on representing his constituents and fighting with all he had to better their individual circumstances. Steve knew all too well the conditions of transport workers, having worked as a forklift driver and garbage-truck driver early on in his career prior to joining the union movement in 1980. His interest in the conditions of transport workers and his graduate skills from the University of New South Wales unsurprisingly saw Steve make his way swiftly through the union ranks. Eighteen years of hard work in the unions led to a legacy of fighting for what he believed in. He was most renowned for leading a group of six New South Wales unions to defy ACTU policy and pursue a 15 per cent state wage case, resulting in the TWU's split from the ACTU, the union peak body. That battle was won, and on 20 December 1996 the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission awarded what Steve considered a huge Christmas present for the award system, a 15 per cent wage rise to 30,000 transport industry workers.
Steve, if you knew him, didn't mind a bit of Christmas cheer. It is very likely that he celebrated that day with a beer at the local tavern. Where better to hear firsthand the views and experiences of everyday workers? Steve enjoyed sinking a few drinks at the end of the week, as many in this place do, whether it was at the Blue Cattle Dog at St Clair, with his old union mates, or settling in at the Holy Grail in Kingston on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, a place I have spent a fair bit of time in with Sterlo or Bish. It was always a very hard place to walk past: 'Just one more for the road, Nige.'
Described as a 'stalwart of the Labor movement', Steve's talent was recognised, and he was chosen by New South Wales to represent the state in the Senate in 1998. Whilst he sat opposite myself in this chamber, I hold Steve and his 'never give up' approach in the highest regard—a man who never backed down from a fight. In his time in this place Steve prided himself on serving the battler. He did not consider himself a bleeding heart, and trumpeted the ethos of 'a hand up, not a handout', making him a right-wing advocate of his political party. I can't say I agreed with everything he had to say—I can recall particularly him referring to my delightful Northern Territory as a tin-pot operation, when there was moves for self-government, as being one of them—but I knew the man for the great bloke that he was. Steve could be hard-headed in the battles as needed, but I knew him as more jovial in other times, always known for his jokes with colleagues and staff. We've already heard from 'Senator Juanita' about the playing of pranks, amongst them things like giving his staffers, when they joined his office, coupons for the parliamentary cafe. Of course, he'd just made them up, and they were actually appearing—he was just a shocker! He didn't actually take politics or himself particularly seriously. He lived every day with an absolutely unfeigned determination to represent his constituency.
Steve fought a long battle with cancer. All the while he was concerned for others, fighting till the very end, passing too soon, too young. 61-year-old Steve was farewelled by more than 400 this week at St Finbar's Catholic Church in the Blue Mountains. He received a plaque from St Vincent de Paul honouring his commitment to the poor and the successes he achieved for everyday battlers. Australia is better for his contributions. He stands in memory as a courageous, tough and generous man, much loved as a husband to Victorian minister Natalie Hutchins, a colleague in the Aboriginal affairs portfolio to whom I pass on my most sincere of condolences. Natalie, the work of you and your husband is something that your family can be proud of. I am sure he would be so proud of what you have achieved during your time in parliament. He was a great man, and I'm sure your partnership has been a key factor in both your successes. I'm sorry for your loss, and I look forward to our next meeting, when I can convey my personal condolences to you. Steve was a great father to Lauren, Julia, Michael, Georgia, Madeleine and Xavier, as well as grandfather to Jacob, William, Edie, Nathaniel, Rorie and Audrey. I convey the Nationals' sincerest condolences on his passing, forever in our memory and the political narrative of our nation. Let us later, perhaps, toast to his time in this place and his life of service to others: a mate to many. Cheers, Hutchy. Vale Stephen Patrick Hutchins.
Senator KITCHING (Victoria) (16:47): I rise to offer a contribution to this condolence motion on Steve Hutchins. I met Steve with the then Natalie Sykes in the early 2000s, when Natalie brought him along, as is often the case for first dates in the ALP, to an ALP function.
Senator Bilyk: It's the test.
Senator KITCHING: It is the test, Senator Bilyk. Immediately his warmth, his larrikinism and his laconic sense of humour was evident—also his ability to deflate pomposity. He was the epitome of the lines from Rudyard Kipling's 'If—':
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
… … …
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
And that was Steve.
As Senator Bartlett said, it is often the good and quiet contributions that might make the most lasting impact in politics, and I want to detail one such contribution from Steve Hutchins. As has been noted, he was a New South Wales state secretary of Transport Workers Union between 1993 and 1998, and he was always willing to use his great experience and expertise in union affairs to give good advice to those of us working in the union movement. As many senators know, I was involved in the long campaign to rescue the Health Services Union from the corrupt and incompetent regime which over many years destroyed the reputation and effectiveness of that union and damaged the union movement in general. During that campaign Steve Hutchins was always ready to place his expertise at the service of those of us who were campaigning to clean up that union. I don't think it's too much to say that, without his sage advice, the narrow victory that we eventually achieved over the previous regime would not have been achieved. So not only am I in his debt but so are all of the members of the HSU, including the many low-paid members working in hospitals and other health services who have benefited from the effective representation they now have from their reformed union. He managed, in his calm and laid-back way, to unite many disparate personalities so that a united campaign was able to form. Without him, there would have been a multiplicity of tickets, and with that the incumbent ticket would have won. The wisdom involved in being able to see a way forward, to understand human nature, will be very much missed. I am so sad for Nat and for all of Steve's children. He is too soon gone.
Senator POLLEY (Tasmania) (16:50): I, too, rise to make a contribution in relation to Hutcho—that's what he was known as. When I joined this place in 2005, during my first term I had, some might say, the misfortune at times to be seated next to Hutcho. It was inevitable that if you had a question—
Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—
Senator POLLEY: Yes, that's what he used to do—you could never put your question down on the desk because it would always disappear. You'd be in the middle of trying to make a very critical political point, and your jacket would be pulling you down. So there were those things, although some may say that it would be inappropriate today. He was a man who was genuine. He was respectful.
I have to say that, when I came to this place, I was very fortunate to come at a time when we were in opposition, to learn the way of the Senate and to be surrounded by people who cared about each other and were there to support you no matter what. If I were to come to this place now, the sad reality is I don't think we are as collegiate as we were then. And, yes, there were the times when we went out for dinner and ended up at the Holy Grail. I used to remark to my colleagues, 'I don't know how Hutcho does it.' He would turn up the next morning, he'd be ready to give you the advice for the day and he would perform his duties as a senator.
But this was a man who thought about others, not just himself. He was a man who believed in the Labor Party and he was a man who believed in the union movement, and that never waned. Even though he was relegated on the Senate ticket, he was still the man who was driven to come here and driven to give other people a better life. I think we're all going to experience the loss. I still find it very hard to believe that he is not going to be on the end of a text message and he's not going to be calling me H, because that's what he used to call me. It was never Helen; it was always H. He was somebody who, I think, contributed a great deal to this place and to the country.
My heart goes out to his family, all of his children, Natalie and his grandchildren. There is one thing you could always say: he was a man of the people, he was a man of the worker, but he was the proudest dad. He loved his children and he was forever talking about them. So, on behalf of myself, the reason that I'm still here is probably, to some extent, Stephen—Steve 'Hutcho' Hutchins—who was there to support me through the good times and the bad times. I'm very grateful for the fact that we had a lot more good times than we ever had bad times. Vale Steve Hutchins.
Senator GALLACHER (South Australia) (16:53): There have been very generous contributions about Senator Hutchins's career. I'll go back to the period of '93 to '98, where Steve was arguably the most successful union leader in Australia. The New South Wales branch had the highest rates, the state awards were higher than federal awards, the owner-driver rates were higher than anything achieved federally and there was a jurisdiction in which they could get resolution were there any problems.
I came into the leadership group of the TWU about '96, and Steve was at the absolute height of his power. He taught us to campaign and win, and the confidence that the man displayed in those campaigns was extraordinary. I was a very junior person in that leadership group, looking for someone to display some leadership, some courage and some achievement, and Steve was the epitome of all of that. In the 15 per cent campaign that was mentioned, we didn't actually believe we could do that, but, with Steve's leadership as federal president, he was able to pull that campaign off.
He had a really interesting leadership style. He knew who he disagreed with. He'd make some interesting comments about people in our different branches—because we were essentially a federation of seven warring branches—but, as soon as the bell was rung, we were all on the same side. Whilst he may have had his differences with other branches, he was so excellent at leading people that, as soon as the battle was started, his enemies were the first ones to go to his aid. He was an extraordinary leader in that respect. The generations that he inspired to follow on from him are still there. Wayne Forno, Tony Sheldon, Michael Kane and all of those organisers that were there yesterday at the funeral. He left behind a legacy in that five-year period which still affects, helps and furthers the interests of all working people in Australia today. I think he made a truly extraordinary contribution to the wider labour movement, and it was driven off his simple principles: a deal's a deal, and you never rat. If you rat once, you'll rat twice, so you never rat. He stuck to his principles and his guns for all his working life. I too add my condolences to his wife, children and grandchildren.
Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (16:55): I don't want to interrupt the TWU contribution, but I want to briefly make a contribution in recognition and remembrance of Steve Hutchins. Perhaps this isn't the right time to say this, but there aren't a lot of people in this chamber that I would bother to have a beer with, but Steve Hutchins was one of them. That's unusual for me, because I usually keep my distance from members of the Labor Party but Steve was a great guy, never vicious that I saw. Perhaps he might have been in the TWU, but he was never vicious in his arguments and his approach to the work that we do in this Senate.
I'm sorry circumstances yesterday—timing and place—prevented a lot of people attending his funeral, which I would have liked to do had circumstances been different. But I want to simply place on the record the very high regard I had for Steve Hutchins. Michael Forshaw was one of his mates. Occasionally, after a lunchtime meeting, a visiting delegation or something, there'd be three of us left in the lunchroom making sure that none of the alcohol went back into the cupboard. Steve and Michael and I would then solve all the problems of the world, including some in the Labor Party, I might say, and they probably gave me a bit of advice about how to solve the few problems the Liberal Party might have had at any particular time. But he was a great guy.
I understand from what Senator Gallacher has said and from what others have said—and I have been listening to the debate whilst meeting with other people—that Steve was very loyal to his cause and very loyal to the Labor Party. But I know he was at times disappointed that the party in those days—not those currently here—weren't quite as loyal to him. I remember in one of his early bouts of illness I went to see him in the hospital when he was here in Canberra and he said to me: 'You know, Ian, it's strange. I've been a life-long member of the Labor Party. I've done everything I can for them. I've remained loyal, but the only people who have come to see me in hospital are three Liberals.' I think they were the late Jeannie Ferris, Bill Heffernan and me. He was clearly disappointed, because he mentioned that a group that he had done so much for and been so loyal to hadn't recognised the difficulty he was in right at the beginning—this was many years ago when he was in the Senate. I appreciate that many of those in the Labor Party now were not in the Senate when Steve Hutchins was here. I was for all of the time he was here. He was a great man. I never really knew his wife and family, but I extend to them my condolences. Can I just say that I want to be associated with the condolence motion. Steve, rest in peace. Have a few beers up there in the big palace in the sky or wherever you are. I'm sure we all look forward to perhaps catching up with Steve again sometime in the future, in another life.
Senator MOORE (Queensland) (17:00): One of the first people I met when I came into this place was Steve Hutchins. He came up to me and stuck his hand out and said, 'I suppose you're the new Lefty from Queensland,' followed up very soon after that by, 'And why are you wearing that cross?' And I said, 'Hello?' I found out later that my friend Hughie Williams, about whom I spoke in this place quite recently, had called Steve and basically asked him to look after me. I'm not quite sure who looked after whom, and I'm not sure why these two blokes felt that I needed to be looked after, but it was the start of a really special friendship with Steve Hutchins that I treasured.
I'm not going to go on about being the victim of his various pranks. Not only would he steal your question at question time, as we've heard, but he'd actually make loud comments, while you were preparing to ask it, about the quality of the question and some policy issues you could throw into the question to make it stronger. And when you're first here, as we all know, that can be quite nerve-racking. And we are all laughing. You know that special photograph you get when you make your first speech, of you standing and looking noble? My first photograph is a great photograph of Steve Hutchins. He's sitting beside me, looking as though he is vaguely interested—that shows what a splendid actor he was! The photograph is dominated by Steve's face, and he thought that was a really good result.
But the reason I particularly wanted to make a comment this afternoon is the inspirational and engaging work Steve did on the Community Affairs Committee. We've heard how he treasured his work. But I just want to put some comments on the record, actually stimulated by some people I still keep in contact with who were involved in these inquiries and who wanted their expressions put on the record in this place. Whilst Steve was the chair of many inquiries, the three I want to mention in particular this afternoon include the poverty inquiry, which was the first major inquiry in which I was involved. It went on for a significant period of time and came up with some very important threshold comments about the state of poverty in our nation. But what I remember most about it is the personal way in which Steve talked with the people who had come to us, many of whom were very vulnerable and some of whom had never given evidence to a Senate inquiry before but, because of the nature of this topic, felt that they wanted to come and talk about what their lives were like, suffering incredible poverty and pressure in their communities. And Steve, as the chair, took so much personal time to make them feel valuable, to make them feel important and to get them to share their stories. I watched him with admiration as he spent time before and after they gave evidence, worked with them and made them feel that they were important, and thanked them for their time.
That effort resulted in getting evidence on the record that is invaluable and timeless. Anyone who has the opportunity to have a look at the report from that particular inquiry will see that we found out about things that were happening in our community that I don't think many people really know about, and about the pain and the vulnerability that existed then and still exists now. So, that came to be known amongst us as the Hutchins inquiry. I think it should be renamed that into the future! But his work was so valuable at that time, and, as you would remember, the shadow minister at the time was Wayne Swan, and they worked very closely together during that process. And I think that document stands the test of time.
The second inquiry is one that Steve actually drove. It was one that was very important to him, and it was on hepatitis C in our community—again, an issue that not many people know about. But Steve met some people in his electorate who had contracted hepatitis C through blood transfusions, and it angered him that in the 20th century, when this occurred, and the 21st century, when we were having the inquiry, in Australia, people would be able to contract such a horrific condition, with all the pain and the stigma around it. He was determined that their voices would be heard and that the process would be addressed so that not only in Australia, but across the world there'd be two results: first, that our blood transfusion service would ensure that such a problem would not occur again, and, second, that the terrible stigma around hepatitis B and C in our community would be identified and addressed. He saved a very special anger for people within the medical profession who were not treating people with respect, and he took this not only through the Senate process, but into the wider community. I remember when that report came down, there was a large number of people who were gathered and Steve was in tears as he was delivering his report. He made a commitment that the knowledge that came out of that inquiry would not be lost.
The third inquiry is the one which Senator Brandis so beautifully addressed: the inquiry into institutional care. We worked really closely on that particular committee, and it did have an impact. But Steve did not just leave it at having hearings and coming up with a very strong series of recommendations in that report, which we all know about; he then became patron of the CLAN network—the Care Leavers Australia Network. He didn't talk to many people about that decision, but I can assure you that the people in CLAN respect and love Steve Hutchins. They love him because he cared about them. They love him because they know that he cared so sincerely about their needs and he was always available to talk to. So the inquiry engagement did not end when the report was presented in this place. Steve engaged with the people who were in fact survivors of this horrible time in our history, and they felt that he was there for them from then on. When we heard that Steve—I don't like using that term 'battle with cancer'; it has almost become meaningless. This man had been ill a long time and was often quite ill here, but he just kept on doing his job. When the CLAN heard that we'd lost him, they particularly wanted his family and also the wider community to know about the respect and the importance that Steve Hutchins had for them.
I know that Natalie and the family are grieving greatly. I want them to know that there are many people sharing their grief and their love for Steve. With Steve, as we've heard before, when it came to issues around his family, he lit up. That term is used a lot, but he actually lit up when he was talking about Natalie and his family—all of them. He was so proud of them. When that little boy was born, which was while we were in this place, I have never seen a prouder, happier man. One of the joys is that he was able to be with his son for such a long time, which was at the time something he didn't know. Natalie, to you and your family: know that your man was loved by many others.
Senator O'NEILL (New South Wales) (17:08): I rise as a proud woman of the New South Wales Right to mark the passing of a great man of the New South Wales Right of the great Australian Labor Party. He will be sadly missed. He was an enormous man in our history and in esteem, as we just heard from Senator Moore, that spread right out into the community because of his authenticity and the authentic work that he did for all the communities that he belonged to—the community of the Labor Party as a political party, the community of the Transport Workers' Union as a powerful advocate for social justice for Australians, and then as a powerful speaker and a man of great heart for the legislative journey of this place to try and make change to genuinely improve the lives of Australian people.
I also want to indicate, as Senator Cameron did, that circumstances here in the Senate prevented many of us from attending Steve's mass yesterday—I think it was at St Finbar's Church in the Blue Mountains. I feel we were all represented with vim and vigour and with sadness and remembrance by the senators who were able to attend: Senator Farrell, Senator Dastyari, and particularly Senators Gallacher and Sterle, for they shared two of those communities with him in a very significant way.
As others have indicated, he was a man who loved his family. As Senator Moore said, there was a joy in Steve that was a natural part of his nature, but it was in his reflections on his family and his connections with his family that we saw him at his best. I did not have the privilege of working with Senator Hutchins here in this chamber, but I did, at the time of his valedictory speech, come over and sit with many of our colleagues from the House of Representatives to honour his moving from this place and into a more connected life with his family. And that is what he said to me as I spoke to him that evening—that that was the joy of the moment for him. I think we can all recall the beautiful speech that he gave at his valedictory. He recalled the great work that he'd done and showed such generosity in thanking so many people who made his work possible.
I was not involved with him in the work that he did on committees, which was beautifully described this evening by Senator Moore, but Steve's words in his valedictory speech were very significant in giving the flavour of the level of engagement that he had with the work that he did. I would like to read for the record once more his comments on the inquiry into the forgotten Australians:
It was a very sad and painful inquiry. There were hundreds of written submissions—if you could call some of them written. There were many phone calls, mostly to the dedicated secretariat, led by the avuncular Elton Humphery, who I hope is here today—
he interrupted himself and said, 'There he is'—
along with Christine McDonald and Ingrid Zappe. I read each and every one of these submissions and often cried at what was in them. They were all sad. They were from men and women, mostly in their 70s and 80s, attempting to provide us with an understanding of what for most of them was the nightmare they endured as young boys and girls.
Even now, I think of them and their written words and their courage in coming forward to tell us what happened to them: the abandonment, the fear, the shame, the self harm, the loneliness—problems that exist to this day—and, not least of all, the suicides that resulted. These people's stories are etched in my memory—the most reprehensible experiences and impossible to forget. We were all shaken to the base of our souls. Our hearts sighed.
Steve Hutchins was a warrior for the rights of ordinary hardworking Australians at every turn and in every context, but he was a man who in his closing words said, 'Our hearts sighed.' A special man. May he rest in peace.
Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales—Nationals Whip in the Senate) (17:13): I'd like to say a few words with respect to Steve Hutchins, former senator. How could you sum up Hutcho? He was just a fair dinkum good bloke. I enjoyed working with him and was saddened when I was talking to Piers Akerman last Thursday, who told me that Steve was very ill. On Friday morning, I got a text from former Labor senator Ursula Stephens, another fine person I've had the privilege to meet in this place. You remember the funny things. About where you're sitting over there, Senator Sterle, Julian McGauran was making a speech one day and, of course, Senator McGauran took every interjection going. Senator Hutchins was over here and made some interjection and Senator McGauran said, 'If Senator Hutchinson would be quiet over there.' Hutcho said, 'The name's Hutchins.' McGauran replied, 'If you ever came in here and made a speech, we might get to know your name,' to which Hutcho really returned fire at Senator McGauran. I had to laugh, but it was all in good humour.
I stayed in touch with Hutcho often after he'd left this place. When we had the kerfuffle of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal last year, the first thing I did, Sterlo, was ring Hutcho and say: 'Mate, we've got a problem. Small business are going to suffer.' He said, 'I'll do what I can,' and, typically, he did what he could do. He was just an enjoyable fella. I loved working with him. He'll be sadly missed by many. To Natalie and his family, I offer my sincere condolences. Hutcho, you suffered a long illness. We will remember you and we thank you for your great contribution to this country.
Senator STERLE (Western Australia) (17:14): I would like to add a few words about our mate Hutcho—not Hutcho the former senator but Hutcho the lion of the TWU and the union movement. My association with Hutcho goes back to the nineties, when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, know-everything young truckie with a potty mouth who thought he could sort out every problem in the world once—
Senator Canavan: It's changed!
Senator STERLE: I'll take that interjection. Things have changed—I'm not young anymore! I thought I could solve the problems of the world from a truckie's perspective and I had a great distaste for people who'd never come through our side—Senator Gallacher's and mine—as former transport workers, truckies or baggage handlers. I just didn't think they really could be tuned in with truckies and transport workers. How wrong I was about Hutcho! No-one is going to fill those shoes of Hutcho.
I just want to put a bit of frivolity into it. In the good old days in the Transport Workers Union, when Ivan Hodgson ruled with an iron fist—and I mean an iron fist; the transport industry was a tough industry, and it was instilled in us that you could lose a fight but if you didn't have one then look out because you'd get one when you got back to the TWU family—the rules were set out: you couldn't become a TWU organiser or an official until you'd spent at least 12 months in the industry. Hutcho worked his way around those rules but he went off, as we know, as a forklift driver, and then, as Senator Brandis said, Hutcho did some time as a garbo. What Senator Brandis didn't say is that Hutcho fell off the back of the bloody truck in the first couple of days on the job and then was on compo for months with a broken arm. But, anyway, Hutcho got round the rules, and what a dynamo that man was for our movement and for our union!
Another thing I want to say is that Hutcho was a few things that I wasn't. One is that he was a state secretary. I never rose to the dizzy heights of state secretary. I was always the baggy pants organiser in the yards at five in the morning getting told what to do by the state secretary—which I enjoyed immensely! Hutcho was our federal president—as was Senator Gallacher, who is in the chamber. I think you were federal president twice, Senator Gallacher—weren't you, mate? I was never a federal president. And Hutcho was a fair dinkum social conservative, which I'm not and never will be. I remember one day getting a phone call. We were having a debate in this building at the time over RU486, which was very topical at the time. There were some very firm views about who should get RU486. Hutcho rang me and said, 'Sterley, we're going for a walk tomorrow morning.' Hutcho never walked, let alone get up in the morning, so I thought: 'Oh God, I'm going to cop the New South Wales Right. I'll have a blue here with the staunch Catholic argument.' So we walked around the block. But at the end of the day the one word you could use to sum up Hutcho was loyalty. You could have a difference of opinion with Hutcho and he would argue to the nth degree. He had a brilliant ability to put the argument forth. He couldn't win me on the RU486. I voted with the socially democratic view that a woman should have full control over what she puts in her body—what she takes or whatever. I went with the other side—
Opposition senators interjecting—
Senator STERLE: I meant the pill thing—much to Hutcho's disgust, but at the end of the day we were still union comrades and he was still my mate. He's been my mate to this very day and he always will be.
I want to share another couple of things. To Natalie and the family: deepest condolences. It was a huge turnout yesterday—500-odd people, I'm led to believe. It was packed chock-a-block. To the TWU family and Ritchie Olsen, the New South Wales State Secretary—we're all part of Hutcho, we've all come through the Hutcho school of the TWU and unionism—and to his officials, his branch committee of management, staff and members it's a very, very sad loss. From the national office of Tony Sheldon and Michael Kaine—Tony is, once again, a product of Hutcho and his great leadership—through to the whole TWU family we're going to miss you, mate; we really are.
I want to add a couple of light notes to see Hutcho off. Senator Gallacher, Fiona and I had a couple of bevvies for him last night and we could feel him in the room. We couldn't join the proceedings at the Lappo. We had to get back to Canberra and we were driving. But we certainly had a few—didn't we, mate? You're still crook, aren't you? You're still looking a bit crook.
Senator Gallacher interjecting—
Senator STERLE: I've recovered all right. But Hutcho wouldn't have had it any other way.
A couple of other things just quickly. I remember sitting here in the good old days when the old Right was as close as anything. We were a close family of the Right, there's no doubt about that, under the leadership of Hutcho and others—Hoggy. We were sitting here through one of those mind-numbingly boring nights when there were 20-minute speeches going on about a bill that really didn't matter. It didn't matter but someone wanted to filibuster to keep it going because they needed some crossbench numbers or some damn thing. After a bottle of white, Hutcho got up and said, 'I might go do 20 minutes. Watch this.' Hutcho walked into the chamber—it was one of those boring things, a taxation bill or something; I don't know what it was—and said, 'I want to talk about this taxation bill,' and spent the other 19 minutes and 56 seconds talking about the Battle of Waterloo and Nelson, and no-one challenged him. And he came back, sat down and drank another bottle of wine. That was Hutcho.
There's another one I want to share. I wasn't here in the chamber when Hutcho first got his illness, but—by crikey!—I was on the receiving end when Hutcho fought it off. What I mean by 'the receiving end', and Senator Gallacher can remember this vividly, is that we were at a TWU national council in Melbourne, I think it was. Hutcho had been cleared and Hutcho was on the way back. Somehow we all ended up, as we truckies do—we like a beer, you know: a beer or 15 or whatever—in a night club at two in the morning. I've got to tell you: Hutcho was still bopping. I remember saying to Alex and, a great mate, Western Australian branch secretary Jimmy McGivern: 'God almighty! He's come back with a vengeance. How are we gonna keep up with him?' Hutcho lived life, every single second. When young Xavier was born I was here: to reiterate what Senator Moore said, nothing was greater to Hutcho than his family.
We're going to miss you, cobber. There aren't too many people like Hutcho. When he had a vision or a view he stuck to it. You knew, if you were with Hutcho in a blue, you had one of the best mates you could ever have. He never wimped. He never took a backward step. He was an absolutely passionate supporter and promoter of workers rights. It's a shame that there's not a lot more—I'll get in trouble for this, but I really don't care, because this is about my mate Hutcho. If we could turn out union leaders and union officials and turn them into senators with the values that Hutcho carried we'd be in a damn great place. To those young ones coming through: don't worry about what you see from some of the batches that are coming through here nowadays. Go back and read some history books. Read about Hutcho.
Hutcho: rest in peace, mate. We're so glad you're not in pain.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I ask honourable senators to stand in silence to signify their assent to the motion.
Honourable senators having stood in their places—
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The motion is carried.
BUSINESS
Rearrangement
Senator CANAVAN (Queensland—Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) (17:22): I move:
That the order of general business for consideration today be as follows:
(a) general business notice of motion no. 619, standing in the name of Senator Hinch, relating to dying with dignity; and
(b) orders of the day relating to documents.
Question agreed to.
MOTIONS
Euthanasia
Senator HINCH (Victoria) (17:22): I move:
That the Senate—
(a) congratulates Victoria on the recent passage of voluntary assisted dying legislation;
(b) encourages all Australian states to follow suit; and
(c) calls upon the Federal Government to respect the wishes of the residents of all Australian territories with regards to dying with dignity.
Hollywood got it right more than 35 years ago when they made a movie, starring Richard Dreyfus, called Whose Life Is It Anyway? More than 35 years ago, the issue of voluntary euthanasia—dying with dignity—was of such interest worldwide that Hollywood made a film about it. That's the one question that its opponents can't answer when the issue of voluntary euthanasia comes up. Whose life is it, anyway? It's mine. Who are you to tell me that I cannot voluntarily end my suffering if my body is racked with pain and relentless terminal illness. If the quality of your existence is so miserable, so painful, so helpless and so hopeless, I believe you are entitled to say, 'Enough is enough,' and end it. That is not a cowardly thing to do. It's a brave thing to do.
The issue of voluntary euthanasia is in the news again today because the Victorian parliament has just passed the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill. It's the first state in Australia to pass such legislation, although of course it has been attempted many times in many states and there have been a number of attempts to pass federal legislation, which I have long believed is the way Australia should have gone and still should go. And of course it's more than 20 years since the Northern Territory briefly had legalised dying with dignity. I think back to 1997, when that was scuttled by Canberra with a private member's bill from the man I used to call the Brylcreemed Bible Basher, Kevin Andrews, backed by Prime Minister Howard—I don't know why I say 'backed by', because it had Howard's fingerprints all over it—and also the powerful religious lobby groups, like the Lyons Forum and Right to Life. The Andrews spoiler was also backed by the then opposition leader, Kim Beazley, and Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer. It was fast-tracked through this Senate and the Canberra Christians triumphed.
Of course, there was a similar attempt here in the ACT. In fact, the Liberal Democrats have a motion before this chamber to restore those rights in the Northern Territory and the ACT, and I believe that the Greens have plans to again introduce a federal bill. I think that Senator Leyonhjelm will speak to this issue today.
The aim of voluntary euthanasia and the legislation is as simple as it is noble. Let a person pass away with dignity and pride; don't make them flee overseas to a Swiss clinic, or smuggle illegal drugs in from Mexico. Don't make loved ones co-conspirators, facing the risk of murder or manslaughter charges just for lovingly responding to one final plea.
I've long been a supporter of voluntary euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke, who has been pilloried by the AMA. He's risked his career, his freedom, his reputation and even his personal safety by campaigning for the ultimate civil right, and that is the right to take your own life. And it is your right. I know I have used before the example of my own mother's death, and I make no apology for that. She was five years younger than I am now when she contracted terminal cancer. After chemotherapy, she developed thrush in her throat and could not swallow food. She existed on melted ice-cream as she slipped into a twilight zone. I watched my mother waste away, and in her final days she looked like a Biafran famine victim. If she had been a dog and an RSPCA inspector had walked into that room where I sat next to her bed, I would have justifiably been charged with cruelty to animals.
My mother was not living; she was existing. A morphine shunt was in her side; it was controlling some of the pain. But I looked at her and it seriously crossed my mind that as a last act of love I should put a pillow over her face and end it, because she wanted to die. Mum had said many times in family discussions that if ever it happened, that if ever it came to that, then she wanted to die. And I feel the same way.
Seven years ago I was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and given 12 months to live if I didn't get a transplant. As the clock ran down to months and then weeks without a life-saving transplant, I told loved ones and close friends that I had made plans to end it if my quality of life deteriorated. I said, 'That's what I'll do, without implicating anybody else, if my quality of life disappears or I start to lose my marbles.'
Now, it wasn't a surprise or news to them. My views on voluntary euthanasia have been pretty public for many years. I said 30 years ago that if I got terminally ill, that's the way I'd go. I once told Herald Sun reporter, Patrick Carlyon:
If my mind started to go, there would be nothing left for me. If I got really sick, I'd kill myself, no doubt about it. I believe in euthanasia, make no bones about it.
I believe a person has the right to die. I believe a person has the right to commit suicide… although I think that is sometimes a coward’s way out that pains and scars bewildered and guilt-ridden loved ones left behind.
When a person is terminally ill, their emaciated bodies shrunken beyond recognition and wracked with pain, they are entitled to say 'whose life is it, anyway?" and make a calculated decision to end it.
The issue of voluntary euthanasia is supported by at least 70 per cent of Australians. But many of our politicians and many religious leaders have inordinate sway in Canberra and in the state capitals. In Melbourne about three years ago an intelligent and dedicated campaigner, Dr Rodney Syme, defiantly served himself up as a test case. He publicly admitted giving Nembutal to terminally-ill journalist Stephen Guest, who took those pills and killed himself two weeks later. Dr Syme has said that he has helped scores of sick people die. He's virtually told the authorities: 'Come and get me. Make me a test case.' But most politicians don't want to know about it.
Syme believes that there is what he calls a 'benign conspiracy' among police, prosecutors, the coroners and governments not to charge doctors who help people end their lives. And I agree with him. Everybody knows it goes on; everybody does. Usually it's the nurses under instruction who do it, but doctors take life-ending actions all the time—and emails from nurses to me have reaffirmed that. What angers me is that hypocrites, like some of the religious zealots who oppose the 'dying with dignity' legislation, will leave it to the doctors to make those decisions for them—because it happens to terminal patients in major Australian hospitals everyday. I bet you it happened today. As the movie title said 35 years ago, whose life is it anyway? Whose indeed.
Senator URQUHART (Tasmania—Opposition Whip in the Senate) (17:30): I rise to read out a statement in relation to how the Labor Party will be dealing with this. Voluntary assisted dying laws are principally a matter for state parliaments. The Victorian parliament has recently passed legislation to allow voluntary assisted dying in that state for a limited number of people and under strict circumstances and safeguards. This followed years of consultation with experts and the Victorian community, and lengthy debate in both houses of the Victorian parliament. Given that this is a sensitive and complex issue, Labor has previously allowed a conscience vote to its members—that is, Labor senators have not been bound to vote in a particular way. We will take the same approach to this motion today.
Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (17:31): I enter this debate to indicate my support for the principle of the motion moved by Senator Hinch. This issue has already been before this parliament twice in the time I have been here, and I have made my position clear on both occasions. The first occasion, as I recall, was when the Commonwealth overrode a Northern Territory law in this regard. I voted against that on two grounds: first, I didn't think we should be overriding a territory law; and, second, I also thought that Australians should have the opportunity and the right for a medically assisted death where they make that decision themselves.
I appreciate there have been many religious and other grounds for opposition to this in the debates that I have been involved in. The matter is always raised about how greedy children will terminate the life of elderly parents so they can get their money more quickly. That, first of all, shows a very poor view of mankind but, secondly, they are extreme cases. On other occasions the pieces of legislation talked about—I haven't followed the Victorian one this time around—have had any number of protections. And it is not the greedy children of the person involved—or anyone else—that makes the decision; it is the person themselves who makes the decision.
In the other instance when this came before the parliament, it was a Senate inquiry into medically assisted death. I actually chaired that inquiry and I recommended that a bill in some form be adopted by the parliament. It was a private members' bill and, as I recall, it never actually came to a vote as such. But even that private members' legislation had inordinately complex and extensive hoops that had to be gone through before a person could decide that they wished to terminate their life, and it included a lot of psychiatric involvement.
So, provided that there are the right protections, I continue my support for medically assisted death. Like Senator Hinch, I've seen my mother in that situation, and more recently I've seen my sister in that situation. And Senator Hinch makes a very good point. This is not perhaps a good example, but we had a cat that we very much loved and we couldn't bear to see it in pain, so we got the vet to come around—paid a lot to get the vet to make a house call in those days—to put the cat out of its misery. But we don't do that with human beings. I still remember, from this inquiry, that I talked about a very courageous young man from Melbourne who came and gave evidence. He had terminal cancer, and he pleaded with the committee to support that. He knew he was going to die, but he wanted to do it at a time of his choosing. He wanted to do it when his family, his wife and his children were all there by his bedside. He didn't want to be by himself at three o'clock in the morning and suddenly leave this world. He gave wonderful evidence to the committee about his particular situation. Unfortunately we weren't able to accommodate his final wish: that he could actually decide the time and place of what he knew was going to be his death.
Again, I indicate that, with the right safeguards, people should be given the opportunity of bringing forward the time of their death so that they can indicate the time, the place and those they want to be with them when they leave this world. So I would support this motion as I have done on two previous occasions. One day, we will see this become the law of Australia—with, I want to add and emphasise, all the necessary and appropriate safeguards so that some of the concerns raised are properly dealt with.
Senator LEYONHJELM (New South Wales) (17:37): In 1997, Kevin Andrews succeeded in pushing a private member's bill through federal parliament, overturning the first legislation to permit assisted suicide in Australia, enacted in the Northern Territory. Since then, not only does assisting someone to commit suicide remain a serious crime in all states—except for Victoria's recent provisions—but it is also a crime in the territories. Three states have life imprisonment as the maximum penalty, while in others the maximum penalty varies from five to 25 years. This is extraordinarily cruel. The denial of the right to die at a time of our choosing can result in a lingering, painful death. It is also at odds with the fact that we have both a fundamental and a legal right to choose whether we wish to continue living.
It is important to state this clearly, because people often forget that suicide was once illegal, and failed attempts frequently led to prosecution. In medieval England, suicides were denied a Christian burial. Instead, they were carried to a crossroads in the dead of night and dumped in a pit, with a wooden stake hammered through the body to pin it in place. There were no clergy or mourners, and no prayers were offered. But punishment did not end with death: the deceased's family were stripped of their belongings, which were handed to the Crown. This remained the case until 1822. Michael MacDonald and Terrence Murphy, in Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England, wrote:
The suicide of an adult male could reduce his survivors to pauperism.
This did not change because of a significant campaign for a change in suicide legislation. Instead, there was a gradual realisation that the laws of the day were at odds with society's view and that care, not prosecution, was needed. Dr David Wright, co-author of the book Histories of Suicide: International Perspectives on Self-Destruction in the Modern World, wrote:
From the middle of the 18th Century to the mid-20th Century there was growing tolerance and a softening of public attitudes towards suicide, which was a reflection of, among other things, the secularisation of society and the emergence of the medical profession.
This freedom is now mostly well-accepted. Whilst suicide is often an occasion for sadness, there is also a recognition that people do not belong to their families, their clans or to the government. An individual may have good reason to take his or her own life, but even if they don't, it is still their own decision to make.
But there is a catch. The law says we are only permitted to die by our own hand, without assistance. Indeed, in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and the ACT, reasonable force can still be used to stop a person from committing suicide. If we are too weak or incapacitated to end our lives ourselves, apart from the quite limited circumstances now provided in Victoria, we are condemned to suffer until nature takes its course. It is a serious offence for anyone to help us to die, at our instruction, or even to tell us how to do it for ourselves. One of the consequences of this is that it can compel people to end their lives sooner than they would like. Understandably, people prefer to avoid the risk that they will become incapable of committing suicide themselves, doomed to live out the remainder of their lives in pain and helplessness.
Most fair-minded people accept that painlessly ending animal suffering is an act of compassion. As a veterinarian, I have often made the decision to put an animal to sleep, because animals are not people and cannot give consent. However, for us humans, even when we give consent and beg for help, the law prohibits the same compassion. There is no better marker of individual freedom than the ability to decide what to do with our own body. If the law prevents us from making free choices about it, then we are not really free at all. Our bodies are not our own, but under the control of someone else who tells us what we cannot do with it. In reality, this is the state. Yet, bodily autonomy is well-recognised in other areas. Nothing prevents us from getting tattoos, dyeing our hair purple or sporting multiple studs and piercings. We are just not allowed the ultimate autonomy.
Legalisation of assisted suicide is long overdue in Australia. Opinion polls show that more than 80 per cent of Australians are in favour, across all political parties. It is high time that governments accepted that, on this deeply personal matter, their intrusion is not warranted.
Now I turn to the inevitable objections. Despite what some people think, this is not about bumping off granny to inherit the house. Assisted suicide is simply helping someone to do something that they would do for themselves if they were not so ill or feeble. The absolute essential element is genuine active consent. This is emphatically not implied consent or acquiescence. Ending someone's life when they haven't given consent is murder. Nobody wants that. Moreover, this is not about living wills or withdrawing medical assistance. Those are different issues. Equally, those contemplating suicide should be made aware of the availability of palliative care to make their last days less agonising, and should have treatment options in the case of mental illness. Indeed, the decision to die with or without assistance should be rational and well informed in all cases, including an awareness of the attitudes of loved ones left behind. Of course, consent must be verified. I don't believe medical practitioners are any better qualified than anyone else to confirm this, but obviously the decision must be genuine. It is essential to ensure the choice is made without coercion or pressure.
I welcome Victoria's recent decision to allow assisted dying in circumstances where death is expected within six or 12 months. I regard the provision that passed as too prescriptive and too medicalised, but at least the blanket denial is no longer there.
I don't believe the Commonwealth has jurisdiction over assisted suicide. All it can do is get out of the way of the states and territories exercising their jurisdiction. The Euthanasia Laws Act 1997, the Andrews bill I referred to earlier, removed the power of each of the territories to legalise assisted suicide with a specific focus on repeal of the Northern Territory's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995. While it is simply too late to reinstate the Northern Territory act, repeal of the Andrews act would send a signal to states and territories that their legislatures may now turn their attention to this issue. As a bonus, it would support federalism in lawmaking. For too long, the Commonwealth has waded into areas that are properly the business of the states and territories. Allowing the states and territories control over their own affairs, which is the point of federalism, allows innovation in lawmaking. We currently see this in various ways. For example, the Northern Territory does not require cyclists to wear bicycle helmets on cyclepaths or footpaths. As a result, the Northern Territory has high cycling participation rates, while the Territory's serious injury rate is the same as the national average and better than several states where helmet use is mandatory.
But, whatever we might think of the decisions others make about their lives, it is their decision, not ours. The law should respect their right to make their own choices. Whether as legislators or as private citizens, our approval is neither necessary nor relevant. The permission of the government should not be required, just as it is no longer required with respect to suicide.
Senator O'SULLIVAN (Queensland) (17:46): I'm going to try and keep my comments brief. I am and have always been opposed to the state or, indeed, humankind being involved in the termination of the lives of human beings. It matters not whether it's abortion, euthanasia or, of course, capital punishment. As someone who served as a detective for 16 years and had been involved in the investigation of many heinous crimes, you would have thought that at some stage I would have converted my thinking to support the idea of capital punishment. I do not. In fact, I had quite a unique experience as a detective in that I was appointed to study at the FBI behavioural science facility at their academy south of Washington, where I spent four months looking at serial killers. Every day, I was confronted with a diet of slides and reports and photographs and videos of crime scenes where the victims were, more often than not, women or children and where the circumstances were heinous beyond description in most cases. You would think that an experience like that would bring an individual to consider capital punishment as being an appropriate punishment in particular circumstances.
But it did not because, at the same time, research had been conducted—and I took a great interest in it—in a number of cases in the United States, particularly in that jurisdiction, where it was determined that people who had been killed through capital punishment had been wrongly convicted. They were innocent people. The state created a rule, or a law in that case, to take their lives as a result of a process. So what it said to me—and I am not for one second trying to compare those circumstances to the circumstances of patients who find themselves in most difficult circumstances—is that human kind is not developed enough, nor do I think it will ever be, to make decisions around the lives of people, including some of the people themselves who are confronted with circumstances where they make that decision. We have a situation in Belgium where euthanasia is lawful, even to the extent where parents are able to make a decision on behalf of their children. In one cited case—and I place on the record that I have not tested the references—there were two young girls from one family who, through a genetic condition, were born deaf. Through that genetic condition—these children were twins of 12 years of age—they were going blind. A decision was taken by the parents—I can only imagine that it was perhaps in consultation with the children—that the two children, who were otherwise totally healthy, would be euthanised. I can't imagine the sort of pressure on a family like that, including the two young ladies and their parents, in having to make such a decision. But I would never support a law made by the state that would allow those sorts of decisions to have been taken.
I suspect that there are hundreds and hundreds of occasions each month in our country where, with the use of palliative care, people's lives come to an end perhaps earlier than they might otherwise do if acute medical attention were continued. In fact, I've had the experience myself. My late wife passed away after she had an aneurysm that left her with no prospect whatsoever of living without the aid of a life support system. Events there, without me particularising them, brought her life to a close where perhaps she may have continued with, might I say, no life at all on a life support system. So I think that in some instances, in extreme cases, our society is also, in effect, through the withdrawal of medical care or continued medical care, allowing people to die with dignity when they are way beyond any prospect of help or recovery.
I feel very, very strongly about this matter. I feel for the people who find themselves in these circumstances. But if this parliament were to be confronted with legislation like this on a national level, we would need to go very, very, very carefully. There is a very large body of research around the implications of these things. Mine is a practical position, but as a practising Catholic I am often guided by faith in these matters. I would urge very, very steady and careful consideration of these matters. I remain satisfied that each of us, to the extent that we can, will become a scholar on the topic. Many people will share my view that humanity does not have the capacity to put in place the protections that would prevent assisted suicide from taking the lives of people whose prospects were not quite as the seemed—people who perhaps had a future—through misdiagnosis and a whole range of those issues. I urge colleagues to think very carefully about it. I cannot support the motion.
Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (17:55): I don't intend to detain the Senate for very long in making my remarks. If Senator Canavan was hoping to speak and seeks the call before six o'clock, he should be able to.
I simply want to indicate that I do intend to support the motion before us. I do so with a view that we ought to proceed very cautiously and carefully with reforms related to dying with dignity. I note that the approach that was taken both in New South Wales and in Victoria involved extensive public consultation and extensive parliamentary debate. To that extent, and to the extent that the motion before us alludes to those processes and those kinds of community engagements necessary for reforms of this kind, I am willing to support it. However, I think the motion's language refers to encouraging the states and territories to proceed in this way. I would support it on the proviso that it was a very engaging debate which involved everyone in the community. It is on that basis that I'm willing to provide my support.
Senator CANAVAN (Queensland—Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) (17:56): Thank you to Senator McAllister for ceding some time to me in the limited period before 6 pm. I want to indicate briefly that I will not support this motion. I do not support it principally because I believe, fundamentally, that every human life is special and should be protected. In my view no-one, including any individual, should have the right to destroy life. I say that with respect to those who have put arguments opposite to mine.
I wonder, if we have future opportunities to debate this issue in this chamber, whether there can be a serious engagement or a serious response to the natural ethical viewpoints that are often put forward in defence or in opposition to euthanasia, because, frankly, comparing the ending of a life to getting a tattoo or a haircut or some other act is, in my view, a little immature. It does not seriously take into account the distinction that surely must come when we're talking about matters of human life. Likewise, these are issues Senator Hinch dismissed. He was dismissive of the views of the Australian Medical Association and dismissive of views of medical doctors who have to deal with matters of life and death on a daily basis.
I fear that we are not getting to the root of what is behind arguments in support of euthanasia. Behind those arguments, fundamentally, is a different ethical system to what many of our laws in Western society are based on. It is an ethical system based on unrestricted and rampant utilitarianism which elevates the perceived desires or happiness of an individual above all other considerations. I think it is worthy of a serious debate about whether that ethical system produces better societal results than others, including those of a natural law ethical system, which is the ethical system my particular faith—the Catholic faith—is based on. But it's not only a Catholic ethical system, or religious ethical system; it's a legitimate secular ethical approach to important and weighty questions. I don't know what the Catholic Church thinks about getting tattoos, but certainly the natural law has something to say about how special and unique life is.
I think we easily forget that—it was some time ago, but well within the memory of human civilisation—there was a common practice of infanticide, of putting young children who were not seen to be worthy members of the community to death. That's not something we'd accept today, but the ethical system that is being put forward here in arguments for euthanasia does open the door and does remove such limits from such conduct. I gravely fear what that would mean for our society which fundamentally still does, I believe, protect and cherish every human life regardless of disability or conception.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Sullivan ): It now being 6 pm, the debate is interrupted.
COMMITTEES
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Joint Committee
Report
Senator FAWCETT (South Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (18:00): I present an interim report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on the legal foundations of religious freedoms in Australia.
Ordered that the reports be printed.
Senator FAWCETT: by leave—I move:
That the Senate take note of the report.
It's my pleasure as the Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Deference and Trade to present the Human Rights Subcommittee interim report for the inquiry into the status of the human right to freedom of religion or belief in Australia. We've probably talked more about this topic in the Senate and in public over the last couple of months than we have for quite a few years—since the last report in Australia, which was conducted well over a decade ago.
For me, this in part arose late last year where a motion in the Senate created a Senate select committee to consider the implications for religious freedom should the parliament ever legislate to change the definition of marriage. I was asked by the government to chair that Senate select committee, and we had a group of senators who worked over a number of weeks and then reported in February of this year, having taken evidence from many people. The thing that surprised me as I chaired that committee was the low level of awareness from many in our community about the status of freedom of religion and belief in a legal sense. Also, I would argue, the low level of religious literacy amongst many in our community—even bodies that are established to work in the area of law or sometimes even in the area of human rights—to understand the various governance structures, the importance of religion to individuals and the compulsion, almost, that somebody's religious beliefs have on their conduct—that is, the fact that they're prepared to sacrifice time, money, effort and emotion into it; it's not something which is just a choice.
Out of that, because there was such low awareness, and there were concerns raised around the fact that people contended that we had a very low level of protection at a federal level and that the state protections were variable, one of the outcomes that I took as the Chair of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee was to seek a reference for the Human Rights Subcommittee to conduct this inquiry to have a more comprehensive review of the status of the law in Australia at both the federal and state levels to look at freedom of religion and belief. So Mr Kevin Andrews, who is the chair of that subcommittee, worked with the subcommittee members, again, on a cross-party basis, to take evidence from a wide range of people for that.
What they found was that in Australia, in practice, people have enjoyed great freedoms over the years. In practice, we are characterised as being a free country. But that has been more to do with the social mores that have developed in this nation—the common sense, the accommodation, the ability to live and let live—than legislation in law. I'll table some additional remarks after I have made these few comments that go into a little more detail about that. In essence, it found that there was limited protection in federal law and that the state and territory laws on this matter varied greatly in both nature and effectiveness when it came to religious freedom. They also found that, unlike in many countries in the world, where restrictions on religious freedom come from governments on the basis of having a state religion—and minorities then had restrictions placed on them—or from different religious groupings in a society, the restrictions in Australia most often eventuated where competing rights came into conflict because of rights to nondiscrimination. As we have moved through both the Senate select committee and now the debate in this place around the Smith bill, which was passed this week, many discussions and concerns have been raised around those issues.
At the heart of the issue is the fact that, because section 116 of the Constitution means federally we make no laws around religion—we separate ourselves from that—and because states have varying levels of coverage of freedom of religion but very thorough coverage of antidiscrimination law, with varying thresholds for how that will be applied, what you have is a situation, as we see in Tasmania right at the moment, where somebody can be expressing what we would all think is a valid, normal and legal expression of their religion around marriage or sexuality, for example, yet be hauled before a state based tribunal. We see state based tribunals making decisions that we think defy belief. In Queensland, for example, the antidiscrimination tribunal has found that because St Vincent de Paul—who most people, if you ask them, would say are a religious charity—were established for charitable purposes, and not religious purposes, in the view of that tribunal they're not a religious body, which means that then they don't enjoy the protections in the Sex Discrimination Act drawn from religion and belief that are afforded to religious bodies. It is a complex area of law.
You have seen in the media in recent days that Philip Ruddock has been appointed to look at freedom of religion and belief in the country. I've spoken to Mr Ruddock to make sure he's aware of this report, because it will provide a good basis for him to look at the implementation of the report. Both in the Senate select committee and in evidence given to the Human Rights Sub-Committee, the complexity and the breadth of issues involved means that it's not a simple or quick job to comprehensively legislate for protection of freedom of religion and belief, which is article 18 of the ICCPR. That has a number of implications, particularly the fact that it probably won't happen quickly, which is why a number of people have called, during the debate on the Smith bill this week, for measures more directly limited to the issue of marriage and related to the Smith bill to be legislated. Unfortunately, as we know, those were voted down here.
I think it's important, though, that we recognise that this is an important issue to get right. We've had stability and a large degree of cohesion in our society for many years. You can go right back to the preparatory works for our Constitution: some of our forefathers were agnostic, some were atheists and some were men of faith, but by and large they shared a set of values which have carried through over the decades. There has been very limited conflict in this area. But, increasingly, there are people coming into Australia not only of different faiths but, in particular, different ideologies and ideas that challenge the shared community values that we have had for so long. I believe we need to find appropriate ways—and personally I'm not in favour of things like a bill of rights, but there are three or four different methods—of looking at how, and how much, we implement article 18 into our law. I think we need to look at it. We need to respect the fact that the basis of the stability in our society is that we respect the majority view but we protect the minority so that they can hold, express and advocate for their positions.
So this is a complex area. I'm aware there are people on all sides of the chamber who hold varying views on this, and we need to be able to have this dialogue to make sure that people who hold a view that's different to the majority are able to express that view legally and to be respected for it, even if the mainstream view in the society has moved in a different direction. So I commend this bill to the Senate. I will table the remainder of these remarks, and I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted.
Senator JACINTA COLLINS (Victoria) (18:10): by leave—I thank Senator Fawcett for facilitating the tabling of this report and my opportunity to reflect on a few issues ahead of further discussions of these issues, I suspect, in the House next week. Introducing this report, which probably would have fallen off the program had we not been alerted to it, I think is quite useful.
I became aware of this report in some detail when I looked at the outline of the likely conclusions that was in The Australian newspaper today. As chair of the Privileges Committee, can I say I don't think there's any likely adverse impact of the description that was in the newspaper, so I don't think any further action is required. But it is useful to see what this inquiry has canvassed and discussed. As Senator Fawcett indicated, there is quite a degree of concern with the level of religious literacy and the issues that have been canvassed, at least in this article, and I look forward to seeing the report. I think it will be very helpful to the discussion not only in the parliament but in the period ahead with the Ruddock review and indeed with respect to any further consolidation project that might be attempted for our antidiscrimination framework and state and federal jurisdictions. These were some of the issues that we canvassed in the debate on the bill and the amendments.
I want to take this opportunity to reinforce the point that Labor had a conscience vote in respect of the amendments in the Smith bill, and I acknowledge Senator Smith here as well. We carefully looked at those amendments, and I indicated in the debate that there were some areas that I had ongoing concerns about, there are other areas where issues had been resolved to my immediate satisfaction, and there were other areas which I have subsequently come to class essentially as classic liberalism, where Labor senators were never going to be of a similar mind. If you approach some of the issues in dealing with matters around religious freedom from a classical liberal perspective, it should be no surprise that Labor senators weren't convinced. I say that respectfully, because I'm very pleased that this report has now been tabled and approached, as I think Senator Fawcett alluded to, and I commend the chair of the subcommittee, Kevin Andrews. If this is indeed reflected in the report, which I have yet to look at, I think there is enormous scope for bipartisan support to enhance our current antidiscrimination framework to ensure that some of the issues, problems and ambiguities between the federal and state jurisdictions don't become a challenge in the future to, as Senator Fawcett referred to, the common square type approach that has been applied in Australia to dealing with issues around religious freedom. But, as Senator Fawcett said, these issues are quite complex. People of common interest did indeed have concerns that we weren't in the best frame with the same-sex marriage bill to be dealing with some of these very complex issues.
So I look forward to looking in detail at this report. I'm pleased to hear that it's already been brought to the attention of the Ruddock review, although I'm still waiting to see what those terms of reference are, so it will be good to be able to indeed see that. But I'd also like to highlight that the report by Dennis Shanahan and Joe Kelly in The Australian makes the point that even next week's debate—I think the Prime Minister alluded to it this morning—will look again at the George Brandis amendments that the Senate considered. This report of the report that's now being tabled indicates that the committee has been told that Australia's agreement to various international covenants, which George Brandis wanted to highlight in amendments to the same-sex marriage laws, provides little practical protection. That was indeed the concern that I had when I looked at the first of Senator Brandis's amendments, because, whilst I didn't comment on this at the time, the advice I received was that unless there was some ambiguity in the same-sex marriage bill or act then they were likely to have essentially no effect. And the legal advice I received was that it was very hard to imagine what type of ambiguity in that particular piece of legislation was ever going to arrive to give those provisions effect. I'm heartened, as Senator Fawcett said, that there are essentially four models, I think you indicated, that might deal with some of these issues without necessarily going down the Bill of Rights path, and I look forward to looking at and addressing those.
I want to return to the commendation I paid to Senator Fawcett about the enormous amount of work that must have gone into the process of drafting amendments in respect of this bill. I don't think that work and that common activity is necessarily going to be lost with the passage of the Smith bill. I think it's fine work that quite a range of people have engaged in that can still be drawn upon, by whichever future government, to produce an antidiscrimination framework that still allows for our particular Australian common-square approach. So I look forward to looking at the detail of this report. I seek leave to continue my remarks.
Leave granted.
DOCUMENTS
Consideration
The following orders of the day relating to government documents were considered:
Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC)—Report for 2016 17. Motion of Senator Siewert to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Australian Human Rights Commission—Report for 2016-17. Motion of Senator McKim to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Climate Change Authority—Report for 2016-17. Motion of Senator Rice to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Department of Immigration and Border Protection—Report for 2016-17. Motion of Senator McKim to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Protection and detention of children in the Northern Territory—Royal Commission—Final report (4 volumes). Motion of Senator Siewert to take note of documents agreed to.
Foreign Policy White Paper 2017. Motion of Senator Urquhart to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Australian Human Rights Commission—Report no. 116—CR and CS v Commonwealth of Australia (Department of Immigration and Border Protection). Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Australian Human Rights Commission—Report no. 117—MB v Commonwealth of Australia (Department of Immigration and Border Protection). Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Australian Human Rights Commission—Report no. 118—Nine Vietnamese men in immigration detention v Commonwealth of Australia (Department of Immigration and Border Protection). Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Australian Human Rights Commission—Report no. 119—Ms OR on behalf of Mr OS, Miss OP and Master OQ v Commonwealth of Australia (Department of Immigration and Border Protection). Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Aged Care Act 1997—Report for 2016-17 on the operation of the Act. Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Migration Act 1958—Section 486O—Assessment of detention arrangements—Commonwealth Ombudsman's reports—Report no. 18 of 2017. Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Migration Act 1958—Section 486O—Assessment of detention arrangements—Government response to Ombudsman's report no. 18 of 2017. Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Migration Act 1958—Section 486O—Assessment of detention arrangements—Commonwealth Ombudsman's reports—Report no. 19 of 2017. Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Migration Act 1958—Section 486O—Assessment of detention arrangements—Government response to Ombudsman's report no. 19 of 2017. Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Treaty—Bilateral—Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the French Republic Concerning the Reprocessing in France of Australian Irradiated Nuclear Fuel Elements (Canberra, 23 November 2017)—Text, together with national interest analysis. Motion of Senator Bartlett to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
Murray-Darling Basin Authority—Report for 2016-17. Motion of Senator McAllister to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till Thursday at general business.
COMMITTEES
Consideration
The following orders of the day relating to committee reports and government responses were considered:
Economics References Committee—Non-conforming building products: Protecting Australians from the threat of asbestos—Interim report. Motion of Senator McAllister to take note of report agreed to.
Funding for Research into Cancers with Low Survival Rates—Select Committee—Report. Motion of the chair of the committee (Senator Bilyk) to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee—Law of contempt—Report. Motion of the chair of the committee (Senator Pratt) to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Community Affairs References Committee—Delivery of outcomes under the National Disability Strategy 2010-2020 to build inclusive and accessible communities—Report. Motion of the chair of the committee (Senator Siewert) to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee—Biosecurity risks associated with the importation of seafood and seafood products (including uncooked prawns and uncooked prawn meat) into Australia—Report. Motion of the deputy chair of the committee (Senator O’Sullivan) to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Community Affairs References Committee—Report—Availability of new, innovative and specialist cancer drugs in Australia—Government response. Motion of Senator Moore to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Economics References Committee—Report—Cooperative, mutual and member-owned firms—Government response. Motion of the chair of the committee (Senator Ketter) to take note of document agreed to.
National Disability Insurance Scheme—Joint Standing Committee—Report—Accommodation for people with disabilities and the NDIS—Government response. Motion of Senator Brown to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Government Procurement—Joint Select Committee—Report—Buying into our future: Review of amendments to the Commonwealth Procurement Rules—Government response. Motion of Senator Kitching to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Environment and Communications References Committee—Participation of Australians in online poker—Report. Motion of the chair of the committee (Senator Rice) to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Red Tape—Select Committee—Effect of red tape on environmental assessment and approvals—Third interim report. Motion of Senator Leyonhjelm to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee—Impact of Defence training activities and facilities on rural and regional communities—Third interim report. Motion of the chair of the committee (Senator Gallacher) to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Corporations and Financial Services—Joint Statutory Committee—Whistleblower protections—Report. Motion of Senator Urquhart to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
National Disability Insurance Scheme—Joint Standing Committee—Provision of hearing services under the National Disability Insurance Scheme—Interim report. Motion of Senator Urquhart to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
National Disability Insurance Scheme—Joint Standing Committee—Progress report. Motion of Senator Urquhart to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
National Disability Insurance Scheme—Joint Standing Committee—Provision of services under the NDIS for people with psychosocial disabilities related to a mental health condition—Report. Motion of the deputy chair of the committee (Senator Gallacher) to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Red Tape—Select Committee—Effect of red tape on tobacco retail—Second interim report. Motion of the chair of the committee (Senator Leyonhjelm) to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Red Tape—Select Committee—Effect of red tape on the sale, supply and taxation of alcohol—Interim report. Motion of the chair of the committee (Senator Leyonhjelm) to take note of report called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
Murray-Darling Basin Plan—Select Committee—Report—Refreshing the Plan—Government response. Motion of Senator Leyonhjelm to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORTS
Consideration
The following orders of the day relating to reports of the Auditor-General were considered:
Auditor-General—Audit report no. 17 of 2017-18—Assurance review—Department of Agriculture and Water Resources' assessment of New South Wales' protection and use of environmental water under the National Partnership Agreement on Implementing Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin: Department of Agriculture and Water Resources. Motion of Senator McAllister to take note of document called on. Debate adjourned till the next day of sitting.
ADJOURNMENT
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Sullivan ) (18:22): Order! I propose the question:
That the Senate do now adjourn.
Mining
Senator BARTLETT (Queensland) (18:22): Much has been said about the result of the Queensland state election last weekend—many times in this chamber and of course in many other places in my home state of Queensland. As with any election, there are many issues involved in shaping the votes of the millions of Queenslanders across that state. But, certainly, key amongst those issues is the Adani Carmichael mine. It is, of course, a mine that, if allowed to proceed, would enable the burning of an enormous amount of coal and the emitting of an enormous amount of fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere at a time when we need to be exploring every opportunity not only to slow down but to reverse the level of greenhouse emissions going into our atmosphere.
But I think that, even more widely than that, what's shaped the views of Queenslanders about that mine and about the policy decisions of all the various parties regarding it has been the very strong sense—and this applies to people in northern Queensland, who I have spoken to, just as much as those in southern or western Queensland—that this is a case of a foreign corporation that's a big donor to both the establishment political parties getting precedence over the needs of the community. Whether its the free access to a whole lot of groundwater that should be available for farmers in the region, the delay in Adani being required to pay royalty payments that it got, the continuing argument over whether they'll be able to get access to a billion-dollar loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, or even the fact that this project was given special status by the current Labor government that enabled it to circumvent a whole lot of the normal planning and legal processes that significant projects normally have to go through for the public to be confident that this is actually meeting the sorts of rules that everybody else has to comply with, people feel that there's something dodgy here. And that feeling is very much right.
This was confirmed again just today when we saw the news that Adani has hired the services of a lobbyist firm called Govstrat which has key players from both the Liberal National Party and the Labor Party in Queensland. It's another classic case of the revolving door in politics, with politicians and ministers on one side going through that revolving door and putting on their lobbyist hat the next minute. There are many, many examples, many of which have been outlined in this place.
We've spent a lot of today, in question time and before and after it, talking about the recognition of how major donations corrupt political decisions. We've heard all the debates today about Senator Dastyari and the huge donations that he got from a person of concern in regard to foreign influence. We've heard the same in regard to major donations from foreign donors to the Liberal Party. Adani is another major foreign corporation that is providing huge donations to both of the old establishment parties. Alongside that is the way they use the revolving door of ex-politicians and well-connected figures from both the establishment parties to use that lobbying power to bend political decisions in a way that meets the interests of the corporations rather than the interests of the community.
The lobbying firm Govstrat is run by a former treasurer of the Labor Party in Queensland. Its principal lobbyist is a former National Party Premier of Queensland. It employs a former chief of staff of Bill Shorten. It employs a former chief of staff of the former Deputy Premier under the Newman government, Jeff Seeney. It was retained by the Star Entertainment Group, which is a major lobbyist for the casino project in the centre of Brisbane. That project is another that clearly smells dodgy to many people in Brisbane. It involves 10 per cent of Brisbane's CBD. Public land in the CBD—an area where there is a high need to retain public land for green space, open space and publicly accessible land that has not been commercialised—would be handed over to a major casino lobbyist. The same lobbyist group has also worked for many other resource companies and companies in the gambling industry, and that is the firm that Adani is now seeking to use to continue its efforts to establish that mine, that massive carbon bomb, in Queensland.
It needs to be said time and time again that that mine is only one of a number of new thermal coal mines that are being proposed in the Galilee Basin. The Adani mine itself is the biggest thermal coal mine in the Southern Hemisphere, or will be if it is allowed to go ahead. The entire Galilee Basin is really a gigantic carbon bomb on a global scale, which these mining corporations are seeking to employ every avenue to open up, and one of the key avenues they are using is the power of money, of big donations and of the revolving door of lobbyists subverting, distorting and corrupting the policymaking decisions of the two establishment parties, whoever is in government.
What seems clear to me after the state election is that Adani are more spooked than ever because they know a record number of people voted for the Greens in the state election. Ten per cent of Queenslanders across the state have voted for the Greens—record numbers. We have the real prospect of the Greens making a breakthrough and winning a seat in parliament, which is historic in the sense that it's in a state where there is no upper house to provide a platform for a party to build representation first. Adani is clearly spooked not just by the Greens' success as a political party but by the massive social movement across the state.
I want to emphasise this again, because there's been this myth that the opposition to Adani is only in South-East Queensland or only in Brisbane. I've spoken to plenty of people—some of them are very visible, and some of them are not so visible but are certainly just as strong in their views—in the north of Queensland and in Central Queensland who also recognise that the Adani Carmichael mine project is a con and is economically disastrous for Queensland as well as environmentally disastrous when there are so many other economic opportunities that could deliver jobs for that region. And they also recognise that it is a company getting special favours because of the donations, because of the links to the lobbyists that are part of that revolving door between the lobbying firms and the two establishment parties.
It is a reminder that we need to pursue, and the Greens will certainly continue to pursue in Queensland and here in the federal parliament, the need for comprehensive reform of donations—that is, not just banning donations from foreign entities to political parties although that certainly needs to be done; we need to be banning all corporate donations. We need to be at a minimum employing the New South Wales model of banning money from gambling interests, from property developers and from the alcohol lobby. We need to be putting a cap on election campaign expenditure, putting a cap on the size of individual donations to all political parties. Those are the reforms that need to happen to really reduce and eliminate the influence of big money on political decisions. We need to be putting a proper ban on cash-for-access dinners. We feed to be putting a proper ban on people being able to move straight from senior ministerial positions into major lobby firms and going back in and using those contacts to distort the decision-making process on such crucial projects.
I also want to say to the Adani company: you can employ whatever lobbyists you like, you can spend whatever money you like, you can donate whatever you like to the two established political parties, but that mine will not go ahead. The people of Queensland in their hundreds and thousands, the movements across the state, will do what is necessary to continue to build that public momentum to stop that mine. There may be, and we hope there is, a Green in that state parliament, as there is one Green from Queensland in this federal parliament. But on this issue, we are a voice in those parliaments for hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders and many others around Australia who recognise that the Adani mine is a disaster that must not be allowed to go ahead. So my advice to Adani is: save your money, give it up because you will not succeed on this. If you think the movement is big now, you have seen nothing yet. It will stop that mine, so just give it up now and recognise that that mine shouldn't go ahead. (Time expired)
NOTICES
Presentation
Senator Williams to move 15 sitting days after today:
That the ASIC Credit (Flexible Credit Cost Arrangements) Instrument 2017/780, made under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009, be disallowed [F2017L01141].
Senators Steele-John and Siewert to move on the next day of sitting:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) 3 December 2017 is the 25th anniversary of International Day of People with Disability, with the theme of 'Transformation towards sustainable and resilient society for all', premised on the resilience of those in vulnerable situations and the reduction of their exposure and vulnerability to economic, social, and environmental shocks, as well as disasters,
(ii) the Community Affairs References Committee held an inquiry into violence, abuse and neglect against people with disability in institutional and residential settings during the 44th Parliament,
(iii) on 25 November 2015, the Community Affairs References Committee tabled its report containing 30 recommendations, the headline recommendation calling for a royal commission into the issue,
(iv) on 2 March 2017, the Government responded to the recommendations in this report, where it refused to commit to a royal commission, and
(v) in May 2017, more than 120 academics from around Australia signed an open letter urging the Prime Minister to act on the headline recommendation of the Senate inquiry, and a civil society statement from Disabled People's Organisations Australia and endorsed by 163 organisations and groups and over 380 individuals called for a royal commission; and
(b) calls on the Government to reconsider its decision and commit to a royal commission into violence, abuse and neglect of people with disability in institutional and residential settings. (general business notice of motion no. 628)
Senator Di Natale to move on the next day of sitting:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) 1 December is West Papuan National Flag Day, commemorating the day in 1961 when the New Guinea Council – West Papua's Parliament under Dutch colonial rule – raised the Morning Star flag for the first time, signalling the Netherlands' recognition of West Papua's statehood, and
(ii) since Indonesia formally annexed West Papua in 1969, West Papuans have been waiting for the opportunity to determine their own future, having been denied the right to self-determination;
(b) further notes that:
(i) on 26 September 2017, the West Papuan People's Petition was presented to the United Nations Decolonisation Committee by Mr Benny Wenda, International Spokesman for United Liberation Movement for West Papua,
(ii) the petition called for a free vote on West Papuan independence and the appointment of a United Nations representative to investigate human rights violations by Indonesian authorities,
(iii) the petition was signed by 1.8 million West Papuans, representing more than 70 per cent of the West Papuan population, despite the Indonesian Government threatening those who signed it with arrest, and
(iv) the petition circulated against a backdrop of reports of abuses by security forces, including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, excessive use of force and mistreatment of peaceful protesters; and
(c) calls on the Australian Government to support West Papuans' claims for self-determination, and their demands for a United Nations investigation of human rights abuses. (general business notice of motion no. 629)
Senator Di Natale to move on the next day of sitting:
That the Senate—
(a) notes:
(i) the upcoming visit to Parliament House by "alt-right" figure Mr Milo Yiannopoulos, at the invitation of Senator Leyonhjelm, for a conversation and Q&A in the Mural Hall, and
(ii) that Mr Yiannopoulos' behaviour is so offensive that he has been permanently banned by Twitter for "inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others";
(b) confirms that Australia's Federal Parliament is a place that celebrates and encourages a diversity of opinions, as long as those views are expressed respectfully;
(c) condemns any senator who seeks to use Australia's Parliament to provide a platform to any person who preaches hate and incites abuse and harassment of women, Jews, and members of the LBGTIQ and multicultural communities; and
(d) calls on the President of the Senate to revoke permission for Mr Yiannopoulos to speak at Parliament House. (general business notice of motion no. 630)
Senator Siewert to move on the next day of sitting:
That the Senate—
(a) acknowledges:
(i) the contributions of charities and not-for-profit organisations in Australia and their advocacy on issues that matter to Australians, including human rights, social services, foreign aid and development, environmental protection and medical research, and
(ii) the important role these organisations and their advocacy play in Australia's democracy;
(b) notes the Government's attempts to limit their ability to engage in advocacy on the matters and causes they champion; and
(c) expresses its support for these charities and not-for-profit organisations and their advocacy. (general business notice of motion no. 631)
Senator Fierravanti-Wells and Moore to move on the next day of sitting:
That the Senate—
(a) Notes that:
(i) On 3 December 2017, the world will observe International Day of People with a Disability, an opportunity to focus on how society can strive for inclusivity through the removal of barriers for people with disabilities.
(ii) The theme of this year's International Day of People with a Disability is "Transformation towards sustainable and resilient society for all". This reflects an ambition, grounded in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to empower people with disabilities to be active contributors to society through increasing access to justice, infrastructure and accessible communities.
(iii) People with a disability are the largest and most disadvantaged minority in the world and make up approximately 15 per cent of the global population. Around 80 per cent of all people with a disability live in a developing count ry.
(iv) In developing countries, people with disabilities and their families are more likely to be poor and remain poor because of higher living costs, barriers to education, health and employment opportunities, and unpaid caring responsibilit ies.
(v) To be effective in reducing poverty, development efforts must actively include and benefit people with disabilities.
(vi) Australia's Development for All Strategy is being implemented through the Australian aid program and through our diplomatic eff ort s. It aims to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities through
Enhancing participation and empowerment of people with disabilities as contributors, leaders and decision-makers in community, government and the private sector
Reducing poverty among people with disabilities
Improving equality of people with disabilities in all areas of public life, including service provision, education and employment.
(b) Recognises:
(vii) That Australia is committed to protecting and strengthening civil society, including disabled people's organisations, internationally.
(viii) That Australia is widely regarded internationally as a global leader in promoting disability inclusive development and disability right s.
(ix) That the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper identifies the promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities as a key focus for Australia's term on the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Senator Moore to move on the next day of sitting:
That the following matter be referred to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee for inquiry and report by 29th November 2018:
Senate Inquiry into the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG}, with particular reference to:
a. What is the understanding and awareness of the SDGs across the Australian government and in the wider Australian community?
b. What are the potential costs, benefits and opportunities for Australia in the domestic implementation of the SDGs?
c.
and achieves real outcomes?
d. How can performance against the SDGs be monitored and communicated in a way that engages government, businesses and the public, and allows effective review of the Australia's performance by civil society?
e. What SDGs are currently being addressed by Australia's ODA program?
f. Which of the SDGs is Australia best suited to achieving through our ODA program, and should Australia's ODA be consolidated to focus on achieving core SDGs?
g. How are countries in the Indo-Pacific responding to implementing the SDGs and which of the SDGs have been prioritised by countries receiving Australia's ODA? How could these priorities be incorporated into Australia's ODA program?
h. Are there examples of best practice in how other countries are implementing the SDGs that Australia could learn from?
Senator Wong to move on the next day of sitting:
That the Senate—
(l) notes the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen where 21 million Yemeni
are reliant on humanitarian assistance;
(2) observes this situation is being made worse by the ongoing disruption to the free movement of life saving humanitarian assistance with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs raising grave concern about the impact on the capacity to respond to the continued Cholera outbreak and the growing incidents of Diphtheria
(3) welcomes reports that United Nations planes and a single ship have been given access to Yemen in recent days, allowing much needed humanitarian supplies to be distributed;
(4) believes that with 7 million Yemeni on the brink of famine and estimates of 130 children dying daily, it is imperative all parties ensure the free entry and movement of life saving humanitarian assistance within Yemen; and
(5) calls on all parties to heed the calls of the United Nations and international non-government organisations operating in Yemen to allow the free movement of humanitarian and com mercial trade.
Senate adjourned at 18:32
DOCUMENTS
Tabling
The following documents were tabled by the Clerk pursuant to statute:
[Legislative instruments are identified by a Federal Register of Legislation (FRL) number. An explanatory statement is tabled with an instrument unless otherwise indicated by an asterisk.]
Criminal Code Act 1995—Criminal Code (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment – Declared Areas) Revocation Instrument 2017 – Al-Raqqa Province, Syria [F2017L01532].
Fisheries Management Act 1991—
Heard Island and McDonald Islands Fishery Management Plan 2002—
Heard Island and McDonald Islands Fishery Total Allowable Catch Determination 2017 [F2017L01531].
Heard Island and McDonald Islands Fishery Trawl Fishing Capacity Determination 2017 [F2017L01535].
Macquarie Island Toothfish Fishery Management Plan 2006—Macquarie Island Toothfish Fishery Total Allowable Catch Determination 2017 [F2017L01528].
Southern Squid Jig Fishery Management Plan 2005—Southern Squid Jig Fishery Total Allowable Effort Determination 2017 [F2017L01530].
Western Tuna and Billfish Fishery Management Plan 2005—Western Tuna and Billfish Fishery Total Allowable Commercial Catch Determination 2017 [F2017L01529].
Health Insurance Act 1973—Health Insurance (Section 19AB Exemptions) Guidelines 2017 [F2017L01534].
Higher Education Support Act 2003—Higher Education Support (Advanced Education Australia Pty Ltd) VET Provider Approval Revocation 2017 [F2017L01536].
Migration Act 1958—Migration (IMMI 17/109: Determination of International Trade Obligations relating to Labour Market Testing) Instrument 2017—IMMI 17/109 [F2017L01533].