Last Thursday there was a debate in the House about the constitutional and House practice issues concerning the Abolition of Age Limit on Payment of the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Bill 2011, introduced into the House by the member for Mackellar. In the course of the debate on this matter, as well as going to the specific issues concerning the bill, a number of members commented, and in some cases sought clarification more generally, on what are money or appropriation bills. They also sought clarification about the roles and rights of each of the two houses and private members of this House in relation to such bills.
I believe this was a very important debate and I can understand the desire of some members for greater clarification of these issues. These matters now have been raised and debated on a number of occasions in this parliament. They are important to private members as they seek to maximise their opportunities to pursue policy matters that are of interest to them. They are no less important to the government because of its legitimate interests.
My role as Speaker is to explain and apply consistently and as best I can House practice in respect of the financial initiative. House practice encapsulates relevant constitutional provisions and standing orders. The issues surrounding the financial initiative are complex. For this reason, and in response to the request from members for clarification, the Clerk's office has produced a comprehensive note on the matter. The note builds on the advice provided earlier this year in relation to the origination of bills. It refers to the roles and responsibilities of private members of the House. I present a copy of the note, which I understand is being circulated to all members.
A more specific note on the Abolition of Age Limit on Payment of the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Bill 2011 has been produced. I present a copy of this note, which I understand is also being circulated to members. I trust these notes are useful in clarifying the more general issues surrounding the financial initiative and the question of money or appropriation bills.
In relation to the Abolition of Age Limit on Payment of the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Bill 2011, two issues are raised by the bill relating to the financial initiative—the need for an appropriation for the bill, and the extension of a charge that results from the bill. Both issues are a consequence of the bill enlarging the classes of persons to whom an appropriation and a charge could apply. I will not go into the detail of these issues as they are outlined in the second note I presented.
Under the characterisation of bills that has been followed in the House, this bill appears to be caught by the provisions of standing order 179(a) and standing order 180(c). Accordingly I do not believe that it can proceed in its current form.
Mr Speaker, on indulgence, I refer to standing order 61, 'Members to recognise authority of the Speaker'. Yesterday in the House during question time, Mr Speaker, you stood. When the Speaker stands, members are required to be silent and take their place. That did not happen, on either side of the House. My experience is not good in that regard, as a former Speaker had me removed from the House very quickly after I was inadvertently, at that time, speaking to a colleague—I was not calling out; I was just speaking to another colleague. It should be noted by all members that when the Speaker stands, if they are found speaking they will be removed from the House. Is that correct?
That is correct. I thank the member for McMillan for using his experiences in this place to remind members of their obligation. He might be unsurprised that I have no recollection of the incident—so many things have happened this week that I cannot remember all of them. If the events occurred as he characterised them, the way he has indicated members should have behaved is absolutely correct, based on the precedence and practice of this place, which go back to the precedence and practice of Westminster.
Mr Speaker, I note your statement to the House and I take it from your statement that your ruling is that the Abolition of Age Limit on Payment of the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Bill 2011, introduced by the member for Mackellar, cannot be proceeded with. I have ascertained from the Leader of the House that he does not intend to move a motion to that effect, as occurred on two previous occasions—on the regional students bill and on the bill to do with increasing the pension. Having ascertained that, I reluctantly, but I feel necessarily on behalf of the opposition, move:
That the Speaker's ruling be dissented from.
On this occasion—and you know I do not do this often—perhaps you would permit me to liaise with the Clerk. I have characterised that this may be described as an advisory ruling, which is something I have tried to avoid. The member for Mackellar can shake her head all she likes. I am trying to get through this with no trickery or hokery pokery. I have been asked whether I consider this to be a ruling or a statement, and I am going to seek advice from the Clerk.
I thought I was making a statement, but I am happy for it to be looked upon as a ruling. I had expected it to become a ruling when there was something before us or there were other attempts to do something. If it assists the House, I am happy to put on the record that it is a ruling, and with its becoming a ruling the Manager of Opposition Business is open to do whatever he wishes to do.
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that. May I say at the beginning of my remarks on this dissent motion that usually dissent motions against a Speaker's ruling are moved in the heat of battle, in question time or at other times during the day, because emotions are running high and the opposition disagrees fundamentally with the Speaker's call on a particular matter. On this occasion I move dissent from your ruling not with any sense of anger or outrage but because it is the only mechanism available to the opposition to put on record its disagreement with the stance you, Mr Speaker, have taken on this occasion on an important bill before the House.
As you alluded to in your statement, Mr Speaker, this is not the first time we have debated the issue of appropriation bills—or bills that are not appropriation bills, in the opposition's mind—being before the House and whether the House of Representatives can deal with those bills or is incapable of dealing with those bills. We had this debate over the youth allowance bill that I moved in this House and we had this debate over the bill on the increase in pension, which was moved when Brendan Nelson was the Leader of the Opposition.
This is the first, most comprehensive treatment of this fundamental issue that we have had the opportunity to debate in a calm, considered way. I appreciate the note the clerks have produced. It is an excellent note. It is well researched and well written. I appreciate the spirit in which you have made your statement to the House. I also appreciate the fact that the statement was made in an entirely non-partisan way in an attempt to inform the House of what you, Mr Speaker, believe is in our power and within our capacity to deal with in the House of Representatives. However, we fundamentally disagree with the proposition that the Abolition of the Age Limit on Payment of the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Bill 2011 cannot be proceeded with in this House. We in the opposition believe that, while it is certainly the case that under the Constitution and the standing orders only the executive can present bills to the Governor-General for assent, that does not mean that the House of Representatives cannot deal with any matter it chooses to deal with that it seeks to put before itself. Our view is that the members of the House of Representatives are sovereign in their capacity to address and deal with any matter.
This is a very important debate, because it deals with the relationship between the executive and the Crown, it deals with the relationship between the parliament and the executive and it deals with the relationship between the people and the parliament. It is the opposition's view that the people elect a parliament of 150 members of the House of Representatives and from amongst those members of the parliament an executive is appointed by the Governor-General to advise them on how to govern the nation. The executive has a relationship with the Crown that is quite separate and apart from the parliament. That is in our Constitution and is how our nation has been governed since 1901 and before that in the colonies. The Crown has a particular relationship with the executive which it does not have with the parliament. The opposition has never claimed, and does not claim today, that we as a parliament have the power to direct the Governor-General on how to act or to direct a member of the executive on how to advise the Governor-General. However, we as a parliament do have a right to address and deal with any matter we seek to put before ourselves: we have the capacity to pass it, to amend it, to defeat it or to decide to lay it on the table. But we in the opposition do not believe that the Speaker has the capacity to direct the parliament on whether it can or cannot proceed with a bill.
I particularly appeal to the members of the crossbenches, who over the last nine months have made the capacity of private members in this House their cause celebre. The member for Lyne particularly has spoken on many occasions in this place about the sovereignty of private members and their capacity to represent their constituents. I am sure the member for New England would share those views, as would the member for Denison, the member for O'Connor, the member for Kennedy and the member for Melbourne. Our argument is very simple and our argument is this: that while the executive decides what to advise the Governor-General and which bills should be presented to the Governor-General for assent, it is the parliament which can decide any matter before it and dispose of it.
So we do dissent from your ruling, Mr Speaker. We dissent from your ruling because it is the only mechanism we have before us to get a vote in this House on whether the Abolition of Age Limit on Payment of the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Bill 2011 can proceed. This is a very important debate for our parliament because it goes very much to the whole basis of the Westminster system over many hundreds of years. Our forebears, who established the traditions upon which our parliament is based, would have fought very strongly, very powerfully, for the right of the parliament to consider any matter we choose to put before us.
This is not a light matter. An English civil war was fought over the relationship between the parliament and the people and the Crown and the executive. The English Civil War in the 17th century was not a light matter about a particular king who had a disagreement with a particular group of people led by Oliver Cromwell and many others. It was actually a war over whether the parliament had the capacity to act and its relationship with the Crown. The parliament won that civil war and the relationship between the Crown and the parliament and the executive was established at that time and reaffirmed—
They cut his head off.
The member for Moreton will come to order.
Do not be so pathetic. That relationship was reaffirmed in 1688 in the Glorious Revolution, as it was called, when James II was removed by the parliament and replaced with a different sovereign, because again the relationship—
Mr Perrett interjecting—
If you do not understand the basis of the traditions of the Westminster system, it is not my job to tell you.
Order! The member for Moreton will cease interjecting and the member for Sturt will ignore him.
In 1688, the parliament reaffirmed its power and the relationship between itself, the executive and the Crown. That relationship, set in Westminster in the 17th century, is the same relationship we have today in 2011. It has stood for hundreds of years and it is not a light matter for the parliament to decide that it cannot deal with a matter that we would like to put before it. For that reason, while some members of the Labor Party think these are trivial issues—
That is not what I am saying at all.
Order! The member for Moreton is warned and the warning lasts all day.
While some members of the Labor Party believe that the 24-hour news cycle, or even the 12-hour news cycle, should determine how we operate in this parliament and think that it is simply a game of sport—that it is about who is winning at any particular time—the truth is that these matters are of great import to the relationship this parliament has with the executive and to the relationship between the executive and the Crown. So these matters should be taken very seriously.
The Speaker has taken these matters seriously. The Speaker has spent the last week deliberating on this matter. He did not rule last Thursday that the bill could not proceed. I think that the Leader of the House has also taken these matters seriously, because he has not pushed the Speaker on this matter. He has allowed the Speaker to come to a view. The Speaker has quite properly sought the input of the clerks, a paper has been produced and the Speaker has made a decision. We disagree with the Speaker's ruling and so this motion before the chair is that the Speaker's ruling be dissented from. We put that dissent motion so that the power of the parliament, the prerogative of the parliament and the sovereignty of the people can be upheld.
We do not seek to direct the executive. We do not seek to direct the Crown. Some characterise the bill we are putting up as an appropriation bill, but I note that others do not. The President of the Senate, Senator Hogg, does not characterise this bill as an appropriation bill. The Senate does not characterise this bill as an appropriation bill. The Senate takes the view that, because an appropriation is already in the parliament—because there have already been appropriations placed in the parliament for these matters—this is not a new appropriation and therefore the Senate can deal with such a bill. So why would the Senate have greater powers than the House of Representatives? It is simply absurd to suggest that the Senate would give itself more powers than the House of Representatives, which is of course the people's house. While the people vote for the Senate, the different voting system means that the House of Representatives can most properly be characterised as the people's house. I urge people to support the dissent motion. (Time expired)
Mr Speaker, I second the motion and in doing so I would like to echo the comments made by the Manager of Opposition Business. This is in no way a reflection on you, but it is in fact a very important constitutional issue, an important question about whether or not this House is in charge of its own agenda. As the Leader of the House has refused to put forward any motion on this matter, the only mechanism we have for debating this issue is to move dissent from your ruling.
I want to make two points. Your ruling is saying that you are upholding standing orders which say that a bill may only be introduced by the government. The problem is, Mr Speaker, that the bill has already been introduced. The bill is alive and before this parliament. Indeed the Selection Committee which you chair and which was set up under the new paradigm—where all the crossbenchers said there must be a voice for private members' business; this was an important tenet that they agreed to support the government on—has recommended that the bill be listed for a vote on its second reading. The government acted in defiance of your recommendation last week by failing to list the bill. Instead, the bill was brought on by suspending standing orders, which we agreed to, and we had the debate on the motion to suspend standing orders rather than on the second reading. The bill was read a first time and the second reading commenced, so the bill is already here. The government had two speakers in the second reading debate on the bill, but not one of them raised the constitutional issue that this was an appropriation bill—not one. At no stage was this issue raised in this House. It was not raised from the chair, it was not raised by the government and the debate went on; we argued the merits of the bill. It was only when it came to the suspension vote that we were able to voice the fact that the government was now raising this question and wanted to somehow knock out the bill. It sent around a little cheat sheet for the Independents to use, and those Independents who spoke did not at all comment on the proposition that I made—which I believe is the only sensible way out of this dilemma—that the bill could proceed to a vote on the second reading and then the government during consideration in detail could move an amendment to say that the bill would not come into force until the government undertook to move an appropriation bill. That is a way around this dilemma, because the bill is already in this place. It has been debated, and it is awaiting a vote.
I turn now to section 56 of the Constitution. Mr McClelland in his advice to you dated February, when we were dealing with the Social Security Amendment (Income Support for Regional Students) Bill 2010 [2011], pointed out that section 56 states that appropriation bills:
... shall not be passed unless the purpose of the appropriation has in the same session been recommended by message of the Governor-General to the House in which the proposal originated.
That is quite right, but that message does not come until after the second reading vote has been held, and I am putting to you, Mr Speaker, that by ruling on the two standing orders it is too late—it is post factum. The fact is that the bill is already in this place and it must proceed to a second reading. What happens after that is another matter. We would then move to consideration in detail. The question of section 56 of the Constitution could be raised. The government could accept my proposition.
I was very disappointed when those members of the crossbenches who did speak last week on the suspension motion did not address that point that I raised at all; they simply addressed the matters that the government had put in the little sheet that they sent around. I was most disappointed, because I like to think that the Independents do consider things in all seriousness, and it is not too late.
Shame the opposition didn't do it.
You did not speak, Mr Windsor, Member for New England. I deliberately only mentioned those who did, and you cannot hide behind that pile of papers. (Time expired)
(—) (): Mr Speaker, I rise to support your ruling and to express the ongoing confidence of the government in your speakership. I think it is very good that today we have some clarification of both the short-term issue that was before the House last Thursday and the longer term rulings that are required. This is a very simple issue. It goes to the operation of the Constitution, the standing orders and the House of Representatives Practice; it goes to the way that our form of government operates, which is that only the executive can appropriate money; and it goes to good governance. If it is the case that each issue can be considered one by one without having the context of the overall fiscal position, then you will certainly not have a return of the budget to surplus in 2012-13.
That's the greatest joke of all time.
Order! The Leader of the House has the call.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Constitution and the House of Representatives Practice are very clear. The Constitution enshrines very clearly under sections 53 and 56 the way that money bills come before the House. Section 53 says:
Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation, shall not originate in the Senate.
That is a section of the Constitution that from time to time people in the Senate have expressed a different view on. It is understandable that from time to time people will try to increase the importance of the chamber in which they reside, but that is not a principle that has ever been supported by the House of Representatives and neither should it be. Section 56 of the Constitution reinforces section 53. It says:
A vote, resolution, or proposed law for the appropriation of revenue or moneys shall not be passed unless the purpose of the appropriation has in the same session been recommended by message of the Governor-General to the House in which the proposal originated.
It is very clear that there is no message from the Governor-General with this legislation. It is quite clear from the speeches of the member for Mackellar and others that this bill, were it to be passed, would indeed require additional moneys to be expended. The financial initiative of the executive is enshrined not only in the Constitution but also in the House of Representatives Practice and standing orders. House of Representatives Practice has been used in this chamber since this chamber was formed. Page 408 very clearly outlines the financial initiative of the executive:
It is there in the House of Representatives Practice in black and white for all to see, and the Manager of Opposition Business knows this to be the case. Page 431 of Practice goes on to deal with section 53 of the Constitution and the limitations on the Senate powers of amendment. Further, page 567 of House of Representatives Practice says:
A private Member may not initiate a bill imposing or varying a tax or requiring the appropriation of revenue or moneys. This would be contrary to the constitutional and parliamentary principle of the financial initiative of the Executive—that is, that no public charge can be incurred except on the initiative of the Government.
So it makes it very clear. Page 568 of Practice says this:
It would not be possible for a private Member to obtain the Governor-General’s recommendation for an appropriation. Furthermore, of those bills requiring a Governor-General’s message, only those brought in by a Minister may be introduced and proceeded with before the message is announced.
It goes on to say:
Therefore, only a Minister may bring in a bill which appropriates public moneys.
It could not be clearer. Standing order 179(a) is also very clear:
Only a Minister may initiate a proposal to impose, increase, or decrease a tax or duty, or change the scope of any charge.
There is no possibility that those who have moved opportunistically to dissent from your ruling, Mr Speaker, can argue that this does not change the scope of the charge. There is no possibility that they can argue that. They know that that is the case, and they know that their position is contradictory to the standing orders and to House of Representatives Practice. Standing orders 179(b) and (c) say:
(b) Only a Minister may move an amendment to the proposal which increases or extends the scope of the charge proposed beyond the total already existing under any Act of Parliament.
(c) A Member who is not a Minister may move an amendment to the proposal which does not increase or extend the scope of the charge proposed beyond the total already existing under any Act of Parliament.
So we have a very clear position here which is backed up by the Constitution, the House of Representatives Practice and the standing orders. Indeed, when this issue raised its head at the end of last year in this new parliament, the Member for Opposition Business made it clear in public interviews that he understood that only a minister can introduce a money bill. On a number of occasions, the Manager of Opposition Business and other senior members of the opposition have stated that their intention in raising these issues is to get the government to adopt them. They say that in recognition that only a government minister can introduce money bills into this House and only with a message from the Governor-General.
I say to you, Mr Speaker, that your ruling is absolutely correct today. This House has continually reaffirmed this principle, without exception. The House has done so because the founding fathers—and they were all men—were very wise when they wrote the Constitution and put in place provisions that have served this nation well for 111 years. These provisions ensure that when expenditures are approved people know where the money is actually coming from. You cannot have one-off bills not considered as part of the executive government because if you had that there would a range of expenditures which, by themselves, every member of this House would support. Who would not support, in isolation, the concept of giving more money to the homeless or the disadvantaged? Unless it is viewed in the context of a budget, which is the role of the executive government, you simply cannot have a responsible government that puts in place appropriate economic management in the interests of this nation.
We are determined to return the budget to surplus in 2012-13. That is why we have put forward a responsible budget. Those opposite are determined to wreck the budget surplus. They are determined to put forward opportunistic propositions for expenditure and they are determined to opportunistically block savings measures even when they are their own propositions, which is what you see in the alternative fuel debate. Mr Speaker, I ask the House to express its confidence in you, as it has earlier this week, and support your ruling.
First of all, Mr Speaker, I want to thank you and the clerks for the attention you have paid to this matter and for the note. I have not yet had a chance to read and digest that note, so I make these comments without having read it. I must say that it is only because the motion is moved in the form of dissent to your ruling that I will not be supporting the motion, but I do it through gritted teeth because this should not be about whether or not there is confidence in you. This is an important matter that goes to the role of private members in a minority parliament. I agree with the member for Mackellar and the Manager of Opposition Business that this is not an appropriation bill and I think that should be something that is resolved by the House through a motion on the merits of the bill and not by way of a proxy debate through dissenting your ruling.
I can indicate to you, Mr Speaker—especially not having had the chance to read the advice that has come—that I could not guarantee that I would vote the same way next time. I also indicate to you and to other members of the House that, if this were a motion that were to come in some way other than in the form of a dissent from your ruling and would allow the House to be master of its own business and would allow these kinds of bills to be debated, my inclination would be to support it. The question of past practice and precedent is of limited relevance because every past ruling and every procedure that has been referred to—again, without having read the Clerk's advice—has been developed on the context of majority government, and of course it would make sense in those instances to deal with amendments from the opposition in that way.
But that is not the case we have here. Private members, whether on the crossbenches or from the opposition, ought to have their full rights to move amendments or move bills, even though the government might consider they are appropriation matters. If the House considers they are not appropriation matters, they should be able to be debated. I indicate that I will not be dissenting from your ruling, but I cannot guarantee that that would occur in the future. I hope that there is some way in which a motion may come back before the House to allow this to be debated in a form that is not dissent from your ruling.
I ask that leave be given to permit the Attorney-General, the member for New England and the member for Lyne to address this question for a time no longer than five minutes each.
Leave granted.
I move:
That so much of standing orders be suspended as would permit the Attorney-General, the member for New England and the member for Lyne to address this question for no longer than five minutes each.
Question agreed to.
Mr Speaker, you have, with respect, correctly identified the two issues that arise from this bill, namely, in the first case, the need for an appropriation for the bill and, also, the extension of a charge that results from the bill. You have identified that both issues, as a consequence of the bill, are enlarging the class of persons to whom an appropriation on the one hand and a charge on the other could apply.
In dealing with the second issue first—that is, in respect to a charge—the Leader of the House correctly identified that it is quite plain on its face that standing order 179(a) necessarily applies because it increases the scope of a charge, and it is noted in the memorandum from the Clerk that the incentive for employers to pay their superannuation contribution is that if they fail to do so or fail to do so in full they are liable for a superannuation guarantee charge. That is necessarily the case.
Dealing with the second issue with respect to appropriation, could I refer the House—and I have previously touched upon these issues, but perhaps not in great detail—to an advice of Sir Garfield Barwick, when he was the Attorney-General, on 20 February 1962. In the advice he in turn referred to the passage from the book, The British Budgetary System, by Sir Herbert Brittain, published in 1959. I quote from that:
Underlying the parliamentary procedure on supply is a rule of the House of Commons which is of fundamental importance. It is enshrined in a standing order, which, in its earliest form, was passed in 1706 and is which now, according to the relevant standing order that existed in the House of Commons, this House will receive no petition for any sum relating to public service or proposed upon any motion for a grant or charge upon the public revenue whether payable out of consolidated fund or out of money to be provided by parliament unless recommended from the Crown.
The significance of that is that it notes a principle going back to 1706. The Leader of the House has referred to the debates of our founding fathers—our constitutional fathers—who were well aware of that heritage and adopted the same principles in our Constitution. Indeed, the author, Sir Herbert Brittain, summarised:
Only the Crown therefore can initiate proposals for expenditure in the House. The Crown's right and responsibility in this respect are exercised by ministers in the government of the day.
That is reflected in standing order 180, which requires a message from the Governor-General, which message is given on the advice of the day.
The Clerk's advice appropriately refers to Pape's case by way of footnote. That was a recent decision of the High Court of Australia and that also confirmed the principle. I also refer to the fundamental principle described by the High Court in Combet's case, where the majority judgment of justices Gummow, Hayne, Callinan and Heydon noted that it is the executive government which begins the process of appropriation. This the executive government does by specifying the purpose of the appropriation by message to the House of Representatives.
Again, that message comes from the Governor-General. Similarly, in that case Justice Kirby referred to the discussion in the issue in Lane's Commentary on the Australian Constitution of 1997 and concluded that:
… the initiative for proposed appropriations belongs to the Executive Government, in accordance with s 56 of the Constitution.
Again, the will of the executive being referred to in the message of the Governor-General, with the Governor-General acting on the advice of the executive of the day. So, with respect, Mr Speaker, your ruling is entirely consistent with the standing orders but, more than that, it is entirely consistent with our Constitutional heritage.
I appreciate the House allowing an extension of this debate, and it is entirely appropriate that a motion has been put and, as is the right of all members, for some members to want to dissent from that ruling. The matters of the last fortnight do weigh heavily. I would hope other members are like me and wake up in the middle of the night worrying about the standing orders and trying to work through the issues of the last two weeks. I would hope this is not going to mean sleepless nights for the next two years. I would hope that this is a moment when we clarify and, from that, stabilise the processes of government not only for this parliament but also for future parliaments when these questions may arise. This is therefore an opportunity, not a threat, for this parliament to resolve some of these issues.
I want to clarify the issue of the last week because it is going to be important to the views on this motion. I believe in the independence of a Speaker, I believe in the authority of a Speaker, and I have confidence in a Speaker. There may be some confusion about the position taken on a naming motion. I do not believe that anyone should vote in this place based on the implications of a future vote. When a member is named, in no way is that reflecting on the chair. It is weighing up the issue before me as a member of parliament and, if I do not see or hear the incident in question, that is not dissenting from or seeking a wont for disorder in the House. It is basically making a ruling at my end on the question that is being put before me as to whether there was or was not disorder. For whatever reason, whether it is the location that we sit in this House or any other reason, I did not see or hear what happened.
For that reason, without that being confused with any sort of challenge to the confidence or independence of the chair, I will be referring the matter to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Procedure to clarify because, if we are serious about an independent Speaker, the question then is why the Speaker has to put a vote to seek order in the chamber. Now we have put in place in this parliament a system of an independent Speaker, potentially we could align that with giving the Speaker the authority to not only dismiss someone for an hour but also potentially for 24 hours. That is, hopefully, a question that would resolve the issue at my end and resolve the issue for this parliament.
Consistently, that leads into the thinking behind the question before us. If we are to believe in the independence of a Speaker and to have confidence in the authority of a Speaker, then this process is entirely appropriate. The bill that was put before the House had some questions around its status of whether it is a money bill or not. There were several of us who asked the question—and expressed frustration—about whether these bills were leaving open that question. We had advice from the Clerk, for example, and advice from the Parliamentary Library that was completely contradictory. For that reason, the Speaker quite rightly took on the issue of trying to resolve it.
If the clerks are the clerks of the parliament and not the executive, then they have duly done their job of providing advice to the Speaker of the parliament, not the executive, and the Speaker has provided advice to the parliament that is now—having gone through a due and proper process—entirely worthy of support, if we are to accept that we have an independent Speaker that we have confidence in. I do. I think we do have an independent Speaker whom we have confidence in. The process that we have gone through to get the advice that we have got has been appropriate. Therefore, I will not be supporting the motion before the House.
Mr Speaker, this pile of documents does not relate to your ruling; it relates to the Murray-Darling report that will be coming up soon. This debate on the motion of dissent from your ruling, Mr Speaker, has been interesting and I hope it does go some way towards putting in place a bit of a glide path for this parliament. That is not to deny the member's right in this case to bring a bill before the parliament, but we do really need some clarification.
Mr Speaker, your ruling today and the contribution from the member for Lyne have both given some clarification to this issue. If this issue is not determined today, I would suggest that there would need to be maybe a meeting between the two houses or some formal process set in place to try to resolve this issue. It is one that is going to continually plague this parliament, where Independent members in a minority in the parliament have made a determination of the government. The government of the day has a right—and it would have been the same if the determination of the government had been the other way—which we have supported, to access supply and to make its budgetary arrangements.
This bringing on of bills which are essentially, in my view and in the determination of the clerks and you through a number of rulings, appropriation bills does need to be clarified; otherwise, we will just get an avalanche of these bills which will destabilise the budgetary process. That might be all very well politically—I do not think anybody doubts the intent of a lot of these bills that are being introduced—but we saw a successful outcome with the youth allowance bill. That bill did not get through the parliament because of the same issues that have been raised here, but the issues that were raised were of such importance that the government has initiated a review of the process. So I would suggest that maybe that is a way through this. But, if it is not a way through this, maybe at some stage the House has to pass some sort of appropriation bill, for $1, so that it can be tested in the courts for future reference. By that time, the hung parliament will probably be well over and done with. But I would suggest that if we cannot find a formal process that resolves this and we have this continual round of debates over this issue then maybe that is a way forward. I went through exactly the same experience with a different form of government in the hung parliament that I was in in New South Wales. I supported the Liberal Party on that occasion. The country Independent was subjected to a whole avalanche of country bills, as we used to call them, to put that member of parliament in a difficult position in terms of the determination and the politics that could be played in relation to that. But on all of those occasions I supported the government of the day in its responsibility for supply. So I will not be dissenting from your ruling.
Whilst I have a few seconds, I recognise that there is a Chinese wall between the Speaker and the executive. It has been spoken about on a number of occasions. The member for Braddon has been very vocal on that issue of having a Chinese wall between the executive and the Speaker. I think the Speaker knows what I am referring to. I apologise for not being in the House on the occasion the other day when the vote was taken in relation to the Speaker's ruling. In all the parliaments that I have been in, on all occasions I have always supported the Speaker of the parliament, irrespective of their political tone. I will continue to do that because I think the independence of the Speaker is something very special in our parliamentary system.
on indulgence—Mr Speaker, this morning your ruling was made on the basis that you had had advice from the clerks, and we have had debate on the procedural motion I moved because there was nothing else I could do to have the debate. My question is this: I have read the advice that the clerks have given to you and at no point have they advised you on the question that this is in fact a live bill. None of the debate from the government or the crossbenchers has addressed that question. This is totally different from any other circumstance. This is a bill that was in fact introduced, whereas the standing orders would preclude it if you ruled. The matter is that it has in fact been introduced and no advice has been given to you on that point.
Order! The member will resume her place. A more sensitive and 'precious petal' soul could suggest that that was reflecting on the way that we have come to this decision. I assure you, for the last week we have not just been looking at the tea leaves and the written word. The member would be aware that this is something that has been under discussion for even longer than the past week. I assure her that I am cognisant of the fact that a process commenced and I have made my ruling.
Question put:
That the Speaker's ruling be dissented from.
The House divided. [10:01]
(The Speaker—Mr Harry Jenkins)
Question negatived.
by leave—I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following items of private Members' business being reported from the Main Committee, or called on, and considered immediately in the following order:
For the convenience of the House, speaking briefly to that motion, we will have the private members' business dealt with and then we will move back to the moving of introduction of new legislation before the parliament. Then we will proceed through the day's business in the order which was published on the Blue.
Question agreed to.
Order of the day returned from the Main Committee; certified copy presented.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this house:
(1) notes that:
(a) military service is unique and comes with inherent risks not applicable to other public service jobs;
(b) Australia's service personnel, past and present, after giving so much to their nation, deserve to live out their lives in the knowledge that they have financial security; and
(c) approximately 56,000 retired military personnel who are members of the Defence Force Retirement and Deaths Benefits (DFRDB) scheme and the Defence Forces Retirement Benefits (DFRB) scheme have their military pensions indexed only to movements in the Consumer Price Index (CPI); and
(2) calls on all Members to support the:
(a) concept of the unique nature of military service; and
(b) Coalition's policy to index the military pensions to members of the DFRDB and DFRB schemes who are aged 55 and over, to the higher movements in the CPI, Male Total Average Weekly Earnings or the Pensioner Beneficiary Living Cost Index .
Question agreed to.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this House:
(1) restates its support for the motion moved by the then Prime Minister and passed by this House on the sixtieth anniversary of the State of Israel, and in particular:
(a) acknowledges the unique relationship which exists between Australia and Israel, a bond highlighted by the commitment of both societies to the rights and liberty of our citizens and to cultural diversity;
(b) commends the State of Israel’s commitment to democracy, the rule of law and pluralism; and
(c) reiterates Australia’s commitment to Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, and our continued support for a peaceful two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue; and
(2) notes with concern the fraying of the traditionally bipartisan support amongst Australia’s political parties for the State of Israel, and in particular the:
(a) resolution by Greens councillors on Marrickville Council for a boycott of Israel, supported by Labor councillors;
(b) policy adopted by the NSW Greens for an Israel boycott;
(c) decision by the NSW Labor Party to preference the Greens candidate for Marrickville ahead of other candidates who did not support an Israel boycott; and
(d) decision by Labor and Greens councillors on Moreland City Council, Melbourne, to allow the anti-semitic group Hizb ut Tahrir to use Council premises on August 2010 despite Hizb ut Tahrir publicly calling for the slaughter of Jewish people, and its enthusiasm for Osama bin Laden.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That paragraph (2) be omitted.
Question put:
That the amendment (Ms Vamvakinou's) be agreed to.
The House divided. [10:16]
(The Speaker—Mr Harry Jenkins)
Question agreed to.
Original question, as amended, agreed to.
Order of the day returned from the Main Committee; certified copy presented.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) 24 May 2011 marks the centenary of the launch of an international competition to design an Australian national capital; and
(b) the winning design for Canberra:
(i) by the American architect, Walter Burley Griffin, was announced in May 1912; and
(ii) was a collaboration between Griffin and his wife, Marian Mahony Griffin; and
(2) calls on the National Capital Authority to work with the Parliament to arrange an appropriate celebration of the centenary of the choice of the Griffin design for our nation's capital.
I seek leave of the House to amend the motion circulated in my name.
Leave granted.
Very briefly, without detaining the House for too long, this is simply to add the Intergovernmental Working Group for the Centenary of Canberra to the parliament and the National Capital Authority as organisations which are being urged to celebrate the centenary of Canberra. I move:
Paragraph 2:
After 'Authority' insert 'and the Intergovernmental Working Group for the Centenary of Canberra'.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion.
Question agreed to.
Original question, as amended, agreed to.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That:
(1) a Select Committee on the Crisis in Australia's Immigration Detention Network be appointed to inquire into and report on:
(a) the riots and disturbances in detention facilities on Christmas Island commencing 12 March 2011, and Villawood from 19 April 2011, in particular:
(i) the nature and circumstances of these events;
(ii) the nature and adequacy of the response of Commonwealth agencies to the events;
(iii) any warning, briefings or advice that had been provided to the Government by agencies and individuals in the lead up to, during and after the events and the nature and adequacy of the response to such information;
(iv) the adequacy of security protocols, procedures and resources to mitigate the escalation of tension and conflict in the detention network;
(v) the extent and cost of the damage to facilities as a result of the events; and
(vi) any other matter deemed relevant by the Committee to understand why these events occurred;
(b) the performance and management of Commonwealth agencies and/or their agents or contractors in discharging their responsibilities associated with the interception, detention and processing of irregular maritime arrivals or other persons;
(c) the resources, support and training for employees of Commonwealth agencies and/or their agents or contractors in performing their duties;
(d) the health, safety and wellbeing of employees of Commonwealth agencies and/or their agents or contractors in performing their duties relating to the interception, detention and processing of irregular maritime arrivals or other persons;
(e) the health, safety and wellbeing of asylum seekers and other persons, including specifically children, detained within the detention network;
(f) the level, adequacy and effectiveness of reporting incidents and the response to incidents within the immigration detention network, including relevant policies, procedures, authorities and protocols;
(g) compliance with the Government's immigration detention values within the detention network;
(h) any issues relating to interaction with States and Territories regarding the interception, detention and processing of irregular maritime arrivals or other persons;
(i) the management of good order and public order with respect to the immigration detention network;
(j) the impact of length of detention on and the appropriateness of facilities and services provided for detainees, including asylum seekers within the detention network;
(k) the total costs of managing and maintaining the immigration detention network and processing irregular maritime arrivals or other detainees;
(l) the expansion of the immigration detention network, including the cost and process adopted to establish new facilities;
(m) the length of time detainees have been held in the detention network, the reasons for their length of stay and the impact on the detention network;
(n) processes for assessment of protection claims made by irregular maritime arrivals and other persons and the impact on the detention network;
(o) the management and impact of detention on children and families, and viable alternatives;
(p) the cost, effectiveness and long term viability of outsourcing immigration detention centre contracts to provide providers and the policy alternatives;
(q) the impact, effectiveness and cost of existing and prospective Government policies, including mandatory detention and any alternatives, including community release, with respect to irregular maritime arrivals and other persons detained within the detention network;
(r) any reforms needed to the current immigration detention network in Australia; and
(s) any other matters relevant to the above terms of reference;
(2) the committee consist of 7 members, 3 Members to be nominated by the Government Whip or Whips, 3 Members to be nominated by the Opposition Whip or Whips, and 1 non-aligned member;
(3) the committee may supplement its membership by up to four members, with a maximum of two extra government and two extra opposition or non-aligned members— supplementary members shall have the same participatory rights as other members, but may not vote;
(4) every nomination of a member of the committee be notified in writing to the Speaker of the House of Representatives;
(5) the members of the committee hold office as a select committee until presentation of the committee's report or the House of Representatives is dissolved or expires by effluxion of time, whichever is the earlier;
(6) the committee elect a government or a non-government member as chair at its first meeting;
(7) the committee elect a member as its deputy chair who shall act as chair of the committee at any time when the chair is not present at a meeting of the committee, and at any time when the chair and deputy chair are not present at a meeting of the committee the members present shall elect another member to act as chair at that meeting;
(8) in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, have a casting vote;
(9) 3 members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include 1 Government member and 1 non-Government member;
(10) the committee have power to appoint subcommittees consisting of 3 or more of its members and to refer to any subcommittee any matter which the committee is empowered to examine;
(11) the committee appoint the chair of each subcommittee who shall have a casting vote only and at any time when the chair of a subcommittee is not present at a meeting of the subcommittee the members of the subcommittee present shall elect another member of that subcommittee to act as chair at that meeting;
(12) 2 members of a subcommittee constitute the quorum of that subcommittee;
(13) members of the committee who are not members of a subcommittee may participate in the proceedings of that subcommittee but shall not vote, move any motion or be counted for the purpose of a quorum;
(14) the committee or any subcommittee have power to call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;
(15) the committee or any subcommittee may conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;
(16) the committee or any subcommittee have power to adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the House of Representatives;
(17) the committee may report from time to time but that it present its final report no later than 7 October 2011; and
(18) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.
I move:
That all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
(1) a Joint Select Committee on Australia's Immigration Detention Network be appointed to inquire into and report on:
(a) any reforms needed to the current Immigration Detention Network in Australia;
(b) the impact of length of detention and the appropriateness of facilities and services for asylum seekers;
(c) the resources, support and training for employees of Commonwealth agencies and/or their agents or contractors in performing their duties;
(d) the health, safety and wellbeing of asylum seekers, including specifically children, detained within the detention network;
(e) impact of detention on children and families, and viable alternatives;
(f) the effectiveness and long-term viability of outsourcing immigration detention centre contracts to private providers;
(g) the impact, effectiveness and cost of mandatory detention and any alternatives, including community release; and
(h) any other matters relevant to the above terms of reference;
(2) the committee consist of 11 members, 2 Members to be nominated by the Government Whip or Whips, 2 Senators to be nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, 2 Members to be nominated by the Opposition Whip or Whips, 2 Senators nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, 1 Member and 1 Senator nominated by the Australian Greens Whip, and 1 non-aligned member;
(3) participating members may be appointed to the committee. Participating members may participate in hearings of evidence and deliberations of the committee, and have all the rights of a member of the committee, but may not vote on any questions before the committee;
(4) every nomination of a member of the committee be notified in writing to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives;
(5) the members of the committee hold office as a joint select committee until the House of Representatives is dissolved or expires by effluxion of time, whichever is the earlier;
(6) the committee shall elect a chair and deputy chair;
(7) the deputy chair shall act as chair of the committee at any time when the chair is not present at a meeting of the committee, and at any time when the chair and deputy chair are not present at a meeting of the committee the members present shall elect another member to act as chair at that meeting;
(8) in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, have a casting vote;
(9) 3 members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include 1 Government member of either House and 1 non-Government member of either House;
(10) the committee have power to appoint subcommittees consisting of 3 or more of its members and to refer to any subcommittee any matter which the committee is empowered to examine;
(11) the committee appoint the chair of each subcommittee who shall have a casting vote only;
(12) at any time when the chair of a subcommittee is not present at a meeting of the subcommittee the members of the subcommittee present shall elect another member of that subcommittee to act as chair at that meeting;
(13) 2 members of a subcommittee constitute the quorum of that subcommittee;
(14) members of the committee who are not members of a subcommittee may participate in the proceedings of that subcommittee but shall not vote, move any motion or be counted for the purpose of a quorum;
(15) the committee or any subcommittee have power to call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;
(16) the committee or any subcommittee may conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;
(17) the committee or any subcommittee have power to adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the House of Representatives and the Senate;
(18) the committee may report to both Houses of Parliament from time to time and that it present its final report no later than 7 October 2011;
(19) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders;
(20) a message be sent to the Senate acquainting it of this resolution and requesting that it concur and take action accordingly
There are two reasons for my amendment. The first is that we need a broad inquiry into the state of detention in Australia, and that needs to be an inquiry that focuses on the causes, not just the symptoms. To focus only on the riots would be to focus on the symptoms, where people who have been locked up indefinitely for a long period of time are expressing their frustration. What we need to examine is why it is that mandatory detention has failed. Secondly, it ought to be a joint committee. The terms of the amendment I have moved allow for participation of senators as well. It is my strong hope that a real inquiry into mandatory detention in Australia, participated in by members of both houses of parliament, might start to put Australia on the path to a more humane immigration future.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment.
The question is that the amendment moved by the member for Melbourne be agreed to.
We support this amendment. This is a government which is more than happy to have transparency when it comes to our immigration policy. That is why we have answered 800 questions on notice from the Senate estimates process—more than any other portfolio. That is why we have instigated inquiries into disturbances in our detention centres.
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! Those on my left!
We are happy to have a proper inquiry into the detention network, not the sort of witch-hunt and political point-scoring exercise the opposition has not been able to get up through this process. We will support this amendment and support the amended motion.
The opposition will also be supporting this amendment, and I flag that a further amendment will be made to the amended motion. This is an important inquiry and we look forward to the support of the House and the support of the other place.
Question agreed to.
The question now is that the motion as amended be agreed to.
I move an amendment to the motion:
That the following words be inserted after point (g) after the word 'and':
(h) the reasons for and nature of riots and disturbances in detention facilities;
(i) the performance and management of Commonwealth agencies and/or their agents or contractors in discharging their responsibilities associated with the detention and processing of irregular maritime arrivals or other persons;
(j) the health, safety and wellbeing of employees of Commonwealth agencies and/or their agents or contractors in performing their duties relating to irregular maritime arrivals or other persons detained in the network;
(k) the level, adequacy and effectiveness of reporting incidents and the response to incidents within the immigration detention network, including relevant policies, procedures, authorities and protocols;
(l) compliance with the Government's immigration detention values within the detention network;
(m) any issues relating to interaction with States and Territories regarding the detention and processing of irregular maritime arrivals or other persons;
(n) the management of good order and public order with respect to the immigration detention network;
(o) the total costs of managing and maintaining the immigration detention network and processing irregular maritime arrivals or other detainees;
(p) the expansion of the immigration detention network, including the cost and process adopted to establish new facilities;
(q) the length of time detainees have been held in the detention network, the reasons for their length of stay and the impact on the detention network;
(r) processes for assessment of protection claims made by irregular maritime arrivals and other persons and the impact on the detention network; and,
And insert the words at point 6 after the word 'elect', the words 'a Government chair'.
We seek this further amendment to the motion to ensure that it includes the full breadth of all the matters that need to be addressed as part of this very important inquiry, an inquiry that just a week or so ago the minister liked to call a stunt but I understand today will now support. I appreciate the support of the crossbenchers and I appreciate the support of the Greens in the productive discussions we have had, because this is a detention system in which there is an average of more than three critical incidents occurring in a detention network every single day. I think it is important that this House has not sought to muzzle those who want to ask questions about this matter. I know the crossbenchers want to ask questions, I know the Greens want to ask serious questions and the opposition certainly wants to ask serious questions. I look forward to this motion also being supported in the other place, which will enable these matters to be addressed by both houses of this parliament in what has become a rolling crisis in our detention network under this government.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment.
The question before us is that the motion as amended be agreed to. To this the honourable member for Cook has moved an amendment. The question now is that the amendment moved by the member for Cook be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The question now is that the amended motion, as amended, be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
Original question, as amended, agreed to.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Question put.
The House divided. [10:33]
The Speaker (Mr Harry Jenkins)
Question negatived.
Order of the day returned from the Main Committee; certified copy of the motion presented.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this house:
(1) acknowledges the effectiveness of programs initiated by the former Coalition Government such as 'Primary Connections' and 'Science By Doing', that support professional development for teachers to effectively engage primary and secondary school students on science curriculum;
(2) recognises the need for Australian Government support of teachers, allowing them to access the support and training they need to teach the new national curriculum in science;
(3) notes the:
(a) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development evidence which indicates that science literacy in students is declining in Australia compared with other countries; and
(b) concern of the Australian Primary Schools Principals Association, that the Australian Government has not provided a funding commitment to the Australian Academy of Science beyond this financial year to continue the 'Primary Connections' and 'Science By Doing' programs; and
(4) calls on the Australian Government to make clear its funding commitment in relation to these programs which are vital to support teachers.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Standing Committee on Regional Australia I present the committee's report entitled Of drought and flooding rains: inquiry into the impact of the Guide to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee. I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.
Leave granted.
This inquiry was established following the release of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's Guide to the proposed Basin Plan in October last year. All members of the committee, and they are all here today, representing all political persuasions within the parliament, have worked cooperatively in pursuit of a common purpose: to find a different way to achieve a sustainable and prosperous future for basin communities and the environment. The findings of this report show that there are win-win solutions to a lot of the problems in the basin and that there is a better way through. It will still mean some change, but not great pain as indicated in the guide.
The Murray-Darling Basin is one of the most productive regions of Australia, with a rich diversity of communities, landscapes and environment. However, growth in the diversion of water in the second half of last century means we need to find a better balance between the productive use of water resources and the environment, but this must be done in a way that includes the Basin communities and helps them have certainty and confidence about their future.
This report presents a way to achieve these objectives with a win-win outcome for communities and the environment. This pathway includes improvement in the way the Basin Plan is developed, better ways to recover water for the environment and offset the proposed reductions, support to build strong and prosperous communities in the basin as they adjust to a future with less water, more transparency and accountability around the government's water reform processes, and improvement in monitoring, compliance and enforcement of basin water resource use.
The guide was intended to merely give an insight into the authority's thinking as it developed the proposed Basin Plan. It included proposed sustainable levels of diversion that would require significant reductions to current diversions to ensure the basin's environmental health. Unfortunately, the way it chose to develop and communicate this document was appalling. The authority shut the door on the basin communities, the state and territory governments and scientists. But without their involvement it is unreasonable to go out into the community only days after releasing such complex proposals.
In both the guide and the following information sessions, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority failed to communicate how the Basin Plan would be implemented, the role of the states or the ability for the reductions to be offset by the government's water purchase and irrigation efficiency savings. Understandably, basin communities reacted with anger and disbelief at the scale of the reductions and how they were to be treated. They were left with the impression that someone was going to turn up at their door and actually take away the water that they were legitimately given as entitlements from various governments. Understandably, basin communities saw it as an attack on their livelihoods and their communities.
Through this inquiry the committee has had the privilege of visiting regions throughout the basin and speaking with many of its residents. We heard the frustration, uncertainty and anxiety caused by the guide. In contrast to the animosity towards the authority, the people we met throughout the basin made the committee feel very welcome. The committee heard a general agreement wherever it went that more water needs to return to the environment and an acknowledgement that, without healthy rivers, we cannot have long-term and healthy communities.
The key recommendations arising from this inquiry are intended to provide a pathway towards the changes most agree are needed—a pathway that we hope will have the support of basin communities. The report recommendations cover (1) improving the way the authority proceeds in the next stages of the basin planning process, (2) stopping all non-strategic water buyback immediately, (3) establishing a national water fund to invest in water-saving projects, environmental works and measures, strategic purchase of water entitlements and research to improve irrigation efficiency, (4) creating a government owned corporation, a joint venture with state and territory governments, to manage the national water fund similar to the way the successful Water for Rivers company operates and (5) creating a stand-alone Commonwealth environmental water holder.
From the very south to the top of the basin, the committee heard of water savings that could be found through environmental works and measures and on-farm efficiency works. The report identifies some of these measures and recommends that they be explored prior to consideration of any reduction in productive water allocation.
While much of the responsibility for the fear and anxiety caused by the guide rests with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the failure to communicate the need for a basin plan is also the responsibility of the six governments responsible for water sharing within the basin. Past government agreements on water reform have all been motivated by a mutual desire to provide for the long-term health and prosperity of the basin. A more cooperative approach is needed if we are to achieve these outcomes. This will require all governments involved to set aside their differences and parochial tendencies and work together to help these communities adapt and thrive in the face of change. The committee found that, even after decades of continual change, communities across the basin are still willing to cooperate in this next round of reforms. However, trust in the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has been seriously eroded. We owe it to these people, to their willingness to put right the ramifications of decisions made by state and Commonwealth governments in the past, to find a way forward that helps build a more productive and sustainable future for the basin.
Finally, I thank my committee colleagues, who are here today: the member for Braddon; the member for Capricornia; the member for Riverina, who attended every meeting—and this committee had a lot of meetings, so I thank him for his diligence—the member for McMillan; the member for Murray; the member for Wannon; and the member for Dobell. I thank them personally for the way they have approached the inquiry's task. In January, when most people were taking their break, we had something like a fortnight on the road, yet most of the committee were able to attend and get stuck into meeting people.
I also thank the four supplementary members who joined the committee for the purpose of this inquiry—the members for Barker, Bendigo, Farrer and Makin—for their valuable input. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude for the thorough and professional support of the committee secretariat, namely—and they are in the chamber today—Glen Worthington, Siobhan Leyne, Raymond Knight, Daniel Miletic and Chris Golding. I recognise them all, and I am sure the committee does as well, but I would like to thank Chris in particular for his technical work. His input based on his understanding of the very complex arrangements within various states and of past water legislation has been invaluable. But I thank all of the committee for the work they have done. I would also like to thank the many people and organisations who welcomed us into their communities, appeared as witnesses and took the time to prepare submissions.
I note that, due to the importance of the issues addressed in this inquiry and the need to deliver the findings in a timely manner, printed copies of this report are not immediately available to members and the general public. These are likely to be available sometime next week.
In conclusion, I once again thank all the members personally for their input. This is not an easy situation to deal with for anybody in any of the six parliaments or for a lot of the communities that we have spent time in. But I think the way members of the committee, despite their political differences, addressed the community meetings and the report itself demonstrates to me that this parliament actually does want to do something about what was, in some cases, previous mismanagement and, in particular, about the way in which some of the issues raised in the guide really did shock people in communities in the basin. There is a way through this which can achieve similar outcomes without the pain and anguish that many people in these communities feared. I am pleased that both the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government and the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities are here today and I thank them. I would urge them to look very seriously at the process that this committee has developed before going straight to entitlement cuts as a way through this issue. I commend the report to the House.
by leave—I will be quite brief because we have an opportunity to speak on this in another place. I want to congratulate the chair and my colleagues on this committee for the work they have done and the secretariat for the excellent work it has done. I believe the report reflects the evidence that we took, that the challenges and issues raised in the report need to be taken forward and that the report contains some very constructive and positive suggestions about how to do that.
There are three things that I believe the evidence in the report emphasises. First, foremost and most importantly is that wherever we went the communities we spoke to recognised that without a healthy river you cannot have healthy communities. That was right across the board. There is a recognition of the need to ensure a sustainable environment, but in order to do that you also need sustainable communities. That fact, which has often been forgotten, was truly recognised.
The second thing that came out of the evidence is set out in point 7.7 from the report. It says:
The presentation of the Guide—
as the chair just pointed out—
contained many failures and yet the Committee still found communities willing to engage, be consulted with and contribute to a Basin Plan. Communities want a Basin Plan, but they want a Plan that acknowledges them as a critical part of the Basin.
The final issue is the importance of institutional reform and that is set out in point 7.9. It says:
In order to ensure that this reform is effective and community-focussed, there is a need to significantly overhaul how environmental water is sourced, managed and accounted for, then monitored.
We believe that the institutional reforms we recommend in the report will allow this to happen. I thank all the committee members and the secretariat for their fantastic work and to the chair I say that I believe you did an excellent job.
by leave—I too join with my fellow committee members in saying that this was a report perhaps different to many others that come before this House in that it actually affects the livelihoods and futures of the people living on 14 per cent of Australia's land mass. We received consistent evidence throughout the basin that in fact there is a win-win solution to this—there is a triple bottom line approach that can be taken. In my electorate of Murray, and for me in particular, this was no academic exercise; what comes through in this final plan for the Murray-Darling Basin will determine if the irrigation communities of northern Victoria survive and thrive or—and this would have been the case if the original guide to the plan had been followed through—be decimated. The report we have tabled is very much a reflection of how we can go into the future, preserving the food production and fibre capacity of the most fertile part of Australia and at the same time ensuring that we preserve for all time our iconic sites and our biodiversity; and we must do that. But—as the previous speaker said, and indeed the chair of the also committee alluded to it—you cannot manage the ecosystem appropriately if you do not have productive, viable, strong human communities. Those human communities in the basin manage day to day the natural resources that are in turn part of their productive base and the biodiversity protection.
I commend to the government the recommendations of this report. I know that the government has good intentions here. They have already made substantial changes to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority personnel, and I commend them for doing that; it was very timely and important that they did. I know that the government understands the importance at this time; as the basin recovers from years of drought and in some places flood; as the people need to have their trust restored in what governments can do and will do in a timely way. We need a win-win scenario—the environment must be protected, the productive capacity of the basin must be supported and further enhanced and our nation must march together, understanding the rights of all farms to survive and thrive and the interdependence and necessity of sustainable natural resources.
I move:
That the order of the day be referred to the Main Committee for debate.
Question agreed to.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Ms Macklin.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 delivers on five measures from the recently announced 2011-2012 budget, and a minor non-budget measure.
Reform of family payments
The bill introduces three measures that make important changes to the family payments system to make it fairer and simpler and to ensure its long-term sustainability.
The first measure lowers the maximum child age of eligibility for Family Tax Benefit Part A from 24 to 21, and that will start on 1 January 2012.
Family payments are designed to support families with the costs of raising children while they are dependent. This change recognises that young people aged 22 and over are considered independent, and will bring Family Tax Benefit Part A into line with the reduction in the youth allowance age of independence from 1 January 2012.
Young people aged 22 and over in full-time study may be able to access youth allowance independent of their parents' income, subject to means testing and academic progress rules.
Transitional arrangements will mean that families with a young person who is already enrolled in a course which started before 1 January 2012 will continue to receive Family Tax Benefit Part A until that course finishes.
The second measure builds on reforms introduced in the 2009-10 Budget that better targeted the family payments system to focus on low- and middle-income families.
The government is a strong supporter of the family payments system. Family payments are a fundamental part of the Australian social fabric.
Next year, we will spend around $30 billion combined on Family Tax Benefit, the baby bonus, Paid Parental Leave and child care assistance.
We have added to the system since coming to government by increasing the child care rebate to 50 per cent, introducing Australia's first national paid parental leave scheme and the education tax refund, and also, in the recent budget, increasing family payments for older teenagers by up to $4,200 a year.
But we also believe in a targeted system that is sustainable for the long term.
That is why the government is extending indexation pauses on higher income limits for a further two years, until 30 June 2014, for Family Tax Benefit Part A and B, the baby bonus and Paid Parental Leave.
This bill will extend indexation pauses on higher income limits for a further two years, until 30 June 2014, in the following areas:
Fortnightly payment rates for family tax benefit and the baby bonus will also continue to be indexed every year to meet increases in the cost of living. The rate of parental leave pay is linked to the national minimum wage and is also not affected by this change.
Pauses to the upper income limits mean that some families will no longer be eligible for payments, and some families will get fewer family payments—but only if their income rises.
No family will lose any family payments unless their income rises.
Families whose income does not increase will also have more money in their pockets as the fortnightly rates of family tax benefit continue to rise, due to normal indexation.
In the first year, fewer than two per cent of families will no longer be eligible for family payments as the result of these changes.
Indexation on the upper income limits for family tax benefit part A and B, and the baby bonus, was paused in the 2009-2010 budget.
The opposition supported this very same measure in 2009. In the parliament two years ago, on 13 May 2009, the Leader of the Opposition, who was the relevant shadow minister at the time, said these changes were too 'soft'.
The extension of these pauses will save $1.2 billion over the forward estimates. These are the decisions an economically responsible government must make if we are to bring the budget back to surplus, and make sure our family payments system is sustainable now and into the future.
Under the third measure, indexation of family tax benefit end of year supplements will also be paused for three years. End of year supplements were first introduced to address overpayments of family payments because of underestimation of income.
The number of families with overpayments has decreased since supplements were first introduced, and pausing indexation of these supplements will help make family payments more sustainable.
The end of year supplements are generally paid as a lump sum after the end of an entitlement year, when a family has completed their tax return and reconciled their actual family tax benefit entitlement.
This amendment will keep the end of year supplements at their current level of $726.35 per child for family tax benefit part A, and $354.05 per family for family tax benefit part B, for the next three entitlement years.
Building Australia's Future Workforce— implementing more efficient and accurate assessments for disability support pension
This bill also introduces changes to the assessment arrangements for disability support pension to help Australians with a disability into work wherever possible, while continuing to provide an essential safety net for Australians unable to work.
To qualify for disability support pension, a person must have a physical, intellectual or psychiatric impairment of 20 points or more under the impairment tables, and have a continuing inability to work for at least 15 hours per week.
Currently a person's inability to work can be assessed before the person has investigated alternative employment options or assistance from employment services, or had any retraining or rehabilitation.
This means that assessments of a person's inability to work, for the purposes of the disability support pension, can occur without the person having tested whether the help available could find them suitable work.
This bill refines the test for determining whether a person has a continuing inability to work.
Under the new rules, most people applying for disability support pension will be required to have actively participated in a program of support to find employment through an open employment service or vocational rehabilitation.
People with a severe impairment, such as those who are clearly unable to work, will receive financial support more quickly, and will not need to have actively participated in a program of support.
These changes were first announced in the 2010-2011 budget and, in the most recent budget, were fast-tracked so that they will now apply from 3 September 2011, rather than from 1 January 2012.
These reforms will provide faster, more sustainable support for people with severe disabilities, while referring others with the potential to work to employment services including Job Services Australia and Disability Employment Services.
The new assessment procedure for disability support pension will help people with disabilities return to the workforce wherever possible by focusing on their ability, rather than their disability.
Enabling the extension of the Cape York Welfare Reform Trial
In the 2011-2012 budget, the government provided $16.1 million for a proposed extension of the Cape York Welfare Reform trial for an additional year.
The trial is a partnership between the communities of Aurukun, Coen, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge, the Australian government, the Queensland government and the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. It aims to restore positive social norms, re-establish local Indigenous authority and support community and individual engagement in the real economy.
To date, the trial has made a real and lasting difference in the lives of Indigenous people in the cape. Since it began in July 2008, the Cape York Welfare Reform communities have seen improved school attendance, care and protection of children and community safety.
The Queensland government is currently leading a process of consultation with Cape York communities about extension of the trial. Queensland government legislation would also need to be changed in order for the trial to be extended.
While these discussions occur, the Commonwealth government is seeking to put in place the amendments required to enable the extension of the income management element of the trial.
It is important these enabling legislative changes are put in place to ensure they do not delay any extension of the trial and to ensure the four communities are not adversely affected. The extension of the trial will not go ahead until the communities of Aurukun, Coen, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge have been consulted and the Queensland government legislates to extend the operation of the Family Responsibilities Commission.
The Family Responsibilities Commission, which is established under Queensland government legislation, is a key plank of Cape York Welfare Reform. Local Family Responsibility Commissioners hold conferences with community members, refer people to support services and, when necessary, arrange income management.
Currently, a person can only be subject to income management under the trial after a decision by the Family Responsibilities Commission, made before 1 January 2012.
The bill before the Parliament extends this date to 1 January 2013, to enable income management to continue in Cape York for a further 12 months.
Minor measure
The bill also includes a minor non-Budget measure, which clarifies that the Public Works Committee Act 1969 does not apply to Aboriginal Land Trusts established in the Northern Territory under the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976.
The concept of an authority of the Commonwealth was first introduced into the Public Works Committee Act by way of amendment in 1981. Aboriginal land trusts are a mechanism to give effect to what is private ownership of land for the benefit of Aboriginal traditional owners. Land trusts were never intended to be Commonwealth authorities to which that act applies. This amendment puts that position beyond doubt.
This amendment will not affect the application of the Public Works Committee Act to any proposed arrangement that involves the carrying out of a work by or for the Commonwealth, or by or for an authority of the Commonwealth to which the Public Works Committee Act applies.
Where the Parliamentary appropriation requirements of section 5AA of the Public Works Committee Act are otherwise satisfied, the work will be a 'public work' for the purposes of that Act, even if the work is proposed to be carried out on land owned by a Land Rights Act Aboriginal Land Trust.
Debate adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Shorten.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill amends various taxation laws to implement a range of improvements to Australia's tax laws.
Schedule 1 amends the income tax law to allow trust beneficiaries to continue to use the primary production averaging and farm management deposits provisions in a year where the trust has a loss for trust law purposes.
After the High Court decision in Commissioner of Taxation v Bamford, the commissioner withdrew a public ruling under which he had accepted that in certain circumstances a beneficiary could be eligible for the primary production averaging and farm management deposits rules, despite the trust incurring a loss for trust law purposes.
Schedule 1 will restore the ability of beneficiaries to access both sets of rules in an income year where the trust has incurred a loss and certain conditions are met. The amendments will secure continuity for taxpayers because they apply from the 2010-11 income year and the commissioner's ruling applies up to and including the 2009-10 income year.
If the amendments in schedule 1 are not enacted by 30 June 2011, the beneficiaries of up to approximately 23,000 trusts will be uncertain as to their eligibility for the primary production averaging and farm management deposits rules in the 2010-11 income year by the time they start to lodge their income tax returns.
Schedule 2 amends subdivision 115-C and subdivision 207-B of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to ensure that, where permitted by the trust deed, the capital gains and franked distributions (including any attached franking credits) of a trust can be effectively streamed to beneficiaries for tax purposes, by making them 'specifically entitled' to those amounts.
This schedule also amends division 6 of part III of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 to include specific anti-avoidance rules to address the inappropriate use of exempt entities to 'shelter' the taxable income of a trust.
The government announced on 16 December 2010, that it would update and re-write the trust income tax law to deal with the ongoing discrepancies between the treatment of trust income by trust laws, on the one hand, and the tax system on the other. These issues were highlighted by the High Court's decision in Commissioner of Taxation v Bamford.
In the interim, the Board of Taxation recommended (following consultation with industry) that changes were urgently needed to provide certainty about the streaming of capital gains and franked distributions (including any attached franking credits).
These amendments provide this certainty and ensure that the streaming of capital gains and franked distributions (including any attached franking credits) is effective for tax purposes.
The government is aware that due to the short timeframe involved in developing these amendments, there may be scope for unintended consequences. The operation of these amendments will therefore be closely monitored and if unintended consequences are identified, the government will act to remedy these consequences retrospectively where appropriate.
The broader review of the trust income tax provisions remains the primary focus for the government. This will simplify the system, rewrite the rules and give more certainty to the many thousands of small businesses and farmers who use trusts. If the amendments in schedule 2 are not enacted by 30 June 2011, trustees of approximately 660,000 trusts in Australia that are required to make their resolutions by 30 June 2011 will face significant uncertainty.
Schedule 3 relates to the National Rental Affordability Scheme tax offset provisions.
The National Rental Affordability Scheme, which commenced on 1 July 2008, is a government initiative to stimulate the supply of new affordable rental dwellings.
The NRAS incentive was $9,140 per dwelling in 2010-11, comprising $6,855 from the Australian government and $2,285 from the states. These amounts are indexed annually in line with the rents component of the consumer price index.
These amendments simplify the operation of the National Rental Affordability Scheme for participants and provide some additional flexibility to NRAS participants in how the incentive is shared between members of the NRAS consortium participating in this National Rental Affordability Scheme.
Importantly, these amendments introduce the concept of an NRAS consortium, which is less restrictive than the existing non-entity joint venture provisions.
The Australian Taxation Office interpretive decision in 2009 highlighted that certain head-lease and sublease arrangements used in NRAS might not allow the NRAS tax offset entitlement to flow through from the 'approved participant' to the ultimate investor.
These amendments address this situation by allowing NRAS approved participants deriving NRAS rent to make an election to relinquish their entitlement to an NRAS tax offset in favour of other members of their NRAS consortium.
These amendments also recognise that certificates issued by the Housing Secretary under National Rental Affordability Scheme are issued to the approved participants (rather than the consortium) and ensure that certain payments provided under NRAS indirectly, such as through an NRAS consortium, are treated as 'non-assessable non-exempt income'.
Although the amendments do provide additional flexibility for those participating in NRAS, it is prudent for taxpayers to seek advice from the Australian Taxation Office about the detailed structure of their particular NRAS models and their ability to access the NRAS tax offset before investing in the National Rental Affordability Scheme.
Schedule 4 implements the 2011-12 budget measure to phase out the dependent spouse tax offset.
The dependent spouse tax offset originated around three-quarters of a century ago—at a time when the single-income family was the norm and the welfare system was in its infancy. This was a time when a breadwinner was expected to 'maintain' a spouse even without children, and there were limited employment opportunities for women.
In today's modern economy, where unemployment is forecast to fall to 4.5 per cent, an expanding workforce is vital for the strength of our economy and the living standards of our community.
This is why the government is phasing out the tax offset for dependent spouses currently aged less than 40 to help encourage more Australians into paid employment.
From 1 July 2011, taxpayers with a dependent spouse born on or after 1 July 1971 will no longer be eligible for the dependent spouse tax offset.
Dependent spouses with children are not affected by this measure, nor are taxpayers whose dependent spouse is a carer, an invalid or permanently unable to work. Taxpayers eligible for the zone, overseas forces or overseas civilian tax offsets are also not affected by this measure.
If the amendments in schedule 4 are not enacted by 30 June 2011, some taxpayers may not be able to use the pay-as-you-go withholding system to claim their benefit during the 2011-12 income year.
The final schedule, schedule 5, implements the 2011-12 budget measure to introduce a single statutory rate of 20 per cent, regardless of distance travelled, for car fringe benefits valued under the statutory formula method.
Under the current statutory formula method, the calculated fringe benefit from a salary sacrificed or employer provided car decreases as the distance travelled by the vehicle increases. People can therefore increase their tax concession by driving their vehicle further. This schedule removes the current incentive for people to drive vehicles further than they otherwise would, just merely to increase their tax concession.
The log book method will still be available for cars with genuine work related use. This means that users will be able to ensure that actual work related kilometres of travel continue to be tax exempt.
This reform applies to commitments made after the budget announcement on 10 May 2011 and will be phased in over four years. Existing contracts will not be affected.
Both schedule 4 and schedule 5 implement further recommendations of the Australia's Future Tax System Review, and continue the process of tax reform started in May last year with the release of the government's Stronger, Fairer, Simpler package of reforms.
Full details of the measures in this bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
Debate adjourned.
Bill and explanatory memorandum presented by Mr Gray.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Financial Framework Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2011 would, if enacted, amend eight acts across five portfolios to help further clarify aspects of the Commonwealth's financial framework.
This bill is the eighth financial framework legislation amendment bill since 2004 and forms part of an ongoing program to address financial framework issues as they are identified, taking a collaborative and whole-of-government approach.
The work behind this bill has already been partially presented to parliament through the Statute Stocktake Bill (No. 1) 2011, which I tabled on 23 March 2011, to repeal 39 redundant special appropriations relating to the Commonwealth's financial framework.
The breadth of appropriation, governance and financial management issues across the government compel continued attention. For this reason, the Department of Finance and Deregulation works with all parts of government, in a culture of strong collaboration, to address statutory financial framework issues promptly.
Accordingly, this bill seeks to amend two acts in the Finance and Deregulation portfolio, but also six acts in four other portfolios. These are: the Attorney-General's portfolio; the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry portfolio; the Climate Change and Energy Efficiency portfolio; and the Innovation, Industry, Science and Research portfolio. Specifically, schedule 1 of the bill contains minor amendments to the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997 to enable the content requirements for the corporate plans of government business enterprises to be specified under regulations, rather than in the act. This allows that content to be updated more readily.
Schedule 2 of the bill contains minor amendments to the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (FMA Act) primarily to clarify the legal status of various legislative instruments, such as determinations, instructions, and guidelines issued under the act or under its regulations. There is also an amendment to clarify that the Auditor-General is the external auditor of FMA Act agencies.
Schedule 3 of the bill then makes consequential amendments to the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 and removes reference to an instrument under the FMA Act that is now redundant. As a result, the matters dealing with the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 will be covered in the FMA Act alone.
Schedules 4 to 8 of the bill contain minor amendments to five acts of parliament.
These amendments seek to:
This short bill is, accordingly, another step to help ensure that specific provisions within our financial legislation remain clear and up-to-date. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Integrated fit-out of new leased premises for the Australian Taxation Office at 55 Elizabeth Street, Brisbane, Queensland.
The Australian Taxation Office, the ATO, proposes to undertake an integrated fit-out of new leased premises at 55 Elizabeth Street, Brisbane, Queensland. The new premises will replace two existing ATO locations in the Brisbane CBD. The leases for the existing properties will expire in June 2013 and February 2014. It is expected that the relocation into a new building will provide the ATO with considerable advantages in terms of building design, operational performance, operating cost efficiencies and long-term viability through improvements in site infrastructure.
The estimated out-turn cost of the proposal is $33.1 million plus GST. Subject to parliamentary approval, the proposed integrated fit-out works are scheduled to start in May 2012 and be completed by 1 May 2013. The developer commenced base building works on site in May 2011, with demolition and excavation for the basement areas being the first task. The ATO is expected to take up occupancy of the building in May 2013. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
I present the report of the House Standing Committee on Publications. Copies of the report have been placed on the table.
Report—by leave—agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That Mr Tehan and Mr Chester be appointed members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for the purpose of the committee’s inquiry into funding of political parties and election campaigns.
Question agreed to.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
to which the following amendment was moved:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes:
(a) objection to the growing burden of regulation being placed on the aged care sector by this Government and its impact on the ability of providers to make available affordable aged care places; and
(b) that the Government has broken its election promise to repeal one regulation for every new regulation; and
(2) calls on the Government to immediately adopt the Coalition's commitment to reduce Commonwealth regulation by at least $1 billion per year."
I am pleased to have an opportunity to offer some comments in regard to a very important subject, aged care, in the context of this bill, the Aged Care Amendment Bill 2011. In all my time as a member of the federal parliament representing the good people of Mallee, aged care has been the issue that has kept the office busiest in ongoing representation both directly to the operators of aged-care facilities and to governments in all places. It is certainly a top-of-mind issue across the north-west of Victoria. In fact, in my own case, going back many years before my time in parliament, I had to find accommodation for my late father, way back as far as 1990, through the terrible nineties. I remember my mother saying to me, 'Son, someone must go to Canberra and get this fixed up,' as we waited, like so many families wait, for the place and acceptable care that we as a family wanted for someone we loved dearly. Sadly, my mum has now passed on as well.
It is somewhat refreshing to be able to say that the nature of the workload has changed over the years, although some very deep concerns remain. That is especially the case for the baby boomer generation that is coming on, which probably includes me, which has very high expectations for the standard of accommodation it will receive. Another, very serious issue is that of finding suitable accommodation for dementia patients across north-west Victoria.
I am in general support of the legislation—it is necessary—but I support the coalition parties' amendment, which highlights and gives us an opportunity to talk about the restrictions that apply with regard to regulation and to express our disappointment at the government's broken promise to the sector, made at the last election, that it would relieve some of the intense paperwork. I recall the government's commitment that for every new regulation it would find one it could repeal. When I spend time with the excellent nursing staff and professional people who look after our aged-care residents, I find their constant complaint to me is about the amount of time they spend attending to the paperwork, relating to the particular plan of care for a patient, that is needed for accreditation. It is fairly rigorous and it is time consuming. It takes them away from the ward and from the beds where they are needed most to ensure that the clients of aged-care facilities are well looked after.
Mallee would probably have the largest number of aged-care facilities of all the electorates in Australia—there are 47 in total. I have not had time to check every other constituency, but that is a huge number and reflects the fact that every small community across the north-west of Victoria has a small aged-care facility. Some of them are very small, their bed numbers can be as low as 10 or 15, which makes sustainability a challenging issue for them. In fact, as a result of the recent redistribution in Victoria, Mallee has grown yet again. The member for Mallee now represents the fine rural city of Stawell, which means two more aged-care facilities there—the Macpherson Smith nursing home and Eventide—will become part of his responsibility.
The 47 aged-care facilities in Mallee are of a mixed nature. They are predominantly community owned organisations. A lot of them come out of the old post-war bush nursing hospital model—they are basically owned by communities. There are only two professional, for-profit aged-care facilities run by private operators in my entire electorate, which are in the strong provincial city of Mildura. The rest are operated either by government agencies or by not-for-profit church groups and community owned organisations.
The compliance issues, as I have mentioned, are a chore. I have been very alarmed at the willingness of health departments, particularly in Victoria, to launch into punitive action for what I consider to be minor breaches of the paperwork trail. I have been disappointed with that and have expressed that disappointment to the department. Over the last two or three years, three of my organisations have been put into one level of sanction, not because they did something wrong, not because someone's rights were abused or they suffered some terrible incident in the nursing home, but because of the potential for that to occur. I think that is a bit harsh and sends very strong signals to my organisations. As a result, they have been spending an inordinate amount of time, I believe, on the regulation and the paperwork, when their attention really ought to be at the coalface. They should be making sure that those people who are in nursing homes and hostels are enjoying their twilight years and that their families are content that their loved ones are receiving the best possible care and attention.
Last week, I had representations from a family from Mildura. Their loved one has a very severe case of dementia and is so disoriented he becomes violent. They were very concerned because three accommodation options have been tried for this man and it looks like he may have to move as far away as Bendigo, which will require a 5½-hour car drive when the family visits him. He needs really particular care because his dementia is so disorienting that he becomes violent with anybody who tries to manage and offer care to him. It is a very sad situation. I am advised by Alzheimer's Australia that dementia is going to be a massive challenge for the nation in the next 30 years. In fact, last year they said to me that the likelihood is that Mallee will have a dramatic increase in the number of dementia sufferers, which reflects what they predict will happen for the rest of the nation. They predict that dementia will tip 246,000 people in Victoria by 2050. Unless there are some medical breakthroughs that can meet the challenge of understanding why this disease occurs, the impacts on my constituency will mean a 443 per cent increase in dementia sufferers in north-western Victoria. That is a frightening concept. On top of the challenges that my aged-care facilities currently endure, meeting a demand like that is going to be a huge challenge. It will mean a huge amount of capital. It will be the responsibility of this place to ensure that the parliament can assist them in a task like that.
I remember from my own family's experience that it is a terrible and traumatic time for families as they go through finding suitable and acceptable accommodation for their loved one. It is a terrible time and loved ones do not necessarily think or express themselves clearly. I have noticed in the last few months, particularly with the events that have occurred in north-western Victoria with the floods and now the loss of two aged-care facilities—one in Donald was flooded and basically has to be rebuilt and the other was in Charlton; that is about 80-odd residents that are now scattered across north-western Victoria trying to find alternative accommodation as the community and governments decide what the future of Charlton and Donald really is—the number of representations coming through to my office increasing as a result of that as families are faced with the prospect of a two- or three-hour drive to see their loved one. That is just not acceptable.
I am calling on particularly the Victorian government to find a quicker resolution to the challenges in Charlton. It needs a new hospital, it needs a new medical surgery and it needs a new aged-care facility. They were all in one complex that was completely wiped out in the January floods. And that was their third flood in less than six months. That has put pressure on the issue of aged care in Mallee, and I am looking forward to working with both governments to find a much readier solution to that issue there.
I would like to put on the record my appreciation for the tremendous staff who support and provide the care in these facilities. I often say that there are two professions that have my enduring affection. One is school teachers, who spend more time with our children than we as parents do, and the other is nurses. That is not because I am married to one; it is because of the wonderful work they do. Sometimes it is tireless, sometimes it is in the middle of the night and sometimes, with the nature of the illnesses of aged people, it is the same old thing over and over again. Yet, there they are, tending in a caring way. It gives enormous comfort to families when they see their loved ones being treated well.
This legislation makes it a little easier for a complaint to be made. Often the complaints are minor but the residents are reluctant to make them. I remember at one institution—I will not say where it was—where all the resident wanted was to have bananas in her diet on a regular basis and was frightened to ask, reflecting the nature of country people, who do not like to be considered troublemakers. All she wanted was banana in her diet on a regular basis. I was able to put that question and have it fixed. But if patients and people who are in these facilities have a reluctance to put their case then I do not think that is fair. Often unhappiness could be avoided if the process for making a complaint was much easier and the person making the complaint was confident that there would not be repercussions.
I support this legislation. I am appreciative of the fact that it has come forward. It is confirming and making much clearer the responsibilities for the huge number of deposits that are now in place for aged-care homes. I think it is in the order of $12 billion. It is accumulating all the time. I think access to that level of capital is helping to alleviate some of the problems of limitation of capital to improve the conditions in some of the facilities across my constituency. I am generally in support of the bill and I thank the government for putting it forward.
I rise today to address the Aged Care Amendment Bill 2011, which proposes changes to the Aged Care Act of 1997. This bill is designed to strengthen protection for those who pay accommodation bonds to aged-care providers. It is also designed to improve complaints handling processes when it comes to aged-care providers that are funded by the Commonwealth. If passed, the amendments will take effect later this year.
One of the functions of this bill is to ensure that accommodation bonds paid to our aged-care providers can be used to support the sector itself. It is right that this government should do something to help support our nursing homes because it is a sad reality that our aged-care providers are struggling to survive, despite their vital role in our community. In fact, a Grant Thornton aged-care performance survey in November 2007 found that almost half of our nursing homes were operating in the red. Almost half were in debt.
That rings giant alarm bells for my electorate of Paterson, where we have a large number of older residents. According to the 2008 census, there are almost 25,000 people aged 65 or over in my electorate of Paterson. That is one-fifth of the entire population of Paterson. Now, of course, not all of these people will rely on aged care. However, many of them well. And many more will choose to retire to our area because of all the wonderful things we have to offer. I have met hundreds of people who have moved to the Paterson electorate from Sydney and other areas after their retirement. It is vital that we get this right now so that the problem does not continue to grow.
The aged-care system is struggling to meet the demand as it is. As we know, Australia's population is rapidly ageing and the demand on aged-care services will continue to expand with it. This crisis was highlighted in the Sydney Morning Herald on 25 February this year. Mark Wetherell wrote:
Baby boomers taking a seachange in their dotage face the prospect of widespread shortages in aged care, revised projections of the impact of dementia show.
Australia will be 279,000 aged care places short by 2050 without significant policy changes, and hardest hit will be coastal areas popular with retirees, a study by Access Economics has found.
Paterson is one of those areas that Mark writes about—on the coast and popular for retirement. As a consequence, it promises to be one of the hardest hit by a shortage in aged-care places. As the article goes on to explain:
The expected growth points in elderly populations show that sea-change locations such as Port Macquarie, Tweed Heads and the NSW south coast would experience shortages of 2000 or more aged-care places by 2050 without a change in policy. In the Paterson electorate in the Hunter region, the shortfall would be just under 3000 places.
When I was first elected to this parliament in 1996 there was already a crisis in aged-care accommodation. If my memory serves me correctly, there were not much more than 500 aged-care beds in the electorate of Paterson. Since then, through government support and the allocation of bed licences to my electorate, that list has massively grown. We now have Great Lakes Nursing Home in Bulahdelah which expanded its operations under the coalition; Regis The Gardens, formerly known as Port Stephens Gardens, based at Corlette, a new facility opened by the now Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, Julie Bishop; Lara Aged Care at Dungog, a great community facility which has grown but is addressing all of the challenges that are faced by a community aged-care facility; the Bill King Aged Care Facility at Fingal Bay, a great facility which combines retirement living and aged-care provision and which has grown and developed since the coalition government came to power; the BCS Kularoo Centre at Forster, locally known as Kularoo, which has also grown an expanded; Barclay Gardens in Forster; the Myall Lodge, which started off as a community facility but had to be transferred to much larger management because of critical mass considerations and the cost of providing care—it does a tremendous job at Hawks Nest; Largs Lodge at Largs; Raymond Terrace Gardens Nursing Centre at Raymond Terrace, a nursing home that was pulled down, totally redeveloped and expanded; Salamander Bay Aged Care Facility at Salamander; Harbourside Haven Nursing Home and Hostel at Shoal Bay; Stroud Community Lodge, which was built by the community with community support and is still run by the community of Stroud; Tanilba Bay Hostel, formerly started by the local government at Port Stephens but sold and passed on to Catholic aged care; Beaumont Terrace, another site at Tuncurry, which has been completely redeveloped an expanded; and Glaica House at Tuncurry, another project which has expanded its operations.
With all these expansions there are still not enough beds to cope with the demands that will be coming in the future. One of the sad things for nursing homes is that immediately after they expand their operations they spend an awful lot of time with empty beds until the demand grows in that local area. But, as the article I quoted says, Paterson's shortfall will be just under 3,000 places. The article also says:
In Victoria, similar shortages would be experienced in the Mornington Peninsula-Flinders area, the Gippsland coast and districts along the Great Ocean Road. In the Flinders electorate, the shortfall would be 2870.
As the shadow minister for regional development, these things concern me just as much as their local member. These are shortages of both nursing home care and community care packages. The most important question is: what can we do about the shortages? Decreasing the amount of regulation in the aged-care industry would be a start—it is the common complaint that I get from the operators of nursing homes. Only through deregulation can we start the ball rolling to make the industry viable. That is why the coalition has pledged to reduce Commonwealth regulation by $1 billion a year. Our Prime Minister, on the other hand, promised to repeal one regulation for every new regulation; but, as this bill shows, that was another election promise the Prime Minister never intended to keep, just like her promise, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' It seems our Prime Minister will say and do anything to stay in government.
I am pleased to say, however, that there has been some positive movement on this issue in my electorate recently. As the Port Stephens Examiner reported on 25 May this year:
The Port's largest aged care provider is set to embark on a $21 million project that, when complete, will offer hospice, high care and villa-style accommodation.
The news comes after Port Stephens Veterans and Citizens Aged Care was recently granted licences for 60 new beds to create a state-of-the-art nursing home.
CEO Louise Watters said with each bed costing around $200,000 to adequately set up, the not-for-profit group will need to build extra villas to fund the project.
"The cost of the nursing home is going to be around $12 million because it is a unique style of care with the units above," Ms Watters said. "
So in order to do this we're looking to build 30 to 35 villas at Fingal Bay on land in front of the retirement village and 16 villas at Salamander Bay."
Conditions on the new bed licences require the nursing home to be operating by 2013, but Ms Watters said that it was likely the group would seek an extension to complete the project. The nursing home will provide high-level and hospice care as well as having units above in which partners can live.
She said the aim was to have development applications for the villas to Port Stephens Council by late July or early August with the villas built, complete and sold by the end of this year.
I am proud to report this investment in the House today. I only wish I could say that the government helped to make it happen. Unfortunately, not nearly enough has been done by the Gillard Labor government to help the aged-care sector grow in what we know is a market where demand will only continue to skyrocket. Under the previous coalition government we saw a record $2.2 billion funding packed for aged care. We opened new facilities such as Port Stephens Garden Nursing Centre, and helped regain control of the sector after Labor, having been in power for 13 years, had left Australia with a 10,000-bed shortfall. I urge the Gillard Labor government to do more to ensure that we are not left with a massive shortfall in aged-care beds and services this time around. That is why Labor must honour its promise to repeal one regulation for every new regulation and help make this aged-care sector viable.
Aged-care services do wonderful things in our community. I have visited the nursing homes in my electorates many, many times—more than I can count. I see the wonderful and dedicated staff at each and every facility. In fact, a dear friend of mine, Doreen Bradley OAM, recently lost her husband, Jack Bradley, who spent his final years in a nursing home in my electorate. Despite struggling with dementia, Jack was treated with the utmost respect and those at the home were always there to support Doreen. They tried to make it as much as possible like a real home and many of the staff provided immeasurable comfort to both Jack and Doreen, and for that I cannot thank them enough.
It is this amazing work that we need to foster and grow so that our elderly community gets the support it deserves now and into the future. They would not get such support if it were not for the dedication of those in our community, the staff that work in these facilities and in particular the volunteers who give of their time to make these people's lives just that little bit more comfortable. You see, the hardest part for those going into aged care is moving from their home, from their family, from their support networks and from their friends. That is the hardest thing to replicate. That is where I want to pay tribute to the volunteers who regularly go to the nursing homes and try to replicate that environment for them. What we must do is treat the elderly in our community with the utmost respect. In fact, society is measured not just by how we treat and bring up the children in our community but, in particular, how we treat those at the other end of the spectrum that are towards the end of their lives' journeys.
I want to commend each and every one of the facilities in my electorate. Since the time I came to this parliament in 1996—besides the break from 1998 to 2001—through to today, I can count on one hand the total number of complaints I have had in relation to all the nursing homes in my electorate. That shows the quality, the calibre and the dedication of those people to providing a quality service to those in our community, and I commend them for that.
This bill will have some flaws in some of the regulations. I was here in 1997 when a bill was put forward to raise accommodation bonds. I remember the hue and cry from members now occupying the government bench that this was immoral, that this was taking away the kids' futures. There were some epic speeches by people who now occupy the front bench as well as the back bench. And here they are now promoting this program. More needs to be done. The funds need to be managed better and there need to be greater incentives to increase the investment in aged care. As pointed out in all of the reports, there is a massive need to increase the amount of aged care in our community. Only if we make it viable can we maintain the quality of that aged care in our community.
I thank the member for Paterson for his contribution to this debate on the Aged Care Amendment Bill and for his interest in aged care. I thank members on both sides for their contributions to this debate, specifically about this bill but generally about the aged-care sector, which is such an important part of all of our electorates. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to sum up the debate on Aged Care Amendment Bill 2011. This bill seeks to amend the Aged Care Act 1997 to increase protection for accommodation bonds and to strengthen complaints management in aged care as part of the government's commitment to providing better health and better care for older Australians through the National Health Reform Agenda.
Since the introduction of the Aged Care Act in 1997 there has been very strong growth in the value of accommodation bonds held by the sector. As at 30 June 2010 approved providers held more than $10.6 billion in bonds on behalf of more than 63,000 aged-care residents. The average total bond holding held by an individual approved provider was about $11.2 million and the average new accommodation bond charged during the financial year was around $232,000. This is a significant amount of funds held by aged-care providers on behalf of their residents and, as the Australian population continues to age and the demand for aged care increases, the funds loaned to approved providers through accommodation bonds will continue to grow.
This bill provides greater clarity about the uses of accommodation bonds and strengthens the link to investment in aged care. Specifically, the bill reinforces that bonds taken after 1 October this year should be used for capital expenditure at aged-care services, repaying debt associated with capital works and refunding existing bonds. The bill also makes it clear that accommodation bonds can be used for investment in a broad range of financial products, consistent with current practice. The bill proposes that an approved provider would commit an offence when there has been a misuse of bond funds and, within two years of that misuse, the provider becomes insolvent and has at least one outstanding bond balance. In the very worst of cases, offences would also apply to individuals within the organisation, such as when the individual knew bonds were being used for a non-permitted use and was in a position to take, but had not taken, reasonable steps to prevent the misuse. These changes will reinforce the significance of approved providers' obligations to their residents in dealing appropriately with residents' funds and ensuring that refund obligations are met. Accompanying these changes all restrictions on the use of income derived from bonds, retention amounts and accommodation charges will be removed. This will free up these funds for use by approved providers, reduce regulatory burden and focus the regulation on the risks of the bond principle.
The bill also proposes to enable the investigation principles to be replaced with new complaints principles. The proposed new complaints principles will describe and improve the complaints scheme for aged care, with a stronger focus on resolution of complaints. This will provide consumers with a more flexible scheme where a range of options are available for assisting to resolve a complaint, including early resolution, conciliation and mediation.
I would like again to thank members for their contributions to the debate on the bill. It has underscored the importance of the role played by the aged-care sector now and into the future across the country. It has also highlighted the importance of achieving a balance between effective regulation to protect vulnerable and elderly people and reducing the regulatory burden on the aged-care sector. These changes will promote public confidence in the aged-care industry, provide regulation that is commensurate with the risks associated with bond holding in the aged-care sector and improve the way in which complaints are managed in aged care.
The government does not agree to the second reading amendment proposed by the shadow minister. Beyond saying the amendment clearly strays beyond the scope of the bill, and indeed beyond the scope of the principal act, it simply misconceives the effect of this bill. To recap, the effect of this bill is simply to clarify the original intent of the accommodation bond system, which was to provide a capital funding stream for the aged-care sector, and it actually removes regulation about how providers will be able to use literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of income every year.
I repeat: this bill removes regulation on the way in which aged-care providers can use the income that they derive from the bond principal, it removes regulation on the way in which aged-care providers can use the retention amounts extracted from the bond principal, and it removes regulation over the way in which aged-care providers can use accommodation charges paid by residents in high-care facilities—literally hundreds of millions of dollars of income are freed of any regulation by this bill. It also removes a range of redundant provisions, including two pieces of redundant legislation. For those reasons we oppose the second reading amendment proposed by the shadow minister and commend the bill to the House.
Question put:
That the words proposed to be omitted (Mr Dutton's amendment) stand part of the question.
The House divided. [12:06]
The Speaker (Mr Harry Jenkins)
Question agreed to.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following occurring:
(1) when the order of the day for the resumption of debate on the second reading of Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 is called on, for a cognate debate to take place with Excise Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011, Customs Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011, and Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill 2011;
(2) at the conclusion of the second reading debate, including a Minister speaking in reply, and thereafter, without delay, the immediate question, or questions necessary to complete the second reading stage to be put, and when resolved Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 then being considered in detail if a detail stage is required, and then any question or questions necessary to complete the remaining stages of the bill to be put without amendment or debate;
(3) immediately after proceedings on the Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 have concluded, the Excise Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011 to be called on and the immediate question then before the House to be put without amendment or debate, and when resolved the bill then being considered in detail if a detail stage is required, and then any question or questions necessary to complete the remaining stages of the bill to be put without amendment or debate;
(4) immediately after proceedings on the Excise Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011 have concluded, the Customs Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011 to be called on and the immediate question then before the House to be put without amendment or debate, and when resolved the bill then being considered in detail if a detail stage is required, and then any question or questions necessary to complete the remaining stages of the bill to be put without amendment or debate;
(5) immediately after proceedings on the Customs Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011 have concluded, the Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill 2011 to be called on and the immediate question then before the House to be put without amendment or debate, and when resolved the bill then being considered in detail if a detail stage is required, and then any question or questions necessary to complete the remaining stages of the bill to be put without amendment or debate; and
(6) any variation to this arrangement to be made only by a motion moved by a Minister.
Question put:
The House divided. [12:16]
The Speaker (Mr Harry Jenkins)
Question agreed to.
As has just been decided, a cognate debate will be allowed, which will include this bill, the Excise Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011, the Customs Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011 and the Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill 2011.
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I rise today to speak on the Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, the Excise Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011, the Customs Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011 and the Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill 2011. What we are seeing from the Gillard government with this set of bills is another attack on the cost of living of all Australian families. The first three bills deal with the taxation of gaseous fuels for motor vehicles. They will apply a tax to LNG, CNG and LPG. They will apply a tax to mum's taxi. They will apply a tax to the taxi fleet. They will apply a tax to the public transport systems, particularly those of cities such as Sydney, Perth and Brisbane, whose buses use compressed natural gas not only to lower emissions but also to lower pollution. These buses burn cleaner and provide Australia with an opportunity to use some of the overwhelmingly ample resources that we have in natural gas.
Australia is a very lucky country. We are self-sufficient in energy. We are, in fact, one of the few OECD countries that export energy. That energy comes from a number of sources. It comes from coal, and we are the biggest exporter in the world both of coking coal for the manufacture of steel and of steaming coal for the production of electricity. That energy comes also from LNG, liquefied natural gas, of which similarly we are a very significant exporter. We have a supply of gas in Australia that will probably last a couple of hundred years, at a bare minimum, based on current reserves, and it makes sense to use that resource here in Australia in transportation fuels, which is the one area in which we are deficient. We import almost 50 per cent of the petrol, diesel and crude oil that we use in our transport fleet. Finally, the energy comes from liquid petroleum gas, LPG, of which we are also net exporters, and while many of us in this place know LPG as the thing that runs our barbecues and, in some cases, our hot water systems and stoves, LPG's main use is in transportation fuels. It makes no sense to apply a tax on those fuels.
On top of the increases to electricity prices and the cost-of-living expenses that will occur as a result of the carbon tax, families and businesses now face further pressure on the cost of fuel because of the Gillard government's policies. Unfortunately it is no surprise, bearing in mind that this government is so out of touch, that the most critical component of the family budget—that is, fuel for the motor vehicle—is now in the sights of the Gillard government. As we see from these bills, the intention of the government is to raise the cost of those fuels to those families using LPG in their vehicles by 20 per cent. This is not a small increase; this is a major hit on the family budget, an attack by the Gillard government on the purse strings of everyday Australian families already struggling under massive increases in electricity prices, gas prices, water charges and other living costs. These increases are soon to be made even more massive by an ill-conceived carbon tax, which will add a further cost, including in the area of transport, to all Australians.
Applying an excise of 12½c per litre on LPG makes no sense at all. This government runs a program to encourage families through a financial incentive to convert their vehicles to LPG by offsetting some of the cost of conversion, yet with all that encouragement the government is really just setting a honey trap: 'We'll get these vehicles onto LPG and then we'll increase the cost of LPG by 20 per cent. We'll increase the tax to make sure that these families can no longer cope with the pressures of the cost of living.'
Currently 283,000 vehicles have been converted to LPG under this government scheme. Every single one of those vehicles is owned by a family. This scheme is not open to commercial vehicles, not open to fleet vehicles and not open to business vehicles; it is only open to family owned vehicles. There are 283,000 vehicles that are owned by 283,000 families who will wake up, if these first three bills pass, to higher fuel costs. There is absolutely no justification for this. Why is the government doing it? It needs the money. Why does it need the money? It wastes money. This is an old-style spend, waste and tax government of the kind that we see from the Labor Party every time they sit on that side of the Speaker. Every time a Labor government holds the Treasury benches, it spends and wastes money until it has no option but to increase the taxes on the people of Australia. This tax on Australian families is intolerable, and the opposition, hopefully with the support of the Independents, will do everything we can to defeat these first three bills. Along with those 283,000 vehicles, there are another 400,000-plus vehicles that have already been converted and a majority of those vehicles would be owned by families. Some of these families would have bought them second-hand from a car yard in the expectation that they would be able to continue to use these vehicles to lower the cost of living, to lower the cost of taking their kids to school every morning—mum's taxi—and to lower the cost of running a family in Australia under a government that is so out of touch. Costs rise every day and soon with a carbon tax those costs will rise even more steeply.
What we see in these first three bills is a government desperate for money to fill the enormous black holes that it created by wasting money under the home insulation scheme—that was $2 billion up in smoke. Four times what it is going to get from this scheme has already been wasted and you wonder how the families of Australia feel about that. Of course, the wastage in that area was small compared to the wastage under the Building the Education Revolution scheme, where billions and billions of dollars were overspent. Again, that was many times the money that is going to be raised from this scheme.
When the people who sit on the opposite benches go back to their electorates what do they say when families ask them, 'Why are you putting up my fuel costs by 20 per cent?' I would be interested to hear the answer. Is it because they simply do not care? Is it because they are simply desperate? Is it because we know that they have gone from a cash surplus of $70 billion to a net debt of $107 billion? Is it because they have gone from a budget surplus of $20 billion to a budget deficit of $50 billion? Probably. I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt that they are not deliberately trying to destroy the family budget with this tax, but that it is actually because they are incompetent money managers and wasteful with spending. I would like to think that was the reason, but sometimes it is hard to accept that it is the only reason. It appears to me that it is more about this government being completely out of touch and completely lacking in compassion and understanding for the way in which families in Australia are currently struggling.
I note that the fourth of these bills, the Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill 2011, is a bill which the coalition will support. It is a bill to extend the grants scheme to biodiesel and renewable diesel. As I said, in Australia we face a challenge in providing enough transport fuel. Logically, you would say that if you have an alternative fuel you would support it and not tax it. If you were awash with it you would not tax it. In the case of LPG we are awash with it, and I have covered that issue extensively. We are trying to build a biofuels industry in Australia. Along with the government, the coalition support the measures that have been taken, previously by the Howard government and continued by the Rudd and Gillard governments, to provide grants to the ethanol, biodiesel and renewable diesel industries to offset the excise which is applied to those fuels at the full rate of 38.143.
The Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill is a worthy bill that the minister has brought to this House and it is one which the coalition will support because it maintains the grants for the biodiesel and renewable diesel industry. That is an industry that is doing it tough. That industry has faced unfair dumping competition from overseas supplies. I commend the minister for continuing what we started. He has not done anything more, but at least we should be grateful that he has not done anything less. With that certainty, at least through until 2020, I hope that the biodiesel industry, truly supported and protected from dumping actions by the anti-dumping legislation, will be able to resume some economic growth and help us supply the burgeoning demand for diesel fuel in Australia. We live in a region where diesel fuel is very much in demand. I am often asked by my constituents, particularly those constituents who drive diesel vehicles, why they have to pay more for diesel than they do for not only ULP but also higher octane petrol. The answer is quite simple: it is a case of demand. We live in the South-East Asian supply region where diesel is very much in demand not only for heavy equipment but also for transport fuels.
We can look at the trend in the motor industry in Australia. Much of the romance goes to the hybrid vehicles, and we are producing a hybrid vehicle here in Australia, the Camry, which is based on Toyota's Prius technology. There are a number of other vehicles around now that run on hybrid technology. If you want to buy a Porsche you can buy one that uses hybrid technology. But if you want to drive the most efficient vehicle in the world, as measured by litres per 100 kilometres—or, as my dad used to say, miles per gallon—you will drive a diesel vehicle. I think the turbocharged Volkswagen Golf holds the record at the moment. It is more efficient than a Prius and it runs on diesel. So if the opportunity is there for Australia to increase its self-sufficiency in that most efficient of fuels—diesel—through the production of renewable diesel or biodiesel then we need to ensure that those incentives continue. That is what this fourth bill does—it provides the incentive for diesel production.
We then move to compressed natural gas. It is a cumbersome fuel but one which has a place in the Australian urban environment, particularly for delivery vehicles or buses that return to a depot that can carry this bulky fuel. It is not liquefied; it is compressed. It takes up a lot of room and the tanks weigh a lot, but it has a very significant role to play in public transport. This is a fuel that we are trying to get into our bus fleets. Perth has about 300, Sydney has around the same number and growing, and Brisbane has also made an investment in these sorts of buses. These are buses which do not leave the particulates in the air, they burn cleaner, they provide an opportunity to reduce emissions and they will increase the efficient transport of people through the public transport system. So, what does this government do to those buses? It taxes them. And what is the result of that tax? Those buses will no longer be bought because the economics of running a compressed-natural-gas bus simply will not be there. So we will stop using a fuel that we are abundant in, so abundant that we export tens of millions of tonnes, and perhaps soon 50 million tonnes, of natural gas per year, in the form of LNG. So, instead of using a fuel that we are abundant in, this government taxes it to the point where it is not economical to use those buses, so the buses will go back to being diesel. Then there are all the issues associated with that, in terms of the balance of payments.
But those 900 buses already in use would face a fuel price increase of at least 20 per cent, in the case of CNG. That means that bus fares go up. Here we have a government that claims it is all about reducing emissions and introducing efficiencies and all about trying to get people to use public transport, but they are so desperate for money that they have these bills in the House.
So the mums and dads, and the kids going to school, who are already struggling with a household budget that is tight, with cost-of-living pressures growing every day for families, now have to find extra money for bus fares as well. When that family has to then use the other form of public transport, taxis, to perhaps take their elderly parents to the doctor or to attend an occasion somewhere without the family car, they are going to get hit again. This government reaches out to every part of sensible living and taxes it. We have a tax on family cars, a tax on compressed-natural-gas buses and we have also got a tax on taxis. The 19,000 taxis in Australia are going to see a 20 per cent increase in their fuel cost. And guess what? That means higher taxi fares in Australia, because the Gillard government cannot manage money. They are so desperate to get money into their coffers that they will literally tax anything that moves.
It does not end there. In Tasmania we have recently seen a very responsible decision taken there to put in place an LNG plant, not to export liquefied natural gas to our northern neighbours, but to run trucks. Trucks are big users of diesel. Diesel is expensive and in Tasmania it all has to be shipped there, so it made sense to power the logging fleet with LNG. LNG is already used on the mainland in trucks. People like Goulburn dairy co-op are using it in their milk trucks, Wesfarmers have been using it in their transport fleet out of Perth and a number of other installations have been mooted. This tax will kill that dead. Another opportunity to use our abundant natural gas to lower emissions, lower running costs and lower particulates is shot dead by this government, which is desperate for money. So the transport LNG industry will fold overnight, as well.
If it stopped there I guess we would say 'Whew, how much damage can you do in a day,' but there is more, because this tax will be administered in a way that means small businesses selling LPG—it might be for my barbecue, or the member for Bass's hot water system or it might be to a large commercial business user—have to acquit that in a whole new set of regulations and red tape, because LPG will now have a tax on it. So it will mean more work and more red tape for small business. It was small business people to whom the previous leader of Labor in opposition, Kim Beazley, was referring when he said: 'They are not the natural friend of small business.' But they do not have to show small business every day that when they wake up in the morning they will have a tax applied to them—to their motor vehicles if they are running an LPG vehicle—and also give them a heap of red tape to deal with.
This is bad legislation. It is not about improving inefficiencies in Australia. It is not about ensuring Australia is a better pace to live. It is legislation about taxing a fuel source in which we are abundant. It is legislation about taxing a fuel source that is efficient. It is legislation about taxing a fuel source that is a lower emitter. It is legislation about taxing the livelihoods of Australians. And it is legislation about increasing the cost-of-living pressures on families.
The opposition will oppose these first three bills. I flagged that we will move an amendment to the fourth bill. When I watched the minister presenting these bills a few weeks ago I could tell by the sly smile on his face that there was something in these bills that I had to go and look for. I looked hard and sought the advice of the library and they looked hard. And then we found it: the suicide clause. If each of these bills is not passed, none of them will receive royal assent. Here is a minister who is prepared to say to the biodiesel industry: 'If the opposition knocks over these bad bills on LPG, we are going to tax you at 38.143 cents.' This is not a minister who cares about the energy industry. This is a minister who is desperate for money.
Our amendment will break the nexus between these bills. It will ensure that if the first three bills are defeated, which they should be, and the fourth bill is passed, which it should be, then we do not have to rely on all four bills being passed to get royal assent. Our amendment will make the fourth bill, the Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill 2011, effective from 1 July 2011. There should be no other way. You cannot leave the biodiesel and renewable diesel industries swinging in the breeze while the minister who sits opposite plays games with their livelihood. As I said, the biodiesel industry has been through enough already. We need to give that industry certainty, and it is the coalition, as usual, that has to do that.
I will be interested to listen to the contributions from the other side. I will be interested to hear how they justify increasing the cost of living for families. I will be interested to see how they can be so oblivious to the circumstances we currently find ourselves in, which is the reason the Howard government never proceeded with this.
It's their plan.
He says, 'It's their plan.' We never presented legislation in this House when families were in financial crisis, because we knew, we were in touch and we understood. We believed in making sure that there was no pressure put on families by a tax. This government is mindless and careless to that fact. It knows families, or it should know families—
Mr Champion interjecting—
Mr Lyons interjecting—
Perhaps the interjecting members opposite do not care or perhaps they do not know—perhaps both—but we know that families are under pressure now, just as we knew when we were in government, which is why we never proceeded with these bills. Those members are now saying to their electorates, 'We don't care that we're going to put your price of LPG up by 20 per cent.' I say to them: you had better hope we save you by defeating these bills.
This is the first time I have spoken with you in the chair, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams. The electorate of Lyons is a great electorate. I rise in the House today to speak on the Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, the Ethanol Production Grants Bill 2011, the Excise Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011, the Customs Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011 and the Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill 2011.
The current taxation arrangements for fuel impose excise on certain domestic manufactured fuels and excise-equivalent customs duty on relevant imported fuels. Fuels subject to fuel tax include petrol, diesel, fuel oil, kerosene, benzene, toluene, xylene, biodiesel and fuel ethanol. The bills before us today reflect policy first announced in 2003 in the Howard days, implementing longstanding plans to bring alternative automotive fuels into the fuel taxation regime on the basis of their energy content, with a discount of 50 per cent to reflect the benefits of alternative fuel use. The Truck Industry Council, in its submission to the Implementation Of Alternative Fuels Taxation Policy inquiry, stated:
The principle of applying excise according to the fuel's energy content is considered fair and equitable.
It is worthy to note that the financial impact of the alternative fuels taxation measure has been included in the forward estimates since the 2003-04 budget. Taxation of LPG contributes to the largest part of this revenue. Essentially, these bills bring certain alternative fuels used for transport purposes into the fuel taxation regime and make them subject to the excise duty or excise-equivalent customs duty. The fuels affected include liquefied petroleum gas, LPG, and compressed natural gas, CNG.
It is important to note that only fuels used in vehicles will be taxed. Fuel for domestic use, such as for barbecues and heating, will be exempt from the tax. The rates for these fuels are based on the energy content of the specific fuel and are discounted by 50 per cent to reflect the potential benefits of these alternative fuels. The changes are phased in over a transition period to allow affected parties time to adjust to the changes. This is very important. Three tax bands are now used to reflect the energy content of the fuels: high, medium and low. Methanol, LPG and compressed natural gas are currently outside the fuel tax system and are thus excise free. We recognise that there has been considerable debate about this. We took steps to consult with industry about this bill and, as a result of those discussions, the introduction of the excise was pushed back from July 2011 until December 2011. It is important to note that there is a five-year transition period to phase in taxation on alternative fuels such as CNG, LPG, methanol and biodiesel. The bills allow for a longer lead-in period for ethanol, which will be subject to a 10-year phase-in period.
Taxing alternative fuels improves the operation of the fuel market by enhancing competition between the different types of fuel, improving market efficiency, economic choice and the consequent allocation of resources. Ethanol is a renewable, environmentally friendly source. It is sourced from natural products, like annual sugarcane crops. Blending ethanol and petrol in various proportions has been put forward as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and alleviating adverse economic conditions in the sugar industry. Ethanol blended fuels represent 3.5 per cent of the world gasoline market. Ethanol blended fuels are widely used in countries such as the US and Brazil. In Brazil they represents 41 per cent of the local fuel market. I am pleased this bill has a 10-year phase-in period for the excise to allow this industry to grow. Presently, fuel tax on biodiesel is imposed on the full rate, as it is for petrol and diesel. Under these bills, biodiesel will be subject to fuel tax at a high-energy content rate of 100 per cent of the petrol and diesel rate but discounted by 50 per cent. Australia enjoys the lowest LPG prices in the OECD. By introducing taxation on these fuels, we bring Australia into line with the taxation treatment of LPG in most other OECD countries. Methanol has not previously been subject to excise or excise-equivalent customs duty. There is evidence to suggest that methanol is not widely used as a transport fuel, either directly in blends or as a fuel substitute. Under Australian fuel quality standards, methanol cannot be used as an extender or additive to petrol or diesel for commercial sale. This is due in part to the significant damage that methanol can cause to some engines designed to run on petrol or diesel. Methanol is mostly used as an industrial chemical and as racing fuel.
There has been some criticism that taxing LPG would have an impact on taxis. The impact of including LPG in the excise system on taxis depends on decisions by the state and territory regulators. If the excise is passed on in full, it could add approximately 3.5c to the average metro taxi fare trip upon the introduction of a 2.5c per litre excise on 1 December 2011. This will increase to approximately 19c for the average metro taxi trip when the final excise of 12.5c per litre is introduced in 2015. While the government is aware that the LPG industry does not want to be taxed until their market share hits 10 per cent—they are currently just under six per cent—this would blow a $600 million hole in the bottom line, and petrol and diesel, which are their main competitors, are all taxed. The majority of OECD countries, in particular France, Germany and the UK, as well as New Zealand, Canada and the US, all tax LPG to various degrees. In addition, the EU is looking to substantially increase the tax on LPG over the next five years to take into account climate change.
A sustainable alternative fuel industry will provide rural and regional economic development, create new jobs and revenue streams, help reduce our reliance on imported, finite fossil fuels, improve fuel security and improve air quality and the environment. Many of the alternative fuels subject to this excise are embryonic industries and we recognise this fact. Future Australian transport fuel energy security embraces two major changes: climate change and the transition from oil. Both these events will occur roughly at the same time. Climate change is the great challenge of our generation. Australia is very vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We are already the driest inhabited continent on earth, heavily exposed to the dangers of extreme heat and drought. We are home to many globally important and vulnerable ecological systems. Australians are overwhelmingly coastal dwellers. Our industries and urban centres face ongoing water limitations. Our economy, including food production and agriculture, is under threat. The longer we wait to act on climate change, the more it will cost and the worse its effects will be.
The government is currently developing an energy white paper that will look at alternative fuels policy more broadly. While the government has not made any final decisions about the treatment of fuel in the carbon price arrangements, a principle of carbon pricing is to apply a price that reflects the emissions of different activities. The government is committed to addressing the relative emissions generated by those fuels as part of its consideration of arrangements for fuel under the carbon price.
Australia has a lot of cars and trucks on its roads. Of the nearly 500,000 trucks on the Australian register, over 90 per cent use diesel. The alternative fuel debate is one well worth having. The government recognises that alternative fuels have the potential to reduce environmental harm as they have the capability to reduce Australia's carbon footprint. They provide an alternative to conventional fuels, which ensures that there is a wider and more diverse range of energy sources, and the alternative fuel industries create jobs, particularly in rural and regional Australia.
As the Assistant Treasurer, the Hon. Bill Shorten, stated in his first reading speech on these bills:
The support of the parliament for this legislation is crucial.
Under the former government's legislation that will apply unless new legislative arrangements are made, the taxation arrangements for both imported and domestically produced ethanol will both jump to 7.6c per litre from 1 July 2011. This will mean that on this date the net excise on domestic ethanol will rise by 7.6c per litre and the duty on imported ethanol will fall by more than 30c per litre. In addition, the tax on imported and domestic ethanol will continue to rise each year by more than 7.6c per litre until they are both taxed at the petrol rate of 38.143c per litre. Biodiesel will also be overtaxed from 1 July 2011 if the bills are not passed. The consequences of these arrangements would be devastating for industry. The Gillard government is committed to completing the unfinished business of the Howard government and to acting in the national interest. It is imperative to have these bills passed to avoid the unintended tax consequences on the ethanol and biodiesel industries.
Once enacted, the legislation will provide certainty for alternative fuels taxation so that industry will be able to make decisions, confident in the knowledge of the tax arrangements that apply.
… … …
It is critical that the bills are considered promptly in the parliament. Royal assent is necessary before 1 July 2011 to prevent the changes legislated for ethanol, biodiesel and renewable diesel by the Howard government coming into operation on 1 July 2011. These changes would seriously undermine Australia's renewable fuels manufacturing industry.
These bills have been developed following an extensive consultation process with industry that included the release for comment of a discussion paper and release of exposure draft legislation.
The alternative fuel industry should be aware that there will be a review after 1 July 2015, once the tax has been fully implemented. It is likely to consider the impact of the tax, its interaction with the carbon price and the market demand for these fuels. The government remains committed to ensuring that alternative fuels make an important contribution to transport fuel use in Australia both today and into the future. I commend these bills to the House.
It is almost 10 years since I launched Australia's first national biofuels policy in Townsville during the 2001 election campaign. That policy set an objective that renewable fuel—namely ethanol and biodiesel—produced in Australia would contribute at least 350 million litres to the total fuel supply by 2010. To implement that objective the coalition committed to provide excise-free treatment of biofuels and a grant process, a capital subsidy for new or expanded domestic production infrastructure of 16c per litre of biofuel.
When the coalition moved in government to implement this policy in 2002, we witnessed one of the most dishonest campaigns ever launched by the Labor Party. Labor sought to discredit and denigrate the use of ethanol at every opportunity, with claims that it was damaging car engines—which was later proved to be false—and other similar claims which it systematically fed to its friends in the media. The ethanol industry still suffers today in the aftermath of that disgraceful Labor scare campaign. Nevertheless, the coalition's commitment was met. It certainly started slowly in the wake of the vilification campaign, but I am very proud that the vision that I outlined in 2001 has come to fruition. We now need to move to the next step, increasing the level of biofuels and renewables in our liquid fuel supply.
There have been many champions of ethanol over the years but none has been greater than Dick Honan. The Manildra group of companies have been real champions of the industry. They have a very innovative process, making ethanol as a by-product of their Nowra starch plant. They had a problem with effluent that needed to be disposed of and they developed a really clever solution. They had a lot of resistance from the fuel companies and they suffered very badly in the aftermath of the ethanol smear campaign, but they have won through and their product is now widely used across the country. Dick Honan, above anyone else, is the father of the Australian ethanol industry. He can be proud of his achievements but he knows that there is still a lot more to be done as well. There are other important contributors—particularly CSR and other players in the sugar industry, and I note the new grain based plant at Dalby—and a number of other innovative ideas, because ethanol can be sourced from a wide range of feedstocks.
Not much has changed since that time in 2001 as far as the Labor Party is concerned. The Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 and the other bills before us show that, once again the government is incapable of producing a coherent policy response to an energy related issue. In June 2004, the then coalition government released its energy white paper, which proposed to adjust the excise rate applicable to all fuels based on their energy content relative to petrol. The rate was to be halved for alternative fuels as an industry development and environmental measure. The new rates were to be phased in from 2011 to 2015. This policy received bipartisan support at the time from the then Labor opposition. But the policy was not enacted in legislation before the coalition lost office, although significant good-faith investment was made in ethanol facilities by companies like CSR based on the white paper. The new income from the coalition policy was incorporated in the forward estimates in the 2010-11 budget papers, apparently without the Labor government even realising it had done it. On budget night, both the Treasurer's office and the office of the Minister for Resources and Energy denied that an excise on LPG was being introduced. But by 7 am the next morning the Assistant Treasurer and the Minister for Resources and Energy had issued a media release confirming that a new excise regime on alternative fuels would in fact be introduced after all and announced a consultation process.
After the 2010 election, as part of a deal with the member for New England, the government announced that ethanol excise would be phased in over 10 years, rather than five. This would have been an acceptable position had it applied to all alternative fuels but, inexplicably, the phase-in period for other alternative fuels was to remain at five years. This was stage 1 of the government's descent into policy confusion on this matter. Following the consultation process, on 24 January 2011 the Assistant Treasurer released an exposure draft of legislation. At the same time the government deferred the introduction of the new excise rates by five months, to 1 December 2011. This legislation would have allowed the excise-free import of unlimited amounts of subsidised ethanol from the United States. The US ethanol industry receives subsidies of $6 billion per year, or about 15c per litre, and also receives tariff protection, as does Brazilian ethanol. Under the government's proposed legislation, the Australian ethanol industry would cease to exist on 1 July this year. The United States also subsidises biodiesel, including exported biodiesel. It took the Minister for Home Affairs four months to act on Australian Customs recommendations that countervailing duties be imposed on subsidised US biodiesel, despite this being one of the most straightforward cases ever brought. The US government had legislated for the subsidies. They were clearly breaching the rules, but it took the government such a long time to act to protect the Australian industry, as it had an obligation to do—stage 2 of the government's policy confusion. Next, the member for New England indicated that, rather than just an extension of the phase-in period, he would prefer no excise on ethanol at all. It must be said that the member for New England is also not always particularly noted for his policy consistency. Remember his bill proposing that Australia reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2020 and by 80 per cent by 2050? That is a position from which the member now distances himself.
Astonishingly, the minister did not bother to discuss the legislation with the opposition. He pulled the bills on the day they were scheduled to be introduced into the House—policy confusion stage 3. So now, with only seven sitting days left before excise is automatically imposed on ethanol, we finally get to the debate about the government's proposals, and what a mess it is. Ethanol, biodiesel and methanol are now to remain excise free for at least 10 years but LPG, LNG and CNG are to have excise phased in over five years at half the energy-equivalent rate. The minister even had the hide to criticise me for allegedly opposing bipartisan fuel tax arrangements while he himself was throwing the whole package out the window.
Indicative of the quality of this legislation is the regulation impact statement attached to it, which is actually based on the earlier legislation that the minister withdrew before it was even tabled. The regulation impact statement extols the virtues of imposing an excise on biofuels. 'Significant deviations from the announced policy may unsettle investment decision making,' it says. What a laughing stock the government has become. It is hard to justify treating some alternative fuels differently from others. In the case of LNG and CNG, use is restricted almost entirely to heavy vehicles. There is little financial gain to the government in taxing those fuels, the cost of which will fall disproportionately on bus users, particularly metropolitan bus users.
When we were in government, we implemented programs to help people with LPG conversion grants for new and used vehicles. It was the sound, environmentally responsible thing to do—$550 million was spent on grants to support 283,000 vehicle conversions or new LPG vehicles. Labor has halved and capped that program and will now tax people who have made the conscious decision to do the right thing for the environment. Adding insult to injury, Labor is singling out LPG, having shelved plans to tax ethanol and biofuels. Again, at the very least the government should treat all alternative fuels equally. Trying to pick winners puts the LPG sector at a distinct disadvantage.
This tax leap from zero to 12.5c per litre over five years will trap around 700,000 motorists, including families who can ill afford it—yet another Gillard government tax slug. It will also affect the fleet of small business operators and, notably, 70,000-plus taxis. The tax will be the death knell for the $300 million LPG conversion industry and its 2,500 employees, who have been hung out to dry by this government.
Labor's craving for new taxes is akin to that of a junkie looking for their next hit. What will Labor tax next? All this is on top of the all-pervasive carbon tax and the hikes it will impose on the cost of everything. At a time when Holden and Ford are releasing new Australian-built LPG vehicles, Labor has taxed the fuel. What of their green car plan? The logic and policy inconsistency shown by this government is simply beyond belief. The bill is a bizarre, counterintuitive twist from a government that claims the moral high ground on environmental matters. LPG is a cleaner alternative fuel. The Gillard government is now penalising the very drivers it should be rewarding. It likes to parade its environmental credentials but it is actually damaging the industries that could help reduce our CO2 emissions.
Finally, I would like to say something about the further development of the biofuels industry. The lack of consumer information on biofuels and the residual effects of the ALP campaign against biofuels use continues to lead to uncertainty amongst consumers about the benefits and safety of biofuels. Research on second-generation biofuels, such as ethanol from cellulose and biodiesel from algae, is lacking. Similarly, research is needed on optimisation of agricultural feedstocks and car-manufacturing innovation. What is needed is a support package comprising measures such as a consumer information campaign, guaranteed warranty cover for all Australian manufacturers of cars using E10 and research and support for the development of second-generation biofuels, including agricultural research.
There are many exciting opportunities available. Industry is now making important investment decisions which will underpin the further development of Australian biofuels. I commend Holden, on the launch last year of their E85 Commodore, and Caltex, for rolling out E85 outlets in capital cities and regions. Holden and Caltex, with other partners, are looking to establish a plant in Victoria to generate 200 million litres of ethanol a year from waste. Ford has focused on the LPG market and developed a new generation LPG engine which markedly improves engine efficiency. Toyota, of course, has gone down the hybrid route.
Only last week the CSIRO reported that Australia could cut jet fuel imports by $2 billion a year and reduce aviation carbon emissions by 17 per cent. But Australian research has only been laboratory scale to date, according to the CSIRO. These companies and research bodies deserve support within the framework designed to secure Australia's energy future. The government promised us an energy paper by 2009. Two years after this deadline, we are yet to see even a draft. The opposition will support the 10-year moratorium on excise on biofuels and methanol, even though the biofuels industry itself accepts that it will need to accommodate some excise in the future. The industry is entitled to 10 years of certainty to secure its future, and the opposition will provide that certainty.
But the opposition will not support the different treatment of different alternative fuels, as the government proposes. The opposition will not support the government's new excise on LPG, LCG and LNG, which will unfairly discriminate against public transport users, taxi users and motorists, who have invested in good faith in a clean fuel.
For a government that likes to pride itself on, and argue in the media about, its environmental credentials and that wants to impose new taxes to reduce CO2 emissions and to be a world leader in addressing climate change, this bill is incredible—a bill that will impose a tax on some of fuels that could in fact make a real difference.
I have mixed feelings about the government's package of bills regarding alternative and cleaner fuels: the Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, the Excise Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011, the Customs Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011 and the Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill 2011. While I do regard the government's proposal regarding ethanol as wholly desirable, the move to put a 12½c per litre tax on auto LPG is deeply troubling.
Tasmania is the best place in Australia to live—as I am sure, Mr Deputy Speaker Adams, you are well aware—in part due to its isolation and small population. But this isolation and small population means we regularly pay more for basic everyday items such as groceries, electricity and fuel, even though the state's population earns less on average than people elsewhere in Australia. While shipping costs are often given as the reason for price discrepancies on our side of Bass Strait, the price hike at the Tasmanian cash register often reflects much more than the cost of transport, as is the case with LPG, where the industry is much less mature and thinner on the ground than on the mainland.
That is why I simply cannot support the proposed excise on LPG in the government's alternative and cleaner fuels package. Quite simply, this tax will have a patently disproportional effect on Tasmania, to the extent that I am very concerned that the market in Tasmania for LPG could collapse altogether.
The effect on the taxi industry in my electorate, in particular, would be catastrophic. Many of the vehicles use LPG—as they do on the mainland in the taxi industry—and the excise will surely mean that the state government, already guilty of flogging off too many taxi licences every time it needs more cash, will be pressured to approve fare increases. Moreover, taxi drivers in my electorate already work ridiculously long hours and take home a pittance—often just $5 or $6 an hour—so this excise can only make things worse for them. I simply cannot, in all conscience, come into this place and support a tax that will reduce their meagre income even more. Then of course there are the customers who are already struggling with the rising cost of living. Remember that many people who rely on taxis are elderly, disabled or infirm, and they are the last people who can afford 12½c a litre being added to their taxi's fuel bill.
Nor am I convinced that the proposed LPG excise makes sense nationally. Remember that successive federal governments have offered subsidies to encourage people to convert their vehicles to gas because LPG is an environmentally friendly, reliable and cost-effective alternative to petrol. I well understand why people who thought they were doing the right thing by the environment and their household budgets and who took advantage of the subsidies feel duped at the prospect of this tax on LPG. It is a pity that the government does not understand. Nor does the government seem to recognise that vehicles powered by LPG emit up to 13 per cent less carbon than petrol-powered vehicles. The proposed excise will add 12½c a litre to LPG and will push its price so close to petrol that it will scarcely be a viable alternative fuel.
In other words, LPG is a cleaner fuel and, for the life of me, I cannot see why we would slap a tax on it at a time when the country is on the verge of introducing a price on carbon. I trust that the government's muddled thinking on LPG does not forewarn of problems with its commendable move to put a price on carbon.
The government's proposal to put a tax on LPG makes no sense to me at all. For that reason I will not support the three separate bills to do with taxing LPG. In other words, I will not support the Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, the Customs Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011 and the Excise Tariff Amendment (Taxation of Alternative Fuels) Bill 2011.
I will, however, support the Energy Grants (Cleaner Fuels) Scheme Amendment Bill 2011, because ethanol is of great value as an alternative fuel and Australia should move quickly to produce and use as much of it as possible. As long as fuel crops are not produced at the expense of food production—and in Australia they do not need to be—we should better embrace ethanol, because it is so obviously cleaner and more sustainable than petrol or diesel.
I applaud my colleagues the members for Kennedy and New England for their passionate advocacy for ethanol, and I look forward to working with my colleagues, as well as the government and/or the opposition, to ensure much greater production and take-up of ethanol over the coming years.
In following the member for Denison and his remarks on LPG, let me highlight that what government members in this House will do when these bills—the Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 and cognate bills—come to a vote is knowingly vote to damage the LPG industry in Australia. Members opposite need to understand that. It is pure and simple. What we will have from senior ministers opposite is attempts to talk about what they say is their consistent policy. But what they will not talk about is the abject uncertainty they have created over so many months and the incompetent way in which they have come to the position they are in now. The previous speaker, the Leader of the National Party and the shadow minister on behalf of the coalition, just an hour or so earlier outlined very capably and in great detail the approach of the opposition to these four bills and our fundamental difference on three of those bills. In relation to those three, as I indicated, I wish to focus on LPG in particular.
When you look at the history of this issue, which they say they are interested in, you discover—
Mr Craig Thomson interjecting—
And I would urge the member opposite, who talks so often before he thinks, to listen and learn the history. You discover that those opposite, despite what they have said in the past, have at every step—for reasons which I am oblivious to—taken action to damage the LPG industry in Australia.
To illustrate that point, let me depart from these bills for just a second, which I know you will allow me to do, Mr Deputy Speaker. I look back to 2006–07. My friend the member for Gippsland will know this, being a fellow Victorian, because the LPG industry is very important in outer suburban and rural electorates in Victoria. In 2006 the Howard government introduced the LPG Autogas tank rebate—and I concede it would have had a more eloquent name that would have formed itself into a nice acronym. The Labor Party at the time did not say anything, but in the 2009 budget they took action to cut back that rebate. They did not promise before the 2007 election that they would cut the rebate back.
It is like Work Choices.
The member opposite did not say to his electors that, if he were elected, he would support a cutback in that rebate, but the Labor Party did that, without notice, in the 2009 budget. Then just at the start of this year, when they were searching for savings, one of the first things they chose was this same scheme, and they chose to cap it. At every point since their election, when given an opportunity they have quickly taken action to damage the LPG industry in Australia.
The other important point that is lost on those opposite is the policy context today. Those opposite are introducing a carbon tax, a carbon tax which—as has been made clear in many forums in this House—they pledged they would not introduce. But they are introducing one, against their word to the electorate. There is talk of how petrol will be treated in that carbon tax. The government has hinted—and Professor Garnaut in recent days has suggested—that in introducing a carbon tax the government would simultaneously cut the excise on petrol. Those opposite will not disagree with that. That has been what Professor Garnaut has said. I imagine that, in introducing their damaging carbon tax, that is what those opposite will argue.
But there is no mention at all of LPG. There is no mention because it is not on their minds, unless they have an opportunity to damage the industry. In this whole context of rising cost of living, of families facing a difficult time paying their bills—as so many previous speakers on this side of the House have indicated—it is important to acknowledge that many of those who have taken up LPG, who have taken up that grant to get their car converted, are low- and middle-income families. Before the grant was cut, many took it up to have their car fitted with an LPG system or to buy, as you can these days, a car with a factory-fitted LPG system.
Those opposite will knowingly in this House vote to put up the price of LPG. They will do so in a way that they know will make life tougher for LPG users. But what about the industry? This is an industry that has dealt with the unexpected cut in the tank rebate that those opposite never mentioned before the 2007 election. Remember the good old days? The member for Griffith was the Leader of the Labor Party in 2007 and they were going to reduce the pressure on cost of living. They were going to have GROCERYchoice and Fuelwatch. Their third promise was not to cut the rebate for the installation of LP gas tanks in cars, but they went ahead and did it anyway and, in doing so, showed their true colours. The combination of these actions by the government and the fact that they have now rushed ahead with this legislation solely as a revenue grab, and off the back of increasing the cost-of-living pressures on the families that use LPG in their vehicles, has been to spread incredible uncertainty within the industry itself.
The Leader of the Nationals talked about the 2½ thousand people who work in the industry, and there is no doubt that those workers in the industry will face a tougher time. Some of those workers will lose their jobs if this government gets its way. The member for Corio, sitting opposite, has workers in his electorate. In the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne there are significant LPG auto industries. It would be very hard to drive through any electorate if you cross Springvale Road, along those golden miles where the auto industry is so long, and not come across many industries.
The members for Deakin and La Trobe—Labor members who adjoin my electorate of Casey—need to know that in voting for this bill they will be voting directly against the interests of the workers in that industry in their electorates. The consequences that flow from this legislation will be their responsibility. This is a chance for some of those members opposite to show if they care about the working families they spoke about so often before the 2007 election and the last election and if they care about those working in industries like this. This is the chance to show they mean it.
But what we know over here is that, when given a choice between standing up for what is right and toeing the line for what they know in their heart is wrong, they will always choose the latter. The consequences of this legislation at this time, on the back of what the government is doing, for the reasons outlined by the Leader of the Nationals and the shadow minister, will be to put up the price of LPG, to make it harder for families, to put up taxi fares, as we said, but more than that—and I want to focus on this—to put in jeopardy some of those in the industry who are facing uncertain times through a combination of reasons. Some of those, as I have outlined, are the government's incompetence and the government's actions on LPG.
Those opposite will have a lot to say, but if they have any integrity they will stand up and say, 'Yes, we did break our word before the 2007 election, and we did cut back the rebate which we said we wouldn't do, and we fully understand what we are doing today.' But they will not. They can say what they want in this House, but I would ask them to do one thing in their electorates, and that is to visit some of the LP auto gas installers, talk to some of the workers and think about what it is they are doing—think about whether what they are doing on this bill is what they really came here to do.
In speaking to the Taxation of Alternative Fuels Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 and cognate bills I start with a quote. It says:
The reforms will establish a fairer and more transparent fuel excise system with improved competitive neutrality between fuels. They will provide the opportunity for currently untaxed fuels to establish their commercial credentials in the market place.
Who would have said that?
Someone from outside parliament.
Yes, it was. It was in fact the former Treasurer, the former member for Higgins, who said that in 2003, supporting these pieces of legislation in pretty much their current form, except at that stage the then government was not prepared to give the tax breaks that these bills do to ethanol. We had from the previous government a position that is identical, except for us being more generous in our treatment of ethanol, to what is now proposed. What has changed since then is the Leader of the Opposition. We now have a Leader of the Opposition who has no interest in what is good for this country, has no interest in what is good public policy and whose automatic reaction to any legislation that we put up is no. What we have here is the ridiculous situation that he is opposing the coalition's own policies on these bills. It is not some Labor developed policy that we have suddenly decided that we need to put in place. This is something that your side announced in 2003, something that your side said it was going to do. We have the ridiculous position that the Leader of the Opposition is opposed to his own policies. The House must find that absolutely extraordinary. The Leader of the Opposition is opposed to the opposition's own policy positions. The only reason he is opposed to them is that we have introduced them. How can he ever come into this place and say that he has the interests of Australia at heart when he takes a position like that? How can he ever, on any issue, come in here and say, 'I'm in here to try and better the lot of Australians,' when he takes a position of opposing his own policies? It is an absolutely farcical situation that we find ourselves in. We on this side are absolutely stunned that these are the tactics that those on the other side have employed. We have got used to the negativity that we see from the Leader of the Opposition, but this is in another realm entirely. To oppose your own policy position because the Labor Party brought it into parliament I think must be a first in any Western democracy.
These are important bits of legislation for the reasons that the former Treasurer, Mr Costello, gave when he was the member for Higgins. Of course, it was not just the member for Higgins who had that view, either. The former member for Bennelong said that the reforms 'will result in a more consistent and neutral tax regime for fuels used in vehicles'. So the former Prime Minister and former member for Bennelong in December 2003 also supported these bills. The Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Mr Anderson, said that these bills 'emphasise the importance of investment certainty'. Can I say it is a very rare day that you find anyone on this side quoting the former Prime Minister, the former Treasurer and the former Deputy Prime Minister and saying they were right, but this is one of those days. The reason they were right was that those policies were in the national interest, and that is why we are prosecuting these bills. They are in the national interest. We have an incredible situation of those on the other side opposing their own policy position, which is just unbelievable.
Mr Stephen Jones interjecting—
As my good friend and colleague the member for Throsby points out, it is because, in the absence of any policy position on the other side, rather than be consistent with their own position in the past they would rather say no. They say, 'Look, we actually don't have any policies other than opposing everything the government puts forward.' That is where we are today. We have a very sorry opposition who have no position other than 'no'. They expect that they can lead this country on a negative position without a policy. It is an unbelievable situation that we are in.
These three bills, which are the ones that those on the other side have decided to oppose even though it is their own policy to support them, do not apply to liquid petroleum gas, compressed natural gas or liquid natural gas. These fuels were not previously subject to excise. These bills will now apply a 50 per cent excise, which is 50 per cent lower than that which applies to petrol. We have seen some incredible claims coming from those on the other side in relation to this, and one of them was that the opposition are opposing these bills because they are environmentally more sound in what they want to do. They say this will encourage people to use petrol. There is a 50 per cent discount on what applies to petrol, and the emissions that come from LPG are only 13 per cent less than those of petrol. So they are getting a 50 per cent discount for emissions that are 13 per cent less.
Not a bad deal.
That is not a bad deal. That is not a bad situation to be in. You only make 13 per cent less in emissions but you get a 50 per cent discount. Those opposite say that their opposition to this in some way means their green credentials are better, when we know that they do not believe in climate change. They do not have any rational position in relation to making sure that carbon is dealt with properly. They instead want to tax ordinary Australians, costing billions of dollars, and pay the polluters.
The Garnaut report the other day really did bell the cat in terms of the difference between the government's position on climate change and the opposition's. It was clear from the Garnaut report that the proposal from this side of the House is for a low-cost, sensible way of dealing with climate change—one that compensates households, as opposed to the one from the other side that attacks households and compensates big business and polluters. If anyone on that side says that their negativity in relation to these bills is about their green credentials, it just does not stack up against anything else that comes from the opposition. Instead, what we are faced with from those on the other side is a policy vacuum. They have taken the position they have on this bill because it is their standard line. Their standard line is: 'We oppose anything that the government puts up, even if it's our own. We're going to oppose it anyway.' We have this absolutely unbelievable position.
I had the pleasure of chairing the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics inquiry that looked into, investigated and reported on these bills. We received a large degree of evidence on the effects that the bills would have and the way they should be dealt with. In some senses, I am in an ideal position to make some comments about this. I know I will have to save those comments for another time.
Debate interrupted.
I wish to make a statement on the threat to the Centrelink service in the town of Maclean in my electorate. It appears that the federal government is intent on treating Maclean residents as second-class citizens. Until recently, the people of Maclean were able to call on the services of two Centrelink staff at an office in the town every weekday morning. These staff were able to offer a full service, including the handling of new claims. Now the level of service has been reduced and the staff are only able to help customers into online self-help options.
My office has been advised that the present staff will be withdrawn as soon as premises can be found to house an unmanned Centrelink access point. All personal contact in Maclean will then cease. The reason for this appears to be that Centrelink has opened a new office in Yamba. That is all well and good for Yamba, but for Maclean residents it is simply not good enough. Maclean residents will now have to travel to Yamba or Grafton to receive the same level of service. I believe the Minister for Human Services and Centrelink have treated this issue very insensitively.
Centrelink recently wrote to recipients advising that a new customer service office had been opened in Yamba, saying: 'This change will not affect the normal Centrelink services we provide.' This is not true for Maclean residents, because they will now have to travel to Yamba or Grafton. The minister has also demonstrated a lack of understanding on this issue. For more than three weeks, Centrelink management have been waiting for the minister to sign off on a formal briefing for me with regard to details of the changes. This is completely unsatisfactory and highlights the contempt this government has for the residents of Maclean. I call on the minister and Centrelink to reconsider their actions and restore the previous level of service to the residents of Maclean.
I present to the House a petition sent to me by Animals Australia on behalf of 40,650 Australians who are calling for an end to live animal exports to the Middle East. These 40,650 signatures are part of more than 300,000 signatures gathered by animal welfare groups across the country even before this week's shocking report on ABC's Four Corners program, which exposed the torture and brutal treatment inflicted on Australian cattle in Indonesian abattoirs.
As I said in this House on Monday in my contribution to the grievance debate, the way to protect animals from the unacceptable cruelty depicted in Four Corners is to have an immediate cessation of cattle exports to Indonesia until all the 120 or so slaughterhouses processing Australian cattle have been independently shown to comply with appropriate standards. I note that the response of the Howard government to revelations of animal cruelty in abattoirs in Egypt, five years ago, was to immediately ban the trade. That ban was in place for three years and cattle export from Australia has only resumed to one internationally controlled abattoir in Egypt.
The repeated failures of the live export industry, as represented by LiveCorp and Meat and Livestock Australia, and the overwhelming public reaction to the cruelties inherent in live export mean that the sentiments expressed in this petition need to be taken seriously. It is time for Australia to begin planning the transition out of live export and towards an expanded chilled meat industry with all of the economic, employment and animal welfare benefits this would bring.
The petition read as follows—
To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition of undersigned citizens of Australia calls on the Australian Government to end the export of live animals from Australia to the Middle East.
We the undersigned therefore call on the House of Representatives to ensure that the Australian government ends this trade and, in doing, restore Australia's reputation as a compassionate and ethical nation.
from 40,649 citizens
Petition received.
I pay respect to and honour Plain Clothes Senior Constable Damian Leeding. We are all saddened, sickened and angry at the senseless killing of Damian. A wife and two young children have been robbed of a loving husband and a doting dad, and a community has been robbed of a fine police officer. I address my remarks by way of an open letter to Hudson and Grace Leeding:
Dear Hudson and Grace
Long before you can read this and the many other words that have been written about your dad, you will already know that he was a great man. Many people will tell you stories about your dad: the brave, determined and fearless policeman. They will tell you stories about how in his heart he wanted to protect the good people from the bad, and to make our community a safer place—most importantly safer for you. And they will tell you stories about how loyal he was to his police mates. When you get to know your dad's old mates and see the support they have provided to you and your mum you will understand that these qualities are shared by all policemen and women.
The most important story though will come from your mum and your loving family. Mum will remind you of your dad's unconditional love for you, and share with you special stories. It probably will not be until you are parents that you truly understand how much your dad loved you and how proud he was of your every expression and movement. As I write this letter the devastation, tears and realisation of loss are felt by all in our community, but of course especially by your mum and all who loved your dad. Take care of your mum, because she is made of the same stuff as your dad.
Let me close by saying, our only small offering is that we are grateful for the sacrifice your dad has made, and the sacrifice your mum and many other police officers make every day.
We on this side of the House obviously endorse the comments made by the member for Dickson.
I rise to bring to the House's attention and congratulate two members of my electorate of Bass, Nick Milner and Scott Claridge, who won bronze at the beginning of May at the Australian Boccia Championships in Sydney. Scott and Nick are part of a small group of Launceston wheelchair dependent people who train weekly as part of the New Horizons Club's sport and recreation program. The New Horizons Club provides sport and recreation for people with a disability, and I would like to take this opportunity to recognise publicly the work, commitment and support that they provide to those with a disability in the northern Tasmania area.
The sport of boccia has been adapted from the Italian game of bocce to the needs of athletes with cerebral palsy, and is a game of strategy and strict rules. I congratulate Scott, Nick and the boccia team coach, Jo O'May, for their hard work, passion and commitment. Winning two bronze medals is a wonderful achievement and I am sure that Nick and Scott are very proud of their achievements. Again, well done!
I congratulate St Vincent de Paul on their now annual Vinnies CEO Sleepout. The CEO sleep-out, which takes place on Thursday, 16 June, is an event that is designed to raise awareness of homelessness in our society, while at the same time raising much-needed money. Last year the CEO sleep-out raised $2.9 million nationally for people affected by homelessness. This money is vital to help St Vinnies provide crisis accommodation for women and children escaping domestic violence, hostels for men, soup vans, access to medical care and so much more.
Sadly the issue of homelessness is not an issue that is new to me. My husband, Jon, has been a director of the Big Issue for over seven years helping, with so many others, homeless people to get a hand up, not a handout through the selling of the Big Issue street magazine. As the federal member for Higgins, I know that there are many people in my community who are affected. The causes of homelessness are varied. Often drug abuse and mental health problems play a part or there can be a need to escape domestic violence. People without homes are either estranged from their families or have no family to look after them.
I am pleased to be involved in this year's CEO sleep-out, which challenges business and community leaders to experience homelessness firsthand for one night. I will be joined by a number of my constituents who also feel strongly about this issue. Of course, when I do the sleep-out I am doing it for one night in one year. According to the last census there are more than 50,000 people throughout Australia who have to do it every night. And of course the true homeless figure is almost impossible to verify.
I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate Warilla High School, which is located in my electorate of Throsby, for winning the 2010 Cohesive Community School Award. This award is open to all New South Wales schools and recognises schools that have implemented initiatives and programs to promote social harmony and unity. Warilla High School has built strong links to the community through engagement with organisations like St Vincent de Paul and the local Lions Club as well as Shellharbour City Council, local sporting clubs and primary schools in the area. These enhanced community connections are delivering results for the students of Warilla High and for their local community.
Most importantly, the programs and initiatives at Warilla High School have led to improved outcomes for students such as an improvement in student behaviour, an increase in work experience opportunities and one of the lowest student absenteeism rates in the region. Like many government schools with a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, the principal and teachers at Warilla High School manage many teaching and social challenges with a minimum of resources.
I would also like to make mention of Cringila Public School, which was one of nine New South Wales schools to receive a special commendation. I congratulate the students for their efforts and the teaching staff of both schools for these achievements and for their positive work as part of the local community, working together to help young people reach their full potential.
Today, we hope, will be the first day in the rest of a prosperous and environmentally sustainable life for the Murray-Darling Basin. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia has this morning tabled its report on the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's guide to the Basin Plan, which includes future sustainable water diversion limits from their perspective. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority's guide to the plan was met with furore and despair when irrigators heard that water was to be found through non-strategic buybacks via the market and that was the only way that water was to be found. This—non-strategic buybacks—has already caused significant damage through stranded assets and distorted prices. The CSIRO and other scientific and state agencies were equally concerned with the plan, which they said did not use best science or use it in appropriate ways.
The committee has identified a pathway forward which will make use of best science, will cooperate with the states, the catchment management authorities, local agencies and local stakeholders and will no longer discriminate between users of water based on whether they are in mining or in towns and cities or on farms. We have found a way forward which is sustainable and which will deliver a triple bottom line. One of the key elements of our recommendations is no more non-strategic buybacks starting as of next week. We hope that the government, as it is already showing, will seriously consider these recommendations and make sure they are implemented in full as soon as possible.
On Sunday I had the privilege of attending the opening of Springfield's new parklands, called Robelle Domain, located in the eastern suburbs of Ipswich. Five hundred jobs were created. Present at the opening were the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, Wayne Swan, the Hon. Anna Bligh, the Premier of Queensland, the Mayor of Ipswich, Paul Pisasale, the federal member for Oxley, Bernie Ripoll, and me.
This $30 million project was made possible by the federal Labor government's $10 million initiative under the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. There are water features, a walk through the trees, aquatic recreational facilities and many other facilities. It is four times the size of the parklands at Southbank. It is named after Bob Sharpless, a director and shareholder in the Springfield Land Corporation, and his wife, Belinda, who supported him through this initiative.
This is a perfect example of the federal Labor government, the state Labor government and the City of Ipswich working together to enhance facilities for recreation right across South-East Queensland. The point I want to make is that there were 500 jobs created. I want everyone in South-East Queensland to know that the LNP voted against this initiative. They voted against the funding in this initiative, and every time people go to the parklands they should remember that it was only Labor representatives here who supported this initiative. It was only Labor representatives who voted for the funding for this initiative. Those opposite opposed nation building and community building in the whole western corridor in the federal electorates of Oxley and Blair. (Time expired)
I thank the member for Dickson for his earlier words. It is with great sadness I rise today in this House to offer my condolences to the family of Senior Constable Damian Leeding, who passed away yesterday afternoon. Senior Constable Leeding was shot at point blank range on Sunday night whilst trying to foil an armed robbery at Pacific Pines. This is a graphic example of the many dangers that our police officers face on a daily basis and I would like to use this opportunity to thank our police officers for their professionalism, dedication and hard work.
Senior Constable Leeding was a highly respected and dedicated officer, and a great father. He was always willing to help in the community. The police union have launched a benefit fund for Senior Constable Leeding's widow and children, and donations can be made at Queensland Police Credit Union and Westpac branches. I offer my condolences to those he has left behind—his wife, Sonya, a fellow police officer, his daughter, Grace, his son, Hudson, and the rest of his extended family.
Last week the Blacktown City Council presented the Blacktown Fiesta, which was held across my electorate of Greenway and that of Chifley. This year's theme was 'embracing the community'. The Blacktown Fiesta provides the greatest opportunity to celebrate our vital cultural identity with an amazing array of events giving our local community entertaining and unique opportunities to experience extraordinary cultural performances from Australia and the world.
On show this year was the strong multicultural landscape and youthful experiences of Western Sydney. On Saturday I attended the highlight of the Blacktown Fiesta, the Streets Alive and Parade Day. It featured over 300 street stalls, performance stages, gourmet food stalls and plenty of ongoing attractions. A variety of cultural and community groups took part in the parade, including Filipino, Sikh and Hindu—all of whom are valuable contributors to my electorate.
Events such as the Blacktown Fiesta remind us of how strong our local community is. While there were a number of highly entertaining displays during the festival, including performances by Justice Crew and Hi-5, the most revealing was the display of local community spirit on show. We—the member for Chifley and I—proudly display our 'I love Blacktown' T-shirts and scarves wherever possible because we appreciate how privileged we are to represent the great residents of Blacktown in this place.
Order of the day returned from Main Committee for further consideration; certified copy of the motion presented.
Ordered that the order of the day be considered immediately.
The question is that the motion be agreed to. I ask all honourable members to signify their approval by rising in their places.
Question agreed to, honourable members standing in their places.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the risks to Kakadu National Park from climate change? Why did the Hawke government act in the face of a scare campaign and why is it important for the government to continue to act on climate change?
I thank the member for La Trobe for her question. I know how keen she is to see us protect our environment and to see us have a clean energy economy for the future. And I think the Hansardshould record that her question about Kakadu National Park was met with jeers from the opposition, including, 'Who cares!'—who cares about Kakadu National Park. In this parliament, let me tell you who cares: the Australian people do. That is why, 20 years ago, Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke determined to add to the protections of Kakadu National Park, to add to the area of the park and to protect it from mining—a brave decision 20 years ago. That decision 20 years ago was trenchantly opposed by the opposition—by the Liberal Party and by the National Party. And, Mr Speaker, in words you might find eerily familiar, they were saying that they had to oppose this move by Prime Minister Bob Hawke because, unless they did so, the mining industry in this country would be dead. Those words are ringing in my ears: the mining industry in this country would be dead. They had to act to stop Bob Hawke protecting Kakadu because it would kill the mining industry. To use the words of the former opposition leader Alexander Downer, he went so far as to say, 'The decision'—believe it or not I am quoting this—'will do Australia irreparable damage in the mainstream of the capitalist world.' That is what protecting Kakadu National Park was going to do. It generated huge headlines: 'Coronation Hill to make or break the mining industry'.
Well, with the benefit of 20 years, let us just reflect on how accurate this fear campaign was. Let us just go through it. Are we damaged in the mainstream of the capitalist world because we protected Kakadu? I do not think so. Is the mining industry dead in this country because we protected Kakadu, with the most recent official figures saying there is more than $400 billion of investment in the pipeline? Here we stand 20 years later and here in my hands is a report about what could happen to Kakadu as a result of climate change. This is telling us that saltwater intrusion into Kakadu would change its ecology, would damage its tourism potential because you would not be able to get to all areas in parts of the year, would cut down on the amount of bush tucker that was available for Indigenous people and would also cut down on the tourism enterprises that they participate in. Twenty years later and here is this report on climate change and Kakadu.
As we go about addressing climate change, what do we hear again from the opposition? 'It is going to kill the mining industry. It is going to stop the Australian economy. It is going to stop jobs,' and so on and so forth. Twenty years gives you a bit of a perspective—a stupid scare campaign then and of course this is a stupid scare campaign now. In 20 years time people will look back on this Leader of the Opposition and those who sit behind him with the absolute wonderment and sense of disgust with which we look back now on the people who opposed protecting Kakadu.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister received any representations from the members for Corio and Corangamite about the impacts of a carbon tax on the 1,300 jobs at Ford in Geelong?
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I can certainly tell him this: the member for Corangamite and the Corio are constantly talking to me about Ford in Geelong. They talked to me during the days of the global financial crisis.
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! The Prime Minister will resume her seat. The Prime Minister has the call and the Prime Minister will be heard in silence. The Prime Minister.
They talked to me during the days of the global financial crisis, when it was unbelievably pressing as to whether or not we would be able to save Australian jobs and to hold manufacturing in this country, particularly the manufacturing of cars. We could see what was happening around the world and we could see particularly what has happening in the United States, and both the members for Corio and Corangamite made representations to government about working with Ford and working with the car industry to protect Australian jobs. The Leader of the Opposition slept through all of the divisions on the enabling legislation to protect those jobs, so he did not care about it then. He was asleep—literally asleep—whilst we were protecting those Australian jobs.
The members for Corio and Corangamite have talked to me in the past about Work Choices.
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The Prime Minister was asked a very straightforward question about whether she had received representations about the carbon tax from those two members. She is specifically not answering that question.
The member for Sturt will resume his seat. The Prime Minister is aware of the obligations to directly relate her response to the question. She has the call. The Prime Minister.
As I was saying, yes, the members do represent the interests of Ford and its workforce in this place. They represented it during the days of Work Choices when of course the Leader of the Opposition was out there defending pay cuts and out there defending people getting sacked unfairly, getting sacked for no reason at all. In those days the members for Corangamite and Corio were representing their community and fighting to get rid of Work Choices as the Leader of the Opposition fought to keep it. Of course, in this period of government, the members for Corangamite and Corio have raised with me a series of issues about Ford, including issues involving skills development at Ford. They have raised with me issues about manufacturing and the pressures from the strong Australian dollar. They have of course raised with me issues about climate change. And, for example, the Climate Commission has gone to Geelong. My recollection is that its first public meeting was in Geelong. The Climate Commission is out there talking to people about how we can address climate change. Of course the local members have been involved in all of these processes.
What I can say to the Leader of the Opposition is that those local members are doing what positive local members with a vision for the country do—that is, as we go about big policy changes like pricing carbon, they represent the interests of their constituents in those changes, the interests of their constituents in making sure we do the right thing to protect the environment, the interests of their constituents in making sure we cut carbon pollution and the interests of their constituents in making sure we act to protect Australian jobs, including jobs in manufacturing cars, as we make the transition to a clean energy future. But you can only properly represent your constituents if you come into this place with an idea and you pursue it. You can never represent the issues of your constituents or the nation properly if all you think leadership is is saying no.
Mr Speaker—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The honourable member for Corangamite has the call and he will be heard in silence.
My question is to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Will the minister outline the government's plan to introduce a price on carbon so Australia can move forward to a clean energy future at the least cost to our economy while providing generous support for households? How has this plan been received, and what is the government's response?
I do thank the member for Corangamite because he knows an awful lot more about representing working people than the Leader of the Opposition. I bet the Leader of the Opposition fought hard in the Howard cabinet against Work Choices!
Opposition members interjecting—
The House will come to order! Not all members are involved in the mayhem, and on behalf of those members I think the others should sit quietly so that the proceedings can actually be heard. The minister has the call; he should be heard in silence.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. This morning, 13 of Australia's most prominent economists, including the former Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank and a number of financial market economists, came out strongly in support of a carbon price. In an open letter, the economists declared that a price on carbon pollution is 'a necessary and desirable structural reform of the Australian economy'. Westpac's Chief Economist, Bill Evans, who was a signatory to the letter, had this to say:
The move to more efficient, cleaner energy through a well designed market mechanism to price carbon is a major and desirable structural and economic reform which will help Australia competitively position in a global low carbon economy.
These are important and well-respected economists who are expressing what really should be obvious common economic sense. It is astonishing that this is a contested issue in national politics. The government is of course committed to taking action on climate change by introducing a carbon price, and we have made clear that more than half the revenue from the carbon price will be used to assist households—in particular, low- and middle-income households—with any price impacts they may face. As the Prime Minister has indicated, one option for delivering that household assistance is to provide tax cuts and increased payments to pensioners and others. Of course last night the Nationals Senate leader, Senator Joyce, confirmed that a coalition government would repeal any tax cuts, pension increases and household assistance measures provided under the carbon price. This is what Senator Joyce had to say:
... of course we've said from the outset that we would not introduce a tax and we'll repeal it if it comes in, and of course if you're repealing the tax, you're repealing the mechanisms that go with it.
Clear and unequivocal—Senator Joyce has confirmed that the coalition would in effect impose a double whammy on pensioners, on families and on ordinary householders. Firstly it would scrap the tax cuts, increases in the pension and increases in family payments introduced by the government, and secondly it would increase taxes by up to $720 a household—
Mrs Bronwyn Bishop interjecting—
The member for Mackellar!
Mrs Bronwyn Bishop interjecting—
The member for Mackellar is warned.
to raise the money that it needs for its subsidies-for-polluters policy, which of course will pay billions of taxpayers' funds to the largest polluters in our economy. We have had today a range of expert economists from major banks, think tanks, universities and the financial services sector all backing the government's plan to price carbon. But the opposition have not been able to find one credible economist, not one at all, to back their subsidies-for-polluters policy. Their policy has no credibility whatsoever; it will simply impose a massive burden on Australian households.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister received any representations from the members for Throsby and Cunningham about the impact of a carbon tax on the 7,000 jobs at BlueScope Steel and Illawarra Coal?
Members across the government raise with me all the time issues of interest to their constituents. You would expect that, and it occurs. But because it is the Leader of the Opposition who is asking the question we all know where this is going. He is going to keep pursuing his scare campaign about people's jobs. It is absolutely irresponsible of the Leader of the Opposition to keep pursuing this kind of scare campaign. Here he is today pursuing it again, trying to personalise it to individual electorates, but it is the same scare campaign.
I understand that as the Leader of the Opposition pursues his scare campaign he is making people anxious. I would say to those people who have heard his words and who have become anxious from those words: remember the scare campaigns past that came to nothing. I have pointed out one today about Kakadu—a scare campaign by the Liberal and National parties that came to nothing. I was in this parliament as the shadow minister responsible for our workplace relations campaigning during the days of Work Choices. Day after day they came into this place, including the Leader of the Opposition, saying that if one word of the Work Choices act were changed—just one word—then jobs in this country would go backwards, there would be more unemployment, growth would go backwards, we would end the mining industry and there would be no more investment. Let us look at the track record compared with those words.
Mr Speaker, a point of order that goes to relevance: surely this cannot be related to the question she was asked.
The standing orders require the Prime Minister to directly relate her response to the question. She should keep that in mind.
The track record of that Work Choices scare campaign is now before all of us: 750,000 jobs created during a global financial crisis, half a million more to be created in the next two years and a boom in mining. Of course local members raise with me the situation of the steel industry. If the Leader of the Opposition was trying to tell anything like the truth, he would know that the truth for the Australian steel industry is that it is under pressure because of the high Australian dollar. The steel industry recorded losses last year and is looking at recording losses this year.
Mr Pyne interjecting—
The member for Sturt is warned.
This is because of circumstances for the industry. The Leader of the Opposition cannot say that financial results from last year were somehow impacted by the government's plans to price carbon. Yes, it is a tough time in steel; yes, businesses have been losing money; yes, of course there is pressure from the high Australian dollar; and, yes, I listen to the views of the local members who represent the steel industry in this place when we talk about how we can support the steel industry.
I also say to the Leader of the Opposition that his gross irresponsibility is to pretend that those real issues for steel are something to do with carbon pricing. It is actually contemptuous of the workers in steel and contemptuous of the Australian steel industry. I am sure that the people who represent steel in this place will be going back to their electorates to make that perfectly clear. He could not care less; it is just fodder for his fear campaign.
Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister prepared to visit the workers at BlueScope Steel to talk about a carbon tax, as I have? Is she prepared to visit the workers at Geelong to talk about a carbon tax, as I have? And is she prepared to visit the workers at OneSteel at Laverton—in her own electorate—to talk about the carbon tax, as I have?
Mr Fletcher interjecting—
Mr Melham interjecting—
Order! The member for Banks and the member for Bradfield might end up having a cup of tea outside. We might have to sell tickets for that one. The House will come to order.
I will continue to do what I have done every day I have been in this parliament, which is to visit workplaces and to talk to working people. The difference between me and the Leader of the Opposition is that I have always viewed it as an obligation and a responsibility as a Labor Party member—as someone who wants to represent the interests of working people in this place—to visit workplaces and to talk to working people about their concerns. The Leader of the Opposition never discovered a working person until he thought they would be good for picture opportunities for his fear campaign.
Mr Tony Smith interjecting—
The member for Casey is warned.
When he moves on, in the future, beyond this fear campaign after we price carbon, we will never see him with another working person again.
Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—
The member for Herbert is warned.
I do not remember seeing him with too many working people when he was rejoicing in their pay being cut under Work Choices. I do not remember seeing him with too many working people when he said it was fair that they could be dismissed for no reason at all. I do not remember seeing him with too many working people when we were doing everything we could to save Australian jobs.
Mr Christensen interjecting—
Mr Danby interjecting—
The member for Dawson and the member for Melbourne Ports are warned.
He was so lacking in interest about saving Australian jobs that he slept through the critical piece of legislation to get the money into the economy to save their jobs. The only time the Leader of the Opposition has ever shown the slightest interest in the fortunes of working people was when he thought it would be in his political interest. This is so transparent it is painful. This is a man who has never cared about job security—a man who advocated workers getting dismissed unfairly, a man who cared so little about their jobs that he slept through the divisions to support their jobs during the global financial crisis, a man who never cared at all about working people—now trying to pretend he is the battler's friend. Give me a break.
My question is to the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government. In light of the government's decision to fund a metropolitan Perth transport project from the Regional Infrastructure Fund, will the minister rule metropolitan cities out of receiving funds for projects under the Regional Development Australia Fund due to be announced in July this year? If not, will the Minister remove the word 'regional' from this program's name, given that it is equally accessible to applicants from metropolitan areas?
I thank the honourable member for his question. The simple answer is: no, I will not rule out the capitals. I will tell you the reason. The member has asked a very valid question about Perth Airport. What they have to understand, if they are serious about developing regions, is the importance of the linkage to the capital. They need to understand that Perth Airport is fundamental to the economic development of the West. It was the WA government that nominated Perth Airport for the Infrastructure Australia Fund. We have a funding partnership with the government of WA to address that point.
But just think of the regions that are around here. If we are really going to diversify the economic base—and I believe that is what this budget is all about: a patchwork economy in transition, with the patches being the regions—we have to understand there is no point urging regions to diversify their economic base, whether it is adding value to food, the mining and resource sector or the renewable energy sector and all of the things that go with it, if you cannot get the distribution change right. If what we want is to get diversification to compete on a global market, we have to get efficiency through the key hubs, and a lot of those hubs happen to be capital cities.
So I urge the member, when he looks at the question of regional development—and this is the discussion we are having with the WA government—
An opposition member: What about something for Circular Quay?
I will come to that in a minute. When we look at the question of the development of the partnership with the WA government, in the state from which the member for O'Connor comes, and the discussions I have had with Brendan Grylls about place based approaches, we clearly understand the importance of those connections to the capital hubs as well as the key regional hubs. It is for that reason that I will not rule metropolitan cities out of receiving funds for projects under the Regional Development Australia Fund. We have made the key point that our focus is going to be on better opportunity for the regions so that they can make their patches work better.
As for the interjections that come from the other side about funding something at Circular Quay, I will remind the House that, when they were in office running their regional rorts program, they even funded the lifesaving club in Bondi for the then member for Wentworth. If you call that regional development, you have to be kidding yourself.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth. Would the minister inform the House of the importance of scientific evidence in the climate change debate? How has this evidence been received and what is the government's response?
I thank the member for Banks for his question. We do accept that there is an important role that scientists play in informing the Australian community and policymakers about the right kinds of decisions that need to be made in this parliament to deal with dangerous climate change. We recognise that we have a great scientific tradition in this country. We have had great scientists like Professor McFarlane Burnet or Peter Doherty, who won the Nobel Prize. They themselves are evidence for us of the contribution that scientists can make. We also know that in our electorates, for example at the University of New South Wales in my electorate of Kingsford Smith, there are scientists who provide us with researched and considered policy advice about what we ought to be doing as a country to deal with the very great challenges we face.
Today in parliament I was very pleased to give the blazers to 23 of our youngest best and brightest—the young Australian Maths and Science Olympiad team. They are going to compete against the best and brightest around the world. They will be the scientists of the future who will help us to deal with the challenges of the future.
It was with some alarm that I read the reports in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald of remarks by Dr Peter Phelps, a whip in the Liberal government of New South Wales, about scientists. I say this because I think that we are at a junction point where, if the parliament does not express its confidence in the work that scientists do and the role that they play, in the public arena that confidence can be reduced. Dr Phelps got to his feet and said:
I comment in this place on the latest adventures in the great global warming swindle that is gripping our nation and most of the formerly civilised world.
He went on to say:
At the heart of many scientists … lies the heart of a totalitarian planner. One can see them now, beavering away, alone, unknown in their laboratories.
Regrettably, he then went on to associate the work that these scientists do with the rise of Nazism. This is the most serious and rancid charge that can be brought by anyone in a house of parliament in this country. I do note that the government whip we are referring to has associations with members in this House. This is someone who has worked as an adviser for the member for Mackellar, worked as an adviser for Senator Ronaldson and was the chief of staff, as it were, for the former member for Eden-Monaro.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The minister has absolutely no responsibility for any of the matters about which he is talking—none at all. They are about a different jurisdiction and another parliament, and I would ask you to direct him to try to be somehow relevant and not just slag off the opposition.
On the first point, the minister is the Minister representing the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.
In the national parliament.
The member for Dunkley is very lucky, but now he is warned, and I do remind people that, while I am not inclined to it, a warning is a precursor to naming. On the further matters raised in the point of order, again this is one of those carefully crafted questions that do have me tensing a bit. But it did say, 'How has the importance of science been received and what is the government's response?' I believe that that is the part of the question that the minister is directly relating his response to at the moment.
The fact is that scientists have a valuable and important role to play in our society, and that is accepted and understood in all sections of the Australian community. But here we have someone who is the government whip in the parliament of New South Wales making the most grave associations that can be imagined about our science community. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: if you are the leader of the Liberal coalition in this country, you should call on both the Premier of New South Wales and this member to repudiate those comments. Those opposite might make light about these assertions, but we know that the extremism of the Liberal Party is coming to the centre, and as it comes to the centre it will infect the body politic. We will be committed to supporting scientists and recognising the valuable role that they play, and it is time that the Leader of the Opposition got on board.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister received any representations from the member for Brand about the impact of a carbon tax on the 1,300 jobs at Alcoa in Kwinana, the member for Wakefield about the impact of a carbon tax on the 2,700 jobs at Holden in Elizabeth, the member for Bass about the impact of a carbon tax on the 560 jobs at Alcan in Bell Bay or the member for Capricornia about the impact of a carbon tax on the 2,000 coal jobs in her electorate?
Yet again here we have the Leader of the Opposition winding up for his fear campaign. He is listing individual businesses, and then he is going to say to the workers at those businesses that there is some threat to their jobs. It is absolutely disgraceful, particularly as it comes from the man who just used a reference to Holden. This is the man who slept through the economic stimulus package, and if you had ever been to Holden, as I have, and had ever talked to anybody from Holden, as I have, then you would know that the way in which this government worked with Holden during the global financial crisis was absolutely pivotal to Holden retaining its manufacturing here in this country. The Leader of the Opposition is a man who could not even be bothered voting on the economic stimulus package, so little interested was he in the fortunes of the people—
The queen of nega–tivity.
The member for Kooyong is warned.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Prime Minister was asked a question about what representation she had received from her own members about a carbon tax. She is again defying your ruling that she be directly relevant to the question, and I ask you to draw—
The Prime Minister will respond to the question.
Of course I receive representations from members across the government about matters of concern to their constituents every day of the week, and I certainly received representations about things like supporting Holden during the global financial crisis, when we were working as hard as we possibly could to save jobs and the Leader of the Opposition was literally asleep.
We all know that the Leader of the Opposition is naming these businesses so he can then go and scare people who work in them. What I would say to the people who work in those businesses is: let us have a look at the track record. The Leader of the Opposition is a senior member of the government that said time after time that if we did not keep Work Choices then unemployment would skyrocket, industrial disputes would skyrocket, economic growth would plunge, we would not be competitive with the rest of the world and it would be the end of the mining industry. But every scare campaign point that they made about Work Choices has been proved by the benefit of experience since we got rid of Work Choices to be absolutely and completely wrong in every way. Jobs are being created, there is unemployment with a figure four in front of it, growth is being maintained, the resource sector has billions and billions of dollars of investment in the pipeline and industrial disputes are still on a trend down—every piece of the scare campaign about Work Choices was wrong. Here we have the Leader of the Opposition yet again engaged in a scare campaign. What working people should recognise is that if he has been so wrong on those occasions what is the likelihood that he is right now? None. So this scare campaign should be rejected for what it is—an attempt to cause anxiety, but not because the Leader of the Opposition is really interested in anybody's job. He has never been interested in anybody's job. He would have been active during the global financial crisis if he was genuinely interested in jobs. He would have opposed Work Choices if he was genuinely interested in job security. No, this is about chiselling out a bit of political interest against the national interest. He does not care who he hurts or who he scares in the meantime. This is a scare campaign that is really all about his political profit. There is not one bone in his body that is concerned in any way about the prospects of the working people in those businesses he has named. Of course, this is the man who gave them Work Choices. They are not going to believe he is concerned now.
Mr McCormack interjecting—
The member for Riverina is warned.
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on what today's economic data says about the resilience of our economy and the importance of government, business and community working together to support it?
I thank the member for Parramatta for her interest in the economy. We know our economy has taken a very significant hit from this summer's natural disasters, but we know that it has not been knocked off its long-term course. The good news is that mines are reopening and affected communities are getting back on their feet, as is our economy. We can see that in the data today. Australia recorded another trade surplus in April and thermal coal volumes out of Queensland have bounced back after recent flooding. Coal export values rose 1.4 per cent in April and they are now up almost 16 per cent over the past two months. Iron ore and metal exports rose 3.8 per cent in April and they are now up 23 per cent over the past two months. We saw the retail sales figures today and they are up by a strong 1.1 per cent in April—that is the biggest monthly increase in 17 months. So I think we can all be proud of what Australians have done. The business community has been working together with the unions and the wider community, and we have really pulled together in the face of adversity.
The way in which everyone pulled together was very much evident in Queensland during the floods. Of course, that is what we did during the global recession. That is what we did in the worst economic conditions in 75 years and Australia emerged from that as virtually the only advanced economy to avoid a recession. That has been very important because it has been that strength which has stood us in such good stead. We are still working in Queensland to rebuild that state, including restoring and recovering over 6,600 kilometres of the state road network and over 4,400 kilometres of the Queensland rail network.
Our focus has to be on getting the fundamentals right and bringing the budget back to surplus in 2012-13 so that we do not compound the price pressures which will flow from the very strong investment pipeline. It also means that we have to make the investment in a bigger workforce and a better trained workforce. We have to continue to invest in critical infrastructure and, of course, we have to put a price on carbon if we are going to lock-in our future prosperity.
Now, all of these things could have been very different if those opposite had been in charge during this period. They did not recognise the threat of the global recession. The shadow Treasurer described it as a hiccup—the worst event in the global economy since the Great Depression was just a hiccup! We heard the shadow Treasurer just yesterday say that the impact of the floods in Queensland and more widely was simply a cough in the mining boom. They have not a clue about the human dimensions of these events and no concern for the fate of all of those communities. We on this side of the House understand the importance of rebuilding and the importance of investing, but those on that side of the House have no policy to come back to surplus, no policy for jobs and no policy to tackle climate change. It is little wonder that all of the colleagues of the shadow Treasurer do not think he is up to the job.
My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to his claim that the contraction in the Australian economy in the first three months of the year was the result of natural disasters. Given that the state which contracted the most was South Australia, can the Treasurer inform the House which catastrophic natural disaster was responsible for the weakness in the South Australian economy?
We have just heard yet another demonstration of the economic incompetence of all of those opposite. He wants to somehow pretend that the South Australian economy is not connected to the national economy. We have been in this House day after day, and we have seen baseless scare campaign after baseless scare campaign, but that question takes the cake. We had a contraction in the national economy of 1.2 per cent in the national accounts yesterday and that has hurt right around the country. Of course there are regional differences and we do have a patchwork economy, but anybody who knows about the national accounts will know that when you look at the state-by-state breakdowns they are volatile and you cannot just see them one quarter by one quarter. You cannot look at them like that, and nobody who is serious about economics even tries to look at them like that. But, we are absolutely serious on this side of the House about supporting the economy nationally and supporting it right around our country. And it was not the only state that went backwards on the quarterly figures. The fact is, we had a really hard hit and those on that side of the House want to ignore the fact it happened at all.
In his budget reply the Leader of the Opposition spoke in this House for 30 minutes and did not mention the single biggest economic event in our economy this year—and, in fact, as it turns out, in 30 years.
Opposition members interjecting—
The member for Higgins is warned.
Within his analysis of the challenges he could not find—
I rise on a point of order concerning relevance. I asked the Treasurer to identify the natural disaster in South Australia.
The member for Boothby will resume his seat. The Treasurer has the call.
So those on that side of the House are in complete denial about the dramatic impact on our economy of the natural disasters that occurred earlier this year. The biggest natural disasters in Australia's history. The biggest economic effect in Australia's history. They produced a negative figure for our economy of 1.2 per cent in the quarter, and he wants to somehow pretend that it did not impact in South Australia or any other state. This is truly bizarre. They do not understand the basic economics of what is happening in our economy. How could they possibly run the country?
My question is to the Leader of the House and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport representing the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. What progress is being made on the rollout of the National Broadband Network? Why is e-communication important both to members of the House and to the broader community? How has the government's NBN agenda been received and what is the government's response?
I thank the member for Hunter and Chief Government Whip for that question. Indeed, this week has seen some substantial progress on the rollout of fast, affordable, universal broadband. We believe that the NBN is the single most important piece of infrastructure that we could deliver for the 21st century economy. It is important in terms of securing our future prosperity. It will change the way that we work and it will change the way that we live.
Just this week the minister released the bold and visionary Digital Economy Strategy. This shows how the NBN will position Australia among the best countries in the world for broadband connection. We announced $60 million in new programs to help communities, small businesses and teachers maximise opportunities from the NBN. We announced that NBN Co. has reached agreement for the first large-scale deployment of fibre-optic cable for the NBN covering almost 40 per cent of construction activity planned for the next two years. Also, we confirmed another agreement worth up to $1.1 billion to deploy next-generation fixed wireless broadband to regional and rural areas so that commercial fixed wireless services can start mid next year, with the full rollout finished by 2015.
I was also asked about how this has been received and the importance of e-communication to members of parliament and members of the general community. You would think that with all of these positive programs the opposition would have something to say. But we are now at June and we still have not had a question on these issues by the shadow minister in this House. Not one for all of 2011.
There are explanations why the shadow minister has a bit of an aversion when it comes to emails, given his experience in the past, because we know that last week the member for Leichhardt sent an email to all of his colleagues—it was nothing personal—chastising the member for Wentworth for not—
I rise on a point of order concerning standing order 98. This is not relevant to the minister's responsibilities whatsoever and it is not directly relevant to the question.
The minister will directly relate his material to the question.
I certainly am, Mr Speaker, because as Leader of the House I was asked directly about the importance of e-communication to members of parliament. I understand the embarrassment of those opposite with regard to these issues. They say of course that it was not personal. Well, the member for Calare missed a division just this morning, so I am sure there will be an email out there bagging him, as well, just like the member for Wentworth got an email about this issue.
But so divided are those opposite that they had to issue a press release saying that the shadow minister was having dinner with the shadow Treasurer on Tuesday night. They are so divided that they cannot bring themselves to engage in a debate about the National Broadband Network. You cannot say that the National Broadband Network is a significant piece of infrastructure in this country and then have nothing to say for it. But we know that the member for Wentworth was given the job of wrecking the NBN. And I note that the Leader of the Opposition was out at a wreckers earlier today. How appropriate that the wrecker was at a wreckers earlier today.
My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to his statement in 2006:
If we don't lift our productivity then we can't in the long term keep downward pressure on inflation, and we won't have the guarantee that interest rates won't be rising further into the future.
Can the Treasurer confirm that productivity, measured across the whole economy, has decreased since Labor was elected in 2007? Will the Treasurer now admit his failure to increase national productivity is pushing up interest rates?
At the core of this government's agenda is a productivity agenda, and during 12 years in office those opposite did not have a productivity agenda. We on this side of the House have a productivity agenda. Our productivity agenda is one in which we invest in the skills and the education of all of our people. That has been at the core of our agenda from day one, but because there has been a structural decline in our productivity over a long period of time, principally during the period in office of those opposite, it will take some time to deal with.
You do not retrain a workforce in a year. You do not retrain a workforce in two years. You do not lift the quality of an educational system in one or two years. You do not lift the quality of higher education in two or three years. A real fair dinkum productivity agenda takes time and those opposite did not have a productivity agenda over 12 long years in office. They left us with an infrastructure deficit and a deficit when it came to investment in education and training.
They may well go to the recent national accounts, but there is one thing that does show out through the recent national accounts and that is very simply that we did see a big hit to output in the recent national accounts. Why did we see that? Because a lot of people in places like Queensland were still in employment but there was no output. That is why you will see a blip in the productivity figures in this set of national accounts.
As we have seen, those opposite do not even understand what happened during the floods and have absolutely no idea of the magnitude of destruction and what it caused in many of the regional towns around Queensland. I know that some members over there understand it and some do not. So you do see a fall in the recent national accounts when it comes to productivity, particularly during this period, but we on this side of the House have a long-term productivity agenda. Those on that side of the House have no such thing and that is why they are so unqualified for high office.
My question is to the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation. Will the minister outline to the House the importance of delivering on reforms to alternative fuels that will help return the budget to surplus? How have these reforms been received and what is the government's response?
I thank the member for her question. The Gillard government is completing the overhaul of the fuel excise statement. We seek to ensure that there is a consistent and neutral tax regime for all fuels used by vehicles. We on this side of the House believe that all road users should pay their fair share and we also believe in getting our budget into surplus by 2012-13.
Mr Robb interjecting—
Order! The member for Goldstein has had a fair go today.
We intend to set excise rates for fuels capable of being used by internal combustion engines. We are putting into place, including the excise system, gaseous alternative fuels. Today, we have outlined a 50 per cent discount on the fuel energy content for the excise to be set for LPG and other gaseous fuels and we have outlined a five-year transition path.
The transition path has been longer than five years because the first people to propose including LPG and gaseous fuels in the excise system were none other those in the opposition when they were in government. In the 2003 budget, then Treasurer Costello said it was appropriate to include LPG in the fuel tax system. So this has been a process which has been underway since 13 May 2003 and we are determined to finish the job.
I also note for the interest of the House that, due to the superb advocacy of regional Labor MPs and crossbench MPs, we will exempt ethanol and biofuel for 10 years. These reforms will ensure a fairer and more transparent fuel excise system with improved competitive neutrality for fuels. I do not mean to make the Leader of the Opposition yawn. He has had one talk with Senator Nick Minchin on this topic and, in fact, when we looked at what we were doing in this process we found this has been in the forward estimates since 2003. I have to report to the House that the government cannot claim credit for this policy. We should share the credit. We are finishing the job but we did not start the job. I quote Peter Costello's media release—
Ms O'Dwyer interjecting—
I do not know why the member for Higgins is interrupting—she probably wrote this—but Peter Costello said:
The reforms will establish a fairer and more transparent fuel excise system with improved competitive neutrality between fuels.
But this policy, which has been here since 2003, does not just stop there. There is more. Indeed, I go to the grand old man of the Liberal Party, none other than John Winston Howard. He released a press release on these very same matters on which I address the House today, but he released it on 16 December 2003. History is truly inconvenient to those opposite. He said:
Today I announce an overhaul of the fuel excise system.
How sad it is they no longer listen to their former leader. The then Prime Minister Howard said:
These reforms—
he is referring to excise and including LPG; John Howard said this, friends—
will result in a more consistent and neutral tax regime for fuels used in vehicles.
It does not stop there. The country cousin of the Liberals, John Anderson—he was a real leader of the National Party—put out a press release on the same day back in 2003 and he said: 'Excise decision boosts regional Australia'. Come on, Nats! Get on board with the regions. In fact, as I looked through the newspaper clippings I came to the Age of 27 May. Nick Minchin also said: 'The Liberal Party will never get into government by opposing good policy. We should stand up and support the sorts of policies which are good policy.' I congratulate the member for Higgins and Senator Ryan for standing up for good policy. (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. Given the Treasurer's floundering performance in selling the budget on 7.30 last night and in question time today, will the Prime Minister confirm her appointment of Ken Henry to her personal staff is an attempt to find an alternative, more credible economic figurehead than this lightweight Treasurer?
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The House will come to order. The member for Aston is warned.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: that was not even close to being in order.
The member for Melbourne Ports wants to add to this point of order?
No, I want to ask a question.
The member for Melbourne Ports is being very presumptive. I ask members to listen to the whole response to the point of order. If the debate that was contained in the first part of the question was the only debate that was in the question, that would have been okay. My ruling is that the last two or three words of the question are out of order but the question stands up until that point. So the reference to a member of this place is ruled out of order but the question about an appointment remains.
To the statement or whatever it was that the member for Mackellar just came and spoke at the dispatch box about, can I say this: the Treasurer is doing a fantastic job selling a budget that is about jobs and opportunity for the nation.
Opposition members interjecting—
Of course we are seeing this reaction by the Liberal Party, because they do not care about jobs, they do not care about a strong economy and they do not care about opportunity.
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The Prime Minister will resume her seat until the House comes to order. The member for Calare is warned. A question was asked, its order was disputed, I allowed part of the question and the Prime Minister is responding to that question. I would have thought, given that sequence of events, people would wish to listen to the Prime Minister's response. She should be heard in silence.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was, of course, very conscious when I used the word 'jobs' that the opposition would jeer. They just do not care. I knew when I used the word 'opportunity' the opposition would jeer. They just do not care. And I knew when I used the words 'strong economy' the opposition would jeer, because they do not understand the importance of a strong economy to this nation's future. So that is exactly what I expected them to do, because in the modern age—and it does pain me to say it because it has not been true of the Liberal and National parties in the past—the only role that they have is to try and wreck, destroy and create fear. They have no policies or plans for the nation's future.
Let's just start with the budget and a strong economy. Nothing matters to working families more than keeping the economy strong. The transition our economy is in now requires bringing the budget back to surplus. The Treasurer, working with other members of the economic team, has taken the decisions to get that done. Meanwhile, over there on the opposition front bench, we have had no budget reply and no plan to return the budget to surplus, because they do not have the intellectual capacity or desire to do something in the nation's interest. This week we have had to watch the absolute shambles of the shadow Treasurer blaming his poor budget reply on the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Goldstein.
Mr Speaker, on a point of order in the light of the new paradigm and direct answers to questions. My question was about the Treasurer and his competence and nothing else.
I indicated that, whilst it was debate, I had allowed the argument that was the introduction to the question. As I have said before, that did open very wide the rule of direct relevance to the question. The Prime Minister has the call and she knows that she needs to relate her response directly to the question.
Thank you, very much, Mr Speaker. I am relating my response very directly to what the member for Mackellar asked. The member for Mackellar should note that in order to act as the leadership of this nation you have to be able to make the tough decisions to keep the economy strong. We have done that in the recent budget. The Treasurer did that, leading the economic team to deliver the budget back to surplus. If anybody in the opposition—anybody—has a plan to return the budget to surplus we have not seen it yet. In the greatest display of economic incompetence that this parliament has ever had to witness, we have seen no budget reply from any member of the opposition.
At the core of the budget are jobs and opportunity. We know that the opposition do not care about jobs. They would have got all the big decisions to support Australian jobs wrong. That is what the budget is about. And it is about opportunity. We know that the opposition do not care anything about opportunity. In government their track record on spreading opportunity was woeful and in opposition all they stand for is cuts to education, apprenticeships, schools and universities—you name it, they want to cut it.
We will keep pursuing this vision. I will do it; the Deputy Prime Minister will do it. Of course we will seek advice from those who have served the Australian nation well. I would have thought, if there were a modicum of interest in the nation's future from those opposite, they would be happy to see that someone of the capacity of Ken Henry was still available for public service in the interests of the nation. But cheap politics is all they know.
I call the very patient member for Melbourne Ports.
Thank you ever so, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. What role does the government see for tobacco companies in health policy and the political process? What support is there for that view, and what is the government's response?
I thank the member for Melbourne Ports for his question, particularly because he has had such longstanding interest in electoral matters and donations and the influence that they may or may not have on public policy in this House.
It is vitally important that, when it comes to public health, the government and the parliament listen to public health experts and not to big tobacco companies. Of course, that might be hard when your party relies on millions of dollars coming from tobacco companies to run election campaigns. In fact, as we now know, 97 per cent of British American Tobacco's worldwide donations go to the Australian Liberal and National parties. That is why the coalition has found it so hard to grapple with our plain packaging measures.
I saw online today something that members on our side of the House, in particular, may not have seen. That is that the Menzies House online journal has exposed the coalition members who argued in the party room against plain packaging. There are some likely and some unlikely members of that group. Among the likely members were the member for Mitchell and the member for Hume. Perhaps a little more unlikely is the member for Paterson. I have a bit of a soft spot for the member for Paterson—sorry, I have to admit that. But he was against this measure.
Opposition members interjecting—
It is true. The Prime Minister thinks I am a bit unwell now. Someone I have less of a soft spot for is the member for Mackellar, who said that she is against the banning of tobacco advertising. But the person who takes the cake is Senator Minchin, who said that it was cheaper just to let smokers die.
These links between big tobacco and the Liberal Party run very deep. Of course, Mr Morris, who is a serial employee of tobacco companies, having worked for British American Tobacco and now as a lobbyist for Philip Morris, is exerting his influence amongst members of the Liberal Party. The only way we can butt out the influence of tobacco companies in this parliament is to make sure that every party stops taking donations from tobacco. I see that the member for McMillan announced in the paper today that he is confident that the Leader of the Opposition will ban tobacco donations while he is the leader.
Mr Simpkins interjecting—
The member for Cowan is warned.
Today the member for McMillan has gone even further, announcing that this will happen in conjunction with the leader. The member for Moore has suggested that he stands ready to move a motion at the Liberal Party federal council to ban donations. I need to quote this, of course. The member for Moore said:
I'd be happy to do it, but I would try to get someone more senior to do it. The leader would be ideal …
It would be nice for leaders to lead on something like this. Of course, Mr Abbott could move this motion. He could butt out the influence of tobacco companies on public debate in this parliament right here and right now if he wanted to, but he would have to have the guts to do it.
My question is to the Treasurer. I refer to comments by the Secretary of the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency yesterday in which he forecast that the carbon price would escalate in line with international carbon prices. Given that the European carbon price is forecast to rise to up to $80 a tonne by 2020, can the Treasurer confirm that an $80 a tonne carbon price would force household electricity bills up by $900 a year and petrol prices up by 20c a litre?
They are simply making it up, yet again. They are trying to peddle fear. They are making it up because they are so acutely embarrassed by the fact that they have all been exposed as climate change deniers. That is why we are seeing this fear campaign. We are seeing a fear campaign because they do not believe that climate change is a problem for our country. Their leader is now exposed. He has not got the character, he has not got the conviction and he has not got the toughness to actually provide a policy alternative in this House. So what do we see?
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Clearly the question was about the price increases forecast by the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency yesterday. The Treasurer is straying right off into personal invective.
Order! The member for Murray will resume her seat. The Treasurer should directly relate his material to the question. The Treasurer has the call.
I was directly relating my material to the question. What we have here is a scare campaign because those opposite are so embarrassed by the fact that the Liberal Party and National Party in this House are now run and dominated by climate change deniers. The consequence of that is that they are not up to the task of putting in place the policies our country needs to secure our prosperity for the future.
What we have is an opposition leader who is simply a hollow man, and he is backed up by a shadow Treasurer who is simply the same. We have a shadow Treasurer over there who once believed in the science of climate change, but no longer. He is so bereft of any conviction that he has to put out a message on Twitter asking people what he should think. That is the lack of conviction of the shadow Treasurer and the Leader of the Opposition. They have all become climate change deniers.
I notice that the member for Wentworth is sitting there embarrassed at the performance of all of those on the front bench and of the members behind him because he belled the cat on their so-called direct action policy.
Order! The Treasurer will directly relate his remarks and bring his answer to a conclusion.
I am bringing my answer to a conclusion—
Opposition members interjecting—
Order! The Treasurer has the call. I have given him a direction. He will conclude.
This is the same scare campaign that we saw during the global financial crisis. This is what the shadow Treasurer had to say then. Mr Hockey said:
… 300,000 Australians are going to lose their jobs in its first term.
That is what he said about the government during the global financial crisis. Well, what happened? We now have another example of a scare campaign. All this is about is that they no longer believe in the science of climate change and are not up to the task of putting forward an alternative policy for Australia.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately—
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Just because the member for Wentworth has got the MPI—
The Leader of the House will resume his seat.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The Leader of the House is warned. The Leader of the Opposition has the call.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately—
That this House calls on the Prime Minister to explain to the Australian people why her Government has abandoned the manufacturing industry in this country by preparing to introduce a carbon tax. In particular, why the:
(1) Members for Corio and Corangamite aren’t standing up for the 1,300 workers at Ford in Geelong;
(2) Member for Gellibrand isn’t standing up for the 3,300 workers at Toyota in Altona;
(3) Member for Capricornia isn’t standing up for the 2,000 workers a the Newlands, German Creek and Moranbah coal mines;
(4) Members for Throsby and Cunningham aren’t standing up for the 7,000 workers at Bluescope Steel and Illawarra Coal;
(5) Member for Brand isn’t standing up for the 1,300 workers at Alcoa in Kwinana;
(6) Member for Calwell isn’t standing up for the 1,900 workers at Ford in Broadmeadows;
(7) Member for Hunter isn’t standing up for the 2,700 jobs at the Wambo, Mount Thorley, Mount Owen and Hunter Valley mines;
(8) Member for Lingiari isn’t standing up for the 850 workers at Rio Tinto/Alcoa Gove;
(9) Member for Wakefield isn’t standing up for the 2,700 workers at Holden in Elizabeth;
(10) Member for Bass isn’t standing up for the 560 workers at Alcan in Bell Bay; and
(11) Prime Minister won’t even stand up for the 466 workers in her own seat of Lalor who work at One Steel in Laverton.
What we have seen from the Prime Minister today is an extremely apprehensive performance because all of those members of parliament sitting behind the Prime Minister in question time today know that her tax is toxic. They know because their constituents are telling them that the Prime Minister's tax is toxic and, if the Prime Minister will not drop this toxic tax, those members will drop this toxic Prime Minister.
What we have heard from the Prime Minister—who, as usual, has scarpered out of this chamber rather than face a debate about her carbon tax—in this very chamber—
Order! The Leader of the Opposition will refer to the suspension motion.
This is why it is necessary that we get on with the suspension. She said as she left this chamber just the other day to her staff, 'I'm over it.' The truth is that the Australian people are over this Prime Minister. They are over this Prime Minister, and the members of her team who have manufacturing jobs in their seats are well and truly over this Prime Minister.
Today we heard the Prime Minister talking. She got very nostalgic today talking about the good old days of Coronation Hill and saving Kakadu. I suppose Bob Hawke brings on that kind of a sensation in our Prime Minister because, yes, he was a successful Labor Prime Minister. He was a reforming Labor Prime Minister. While we are talking about Bob Hawke, Julia Gillard's commitment that, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,' was as honest a statement as the former Prime Minister Bob Hawke's that, 'By 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty.' They are two dishonest Labor prime ministers.
This Prime Minister is sacrificing the manufacturing jobs of our country. This carbon tax is a toxic tax. It is toxic for manufacturing and it is toxic for the coal industry because the whole point of a carbon tax is to reduce and ultimately eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels. The whole point of a carbon tax is to shrink and ultimately to kill the coal industry. I am very pleased that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency has the guts to take this debate. He has coalmines in his electorate and if this minister has any honesty, any decency and any respect for the coalmining workers in his electorate and any respect for the manufacturing workers in his electorate he will level with them and explain just why the government he represents wants to kill their industries and kill their jobs—because that is what is happening. The minister might tell us why he keeps calling the honest manufacturing industries of this country and the coalminers of this country big polluters. Why does he defame, insult and denigrate the manufacturing companies of our country? Why doesn't he understand, as so many members sitting behind him understand, that these so-called big polluters are the big employers, the big exporters and the big innovators of our country? They are the people that we rely on for our standard of living and they should not be destroyed by this government's carbon tax.
We know that this tax is toxic because all the experts have told us that it is toxic. Andrew McKellar from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries says that under Labor's carbon tax we will not have green jobs; we will have green unemployment. The website of ManufacturingAustralia, which represents such great Australian businesses as Amcor, BlueScope, Boral, CSR and Rheem, says of the government's carbon tax:
It tolls the death knell for manufacturing in Australia.
… … …
The aftershocks of a carbon tax will reverberate through our nation at an enormous cost, flowing through and driving up the costs of every commodity that is part of the fabric of our society.
Even Paul Howes, the midnight assassin, the hatchet man who put the Prime Minister in office, now realises his mistake. It is like Cassius now realises the mistake he made in assassinating Julius Caesar. I think Paul Howes wants Kevin Rudd back. He really does want Kevin Rudd back. Paul Howes said, 'Carbon pricing could be the straw that breaks the camel's back as far as some of these industries are concerned.' He also said, 'If one job is gone, our support is gone.'
Finally, we have one Labor member of parliament who is now speaking out publicly about the deadly threat that the carbon tax poses to the manufacturing industries of Australia. I am not surprised that, finally, the member representing Smorgon Steel at Rooty Hill, the member for Chifley, has come out and said, 'Yes, I can honestly say there are people that do have concerns about the impact this will have on families.' Good on the member for Chifley. There is one brave Labor member who is here to keep tabs on the minister and to make sure that this minister is not dishonest with the Australian people and is not dishonest with the workers of this country about the impact of this toxic tax on their jobs. But there are more Labor members of parliament who know the damage this tax is doing to jobs in their electorates and they will be heard. They will say to this Prime Minister, 'You drop the toxic tax or we will drop you.'
I have visited so many manufacturing plants over the last three months since this tax was announced by the Prime Minister. I have heard the voice of the manufacturing workers of this country. I understand that they are proud of what they do. They know that an Australia without a steel industry, without an aluminium industry, without a cement industry, without a glass industry, without a plastics industry and, above all else, without a motor industry is not an Australia that makes things any more and is not a first-class economy. This side of the parliament will fight to preserve Australia as a country that makes things and a country that is a first class manufacturing nation. (Time expired)
Is the motion seconded. The honourable member for North Sydney has the call.
This motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition must be dealt with urgently because there are around one million Australians in the manufacturing industry who are wondering what this government is doing to them. There are more than one million Australians involved in the retail industry and there are more than one million Australians involved in the hospitality industry and they are wondering what the intentions are of this government. There is a downturn in confidence across Australia as each day passes, as people come to understand that the government has no direction. This is best illustrated by the fact that only today the member for Chifley had the courage to stand at the doors and recognise that there is growing concern in the community, and I praise him for being here for this debate. But I note that so many are missing from his side. We may even move that he has speaking rights at the end of this debate because we recognise that he is a man of courage prepared to stand up for the people in his electorate, the people of Rooty Hill. They are the ones that we are left to stand up for day after day, week after week, and that have been totally abandoned by Labor until the member for Chifley stood up for them today. It is a crisis of confidence that means we have to move this motion, because the Prime Minister is so lacking in confidence in her own authority that she has to wheel out Bob Hawke to shore her up. She has to wheel out for her Treasurer John Fahey to shore him up in Queensland. She has to wheel out for her Treasurer Ken Henry. Can you imagine John Howard appointing Ted Evans because he did not trust Peter Costello as Treasurer? Can you imagine that? What an insult to a Treasurer. But it has not happened once; it has now happened twice: appointment of John Fahey, appointment of Ken Henry. We are waiting for Peter Costello to be appointed. How long will that take? Or John Stone will be back to be appointed. Who knows, there could be a range of others.
This illustrates the fact that if the government does not have confidence in its own team, how can it expect the Australian people to have confidence in the government? If the government does not have confidence in its own policies, how can it expect the Australian people to believe it at its word? We are rapidly approaching the ides of June—23 June. There will be all sorts of full moons, and he knows what is coming. He is counting the days—21 days, Old China. It is not that long that you have to wait. I would say to him that it is 21 days until the first anniversary of the knifing of Kevin. That was a great—
Fundamental injustice day!
Fundamental injustice day! It was not 1 July 2001; it was 'the' fundamental injustice day—23 June last year. What I would say is that as that day approaches they all start counting. They focus on their own jobs instead of the jobs of the manufacturers, of the workers. They are focusing on their own promotion; they are focusing on sandbagging their own incompetence rather than focusing on sandbagging the jobs of everyday Australians.
We had the Prime Minister in this question time stand before us and say: 'Manufacturing has done it tough. They had the global financial crisis. They had lots of losses. They have got a strong Australian dollar. They have had real challenges with that.' But the solution is not to impose a new tax on them. That is not the solution. This government is so confused about its own economic direction that it believes that if an industry is doing it tough the best thing you can do for that industry is impose a new tax on it. What an illogical process—what an illogical thought process that comes out of a government that is confused and disturbed. There is a government here that has clearly lost its way. It is a government that does not understand its own policy. It is a government that goes so far as to announce a carbon tax without the Treasurer even being present for the announcement. Now, one of the chief salesmen, one of the chief spokesmen for the man who has to design the carbon tax, cannot answer a question in this place. Day after day he is confused and muddled. And that sends a message to the Australian people that this is a government that does not understand where it is going.
I say to you, Mr Deputy Speaker: this is a motion that needs to be dealt with because we are now bypassing the Prime Minister who is incompetent, the Treasurer who is incompetent. We want to hear from the member for Corio, the member for Corangamite, the member for Gellibrand, the member for Throsby and the member for Cunningham. We want to hear from the member for Brand, the member for Calwell, the member for Hunter, the member for Lingiari, the member for Wakefield and the member for Bass. We want to hear them speak up for their people. (Time expired)
It is apt I think to finish on some comedy at the end of a two-week sitting period. We have had the Leader of the Opposition get up and declare that he has been travelling around the country and hearing the voices. He is carrying on like the workers' champion. He is the man who initiated the royal commission into the building industry 10 years ago that led to the reduction in working people's rights in the building industry, and the Leader of the Opposition is the man who did not stand up for anyone's working rights when Work Choices came along. He was out there as the big advocate. He is now trying to present himself as the worker's friend in one of the most bizarre experiences we would ever see.
What is the true motivation for this motion to suspend standing and sessional orders? What is the true motivation, after two weeks when we have seen divisions on the other side of the House; when we know from the Fin Review report that there has been a reconciliation between the member for North Sydney and the member for Wentworth—they had dinner together the other night in a Canberra restaurant; and when the divisions on the other side of the House are consolidating in a way that is dangerous to the leadership of the member for Warringah, who hears the voices as he travels around the country in an increasingly crazed, shrill scare campaign? The purpose of this motion to suspend was to prevent the member for Wentworth having the opportunity to have an MPI debate about the issue of broadband. The member for Wentworth had proposed the MPI to discuss a proper issue of public policy as he was wont to do, but the Leader of the Opposition in a late move of course had to subvert that.
The government is working to develop a carbon price to cut pollution and drive investment in clean energy in our economy and to put our economy in a position to be competitive in a low-carbon future internationally. It is a critical economic reform that demands attendance to the proper foundations of public policy making and the proper public policy design of an important economic reform. The foundation for policy making in this field is the climate science. Over the last two weeks there has been more material added to the public debate, which has consolidated and built upon our understanding of the evidence that exists, that dangerous climate change is occurring, that temperatures are increasing and that we need to cut pollution and innovate and drive investment in clean energy to tackle that important challenge.
On the other side of the House, as we have seen over the last two weeks of sitting, the opposition deny the scientific evidence. Under the leadership of the member for Warringah, the scientific evidence is denied and therefore they cannot come to grips with simple reality, simple facts. They have to misrepresent every possible position in this important debate about the future of our economy, of our society and of our environment. My colleague the member for Kingsford Smith adverted to this important issue about the scientific evidence in question time today. One of the member for Warringah's colleagues in the New South Wales Liberal Party has made more extraordinary contributions on this front—in fact one of the most astonishing contributions to the debate. Dr Peter Phelps, a former federal Liberal Party staffer, now the New South Wales Government Whip in the upper house, has not only likened the science of climate change to the existence of dragons—that was his former contribution to the scientific debate—but also yesterday of course likened the scientists to totalitarian Nazis, saying this:
One can see them now, beavering away, alone, unknown, in their laboratories. And now, through the great global warming swindle they can influence policy, they can set agendas, they can reach into everyone's lives.
This is the level that the New South Wales Liberal Party goes to in dialogue on climate science. This is evidenced in the opposition in the federal parliament. We know Senator Minchin's view; we know Senator Abetz's views; we know the views of many others, including the member for Tangney. It is bizarre that the scientific evidence is denied in this way in national politics. Further to all of this, the Leader of the Opposition is charging around the country running the most ridiculous and bizarre and increasingly shrill scare campaign—facts will not get in the way of fear as far as the Leader of the Opposition is concerned on this important issue. There have been dark forebodings, as we see in this motion to suspend standing orders, of economic doom and economic destruction.
In the past the Leader of the Opposition has claimed that a carbon price will mean that Australia will no longer be 'a First World economy'. In yesterday's matter of public importance he foreshadowed the end of manufacturing as we know it, saying that regions would be laid to waste. Addressing the Minerals Council of Australia, he forecast yesterday that a carbon price would destroy all exporters and end the coal industry—it would be the complete destruction of the coal industry. The Leader of the Opposition forecast this in front of the whole minerals industry community, saying that the coal industry would end. He vowed before the minerals industry that he would tour the country and warn blue-collar workers, urging them to rise up—the member for Warringah, the workers' champion, getting the workers to rise up against carbon pricing. Then, in the most astonishing display, he implored the captains of the mining industry to rise up alongside the workers, to become political activists, to join hands with the proletariat and take control, under his leadership. It is the most bizarre and ridiculous contribution to public policy debate one could imagine. This is what the Leader of the Opposition had to say to the minerals industry yesterday:
But I say to you that at this time you need to become political activists at least for a few months, at least for a couple of years, if you are going to be able to continue to be the miners that you want to be and that Australia needs.
Have you heard anything more ridiculous? There was the coverage on the television of him standing slightly away from the lectern, shaping up a little bit, trying to get the captains of the mining industry to warm up, trying to get the workers to rise up against carbon pricing—carrying on like that was so ridiculous it was an embarrassment to political leadership.
Mr Abbott interjecting—
I'm not frightened of you, mate. You have got to be kidding. You'll have no clothes. Watching yesterday's MPI and the Leader of the Opposition's address to the Minerals Council reminded me of a phenomenon that used to emerge occasionally in my time as a union leader. You would see someone emerge from the ranks, a populist, an opportunist, prepared to say absolutely anything and implore people to get behind them to support them so they could rise up for the benefit of their own political position. It was an irresponsible experience that I had with people then—they were irresponsible by telling people what they wanted to hear and not what they needed to know about important issues. That is the characterisation of this Leader of the Opposition in one of the most important public policy debates that we have ahead of us as a nation.
We need to tackle climate change, and in doing so we are designing a market mechanism to drive cuts in pollution, to drive investment in clean energy. The government will attend to important priorities in the policy design. We will ensure that households have the assistance that they need. We have committed that every dollar raised by the carbon price will be used for three principal purposes. Firstly, it will be to assist households to meet any price impacts. We have committed that at least half the revenue from the carbon price mechanism will go towards assisting low- and middle-income households. Those opposite might not want to hear it, but it is an important commitment.
The second important objective will be to ensure that we support jobs and competitiveness in important trade-exposed parts of the economy. The entire argument—if we can call it that—being made by the Leader of the Opposition is a total charade. The government will ensure that there is important support for the most affected industries in the trade-exposed emissions-intensive parts of the economy that are important in regional Australia.
What is the third one?
The third one, to answer the member for North Sydney's request, is that we will support the drive for clean energy. We will support initiatives and climate change programs that take us towards innovation and clean energy technology. (Time expired)
Question put:
That the motion ( Mr Abbott's) be agreed to.
The House divided. [15:55]
(The Speaker—Mr Harry Jenkins)
Question negatived.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
Does the minister claimed to have been misrepresented?
I do.
Please proceed.
In his first question in question time today the Leader of the Opposition said that at the National Press Club yesterday I had referred to the next election as a referendum on climate change. That is totally false and I would suggest he looks at the record. Secondly, the Manager of Opposition Business said in question time today that I had called for an election on the carbon price now. That also is totally false and the Manager of Opposition Business knows it. What I have said yesterday and repeatedly is that the Leader of the Opposition is a climate change denier and that is absolutely true.
Order! The minister is now debating.
Mr Speaker, I ask you to review the record of question time with a view to examining the answer by the Leader of the House in which you asked him to conclude his answer at least 30 seconds before the end of his answer and when he sat down. I think that is a serious matter of defiance of the chair. If you ask a minister to conclude their answer and sit down, they should do so immediately without continuing to debate. I ask you to review the tape and then indicate whether you will take any action against the Leader of the House.
The member for Sturt is well aware of my policy that I am not inclined to review tapes, although he would be interested that I have reviewed some of the tapes of this week independently. The time to deal with these matters is when they occur. The member for Sturt has made some sort of point and it is on the record. I will leave it at that.
Mr Speaker, I am shocked, but under standing order 105(b) I regret to advise that there are six questions I have asked which have been outstanding for more than 60 days. I seek leave to table a list of the six questions which are outstanding and to seek your assistance, Mr Speaker.
Leave not granted.
Just read out the numbers of the questions. How hard is that?
The questions are No. 2, to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy; No.177, to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation; No. 181, to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency; No. 189, to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation; No. 322, to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy; and No. 323, to the Minister for Health and Ageing. All of these questions are unanswered after more than 60 days.
I will write as required by the standing orders.
I have a statement on the stating of the question on amendments. Standing order 122 sets out the various ways the question is put when amendments are moved to motions. The most common form of amendment to motions is that certain words be omitted and other words substituted. Traditionally a question 'that the words project posed to be omitted stand' has been put. Depending on the result of that question, a further question may be put 'that the words proposed be inserted'. This process has its advantages, but it has caused confusion and, in a finely balanced House, it could lead to a meaningless outcome.
A discussion paper on this matter was circulated to all members by the Clerk last November. The Procedure Committee has now commented on the matter in its report on the new arrangements. The committee has reported that it sees merit in the simplified form 'that the amendment be agreed to' being trialled. Accordingly, I intend to use the simplified form for the remainder of this parliament and I thank the House for its assistance when we did so on two occasions this morning. I will ask all occupants of the chair to do the same and, importantly, I note that it will remain open to any member to object and require the traditional form to be used in a particular case.
I welcome your discussion on this matter, Mr Speaker. The Procedure Committee has indeed considered this matter and I think a trial of such a measure is an appropriate way to determine whether it is the best way to function or not. One of the historical reasons resolutions are put in that way is to enable people to stay on the same side of the chamber, thereby reducing the time of transfer. So there is a practical historical reason it has been put that way. I welcome the trial and the government supports the initiative. The government will also be responding to other measures contained in the report of the Procedure Committee after discussion with the opposition and the crossbenches.
Mr Pyne interjecting—
Even though he has been warned and he did make an interjection, I do indicate to the Manager of Opposition Business that this is an unfortunate conjunction of events and it does not directly relate to an event earlier this week. After yesterday, I wish that I had made this statement earlier.
I wish to make a personal explanation.
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
I do.
Please proceed.
Earlier today, the Manager of Opposition Business suggested that I had deliberately defied your ruling, Mr Speaker. The fact of the matter is, as you would recall, that the noise in the chamber was so loud from those opposite that it was not clear to me—
Mr Speaker—
Order! I say to the Manager of Opposition Business that on this occasion I am willing to listen to the submission that the Leader of the House is making.
The assertion that the Manager of Opposition Business made was not clear to me. I do want to put on record, Mr Speaker, that I always adhere to your rulings.
Opposition members interjecting—
I hear cries of abuse, but, if members remember, I gave the opportunity—practically on indulgence—to the Manager of Opposition Business to raise this matter, and I have clearly indicated that time for questions to the Speaker is a time for the consideration of matters of administration, not a time for revisiting matters of procedure. It is a one-all draw. It is not pretty; it is a one-all draw.
As I notified you earlier today and as I notified the Manager of Opposition Business, I informed the House, because it would be of convenience for proper notice to be given, that on 20 June the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr Key, will address the House. Arrangements are currently being finalised for that to occur. The normal procedure is that we would have a luncheon, which is an official occasion, here in the Great Hall. It is the case that then Prime Minister Key will address the chamber at 2:30 pm in a joint sitting of the House and the Senate. I will consult with the opposition and the crossbenchers on the specific arrangements for the other proceedings and will move an appropriate resolution to allow for the alteration of proceedings on that Monday. I did think it was appropriate that the House be informed at the earliest opportunity that this would occur.
I present Selection Committee report No. 23 relating to private members business and the referral of a bill to a committee. The report will be printed in today's Hansard. Copies of the report have been placed on the table.
The report read as follows—
Report relating to private Members’ business and the consideration of bills introduced 1 and 2 June 2011
1. The committee met in private session on 1 and 2 June 2011.
2. The committee recommends that the following items of private Members’ business listed on the notice paper be voted on:
Orders of the Day
House of Representatives Chamber
Malaysia asylum seeker proposal (Mr Bandt)
Select Committee on Australia’s Immigration Detention Network (Mr Morrison)
Criteria for independent youth allowance (Mr Pyne)
Main Committee
Defence houses at Eaton, NT (Mrs Griggs)
Greater Western Sydney Conservation Corridor (Mrs Markus)
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (Mrs Moylan)
One-hundredth anniversary of the sinking of SS Yongala (Mr Christensen)
Fortieth anniversary of the Ramsar Convention (Mr Chester)
Death of Mr Greg McNicol (Mr Hunt).
3. The committee determined that the Family Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 be referred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs for inquiry and report.
Very briefly, Mr Speaker, I also wish on indulgence to acknowledge that today is Italian National Day; indeed, this year is the 150thanniversary of the unification of Italy. I will be attending a function later today in Leichardt. I know you support the Farm Vigano project, which, of course, is in your electorate, Mr Speaker, I note that the Italian community plays an important role here in Australia.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Wentworth proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The risks to Australian taxpayers from the government's mismanagement of the National Broadband Network.
I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
Both sides of this House are committed to providing all Australians with fast and affordable broadband, and that is what we understand to be the objective of the National Broadband Network. But with every new detail that the government reveals about its strategy to achieve this shared objective—and it will spend more than $50 billion creating the NBN—Australian taxpayers have more reasons to be deeply concerned. We know that the NBN is the most expensive possible way to deliver fast broadband to all Australians. It uses the most expensive possible network design and makes no use whatsoever of any existing fixed line, last mile communications infrastructure. Instead, it overbuilds the infrastructure and renders it valueless.
The NBN is colossally expensive and has no counterpart anywhere in the world. There is not one other national government in the world spending this sort of money on a broadband network. It is also the most anticompetitive way possible to achieve the objective of providing universal access to fast and affordable broadband. The NBN will be a new government owned monopoly, and all potential direct competitors to it will be prevented from competing by legislative and contractual constraints. The justification for this is that the prohibition on competition needs to be there to protect the economics of the NBN. This is taking economic policy back to the days before Hughes and Vale; it is going back half a century and more to the days when state governments owned railway companies, brickworks and butchers shops and legislated and regulated to make it all but impossible for the private sector to compete. The justification was: 'We have to keep the revenue in the state railway, the state brickworks and the state printing office.' All that has been swept aside through judicial action and through microeconomic reform by reforming governments of both persuasions, Labor and coalition, but right now we are seeing this Gillard government turning the economic reform clock backwards to a bygone era. That is profoundly contrary to the best interests of this nation and poses enormous risk to the taxpayers of Australia.
We know that the contracts that the NBN Co. is planning to sign to get the NBN constructed are the riskiest possible way to approach these public works. By shifting to a cost-plus model, the NBN Co. shifts immense economic risk onto taxpayers—it is the taxpayers who are liable for any cost blow-outs. So much for the government's ridiculous claim that 14 major Australian construction companies which failed to meet the NBN Co.'s price target when they tendered were colluding in an attempt to gouge taxpayers.
We know that the NBN Co. is no longer the wholesale only, last mile only, carefully regulated entity—the level playing field—that the government originally claimed it would be. Instead, in areas ranging from communications infrastructure in new housing estates to the communications needs of our defence agencies, NBN Co. is muscling in and using its access to taxpayers' wallets to expand its mission. It will not be a wholesale-only entity in any meaningful sense of the word; it is going to compete for every dollar of telecommunications revenue from the public sector and from the corporate sector. It has achieved the legislative ability to do that. It will inevitably have to do that because the capital cost of this network is so immense that its managers—indeed, its owners—will be under enormous pressure to generate additional revenue.
To justify this vast expansion of the public sector, and overturn decades of bipartisan agreement on the merits of competition and competitive neutrality, the government points to the economic and social benefits of broadband. You see this in its very shallow and flimsy National Digital Economy Strategy document that was brought out this week. Australians were told of all of the virtues of broadband, but then told almost in passing that only the fibre-to-the-home design of the NBN could enable our bright digital future. Therein lies the fundamental blunder that this government has made: everybody agrees that affordable fast broadband is a good objective. We agree that many, if not most, Australians have access to fast broadband now but many do not, and those areas of inadequate service should be rectified.
Indeed, one of the bitterest ironies in this colossal bungle by the government is that it cancelled the Howard government's OPEL broadband plan for regional and rural Australia. It was a fixed wireless and satellite configuration, and had that been carried out all of those areas would have had fast broadband several years ago. The absurdity is that the technical solution that the government is proposing to deliver to regional and rural Australia through the NBN is precisely the same as was proposed under the OPEL plan. So it is not as though the government is proposing something different or better; it is exactly the same solution, except that it will come many years later and at a much greater cost.
At the very bottom of this terrible blunder by the government is the failure to do a cost-benefit analysis. I apologise for raising this again—we obviously have to raise it every time—but it is so fundamental because the government never asked the right question. The right question to ask was: what is the fastest and most cost-effective way of delivering affordable fast broadband to all Australians? That was the question it never asked. It rushed straight to a solution for fast broadband to all Australians, which was fibre to the home. When the government talks about the benefits of broadband it gives examples of health and education, such as kids in remote parts of Australia being able to participate in classrooms with kids in other parts of Australia. These are all worthwhile and laudable objectives. But it never asked the question, 'Do you need fibre into every home to achieve that?' It never asked the question, 'What bandwidth capacity do you need to deliver that?' The assumption is that the virtues of broadband can only be delivered by the NBN, and that is simply wrong. It is just a massive blind spot and it may be the reason it has entered into such a terrible mistake.
The reality is that the goal of fast broadband for all Australians at an affordable price could and should be delivered through a mix of technologies, which will include fibre to the home in many areas, particularly in greenfields developments. It will include fibre to the node, which would bring the fibre further into the field so that it is within the last mile of copper—and it might not even be a mile but 500 or 700 metres. With a fibre-to-the-node configuration like that, if the last segment of copper was 750 metres or less—and we had this confirmed only today by one of the leading telecommunications companies in the world—a download speed of 60 megabits per second would be very achievable, along with an upload speed, depending on whether it was 750 metres or closer, of five to 10 megabits up to an effectively symmetrical speed of around 50 to 60 megabits per second. That type of bandwidth is more than adequate to cater for every conceivable application that a residential user would need. To go from 50 megabits per second to 100 megabits per second in a residential context would be imperceptible; the user experience would be no different. You would not be able to tell the difference because there are simply not the services and the applications to take advantage of that higher speed.
What is the cost differential? Again, we checked these figures today with one of the leading telecommunications companies in the world and they advised us that the cost differential is 50 per cent—that is, the cost of fibre to the home versus fibre to the node, in the way I have described, is twice, if not three times, as much. I can mention this company because it was in one of their public papers. ADTRAN, one of the leading American telecommunications equipment suppliers, effectively have a fibre-to-the-node product where the fibre runs down the street and connects to the various existing copper pairs through one of their fibre termination nodes. They say that the cost differential, where they have deployed this in America, is in the order of 50 per cent—that is to say, you can halve the cost with a different network design.
I can understand that the government may not want to take my advice or the coalition's advice on this. They may say, 'We know somebody who disagrees with you.' They can make all of those points, but it just underlines the point we have been repeatedly making: they should have done their homework first. We all understand. We are all politicians, we all want to get elected and we all want to be in government. To use a reference from that former prime minister mentioned so often in question time, we would all love to say, 'No child shall live in broadband poverty.' The fact is that a government that makes the promise of universal and affordable broadband and is met with a positive response from the public is then expected to do their homework to ensure that the promise is delivered at the lowest cost to the taxpayer, and they have simply failed to do that.
I come now to an equally significant point about affordability. I have talked about the cost to the taxpayer, and it is a massive cost. There are aspects to this design that are truly inexplicable. At the moment 30 per cent of Australian households are passed by the hybrid fibre-coax cable—the pay TV cable. That cable is capable of carrying broadband at 100 megabits per second and in fact is doing so in Melbourne right now. So, it can operate at a very high speed. That cable will be decommissioned, as far as broadband is concerned, in order to protect the economics of the NBN.
Again—and I had this discussion with the Korean communications commission in Seoul not so long ago—communications authorities in other countries right around the world are absolutely staggered that Australia would be eliminating facilities based competition. Most countries do not have a lot of facilities based competition because their telecoms networks were built up by government owned PTTs, like Telstra and its various counterparts. But where there is facilities based competition, where there is the potential for it, why would you eliminate it? It is genuinely seen as being inexplicable, and the only justification is the one that the government has given: to defend the economics.
The issue of affordability is a fundamental one. Five per cent of households with incomes over $150,000 a year do not use the internet. A figure of 34 per cent of households with incomes of $40,000 a year or less do not use the internet. The single biggest barrier to internet usage, to broadband usage, to access to this wonderful digital economy that the government likes to talk about and we like to talk about, too—we are all committed to it—is household income. Affordability is the key issue. We have seen massive reductions in the cost of broadband and the cost of telecommunications in recent years coming from competition. When you look at the NBN business case, the price of broadband is set and stays static, even at the lowest rate, for the next 10 years. There are no falling prices. There is no attempt to give lower-income households more affordable access to broadband. Far from it. An over-capitalised NBN will pick the taxpayers pocket and create a massive barrier of affordability to lower income households. (Time expired)
I am very pleased to be speaking on this MPI. So important was this debate on the National Broadband Network, one of the most important infrastructure investments this nation has even seen, we had the Leader of the Opposition bump it off for his motion today. Only a very limited debate is going to be allowed on the NBN because the Leader of the Opposition took the decision in order to make sure that the member for Wentworth did not have a great deal of time and a proper debate in this parliament on the National Broadband Network. So much was the respect for the member for Wentworth, he has not even been able to get up a question on the NBN during question time at all. They have put him in on Thursday, the last sitting day, five minutes before we go into adjournment and, bang, finally the member for Wentworth has been allowed to say something.
What we have seen again in this debate is exactly what the member for Wentworth has been put in that position to do: to wreck the NBN and to talk down the NBN at every single possible opportunity. It reflects exactly what this opposition is about: don't talk about any positive propositions for how you are going to develop the country, don't talk about positive propositions for policy all across the country, and don't talk about nation building; just say 'no' to absolutely everything. That is what we have seen with the debate today on the National Broadband Network.
This network is about building the future. A government's vision for a world-leading digital economy requires a reliable, high-speed, ubiquitous broadband network. I well remember the Howard government's terrific OPEL proposition. In fact, in my electorate office the other day I was digging around and I pulled out the map provided to my electorate for what it would get under the OPEL proposition, and it was an absolute joke in terms of what fixed wireless would have provided to my electorate compared to what they are being provided with under the National Broadband Network. For anybody to come into this House and try to claim that what was to be provided under the OPEL network under the Howard government could be compared to the NBN is an absolute joke and absolute rubbish.
There were large communities in my electorate barely a half an hour out of Melbourne that would have had to rely on fixed wireless, much of which they would not have been able to access at all because there were large gaps in the maps provided. Not only that, they failed to understand that fixed wireless technology does not take topography into account. There are hills in the way. So there are large parts of my electorate that would not have been able to access it. That is why the NBN is being pursued. It is why we are pursuing fibre to the household and it is why we are pursuing the best possible technology for those communities that cannot get fibre to the household. We do not want second best in regional and rural Australia. We want to make sure that we provide them with absolutely the best that is available.
The National Broadband Network will provide access to high-speed broadband to 100 per cent of Australian premises. The NBN will connect 93 per cent of Australian homes, schools and businesses via fibre-optic cabling delivering speeds of up to 100 megabits per second or more. The opposition does not get it. People do not just sit and use one broadband application at a time; they use multiple applications. They do not want to have to close one application to open another application. It is not just about downloading home videos, which seems to be what the opposition wants us to think. It is about upload speeds, which are incredibly important as well. Again in this debate we have heard from the opposition that it is not interested in putting forward positive policies. It is not interested in nation building or what it can to develop this country. The opposition is only interested in just saying no. It is interested in trying to wreck the NBN at every single possible opportunity and it should be condemned for it.
Debate interrupted.
I rise today with a message—a message for all those in this House but for one member of the House in particular, the member for Denison. I would like the member for Denison to receive this particular message for it is he who, in a handshake deal with the Prime Minister, now holds the future employment of hundreds, and I do mean many hundreds, of people in my electorate in his hands. These are the people who are actively employed in roles with the registered clubs industry in my electorate of Farrer. It could be the bar tender at the Wakool and District Services Memorial Club, it might even be the apprentice chef at the Broken Hill Barrier Social Democratic Club or maybe it is the part-time duty manager at the Jerilderie Sports Club. It could be one of these jobs that will go under the member for Denison's proposed gambling reforms—or it could be all three.
I do not know if the member has visited Wakool or Broken Hill or Jerilderie. I suspect that he has not been to Finley, so let me take members of the House there. Last week, the ABC 7.30 program decided to pick a town on the map to find out what effect the mandatory precommitment legislation might have. It was Finley, and from one town in rural New South Wales the message was pretty clear. If these reforms go ahead, an estimated 40 people's jobs are immediately at risk. This is from a town with a population of 2,000 people. That is 40 people out of work—two per cent of the entire population of one town. I hope the member for Denison and, indeed, the crossbench members of the House who also hold these jobs in their hands hear this figure loud and clear—two per cent of the workforce in one small country town.
The Productivity Commission estimates less than one per cent of the population are problem gamblers. Yes, like every community, there will be a very small component of the population in Finley who have a problem with gambling. And yes, there is a fair chance that this could occur at the lever of a poker machine. But killing off two per cent of one town's workforce to possibly address a problem for one per cent of the population is literally cracking the nut with a sledgehammer.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I bring you the message from the small towns in my electorate: Finley, Wakool, Broken Hill, Jerilderie and from every other town and community where I come from. I have 66 of these clubs, probably more per person than any other part of this nation. I feel this issue very strongly. I also think I could have given the member for Denison a heads up if pokies were anywhere near the problem he feels they are causing. At risk here are hundreds of people's livelihoods and hundreds of millions of dollars ripped from the heart of the bush by one single piece of well-intended but misplaced legislation.
On that note, I said at the opening that I wish to give the member for Denison a message. That message is that I congratulate him on his efforts and desire to curb problem gambling. It is an admirable cause and a principle that no-one in this House would disagree with. The issue here for him and every member is that for every problem, including gambling, there is a cause and an effect. The cause of problem gambling can be a type of illness, or ill discipline if you prefer. I personally offer the member for Denison my support to treat the cause of problem gambling, but I will not help him just target the effect—not in this manner—and neither should any member who has one of these smaller registered clubs in their electorate.
I rise this afternoon to honour those who took part in the Battle of Crete. I was fortunate enough to represent the Minister for Defence at a wreath-laying ceremony last weekend at the Australian Hellenic Memorial here in Canberra to commemorate all those who fought in this battle. I was joined there by His Excellency Mr Alexios Cristopoulos, the ambassador of the Hellenic Republic—he is here today; welcome, Excellency, thank you for joining us; His Excellency Major General Martin Dunne, the High Commissioner of New Zealand; Rear Admiral Ken Doolan; John King and Nick Vardos from the RSL; George Katheklakis, who is President of the Cretan Association of Canberra and Districts—and he is also here today; Mrs Skevi Stavropoulou, who represented the High Commissioner of Cyprus; Paul Levantis, who is the President of the Greek Orthodox Community and Church of Canberra and Districts; Georgia Alexandrou, who is the President of the ACT Cyprus Community; and Con Poulos, who is the President of the Parish Church of St Demetrios in Queanbeyan, in my colleague the member for Eden Monaro's electorate.
During the battle, some 40,000 Allied forces stood against the Nazi Germans and Italian forces to defend the island. This included over 7,000 Australian troops from the Australian 6th Division. The battle for Crete is important for a number of reasons. It marks the first time airborne troops had been used in combat as the major attacking force. It marks the first time the Allied forces made significant use of intelligence gained through the tracking of the Enigma machine, and it marked the first time that the Axis powers had faced resistance from the civilian population.
After 10 days of heavy fighting, and despite the heavy resistance from Allied forces and the local population, the German forces ultimately took control of the island—but not before they suffered heavy losses in manpower and equipment, losses they felt later in the campaigns in North Africa and the Eastern Front. It also forced Hitler to abandon his plans for the use of paratroops in the future. At the same time, the Allies also realised the potential of paratroops, a potential that would later become pivotal in the liberation of France. During the battle 781 Australians lost their lives with another 3,000 captured, which was around half the 6th Division. However, I would like to take special note of the action of the Cretan population, who rose up against the invasion. The population was armed with old rifles that had been brought up from old hiding places, but in a lot of cases they took whatever they could from their homes to meet their invaders in the olive groves of Crete. Their resistance brought about brutal reprisals from the Nazi forces, who felt no constraint by international convention. Their bravery in the face of this threat is to be commended.
The wreath laying ceremony was attended by a wide collection of people from Canberra's Cretan and Greek communities. It was a lovely and fitting ceremony at the beautiful Australian Hellenic Memorial on Anzac Parade to honour those who defended Crete.
Although Crete ultimately fell, many enduring friendships were formed between the Cretan citizens and the allied forces—friendships that endure to this day and that are represented in the strength of the Greek and Cretan communities in Canberra, the district and the region. They are communities that contribute so much to the social fabric of my local community and that of the member for Eden-Monaro. They may be small in number, but they maintain a very large place in the heart and soul of Canberra and the region.
The Greek and Cretan communities have contributed an enormous amount to Canberra. They have enriched our cultural, spiritual, linguistic and business life and have generously helped those in need, along with youth community organisations and sporting organisations. I would like to acknowledge a few of them today for their work in recognising the contribution of the Greek and Cretan veterans of World War II, as well as their ongoing support of their communities. For their efforts in recognising the Battle of Crete I would like to thank Mr George Katheklakis again, Mr Stellios Kotsifakis, Mr Jim Katheklakis, Mr Tony Katheklakis and Mr John Harkiolakis, who is no longer with us. Special mention should be given to Mr Spero Vardoulakis OAM, who died in May. Mr Vardoulakis was the last Greek soldier living in Canberra who fought during the Battle of Crete. I would also like to mention the late Sir William Refshauge, Ian Gollings, Steve McDougal and George Pererakis and their committee for the efforts they made to build a permanent memorial here in Canberra to the Greek and Australian soldiers who died in defence of Greece and Crete.
I thank the honourable member for Canberra for her contribution and endorse her sentiments in relation to the commemoration of the Battle of Crete and her acknowledgement of the guests in our gallery.
I rise tonight to express my thoughts on the misleading and dishonest campaign that is being run at the moment in regard to the implementation of a carbon tax in the Australian economy. The words used by the minister today in question time implying that anyone who did not agree with their tax is some sort of denier are deeply offensive. I come from a background of practical environmental care. It is not a philosophical position for me; I actually have the dirt under my nails and blisters on my hands from working towards improving the environment. To be called a denier I find deeply offensive.
The government are also being quite dishonest about their approach to the implementation of this tax. They are talking about a low price per tonne of carbon dioxide. They are talking about compensation to all concerned. This is the drug dealer's method of getting people hooked: 'We'll give you a taste—there'll be no charge. You'll get that warm tingle from feeling something good about the environment, and then we'll reel you in.' Then the price of carbon will have to go up if it is going to work. People must realise that for a carbon tax to have any effect on emissions, it has to make energy more expensive. If you are on a fixed income, if you are a small business person, if you are a pensioner, you have no choice but to go without. If you cannot pass those costs on then you have to absorb the cost or do without the energy. This is going to have a devastating effect across the part of Australia that I represent.
Professor Garnaut, in his opening paper for the government a couple of years ago, stated that the emissions trading scheme that was first proposed, and which this carbon tax is going to morph into, would have a downturn of 20 per cent on regional Australia. He said it would have a downturn in the cities of eight per cent but a downturn in regional Australia of 20 per cent. If the government wants to propose that all Australians take responsibility for this and all Australians bear the same amount of pain, then they might get some support from me. But a proposal that their own paperwork says will cause a severe economic downturn in regional Australia—and the Parkes electorate is a third of New South Wales—will not be getting my support.
This week we saw the reduction in Australia's GDP growth because of the downturn in agriculture, mining and manufacturing and because of the unseasonal weather conditions. We saw just how reliant this country is on the industries from inland Australia. If this tax, combined with the mining tax, targets the profitability of mining and agriculture as well as affecting an electorate like mine which has a large proportion of low-income earners, Indigenous people and pensioners, then this is an unfair tax.
The other thing is that nowhere in this moral debate is the government talking about how this tax is directly going to cool the temperature of the globe. What they are talking about is sending a signal, working towards some point in the future. Indeed, Professor Flannery said that maybe in a thousand years we will see some difference in the climate. The question I would like to ask tonight is: are we prepared to sacrifice the welfare of our lowest income earners—our fixed income earners, our elderly, our small business community and our farmers—to make a grand gesture to the rest of the world? It would be a gesture, given the level of emissions coming out of Australia, that would have no effect at all on the temperature of the globe but a remarkable, huge negative effect on the economy of Australia and, more particularly, the economy of regional Australia, of which I am a representative. The government are not going to get support for this tax from me, and nor will the people of Australia support them on this issue.
Tomorrow, I open the new library at Tarampa State School, a 131-year-old school located in the Brisbane Valley north-west of Ipswich. This facility is just one of the new state-of-the-art facilities that have been built throughout Blair as part of the Building the Education Revolution, which has seen an investment of $109 million in 65 schools in Blair by this federal Labor government. The school received $850,000 under the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program to build a new library. The previous library was not a purpose-built library. Rather, it was an old classroom in the original school building, which is impressive, given that it was built in 1886. The old library is now being used for staff resources. The school received an additional $75,000 under the National School Pride program, and that has been used to improve some of the safety, comfort and aesthetic needs of the students, such as bituminising the undercover area, recementing around the undercover area and installing a soft-fall facility in the playground and some latticework.
Tarampa is a small rural township of just a few buildings: a hotel, a general store, a church and a school. In the early 1860s, the Tarampa Agricultural Reserve was declared for closer settlement and was occupied almost exclusively by German settlers. Baptist and Apostolic churches were opened in the early years of the next decade. The farms were used for crops and dairy, and a local creamery was opened in the 1890s. A butter factory at Lowood, five kilometres north-east, took over from the creamery in 1903.
An affiliation with Lowood, also German settled, further developed with the Lowood Agricultural Society showground being built in 1906 on part of the Tarampa estate. Intensively farmed holdings raised Tarampa's population to just over 500 in 1911. However, the town still contained only a few businesses, and only the publican had a non-Germanic surname. A population movement out of Tarampa began in the 1910s, and by the early 1950s there were only about 200 people living in Tarampa. The decline in dairying further reduced the population. Today, the Tarampa and Lowood communities boast about 3,000 people, as people see the benefit of coming to this beautiful area.
I look forward to being at the Tarampa show on Saturday for my 68th mobile office since the last election—but I digress. The Tarampa State School was established in 1880. The area was, at first, dense bush and scrub. Students had their first lessons in an old slab building on Grlenke's paddock, and the school's first teacher was a Mr JH Stewart. I am not sure how, with an English surname, he coped with all those German speakers. There were 44 students originally, and the school is still relatively small with 65 enrolments. Many of the original students spent their lives in the district. They went on to develop and progress the region, especially in Tarampa and Lowood. The school remains a symbol of the early pioneers' dedication to education and the importance of children being the central point of the community.
One of my electorate staff, Lucas Bird, was a student at Tarampa State School, completing years 4 to 7 from 2001 to 2004. He played a significant role in the 125th anniversary celebrations in 2005, and Lucas has informed me there are number of time capsules located throughout the school property. He has also told me that a leopard tree, planted on the school grounds about 100 years ago, still stands. The original lunch shed is still standing and they still have the original school bell—an old hand-held bell. The school has played an important role in the community over many years as a meeting place. It has hosted festivals such as the Spring Festival, held by the local German population, and the Tarampa Gift, a fete that celebrates the pioneering heritage of the region. In 1930, at the school's jubilee, it was noted that the original students and early pioneers played a wonderful part in making the district what it was.
This new library is a demonstration of the federal Labor government's commitment to vital infrastructure in local schools—even small rural schools like Tarampa State School. It is a commitment that, as a federal member, I will always support, even if those opposite, our conservative opponents, will not. This gives kids in Tarampa as much opportunity as kids in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
It is in our Australian psyche to help out our mates. It is also in our Australian psyche to help those in need. When we see others in pain, when we see others struggling, Australians are the first to go to their assistance. We saw this firsthand earlier this year with Australians' unprecedented response to our summer of disasters, and we saw a similar level of response to events that happened overseas, particularly in New Zealand and Japan.
However, Australians react not only to disasters. We understand that it is not the headlines that determine the time of need. For many that need is present every day. Since coming to this House I have been honoured to have the opportunity to acknowledge the work of many of the tireless volunteers in my electorate of Ryan. Together with all Australian volunteers—34 per cent of the Australian adult population volunteer—they contribute over 700,000 hours of volunteer work each year. This is an estimated value of $75 billion to the economy per annum. As I said, it is in our psyche—it is our Aussie spirit.
That is why I rise today to applaud the Australian Volunteers for International Development program. Bringing together AusAID, Australian Volunteers International, Austraining International and the Australian Red Cross, this program collaboratively provides Australians with easy access to international volunteering opportunities. These organisations have extensive experience in international volunteering and will place volunteers on assignments which are aligned with Australian aid priorities. By supporting volunteers with a basic monthly living and accommodation allowance, the program makes available international volunteer opportunities to all Australians and allows our volunteers to live within the communities they are serving. This will bring about on-the-ground, bottom-up change for communities in developing countries and allow volunteers to immerse themselves in an experience so very different to what we have here in Australia. Living like this sees our volunteers develop a strong understanding of local and cultural issues, which helps to build a connection between Australia and many of our close neighbours. In this day and age, it is important that we all become global citizens. A key part of this is making any exposure to the wider world as accessible as possible, particularly to those with altruistic motives. Bringing these organisations together supports this, giving Australians a wealth of opportunities to make a lasting difference to communities within developing countries. It is mutually beneficial—Australian volunteers contribute to reducing poverty and long-term development whilst gaining invaluable personal skills, understanding, and experience.
This program will have a significant impact on many people's lives. The individual organisations have deployed thousands of volunteers since their establishment, and their achievements are truly remarkable. During their 60-year tenure, Australian Volunteers International has: developed many projects, including Fiji's first sign language dictionary; trained the first Hamlin College of Midwives' graduates in Ethiopia; established Timor-Leste's first national park; and assisted in drafting Swaziland's first child protection and welfare bill, to name just a few. As this demonstrates, one of the great benefits of this program is that it deploys some of our most skilled Australians not only to assist with hands on projects but to teach and train, fostering independence. It gives communities a hand up, not just a hand out. It is a truly beneficial component of our Australian aid program.
On a personal note, a future innovation I would like to see developed as a part of this program is to have it extended to encourage our school leavers to take the opportunity to volunteer. Whilst the program does encompass our Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development, it would be wonderful to see our year 12 graduates use the time they have after finishing school in November to be a part of international volunteering, perhaps even as an alternative to Schoolies Week. There are many similar initiatives being undertaken by high schools around the world. I believe it would be an unforgettable experience for our young school leavers embarking on their adult lives and it would enhance the Australian Volunteers for International Development if it were expanded to include this initiative.
I would like to conclude with a quote from the Red Cross, an organisation very close to my heart as I serve on their Queensland board:
Voluntary service is one of the fundamental principles of Red Cross. It is at the heart of community building because it promotes trust and reciprocity. It encourages people to be responsible citizens.
The Australian Volunteers for International Development is an outstanding program. I commend its efforts and look forward to seeing it flourish.
I want to take the opportunity to note that today, 2 June, is Italy's national republic day—Festa della Repubblica. On behalf of the government, I feel it is important to extend our heartfelt congratulations to Italy and all Italians, who are celebrating this year the 150th anniversary of the country's unification. I am aware that the Prime Minister has put out a statement celebrating this anniversary also. Nearly one million Australians have Italian ancestry and have contributed to our society over many generations. Currently, we have around 200,000 Australian residents who were born in Italy and at least 30,000 Australians are today living in Italy. Our two countries have a friendly, robust and collaborative relationship with each other and we enjoy many mutual benefits from our warm and longstanding friendship. Italian culture, language and heritage is widespread across Australian communities, including my own. This has enabled us to share rich social, cultural and economic links with Italy. Today, for example, trade between our two nations is worth nearly $6 billion a year.
As the largest migrant population in my electorate of Cunningham, Italo-Australians have had significant involvement in the economy and the culture of Wollongong and the Illawarra more broadly. The Italian Social Welfare Organisation of Wollongong have played a excellent local role in this development. They actively engage in delivering a range of services to the Italian community as well as the promotion and education of the much-loved Italian culture to the broader general public. Only recently I had the opportunity to attend to look at their broadband-for-seniors kiosk, where I met many elderly Italian residents who were learning to use a computer for the first time and getting great pleasure out of being able to read in real time, on the day, the local newspaper from their home town. It brings together our wonderful multicultural heritage and the advantages of broadband in the broader community in one example.
I commend them, as I do the Illawarra Association of Teachers of Italian, who are holding an Italian day in Crown Street Mall in Wollongong this Saturday which I will be participating in. This is an event which celebrates Italy's influence and presence in our local area and is well-loved by many, many locals as we tour around, particularly, the food stalls, which are enticing and a great example of the combination of our cultures in our region.
As chair of the Australia-Italy Parliamentary Friendship Group since 2007, I have also had the pleasure of seeing this kind of contribution the Italian community has made and continues to make to Australia first-hand. I understand that my deputy chair, Senator Connie Fierravanti-Wells, will be seeking to make a similar statement in the Senate to celebrate this important occasion.
I am also pleased to note that, at the Prime Minister's request, the Governor-General will be representing Australia today in Rome, following an invitation from the President of the Italian Republic, Mr Giorgio Napolitano. This trip will also include an audience with Pope Benedict, a meeting with the Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, and a visit to Domus Australia, the Australian Catholic Church's newly renovated building in Rome. This will only seek to strengthen our ties with each other. It is a special relationship which Australia treasures and will continue to build on. I convey our sincere hope that our two countries will continue to work together for the benefit of both our great nations for another 150 years, and I extend the government's best wishes to the people of Italy on this special day of celebration and Italian national pride.
In finalising my contribution on this matter, I have covered the national and indeed my own regional influence but I also want to acknowledge that for many of us this was a very personal experience as well. In my own family, both I and one of my brothers have partners of Italian-Australian background. I often look at my brother's two children and think that it is epitomised in them with Nicholas, the elder, who is five, who has lovely dark hair and big brown eyes that melt your heart and Isabella, who is three, with her fiery red hair and porcelain skin. To me, they epitomise the wonderful combination of the two cultures and bring great pleasure and joy to all of us but also epitomise the great strength of the long-term relationship as it works down to even the most intimate levels of our lives together as a community.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011, was a momentous day in the history of the Australian rice-growing industry. A $610 million takeover bid of SunRice by Spanish food giant Ebro failed. This decision keeps a great and sustainable industry in our own hands and strengthens future food security and opportunities for our nation. As 84-year-old Ron O'Brien, formerly of Whitton, put it: 'I am extremely happy; too much of Australia has already been sold overseas.'
House adjourned at 17:00
The following notice(s) were given:
to move:
That this House:
(1) notes:
(a) the social and economic impact of wild dogs on the sheep, cattle and goat industry across Australia;
(b) the environmental impact of wild dogs preying on Australia native wildlife; and
(c) that according to the Australian Pest Animals Strategy, pest animal management requires coordination among all levels of government in partnership with industry, land and water managers and the community; and
(2) highlights the need for a nationally consistent approach to effective wild dog control and ongoing Commonwealth funding to support research and on the ground work to reduce the impact of wild dogs on regional Australians.
to move:
That this House:
(1) expresses:
(a) its condolences to:
(i) the family of Senior Constable Damian Leeding who was shot in the line of duty on Sunday evening, 29 May 2011; and
(ii) the colleagues of Senior Constable Leeding at Coomera CIB, Queensland Police Service; and
(b) our gratitude to men and women who serve in our police forces across Australia for the burden placed upon them and the sacrifices they make to protect others; and
(2) acknowledges:
(a) the risks associated with the work performed by our men and women in the police forces across Australia and the bravery that they display in the performance of their duty; and
(b) the husbands, wives and partners of serving police officers for their support of those who serve in our police forces.
to move:
That this House:
(1) notes:
(a) that the abnormally wet weather in late 2010 and early 2011 devastated the sugar industry on the NSW north coast; and
(b) the major impact of this weather on the sugar industry on the NSW north coast;
(2) acknowledges that many farmers planted crops twice but lost both as a result of the flood events of December 2010 and January 2011;
(3) recognises that as a result, there are currently 6000 hectares of sugar cane crops which remain implanted in Northern NSW;
(4) notes the replanting proposal put forward by Canegrowers NSW; and
(5) calls on the:
(a) Commonwealth and NSW Governments to increase the level of assistance provided to farmers from $15 000 to $25 000, similar to the level of assistance provided to Queensland and Victorian farmers; and
(b) Government to respond to the proposal made by Canegrowers NSW as a matter of urgency.
to move:
That this House:
(1) notes with concern that on 30 May 2011 in the People's Court of Ben Tre, Vietnam, the following seven people were tried and convicted under Section 2 of Article 79 of the penal code, 'Attempting to overthrow the people's administration':
(a) Ms Tran Thi Thuy (8 years imprisonment and 5 years probation);
(b) Mr Pham Van Thong (7 years and 5 years probation);
(c) Pastor Duong Kim Khai (6 years and 5 years probation);
(d) Mr Cao Van Tinh (5 years and 4 years probation);
(e) Mr Nguyen Thanh Tam (2 years and 3 years probation);
(f) Mr Nguyen Chi Thanh (2 years and 3 years probation); and
(g) Ms Pham Ngoc Hoa (2 years and 3 years probation);
(2) further notes all seven were advocates for democratic reform, and had:
(a) participated in non violent protest;
(b) prepared and distributed material affirming Vietnamese sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly Islands;
(c) petitioned the State for redress on behalf of local landholders; and
(d) as members of the 'Cattle Shed Congregation' of the Mennonite Church, engaged in peaceful advocacy for social justice; and
(3) expresses its concern that the authorities of Vietnam appear to be using legal processes to rationalise human rights abuse and to silence peaceful opposition; and
(4) calls on the Government to use the full weight of its diplomatic relations with Vietnam to lobby for substantial reform in human rights and basic freedoms in accordance with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which both Australia and Vietnam are parties.
I rise today to speak on behalf of people from my electorate of Bonner who have a mental illness and who are suffering under the inadequate arrangements in place to support people with mental illness in our community. As I mentioned in my speech on the appropriation bills recently, the government has announced a package of measures in its 2011 budget for funding mental health but, despite the headline figure of $2.2 billion, the government will spend only $583 million over the next four years. In the 2011-12 financial year, the total amount to be spent is only $47 million. The government is in fact cutting mental health by ripping $580.5 million from GP mental health services and allied health treatment sessions from the Better Access initiative. Like all things, the devil is in the detail. On this, the government has been exposed as a sham. I have had numerous constituents and health professionals contact me, concerned about whether this will affect existing patients and when the new measures will begin, none of which has been made clear by the government. This is detail we still need to know more about.
The coalition has led the way on mental health funding, with the announcement in 2006, when Tony Abbott was minister for health, of a $1.9 billion investment over five years in mental health. The coalition's 2010 election policy was $1.5 million for mental health. This commitment would establish 20 early psychosis intervention centres in major metropolitan and regional areas, providing health care aimed at recovery and prevention of relapse; provide 800 beds for acute and subacute care, specifically to support the early psychosis intervention centres; and fund an additional 60 headspace sites, providing one-stop shops for young people with information and services relating to general health and wellbeing, mental health and alcohol and drug services. In April this year the coalition announced a further investment of $430 million for mental health. So it is incredibly disappointing to my constituents in Bonner that the government has ignored the will of both houses of parliament, which passed motions in October and November last year calling on the government to implement this policy. (Time expired)
One of the changes I have seen over the years as the member for Griffith, on Brisbane's Southside, has been the significant investments undertaken by the government in the delivery of local health services. The federal government has now invested $13 million into the Greenslopes Private Hospital to fund the University of Queensland's new clinical school, providing training infrastructure to support additional medical places, including a state-of-the-art lecture theatre, 14 tutorial rooms and a computer lab.
For those of you not familiar with Brisbane's Southside—and I hope the member for Bonner is familiar with Brisbane's Southside—Greenslopes Private Hospital has a proud history. As a military hospital set up in 1942, at the height of the Second World War, the hospital took wounded from battlefronts in the Pacific, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Of the three original bunkers built into the hospital, one of the bunkers still exists today, and it has been turned into a historical museum. My mother was a nurse at this hospital during the war, and part of her job was to nurse back to health wounded Australian diggers returned from Papua New Guinea and elsewhere in the South Pacific.
The government has also invested $7½ million in the recently opened Prostate Cancer Research Centre at Princess Alexandra Hospital, the first of its kind in Australia. Next year Queensland X-Ray Coorparoo will be able to offer a range of bowel, breast and cervical cancer screening through Medicare, providing greater access to MRI services for patients and allowing local residents to manage their health and keep more money in their back pockets. The government has also injected a $900,000 funding boost to support the expansion of local clinical training placements, with Mater Health Services and the PA Hospital set to benefit. The government is also delivering $176,000 to construct a new maternity and neonatal clinical simulation centre on the site at Mater Health Services and has provided funding for 32 new specialist doctors on the Brisbane Southside as part of an overall investment of $356 million across the country. This builds on the government's recent investments in health services on the Southside. One of the most significant we have seen is the Annerley GP superclinic. I recently went to visit the GP superclinic with the member for Moreton. UQ Healthcare run the clinic and the rooms are filling up quickly with nurses, doctors, physios and others keen to improve access to the local community for the range of health services on offer. The government is building 64 GP superclinics around Australia along with an increased investment in GP services to improve access to integrated GP and primary health care.
One of the government's other key commitments is to close the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and we are working hard on that. Under the New Directions mothers and babies services initiative, we have provided grants to expand Indigenous child and maternal health services in 32 locations around Australia, including in my own electorate. We are working hard to deliver better health services on Brisbane's Southside. (Time expired)
I rise to pay tribute to the work of Linfield Rotary in organising the Linfield Rotary Fun Run which was held in my electorate on Sunday, 3 April. The fun run is a popular community event, with some 1,800 people participating this year, the 10th year that the event has been run. That is the largest number of participants that has ever been achieved. It is very much a voluntary effort, coordinated by the Linfield Rotary Club with assistance from volunteers from the SES and other organisations. The police are also there. I want to pay tribute to the sponsors, Century 21, and I also want to mention the organisation which is the beneficiary of the proceeds of this year's event, the Ku-ring-gai Youth Development Service, a very important counselling service for young people located in the suburb of Linfield in my electorate of Bradfield.
At this marvellous community event there is a very wide spectrum of ages represented, some very young children, including one particular 12-year-old who zoomed past me as if I was standing still. I did not see what time he eventually achieved, but I do note that the winner achieved a time of approximately 17 minutes, which is some nine minutes better than my own time. The important things about this event are the spirit of community participation which it engenders, a very wide spectrum of ages and abilities which are represented amongst those who are running and the very important cause which is being serviced. Most important is the fact that this is entirely a voluntary effort, a community effort organised by people who want to contribute to our community in Linfield and in the seat of Bradfield by giving people the opportunity to participate in an enjoyable event which offers them the chance to engage in healthy outdoor activity and improve their fitness and also to contribute by arranging an event, the proceeds of which go to support an extremely worthwhile program, the Ku-ring-gai Youth Development Service, which supports particularly young people who are experiencing difficulties of various kinds. KYDS is staffed by trained psychologists. It has been supported by Rotary and by other local community organisations as well as by Ku-ring-gai Council for a considerable period of time. I want to commend the Linfield Rotary Club and all who participated in the Linfield Rotary Fun Run.
I rise today to take the opportunity to recognise the really important role that financial counsellors play across the country, in particular in my electorate of Kingston. I am very pleased the Parliamentary Secretary for Community Services is here, because I know that she has worked very hard with the financial counsellors to ensure that we continue funding them to do the great work that they do.
I recently met with financial counsellors Ms Christine Raymond and Ms Jenny Errey from the community organisations from UnitingCare Wesley at Christies Beach. They assist vulnerable and disadvantaged people in my local area when they find themselves in financial difficulty. One of the financial counsellors at this community organisation informed me that they service a broad range of local residents who are extremely marginalised and may have had, for example, their utilities disconnected. Their teenager might have crashed a new car without insurance, or there might be small businesses that accrued some debt, individuals who were previously on high incomes and needed to adjust to lower incomes or had lost their job, or people who had entered into contracts that they did not fully understand. UnitingCare Wesley Christies Beach told me that they are the only provider of regular financial counselling services in the outer southern area, and I have heard from local constituents what a great job they do.
One particular story that really stood out—it is one that Ms Raymond told me from her time as a financial counsellor—was about a 35-year-old client who had an obvious intellectual disability and who came to see her. His support worker suggested it because he had become so worried about his level of debt that he did not even want to leave his house. Ms Raymond conveyed to me that this client had applied for an interest-free loan through a lending provider for a sum of $1,200, for a computer. However, when he was provided with this the lender also provided him with a $4,000 credit card. The client did not understand that the credit card funds were not interest free, so he continued to use the money and accrued a significant debt. Furthermore, the client was encouraged to take out income protection, despite the fact that he was in supported employment at Bedford Industries and his wage was not much higher than what he would have received on disability support payments if he were to be made redundant. Ms Raymond was able to engage ombudsman services to have the debt completely waived, something that would have been unlikely for the client to have been able to do himself.
This demonstrates what a great job the financial counsellors do with those most vulnerable. That is why I have welcomed the recent federal budget announcement, championed by the Parliamentary Secretary for Community Services, to ensure that funding continues for these important services and that we continue to make sure that these most vulnerable of people get support. UnitingCare Wesley Christies Beach receives a boost of $44,000 in funding per annum and this will ensure that people are going to get a great service in the area. (Time expired)
This week will mark the start of the Cooly Rocks On festival on the southern Gold Coast, which will run from the 3 to 13 June. This 1950s and 1960s festival is a wonderful example of community spirit and determination. For many years this part of the Gold Coast hosted the Wintersun Festival but, following a decision to move the festival further south, angry locals and business owners banded together to create a new festival, Cooly Rocks On. Thanks to the time and effort of the Cooly Rocks On executive management committee and managers: Steve Archdeacon, Phil Villiers, James Sullivan, Jim Wilson, Bob Newman, Brian Foster, Steve Bowman, Professor Kerry Brown, Ross Mercer, Tony Cannon, Lloyd Collingwood and Gail O'Neill—as well as many other supporters—the dream to host a fifties and sixties festival based at Coolangatta has become a reality.
An extensive program has been put in place including: a street parade with Aussie rock'n'roll singer Little Pattie, who has been named the official patron for the very first festival; over 900 classic cars and hot rods, which will take to the streets on 11 and 12 June; the world freestyle rock'n'roll and swing championships; surfboard championship with riders on pre-1968 boards; a fifties and sixties rock'n'roll dance competition; markets where I am sure there will certainly be some fascinating and amazing vintage finds; Australia's largest Elvis Presley memorabilia collection; and the 'ain't nothin' but a hound dog' poodle competition. There will be heaps of entertainment for the whole family, including many live bands and outdoor performances, throughout the festival as well as sideshow alley and carnival rides.
Whilst this will certainly be a fun filled festival, there is a serious side to it. I know there is a very serious aspect to this festival. It is expected that we will have between 50,000 and 80,000 people attending the festival including those from within Queensland and interstate and overseas visitors. Many of these visitors will holiday on the Gold Coast for the whole 11 days of the festival and, hopefully, they will take the opportunity to visit other parts of the Gold Coast as well. Based on those estimated numbers, it is likely that Cooly Rocks On will inject a minimum of $3 million into the local economy. This will come from accommodation, hospitality, memorabilia, ticket and retail sales. It will be a welcome boost to an area of the Gold Coast that has been hit very hard in recent times by a downturn in the tourism industry. The Gold Coast needs to attract visitors for longer stays, and the Cooly Rocks On festival fits perfectly with this model. I am very confident that the success of this year's festival will ensure that it becomes an annual event which will bring an increasing number of visitors to the Gold Coast. I will certainly be attending and I invite you all to join me.
I would like to talk about a military site in my electorate, Fort Direction at South Arm. Fort Direction was established in 1939 as a defence and training facility for the city of Hobart. There was an issue in the local community over the Christmas break because a defence work order, which was a clerical error, had been issued in October 2010. Over the Christmas break, a bit of community concern was unfortunately whipped up, frightening some local residents, by a local senator, Senator Bushby.
I spoke to the media and reassured the local community that some heritage buildings at Fort Direction were not under any threat and that the Department of Defence would consult with the local community before any decision was made on the future direction of those buildings. This community concern was continually whipped up. It is unfortunate, because Senator Bushby was told at some Senate estimates in February this year that it was a clerical error, that these buildings were not going to be demolished and yet he continued to try to scaremonger in the local community. After various media reports and releases by me trying to calm down the community, we were able to reassure the community just a few weeks ago on 5 May.
The Department of Defence gave a full briefing of their review of the buildings at Fort Direction. It has been assessed by the Department of Defence as having significant heritage value as a site. I want to reiterate for the local community that there will be no demolition of any heritage buildings at the site and that the Department of Defence will look to renovate and maintain the existing buildings. That will allow more use of the site for training purposes. Defence will continue to communicate with the local community, with the potential for a Fort Direction open day and other community forums down there. Fort Direction really is an iconic and beautiful site and I am very pleased that its heritage value and the important contribution to Australia's history have been recognised by Defence.
I want to thank those local community members who contacted my office about the issue because their interest and passion in Fort Direction are clear. It is in a really beautiful part of Tasmania. I am really glad that this issue has been resolved once and for all to the local community's satisfaction. It certainly was not helped by local Senator David Bushby trying to whip up a bit of fear in the local community. I will continue to reassure the local community that that will not happen. I look forward to the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, Senator David Feeney, visiting the Fort Direction site in future weeks. He is going to inspect the site to see what all the fuss has been about, so we can continue to reassure the local community. (Time expired)
Honourable members may be aware that last week I celebrated my 21st birthday, the first 21st in federal parliament. I want to take the opportunity in this place to thank my family, friends, the countless locals in my community and my parliamentary colleagues for their kind wishes, gifts, cards and the many celebrations I have enjoyed. I have been humbled by and grateful for the many thoughtful and kind gestures people have made. I want to particularly thank those I do not spend as much time with as I would like—and perhaps I should. Family and friends are so important and I am truly grateful for the warmth, love and support they continue to show me.
In my electorate I had a spectacular handmade and decorated cake delivered to my office by Debra Casey, who is in the process of establishing a business whereby all children, but particularly those with a disability, can decorate cakes to improve their fine motor skills. The enthusiastic schoolchildren at Banksia Beach State School dressed up in hats and had decorated the school with streamers and balloons when I attended their school for Walk to School Safely Day. Students at Morayfield State High School sang me happy birthday at their Cultural Infusion day I opened on 20 May, an event aimed at developing a greater understanding of Aboriginal and Islander culture at the school. I thanked them for the birthday cake they surprised me with. I have been overwhelmed by the number of emails, cards and phone calls I have received from the community of Longman. It has been a further reminder of what a great community it is.
I also take this opportunity to thank my parliamentary colleagues for their birthday wishes and for the celebration that was organised for me. I thank the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, Deputy Leader Julie Bishop and Phillip Ruddock for their kind words and for their support since I was elected to parliament. I thank my parliamentary colleagues, their staff and parliamentary staff and countless others who have made my transition to parliamentary life as easy as possible. It is only in the Liberal Party of Australia that we can see a 21st in the parliament. Whilst the Labor Party talks about progressive achievements we get on with actually delivering them, based on a commitment to Liberal values and philosophy. We have seen that in this parliament with the election of Ken Wyatt, the first Indigenous member, and Natasha Griggs, the first woman elected from the Northern Territory. All of us sitting on the coalition benches were elected supporting the Liberal philosophy of fair reward for hard work, of supporting the individual in their enterprise and of a hand up over a handout.
It is an honour for me to serve in this place and I will continue to work hard to represent my electorate and to justify the faith that has been shown in me by my constituents and by my colleagues.
The Healthy Heart Challenge began yesterday, 1 June. It is a free 10-week program which helps people to make simple lifestyle changes to improve their heart health. I participated in the Queensland trial of the challenge last year by following the challenge guidelines on nutrition and being very active. I was able to lose 10 kilos following the program and, even though I am not a Queenslander like you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I felt that Queensland was showing the way in their work with the Heart Foundation.
People are unaware that heart disease is the biggest killer of women in Australia. Women and heart disease: cardiovascular profile of women in Australia was released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in June 2010. This report revealed some really startling facts. It revealed that more than 90 per cent of women have one or more risk factors for heart disease and 50 per cent have two risk factors. It is not uncommon for women from as young as 35 to 44 to be overweight—that is, outside what is a healthy weight. One in five women aged 20 to 29 smokes daily. This week in parliament there was quite an emphasis on smoking. Last Tuesday was World No Tobacco Day, and a number of members joined together to make the point that smoking not only is bad as far as cancer is concerned but is very bad for heart health. Almost 50 per cent of women have high cholesterol levels and 76 per cent of women are physically inactive.
This year I decided that rather than attacking the weight goal I would attack the exercise goal. It is my goal to increase my physical activity on a daily basis, and I am encouraging people to join with me. We are going to form a Friends of the Heart Foundation group, and of the Stroke Foundation as well, in this parliament. The member for Hasluck has agreed to convene the group jointly with me, and we are going to encourage members to become more active, to become healthier and to look after their hearts. On Saturday morning I am joining with constituents in my electorate at the start of the Fernleigh Track in Belmont and we will go on our first community walk. We will walk for 30 minutes, which is the recommended time, along the beautiful Fernleigh Track, which has had considerable funding from this government. (Time expired)
Madam Acting Deputy Speaker, you might recall that after the Gillard Labor government budget was released there was quite a debate in the community about just what amounted to a 'rich' person or a 'rich' Australian family. All sorts of claims were being made about struggling families—and I have struggled to get here on time, so I have had my exercise for the day—who were trying to cope with the rising cost of living, mortgage increases and raising children. It was quite a lively debate and it really struck a chord with the Australian people in that perhaps the Gillard Labor government did not quite get the pressure that was on so many households and that they were somehow redefining not what it was to be mainstream but what it was to be wealthy.
It is my melancholy duty this morning to announce that the Gillard Labor government has redefined 'wealthy' if you are a self-employed person, if you are an independent contractor or if you are one of the 400,000 of our smallest businesses which could benefit from the entrepreneurs tax offset but now will be denied that offset in 2012-13. I announce this new description of 'wealth' by drawing on the remarks of one of the Labor members who was making some big deal about the fact that the average claim amongst those 400,000 of our smallest businesses was for an ETO benefit of about $600, as though that did not matter much, that could not possibly be a concern. The Labor member made the outrageous claim that businesses were holding back and turning their back on business opportunities just so they could get this entrepreneurs tax offset. Then he went on to deride the value of that tax offset as not being that much. Well, the people who are claiming that must be the new wealthy in Australia in the eyes of the Australian Labor Party and the Gillard government.
It is my melancholy duty to inform the parliament that 70 per cent of the claims are for less than $600. Do you know how much the average recipient earns when they are getting that $600 benefit, as claimed by the Labor member? They earn $22,000 a year. Apparently, according to this Gillard Labor government, if you are self-employed, a microbusiness or a home based business you now no longer deserve the entrepreneurs tax offset, because you are so wealthy that you do not need it. The ETO is worth $600, the person is earning $22,000 a year and 70 per cent of those 400,000 who receive that benefit are receiving that $600. What is this about? Are they the new wealthy?
If you are self-employed—that is, not receiving a payment from someone else but going out to earn your own income—you earn $22,000 a year and you get a $600 benefit, you are now the new wealthy in Australia! Or is it really the fact that the Gillard Labor government hate self-employed people? Their idea is that the only one who works is someone who receives a pay cheque from someone else, whereas there are millions of Australians who work for themselves and earn their own pay cheques— (Time expired)
I rise today in sadness to commemorate the life and note with deep regret the death of a very special Novocastrian, Mr Alfred Stone OAM. Mr Stone, or Alf as he was better known, passed away last week at the age of 92 years. He was a larger-than-life figure in Newcastle—a city with its fair share of characters—and was known equally for his advocacy on behalf of fellow veterans and for his genuine concern for his fellow human beings.
Alf was the long-time president of the Newcastle Ex-Prisoners of War Association. Captured by the Germans in World War II and imprisoned in Stalag 18A in the Austrian Alps, Alf endured years of harsh physical labour and deprivation. But it was also here that he forged the values of compassion and selflessness that were the hallmarks of his life. He formed lifelong bonds with his fellow inmates, many of whom hailed from around the world. It was here he also formed his lifelong association with the Red Cross. Having relied on Red Cross parcels to supplement his meagre rations, upon his release he immediately set out to repay the debt he felt he owed to the Red Cross. And he did exactly that, over and over again, working tirelessly to raise funds for the Red Cross until his recent death.
But his efforts did not stop there. His efforts as the welfare officer of the Hamilton Sub-branch of the RSL, assisting countless veterans from Newcastle to secure their due entitlements, were well known and appreciated among the veteran community.
His fellow former POW, Arthur Wade, a former state member of parliament, told me last night that they both almost escaped the enemy in Europe but Alf was captured after he was shot in the leg in Greece and was then interned in Austria. There is a very special regard between POWs and I know that Alf’s death will have stirred great memories and emotions amongst his comrades whom he has left behind.
In 1991 his services to his fellow veterans were aptly recognised when he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal. But Alf will be remembered mostly for his genuine warmth as a human being and his constant smile. He was a regular visitor to my office, brightening our day with his smile and bringing presents of Flanders poppies, which he grew, a symbol of peace that he shared all around Newcastle.
Although we will miss him, his prized poppy seeds will see Alf Stone's unique warmth blooming in many gardens all over Newcastle. Thank you, Alf. You were a tower of strength, a source of courage and a beacon of inspiration for all who crossed your path. To quote Arthur Wade once more: 'Alf was a real digger.' Newcastle and Australia will be the lesser for his loss. We will remember him. Lest we forget.
Order! In accordance with standing order 193 the time for constituency statements has concluded.
In accordance with standing order 149, the Main Committee will first consider the schedule of the bill.
May I suggest that it might suit the convenience of the Main Committee to consider the items of proposed expenditure in the order and groupings shown in the schedule which has been circulated to honourable members. I also take the opportunity to indicate to the Main Committee that the proposed order of the consideration of portfolio estimates has been discussed with the opposition and other non-government members and there has been no objection to what is proposed.
The schedule read as follows—
Prime Minister and Cabinet Portfolio (Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government);
Infrastructure and Transport Portfolio;
Defence Portfolio (Defence);
Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Portfolio;
Defence Portfolio (Veterans' Affairs);
Treasury Portfolio;
Human Services Portfolio;
Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities Portfolio;
Health and Ageing Portfolio;
Immigration and Citizenship Portfolio;
Resources, Energy and Tourism Portfolio (Resources and Energy);
Resources, Energy and Tourism Portfolio (Tourism);
Attorney-General's Portfolio;
Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Portfolio;
Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Portfolio (Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations);
Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Portfolio (School Education, Early Childhood and Youth);
Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Portfolio;
Foreign Affairs and Trade Portfolio (Foreign Affairs);
Foreign Affairs and Trade Portfolio (Trade);
Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Portfolio;
Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Portfolio;
Finance and Deregulation Portfolio; and
Prime Minister and Cabinet Portfolio (Prime Minister and Cabinet).
Is it the wish of the Main Committee to consider the items of proposed expenditure in the order suggested by the minister? There being no objection, it is so ordered.
Prime Minister and Cabinet Portfolio (Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government)
Proposed expenditure, $1,808,280,000
I refer the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government to this press release, where he announced the so-called $1.4 billion Regional Development Australia Fund. I note that the government has since reallocated $350 million of this money to other programs. However, if the minister's press release was honest, this should still leave $1,050 million in the Regional Development Australia Fund. Will the minister confirm that the allocation in his department's portfolio budget statements provides $301 million for the Regional Development Australia Fund all the way out to 2014-15? Minister, what happened to the missing $749 million? Where did it go? Given that only $151 million of the Regional Development Australia Fund is due to be spent before the next election, how can people living in regional Australia trust the Gillard government to deliver the $1 billion you have promised? Does the minister believe that people living in regional Australia—who were told by the Prime Minister before the last election, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government,' I believe—should have any faith in this government's ability to deliver regional funding promised in the never-never years?
I refer the minister to his comments in the press release, where he said the $1.4 billion Regional Development Australia Fund 'is a concrete demonstration of the federal government's commitment to furthering economic development in the regions'. Will the minister inform the House of just the kind of concrete he is using, given that 71 per cent of the government's commitment disappeared in just eight weeks? Can the minister share with the House details of any construction site he is familiar with where 71 per cent of the concrete has disappeared in eight weeks?
I ask the minister to clarify just how the government defines this as a regional fund. I ask the minister to refer to the standard form of regional definitions adopted by the government in the way that the Australian Standard Geographical Classification is produced by the government's Australian Bureau of Statistics. Will the minister advise the House what amount of the Regional Development Australia Fund, or what is left of it, will be allocated to the remoteness areas RA1, RA2, RA3, RA4 and RA5?
Minister, please inform the House what proportion of the Regional Development Australia Fund is subject to the passage of the government's mining tax. Does the minister believe that $151 million in regional funding is an appropriate dividend to regional communities that will be hit hard by the government's mining tax? Will the minister share with the House how previous governments have been able to provide more funding and actually deliver it in regional Australia, and without the need for a massive mining tax?
Will the minister advise the House what happened to the $800 million Priority Regional Infrastructure Program and the $573 million Regional Development Australia scheme of the Regional Infrastructure Fund? Were these two programs abolished or rolled into the Regional Development Australia Fund? Will the minister confirm that, prior to the last election, the Treasurer made an election commitment:
… Federal Labor will invest more than $2 billion in Queensland infrastructure from the Regional Infrastructure Fund …
I refer the minister to question in writing No. 104, where I asked him what allocations have been made to the states or territories in the Regional Infrastructure Fund, and the minister's answer was: 'No funds have been allocated to states or territories.' Minister, why did the government break its election commitment to provide a $2 billion allocation to Queensland and a $2 billion allocation to Western Australia from the Regional Infrastructure Fund? Does the minister think it is fair that Queensland and Western Australia are burdened with Labor's massive mining tax without their promised allocation from the Regional Infrastructure Fund? Will the minister confirm that the biggest single allocation from the Regional Infrastructure Fund is $480 million for the Perth airport roads project? Does the minister agree with Senator Sherry, who when asked, 'Is Perth airport regional,' said, 'I would not consider it to be regional, no'? Minister, if that is the case, why was this project funded from the Regional Infrastructure Fund and not other areas of funding? Minister, I ask you: why are you spending regional money on the cities?
That was an interesting diatribe and just to pick up one of the points: this inability of the opposition, it would seem, to read the budget. As to the $573 million that the member just spoke about, it is actually on page 47 of the Treasury's 2011-12 portfolio budget statement and on page 76 of Budget Paper No. 3, so I suggest that you look there and actually read the budget. It is a complex document because we are dealing with complex issues.
Perhaps it is probably better for me to talk about what the budget has achieved—
You are answering a specific question.
I will answer the questions, because there is a significant commitment to regional Australia contained in this budget. This is a commitment of $4.3 billion for the regions, comprised of $1.8 billion for hospital infrastructure—$1.3 billion announced in the budget, with a second round to come later this year of half a billion dollars—another half a billion dollars for higher education infrastructure funding, not to mention the increase in the regional campuses loading for the universities because of the recognition of the important roles that universities play within the regions. There is also $916 million for the first projects under the Regional Infrastructure Fund; there is $1 billion over five years, and that is clear in the budget, through the Regional Development Australia Fund, the RDAF, which has linked two of those funds, and we set in the budget, into the one initiative. There is also a further $2 billion of national benefits that will come from the National Workforce Development Fund, given the critical issues of skill shortages in the region.
So let us have none of this cant and hypocrisy about the fact that we are not funding resources. I would like you to go back and look at what you spent for the regions in your 11½ years. What you did was to simply establish a pork barrel fund that was only available in the lead-up to elections, whereas we are embedding this to make sure that we take regions seriously over our full term.
Not only is this an important commitment to the resources; we have also changed fundamentally the way that we are going to allocate these resources because we have introduced the concept of 'localism' into this. No longer will the regions simply be contained to having an input into your old pork barrel programs; our regions are being encouraged through the Regional Development Australia Network, which we have resourced far more effectively because we have given them capacity to undertake their own capacity-building operations, to have local input into the way these funds are spent. We believe that localism is important. The ground-up approach rather than the top-down approach actually works, and if you get it right it is not just good for the regions; it is an efficiency dividend return to the nation.
The other thing that I think is important to understand about this budget is the way in which we have ensured that the regions are going to be fundamental to our grappling with the economic challenge of our time—that is, an economy in transition. An economy in transition means that we have to diversify the regions, and if we think in terms of a patchwork economy it is the regions that are the patches, and they are all different. That is why we have committed substantial resources to this, all funded and all costed in the budget, and have developed them in a way that enables the regions to make their patch work better. This local involvement has been embraced all around the country. If you think it is rubbish, go and talk to your own RDA. I suspect you have never had a sensible discussion strategy with them in your life. For the first time, we are equipping a mechanism to develop the strategic vision for their area.
Answer the question.
We have also introduced in this budget paper—if you are prepared to look at it—the concept of spatial accounting, which will enable regions to identify better the resources that are available to them. This is a substantial commitment to the regions. We are not going to leave them behind; we are going to integrate them into the mainstream structure.
Minister, we all understand how important regional Australia is, how much work this government has done to support regional Australia and how important it is to the economy, particularly for members like myself from Queensland and other members who have a hugely decentralised state. Minister, could you give us an indication of what the budget has done and is doing to attract new people to regional Australia?
I thank the member for his question, because this was a very important initiative that we have addressed in the budget through three different concepts in recognising the combination of pressures of growth, the need for cities to plan better to accommodate that growth, and the ability to build on a successful program which was developed by the regions and through which the regions are attracting population to them.
This program is known as Evocities. It comprises seven cities in regional New South Wales from Dubbo down to Albury. These cities got together and decided that they should market themselves as a collective with difference in amongst the seven of them—an approach that said. 'We are growing and we have economic diversity. Instead of living in Sydney and making that your home, why don't you think about coming out to our part of the world?' There has been a very successful take-up, with many hits on the website that was established and some significant initial movements going in that direction.
I might say that this will work very well with the New South Wales government's initiative, if they persist with it in the budget, whereby they are going to give a $7,000 incentive for people to move to the regions. This is a marketing exercise that can sit well with other state government proposals as well, of course, as the ones that I have just outlined in our broad thrust. So here is an opportunity for regions to, as part of the attraction mechanism, look to creatively using the different programs not just within the Commonwealth portfolio but also within the state. The Evocities program is a partnership between the Commonwealth government, the state government and local government.
So successful has that program been that we have included in the budget a fund of $11½ million for other groupings of cities to develop their own strategy to draw and attract people to them. We know that some of these communities are great places to live. Those of us who frequently travel out to these regions—and some in this chamber who live there—know the great attributes of these places. But, if you are going to attract people to these places, obviously there has to be economic activity and diversity. That is the patchwork. That is the economy in transition. That is why we have programs to invest in infrastructure and skills and to actually help diversify that economic basis.
It is also the fact that, if you are going to draw people to those areas, you have to make them liveable cities. They have to have the range of services and opportunity. That is why we are investing in improving the hospital system out there and putting funding into the universities and the TAFE facilities. But the more exciting opportunity exists with the rollout of the National Broadband Network. This is what is going to really enable the regions to join the dots. If they have the physical infrastructure—a university, a TAFE, a hospital—think of what they can do through e-education and ehealth initiatives through the National Broadband Network. So far as the diversification of the economic model is concerned, think of what the National Broadband Network is going to enable the regions to do, by way of e-commerce, to develop new businesses, home based businesses, community based businesses. I do not know whether people saw that Four Corners program about the significance of the rollout of the National Broadband Network. There was a very good example in it of a business that has already established itself in Armidale—the Eastmon Digital photography business—which said that, if it can get the bandwidth and the broadband speed, it will be able to double its size. That means people not having to live in Sydney to be part of this system but being able to locate themselves and make communities and raise families in the regions. That can be part of the way in which we address the patchwork approach.
Here we have an initiative that was developed on the ground. We are prepared to fund it, and we urge regions to look creatively at how they can use it, not listen to the carping and negativism that comes from the other side of the parliament, the Liberal and National parties.
Minister, I seek more light than heat on some of the issues I raise. I would like to bring to your attention that the feedback to me from my local RDA is that they believe they are terribly underfunded. In fact, since they morphed from an area consultative committee, the government has seemed to want to move away from them and has substantially defunded them. They were getting global funding of about $300,000 under the ACC. Now it has been reduced to something just over $200,000, about a 30 per cent reduction, and they are finding it very difficult to do their job. I put that on the record, and I would appreciate your response to that. It is an excellent regional development authority, I might say. It has applied for funding for two projects: the Pinjarra Bowling Club, for $900,000, and the Ocean Road Active Reserve and Recycled Wastewater Scheme, for $673,000. I would appreciate any update on the status of those applications.
Minister, we had your very good parliamentary secretary, Senator Farrell, in my electorate recently. The RDA, the local government authorities and a whole lot of other water entities put on notice to him that they would be applying for funding through your portfolio for a massive waste-water scheme called the Gordon Road waste-water scheme. As you know, in Western Australia it has been very, very dry. Alcoa, which gets 60 per cent of its world income from my electorate, has essentially run out of water to do its processing. Senator Farrell listened to that briefing, with a departmental officer. I hope that it is on the radar now, because the state government is considering support for it; so is the Royalties for Regions program. It ticks all the boxes in terms of efficient environmental use of what is basically sewage water, which would be turned into potable water for industrial use, for other organisations, such as turf clubs that are short of water for their tracks, and for irrigation in the Harvey region. Minister, I put this on your radar.
Finally, you mentioned the NBN. In my area, people are telling me that when they contact Telstra about greenfield sites and other sites that need connections, like industrial estates, they are being told that the NBN will not be there for eight years. So how can they do their business? That is more of a comment. I would appreciate a response, if possible, to the specific questions I have asked you.
I am happy to have a look at the individual circumstances of your RDA and why that argument of the funding having been reduced pertains to them. In fact the budget allocates another $20 million for the RDAs. It is not just the allocation to the RDA; there is also capacity for those looking to lift their capacity in certain areas. We have utilised this, for example in the Murray-Darling Basin exercise, to identify capacity building, go out and contract that. So there are important opportunities there.
As for the two programs you have mentioned, the Pinjarra and the Ocean Road initiatives, I take it that they have been submitted to the RDA and have been included for the first round of funding. Okay. Obviously there is a process now in train. Applications under the first round closed last month and we are hoping to have the announcements out on 1 July. Obviously there is a process to go through. It is an independent body that will have to make the judgment, because clearly there has been an oversubscription. What we are looking for—and it is interesting because it relates to what you are talking about later with the water initiative—are the initiatives that seek to do a number of things. They seek to leverage funding from the other sources of government so that we are making the dollars go further. We are looking for those initiatives that will actually benefit a wider area, that have the combination of economic and/or social, it does not have to be both, but we are looking at how they fit best with the strategy that the RDA develops. If we are to give substance to the RDA and say to it, 'We want you to develop the strategic vision,' we are also asking them for advice as to whether these projects fit within it, because that will help guide the independent panel.
As for the water initiative that Senator Farrell came over and talked about, these initiatives obviously are occurring around the country as communities seek to grapple with the combination of water security, environmental issues and the like. You have mentioned this leveraged funding and you say this proposal is worked up, and it should continue to be worked up. But one of the important things that I would suggest to his RDA through the member is that I do not want the RDAs just to look at the silo that is the Regional Development Australia Fund. It is true that it is worth $1 billion over the course of the next five years and it is true we are seeking to leverage off it. But what we are actively encouraging the RDAs to do is to join the dots. So I do not want them just looking at the silo that is regional development money; I want them to look at other initiatives, other programs that are available, and to see whether there are opportunities within those other programs. That is what I refer to as joining the dots. The RDAs get that message. The dots I want them to look at are not just Commonwealth programs; they are state government programs as well as local government. That is the leveraging argument as well. Senator Farrell has raised this issue. We have had discussions on it and we will be interested to see how the proposal develops.
Finally on the point of the NBN Co., we made it clear in terms of our commitment that we will not have laid fibre to the whole nation for 10 years. Clearly it is going to be a rolling exercise. I might say that a contract announced yesterday shows that the satellite aspect of the seven per cent has been brought forward by five years. So as the technology increases here we have the opportunity to truncate that timeline. I suspect that as we get better at this and more efficient at the laying we will be able to shorten the time span. But I would urge the regions not just to stick up their hand and say, 'My turn. They are getting it, why are they getting it?' I want the regions to really be creative in the way in which they say why they should be considered first. That means them looking at the applications that they can use for the NBN Co., working with local government to more efficiently lay the fibre so that you are not duplicating the trench digging and showing where the market is for take-up. They are the sorts of things the regions should be embracing and we have talked with them on a number of occasions about that.
I am very much a regional person; I am from the electorate of Bass. For those who do not know, most people in Tasmania actually do not live in a capital city. Tasmania is similar to Queensland in that it has a very dispersed population. I travel around my region a lot, and the way things are developing is fantastic, with irrigation schemes in the north-east and the NBN starting in Scottsdale. I am also very keen on health. The Launceston General Hospital is probably one of the best regional hospitals in Australia. The minister's brother was a registrar there some time ago, so I hope that every time he thinks about hospitals he thinks about the Launceston General and that we are on the agenda and very much the target for whatever needs to be done in health around the country.
Launceston General Hospital is a 300-bed hospital and there has been some fantastic work done there. Going back through the history, things that have been commenced in Launceston include the first anaesthetic for Australia and the first reattachment of an amputated hand in Australia. When I think about some of the great advances that have happened at the Launceston General Hospital I think what a great idea it is to support regional Australia. These are not things that have happened in a capital city. These are regional events, and they have happened because we have had management that has pushed down decisions and allowed individuals to come forward with some great ideas and innovations. It is a fantastic place to be, and the model in Tasmania is a great model for Australia. I look forward to there being three regional areas in Tasmania, three regional local health networks. It is obvious that we should be managing our health services at the lowest possible level, where people have full information. It is a very simple proposal, and I am sure it will be acceptable to and indeed promoted by those opposite. A lot of them are in regions and I am sure that if they came to Launceston they could learn a lot that they could take back to their regions.
The hospital in Launceston has had some magnificent work done in recent times. I remember when I was working there as a business manager I did a sketch on a map of how we could expand the emergency department, and I now see it coming up in concrete—fantastic. I see the cancer centre, where they have three linear accelerators, and I see how they have moved the central sterilising department onto the same level as the operating theatres. When the hospital was built they had to save 15 per cent, and at that time they chopped down the size of rooms by 15 per cent. Most of the rooms then had to be rebuilt because they were not big enough to take equipment in the operating theatre. I am absolutely over the moon about the work that is going on at the Launceston General Hospital not because it is a great edifice, which it is, but because it is going to help the people. I am looking forward to the great work that is going to be continued at the Launceston General Hospital. We also have the university in the top level of a new building, which is going to be fantastic. We need to have some additional level-four work for the university.
I am really looking forward to the minister's answer as to how the budget improves services to regional Australia.
I could answer that question, Simon.
I thank the member for Bass for his question. I had the opportunity in the week after the budget to go down to the Launceston General Hospital with him, and what we saw there was an investment from a previous budget for significant expansion in a wonderful new facility.
The member for Gippsland says he could have answered the question that the member for Bass asked. That is probably true. But what his government never did was to fund it in the way we have funded it. What we have had to do in the last three years and now into this term is to overcome a decade of neglect of our ageing hospital infrastructure. The member for Gippsland would also be aware that in this budget alone there are important new medical facilities in Timboon and Bairnsdale in his electorate. There were 63 projects announced in this budget.
Not Timboon though.
Yours is not Timboon? Then just Bairnsdale. The truth is that there were 63 projects—
And Traralgon.
And Traralgon as well. I think that might have been an earlier one. This is a love-in because I think there is a recognition of the huge new commitment of resources that we are making to regional Australia. The question of the member for Bass is very instructive because he asked how we are improving the services. This is where the Launceston General Hospital has been excellent in joining the dots because, yes, we have funded the physical infrastructure. There is a magnificent new structure down there, in two parts. I think it will be opened officially in October. It is very interesting that they have taken the challenge of the application of the national broadband rollout to see how they can deliver better health services from that new base.
We know that Tasmania was one of the earliest recipients of the national broadband rollout. With Launceston hospital at the moment, patients with complex medical conditions who require acute care are faced with long delays, discomfort and the inconvenience of travelling to Launceston, where they occupy the emergency department whilst being assessed and a clinical care plan is developed before they are admitted to an acute care bed. That is a very costly system. When they connect up this new physical facility with the application of the broadband network, specialists will be able to assess patients remotely, engage directly in real time with the GP and make decisions as to whether transport to Launceston hospital is necessary. This will keep patient trips to a minimum, it will not overload the emergency department and it will free up this new facility—which the member for Bass and I visited when we were down there—where analysis of patients who are judged as needing to come in will be received immediately and their complex range of issues will be seen to.
We are not just making a huge commitment to the regions in this budget. We understand the importance of building new infrastructure, but this is a great example of where, in challenging communities to come up with creative solutions as to how they deliver the services—and there are eight hubs that the Launceston hospital has to service—we actually end up saving money. So there is an economic return for the nation quite apart from better health service delivery to the patient. I suggest this is where those on the other side, instead of criticising the rollout of the National Broadband Network, understand its inherent potential and engage in it. I might say for the regional members: in the regions they get it. There is no question as to whether we should be rolling out the fibre; it is a question of when. The debate that goes on here about whether we should be funding it or not is simply seen as surreal, and indeed it is.
Firstly, let me thank the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government for his attendance here today. We do appreciate the opportunity to raise issues in this manner. I will not take up every comment made by the minister but get to my questions as quickly as I can. However, I will take exception to the suggestion by the minister that there has been a decade of neglect in regional areas. I think the minister knows full well that many things were achieved under the previous government and that they were good for regional Australia. I know the rhetoric sounds good and it might look okay in the Hansard but the bottom line is that I do not think any government sets out to neglect regional areas or any other particular area; there are just some ways of doing it better. I am one of the members on this side of the House who are very passionate about regional areas, and I will certainly commend the government when it does something positive and hold it to account when it does not. That is my approach, Minister Crean.
It is with that very brief preamble that I want to raise a genuine question to the minister about the first round of the Regional Development Australia Fund. It is an issue which I have written to you on. It is in relation to the eligibility criteria for a particular project in my electorate—a plan by Southern Rural Water to work in conjunction with the Macalister Irrigation District to do upgrading on some irrigation infrastructure. It is a very good project, and it would tick a lot of boxes along the parameters that the minister has talked about here today. At the moment, though, as I understand it, the Regional Development Australia-Gippsland board encouraged Southern Rural Water to be part of the process and to make an application through round 1. But it was only late in the process that it came to their attention that a not-for-profit state government enterprise such as Southern Rural Water was not eligible to apply for funding under the RDA round 1. I think this is a problem on a couple of points. One is that Southern Rural Water would be the only organisation in my electorate with the capacity to deliver a project like this. It has the relationship with the irrigators themselves; it has the infrastructure capacity; it has all the know-how to get the project done. I respectfully seek the minister's advice on whether the eligibility criteria from round 1 could be reinterpreted or whether in subsequent rounds it could include a combined application. I do not expect the minister to announce funding for it on the spot but it would be nice if a project like this could at least be considered rather than be ruled out on a technicality. That is the question I raise on behalf of the Southern Rural Water board people, who have worked hard in this area, on behalf of RDA-Gippsland and also on behalf of the irrigators, who are very keen to upgrade the infrastructure in that area.
I take up the minister's comments regarding the opportunity for this fund to leverage funding from other sources. This is one of those projects that would have that capacity. The irrigators understand that, if the infrastructure is going to be upgraded, they are going to benefit from more water and they are going to be expected to dip into their pockets in order to get those benefits. This would have broader benefits—beyond the social and even the economic, through to the environment for the Gippsland Lakes. So it is something that, as I said previously, does tick a lot of boxes. I would appreciate the minister's comment on that.
The other area I want to briefly raise is the term 'localism', which the minister currently uses a lot. I like the term and I think I know where you are coming from with it, but I want to make the point that it does not get on the ground sometimes when it comes to federal or even state government announcements on infrastructure or other types of projects. A lot of these projects do not get on the ground in regional communities. My classic example is the BER program—the Building the Education Revolution program. From day 1, I said to the minister for education at the time: 'If you are going to run a program like this, let local building contractors have a crack at the contracts.' What we saw with this program was a whole bunch of portables that were built in Bendigo and sent to Gippsland on the backs of trucks. The workmanship on the ground was shoddy on many occasions. There was no pride shown because the people who were doing the work were not from my community. I do not think we leveraged the money off it that we could have. If you had come to my school community and said, 'I've got 400 grand for you to do a project in your school,' you would have been amazed at what they could turn 400 grand into. We have plumbers on our school boards. We have local tradies whose kids are at our schools. They will move heaven and earth to provide facilities for the schools that their kids attend. I think we lost a lot of money in that project because we did not give the local blokes a chance to actually implement it. I think that was a mistake. So when we talk about localism, I would like to know that in the future we would make a commitment to a least let the local people compete—at least let them have a crack at the contracts. There was no way that my schools were going to be able to compete with Bendigo Relocatable Buildings—no chance of that. The local people would have leveraged off that project and delivered more value for money.
In the brief time I have left, I refer to another comment you made, Minister, in relation to diversification of the economic base. I raise a point in regard to tourism. There is a really good opportunity for the federal government to do more in the regional infrastructure and tourism space. We have some outstanding natural attractions in regional areas. It is very hard for businesses in those communities to leverage off those great natural attractions unless governments are prepared to commit funding to the infrastructure that we need. I have not got a long wish list in front of me today, but there are plenty of things that we could be doing in the regional tourism space, with the cooperation of local, state and federal governments. Once again, I thank you for being here today and for the opportunity to raise those few issues.
I should not let the preamble go without passing this comment. I do acknowledge that there were important things done by the government that preceded the Rudd Labor government. But if you go to the question of essential health infrastructure and education infrastructure, there was no capacity in that government to fund it through Commonwealth funding. I remember the debate because I was the shadow Treasurer at the time and I suggested that the Commonwealth actually establish an intergenerational fund—which is what I called it because the Intergenerational Report was out and about—and that we should take the proceeds of what the nation had earned in the prosperous times and reinvest them into the future. Your Treasurer of the day, Peter Costello, ridiculed the idea and then came up with the Future Fund. But the future fund that he introduced was limited because the future fund that he said he was establishing was simply to pay off the Commonwealth's liability for Commonwealth superannuation. We accepted that was an important contingent liability that we needed to address, but we said, 'Why should the nation's surplus only go to pay off the debts from Commonwealth public servants? Why shouldn't it be used for the bigger issues of the nation?' Of course, your Treasurer of the day ridiculed that concept. So when we came to office we kept the Future Fund. We said that we were prepared to spend not just the earnings on the fund but also, where necessary, the capital on the fund—but we set up two more funds, one for education and one for health. So my point is that when one looks at the issue—and this was raised by way of a preamble saying that they did not neglect anything—you just did not have the capacity, because you did not think it through. We had it.
So let us move on to the next point, and that is your specific example of Southern Rural Water. I know that you have written to us about it, and I have asked the department to look at this because this issue has been raised in a number of other contexts. At the moment the guidelines for the first round, as I understand them, do prevent that consideration. If in fact the analysis that goes through the panel says 'but for that consideration this would have been the most worthy project' then I think that is something that we might need to look at in terms of subsequent rounds. I am not just taking that on notice; I am actually already looking at it and will come back and advise about that at a later date.
I might have said earlier, although I thought I had left it more flexible than this, that the first round would be announced on 1 July. Obviously, because there have been so many that have come in, it might take a bit longer than that 1 July date to be able to announce the first round. We will have to take advice on that. Obviously, we put the funding out immediately that the budget was announced and opened the first round, and we want to try and have this thing hit the ground as fast as is possible.
On the localism question, you do not have to convince me about the importance of it. I saw it in practice when I was the primary industries minister and also when I was the employment and training minister. That is how the area consultative committees were established. That is how we used the Landcare groups and the catchment management groups for better natural resource management initiatives. Indeed, one of the recommendations out of the Orgill review of the BER goes to that very question of recognising that for future programs there should be better local input. I hope that what we are doing in this budget is not just to signal our intention to commit resources to the regions but to also genuinely embrace localism and embed it in the way in which we govern things and embed it in a way that cannot be unpicked, just as other governments could not unpick superannuation and could not unpick Medicare. I happen to believe that localism is the right way to go because it can give you a more efficient outcome if you are creatively engaging locals. What I say to the locals and the communities is this: 'Just don't give me wish lists. I want the proposals that stack up.' If we are going to make this system work, we have got to show that we are spending the nation's resources more efficiently than spending through the sorts of examples that you alluded to before. If we get it right that will embed localism.
I would like to comment on the remarks of the minister—and I thank the minister for being here. Without wanting to make this a tit-for-tat argument, I will remind the minister that two weeks ago he did open the Charles Sturt School of Dentistry, which covers both health and education. This was a project of the previous government and funded by the previous government. It is a small point, but I thought I had better make it.
I am pleased to see that you are getting to the pointy end of things with the RDA, but it has taken a long time to get it together and there has been quite a bit of frustration on the ground. My electorate actually has three RDAs either wholly or partly inside of it. I just wanted clarification on funding of projects. As you would know as a local member, you get all sorts of people looking for guidance. I am getting requests from aged-care facilities to go through RDA.
You have been very active with the Murray-Darling thing. While we do not have much dirt moved, I know that in my electorate there is a really good scheme—and I think it is on track—with the Nevertire irrigation scheme. Then we have got more traditional community projects like the rodeo ground at Coonamble and things like that. With all the regional funding that is bundled together to make it look really good in the budget—that there is a large amount there for health, education or whatever—I am just wondering whether the RDAs are going to allocate funding for aged care and all these others.
On another point, I understand that with the half a million dollars you are looking at the bigger projects, but there is still a capacity or a need for some of those smaller ones—for instance, Men's Sheds. They have been a great success, and I acknowledge that the government gave funding to Men's Sheds for start-up, business plans and things like that. Quite a few of them have actually grown beyond that. They are in town halls, supper rooms and, through grace and favour, someone's shed that they have given them. Some of them have outgrown that and they need some tenure. I am not saying that they should be given the money; I think it should go through local government so that the community actually owns it if that movement stops. I think there is a real need to recognise those lower level community type activities in smaller communities—the villages that are never going to get a university or a large sporting facility. For some of those smaller communities, a smaller amount like that can have a positive effect.
In closing I will make one more point regarding the next round of the hospitals fund. There was a lot of disappointment. Minister, you happened to be in Dubbo the week after the budget and the hospital announcement. There was a $57 million project. When the state government said that they would add another $50 million to it, the federal contribution came back to $7.1 million. I just want to make sure that there is still capacity in that process to continue that development. Obviously, it is going to be a staged development for that base hospital. With previous contributions, state and federal, they do now have $79½ million. They are going to make a good start but I just want an assurance that they will be able to continue to put those projects through.
A fortnight ago I had to go to my mother's funeral. I am one of nine children, and we all had to get together to go over stories for the eulogy. One of the stories that came out was from a time when my mum had only two kids and was out on a farm near St George. She had two of the kids in the bath—in dirty brown water—and a black snake came through a hole in the wall. She, like a good country woman, got a gun and shot the snake. My siblings were telling that story, and I said, 'It's just like Henry Lawson's The Drover's Wife.' They said, 'What?' I said, 'Henry Lawson; you would have to read the story.' Seven of my eight siblings are voracious readers, so they all read lots of different things. But they are all readers. I said, 'Henry Lawson; you would have heard of The Drover's Wifeit's a great figure from Australian literature,' and none of them knew it. One of them was mentioning that in the eulogy and I said, 'I'll mention that it's just like The Drover's Wife,' and people in the church will understand. My mum was 78, so there was an elderly group, a range of people, in the church. In fact, many Chinese and Taiwanese from my community were there out of respect for me, even though they had not known my mum. I thought, 'They won't understand The Drover's Wife story, because it's an Australian historic piece of literature.' I mentioned that and afterwards, when I was doing a bit of a straw poll, I said, 'In the story about my mum, did you understand the reference to The Drover's Wife?' They said, 'No.' I thought, 'This is 2011.' I studied it at university. I am sure the minister or anyone who studied literature back in the sixties or seventies or who read Henry Lawson would have heard of The Drover's Wife. It got me thinking.
Obviously, the new Australians who came from Taiwan or China might not have read the story. Maybe their children will read it. I am not sure what goes on in the English curriculum. But what would our approach be to a national cultural policy to ensure that we include the iconic things that we need to have in the so-called Australian canon? It also got me thinking: how do we structure things? I am pretty passionate about the publishing industry and about books in particular. I know the industry has had some challenges. We have had some discussions in this party, particularly about parallel imports. The film industry is doing it a bit rough, with the Australian dollar being so high. When it comes to filming, it is hard to compete with places like Taiwan, New Zealand and even Thailand. We have these incredibly skilled people—set dressers, best boys, gaffers and cinematographers—who are rewarded at the Oscars as being world class, world standard, the best in their field—
A division having been called in the House of Representatives
Sitt ing suspended from 12:02 to12:24
Has the member for Moreton concluded his question to the minister?
No, Madam Deputy Speaker. With our book industry, our film industry and our TV industry under pressure from the high Australian dollar, it is appropriate to ask, because of all the jobs that are associated with the arts sector and the cultural sector, how has this budget supported the arts and cultural sector?
I will deal with the questions from the member for Parkes first. As to the role of the RDAs, I have talked about the joining of the dots but it is not intended that the RDAs allocate the money. It is intended that the RDAs have input through the various mechanisms as to what priorities fit with their strategic vision. Obviously they can have input into the hospital round and the higher education round. And there is a requirement now for Infrastructure Australia to consult with the RDAs, so in terms of the broader infrastructure questions they can have input. But this is the challenge for a government seeking to entrench not just regional development but the localism concept. We have got to find a more effective way to have coordination across the silos, and not just the silos of the Commonwealth government but the silos of the state governments.
I see the RDAs as having an important role. That is why we have resourced them better. Some clearly are better resourced than others and we have got to build that capacity, but this is a new opportunity for them, and I think it is incumbent on all of us to work properly with that structure. We need to understand the important relationship with local government. The RDAs are not intended by any means to replace local government. Theirs is a different function. There are many local government representatives who sit on the RDAs, and we are looking to how we can strengthen the linkages so that we have got the three levels of government coming in.
My sincere condolences to the member for Moreton on his mother's passing at 78 years old. They bred them tough, and if she had nine kids she was some mum. But I do take the point. Culture and the arts are so important to us as a nation. A creative nation is a more productive nation. A creative nation is a nation whose cultural values improve—in interaction, expression, tolerance, understanding. The arts are not just something out there. You have a love of reading, and you are a writer as well as a reader. Like you, I have a great love of the Henry Lawson works. I think it is important we find more effective ways for getting this message out.
The budget has made some significant new input into the arts, particularly in the film area and particularly in post-production, that creative side of the industry. I had the opportunity to visit the Kennedy Miller studio where they were doing digitised animationforHappy Feet. There is also the games dimension. People should not think of games in terms of the issues of violence. These games involve interactive product development off the movie. In the member's own state, in Fortitude Valley, there is a huge games industry, and I visited some people involved in that as well.
Rising Sun studios in South Australia won an Academy award recently. For all intents and purposes that is where the Harry Potter movie is actually being made—with digital applications. The actors essentially are against green screens, but the whole movie—all of its content, all of its background—is being developed there.
I went the other night to the opening of Love Never Dies, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. He brought it here because it had not been successful in the West End. On stage he talked about the reason he came here—because of the production talent, creative talent and design talent that are here in Australia. We are recognised around the world for that creative thrust. We have to nurture it. We have to build it.
Next year is the National Year of Reading, and we will be making announcements as to how we are going to advance that. We need to find more effective ways by which we encourage more people to read, particularly people from ethnic backgrounds and people in the regions. We have made a major commitment in this budget ahead of the national cultural policy which we are developing and hopefully will announce at the end of this year. (Time expired)
Order! It being 12.30 pm I propose the question:
That the Main Committee do now adjourn.
I require the question to be put immediately without debate.
The question before me is that the Main Committee do now adjourn. All those of that opinion say aye, against say no. I think the noes have it.
Honourable members interjecting—
If there were, shall we say, an unresolved question, we would have to refer it to the House. But my understanding, for the benefit of honourable members, is that because of the divisions in the main chamber this morning the intention is that this part of the day will continue until one o'clock. That is when the adjournment will be moved, and there will be the usual half-hour adjournment debate. Since we have negatived the adjournment, we are not in the adjournment debate; we are still dealing with the appropriations.
Honourable members interjecting—
I called it as being no.
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! I am going to put that question again, because I was advised that it had been agreed that the adjournment debate would be negatived at 12.30 and then we would continue with the appropriations until one o'clock, when the adjournment would be moved and we would have the usual half an hour adjournment debate.
Honourable members interjecting—
I now put the adjournment question again.
Question agreed to.
Main Committee adjourned at 12:33.
asked the Minister representing the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, the Minister representing the Minister for Employment Participation and Child Care, and the Minister for Indigenous Employment and Economic Development, in writing, on 25 November 2010:
(1) How many (a) mobile phones, (b) blackberries and (c) I-Pads are currently allocated to the (i) Minister, and (ii) the Minister's ministerial staff.
(2) In respect of mobile phone usage between (a) 3 December 2007 and 24 November 2010, and (b) 24 June 2010 and 24 November 2010, what was the total cost for (a) the Minister, and (b) the Minister's ministerial staff.
(3) For each month since December 2007, what was the cost of mobile phone usage for each mobile phone account allocated to the (a) Minister, and (b) Minister's ministerial staff.
The answer to the honourable member's questions is as follows:
(1) As at 25 November 2010, the following mobile phones and i-Pad's were assigned to the Minister and the Minister's ministerial staff:
* The department defines a Blackberry device as a mobile phone with email capability
** Mobile phone provided by the Department of Finance and Deregulation
(2) In respect of mobile phone usage between 3 December 2007 and 24 November 2010 and 24 June 2010 and 24 November 2010, the total cost for the Minister and the Minister's ministerial staff is as below:
*Information for the given timeframes is as per the Telstra and Optus billing period
(3) The cost of mobile phone usage for each mobile phone account allocated to the (a) Minister, and (b) Minister's ministerial staff for each month since December 2007 is attached.
Please note that the cost for individual Minister and ministerial staff is for the time period of their assignment to the DEEWR portfolio within the requested time periods.