I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the 132nd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, held in Hanoi. I will present the statement with the report at a subsequent period.
I seek leave to move a motion of censure against the Prime Minister.
Leave not granted.
I move:
That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Isaacs from moving the following motion forthwith:
That the House:
(1) condemns the Prime Minister and government for putting politics before the security of Australians by:
(a) revealing sensitive information of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation for the sake of a media opportunity;
(b) leading a party that seeks to raise political donations by trading on the safety of our nation; and
(c) preparing blatantly political question time briefings that seek to create division, not unity; and
(2) calls on the Prime Minister to explain immediately:
(a) whether the Prime Minister or his office authorised the media event held at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation;
(b) whether the Attorney-General or his office authorised the media event held at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation;
(c) what security considerations were taken prior to the media event held at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation;
(d) whether this sensitive information was for official use only;
(e) whether the government has facilitated a significant security breach; and
(f) what steps the Prime Minister will take to repair the damage done by this breach?
The Prime Minister has been using national security for partisan political purposes for—
I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
The question is that the member be no longer heard.
Is there a seconder for the suspension motion?
I second the motion. ASIO should not be used as a prop for a Liberal Party photo opportunity.
I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
The question is that the member be no longer heard.
The question now is that the suspension motion be agreed to.
I move:
That the question be now put.
The question is that the motion be put.
The question now is that the suspension motion be agreed to.
I will now proceed to make a statement following the presentation of my report for the 132nd Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly delegation in Hanoi, Vietnam. I am pleased to make the following statement in presenting this report.
We participated in Hanoi from 28 March to 1 April 2015. It was my privilege to lead this delegation, which also comprised the member for Forrest, Senator Sterle, Senator Bernardi and Senator Lines. As this report confirms, this was a hardworking delegation, with all members playing an active role at the various proceedings of the assembly. The delegation attended all formal meetings of the assembly and its governing council and participated in meetings of the Asia-Pacific and Twelve Plus geopolitical groups and the Meeting of Women Parliamentarians, as well as participating in the work of various standing committees.
During the assembly, I participated in the general debate on the topic of 'The Sustainable Development Goals: turning words into action'. I was also invited to participate in a panel discussion hosted by the Standing Committee on United Nations Affairs to mark the 70th anniversary of that organisation.
A key aspect of the 132nd assembly was the proposal submitted by the Australian delegation of an item to be the topic of the emergency debate. Before departure, the delegation submitted a proposal on 'The role of parliaments in: (i) combating the threat of terrorism conducted by organisations such as Boko Haram against innocent civilians, in particular women and girls; and (ii) ensuring democratic procedures continue'. This was one of nine proposals put forward by member parliaments.
Following consultation with other delegates at the assembly in Hanoi, a joint Australian-Belgian item was finally submitted with other proposals, as follows: 'The role of parliaments in combating all terrorist acts perpetrated by organisations such as Daesh and Boko Haram against innocent civilians, in particular women and girls'. Following a ballot, this proposal achieved the required two-thirds majority and the highest number of votes and was listed for debate and unanimously adopted. I am pleased to say that, in the negotiations leading up to the ballot, the Australian delegation insisted that the reference to women and girls be retained, despite pressure to have that phrase deleted.
Another key business item of the assembly involved two sessions of the Meeting of Women Parliamentarians, which the delegation participated in. We were also privileged to attend a function to mark the 30th anniversary of the Meeting of Women Parliamentarians.
I should draw particular attention to the work of the member for Forrest and her contribution to the work of the Standing Committee on Sustainable Development, Finance and Trade. Mrs Marino took a lead role in the sessions of this hardworking committee, which finalised the resolution on water governance that was adopted unanimously by the assembly. Mrs Marino was invited to chair one session of this committee's deliberations and acted as rapporteur when the resolution was presented to the assembly.
One of the key benefits of the assembly was the opportunity for delegates to participate in bilateral discussions with a wide range of representatives of other parliaments and international organisations. I met Mrs Amina Mohammed, Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on Post-2015 Development Planning; the Speaker of the Swedish parliament; and the leader of the delegation from the Republic of Korea. The Australian delegation also met with members from delegations from Hungary, Morocco, Lithuania, Malaysia and Belarus. These meetings were a good opportunity to discuss a wide range of topics of mutual interest and to explain Australia's position on various issues.
Once again, the Australian and New Zealand delegations facilitated a meeting of Pacific island parliaments during the assembly. Since the 122nd IPU Assembly in Bangkok, Thailand, in March 2010, the Australian and New Zealand delegations have sought to facilitate a meeting of delegations from the Pacific to discuss issues of mutual interest and build on capacity-building activities undertaken through regional parliamentary forums. I hope this important meeting continues at future IPU assemblies.
By assembling representatives from such a large number and diverse range of parliaments in one place, the IPU offers a unique opportunity for delegations and individual parliamentarians to meet to discuss issues of mutual interest, to develop an understanding of different parliamentary models and to strengthen parliament-to-parliament relationships.
I can say with confidence that Australia is regarded as a committed member of the IPU and that the contribution of our delegation is well regarded. So it was my pleasure last week to welcome the IPU Secretary General, Mr Martin Chungong, to the Australian parliament to continue discussions as we prepare for the 133rd assembly, scheduled for October this year.
I would like to congratulate the executive committee of the IPU and the IPU secretariat for their effective organisation of the 132nd assembly. In addition, our Vietnamese hosts went to a great deal of trouble to make all participants welcome, and I extend the delegation's sincere thanks to our hosts. On behalf of the delegation, I would like to thank all the individuals who contributed to making this a successful delegation. In particular, I wish to acknowledge the support provided by the staff of Australia's mission in Hanoi. Particular thanks are due to Ambassador Hugh Borrowman and Second Secretary Rose McConnell for the advice and practical assistance they provided.
I would like to extend thanks to officers of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and to the staff of the Parliamentary Library for providing comprehensive and timely briefing materials prior to our departure. Particular thanks are due to DFAT liaison officer Peter Manvell for coordinating briefs prior to the departure and providing advice during the delegation's time in Hanoi. Thanks also to Mr Russell Chafer, Mr Geoff Barnett and other staff of the International and Parliamentary Relations Office for the high standard of support provided. I particularly want to thank Mr Brien Hallett, the delegation secretary from the Department of the Senate, who accompanied us. His diligence and organisation were integral to the delegation's work at the IPU Assembly. Finally, I would like to thank my chief of staff, Mr Damien Jones, and my fellow delegates for their thoughtful participation in the delegation's meetings and their commitment to our program of work.
I commend the report to the House.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The purpose of the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 is to amend the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Act 2012 and the Shipping Registration Act 1981.
The bill I introduce today will implement major reforms to the regulatory framework for coastal shipping.
This government is committed to a more competitive and efficient shipping industry. As an island nation it is no surprise that shipping is a vital part of our transport network. Through these reforms we will increase access to shipping services in a more open and competitive market.
This government has declared that Australia is open for business and these reforms will help reduce the burden on business, open up new opportunities, and unlock the potential of our coastal trading routes.
For too long, companies wanting to move goods or passengers by sea have had to deal with a complex and burdensome licensing system.
The bill I present today changes that. It recognises that shipping operates in a global context, and the framework it contains seeks to ensure that Australian businesses and industries can take maximum advantage of the opportunities created by global connectivity.
The bill will address key challenges that the former government's 2012 legislation created under the guise of reform.
The case for real reform is clear.
The fleet of major Australian registered ships (over 2,000 dead weight tonnes) with coastal licences is in sharp decline, plummeting from 30 vessels in 2006-07 to just 15 in 2013-14. Between 2000 and 2012, while the volume of freight across Australia actually grew by 57 per cent, shipping's share of the Australian freight task fell from about 27 per cent to just under 17 per cent. Between 2010 and 2030, Australia's overall freight task is expected to grow by 80 per cent, but coastal shipping is only forecast to increase by 15 per cent.
Over the first two years of the former government's Coastal Trading Actthere was a 63 per cent decline in the carrying capacity of the major Australian coastal trading fleet.
We need to act now to correct these failings. Without change, shipping will not be able to deliver the competitive and efficient services that Australian businesses desperately need.
The central feature of the bill is a greatly simplified permit system that will reduce costs to business, and enhance access to competitive international shipping services.
Australia's rigorous maritime safety and environmental laws will continue to apply to all ships operating in Australian waters.
Simplifying rules for moving cargo will show Australian waters are once again open for business.
The bill also has built-in protections for Australian workers and also for wages and conditions for all seafarers on foreign ships operating primarily in the Australian coastal trade.
The bill will deliver more affordable freight costs for businesses and greater choice between shipping companies, which will provide better outcomes for Australian businesses reliant on coastal shipping services and open up new opportunities for growth in the industry. Domestic freight is growing exponentially and shipping must carry a much larger share of the load.
Evidence, supplied by shippers, shows that the current act has increased the price of coastal shipping services, hitting Australian businesses hard and adding uncertainty and regulatory burdens, without improving the viability of Australian shipping or the quality or supply of shipping services.
Bell Bay Aluminium reported a 63 per cent increase in shipping freight rates from Tasmania to Queensland in just the first year of the 2012 regime—from $18.20 a tonne in 2011 to $29.70 a tonne in 2012.
We know that the cost of shipping dry food powder from Melbourne to Brisbane is the same as shipping the same product from Melbourne to Singapore.
And it is cheaper to ship sugar from Thailand to Australia than it is to ship Australian sugar around our own coastline.
These are just a few of the many, many examples that have been provided to me by industry.
The current arrangements are self-defeating for the shipping industry, let alone our industries and manufacturers reliant on coastal shipping services. The extra cost for Australian businesses using an Australian vessel is unsustainable at some $5 million a year more than using a foreign vessel. More affordable freight means more freight, more efficient services and more competition, all of which will make Australian products more competitive internationally and domestically, helping local industries, which employ thousands of Australians, and providing the opportunity for economic growth and expansion.
We need to be working towards coastal shipping carrying a more significant share of the growth in long-distance cargo. Shipping should be seen as a viable and robust option for all forms of freight, with particular strengths in transporting high-volume and long-distance cargo around the coast.
This bill is intended to facilitate that outcome. Shippers will have access to more affordable freight costs and a wider choice of ships; more ships will be available to carry spot cargoes better suited to transport around the coast.
Cruise ship passengers will have access to a greater range of cruise ship services around the coast, a boost to local tourism industries around the country. The tourism benefits are not limited to our major capitals. This bill will provide greater opportunities for visitors to our coastal regional cities and towns right around the country.
Additionally, this legislation will facilitate more visits to Australia from the burgeoning superyacht sector.
The government is determined to strike a sensible balance between reduced barriers to access and the long-term availability of personnel with maritime backgrounds and skills to fill critical jobs in the industry.
Australia needs people with maritime skills and experience to be tug crews, harbourmasters and pilots and to fill other jobs in the industry where firsthand knowledge of how things are done on board is essential. That is why the government has included measures to ensure ships trading predominantly in Australia have Australians undertaking the key skilled positions on board.
We are also committed to ensuring that where these ships engage primarily in domestic trade, in domestic waters, they are covered by domestic workplace relations arrangements.
The provisions of the bill
The bill will rename the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Act 2012the Coastal Shipping Act 2015. This name change will also require consequential amendments to a number of other pieces of legislation: the Australian Maritime Safety Authority Act 1990, the Occupational Health and Safety (Maritime Industry) Act 1993, the Seafarers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1992, and the Shipping Registration Act 1981. As the Coastal Trading (Revitalising Australian Shipping) (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Act 2012 will no longer be needed the bill will also repeal this act.
The bill redefines and streamlines the object of the act to reflect Australia's need for a regulatory framework for coastal shipping that fosters a competitive coastal shipping services industry that supports the Australian economy and maximises the use of available shipping capacity on the Australian coast.
To achieve this unambiguous objective, the bill repeals the existing tiered licensing system comprising general licences, transitional general licences, temporary licences, and emergency licences. These will be replaced with a single coastal shipping permit that will be available to both Australian and foreign registered ships.
Ships operating under a coastal shipping permit will be permitted to engage in unlimited transport of passengers and goods on the Australian coast for a 12-month permit period.
This streamlined approach will be much simpler than the current system which is overly bureaucratic, deliberately cumbersome and inflexible to the point where it does not recognise the realities of how businesses want to move freight around the coast.
The coastal shipping permit will also protect vessels from importation under the Customs Act 1901.
Importantly, for the first time the bill's coverage will be extended to include ships engaged in the carriage of petroleum products from our offshore facilities to the mainland and ships engaged in dry-docking.
This will mean more business for Australian dry docks and repair facilities and it will mean that our growing fleet of cruise vessels can stay in Australia for repairs, rather than going to Singapore or elsewhere for routine maintenance.
It will also mean that petroleum products can be transported from our offshore facilities to the mainland for processing. One of the counterintuitive consequences of the existing framework is that currently processing of petroleum from Australian offshore facilities is happening overseas and then fuel is being shipped back to Australia because offshore facilities are outside the scope of the licencing system.
These changes are essential to ensure Australian shippers are able to move goods efficiently and effectively.
The bill will require a permit be granted in respect of a vessel, rather than a voyage. This will reduce paperwork in the shipping industry and will ensure ships wishing to provide services in Australia know their status and obligations under Australian law.
Consistent with the existing provisions, the bill requires ships engaging in coastal shipping to hold a coastal shipping permit. Contravening this requirement will attract a significant civil penalty of 300 penalty units for individuals and 1,500 penalty units for bodies corporate.
The owner of a vessel, or a person who has day-to-day responsibility for the management of a vessel with the permission of the owner, will be eligible to apply for a permit. Only one permit can be issued to a vessel at any point in time.
Applications for a coastal shipping permit will be required to include evidence the applicant is a party eligible to apply for a permit, for example proof of ownership, or day-to-day management of the vessel, a copy of the registration certificate for the vessel (including a translation if the registration certificate is not in English) and a modest application fee.
The bill contains provisions to allow the transfer of a permit if the ownership or management of the vessel changes during the permit period; however, permits cannot be surrendered.
While the coastal shipping permit system introduced in this bill will be significantly simpler than the current regime, it does place a number of conditions on operators.
Breaching any of these conditions exposes the holder of a coastal shipping permit to a civil penalty for individuals of 50 penalty units and for bodies corporate of 250 penalty units.
In addition, if a permit holder breaches a condition of a coastal shipping permit, a previous coastal shipping permit or a licence granted under this act, the current permit may be cancelled by the minister following a show cause process. For example, failure to comply with any Australian crewing requirements for foreign vessels predominantly engaged in coastal shipping may result in the initiation of a show cause process that could ultimately result in the cancellation of the permit.
Ships holding a coastal shipping permit must continue to be registered, a copy of the permit must be displayed in a prominent place on board, the holder of the licence must comply with reporting requirements and, in certain circumstances, requirements for crew composition and pay and conditions will apply.
Ships engaged in coastal shipping for more than 183 days in a normal permit period will be required to adhere to minimum Australian crewing requirements mirroring those for ships registered on the Australian International Shipping Register. That is, they will be required to employ a master or chief mate and a chief engineer or first engineer that is an Australian citizen, Australian resident, or holds an appropriate visa, prescribed in the rules, allowing the person to work in one of those occupations in Australia.
This crewing requirement is a cornerstone of the revised system along with key protections for seafarers on board ships engaged predominantly in coastal shipping.
The bill ensures that if a foreign ship is predominantly operating in Australia—that is, for more than 183 days of Australian coastal trading in a 12-month permit period—it will be subject to domestic workplace relations arrangements. If a foreign ship engages predominantly in international trading—that is, for less than 183 days of Australian coastal trading in a 12-month permit period—their existing on-board workplace arrangements will apply.
The Fair Work system already provides special arrangements for foreign vessels. The relevant award—the Seagoing Industry Award 2010—currently has two parts: part A for Australian ships and part B for foreign ships engaged in coastal trade. If a ship trades for more than 183 days, they will need to pay the part B Australian wages from day 1 of the permit period.
In addition, if a foreign ship declares an intention not to trade predominantly on the coast but then trades predominantly on the coast will be subject to a condition requiring that they pay Australian wages for their entire permit period. Any future permits will not be issued to a foreign ship unless it has complied with past obligations to pay Australian wages.
As the Seagoing Industry Award makes explicit reference to the old licensing system, the bill contains amendments to ensure that part B continues to apply to foreign ships operating under a permit in the new system. This will give greater certainty to ship operators, but does not restrict the Fair Work Commission's ability to set or change award conditions.
Any ships that choose to register on the Australian International Shipping Register are likely to have trading patterns similar to foreign ships. For this reason, part B of the Seagoing Industry Award will also apply to ships operating on the Australian International Shipping Register while they operate in Australian waters.
There are protections and compliance mechanisms built into the permit system to deal with ships that fail to comply with these rules. These include the ability to cancel a permit, refuse any future permit applications and civil penalty provisions.
Importantly, if a ship has done the wrong thing and failed to pay Australian wages when they should have, they may be subject to a civil penalty and there is a mechanism to recover amounts owing to a seafarer. A key feature of the new permit is that a foreign vessel predominantly engaged in Australian shipping cannot be granted any future permits if they have not complied with the Australian pay requirements.
As the application of Australian workplace relations laws has implications for the Fair Work Act, some of the changes I have outlined will require changes to the Fair Work Regulations 2009 to ensure the appropriate workplace relations arrangements continue to apply. These amended regulations are drafted and the government will make them available once the bill has passed.
To facilitate the efficient administration of the measures and provide opportunities for non-judicial review, decisions to refuse to make a declaration the act does not apply to a vessel, to refuse to grant an application, grant an application to transfer, or cancel a coastal shipping permit will be appealable to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
Additionally, the bill also permits the making of rules to impose additional conditions and for the minister to impose or vary other additional conditions not inconsistent with those set out in the bill or the rules if made.
This bill significantly simplifies reporting requirements for permit holders. Under the new system, the holder of a permit will be required to report on voyages undertaken at six-monthly intervals, or more frequently if directed by the minister. This replaces the existing system of pre-voyage notification at least two days before the actual loading date and post-voyage reporting no more than 10 days after the end of the voyage and will be a significant deregulatory measure for industry.
A summary of these reports, as well as information relating to coastal shipping permits granted is required to be published on the department's website.
Shipping Registration Act
The bill amends the Shipping Registration Act 1981 to simplify and streamline the requirements for ships wishing to join the Australian International Shipping Register (the AISR). In particular, a ship on the AISR would no longer have to be predominantly engaged in international trade and instead would be required to spend at least 90 days in a year engaged in international trading. This requirement will be pro-rated for part years. Where a ship does not meet this requirement, the registrar will have the power to cancel the registration of the ship.
The bill also amends the Shipping Registration Act 1981 to provide that a collective agreement may be made with the seafarers' bargaining unit but that the presence of such an agreement is not a mandatory precondition for registration of the vessel.
In addition, the requirements around Australian work rights for the minimum contingent of Australian crew working on board ships on the AISR is clarified to include people with an appropriate Australian work right.
Transitional p rovisions
The bill includes a number of significant transitional provisions, designed to ensure a smooth transition between the current licensing system and the bill's permit framework. Specifically, the bill will remove the requirement for a person applying for a temporary licence to be an owner, charterer, master or agent of a vessel or a shipper. This will alleviate the issues that have arisen in court cases since the current act has been in place.
Further, the existing challenge provisions and the associated consultation periods will be removed during the transitional period, alleviating industry concerns about delays brought about by the licensing framework.
The transitional provisions also ensure that a licence due to expire during the transitional period is deemed to not expire until the end of the period. Further, coastal shipping permits can be granted during the transition period but do not commence until the end of the period.
Conclusion
In short, the availability of high-quality transport services at the right price, with a minimum of red tape is critical to Australia's economic prosperity. Of course, Australia's transport needs into the future will rely on a mix of air, road, rail and maritime transport. The amendments in this bill will ensure our future ability to choose the most appropriate mode of transport based on speed, price, availability and quality of service.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill introduces the 2015 budget measure that will provide a fairer Paid Parental Leave scheme. From 1 July 2016, this measure will ensure government-funded payments under the Paid Parental Leave scheme are more fairly targeted to parents who do not also have sufficient access to employer-provided parental leave or similar payments.
Parents will no longer be able to receive employer-provided primary carer leave payments (or other like payments) as well as the full amount of parental leave pay under the Paid Parental Leave scheme.
Parents who are entitled to receive employer-provided payments in excess of the total amount of parental leave pay under the Paid Parental Leave scheme will not receive any parental leave pay under the Paid Parental Leave scheme.
Parents who are entitled to receive employer-provided payments of less than the total amount of parental leave pay under the Paid Parental Leave scheme will receive a top-up to ensure they can access the maximum rate.
This measure recognises the primary role of government-funded parental leave payments as a safety net. Payments should be aimed at people who need them most because they cannot access employer-funded payments at all or cannot access payments of the same value as, or higher than, the Paid Parental Leave scheme payments.
Some minor amendments are being made to the Paid Parental Leave scheme, including providing more generous backdating provisions so parents have more time to lodge a claim in certain circumstances.
This bill also takes the opportunity to reintroduce the measure provided by the Paid Parental Leave Amendment Bill 2014, which is currently before the Senate.
To reduce the red-tape burden and compliance costs on business, the measure removes the requirement for employers to provide government-funded parental leave pay to their eligible long-term employees.
From 1 April 2016, employees will be paid directly by the Department of Human Services, unless an employer opts in to provide parental leave pay to its employees and an employee agrees to their employer paying them.
Importantly, this measure is strongly supported by the business community. In a member survey conducted by the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in May 2013, 84.3 per cent of businesses agreed or strongly agreed that the government should not require employers to be paymasters for the Paid Parental Leave scheme.
The government is committed to continuing to reduce red tape burdens for business, including new and established businesses, as a critical step towards improving Australia's productivity. Unnecessary red tape hinders innovation, investment and job creation.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to introduce the Acts and Instruments (Framework Reform) (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2015 into the parliament.
The bill makes amendments to various Commonwealth acts which are consequential to the Acts and Instruments (Framework Reform) Act 2015. That act received royal assent on 5 March 2015 and will commence on 5 March 2016 or earlier by proclamation.
When the act commences, it will align the requirements for registration and publication of acts and instruments into a single legislative scheme. This is achieved by significant reforms to the Legislative Instruments Act and the repeal of the Acts Publication Act 1905. The consolidated scheme will be provided by the Legislation Act 2003, as the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 will be renamed.
Further, the Acts and Instruments (Framework Reform) Act also amends the Acts Interpretation Act 1901, including clarifying and expanding provisions dealing with machinery of government changes and other amendments to support those made to the Legislative Instruments Act.
The reforms made by the Acts and Instruments (Framework Reform) Act will improve the operation and clarity of the legislative framework for Commonwealth instruments and acts.
This bill supports the implementation of these reforms by making consequential amendments such as updating references to the Legislative Instruments Act, and provisions which deal with the application of that act, to reflect the amendments made.
The bill also removes references to certain exemptions from sunsetting and disallowance for legislative instruments from various enabling acts. The exemptions will be added to an updated Legislative Instruments Regulation 2004 prior to commencement of the Acts and Instruments (Framework Reform) Act, where this is necessary to preserve their legal effect. These amendments will enhance the accessibility and clarity of Commonwealth laws, by ensuring that consolidated lists of exemptions are easily accessible in the updated regulation.
This bill also:
The Acts and Instruments (Framework Reform) (Consequential Provisions) Bill supports reforms made by the Acts and Instruments (Framework Reform) Act to create administrative efficiencies, reduce 'beige tape' and promote access to justice.
I commend this bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Australian government is resolutely committed to supporting Australian Defence Force (ADF) members throughout their service and in their retirement.
The Australian Defence Force Superannuation Bill 2015 (the bill) gives effect to the government's intent to introduce new, modern and flexible superannuation arrangements for people joining the ADF on and after 1 July 2016. The bill establishes a new superannuation scheme to be known as ADF Super.
The bill fixes some of the longest running grievances of the veteran and ex-service community, namely a lack of flexibility in the current military superannuation scheme and the lack of portability of a member's superannuation benefit when they leave the ADF.
At the outset, I thank the Defence Force Welfare Association, the RSL and the Australian Defence Association for their feedback and for supporting this legislation. I also acknowledge the opposition for their support for this important set of changes.
ADF Super forms a significant part of the government's plan to provide flexible service arrangements for all ADF members. Importantly, as part of this plan current serving personnel who are members of the Military Superannuation and Benefits Scheme (MSBS) may opt to join ADF Super, but they will not be compelled to do so.
ADF Super will be a modern, fully funded accumulation superannuation scheme.
ADF Super will, for the first time, allowADF members to choose the superannuation fund they belong to. It will provide superannuation choice and enable ADF members to select any complying superannuation fund to invest their superannuation benefit.
A default military superannuation fund will be established and managed by the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, which is the trustee for the major Commonwealth superannuation schemes, including the current and past military superannuation schemes.
In recognising the unique nature of military service, the government has agreed to a single employer contribution rate of 16.4 per cent, which is a generous rate well above community standards.
ADF Super will apply to:
Contributing DFRDB members do not have the option to transfer to ADF Super.
The current MSBS will be closed to new members from 1 July 2016.
Unlike previous military schemes, such as the MSBS which requires a minimum employee contribution of five per cent of salary, there will be no requirement for ADF Super members to make employee contributions to their superannuation.
As a result, contributing MSBS members who choose to become ADF Super memb ers will immediately receive a five per cent increase to their take home pay as they are no longer required to make com pulsory employee contributions.
Accompanying ADF Super will be a new statutory death and invalidity scheme, known as ADF Cover. ADF Cover will be consistent with the death and invalidity arrangements ADF personnel currently receive as MSBS members. It will ensure that ADF members are properly looked after, for the rest of their life if required, in the event they are injured during their ADF service.
ADF Super recognises the unique nature of military service, and importantly, provides greater flexibility for individuals in how they manage their finances at various stages of their working life.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Australian Defence Force Cover Bill 2015 (the bill) gives effect to the government's commitment to introduce new, modern superannuation arrangements for people joining the Australian Defence Force (ADF) on and after 1 July 2016. The bill establishes a new statutory death and invalidity scheme to be known as ADF Cover.
Due to the unique nature of military service it is often difficult for ADF members to obtain death and invalidity cover at a reasonable cost under group insurance arrangements. ADF Cover addresses this issue by ensuring all ADF personnel who are members of the ADF Super scheme have full death and invalidity cover.
ADF Cover provides all members who join on and after 1 July 2016 with death and invalidity cover consistent with that provided to members of the current Military Superannuation and Benefits Scheme (MSBS). It will apply regardless of the superannuation fund chosen by the ADF member.
As is the case for current MSBS members, ADF members will not be required to make any contributions to ADF Cover and all benefits paid under ADF Cover will be met from consolidated revenue.
Benefits for i ncapacity
ADF Cover will provide benefits for ADF members who are medically discharged and whose capacity to undertake civilian employment is limited as a result of a medical condition that occurs while serving in the ADF.
If that capacity is reduced by 60 per cent or more, they will be classified as c lass A and receive an appropriate pension.
If that capacity is reduced by 30 per cent or more, but less than 60 per cent, then they will be classified as c lass B and receive an appropriate pension.
If a member ' s capacity is reduced by less than 30 per cent they will be classified as c lass C and their superannuation will be preserved in the fund of their choice. The preserved benefit is subject to the normal age preservation rules for release.
Under ADF Cover the death and invalidity benefits provided will be consistent with the death and invalidity benefits provided under the current MSBS.
Benefits for d eath
If an ADF member dies in service, or if an invalid dies while receiving an invalidity pension, benefits will be paid to the dependants of that member or invalid, or to their estate.
In the case of an invalid or ADF member who dies, their spouse (if any) will receive a reversionary pension or lump sum. The pension will be increased if there are eligible children. If that spouse later dies and was themselves receiving a pension, any eligible children will also receive a reversionary pension.
If an invalid dies with no spouse but with eligible children, the eligible children will receive a reversionary pension. If an ADF member dies in service with no spouse but with eligible children, then the eligible children will receive a lump sum. In the case of an ADF member who has no spouse or eligible children, a lump sum will go to the estate or the legal personal representative of the ADF member.
ADF Cover recognises the unique nature of military service and offers important protection for ADF members and their family consistent with that provided under the current MSBS.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Measures to implement ADF Super and ADF Cover
The Australian Defence Legislation Amendment (Superannuation and ADF Cover) Bill 2015(the bill) contains the consequential amendments necessary to establish the ADF Super and ADF Cover arrangements. In line with the government's drive to cut red tape, the bill also contains a number of measures to reduce the administrative complexity of the current and previously closed military superannuation schemes.
Measures for c hildren
The current Military Superannuation and Benefits Scheme (MSBS) and closed Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits (DFRDB) scheme provide pensions for children of deceased Australian Defence Force (ADF) members and former ADF members. To qualify for a benefit, children over 16 must demonstrate they are in full-time education.
In contemporary Australia the majority of high school students do not leave school until they reach 18. This bill modernises the arrangements of the current and closed schemes so that children only have to demonstrate they are in full-time education once they reach the age of 18.
This will reduce the administrative burden on families receiving a benefit under the current and closed military schemes, as well as the burden on the administrator of those schemes.
Re-entered m embers
At present all DFRDB retirement pay recipients who re-enter the ADF full time or as a reservist on continuous full-time service must make an election to either become an MSBS member, not become an MSBS member or to again become a DFRDB contributing member before commencing their further service.
If no election is made or the election is not made before commencing re-entered service, the re-entered member becomes an MSBS member by operation of the law.
If the person elects to become a member of the MSBS their retirement pay is suspended until such time they complete their period of service.
If the person elects to again become a DFRDB contributing member their retirement pay is cancelled and recalculated after the further period of service is completed, noting that the additional service must be for more than 12 months for this to apply.
After 1 July 2016, all DFRDB scheme retirement pay recipients who re-enter for further service will be able to choose which superannuation fund they belong to, noting they cannot rejoin the closed DFRDB scheme.
Importantly, they will continue to receive their retirement pay while accumulating further superannuation benefits in the fund of their choice. Put another way, they will no longer have their retirement pay suspended or cancelled as is currently the case.
Likewise, those members currently receiving an MSBS pension who re-enter for a further period of service will also be able to join a superannuation fund of their choice, again noting they cannot rejoin the closed MSBS. They will also continue to receive their pension during that period of service while accumulating further superannuation benefits.
Flexible s ervice
The bill also facilitates the introduction of significant reforms to the ADF's future workforce model. This bill enables a new category of flexible service for members of the permanent ADF.
Defence is a modern, flexible and responsive employer. The introduction of flexible service arrangements will better secure the ADF's capability by:
The bill will enable permanent ADF members to seek flexible service arrangements that can be structured on the number of days worked per week, weeks per month, or even months per year.
Importantly, the application of the flexible service arrangements will remain cognisant of the need to balance the ADF member's needs with Defence's capability requirements.
ADF personnel should be encouraged to pursue long-term and worthwhile careers within a modern and innovative Defence Force. This bill facilitates the introduction of a new workforce model and will help to ensure Defence get the most out of its people and those people get the most out of their Defence career.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to present legislation that will give effect to a number of veterans' affairs 2015 budget measures.
Since coming to office, the government has honoured its commitment to recognise the unique nature of military service. We are focussed on early intervention to ensure veterans, and their families, get the help and assistance they need when they need it. The budget, which invests more than $12 billion in services for veterans and their families, has a strong focus on early intervention. Our investment in the expansion of case coordination for those with complex needs, as well as the measures in this bill to assist those undertaking vocational rehabilitation, are designed to give our veterans the best opportunity in their post-service lives.
The first measure in the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (2015 Budget Measures) Bill will benefit veterans through enhancements to the Veterans' Vocational Rehabilitation Scheme under the Veterans' Entitlements Act. The scheme is voluntary and is designed to assist veterans to find or continue in suitable employment. The scheme also provides incentives for participants in relation to the work thresholds for special or intermediate rate disability pension and the treatment of income from paid work on invalidity service pension.
The enhancements to the scheme will expand the range of services to include medical management and psychological services. They will also result in certain special and intermediate rate disability pensioners having a smoother step down in disability pension whilst in the scheme and will encourage veterans to remain or continue in the workforce.
The second measure in the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (2015 Budget Measures) Bill will simplify and streamline the appeal process under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act by changing to a single appeal path. Currently, a claimant may seek a first-tier right of review through either, but not both, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission or the Veterans' Review Board. They then have a second-tier right of review to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Following the changes in this bill, the first-tier right of review will be to the Veterans' Review Board. The second-tier right of review to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal is not changing. The change to a single appeal path will avoid the complexities that claimants currently face relating to different time limits for the submission of appeals, different times taken to determine the review and the choice they make impacting on entitlement to legal aid and the awarding of costs for appeals that progress to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
I want to acknowledge the very strong support for these changes from the veteran and ex-service community.
Finally, the bill will amend the Defence Act to enable the repatriation of the remains of eight service dependants buried in Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia, if requested to do so by the families of the deceased. On 25 May this year, 50 years after the arrival of the first troops of the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment in South Vietnam, the Prime Minister offered to repatriate the remains of 25 Vietnam veterans from Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia and Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore, to the families of the deceased. This offer was also extended to the families of three other servicemen and eight service dependants also buried in the Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia. Until 21 January 1966, the bodies of Australians who died in war were buried in war cemeteries close to where they fell. From that date, remains were—with the consent of the families—repatriated to Australia. The decision was not retrospective. Of the 521 Australians who died in the Vietnam War, 25 remain buried overseas. The families of those 25 Vietnam veterans now have the opportunities to bring their loved one home. Because of the limited access for families of the deceased at Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia due to the cemetery being on a large-scale high-security military base, the offer of repatriation has also been extended to the families of all Australians interred in the Terendak Military Cemetery. This includes the families of the eight service dependants who died whilst accompanying their father or husband on service in Malaysia. The amendments in this bill will enable the war graves regulation made under the Defence Act to authorise the repatriation of these service dependants if requested to do so by their families. The government acknowledges the Malaysian government's offer to provide any assistance toward repatriation. The government also thanks the Malaysian government for their care for and maintenance of those graves over many years.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
As required by resolution of the House, I table copies of notifications of alterations of interests received during the period 25 March 2015 to 23 June 2015.
On behalf of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, I present the committee's final report.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—Today I present to the House the final report of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. The journey has been a long one. The journey has been an emotive one.
The journey for me started in 2012 with the establishment of the expert panel under the former Labor government. The expert panel explored the various possible forms of constitutional recognition and undertook extensive consultation with Australians from every corner of our great nation.
Following the expert panel process, a parliamentary committee was formed to examine the options presented and build consensus on the referendum process, timing and wording. The committee has extensively consulted across the nation and taken on significant legal advice from prominent constitutional lawyers.
This final report is the culmination of that process and the culmination of an extensive consultation and listening tour that has taken place over many years.
We are now down to the gritty details of how recognition should look and the process we must take for it to be successful.
This referendum cannot and must not fail.
I appreciate that there are many different views on this issue and that within the community and parliament, there are supporting and opposing viewpoints on the matter.
To all of those who say, 'Why should we recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution?' I say this: for the last 114 years Australia's founding document, the Constitution, has been silent on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Excluded from voting, and excluded from participating in the convention debates that lead to the drafting of the Constitution, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were not considered citizens of this great nation and had minimal rights and protections. In fact, for many years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were considered to be fauna of the land.
While many have said that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should not be recognised separately to any other group of Australians the fact is we were not even considered to be real citizens of Australia when the Constitution was drafted and written.
The oldest continuing culture in the world was rendered invisible.
And there is a large, unspoken silence in our Constitution.
It is time to right that wrong. It is time to acknowledge and fix that silence.
What the committee is proposing is a repeal of the redundant section 25, which is a provision to disqualify races from voting, and a repeal or amendment of section 51(26), of which we propose three options. Through this we deal with the need to have a head of power to deal with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-specific legislation in the parliament and address the actual recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this land.
This is not about singling out Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, or affording them extra rights above other Australians. This is about correcting the contextual silence that is so currently deafening in the Constitution.
The committee also explores a number of different proposals for recognition, including a Declaration of Recognition and an Indigenous Advisory Body which have both been debated in the media. The committee's views are reflected in the report.
There has been much discussion, that began with the expert panel, of the desire to include a prohibition on racial discrimination in the Constitution.
The committee has reached the view that there are other options available to the parliament that would strengthen existing mechanisms. The committee considered all views associated with the expert panel's proposed inclusion of section 116A. These options are outlined in the report.
Public discourse on this matter is essential and should be encouraged; however, none of us should seek individual glory or ownership over the issue.
This is not about me. This is not about the government. This is not about the Prime Minister. This is not about the opposition, nor is it about the Leader of the Opposition, nor the Greens. This is not owned by any of us, nor is it owned by any particular public voice.
This is owned and must be owned, by all Australians: black and white, urban and regional, rich and poor. This is about all of us as a nation—about all of us as Australians.
We must not be afraid to debate this issue. And we who support it, and those in the media, should not rush to judge. Just because someone does not support constitutional recognition that does not make them racist. Just because someone has an alternative viewpoint, that does not make them isolated from the discussion.
There is a place for all voices; however we must all be respectful in the debate that will ensue.
That is why we propose, following the July 6 meeting convened by the Prime Minister, a full day of sittings set aside in parliament for debating the proposal followed by a series of constitutional conventions with the aim of ultimately building a universal, multiparty consensus on the wording.
I would ask though, that parliamentarians, media, stakeholders—all fellow Australians—read the report in its entirety, not just the recommendations.
Inform yourself of the motives for the particular decisions and conclusions we have come to. Please do not just take a shallow, cursory look at the recommendations and make your judgement from that. Engage, inform yourself—participate.
This is a time to walk together, towards a common goal of an inclusive, vibrant, culturally-rich Australia.
The difficulty that we all face is the fact that we must balance the aspirations of society to include a stronger set of words with the many sets of competing interests and expectations across the community.
Recognition must be real. It must be substantive. It must, most importantly, succeed.
That is the challenge we all now face.
I am confident that there is enough goodwill between the various interests in this issue that we can find common ground.
I am also confident that this is the parliament that can deliver a positive outcome.
I want to thank my fellow committee members, those who have been there since the beginning and those who have joined us recently: my deputy, Senator Nova Peris, Senator Rachel Siewert, Senator Bridget McKenzie, Hon. Shayne Neumann, Mr Stephen Jones, Ms Sarah Henderson, Senator James McGrath, Hon. Christian Porter and Senator Anne Ruston; the people across the country that attended a consultation, forum or made a submission to the committee; the committee secretariat, in particular Toni Matulick, who has done an outstanding job in facilitating the work of this committee, and I also want to pay special mention of committee staff, Aleshia Westgate and Erin Pynor; my own staff, who have dealt with many, many competing interests on my time, liaised with stakeholders and effectively managed the increased workload; and finally, my colleagues on all sides of parliament who have engaged with the committee and sought us out to learn, contribute and become part of the process.
I want to end by saying that, while this journey has been a long one, I am much more confident in the success of this referendum today, as opposed to when I became part of the process in 2012. Australia and, by extension, Australians are diverse and multicultural. We are all proud of our heritage and our culture. Let us make it stronger. Let us fill the silence. Let us complete our Constitution. Let us recognise. I commend the report to the House.
I thank the member for Hasluck and I congratulate him on his efforts.
by leave—Our founding document, the Australian Constitution, has a hole, a void, a silence. There is no recognition of the first occupation of the Australian continent and its islands by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. There is no acknowledgement of the continuing relationship with traditional lands and waters and no respecting of their culture, languages and heritage. Indeed, the Constitution itself shows no respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It contains obsolete, anachronistic and racist provisions—for example, section 25 of the Constitution contemplates that the states of this country can exclude people from voting on the basis of their race. It should go. It is redundant. It is useless. It has no place in the 21st century of this country.
It took until the early 1960s before the Indigenous people of this land received voting rights. It look until 1967 before the people of this country overwhelmingly voted in favour of giving the Commonwealth power to pass laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to include them in the census. After more than two centuries of dispossession of land, destruction of language, disadvantage in education and discrimination in the workplace, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have every expectation and every belief that the Constitution should recognise them and provide protection for them and their descendants.
This final report, along with our interim report in July 2014 and our progress report in October 2014, shows that the expert panel, chaired by Professor Patrick Dodson and Mark Leibler AC, got it right. This final report endorses the intention and the thrust of the expert panel's recommendations in 2012. Constitutional change must be real and it must be substantive. As I say, it must get rid of those racist provisions. It must retain the integrity and the purpose of the 1967 referendum result. It must recognise, it must acknowledge and it must respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their prior occupation, their continuing relationship with land and waters, their culture, their language and their heritage. It should include a prohibition against racial discrimination constitutionally.
Preambular words and symbolic change will not get it done. They will not be accepted by the Australian public. If the evidence that the submitters gave to this inquiry is to be believed—and at every public hearing from Tasmania to the Torres Strait, from the Kimberley to Brisbane and elsewhere, we heard the same message again and again, overwhelmingly, consistently and unequivocally—the needs, aspirations, dreams and desires of Aboriginal people are to be protected from governments passing laws which adversely discriminate against them.
Mr Mark Leibler AC, the co-chair of the expert panel, said at one of our inquiries in Melbourne:
At every single consultation that we held—
that is, the expert panel—
there was a reference to substantive recognition—'We want substantive recognition.' What did that mean? It turned out that substantive recognition means something to preclude racial discrimination.
For those constitutional conservatives who say that something like that which the expert panel has recommended and that which we include in the various options in our recommendations are single-line bills of rights, I say it is nonsense. The High Court of this country has found implied rights of freedom and of political communication. While we do not have a bill of rights in this country, as this report sets out, we certainly have rights protected expressly by the Constitution of this country: protection of property, freedom of trade and movement, trial by jury, freedom of religion and the prohibition against discrimination on the basis of state residence. I refer to sections 41, 51, 31, 92, 80, 116 and 117 of the Constitution.
This is a final report. It is unanimous. It has strong multipartisan support. There is no dissenting report. Liberal, Labor, Nationals and Greens have all agreed. I want to commend the chair, Ken Wyatt, the member for Hasluck; and the deputy chair, Senator Nova Peris. What an historic moment—the report is tabled in this place by an Indigenous man and in that place over there by an Indigenous woman. This report has the support, we are confident, of Indigenous people around the country. I believe the Prime Minister is utterly genuine in wanting to get constitutional recognition done. I believe the Leader of the Opposition is utterly genuine in wanting this to be done. There is great multiparty support across this chamber and in the Senate to get this done. There is momentum, consultation and engagement. The opposition will be there—the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Peris and I will be there on 6 July for this meeting. The opposition are ready, willing and available to consult and engage and do our best to participate in a bipartisan way with the government. We want this done. We want to do nothing without the support of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We think it is time. Labor believe it is more than time.
I move:
That the House take note of the report.
In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I move:
That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.
Question agreed to.
I present the report from the Publications Committee sitting in conference with the Publications Committee of the Senate. Copies of the report are being placed on the table.
Report—by leave—agreed to.
On behalf of the Standing Committee on Health, I present the committee's report entitled The silent disease: inquiry into hepatitis C in Australia together with the minutes of proceedings. I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with that report.
Leave granted.
Hepatitis C is the most prevalent blood-borne virus in Australia, affecting an estimated 230,000 people. Hepatitis C is difficult to diagnose in its early stages and, over time, adversely affects the liver, and may lead to cirrhosis, liver disease and liver cancer. Hepatitis C is Australia's leading cause of liver transplants.
While Australia has one of the highest diagnosis rates for hepatitis C in the world at approximately 80 per cent, it is estimated that 40,000 to 50,000 Australians are unaware that they are living with the disease. Exploring ways in which testing can be delivered in non-hospital settings may increase the diagnosis rate as well as reach people who may not be able to seek medical treatment through traditional avenues. Approximately one per cent of people living with hepatitis C are undergoing treatment at any time. There are many reasons why the treatment rate is low. One is that current therapies are long-term commitments and have varying success rates. Further, the location of treatment services in hospitals can make treatment geographically difficult to access.
From a social perspective, there is a stigma associated with hepatitis C which can act as a disincentive to seeking treatment. As hepatitis C is blood-borne, the majority of transmissions occur due to unsafe injecting practices. There are, however, other means of transmission, including mother-to-child transmission, unsafe tattooing or piercing, or through breakdowns in infection control practices in a medical setting. Transmission can also occur through receipt of unscreened blood product received before 1990.
Raising awareness and understanding about hepatitis C can reduce the stigma associated with the disease. Hepatitis C is a virus carried by many everyday Australians.
The committee recommended several specific information campaigns aimed at different groups. The committee also recommended exploring ways in which the patient experience in general practice could be improved for people living with hepatitis C, through better information provision, improved treatment processes and patient counselling.
Developed in consultation with the state and territory governments, and hepatitis stakeholder organisations, the Fourth National Hepatitis C Strategy identifies priority populations, how actions to address hepatitis C will be implemented and the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders.
The committee found the need for a more robust reporting and review framework to support the Fourth National Hepatitis C Strategy, recommending that the Department of Health develop key performance indicators and annual reporting to measure progress in addressing the challenge of hepatitis C.
Additionally, the committee recommended that targets be set and reported against annually for hepatitis C testing rates.
The committee examined testing and treatment options for several high-risk groups identified in the Fourth National Hepatitis C Strategy, including people who inject drugs, people from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and people in custodial settings.
The committee recommended that there be an improved focus on reaching migrant communities with high rates of hepatitis C infection, and that all Australian jurisdictions work together to address the high hepatitis C infection rate amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
The committee was also interested in the issue of needle and syringe programs in prisons, and was grateful for the evidence it received. Evidence received will inform the ongoing broader debate in state and territory jurisdictions.
The committee made recommendations concerning people in custodial settings. The committee found inconsistencies between jurisdictions in the way prisoner health data are collected and reported, and recommended the development of a standardised approach to data collection and reporting.
The development of a national strategy for blood-borne viruses and sexually transmitted infections in prisons was also recommended. Thirdly, the committee recommended that the issue of hepatitis C in prisons, including exploring the provision of safe tattooing and barbering services, and the establishment of national standards in prison health delivery be discussed as part of the COAG Health Council process.
I thank all the individuals, community and health organisations and government agencies who contributed to this inquiry. In particular, I thank the many individuals who are living or have lived with hepatitis C who participated in the inquiry. I also thank the committee members for their contribution and participation. I also commend the secretariat, who produced the report under difficult and trying conditions, and with a lack of resources—and I know that people are working on that issue. The secretariat did an extremely good job on this report. It is a report I am proud to commend to the House.
I move:
That the House take note of the report.
In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I move:
That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.
Question agreed to.
No, the member for Gorton, Deputy Speaker Kelly. There is a member for O'Connor; I just do not happen to be the member for O'Connor. It is a magnificent story about a West Australian engineer who engineered the water pipeline to Kalgoorlie. He thought it had failed and he committed suicide. A week after that, the water arrived. That is why we got the member for O'Connor. My seat is named after a former Prime Minister, not a bad Prime Minister, John Grey Gorton. He was quite an interesting enigmatic sort of guy. I would prefer to be called the member for Gorton than the member for McMahon. Chris Bowen, a good colleague and friend of mine, I am sure would rather my title.
I rise to remark upon the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 2] before the House. This is, by the way, the third occasion that this matter has been before the House. For those of us who find the government's agenda to be a bit of a chaotic blur, albeit a nasty one, this is a bill that will establish the Registered Organisations Commission. The commission will be headed by a registered organisations commissioner with greater investigative power than those available to the general manager of the Fair Work Commission. The bill also modifies disclosure requirements, increases red tape and regulates individuals who choose, often on a voluntary basis, to dedicate their time to an employer body or union in the same way that the chief executives of corporate boards are also having to do.
You could be forgiven for being a little confused that we are back in this place debating this bill because this is the third time those opposite have brought this bill forward. I will try not to be too cynical about politics but my generosity of spirit has been somewhat tried by the coalition's timing on this bill. In the primitive collective of those opposite, you can imagine it would have gone something like this: attack your rights at work with Work Choices, lose the election; attack rights of workers, do not get any anywhere; set up a royal commission; attack rights of workers, do not get anywhere; call former Labor leader; attack rights of workers, do not get anywhere; call a current Labor leader; attack rights of workers and so on and so on.
This bill and why it has been introduced this morning is about no less than really a political attack on the opponents of the government. It is quite remarkable that the Prime Minister has had three opponents, all three Labor leaders since he was elected, since he knifed Malcolm Turnbull and became the leader of the conservatives—whatever you think of Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard or Bill Shorten—summoned to a royal commission. All three have been summoned to Tony Abbott's royal commission because this government and this Prime Minister uses the executive, uses the power of the state and uses millions upon millions of taxpayers' dollars to attack his political opponents. So let us not have any misunderstanding about why this matter has been reintroduced for a third time in this place. This is about politics. This is not about policy; this is not about good governance of registered organisations; this is about attacking the opponents of the government. For that reason, it should be understood in that frame.
As I previously acknowledged, registered organisations play a fundamental role in Australia's workplace relations system. They are created and registered for the purpose of representing Australian employers and employees at work. Registered organisations also represent their members before industrial tribunals and courts and work with government on policy matters ranging from employment issues to economic and social policy.
We support appropriate regulation for registered organisations. We support tough penalties for those who break the law. As I said the last time this bill was introduced and as many Labor MPs have said publicly on many occasions including the Labor leader, the Labor Party has no tolerance for corruption of officers of employer bodies or officers of unions. Labor is committed to ensuring financial accountability by unions and employer organisations. That is why three years ago in 2012, the then government, indeed the Leader of the Opposition as minister, toughened the laws to improve financial transparency, toughened the laws to improve disclosure by registered organisations to their members and indeed toughened the laws in relation to penalties. By making those amendments that we made in 2012, quite ironically, we amended the laws that were introduced by the current Prime Minister.
Let us look at the record. The Leader of the Opposition improved transparency, improved accountability and increased penalties for breaches of laws with respect to registered organisations more than the laws that were ushered in by the Prime Minister of this country did when he was minister for employment. Let us be very clear on that. As a result, the regulation of trade unions in Australia has never been stronger, it has never been more accountable and indeed the powers of the commission to investigate and prosecute for breaches has never been broader than when those amendments were made. We tripled penalties, which means that these laws, as I said earlier, have never been tougher. It begs the question: why would you be introducing this bill when in fact the work has already been done by the previous government?
Also, if you look at the submissions made by unions and employer bodies, there was not anyone amongst the authors of those submissions that was supporting these amendments—not unions and not employer bodies. In fact, almost to a body, every employer body that made submissions to the Senate inquiry argued against these provisions. So it is not just about unions saying they do not like it; it is about employer bodies saying: 'We've already had fundamental changes to our requirements. We reached agreement with the previous government. Now you're seeking to go further, when we're just bedding down these reforms.' Let us be very, very clear here. There is a unity ticket between employer bodies and unions in opposition to the so-called reforms contained within this bill.
However, the focus of the government, of course, is not about reform but about finding any reason to attack trade unions in this country. It does not matter whether in fact employers or employer bodies oppose a particular reform or change; this government is so ideologically predisposed to trying to kill unions that it will move changes to arrangements even if it hurts others. So far as this government is concerned, this is collateral damage, which it is quite happy to see happen because of its hatred and enmity towards working people negotiating collectively in workplaces.
There is no moderate right-of-centre party in the world that seems to hate unions like the Liberal Party of Australia does. Angela Merkel and Republicans in America work with unions, but this government hates them. It takes them off tripartite bodies. It goes after them. It has a royal commission that is so broad that effectively it goes after everyone who happens to either work for or be a member of a union in this country—a remarkable assault on our democracy. Tell me about a country without unions, and I will tell you a country without a democracy. But this government has such a hatred and this Prime Minister has such a hatred and enmity towards unions that we see millions and millions of taxpayers' dollars and the abuse of state power being used to go after those organisations.
Let me also be very, very clear. We do not and will never condone improper practices by anybody. Unlawful behaviour by any union officer should be met with the full force of the law. We do not believe that, if there is any serious allegation, it should be disregarded. Any serious allegation of improper conduct or, more particularly, criminal conduct should be met with the full force of the law.
If you understand the history of these matters, as I do as a former Minister for Justice, you would understand that the Australian Crime Commission was established arising out of another conservative party's term in office, under the Fraser years. It was a recommendation by another royal commission into unions back in the seventies. The Hawke government embraced that recommendation and established the National Crime Authority. You might remember that body. Ultimately the title changed, but the powers of that body did not change too much, and that body became the Australian Crime Commission.
The Australian Crime Commission has coercive powers and powers to investigate serious crime. If the government were about tackling serious crime in this country or indeed investigating serious allegations about criminal conduct, it has those powers in place. But that is not what the government wants to do. The government is not interested in actually fighting crime on these matters; the government wants a show trial to attack its political opponents.
Think about this. There has never been a time in our federation, since we were formed as a nation, that a Prime Minister would set up royal commissions to compel his opposition, his counterparts, to be brought before a royal commission. As I said earlier, whatever you think of Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard or Bill Shorten, all three of them have been forced to come before an executive inquiry for political reasons. All three of them have been forced to come to an executive inquiry that has been established by the Prime Minister.
Can you imagine a Labor government establishing a royal commission and forcing three previous conservative leaders before a royal commission? It would not be done. We set up one royal commission. We set up a royal commission on child sex abuse in this country, a very, very difficult subject—a very difficult subject for the victims and indeed a very difficult subject for organisations which in the main did the right thing but of course had a history where there were failures. That was our investment, if you like, of taxpayers' money into dealing with that serious issue.
We could have had a royal commission into why we went to war in Iraq. We could have had a royal commission into why John Howard went to war in Iraq based on a lie, because it was based on a lie and John Howard knew it was based on a lie. We could have done to John Howard what the British parliament did to Tony Blair.
Or on corruption with the Wheat Board.
And we could have had a royal commission on 'wheat for weapons', as the member for Melbourne Ports reminds me. We could have had a royal commission into the corruption that was obvious to all where the foreign minister, and indeed the Prime Minister and the minister for trade, would have been summoned to those inquiries. These are far more serious matters than are actually subject to the current commissions that have been established by this government.
But the reality is that this government will be willing to spend millions upon millions of taxpayers' dollars—$80 million so far—to go after the Labor leader, and not the first Labor leader but the third Labor leader. Is it remarkable? I think it is remarkable that in 15 months three Labor leaders have been forced to an inquiry. It is not a judicial inquiry; it is an executive inquiry run by the government and established by the government. Summonsing the leaders to those inquires is an abuse of power, an abuse of taxpayers' money and a complete and utter national disgrace. It should be called out for what it is. This is an abuse by Tony Abbott. Tony Abbott is abusing taxpayers' money and abusing the powers of the state—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. According the standing orders, the honourable member is required to refer to other honourable members by their titles, not by their name.
The member for Gorton should know those rules, and I would ask him to abide by them.
If only they were used in question time. If only they were used in question time by Tony Abbott.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. After you had corrected the honourable member, he immediately made the same error again. I remind him the standing orders require him to refer to members by their titles, not by their names.
I would request that member for Gorton does abide by those rules.
I am happy not to mention Tony Abbott.
The member for Gorton should show due respect—
I accept that.
and I ask you to—
I withdraw 'Tony Abbott'.
Thank you.
I wish we could withdraw him entirely from the public. But let me just say—
Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. He seems to be defying your ruling repeatedly. You have asked him on three occasions now and he keeps making the same error. He has been in this parliament for quite some time. He should comply with the standing orders.
I would ask the member for Gorton to abide by the orders.
Okay, because no-one knows who I am talking about when I say 'Prime Minister'—I understand. The Prime Minister has decided to spend millions upon millions of taxpayers' dollars, $80 million so far, on attacking the leader of the Labor Party. I was thinking, 'There are some issues there,' and you know what? The current leader of the Labor Party is very willing to answer all questions asked of him. But I was thinking just the other day that this is the third leader. There have only been three leaders of the Labor Party that have been up against the current Prime Minister, all three of whom have been called to executive inquiries run by the government to attack them. This is not engagement on policy matters in the parliament. Three Labor leaders—Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and the current Leader of the Opposition—have been forced to go to these executive witch-hunts that have been established by the Prime Minister.
Do you know how much money has been spent so far? Some $80 million. If you asked the public, 'Do you want $80 million that could be paying for teachers, paying for nurses, paying for hospital care, paying for medicine and paying for all sorts of things that matter?' do you know what they would say? 'Why are you spending $80 million attacking the Labor Party?' This bill is being introduced not because the government thinks it will succeed, because this is the third effort by the government to have this bill enacted into law. This is about politics.
As I said to you earlier, the fact is that every employer body that is a registered organisation has made submissions on the record against this bill. It is not that unions are opposed to this. Every registered organisation is against this. I want to make it very clear. Certainly, I engaged with the Minister for Employment many, many months ago to see whether we could reconcile differences and reach an arrangement on this bill. Given that we in government made all the reforms in this area, I was very much looking to reach agreement on the matters that were contained within the bill.
I said to the Minister for Employment, 'You cannot have volunteers who sit on the board of the Australian Industry Group, for example—small businesses who are volunteers on that board—being subject to greater criminal or civil offences than directors of publicly listed companies.' Currently, the bill here would force businesses, mostly SMEs, who sit on the board of the Australian Industry Group—I think there are 60 people on that board—to be subject to outrageous sanctions. They will not volunteer to work in that field if they are going to be subject to, as I say, outrageous sanctions—sanctions that exceed those of directors of publicly listed companies. Unfortunately, in that discussion I had with Minister Abetz we could not reach agreement.
I think if the government were serious it would listen to the employer bodies. I do not expect it to listen to unions, but I would have thought it would listen to employer bodies saying: 'These sanctions are onerous. These sanctions are disproportionate and unfair and they will prevent employers who volunteer to work for employer bodies from continuing that work.' But no—unfortunately, I could not reconcile the differences between the government and the opposition on this matter. I make an appeal to the government. I am still happy to find ways to reconcile these differences because I do believe that if we can improve accountability and transparency on top of the reforms that were done in 2012 we should do that. But we have to be reasonable. You cannot expect small businesses or employers who are volunteering their own time to work on employer bodies to be subject to outrageous laws.
We know the government hates unions and we are not surprised that it wants to destroy unions and kill the union movement but we do not expect the government to try to kill employer bodies along the way. That is why I would have thought that the submissions made before the Senate inquiry by employer bodies would have at least been listened to by this government. Then I realised how much this government hates unions. It does not even care what the employer bodies say. There were seven or eight submissions made, none of which were important to the government as it went on its rampage to destroy the union movement.
Any government that ideologically predisposed to public policy has got a real problem. It has a blind spot—that is the most polite way I can put it. The reality is that we have things going on. People know there are some things happening. We have a royal commission. The royal commission is running on the entire union movement. We are still wondering why there have been no findings, or even observations, on Kathy Jackson, who clearly, on the face of it, has some very serious questions to answer. How can the royal commission hand down an interim report and make no reference at all to Kathy Jackson given the damning evidence before the royal commission?
At the same time the royal commission decided to make findings against others without even calling those people. How can it be that Michael Lawler—and this was on the front page of The Australian today—the man appointed by Prime Minister Abbott when he was the minister for employment, be on indefinite sick leave from the Fair Work Commission representing his partner, Kathy Jackson? Why hasn't the government said anything about his role as a commissioner, given that when the Prime Minister was the minister for employment he appointed Michael Lawler?
Mr Deputy Speaker, I have a point of order.
I ask the member for Gorton to resume his seat. Firstly, I ask the member to be very careful where he treads with the rules on sub judice. I call the member for Bass on a point of order.
I refer the honourable member to page 524 of the Practice, which deals with this issue. It is fair enough to have a general conversation about royal commissions but when he is identifying individuals who are before the royal commission before the royal commission has reached conclusions then that is appalling.
Mr Deputy Speaker, the other point of order I would like to raise is under standing order 90, reflections on members. The honourable member has asserted that the Prime Minister is forcing the opposition leader before the royal commission. That is a false assertion and reflection on the Prime Minister. Mr Shorten has decided to appear of his own recognisance.
I thank the member for Bass. I remind the member for Gorton to be very careful of the ground he treads.
I am very careful. With all respect, I am using the Speaker's own rulings, if you like. I am being consistent.
I interrupt the member for Gorton. The ruling as far as royal commissions is that there can be general discussion but you are going into very specific areas and straying onto grounds that I think are—
Mr Deputy Speaker, with respect, I have a point of order. If indeed ministers of this government in question time can actually refer specifically to the Leader of the Opposition with respect to the royal commission then I think it is quite consistent that I raise matters now. If you are suggesting for a moment that in question time, in three hours, we will not have Christopher Pyne, the minister for education, rise as the acting Minister for Employment and attack the Leader of the Opposition, then I would agree with you. But let us be very consistent here. If indeed these matters are going to be raised every day in question time then I think I have every right to raise these matters.
Mr Deputy Speaker, on the point of order: I refer the honourable member again to rulings by Speaker Snedden in the past where he asked members to show restraint when it came to the specifics of issues before a royal commission.
I thank the member for Bass. The member for Gorton has the call.
Thank you very much. By the way, with respect to former Speaker Snedden, we have been seeking to raise that point of order in question time and it has been ruled out of order. The shadow Attorney-General has been seeking to raise that ruling with the current Speaker of the House. We have sought to raise that ruling and it has been ruled out of order even before the matter has been raised properly.
The member for Gorton has the call. He should also record that this is the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill. He will be relevant to the bill.
I am happy to be. Why is Michael Lawler allowed to defend Kathy Jackson—
The member for Gorton will resume his seat. The member for Bass on a point of order?
The honourable member is well aware that props are not allowed in the chamber. On four occasions now he has consistently defied your ruling. I ask you to deal with him, perhaps under standing order 94(a).
I thank the member for Bass. The member for Gorton should be aware that the holding up of props like that is completely unacceptable. The member for Gorton has the call and he will be relevant to the bill.
Indeed, I am happy to be. This is a very serious matter. We have a bill before the House on changing arrangements to registered organisations. I know of no registered organisation that supports the bill. As I said, there was submission after submission by employer bodies and unions opposed to the arrangements. The strongest penalties, the greater accountability and the greater transparency that is now required of those organisations were introduced by the former government, but I want to make it very clear that this is being introduced for political purposes of the government to attack its opponents. That is not the basis upon which you make good policy. I said to the Minister for Employment that we want to see if we can find a common point of agreement on these matters, but I could not reach agreement with the government. I move:
That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"while not declining to give the Bill a second reading, the House notes:
(1) the adverse impact of the creation of the Registered Organisations Commission on registered organisations, including employer bodies and unions;
(2) the fact that the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 (the Act) was amended in 2012 to improve disclosure requirements, enhance transparency, require greater accountability and amended to also triple civil penalties for breaches of the Act;
(3) the fact that the Abbott Government's legislative program needs to be viewed as a whole to examine the Government's attempts to return to Workchoices;
(4) the fact that the Government has launched an all-encompassing Productivity Commission review of the Fair Work Act 2009;
(5) the fact the Government is using taxpayers' money to fund a Royal Commission ostensibly to inquire into registered associations recognised under the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act, but actually targeting their political opponents; and
(6) the Government's attempt to undermine industrial relations in this country by pitting worker against union, worker against employer and union against employer instead of seeking to create cooperative relationships that improve workplace conditions and productivity at the same time."
(Time expired)
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I acknowledge the wholehearted way in which the previous speaker tried to defend his undefensible position.
Indefensible.
Indefensible—thank you. With the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 2] we intend to establish an independent watchdog, the Registered Organisations Commission, to monitor and regulate registered organisations, with enhanced investigation and information-gathering powers. I will go through some of the other requirements of the commission. The intent is to strengthen the requirements for officers to disclose material personal interests and change grounds for disqualification and ineligibility for office; strengthen existing financial accounting, disclosure and transparency obligations under the RO Act by putting certain rule obligations on the face of the RO Act and making them enforceable as civil remedy provisions; and increase civil penalties and introduce criminal offences for serious offences or breaches of duties, as well as introducing new offences in relation to the conduct of investigations under the RO Act. We as a government want to introduce this because we are committed to the improvement of the Fair Work laws so that we can build a more stable, fair and prosperous future for Australian workers, our business and the economy.
The previous speaker alluded to this government 'hating unions'. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our nation needs a robust union movement. Our nation needs those who will stand up in the workforce and protect the rights of workers from less-than-scrupulous operators in the private sector. So nothing could be further from the truth. In fact this bill enhances the union movement—in particular honest union members. What this bill seeks to rub out is what we see time after time in the Australian press: the word 'union' associated too many times with 'bullying', 'coercion', 'intimidation', 'thuggery', 'corruption' and 'royal commission'. Am I the only one who can see that there is a problem? The setting up of a royal commission stands to strengthen and enhance honest union membership. The previous speaker also mentioned that this party wants to 'kill the union movement'. The union movement of Australia is doing that quite well on its own. Page after page after front-page story of scandal—union members spitting on officers of the Commonwealth, investigations of threats and intimidation, strikes, vandalism, backyard deals shutting out construction companies, and fines to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. We see this every day. Members may remember a case, which I will get to, about inviting a journalist to a union meeting and then bashing him up. So opposition members should not say that we as a government are killing the union movement. The Australian Labor Party is doing that quite well on its own. This bill seeks to assist the opposition in dealing with a most serious situation that they are in.
Most of us on this side of the House come from the small business sector. So we put bills up through our budget mechanisms to try to enhance small business—getting rid of red tape, less government and providing incentives through the budget in asset write-downs so that small business can prosper and unemployment can be addressed. On the other side there are three main threads to the bills that they bring before the House. In the previous parliament it was normally some increase to the bureaucracy. Their idea of fixing a problem was—
Ms Chesters interjecting—
I sat and listened to the opposition member in silence but I do not expect the same respect from the other side, who endorse the union movement. They should not bring their thuggery and intimidatory tactics to this place while I speak, because I offer them a respect that I do not expect I will get in return. Those on the other side normally come to this place with some connection to the union movement. Whether it be working for a union, endorsement by a union or preselection by a union, most of the opposition frontbench have a union affiliation which has led them into their position. So the unions are as entrenched in the ALP as small business is entrenched in this side of government. No-one in Australia should believe in any pretence that we are anti-union. Nothing could be further from the truth. But honest unions are what we want—honest representation for honest workers who need to be represented better than in the cases I want to draw the House's attention to.
Recently in Queensland there was a newspaper article with the headline 'Queensland unions investigated for threats, intimidation, snap strikes and vandalism'. It read:
Militant union activity is rampant in Queensland, with building investigators 'run off their feet' looking into threats, intimidation, snap strikes and vandalism.
The Fair Work Building and Construction Commission … has revealed 52 out of its 133 active cases are in Queensland—more than any other state or territory.
This is my state. This is where the heavy lifting normally gets done in our economy in and around construction, and we need to protect those businesses that are looking to lawfully go about their business without the threat of intimidation and vandalism. How would anyone on the other side of this House dare defend that this acceptable practice? Nigel Hadgkiss, the Fair Work Building and Construction director, said:
Our Queensland investigators are run off their feet responding to calls for help … Despite my staff working their hardest to enforce the rule of law on construction sites, the spread of unlawful activity seems to be spreading faster than ever.
That is why we are bringing this bill before the House. Another headline says, 'The trail of union intimidation of women must be stamped out.' The article said that a union member:
… used a megaphone to broadcast the name and phone number of another FWBC official, in front of scores of CFMEU members, and encouraged them to call the number. He then shouted at the official, 'You think all I got is your phone number?'
He then said, 'Lick it up, you f---ing dog'. This is the high-water mark of behaviour—or is it the low-water mark? If you want more stories, just wait for the next day. There is this headline: 'CFMEU ordered to pay Grocon $3.5m; fined for conduct on Brisbane worksite', and the article states:
Australia’s biggest construction union is under siege amid a record $3.55m payout, a push for deregistration and damaging allegations including of unlawful conduct at a Brisbane worksite.
… … …
The CFMEU has also been fined $545,000 for unlawful, intimidating and coercive conduct on a Brisbane worksite where subcontractors and employees were called dogs and 'scabby gay boys'.
In a scathing judgment the Federal Court found the union displayed 'outrageous disregard' for industrial norms and implied it could face deregistration if it continued its unlawful conduct.
No-one on the other side will come to the House and try to defend that position. I know that those on the other side of this place are honourable men and women. No-one on the other side will come in endorse these actions and behaviours of some members who some of them owe their political career to. None of them will endorse these behaviours. But it is increasingly difficult, with the closeness of the entities that relate, for them to move to discipline. The bill before the House seeks to do exactly that.
Another headline reads, 'Builder needing union favour paid CFMEU figure $2,000 for strippers, royal commission told'. We have had our fair share of stripper allegations in this place that we saw firsthand. The article reads:
A builder who needed union approval to get lucrative jobs paid a senior figure at the militant construction union $2000 cash to spend on strippers …
… … …
It was revealed that a union organiser and senior union figure had to be separated during a dispute at the CFMEU's Swanston St headquarters.
So if you think you are safe on the worksite as a result of being a union member, do not credit that. You are not even safe within the union because if they do not like what you are doing, the union officials will actually take to you. 'It was revealed that a union organiser and a senior union figure had to be separated'. They will go at each other. As I alluded to earlier in my speech, last year the MUA conference condemned the attack on the freedom of the press. The MEAA incoming chief executive, Paul Murphy, said, 'At a trade union meeting, a worker's not safe and is in fact assaulted, is nothing short of disgraceful.' For those who were not aware of the issue, there was a meeting of the MUA in Perth. An Australian journalist was invited to cover the story and when he arrived there he was set upon by union members. Hardly a welcoming endorsement. This Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 seeks to act on those unscrupulous actions.
When we are in an environment of such thuggery, such coercion, such intimidation, it is difficult to dig your way out of this hole. It could very well be that it is like the symptoms of being an alcoholic. If you do not realise that there is a systemic problem within the organisation, if you do not understand that there is a systemic problem that runs through the veins and is corrupting those honest, hardworking union members—let us not get to the value for money membership, where their fees end up—the union movement must first understand that they have a problem and, in doing that, I would encourage them to embrace this bill. You will hear that this is just an attempt to return to Work Choices. Nothing could be further from the truth, Australian people. There is nothing in this bill that speaks to anything but Work Choices. This bill clearly goes to trying to stamp out unethical behaviour that is systemic within the union movement. If there is no problem, if there is nothing to hide, then support us in the chamber on this most valuable piece of legislation.
If we have a look at the trajectory of union movement membership in Australia, it fairly well emulates the union movement membership over the last 50 years globally. Union membership globally has fallen away. In the previous speaker's comments you heard that the intent of this government was to kill the union movement. I again say that those on the other side, those within the union movement group, are doing everything in their power to do that of their own accord.
They said that this was an attack on their leader. I know the Leader of the Opposition to be a good man. He has fought many hard battles with an intent to represent those who he was paid to represent. He acknowledged that he wanted to go before the royal commission earlier. I will not stray into anywhere other than to wish him well in those deliberations. It is not the intent of this government to do anything untoward there.
In closing, the opposition needs to first understand that there is a systemic problem within their movement and the only way that it can be fixed is to address the problem. We will provide the tools through this bill to try to work through it. If you do not work through it, stories like those that I have just read will continue to dominate our press. It is not good for the future of the Australian union movement and it is not good for our country.
I commend this bill to House.
I rise to speak in favour of the amendments that have been moved to this bill, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 2], for several reasons. Without the amendments, this bill fails to do what the government is intending to do. It is simply more red tape that is not only opposed by people in this House but also opposed by industry organisations, employer groups unions—those hardworking unions that the previous member said that he was here to stand up for.
Let's just for a moment reflect on what the previous member said in this House. He suggested very early on, by interjecting and calling this bill red tape, that I was engaging in thuggery, bringing thuggery into this place and being intimidating. The previous speaker also said that it is like alcoholism, so being like an alcoholic I cannot see the problem that is going on, and that the values of union officials are being corrupted because of what is going on in the union movement.
I have never in my life been called the thug. Never in my life has it been suggested that I am intimidating. When I was actively involved in a union—representing some of our hardest working and lowest paid workers, cleaners—and when I worked and talked about industry reform, I was never referred to as a union thug. The government likes to throw around that term, whether it be in question time or whether it be up in the Federation Chamber. It is used by every individual member who gets up to speak on this issue from the government. When you say that this bill is supposed to support the good union officials, you are also in your same speech and comments calling them union thugs. Which is it? You cannot have it both ways.
The previous speaker and government speakers say that union members should get behind this bill and support it, because they believe it is good governance. It is not. It is purely and simply a way in which to attack the union movement and those involved in the union movement. This bill and what it will do has been opposed by employer organisations time and time again, but yet the government brings forward this bill again to this House in this last sitting week before the session ends. Why? It is purely and simply politically motivated. It is not good governance and it is not about ensuring that we have safer workplaces. It is not about, as the government tries to suggest, supporting good union officials.
Let's us just look at who they have attacked in this place. I just do not know who they mean by these good union officials, because they continue to attack every single union that has ever stood up to represent their members. This government in this place and the other place have attacked childcare workers. They have attacked United Voice for daring to say that we should have a national quality framework. Whether it be in question time or through the committee process, they have attacked United Voice and childcare workers for daring to say that they should have professional pay and respect for their skills and for daring to say that there should be ratios in our childcare centres to ensure that we have a safe ratio of children to educators.
Another union this government has attacked is the teachers' union, the AEU. They have also attacked the Independent Education Union. They have stood in this place in question time and in other debates and dared to attack teachers and their union for saying, 'I give a Gonski. We want to see more funding our schools.' That is a measure and reform that would make teaching easier not just by having the resources to support the students but also by helping every single school student in this country.
When they stand here and say that they are standing up for good unions, they should name the unions that they think are good unions. That is because every single day this government will come in here and demonise another union and another group of union members for advocating for the rights of their members, advocating for the rights of Australians and advocating for quality issues like in early childhood education and funding for our schools.
Another union that has been attacked in this place is the nurses' union. They are people who make sure if we are sick and we are in hospital, then we get the help that we need. They have attacked the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation for standing up and saying that they support PPL. They want to see the current Paid Parental Leave scheme continued. That is another union that this government has attacked for standing up against bad government policy, where this government wants to cut the amount of support that new mothers have with their newborn babies.
Another union that this government has attacked time and time again is the TWU, the Transport Workers' Union. They represent our truck drivers, who have the most unsafe workplace in the country: our Australian roots. If you work in the trucking industry, you are more likely than any other industry to have a workplace injury or death. Our roads are not as safe as they need to be. This government, through their reviews in this place, has attacked reforms that the TWU have pushed for in their Safe Rates campaign. That is the safety remuneration tribunal that was set up under the previous government through the active lobbying of industry and the union involved, the TWU. This government has attacked them at any chance they have got to say that that was just a union campaign to support their union mates. That is wrong. It was about road safety. This government decided to attack that union.
This government attacks the MUA. In fact, it will bring up the MUA a number of times in this debate. The MUA purely and simply want there to be shipping jobs, maritime jobs, in this country. The MUA stand up and say, 'We want our industry to exist in Australia. We want the industry to employ Australians.' This government seeks to attack that union.
Whether it be our childcare workers, our teachers, our nurses, our ambos, our truck drivers, our construction workers, the people who work really hard in hospitality or the people who work really hard in manufacturing, the government seek to attack them because they are the union. At the end of the day, a union is a group of workers coming together to have a collective voice and say in their workplace and their industry. Despite the rhetoric of the government saying that this is about supporting good unions, they will stand up here day after day and rip down every union that exists in this country, to the extent that they ripped down the AMA when the AMA stood up and said that they were opposed to a GP tax.
This government's actions do not match its own rhetoric. If it is serious about supporting unions, it would not be putting this bill forward. It would not, time and time again in question time, time and time again in this House and in the other place, attack unions. Why does it attack unions? I have a clear example of one of the reasons why I believe this government spends so much time attacking unions. I think this example highlights and goes to the heart of who this government is and who it is really trying to protect. It is a case involving the CFMEU and temporary workers. The CFMEU exposed a case in Melbourne where people who were here on 457 and 417 visas, working for a particular construction company, were being underpaid. They were being paid as little as $4 an hour. The CFMEU engaged the Fair Work Ombudsman to start investigating this case of exploitation of workers on a subclass of visa within a workplace here in Australia.
The Fair Work Ombudsman thus far has recovered $400,000 in back pay. So the CFMEU was right. These workers were being underpaid. The Fair Work Ombudsman has been investigating and has ordered the company to pay at least $440,000 in back pay. The CFMEU were a good union, as this government says it is here to stand up for. The CFMEU investigated. They advocated. They got the Fair Work Ombudsman involved to help clean up this clear case of worker exploitation. Yet what has happened since as a result? They were investigated by the Fair Work Building and Construction inspectorate, asking where their right of entry was and did they enter the workplace appropriately.
Rather than supporting the good unions, the good union officials, that are doing their work of exposing the exploitation going on in some of our workplaces, that government sends in the Fair Work Building and Construction inspectorate and tries to push through the ABCC in this House, which seeks not to investigate the worker exploitation going on in the construction industry but only to investigate union organisers, the good union people that this government claims that it represents.
Why are the government so interested in this particular case, of all the worker visa exploitation cases that we are seeing day after day being exposed in the media? Perhaps it is because the company who have been involved in this case, who have been ordered by the Fair Work Ombudsman to pay back money, who have been found guilty of exploiting people on temporary worker visas, are in fact major supporters of the Australian Liberal Party. The company at fault in this particular case donated $400,000 to the Liberal Party, according to the most recent AEC disclosures. No wonder the Acting Minister for Employment in this place stands up in question time and has a go at the CFMEU. No wonder in the other place they move motions condemning the CFMEU and the organisers involved in this case. They are protecting their own backs, because this company that has been found guilty of ripping off workers is in fact a Liberal Party donor.
It is not the first time that this has been exposed. There is a real reason why this government seeks to shut down the union movement, to silence them, to tie them up in red tape and to have a go at them. It is because they expose what this Liberal Party is really about. What is going on in our workplaces at the moment needs to be the focus of this government. This government has turned its back on what is going on in some of Australia's largest workplaces. This government is not taking seriously the exploitation that is going on with temporary workers in this country. As I have said, where is the royal commission into the worker exploitation going on in some of our workplaces? Where is the investigation going on into the modern slavery that is occurring in some of our workplaces? People have come here in good faith to work—they may have taken a gap year from their home country and come here as a migrant worker on a 457 visa or a 417 visa—and, rather than getting the same wages and conditions as Australian workers, time and time again we have found that they are used as cheap slave labour, going in and undercutting the conditions of Australian workplaces.
It is not just the CFMEU example that I have got here. There are examples at the farm gate that have been exposed in the Australian media and are being investigated by the Fair Work Ombudsman. There are instances on our farms. There are instances in manufacturing. In the poultry industry, it is particularly bad, whether it be Baiada chicken factories or Hazeldene's in my electorate. There are problems in the meatworks industry. There are problems in the construction industry. There are problems in the cleaning and the security industries. We are seeing time and time again the exploitation of foreign workers being exposed. The first people to speak up for those workers are the unions—the union officials and the union members—who are outraged about the exploitation that is occurring in these workplaces. Yet the government, rather than working with the good unions that it claims that it is here today supporting, it demonises them, it calls them thugs, it says that they are intimidating, it says that they are only concerned with their self-interest, when that could not be further from the truth. What we are seeing going on in our workplaces is the real battle that this government should be looking at. They should not be engaging in royal commissions that try to go after, shame and slam a few individuals. They should be going after the employers and the subcontractors that use the current situation to exploit temporary workers.
When it comes to bashing unions, when it comes to demonising their opposition, this Prime Minister has form. We know that from what he did when he was the employment minister and the things that he used to say in the media. He used to say that unions engaged in industrial and economic sabotage, that the unions were the ones that were militant and bringing the country to its knees. If he is serious then drop the rhetoric where he has his members here standing up and saying they are here to support good unions.
The government needs to drop the act that they are standing up for working people and drop the act that they are standing up for good union officials. They fail every day to stand up and congratulate the work of good unions.
The member for Bendigo invokes the name of low-paid workers, then spends all of her time on a shopping list of so-called 'good unions' that have an incredible amount of fines imposed on them at regular intervals—millions and millions of dollars of fines for industrial thuggery and appalling behaviour. I am not sure how her references to unions reflect that sort of behaviour, because the things that we see do not hold some of the things she said to be true. The member for Bendigo invokes the name of low-paid workers but fails to explain how Craig Thomson and former ALP National President Michael Williamson helped those low-paid workers of the HSU with their use of union money, the money of those low-paid workers. But I digress.
I have great pleasure in speaking on the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 2], which replicates the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2013, which was negatived in the Senate. It is an opportune time to do so, partly because of the evidence being led before the royal commission into union corruption. I know the member for Gorton spent a considerable amount of his time making reference to that royal commission.
It is clear that the crisis currently enveloping the Leader of the Opposition will soon be examined by the royal commission but not for the reasons that the member for Gorton preferred. Indeed, he said that the Leader of the Opposition is being forced to appear before that royal commission. My understanding of the Leader of the Opposition's own comments is that he has asked to attend, and I think most Australians look forward to him attending and explaining a number of things. Most fair minded Australians would agree that hard-working, low-paid union members, to use the comments from the member for Bendigo, deserve a full explanation about the agreements that the Leader of the Opposition made in their name while he was head of the Australian Workers' Union.
But interest in the AWU service of the member for Maribyrnong has meant that comparatively little attention has been put on what is in my view a much more serious issue, and that is the union movement's extraordinary power under the legislative arrangements established by former Prime Minister Julia Gillard—arrangements that put the unions at the centre of determining wages and conditions. Evidence at the royal commission suggests that these agreements fell below the threshold of prescribed awards, and it is more than reasonable for those low-paid workers that the member for Bendigo referred to to ask the obvious question: why is that so? Australians will soon get the chance to ponder how it is that unions, which only represent about one in 10 private sector workers and less than one in five workers overall, enjoy such an extraordinary position of privilege.
Why did unions gain such a bonanza of enhanced power under the Gillard government? The extent of that power is significant. I will mention just a few of the things that unions gained a right to: new right of entry provisions; forced employer payments for transporting and accommodating union officials; changes to award coverage, enabling any union to enter any workplace; and coastal shipping changes that dramatically drove up costs. The head of Bell Bay Aluminium in my electorate of Bass gave evidence to the Productivity Commission which said that, soon after the coastal shipping reforms came in, a sop to the MUA by the member for Grayndler, the cost of shipping went up 63 per cent. Just think about the cost of that to our productivity. Some of the other things that unions gained rights to are majority support rules, forcing employers to bargain against their will; a strike-first, talk-later approach to bargaining; endless new tribunals; policies to enhance union membership; and even netball associations appearing to be considered fair game. The creme de la creme was the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
Where former Prime Minister Julia Gillard strengthened unions, the Leader of the Opposition now resists any reduction in their authority. I guess we should not be surprised given the background of Labor politicians. It is a comparison that has often been made in this House. Indeed, the member for Gorton talked about the royal commission. The royal commission has brought out a discussion paper recently that tells us unions have a very significant role in determining the composition of the Australian Senate, with 71 per cent of Labor senators being former union officials.
That privileged, powerful union position is of course a lead weight on our productivity. I have given the example of a very important business in my electorate of Bass that saw that 63 per cent increase in shipping costs after those 2012 coastal shipping reforms.
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
The member for Gorton interjects again. I am sure that Paddy Crumlin, the Secretary of the MUA, would have put up a shrine to the member for Gorton and the member for Grayndler in relation to those coastal shipping reforms, but they were terrible for my electorate of Bass, they were terrible for Bell Bay Aluminium and they were terrible for companies in this country that rely on coastal shipping. The coastal shipping fleet was cut from 30 to 15 in the intervening period because of some of those changes that the Labor Party made.
But when we talk about that privileged union position, the question is: what will national leaders do about it? It is a question that inevitably links to the personal character of those who have the authority to respond. The wider electorate, the silent majority, has a very canny way of feeling out a leader's real substance—or its absence.
Policy results and action will only get an individual or a party so far, but eventually unless both results and character are present, the clock of longevity is inevitably ticking. In recent media appearances, the opposition leader has said that illicit payments should not be paid to unions and that they should be accountable to their membership and the Australia people. And, 'Here, here!' I say to the Leader of the Opposition. But talk is cheap, and the best way of demonstrating his commitment to address this issue is by backing the government's policy to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Failure to do so confirms that the opposition leader remains a union chief first and foremost.
Even former union leader, Paul Howes, has called for more honesty in the union movement to make things better for working Australians. Mr Howes, formerly of the Australian Workers Union, was quoted in The Australian on 26 November 2012:
I actually believe there is a higher responsibility for us as guardians of workers' money to protect that money and to act diligently and honestly. … The reality is I do not have any issue with increasing the level of requirements and penalties on trade unions for breaching basic ethics like misappropriation of funds.
The question is how can we not act and strengthen protection, strengthen penalties, even when wrongdoing by unions is detected? Fair-minded Australians will agree how important it is to give the courts the ability to hand down strong penalties should the crime deserve it. And we know that the courts have had an issue with shortcomings in the current framework. I quote here Federal Court judge Anthony North, making an almost unprecedented comment last year, 'The penalties under the current act are rather beneficially low, beneficial to wrongdoers.' So the opposition leader should listen to Paul Howes and Judge North. He should join the government's policy of erring on the side of honest workers over dodgy union officials.
But while hope springs eternal this appears to be a forlorn hope, because Mr Shorten is dogged by a record that appears increasingly impossible to redeem. By his own definition in the media in the last 24 hours, the Leader of the Opposition has admitted publicly that he lied to broadcaster Neil Mitchell when commenting on his role in bringing down the Gillard government.
Plentiful commentary on this issue is also seen in the ABC series The Killing Season. What we see, not just from the members opposite and some who have left this House, is an all-too-transparent rat cunning. Having been up to his elbows in the political gore associated with the slaying of two Labor Prime Ministers, the Leader of the Opposition then adroitly shepherded through policies designed to keep him at the helm, at least to the next election. In short, the opposition leader is not only Count Dracula in charge of the blood bank, but he has craftily secured the only key to it.
Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. Would the member for Bass actually refer to the bill or to some provision? He has failed to do so. I would ask him to talk to the bill.
The member for Bass is in order and I ask him to continue.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am entirely in order in talking about governance arrangements which this bill is designed to redress. I know it is uncomfortable for the member for Gorton and I know that the member for Maribyrnong and his front bench will be wincing through the excellent ABC series The Killing Season. But it is ironic that the Leader of the Opposition is a 'no show' on this program, to avoid actually accounting in person for his role in the political assassination two prime ministers.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. And I want the member to sit before I actually raise it. I asked the member for Bass to refer to the bill. You, of course, asked him to address the bill. He is defying your order.
I said that the member for Bass was in order and I wanted him to continue.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition's record acts as a clear reminder to all Australians of 'the real Bill'. Of late, and rather opportunistically in my view, the opposition leader has been grasping—
Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. The current speaker raised a point of order when I was contributing to this bill on the basis that I was not referring to people by their titles. He has just referred to the Leader of the Opposition improperly and I would ask him to refer to people by their titles.
The member for Bass will address the Leader of the Opposition by his title and I ask him to continue.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I remind the member for Gorton about tedious repetition, which is also in the standing orders.
What we see from those opposite is the championing of issues which are designed to give them gravitas but simply try to distract from the sorts of things that this bill is meant to address. Their championing of same-sex marriage is a case in point. Then an attempt to re-try the case for Australian Republicanism. Many of these things last about two hours, or however long the news cycle tempo is that drives Labor operations.
Most tellingly, both for the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Gorton and the once-proud Labor Party, is the open question beyond Canberra about what they and their party actually stand for. The reality hits home even harder when the member for Maribyrnong is compared to Labor titans like Bob Hawke and perhaps even Gough Whitlam. Because whether you like them or not it is nevertheless indisputable they both stood for something, and this substance derived ultimately from individual character.
Both men were strong, energetic, essentially decent and visionary, focused far beyond mere self-aggrandisement. Of course, against such lofty standards, most mortals would be found wanting, but against them the Leader of the Opposition positively wilts!
Regrettably for many Labor true believers, what the ABC's The Killing Season shows, and what some of the things that have been relayed in relation to this bill actively demonstrate, is that it is a bitter reminder to those true believers in the Labor Party that their 'light on the hill' has not yet been lit in the 21st century, and that under the stewardship of the opposition leader it is unlikely to be rekindled for the foreseeable future.
Let me talk about some of the measures in this bill, now that I have outlined for the member for Gorton what they are meant to redress. The bill introduces a suite of legislative measures that are designed to see governance of registered organisations lifted to a consistently high standard across the board. A more robust compliance regime will deter wrongdoing and promote first-class governance of registered organisations, protecting those low-paid workers that members opposite often refer to.
There are a range of measures in this bill that are designed to protect those people—to protect their interests and make sure that unions comply with the interests of their members and, when they do not, that there can be some sanction. Members of the union and the community want not only a strong regulatory regime to give them confidence in their registered organisations but also swift action when those standards are breached. In order to do this, we have to have a robust regulator in place with appropriate powers and resources, together with meaningful sanctions that can be applied when wrongdoing is revealed.
The government believes that the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 2] will provide that certainty. It will provide the high standards of operation that members of registered organisations are entitled to expect. I say to the member for Gorton and others: the only people with anything to fear from these measures are those who do the wrong thing. Those who are operating within the law, which is the overwhelming majority of officers in registered organisations, have no reason to fear taking on official responsibilities. They should, in fact, be comforted by knowing that unlawful behaviour will be dealt with by this government.
As we debate the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 2], Australia is becoming less equal. Research that ACOSS distributed at the start of this week painted a stark and disturbing picture. Australia's rich are getting richer and, while inequality here has not reached the extreme levels of countries like the United States, we are heading in that direction. Australians earning in the top 20 per cent of incomes now receive five times as much as those in the bottom 20 per cent. This gap is widening. We are heading towards a society much like the United States.
This is, of course, driven by the policy agenda of this government, in particular the cruel austerity of last year's budget and this year's budget. This is a government committed to attacking our social compact and also the social wage. But it is also a government that is committed to attacking unionism. When we look at income inequality, which is at the heart of this drive to us becoming a less equal society, we think about the work of such bodies as the IMF. The IMF has characterised this as the defining challenge of our time. Combatting it, the IMF says, is critical to sustainable economic growth, something I think all of us in this House should be committed to and working towards. It is undermined by this government's policy agenda more generally and specifically by this government's blind ideological attitude to the world of work, particularly this reflexive hatred of trade unionism.
When I think about our progress towards Americanisation, towards a society that is even more unequal—a society like that of the United States—I think about the recent contribution of the Noble Prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz when he was asked last year about why Australia had resisted the tide of inequality relatively well. He was asked what Australia had that the US did not. He replied initially with just one word: 'Unions'. He said:
You have been able to maintain stronger trade unions than the United States. The absence of any protection for workers, any bargaining power, has had adverse effects in the United States.
Unions are a critical baulk against inequality—inequality in the workplace and inequality across our entire society. The role that they play is not only absolutely fundamental to giving individuals dignity and fairness at work but also a critical aspect of maintaining our path towards sustainable economic growth.
The pattern around income inequality is also exacerbated by what we are seeing in terms of wages growth. We are seeing wages growth stagnant and very, very uneven. We have the lowest wages growth on record. This is strange because when this government came into power the justification for a range of pieces of legislation introduced to attack trade unions and trade unionism was, of course, a wages explosion. The wages explosion was entirely in the imagination of government members. This reveals much more about their ideological world view and their complete determination to reshape how the labour market operates than any sense of reality or any sense of empathy with Australian workers or Australian families and their struggles to deal with cost-of-living pressures.
I referred to the IMF earlier and I want to make it very clear that, in agreeing with Joseph Stiglitz in his bold defence of the Australian union movement, I also agree with the IMF. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to income inequality, but we do have to look at supporting the role of trade unions if we are serious about supporting people's rights at work and supporting sustainable economic growth. This is the context within which we debate this bill, and this is why I am very proud, in opposing the bill, to speak in support of the amendments moved by the shadow minister, the member for Gorton.
This is the third time this bill, or a bill in very similar form, has been before the House. Its introduction might charitably be described as a triumph of hope over experience on the part of the minister. It is also one of 10 bills this government has introduced dealing with deregulation of workplaces. There have been 10 such bills from a government that seemed, before the election, determined to put as much distance as possible between it and any attempt to remake workplace relations. We do know something about this Prime Minister, the former minister for Work Choices: that, whatever he says, he is absolutely committed to returning to the core elements of Work Choices, as many of the previous bills debated in this place pushed towards.
In this debate, we have seen a consistency with this approach—a triumph of ideology over any reasoned approach to what is happening in the world of work and the priorities for workplace regulation. It was telling in the contribution of the member for Bass that he had nothing to say about the bill which is before us. In fairness, he probably had nothing to say about the bill because there is nothing to be said.
This is a bill which serves no purpose other than for tedious repetition from government members which has allowed them to go on wide-ranging frolics of character assassination rather than deal with the important business of understanding the challenges we face in the world of work, such as boosting productivity and reducing exploitation, as the member for Bendigo highlighted very effectively in her contribution to this bill. Instead, we have just had endless ranting and tedious repetition.
There was another telling element in the contribution of the member for Bass. He made it very clear, contrary to suggestions from the Prime Minister, that he does not accept that the architecture of the Fair Work Act is broadly appropriate. His contribution seemed to be very close to a direct call for a return to Work Choices. I say again: so much for Work Choices being 'dead, buried and cremated'. Of course, we have seen so many signs that this will not be the case already. Very recently, we have seen the callous attitude this government has shown to the cleaners who work so hard in this building. There was an attack this week on early childhood workers, and the union—
Mr Deputy Speaker, since the member mentioned the cleaners, I wonder if he would accept a question under section 66A.
Is the member willing to give way?
No, I am not.
Aren't you up to a question?
It is not a question of whether I am up to it, Minister. If you wish to make a contribution to this debate, I am sure we would welcome it because your high-minded approach to public policy making across every area is something that is—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Just to confirm with the member, is he inviting me to ask him a question? Would he accept a question, having not agreed to answer a question from the member for Hughes?
Member for Scullin, would you like an intervention?
No, I would not like an intervention. I would like to speak on the matters that are before the House. I do not think the minister or the member the Hughes have any interest in engaging in the matters that are before this House.
It is an opportunity to answer a question.
You can continue this dialogue across the chamber, Member for Hughes. You can, too, Minister, because I welcome any contribution you would like to make to this debate.
Let us think about the record at large of this government on industrial relations. Members on this side remember that just before Christmas the government announced terms of reference for the Productivity Commission to have a look at Fair Work. These terms of reference, again, go to the very heart of the debate about how we ensure our progress towards more equal workplaces or hold it back. It is about our progress towards a more equal society or a less equal society—matters clearly of no interest to any of the government members here. The mere mention of Work Choices still sends shivers down the spines of government members. This is why they look for cover, such as from the Productivity Commission. We have seen a set of terms of reference that are so wide that everything that might matter to anyone who works for a living is under threat.
This review is absolutely critical to the coalition's plan to remake Australia's social compact and take us to a society much less like the Australia most of us accept and much more like that of the United States. We on this side of the House remember that it has been long established—indeed, it is conceded often by government members—that we have an industrial relations system that promotes collective over individual bargaining, consistent with a range of international obligations we have entered into.
We have also committed ourselves to freedom of association, a value which is under threat in the consistent attack and the constant demonisation of trade unions and trade unionists. Conservatives have done nothing in the world of industrial relations over the last 20 years, save try to reduce all collective institutions and reduce the way in which unions can support vulnerable workers in their workplaces, undermine collective bargaining and erode all sense of fundamental rebalances of power away from those who have the capacity to exploit often very vulnerable workers.
While this Productivity Commission reference is underway, we also have a royal commission which is entirely consistent with the views that have been expressed by government members in this chamber. It is all about character assassination at great expense. We see witch hunts when we should see serious work done on meeting these policy challenges. But that is not a priority for this government. This government is concerned with undertaking a sustained attack on Australian workers. Undermining the role of unions through this bill and many of the nine other bills that have been presented is a key part of that agenda.
This is a government that is committed to removing effective unionism for Australian workplaces. It wants to destroy the capacity of working people to come together and work together to bargain fairly and support the fabric of Australian workplaces and the Australian way of life. This is in the context of a government which is unconcerned that the minimum wage has dropped to such a low level. This is a government that is unconcerned about how important penalty rates are to so many Australian workers. So many government backbenchers have belled the cat on this issue. Again, while the government pushes down wages and tries to deny people access to penalty rates, we still hear the minister speak of a wages explosion. He could not be more out of touch.
Again, why would the government have asked the Productivity Commission to look at wage growth if it was not minded to push wages down? It is absolutely clear that that fundamental issue of a fair day's pay in return for a fair day's work is totally up for grabs. We have seen the minister, Senator Abetz, continue to make clear that, in his world, penalty rates are up for grabs. They are so important to so many workers, so many of the people I represent and so many of the people the member for Throsby represents. Yet this government, which effectively promised not to interfere with this fundamental aspect of how wages will be set, is committed to putting so many more people under deeper pressure.
The previous speaker, the member for Bass, in his wide-ranging contribution talked about what people on this side of the House stand for. The Chief Government Whip, who spoke before him, also put this at issue when he said that opposition members endorse unions. Let me be clear in responding to the Whip: of course we endorse unions and the vital role they play in reshaping power relationships in workplaces. We stand for effective, decent trade unionism. We stand for workplaces that are fair. We stand for a system of workplace relations that does secure fairness at work, substantively, in terms of securing rights, setting down minimum standards that we know promote decency and dignity for all, and enabling people to effectively come together to bargain on just terms.
On this side of the House more broadly, we take the debate about workplace relations seriously. It is not a matter of witch-hunts; it is not a matter of politicking. It is a fundamental challenge. We are deeply interested in how the world of work in Australia is changing. We are committed to the challenge of building more cooperative, more productive workplaces. We understand that that is a process that has to be taken through effective partnership building between employers and workers coming together in trade unions, recognising the shared challenges that we face, recognising the inequities in bargaining power and recognising that this is not a debate that can be won through prejudice, that it is not a debate that can be resolved through the rants of government members; it is a debate that must be built around values, and the key value here is fairness at work.
I move:
That the question be now put.
Question put.
The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.
Question negatived.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
():
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Civil Law and Justice Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 is an omnibus bill which will amend sections of the Bankruptcy Act 1966, the Copyright Act 1968, the Court Security Act 2013, the Evidence Act 1995, the Family Law Act 1975, the International Arbitration Act 1974, and the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986. The bill will make minor and technical amendments to provide more clarity to the legislation, correct legislative oversights and amend obsolete provisions. The combined effect of these amendments will improve the efficiency and operation of the justice system administered by the Attorney-General's portfolio.
Summary of bill
The government is determined to reduce regulation and make laws clear and accessible. Some of the provisions in this bill go directly towards implementing the government's deregulation agenda. For example, the amendments to the Copyright Act will reduce the impact of the legal deposit scheme on publishers. At present, publishers of certain literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works must deliver copies of their works in print form. The amendments will provide for publishers to submit their works electronically, which will reduce the time and cost burden on the industry.
The government aims to make all Commonwealth legislation coherent, readable and accessible to the widest possible audience. To this end, the Court Security Act will be amended to clarify the process by which court security orders can be varied and revoked. Minimising confusion creates a fairer and more accessible justice system. The Court Security Act amendments will also address court management issues by extending the authority to hold and dispose of unclaimed dangerous items.
Amendments to the Evidence Act will increase consistency with the Uniform Evidence Bill for greater cross jurisdictional compliance.
The bill will also amend the International Arbitration Act to clarify its application, providing certainty for private parties who entered into arbitration agreements before the International Arbitration Act was last amended in 2010.
Minor, technical amendments contained in the bill will improve the operation of the Family Law Act by correcting errors and ensuring the use of consistent language. The bill will also amend the Family Law Act to explicitly permit the provision of certain information relating to family law proceedings to child welfare authorities. This amendment will ensure that child welfare authorities have access to any relevant material to enable them to better protect children.
The amendments to the Bankruptcy Act will ensure that assistance received under the National Disability Insurance Scheme is not distributed to a bankrupt's creditors. The amendments also modernise the drafting of offences under the act and ensure that they have kept up with modern technology. Additionally the amendments will enhance the Australian Financial Security Authority's capacity to act as a special trustee for other government agencies. In its special trustee role the Australian Financial Security Authority seizes and sells property pursuant to a court order in relation to a debt owed to the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth agency. The bill will add currency and ease of application to the legal system as it stands today. Significantly, the bill will facilitate the removal of obsolete and redundant clauses. For example, the bill will amend the Family Law Act to remove obsolete requirements for annual publication of certain information, as well as to repeal an obsolete definition. And the bill will amend the Evidence Act to remove obsolete provisions and references to the operation of the Evidence Act in relation to the Australian Capital Territory.
The bill reflects the government's commitment to better equip Australia to meet the needs of industry and consumers in the digital age. For example, the amendments to the Copyright Act will allow the National Library of Australia to collect not only our print history but also our digital history.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the intention of this bill is to make minor and technical amendments to a number of acts in order to increase access to justice for all Australians by removing ambiguity in legislation and streamlining legal processes. The bill will increase the currency, clarity and consistency of legislation administered by the Attorney-General's portfolio. Significantly, the amendments contained within the bill will improve the justice system by making it easier for individuals to understand and comply with the law.
This bill, the Civil Law and Justice Legislation Amendment Bill 2014, implements a variety of minor technical amendments to a range of Commonwealth acts within the Attorney-General's remit. The bill amends the Bankruptcy Act, the Copyright Act, the Court Security Act, the Family Law Act, the Evidence Act, the International Arbitration Act and the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act. For the most part, the bill is concerned with worthy but minor technical measures.
What the bill represents is the product of, for the most part, long consultation by dedicated officers of the Attorney-General's Department. It is the sort of law reform that all parliaments need to engage in and all governments need to engage in, and I would commend those officers of the Attorney-General's Department for the thorough work that they have done to bring this bill before the parliament.
Some measures are directed simply at the readability and comprehensibility of Commonwealth legislation by, for instance, inserting notes into the Court Security Act or including in the explanatory memorandum to the Evidence Act a table comparing provisions in different jurisdictions. Other measures in the bill are consequential to the good, substantive work of the Labor government. The Bankruptcy Act is amended to clarify that payments under the National Disability Insurance Scheme are not available to creditors in the event of a bankruptcy. As I said, there is an example of an amendment that is entirely consequential on the very good work that Labor did in government to introduce to Australia, following on the recommendations of the Productivity Commission, the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The International Arbitration Act is amended to clarify that the United Nations Commission on International Trade Laws Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, which the Labor government implemented into Australian law in 2010, applies retrospectively to arbitration agreements entered into before 2010. The Court Security Act, which was introduced by Labor to ensure the security and safety of the federal courts for all who use them, is given technical improvements.
There is one measure of particular importance in this bill—the amendment of the Copyright Act to introduce an electronic deposits scheme for the National Library of Australia. The introduction of this scheme follows two consultations undertaken by the Labor government, and I am pleased that, after what has been a substantial delay in bringing this measure before the parliament, it has finally got here. Labor welcomes the introduction of this particular scheme, this electronic deposit scheme, which will bring the National Library's operations up to date with modern technology and make the deposit scheme both more expensive and more efficient. It is of obvious importance that the large amount of Australian cultural output now produced in digital form be preserved by the National Library.
I commend the bill to the House.
Thank you very much to the member for Isaacs for his contribution. To sum up the debate, the purpose of the Civil Law and Justice Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 is to make minor, technical and non-controversial amendments to civil justice legislation. This will improve the operation and clarity of civil justice legislation administered by the Attorney-General's portfolio. The bill will amend the Bankruptcy Act 1966, the International Arbitration Act 1974, the Family Law Act 1975, the Court Security Act 2013, the Evidence Act 1995, the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986 and the Copyright Act 1968.
As I said, the bill amends the Copyright Act to reduce the impact of the legal deposit scheme on publishers. At present, publishers of certain literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works must deliver copies of their works in print format. The amendments will provide for publishers to submit their works electronically, which will reduce the time and cost burden on the industry.
The Court Security Act will be amended to clarify the process by which court security orders can be varied and revoked. Minimising confusion creates a fairer and more accessible justice system. The Court Security Act amendments will also address court management issues by extending the authority to hold and dispose of unclaimed dangerous items.
Amendments to the Evidence Act will increase consistency with the Model Uniform Evidence Bill for greater cross-jurisdictional compliance.
The bill will also amend the International Arbitration Act to clarify its application, providing certainty for private parties who entered into arbitration agreements before the International Arbitration Act was last amended in 2010.
Minor, technical amendments contained in the bill will improve the operation of the Family Law Act by correcting errors and ensuring the use of consistent language. The bill will also amend the Family Law Act to explicitly permit the provision of certain information relating to family law proceedings to child welfare authorities. This amendment will ensure that child welfare authorities have access to any relevant material to enable them to better protect children.
The amendments to the Bankruptcy Act will ensure that assistance received under the National Disability Insurance Scheme is not distributed to a bankrupt's creditors. The amendments also modernise the drafting of offences under the act and ensure that they have kept up with modern technology. Additionally, the amendments will enhance the Australian Financial Security Authority's capacity to act as a special trustee for other government agencies. In its special trustee role, the Australian Financial Security Authority seizes and sells property pursuant to a court order in relation to a debt owed to the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth agency.
Significantly, the bill will facilitate the removal of obsolete and redundant clauses. For example, the bill will amend the Family Law Act to remove obsolete requirements for annual publication of certain information, as well as to repeal an obsolete definition. The bill will also amend the Evidence Act to remove obsolete provisions and references to the operation of the Evidence Act in relation to the Australian Capital Territory.
The bill also reflects the government's commitment to better equip Australia to meet the needs of industry and consumers in the digital age. For example, the amendments to the Copyright Act will allow the National Library of Australia to collect not only our print history but also our digital history.
In conclusion, this bill will make minor and technical amendments to provide more clarity to legislation administered by the Attorney-General's portfolio. The combined effect of these amendments will improve the efficiency and operation of the civil justice system and provide individuals with greater access to justice.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
In rising to speak about the Passports Legislation Amendment (Integrity) Bill 2015, I start by saying that of course Labor supports this legislation. In a world where international travel continues to increase, the bill takes note of the fact that the security and efficiency of our passport regime depend on continually reviewing and keeping our legislation up to date with both our international obligations and our domestic laws. This legislation does both of those things. It also closes a loophole by creating the offence of falsely reporting a document as stolen or fraudulent.
Passports were originally about having the protection of a king or other ruler extended to the carrier. They were not initially documents for identifying citizenship but documents for safe conduct—permission for foreigners to travel within a country, sometimes only to specific places. It was not until the mid-19th century that they took on the nature of a document identifying an individual and declaring their citizenship, and it was not until after World War I that they became generally required for international travel. Once they were generally required for international travel, it became important for nations to standardise passports. The first agreement on standardising passports was reached by the League of Nations in the 1920s, but progress was slow and irregular until passport standardisation finally came about in 1980—as late as 1980—under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
An international standard is so critical for passports because they are by their very nature a document issued by one government for the purpose of being presented to another. We saw just how important the integrity of passports is when Ahmad Saiyer Naizmand left Australia on his brother's passport—after his own had been cancelled due to security concerns—in August 2014, less than 10 months after convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf had done the same thing.
Australia's passport regime is, however, on the whole, robust and respected around the world. On the 2014 Henley & Partners Visa Restrictions Index Australia ranked seventh, with our citizens being able to travel without a visa to 168 other countries. All Australian governments have taken very seriously the responsibility to make sure that our passports are as secure as international standards require and as modern technology can ensure. When in government, Labor introduced the N series passport, the additional fraud countermeasures of the ghost image and retroreflective floating image, as well as images of Australia printed throughout the document, making every page unique and therefore more difficult to reproduce.
Given that passports have now become the pre-eminent identity document, we also introduced reforms to make it possible for gender diverse Australians to get passports that reflect their gender identity. Previously, sex reassignment surgery had been a prerequisite for a person to get a passport in their preferred identity. Intersex Australians had only been able to obtain a passport reflecting their gender identity if they had been born in Victoria, where birth certificates could be marked with an X. This meant that very many Australians could not get a passport reflecting their preferred gender identity. For many, the difficulty, the violation of privacy and the danger of harassment posed by explaining their gender history every time they presented their passport prevented them from travelling at all. Labor's reforms in 2011 and 2013 opened the way for gender diverse Australians to enjoy the same opportunities to travel for work, family and leisure as everyone else.
As I said earlier, in a world where international travel continues to increase, making sure that our passport regime is robust and up to date is important. Therefore Labor will support this legislation.
I have great pleasure in speaking about the Passports Legislation Amendment (Integrity) Bill 2015. I take this opportunity because the integrity and security of Australian passports is an important element of our national security and, indeed, of the security of the individual who is issued with the passport. This is both about combating security threats and also about combating identity theft threats. I therefore wholeheartedly endorse the bill.
There are few nations in the world with a more highly regarded standard of passport. Obviously I mean, in particular, their integrity. But it is an ongoing challenge to keep ahead of the threats to that integrity. The protection of that integrity should always be our aim in this area.
I would like to talk about the loss or theft of Australian passports. Around 40,000 go missing each year. They are valuable, of course. As has been said by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, non-visa entry is possible with an Australian passport to 168 countries. That, of course, is the chief determiner of the black market value of the passport. Around 9,000 of the around 40,000 that go missing each year are lost overseas and the rest domestically. DFAT says that of those missing overseas most are reported as having been lost in significant tourist destinations such as Paris, Madrid, Rome, London, Los Angeles and Bangkok.
Fortunately, since 2005 passport technology has resulted in electronic chips being included in all Australian passport documents. This makes it almost impossible to change the information on them, because of course the chip also has a digital photo on it. This is why passports are swiped at the border and then held up to compare the passport photo and the person as well. The value of a stolen Australian passport then becomes about trying to assume a stolen identity, as opposed to trying to alter the documents.
It is considered that passports are normally lost because of carelessness or are stolen, normally with valuables such as debit and credit cards. As has also been reported in the media, unfortunately on some occasions backpackers have been known to sell their passports for extra travel money. It is also well known that bar girls in Thailand have stolen passports for a commission. I am sure that happens in other places wherever possible. For the reasons I have mentioned, an Australian passport could be onsold for several thousand dollars on the black market.
To ensure there is an incentive for close control of an individual's passport, in addition to the normal application fee of $250 a fine, essentially, of $111 is charged for one lost or stolen passport in five years, $250 for the second lost or stolen passport in five years and $500 for the third lost or stolen passport in five years. After the third loss in three years, a passport with only five years validity can be issued.
Specifically, this bill will make amendments to the Australian Passports Act 2005 and the Foreign Passports (Law Enforcement and Security) Act 2005. It makes minor consequential amendments to other acts. It also repeals the Australian Passports (Transitionals and Consequentials) Act 2005.
The amendments provided for under the bill will see changes that will allow a travel document to be issued to a person on the minister's own initiative to facilitate a lawful requirement to travel. It will see an alignment of the definition of 'parental responsibility' to more closely resemble that defined in the Family Law Act. The bill will update the existing offences to include a new offence to allow a better response to the fraudulent use of Australian travel documents.
To take up the first measure, it would come as no surprise that there are certain circumstances where people are here in Australia and we do not want them to be here any longer. Therefore they must be deported. It is true that, amongst other circumstances, they have no travel documents because they destroyed them in order to conceal their identity and avoid being repatriated to where they came from. An obvious example is those who came by aircraft and then boarded a boat to Australia. We must therefore have the best possible laws to enable the minister to provide, without consent, a travel document that is limited to the removal or deportation of a person who is the subject of a lawful removal or deportation order to or from Australia; to extradite a person who is the subject of a lawful extradition request to or from Australia; and to effect an international prison transfer. Of course, in these cases a person should not be able to avoid the application of the law by refusing to consent to the issue of that travel document.
This has been required because we do not presently have the required legal framework by which we can issue travel documents in order to comply with the international standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization's Convention on International Civil Aviation. It requires us as a contracting state to issue a travel document to one of its citizens to facilitate their return to the contracting state within 30 days of a request by another state to do so. As the minister said in his second reading speech, the ability of a person to refuse to consent to the issuance of a travel document has resulted in Australia having to refuse a request in the past, being unable to issue a travel document.
Beyond this issue regarding consent problems, the next major amendment deals with changing or, rather, better aligning the definition of parental responsibility for the purposes of determining who is required to consent to a child having a travel document. This is a tricky area and I have seen the problems that my constituents have had trying to get a passport consent for children signed by others involved. It has been a disconnect and it is true that for a small number of applicants the current requirements can cause unnecessary problems.
As I previously said, the bill ensures that the reference to parental responsibility is more consistent between the Passports Act and the Family Law Act, so that who is required to consent to the issue of a passport is clearly stated. Those who can consent include obviously parents, provided they have not had their parental responsibility removed by a court; persons who have had parental responsibility granted by a court or with whom the child is to live; and of course persons with guardianship, custody or parental responsibility for the child under an Australian law.
I think it quite bizarre that persons who have a court order to 'spend time with' or enable 'access to' a child but who do not have parental responsibility were even required previously to consent to a child having a passport. It is right that a parent who has a grant of sole parental responsibility is no longer required to seek the consent of other persons who have 'access to' the child. I do wonder under what justification that was ever required, but in any case it is good to see common sense and a practical and realistic approach initiated. The point I will finish on is that this is about obtaining a passport not about taking a child overseas, as the usual consents would of course apply in that case.
Being a Western Australian, I should also clarify that within this bill there is a specific area that applies to Western Australia. This is because where children are born not within marriage, WA has not referred its powers in this area and the bill covers issues about child consent orders in this case.
The next element to these changes as proposed in the bill is to not process a passport application where there are reasonable grounds to suspect fraud, although that would be a decision that could be the subject of a review.
Another point I would like to raise is in relation to applying for an Australian travel document. This can range from the forging of a signature to identity theft. It should come as no surprise that it is a criminal offence to provide false or misleading information, statements and/or documents when applying for Australian travel documentation. Such activity creates a huge threat to the security and integrity of our passport control system and our national security. We believe it is vital to send a strong message that any kind of fraud activity in Australian travel documents is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
The government recognises that someone's signature being forged or their identity being stolen should not prevent the correct person from obtaining travel documentation. They will be required to submit a new application with the correct information and supply supporting documents, which meet the eligibility requirements.
Lastly, I would like to speak about the amendment in this legislation to revise existing offences and to add an offence for the making and providing of fraudulent travel documents. It is an unfortunate truth that there is an increasing threat of fraud when it comes to travel documentation, and the government must be well positioned to respond and act to this threat. This is why it is vital that we have strong passport legislation to help protect our country from the use of false identity and citizenship documents. Travel documents can be powerful enablers of serious crime and related criminal activity, including people smuggling, terrorism and drug smuggling.
There are many positive aspects to this section of the bill, largely that it amends three offences relating to the provision of false or misleading information, statements or documents in relation to an application for an Australian travel document. The amendments provide that these offences also apply to the travel document itself and not just the application.
This legislation will address the issue whereby a person maliciously reports a passport as lost or stolen, so that it will be cancelled to intentionally disrupt the travel of another person. It also includes a targeted approach to stop the fraudulent collection of another person's travel document using false ID.
Another aspect of passport security is the selling of false Australian travel documents. This legislation will make this act an offence under Australian law.
A measure which is currently working well to prevent fraudulent travel documentation, and which is being implemented in this bill, is the embedding of a chip in travel documents. This measure will reduce the manipulation and tampering of travel documents and the creation of counterfeit Australian travel documents.
Another aspect that has been considered and covered in this legislation is that it will be an offence to make or provide false Australian travel documents with the intention that they will be used or accepted as genuine.
The maximum penalty for this offence is imprisonment for 10 years or 1,000 penalty points, or both. These penalties are consistent with other offences in the Passports Act and foreign passports act and related offences in other Commonwealth acts. The amendments in this bill will put into place key measures to deter and respond to the increasing fraudulent use of travel documents.
The last item I wish to raise is the refusal of names and signatures if deemed unacceptable, inappropriate or offensive. This action will further protect the integrity of the Australian passport system and Australian travel documents.
In conclusion, I am a strong supporter of this bill which strengthens the legislation around the most important identity document in Australia—our passports. Preventing and deterring any fraudulent use of Australian travel documents and related crimes is vital in ensuring Australian passports remain in the highest regard around the world.
The Passports Legislation Amendment (Integrity) Bill 2015 amends the Australian Passports Act 2005 and the Foreign Passports (Law Enforcement and Security) Act 2005 and has consequential amendments to a number of other Commonwealth acts. It also repeals the Australian Passports (Transitionals and Consequentials) Act 2005. The bill is a result of a review of Australia's passport legislation 10 years after it was enacted. The importance of keeping this legislation up to date has been reinforced recently with some of the national security issues we have seen and that have exercised people's concerns. Our passports are a very key part of that. For anyone who has travelled around the world, and that is a lot of Australians, you protect your passport like nothing else in your possession. There is nothing that gives you greater panic if you are travelling than the thought that you have misplaced or mislaid your passport.
We understand the issues that you might face should that be the case. We understand what your own passport means to you and how you are really in no man's land without it. We also understand how valuable Australian identity and Australian passports are on the black market. And we understand that not only are there national security issues in this space but the broader issue of identity theft. When you consider that 40,000 Australian passports go missing, there are real concerns about in whose hands these particular documents end up and to what purpose some of these are used. Of those that are lost overseas in very popular tourist destinations, some are lost and some are certainly stolen. As I said earlier, when we are travelling, we guard our passport almost with our life. We are very concerned about our passport. We understand what it means not to have it in our possession or in reach whenever we are travelling.
This bill continues the work we need to do to keep the passports and the act up-to-date and relevant, particularly given some of the issues that have emerged. The bill seeks to refine and clarify the legislation—very important—and strengthen the government's ability to respond to any form of unlawful activity in relation to Australian travel documents. This changes constantly. The bill will include four principal amendments and a number of minor technical amendments.
Firstly, the bill provides for the issue of a travel document to a person on the Minister for Foreign Affairs own initiative to facilitate a lawful requirement to travel. This provision is limited to the following circumstances: to remove or deport a person who is the subject of a lawful removal or deportation order to or from Australia; to extradite a person who is the subject of a lawful extradition request to or from Australia; to effect an international prison transfer. A person should not be able to delay or obstruct a lawful expulsion to or from Australia by refusing consent to the issue of the document. There are already existing avenues for people to seek review of the substantive decision to extradite or to remove them. This will also enable Australia to comply with the requirements of the Convention on International Civil Aviation 1944, which stipulate that a contracting state shall issue a travel document to one of its nationals to facilitate their return within 30 days of request by another state to do so, whether or not the person concerned consents to the issue of the travel document.
Secondly, the bill will align the definition of parental responsibility far more closely to that in the Family Law Act 1975 and remove any confusion as to who is required to consent to a child having a travel document. For those constituents in my electorate, this will be very welcome. Child passport applications are one of the most complex aspects of passport operations. I think all members in this place will have had contact from people in this position. Due to the changing dynamic of family composition in Australia over the last 10 years, we have seen a noticeable increase in the number and complexity of child passport applications without full parental consent. For a small number of applicants, the current requirements can cause unnecessary distress, delays and confusion, and can make what is already a difficult family situation so much worse.
The bill provides that the following persons are required to consent to a child having a passport: parents who have not had their parental responsibility removed by a court; persons who under a court order have parental responsibility or with whom the child is to live; and persons who under an Australian law have guardianship, custody or parental responsibility for the child. Those persons who do not have parental responsibility for the child but under a court order can spend time with or have access to a child will no longer be required to consent to a child having a passport. I can only assume the number of people for whom this will be a very welcome decision.
It is inappropriate that the Passports Act as it currently stands may accord a person more parental responsibility for a child than is actually permitted by the court. It means that a parent who has been granted sole parental responsibility under a court order is no longer required to seek the consent of other persons who have access to the child. It is important to note that these amendments do not remove the legal requirement for a person travelling overseas with a child to seek consent to the child's travel from all persons who have had court awarded access to or spend time with orders for a child. It remains an offence under the Family Law Act to take a child overseas without consent from all persons in whose favour a court order is made in relation to a child.
Thirdly, the bill provides that the minister may refuse to process a passport application if there are reasonable grounds to suspect fraud or dishonesty in the application. It is a reviewable decision. It is really essential that the government send a very clear message that any kind of fraud in relation to Australian travel documents will not be tolerated. It is an offence under the Passports Act to provide false or misleading information, or to provide false or misleading statements or documents in relation to an application for an Australian travel document. This provision may be used instead of or in addition to a criminal prosecution for these offences. People need to take this very seriously. Fraudulent travel document applications threaten the security and the integrity of the Australian passport system. It is important to note that this provision does not prevent a person from being issued a travel document but they must submit a fresh application with the correct information and meet all other eligibility requirements.
Lastly, the bill modifies the existing offence framework in the Passports Act and adds an offence to strengthen the government's ability to respond to the fraudulent use of Australian travel documents. The new offence will target persons who make or provide false Australian travel documents with the intention that the document may be accepted and used as if it were a genuine Australian travel document.
These amendments are necessary to deter and respond to the increasing fraudulent use of travel documents and the wider implications of such activities in enabling organised and serious crime. We are seeing an increase in organised and serious crime in areas such as the one that has been exercising much of the concern of this House, terrorism; in drug smuggling; and in people trafficking. It is important that this bill is up to date.
I want to use a short part of my time to talk briefly about the issue of identity theft, which is often facilitated by the amount of information that people put online. I spend a lot of time talking to young people and to our police, and I know that the police are very concerned about even localised identity theft, let alone that to do with passports. The amount of information that a young person who is allowed to be on perhaps a social media site like Facebook puts on that particular site about not just themselves but their family is extraordinary. The young person does it without even realising, often, that that information is being monitored by those who wish to commit crime and fraud using a fraudulent identity.
This is one of the issues that the police are very concerned about. They actually believe that there are numbers of young people in this country who will need to change their names when they reach 18 and they go to the bank to get their MasterCard and other documents like the ones we are talking about today because their name will have been used to commit fraud and crime. That criminal wants a clean name so that any of their activities will not be linked to them personally; they are committed in somebody else's name. This is a very real issue for a lot of young people. We know that the criminals are online, harvesting information off these sites—probably with a folder with that person's name on it on their system—every time there is another simple little piece of information.
People put the most extraordinary things online on something like Facebook. It is not only birthdays. What is a key part that is on our passport and on our licences? Dates of birth. It is often addresses and things like their mobile phone numbers, their email addresses and all sorts of personal information about and photos of where they live, who they live with and what goes on. If they have left on some of the settings on their phones, depending on whether they have location services or geotagging, if they take a photo and they have this turned on, the hacker can not only have a look inside and follow them, but there is a whole lot of personal information contained on their devices that is accessible. This is just one of the areas.
The other thing that the police not so long ago came to talk to me about with identity theft was that they have a further belief that the criminals that are harvesting this information, sometimes from job search sites, are putting all of this information into a folder, and they are going to wait until this young person, who is then 35, has bought their first home. With the amount of information that they have available that they have harvested over a number of years from these sites, they will have enough information to be able to go and sell these young people's homes. They will have the 100 points that you need to make a major financial transaction, and they will be able to sell their homes. The police were warning me about this some time ago.
On this discussion on passports and the importance of our identity: as I said when I started my speech, when you travel, there is nothing that crystallises your thoughts or your concerns more than the fact that you may have had your passport stolen or have misplaced it. I think everyone who has travelled will know that moment when you thought: 'Where's my passport? Where did I put it?' You have that momentary panic that you do not know where your passport is at that moment. It is something that we guard when we travel.
I think the measures in this bill reflect the fact that, in 10 years, we need to make sure that we certainly address the issues of security in a broader sense and that our laws allow the government of the day to maintain the security that is so important around the integrity of our passport system.
I rise to speak on the Passports Legislation Amendment (Integrity) Bill 2015. I commend the objective to protect the Australian community by preventing and deterring the fraudulent use of Australian travel documents. Our passport, the Australian passport, is without doubt the most thorough, accepted and important identity document in our country, and it is imperative that we do not let this change. This bill is the result of a normal 10-year re-evaluation of Australia's passports legislation. However, it is timely given the current security situation. The role of government is the safety of our citizens and to mitigate unlawful activity. I believe this bill does just that, and I will go into more depth regarding the four key elements to be amended.
On the issue of travel documentation by the minister, the provision is limited to the following circumstances: to remove or deport a person who is the subject of a lawful extradition request to or from Australia; to remove or deport a person who is the subject of a lawful removal or deportation order to or from Australia; or to effect an international prison transfer. I think they are pretty self-explanatory. There are already existing avenues for people to seek review of the substantive decision to extradite or remove them. This will also enable Australia to comply with the requirements of the Convention on International Civil Aviation 1944 which stipulate that a contracting state shall issue a travel document to one of its nationals to facilitate their return to the contracting state within 30 days of a request by another state to do so, whether or not the person concerned consents to the issue of the travel document.
The bill will align the definition of parental responsibility more closely to that of the Family Law Act 1975. There have been issues over the last 12 months or so which have underlined this. The aim of the amendment is to remove any confusion as to who is required to consent to a child having a travel document. The bill provides that the following persons are required to consent to a child having a passport: parents who have not had their parental responsibility removed by a court; persons who under a court order have parental responsibility or with whom the child is to live; and persons who, under an Australian law, have guardianship, custody or parental responsibility for the child. Those persons who do not have parental responsibility for a child but who can under a court order spend time with or have access to the child will no longer be required to consent to a child having a passport. It is inappropriate that the Passports Act, as it currently stands, may accord a person more parental responsibility for a child than is permitted by the court. For a small number of applicants the current requirements can cause unnecessary distress, delays and confusion.
The third area is that the minister may refuse to process a passport application if there are reasonable grounds to suspect fraud or dishonesty in the application. This is a reviewable decision. It is essential that the government send a clear message that any kind of fraud in relation to Australian documents will not be tolerated. It is important to note that this provision does not prevent a person from being issued a travel document, but they must submit a fresh application with the correct information and meet all other eligibility requirements.
The bill modifies the existing offence framework in the Passports Act and adds an offence to strengthen the government's ability to respond to the fraudulent use of Australian travel documents. The new offence will target persons who make or provide false Australian travel documents with the intention that the document may be accepted and used as if it were genuine. These amendments are necessary to deter and respond to the increasing fraudulent use of travel documents and the wider implications of such activity in enabling serious crime such as terrorism, drug smuggling and people trafficking.
In addition, there will be a provision to refuse travel documentation that uses unacceptable names and signatures. This may include using language that is offensive, obscene or that could be misleading. While these situations rarely occur, it is important that a clear legal base exists to refuse such names or signatures to protect the integrity of our travel documents.
The amendments further allow the act to be simplified by removing the need to refer to the passports determination to work out which provisions in the act apply to the travel documents. The bill combines related subsections to avoid duplication and clarify existing provisions consistent with current practice.
While the majority of Australian citizens obviously use their travel documentation lawfully, we need updates to the legislation to ensure those who do not are held to account. The review assists us to deal with the current security situations facing Australia while updating important aspects of the 10-year-old legislation.
I would hope and assume that the bill will be dealt with in a bipartisan way, and I am sure that the opposition would agree with us on that. As I said earlier, it is a 10-year review, but it is very timely given current situations for both security and family law reasons.
I rise to speak on the Passports Legislation Amendment (Integrity) Bill 2015. I would like to start with a little bit of an anecdote. Some years ago, I was on a sales trip travelling through the United States. I had to go and visit a customer down in Birmingham, Alabama. The best way to get there at the time was to fly into Atlanta and hire a car and drive from Atlanta to Alabama. I did that. I remember it was a couple of hours drive. I hired the car and came back. When I made it back to Atlanta, I realised that I had misplaced my passport. I believe that it probably slid down behind one of the seats in the car that I was driving. I had lost my passport. I thought, 'This is a little bit of an inconvenience.'
So I called up the Australian consulate and reported that my passport was lost. From there, I basically jumped on a plane and flew from Atlanta across to Los Angeles. I thought I would be stuck there for a couple of days waiting for a new passport, but they said to go straight to the airport. I went up to the Qantas check-in desk in Los Angeles and told them: 'I've rung through. I've lost my passport.' They said, 'No problems.' They gave me a boarding pass and I was able to go through customs in the USA without a passport at all. I hopped on the plane and when I arrived back in Australia I lined up in the queue with everyone else and said, 'I am sorry—I've lost my passport,' and was waved straight through.
I think those days are long gone. The security situation that we face today, where we have issues of international terrorism and international drug smuggling, means we must ensure that we have the most stringent controls on Australian passports. That is what this bill does. It strengthens the integrity of the Australian Passports Act 2005 and makes a number of minor amendments, although important amendments, to a number of Commonwealth acts. It also repeals the Australian Passports (Transitionals and Consequentials) Act 2005.
The bill includes four principal amendments and a number of minor amendments. I will go through them one at a time. Firstly, the bill provides that the minister may issue a travel document to a person on the minister's own initiative if there is a lawful requirement for that person to travel. Secondly, it aligns the definition of 'parental responsibility' more closely to that of the Family Law Act 1975 to provide more certainty about who is required to consent to a child having a passport. That is a more and more important issue, unfortunately, as we see more and more children of single parents and more and more cases going through the Family Court. Thirdly, it provides that a minister may refuse to process a passport application on reasonable suspicion of fraud. Fourthly, it revises existing offences to add an offence to strengthen the government's ability to respond to the fraudulent use of travel documents. That is a most important issue. We need to send a very loud and clear message that anyone—
The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.
It is my sad duty to rise in the chamber today to acknowledge the passing of a true champion of the Sunshine Coast, both on and off the field—James Ackerman. He passed away as a result of an injury he sustained while playing for the Sunshine Coast Falcons last Saturday. Unfortunately, he never regained consciousness, having been involved in a tackle only five minutes into a game against the Norths Devils at Bishop Park. Ackers, as he was known, played junior football for the Kawana Dolphins and for the Mountain Creek State High School. As I said, he was a champion on and off the field. The club, as a sign of respect, has hung up his No. 8 jersey.
His parents, Sonya and Michael, who I have spoken to, have ensured his organs have been donated. This means he will live on, with up to 10 other people’s lives being saved as a result of that generosity. The Sunshine Coast community, the rugby league family and all those close to him can be assured that we will continue to look after Saraa and his young children, Olliver and Milly, and know that his respect for life, his joy for life and the friends that he made will serve his family well in the years to come. We are privileged to live in a generous community. We have been privileged to know him. We will ensure his memory lives on. His funeral will be held on 1 July at 11 am at the Sunshine Coast Stadium. I encourage the Sunshine Coast community to join me there for his commemoration.
Paul Keating famously reminded us that when we change the government the country changes too. Now, before the parliament rises for the winter break, is an appropriate time for all of us in this place to reflect on how our country has changed since September 2013. It has changed for the worse. Driven by the blind ideology of this Prime Minister, we are becoming less equal. Driven by the agenda of this government, we are becoming a less equal society.
We have record low wage growth. Unemployment is up and it is forecast to go higher. There is no plan for jobs. We have seen a sustained attack on the social compact. We have seen an attack on Medicare, that cornerstone of our society. We have seen desperate attempts to introduce a GP tax. We have seen cuts to the pension. We have seen an attack on education to confine the future of our young people, at early years through the broken promises of Gonski and with $100,000 degrees.
Most egregious of all is this government's attack on trust, on our collective capacity to solve the problems we face. The promises this Prime Minister made to the Australian people that have been broken will be a millstone around this government’s neck.
This morning the coalition government announced it is delivering for regional Australia, including the Central Coast, a $100 million mobile black spot program. This is really good news for residents and businesses in my electorate of Robertson. We had previously committed to expanding mobile coverage as part of our growth plan for the Central Coast. We did this because we know it will have major economic, social and safety benefits for people who live, work and travel in these communities.
Unfortunately, under the previous Labor government not one cent was spent on dealing with mobile phone black spots. So today I am pleased to announce that four serious mobile phone black spots will receive better mobile coverage as a result of today’s announcement. Thanks to the mobile black spot program, coverage will be improved in parts of Mangrove Mountain, Mount White and Somersby as well as a stretch of George Downes Drive near Mangrove Creek.
Last year I met with locals from Mangrove Mountain, including Glynnis Golsby, who joined me in fighting for better mobile coverage in that area so I was really pleased to be able to tell Glynnis this morning that their community is one of the black spot areas addressed by round 1 of this funding. I am also glad to see that a further $60 million in funding has been announced for round 2. This will be an opportunity to assist more regional locations where there is still strong community demand for improved mobile coverage, especially after the recent storms we experienced on the Central Coast. I commend this program and particularly thank the member for Bradfield for his important work in delivering—(Time expired)
In this last opportunity for 90-second statements, I rise to add to the theme of the member for Scullin and to congratulate the government on getting around to fulfilling at least one of their promises today. It has taken only nearly 20 months. We are finally getting some mobile black spot funding. I remember it being one of the key promises. How many of their promises have they actually delivered? For me and my electorate one of the most important things is jobs—jobs, jobs, jobs—and good jobs, as the Treasurer would call them. I distinctly remember reading the Real Solutions document. What did it say? It said:
Our plan will deliver more jobs, higher real wages and better living standards for all Australians.
Alert! Wage growth is at its lowest in 17 years. No-one in my electorate believes you have delivered on that promise. No-one in my electorate believes that you are doing a good job.
I echo the member for Scullin. Trust is now becoming a serious issue for this government. People no longer believe that they are going to deliver on the things that they said they were going to deliver on, and with good reason. Across the gamut—from education to health, pensions and the car industry—there is not a promise they made that they are likely to keep. The ramifications are starting to make their way into our electorates and into this economy.
I rise to speak about the Abbott government's Sugar Marketing Code of Conduct Taskforce, which today has released its report and will be presenting that to agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce and the small business minister. The recommendation is that a mandatory code of conduct be adopted for the sugar industry, a code of conduct that will include a mechanism to distribute relevant interests in the quantities of sugar obtained from cane between growers and millers, a link between the price paid for cane and the selling price of sugar, the ability to choose marketing services, non-discriminatory provisions and a mechanism to resolve disputes. We wish to introduce this code of conduct to deal with an impasse in the sugar industry that has been brought about by foreign milling interests. Sadly, these companies have decided that they want to follow the Asian model where farmers are treated as medieval-type peasants who present to the landlord every year and get what they are given. That is not how we do agriculture in Australia. The mills really do need to come to the table and talk to growers and resolve this issue themselves. But, in the event that that does not occur, we have recommended to the government that they go forward and do this now. I seek leave to table a copy of the report promoting competition in the sugar market.
Leave granted.
It is the end of the session and it is a good time to reflect on the record of this Prime Minister and his government. All we can say—and all Australians are saying it—is that this government has failed again. It has an appalling record of achievement. If a schoolchild were to go home with a report like this government's report, the school and the parents would be saying they needed some special help. This government does need some special help. On all the major indicators and on all the major issues they are failing. On unemployment they are failing—the highest unemployment rate since this Prime Minister was the employment minister. On jobs this government is failing. They are failing to create decent jobs—the good jobs that the Treasurer says people need to be able to afford to buy a home. On housing affordability this government is failing. They dismiss it and say people just need to get a higher paying job, yet they fail to create the jobs people need in order to get a home. What is going on in our schools and hospitals? They have failed to acknowledge their billions of dollars of cuts in schools and hospitals, putting the pressure back on the states and saying that it is a state responsibility. They are failing our schools; they are failing our hospitals. This government's record is on show. People in the community know that this government is failing. The record of the Prime Minister and the government will be judged by the Australian people.
I rise today to show my full support for a newly launched mobile breast-screening unit in my electorate of Calare in western New South Wales. Thanks to a $13 million dollar investment by the Commonwealth and the state government, women in rural and remote areas of New South Wales will now have access to a state-of-the-art screening service, 20 years after this service began. BreastScreen New South Wales, along with the Greater Western and Western New South Wales local health districts, will coordinate this new service, touring many areas in my electorate including Parkes, Forbes, Tullamore, Trundle, Peak Hill and Molong. The new facility includes upgraded digital mammography equipment and wireless communication for instant transfer of diagnostic images to doctors—whether they are in Orange, Sydney or wherever it might be. For women in these rural areas, attending a mobile unit reduces travel time significantly. This is huge for Aboriginal other and rural and isolated people and also for people in any small town anywhere, because it means they do not have to travel to Orange or a big centre. The timing is very good, as the Commonwealth government now has $55 million going towards informing women from the ages to 50 to 74 of the need to have a mammography so that they can be instantly diagnosed wherever they get it done.
This government is absolutely hopeless, isn't it? I think we can all agree that this is a particularly hopeless and ridiculous government. What did the now Prime Minister say before the election in the blue pamphlet, the 'real solutions' pamphlet? 'Our plan will deliver more jobs, higher real wages and better living standards for all Australians.' How is that going for the government? Those guys are just so hopeless. Unemployment got to 6.3 per cent. Was that higher than under the global financial crisis?
An opposition member interjecting—Yes!
Was it? When was the last time unemployment was this high? Was it when the current Prime Minister was the employment minister in the Howard government? I think it might have been. And how about that unemployment rate? It has still got a six in front of it. How does this government intend to look in the eye the hundreds of thousands of people in this country who are in unemployment queues? How does this government intend to explain itself? And as for those people in work, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance might turn his mind to the fact that wages growth is at its slowest since the wage price index started being kept in the 1990s. Wages growth is at its slowest in 17 years. That is what his government is overseeing. That is the record of the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. That is the Abbott government record: one of terrible wages growth—slower than it has been in 17 years—and very high unemployment. He should be ashamed.
The Vietnamese community in Banks know more about the power of freedom than anyone. Forty years ago they fled the evil of communism. Confronted by a criminal state, they made life-and-death journeys to protect their children. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, Australia welcomed these remarkable and brave people. All Australians value freedom, but Vietnamese Australians know in their hearts what it really means. They know that evil prospers in darkness and only the light of freedom enables us all to be our true and best selves.
This week we welcomed the Vietnamese Australian community to Canberra to celebrate 40 years of Vietnamese settlement in Australia. It was an occasion marked with happiness, as we celebrated the remarkable success of Vietnamese Australians such as South Australian Governor Hieu Van Le. But there was sadness in the room too, as we remembered the millions killed in the Vietnam War. We also remembered the many relatives of Vietnamese Australians still in Vietnam and the difficulties they face in their daily lives. This important event was organised by the leading organisation Vietnamese Community Australia. At the function I was honoured to receive a plaque from VCA acknowledging my support for the Vietnamese community. I thank the VCA for staging this event, and in particular Dr Thang Ha, the president of the VCA in New South Wales. I also thank Mr Davy Nguyen, the VCA vice president and a powerful advocate for the Vietnamese community.
The last day of sitting is a great opportunity to reflect on the record of the current government. Today I want to make some comments specifically on this government's record in its treatment of women.
When I heard that the Prime Minister had named himself the minister for women, I laughed. I thought, 'surely this has got to be a joke.' In truth, any man calling himself the minister for women is absurd. Men have been trying to speak for women for thousands of years and that is part of the problem. But this is the man who called abortion 'the easy way out'. This is the man who stood in front of signs that called our first female Prime Minister a 'bitch' and a 'witch'. This is a man who has referred to the role of women as 'doing the ironing' and told us that the best thing he has done for women is the carbon tax—because women are more inclined to manage the household budget. You could not make this stuff up if you tried.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Hotham just made a statement that was clearly incorrect and I would ask her to withdraw.
There is no point of order. The member for Hotham has the call.
Think about the record of this government. This is a government that has cut maternity leave for half of all new parents. It is a government that has slashed funding for women's shelters and legal services. It is a government that has tried to raise the cost of education and cut pensions—all of which will hurt women. This is what we get when someone like this Prime Minister tries to stand up for women. He does not speak for me and he does not speak for us.
After 90 seconds of propaganda, I would like to talk about something positive, and that is the announcement today from the Minister for Communications and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications about the round 1 of the Mobile Black Spot Program. I sat in this place in 2008 and watched the then Labor government remove $2.4 billion from the telecommunications infrastructure fund. For six years, not one cent went into mobile phone coverage. I am pleased to say that today the minister announced that in the seat of Parkes there will be 10 new base stations going up. So communities and locations like Goolma, Gamboon, Grattai, Lue, Mumbil, Pilliga, Windeyer, Manna Mountain, Oakdene and places on the Newell Highway, who have been removed from the 21st century because they have had no mobile phone access, now will get it.
Thanks to the great example of cooperation between the federal government and my colleagues in New South Wales, their contribution has pretty well doubled the outcome in New South Wales, and this is really good news for the people of the bush. I acknowledge that there are some locations that missed out this time. Round 2 will commence shortly and I will be working very closely with my state colleagues to make sure that those other locations are addressed as well.
I join with my Labor colleagues on this last sitting day to reflect on the track record of the government and members opposite. I know that members opposite are prone to interjecting today because, let's face it, when this track record is laid out for you to see, it is a hard truth to swallow. I accept that. My constituents come to me every day and talk about the long line of broken promises from this government. Remember the 'no cuts to health' statement? We all remember that one in Newcastle. Let me just remind you that the Prime Minister has cut more than $50 billion out of health, including more than $150 million from my region—out of hospitals in my Hunter region. Remember 'no cuts to education'? That cut $195 million from local schools in Newcastle. 'No changes to pensions': just this week this House has passed legislation that impacts on women like Trish from my electorate, who is set to lose $4,000 out of her part pension—she is a widowed woman—because of changes members opposite made in your midnight deal with the Greens to ensure that that went through. Women like Trish in my electorate are to suffer the detrimental costs. We all remember the one million jobs promise. This week alone, in my electorate of Newcastle— (Time expired)
I rise to speak on something a little bit more sober in its content and certainly a darn sight more factual. According to the World Health Organisation, globally, a life is lost to suicide every 40 seconds. What is different about suicide compared with other public health challenges is that it can be fought on a local, micro and personal level. Awareness is the first step and that is why I would like to highlight the critically important work being done by the Dr Edward Koch Foundation in my electorate of Leichhardt.
For 20 years, the foundation has been offering suicide prevention workshops, bereavement counselling, health research and development, disaster recovery support, drug rehabilitation and more. This week, in Cairns, it is hosting the 2015 Suicide and Self-Harm Prevention Conference. Professionals from around Australia and the world are getting the latest information on methods and outcomes for suicide and self-harm prevention—especially for young people, the elderly, veterans and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
I would like to commend Dulcie Bird, the CEO of the Dr Edward Koch Foundation, for her outstanding work over the last 20 years, together with that of current and previous board members—of which I am proud to say I was in the past—volunteers, sponsors, partners and service clubs. We must focus on relationships and on strengthening connections between individuals and communities if we want to reduce the rates of suicide. Congratulations again to the Dr Edward Koch Foundation. (Time expired)
I associate myself with the remarks made by the member for Leichhardt. Suicide is an important issue in our community, as are some of the issues raised by my colleagues today. Whether it be jobs, wages, the deficit or treatment of women in our society, it is impossible to come to any judgement of this Abbott government other than that it is a failure.
Those of us who are present on this side of the House have something in common—that is, before the member for Wakefield joined us—and that is: we were all elected at the last election. We are all new MPs. In the time that we have been here we have seen promise after promise broken—promises to pensioners, the aged, the sick, the frail, teachers, kids and parents. Promises to manufacturing workers right around our community have been broken. One promise after another has been broken. We have witnessed a trajectory for the government from real solutions to a real mess. The reason they are in a real mess is really flowing from the two budgets that they have had. The first one was an awful budget. The second one was the same, with a dodgy coat of paint.
I want to pick up on an issue that the members for Scullin and Lalor spoke about, and that is trust. One of the reasons that trust has broken down in our community is because those opposite speak with a forked tongue when it comes to bipartisanship and when it comes to working together on national security. They are so desperate for division. The immigration minister and the Prime Minister are desperate to divide this country when this country needs unity, particularly when it comes to the big challenges around national security. We are about to see question time. We will see from the immigration minister and the Prime Minister a desperate grasping for division in our community. Australia is better than that. Our side of the parliament is better than that, and we want to work to solve the problems in this community, not make them worse. (Time expired)
This is just outrageous. The member opposite is talking about absolute nonsense.
I want to update the House on recent events in my electorate of Brisbane during the week of 8 June. On Wednesday 10 June, I hosted a Go Red for Women high tea in an effort to raise funds to support the Heart Foundation. As women, we often put the needs of others before our own and the high tea was an opportunity for many women to realise the importance of looking after our own heart health.
On 11 June, I was joined by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, the Hon. Michael McCormack—I thank him very much; he is in the House right now—and we had an official title handover to the Lady Gowrie Child Centre to Gowrie (QLD) Incorporated. The title handover was undertaken as part of the government's property divestment program and reflects the incredible reputation the Lady Gowrie Child Centre holds across Brisbane.
On 12 June, the week ended with the launch of OzHarvest's new Brisbane van. The delivery of this van was funded through a $125,000 federal government grant to OzHarvest. It was one of my 2013 election promises. I was honoured on the day to be joined by Ronni Kahn, the incredible founder and CEO of OzHarvest, and chef Matt Moran of ARIA. OzHarvest collects approximately 340,000 kilograms of surplus food each month. What this will mean is 750,000 more meals to those in need. (Time expired)
I rise to join my fabulous colleagues from the class of 2013 and to reflect on what a tragedy that we find within the government today. There are two issues that I want a focus on. Firstly, there is the government's surrender monkey posture when it comes to our manufacturing sector. We cannot do this. We cannot have abattoirs and process our meats; we have got to export them live! We cannot have a creative manufacturing industry that exports around the world!
Well, we can. I have in my electorate some absolutely advanced manufacturing sectors that, with the right settings from government, we could drive forward. But this is a government that seems to think that cutting the wages of barristers and making waiting staff a little bit cheaper is what is going to drive us to innovation. We are going to have the barista-led recovery!
Secondly, I also want to join with my friends here to talk about the division that has been created. It is tragic. I am sure that it does not represent the majority of people on the other side when we look at the posturing that we are taking on this citizenship issue and the attitude that we took on section 18C. It is truly tragic that we are destroying this bipartisan— (Time expired)
I would like to bring to the attention of the House the great works performed by two of the many community groups in the Lyne electorate. On Friday 19 June, I had the pleasure of attending the Rotary Club of Taree's 78th changeover dinner, where outgoing president Laurie Easter handed over to Mark Drury and brought in secretary Belinda Crossingham and treasurer Phil Streatfeild.
The House should be aware now that over the last 12 months the Rotary Club of Taree, which is one of several rotary clubs in the great city of Taree, has raised and distributed over $147,300 to various organisations, recipients and projects. That includes their involvement in the close-circuit TV installation in the Taree CBD, which is one of the coalition government's signature policies. That project is progressing very well. We are close to signing off contract and having it installed by August 2015.
I also attended the Port Macquarie Tacking Point Lions Club installation lunch on Sunday. District governor Peter Willis-Jones attended with the new president, Stuart Aston. The Port Macquarie Tacking Point Lions Club together donated 7,065 volunteer hours to the community of the Hastings. With 21 current projects, it is a very active club. It is been doing so many good things for the whole electorate. I would like to congratulate them all for their involvement and selflessness. (Time expired)
The Abbott government is a government of cuts and broken promises. It is a government that says one thing before the election and then does another thing after the election. Before the election, it was 'no cuts to health'. What have we seen? There is $15 billion slashed from hospitals. In anybody's imagination, that is a cut. There has been cuts to hospitals in the Hunter and cuts to hospitals on the Central Coast. I see the member for Paterson sitting opposite and I am sure he is devastated by the cuts that are being wreaked upon his electorate.
They said, 'No cuts to education.' But each and every day we hear about the cuts to education. $30 billion has been slashed from schools. Yesterday, we had TAFE visitors here in the House and we heard about this government's cuts to TAFE. They said, 'No changes and no cuts to pensions.' This week proves that the Abbott government cannot be trusted when it comes to pensions. It proves that the Abbott government says one thing before the election and does another thing after it.
Why do you hate pensioners? Shame, shame!
As my colleague next to me says, 'Why does the Abbott government hate pensioners?' Pensioners know that they are in your sights, they know that you have targeted all cuts towards them and they know that this government does not care about pensioners. (Time expired)
Today, I am thrilled to announce some wonderful news for the Corangamite electorate. Under our government's $100 million Mobile Phone Blackspot Program, 10 new Telstra base stations have been funded in Corangamite and will be established in Apollo Bay, Barongarook, Barwon Downs, Cape Otway, Carlisle River, Dereel, Gellibrand, Kawarren, Steiglitz and Yeodene, servicing Birregurra. St Leonards in the Corio electorate will also be serviced. This is wonderful news, showing our great commitment to country communities.
This government has broken a lot of promises since it was elected, but the biggest promise of all it has broken was its commitment to the Australian people to be an adult government. What we have seen since this government was elected is a Prime Minister who has shown himself to have no judgement and no self control. His only response to every problem that comes over his desk is conflict. He is a bovver boy who throws punches before thinking. He is a Prime Minister who accused the opposition last week of rolling out the red carpet for terrorists and then turned around this week to congratulated us on being responsible and bipartisan.
This is not the way for an adult government to deal with an important issue like national security. The Australian public deserve better and they expect better of a government on an important issue of this kind. In environment of a heightened security risk, they expect a Prime Minister who thinks before speaking. This is the biggest broken promise that this government has made. Before the last election, the Prime Minister said that the buck would stop with him—
It being two o'clock, the honourable member is interrupted. In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
Earlier today, HMAS Tobruk returned to her home port of Garden Island for the last time. For 34 years, HMAS Tobruk and her crew have served our country with the distinction. I should particularly note that back in 1999 Tobruk was deployed to East Timor and subsequently made 11 trips to East Timor in support of our operations there and in support of the freedom of the East Timorese people. Most recently the Tobruk supported the relief mission to Vanuatu following the devastation of Cyclone Pam.
Back in 1941, when Australian soldiers were besieged in Tobruk, it was the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Navy that were the garrison's link to the outside world. The efforts of our Navy and the Royal Navy provided what was then known as the Tobruk ferry. HMAS Tobruk has lived up to its namesake. The Tobruk and her company have more than lived up to the ship's motto, 'Faithful and Strong'. As her commander made clear today, while the Navy is losing the Tobruk, the Navy is certainly not losing that capacity, with the HMAS Canberra and the Adelaide either in service or shortly coming into service. Madam Speaker, HMAS Tobruk, as you would well know, has fulfilled her mission, and a grateful nation says thank you.
I join the Prime Minister in saluting the service of the HMAS Tobruk and all who sailed in her. Named for the siege of Tobruk, a famous example of Australian courage and resourcefulness in the Second World War, over 34 years the HMAS Tobruk gave fine military and humanitarian service to Australia and our region. A great leader of our country, Ben Chifley, famously said our duty was to work for 'the betterment of mankind not only here but anywhere we may give a helping hand'. The Tobruk helped Australia do just that. She was there to support Australia's leadership in Timor. She offered assistance to the people of Vanuatu rebuilding after a devastating cyclone. She was proudly an Australian-made warship, from the Carrington Slipways. She has done her duty faithfully and well, and we thank her.
I would like to add my own remarks on Tobruk's service. It was scheduled to be retired nearly 20 years ago, and then-Minister McLachlan and I, with some good Naval persuasion, decided we could not do without her, and so it is with a sense of sadness that I see her being paid off now.
I inform the House that the Minister for Agriculture will be absent from question time today as he travels interstate to attend a farmers association event. The Deputy Prime Minister will answer questions on his behalf.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the visit by the Prime Minister, the Attorney-General and the Minister for Justice to ASIO headquarters, with television cameras in tow. Prime Minister, whose idea was this and what security protocols were put in place for the Prime Minister's photo opportunity?
This is a curious question from the Leader of the Opposition. It is a very curious question from the Leader of the Opposition—
Opposition members interjecting—
There will be silence on my left!
because my ministers and I went to ASIO headquarters yesterday to receive a briefing from the Director-General of ASIO—
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
The member for Gorton will desist!
and the suggestion that is coming from members opposite is that—
Opposition members interjecting—
I will not put up with that barrage of noise. It is a serious question you have asked, and I will listen to the answer.
There is a secure briefing room in Parliament House. Why didn't you use that?
That includes the member for McMahon!
The suggestion from members opposite is that ASIO in some way conducted this briefing unprofessionally. Members opposite are impugning the professionalism of ASIO. The idea that this briefing would have been unprofessional, the idea that there would have been any release of classified information to the media is insulting—
The Prime Minister will resume his seat. Does the member for Grayndler have a point of order? I call the honourable member for Murray.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the progress of the government's plan for a strong, safe and prosperous future for all Australians?
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
The member for Gorton is warned!
I thank the member for Murray for her question, and I thank her for her long-term commitment to the welfare of her constituents and the benefit of all Australians. I can inform the member for Murray and all members that this is a government which is getting things done. This is a government which is actually delivering for the people of Australia. I am sure members all around this House will be pleased to know that the current parliamentary sitting fortnight has probably been the most productive in this term of parliament. A great deal of legislation has passed through this parliament, starting with the small business budget boost, including the instant asset write-off, which is doing so much to boost confidence for small businesses right around Australia, which is doing so much to help small businesses to invest, to employ and to serve their customers. I thank members opposite for their cooperation in getting the small business budget boost passed.
Then, of course, we had legislation to introduce a fairer and more sustainable pension system pass through this parliament. What this will do is deliver $30 a fortnight for 170,000 pensioners with very modest assets. I thank the Australian Greens for their help doing this.
The renewable energy legislation was passed through the parliament. Again I thank the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Industry for their work there. I particularly thank the crossbench in the Senate for what they did to ensure that wood waste was going to be appropriately treated. What this legislation does is reduce the pressure on our power prices while also getting certainty to the industry.
Best of all, over this sitting fortnight some $14 billion of savings have passed through the Senate, and what this does is help to secure our long-term future. We are moving towards a sustainable budgetary position. Every year, the surplus drops by a half a percentage point of GDP. We are on track for a sustainable surplus in the years to come.
Today the Minister for Communications and the parliamentary secretary announced that there would be 500 new and upgraded base stations right around our country to address 3,000 black spots right around out country.
This is a government which does not just talk about doing the right thing; we are doing the right thing by our people. We are making a difference for the people of Australia. Change for the better is happening right now thanks to this government and, just in the last fortnight, thanks as well to this parliament.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, when asked for copies of maps on display at the Prime Minister's media event, ASIO replied, 'We are unable to provide the documents. They are for official use only.' But this morning ASIO described the documents as 'carefully edited and unclassified'. What contact did the Prime Minister, his office, his ministers or their officers have with ASIO after the initial response?
I simply repeat what I have said before: that it is entirely appropriate that ministers should seek a briefing from ASIO on the day that important national security legislation is introduced into the parliament. Again I wonder why members opposite should have taken it upon themselves to impugn the professionalism of ASIO. The idea that ASIO officers, including the director-general—
Opposition members interjecting—
The member for Sydney—and the member for McMahon is warned.
would somehow expose classified documents to the world is just wrong. ASIO officers are highly committed professionals. They absolutely know their craft, and the idea that they would permit classified documents to be somehow exposed to the world is just wrong.
I say to members opposite: I would have thought that you would have had more respect for the people running our national security—
The member for Isaacs on a point of order?
I can assure the House that Labor has complete respect for ASIO.
The member will resume his seat. That is an abuse of the standing orders; one more time, and you will leave under 94(a). That is an absolute abuse of the standing orders and will not be tolerated. The Prime Minister has the call.
The shadow Attorney-General—the man who thinks that terrorists should be brought back to Australia—
Honourable members interjecting—
Mr Burke interjecting—
The member will resume his seat. Resume your seat.
Who does the shadow Attorney-General think produced the maps in question? Does the shadow Attorney-General think that somehow I rolled up a few maps and took them into ASIO? The maps in question were produced by ASIO. They were produced by highly professional officers—
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The member for McMahon will leave under 94(a).
The member for McMahon then left the chamber.
and it is absolutely crystal clear through repeated statements, including by the director-general of ASIO, that they were unclassified maps. So let's have no more of this childishness from members opposite, who are impugning the professionalism of our security agency.
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on the status of key budget measures? How will the government's plan promote growth and jobs across Australia?
I thank the hon. member for Fisher for that question—terrific question—because this is a government that is getting on with the job of strengthening the Australian economy and strengthening the government's own balance sheet to the benefit of all Australians. As the Prime Minister identified, in the last fortnight of parliamentary sittings, not only have we been able to improve the budget bottom line by $14.3 billion as a result of initiatives that have passed through the Senate; but we have also been able to deliver on structural reforms that help to strengthen the Australian economy. Those structural reforms range from helping people out who have fewer assets with a higher level of pension right through to just a few minutes ago reversing the bad decisions that were made by the previous government in relation to employee share schemes. So now small business can go out, have a go and give their employees a fair opportunity to participate in that wealth creation. Those sorts of results are helping to strengthen the Australian economy and they are vitally important over the next few months as we continue to build opportunity.
I say to the small businesses of Australia: there are only five days to go for you to go out and have a go this financial year, buy an asset up to $20,000 per item, invest that in your business and get a 100 per cent tax deduction on 1 July. It will continue for a further two years after that, but now is the time to go out and have a go.
Of course, the savings that we identified and continue to identify help to reduce the daily bill left by Labor from $133 million to $96 million. There is still much work to be done. We still have to find $96 million every day just to keep the government running. It was $133 million a day when we were elected. We have got it down to $96 million a day and we still have a long way to go.
But the $14.3 billion that we have managed to save in the last two weeks is hugely important. I broke it down, actually, to a per-minute number, because I was very mindful that the Leader of the Opposition, in his budget-in-reply speech, spent $220 million a minute! And all the work we have done over the last two weeks has saved $902,000 a minute. So it just goes to show you how dangerous the Leader of the Opposition is. He cannot be trusted by his colleagues and he cannot be trusted with the government's balance sheet because, ultimately, we are the only ones who are focused on prosperity and jobs for the Australian people.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, what was the benefit to national security of taking television cameras to ASIO headquarters yesterday?
Honourable members interjecting—
There will be silence on my left! The Prime Minister has the call.
I should say that the Director-General of ASIO and other senior officers from ASIO were very, very keen to see those cameras come to ASIO headquarters because it helps to highlight the very important work—
Why bring the cameras in?
The member for Moreton will leave under 94(a)!
The member for Moreton then left the chamber.
that ASIO does to keep our country safe.
I want to say that I have the highest respect and admiration for the work that ASIO does. And I have to say that I am better informed about it, thanks to the classified briefing that I received yesterday after the cameras had long gone. I have the highest respect for the Director-General of ASIO, who commanded our special forces. He was appointed secretary of the Department of Defence by members opposite. He was appointed Ambassador to NATO by members opposite. I have the highest respect for him.
And the suggestion, coming again and again from members opposite, that somehow the Director-General of ASIO, that senior officers of ASIO, would have permitted classified material—
Not stuck in books, like Spycatcher!
Dr Chalmers interjecting—
The members for Chifley and Charlton are both warned!
to be photographed is just ludicrous. The suggestion from members opposite that the Director-General of ASIO would have permitted classified material to be photographed is just ludicrous, and it shows how low—
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Prime Minister did not even approach an answer to that question.
I told you that is not a correct use of the standing orders. I said you would leave under 94(a) if you persisted, and you will. Leave under 94(a)!
Honourable members interjecting—
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order with regard to the ruling that you have just made. The member for Isaacs moved a perfectly correct point of order under the relevant standing orders. The Prime Minister was asked what the benefit was to national security of having television cameras in there and he did not address it at all!
The SPEAKER: The member for Grayndler will resume his seat! And the member for Isaacs will leave under 94(a), as I asked him to do!
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
I have asked you to leave under 94(a)! Do you wish me to name you?
Madam Speaker, I wish to apologise.
No, I allowed that—
I seek your—
Resume your seat!
I do wish to apologise—
I name the member for Isaacs!
Honourable members interjecting—
I move:
That the member for Isaacs be suspended from the service of the House.
Honourable members interjecting—
The member for Sydney will also leave under 94(a) when we have finished this debate!
Honourable members interjecting—
The question is that the motion moved by the member for Sturt be agreed to.
The honourable member for Isaacs is suspended from the service of the House. As this is the honourable member's second suspension this year, the period of suspension is the remainder of this day plus three consecutive sitting days.
The member s for Isaacs and Sydney then left the chamber.
The member who has just left the chamber said that he was trying to apologise. I tell you what, Madam Speaker, he should apologise to the Director-General of ASIO. He should apologise to the senior staff of ASIO. I did not take those maps into ASIO. They were maps—
Opposition members interjecting—
There will be silence on my left. I know this is the last day of sittings. I know the pent-up frustration that some people get. We will not tolerate a cacophony of noise. The Prime Minister has the call and he will have some silence. The Prime Minister has the call. Oh, his time has expired.
It hasn’t, but anyway.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, the ban on same-sex marriage is legislated discrimination and plain wrong. In response to the recent Irish referendum, you stated that marriage equality in Australia is an issue for the parliament. To that end, will you now rule out a plebiscite on same-sex marriage?
My position on this question is well known.
I wish to advise the House that we have with us the former member for Hinkler, Mr Paul Neville. We also have with us a delegation from Kazakhstan, and we also make you most welcome.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on how the government is building the infrastructure of the 21st century and how will this vital work support jobs and opportunity across Australia?
I thank the member for the question. As we approach the winter break, it is appropriate to report to the parliament on the progress that we have made in infrastructure over the last six months, and it has certainly been a great six months for Australia's infrastructure industries. As the member for Parkes knows, vital infrastructure is important for ensuring that communities are able to access their nearest town and access services that they need and so that people can get to the markets.
This government has a historic $50 billion infrastructure package. Over the last few months, that package has actually grown because of the addition of the northern Australia package and the extra Roads to Recovery money this week which actually brings that package to about $57 billion. By way of comparison, that is $23 billion more than the other side offered at the last election. So there have been advances in the commitment and we are getting on with the vital job.
By way of examples for the member Parkes, the Roads to Recovery decision this week will mean councils in his electorate will get $156 million under the program, and that is $54 million more than they otherwise would have got. These are real commitments to the community that make a real difference. In more good news from the coalition government, we have decided to freeze the heavy vehicle road user charge for another year. This charge will stay at 26.14c per litre for the 2015-16 year. This recognises the fact that the charge has been overcollecting from the industry now for some years, and this will give them some relief in relation to the costs that they have to bear.
This program that we have in place is creating thousands of jobs across the nation. West Connex will create 10,000 jobs when fully operational. The Toowoomba second range crossing is a project that Labor have been lukewarm about. That will employ 1,800 people when it gets going; we hope in a couple of months. The Perth freight link is creating 2,400 jobs; North Connex, 8,700 jobs. Of course, there are 8,000 jobs being created in Western Sydney, in and around the Badgerys Creek airport; another 200 workers on the Midland Highway. Of course, the number being employed is 7,000 fewer than it should have been because Labor cancelled the East West project. And there is a Queensland government budget coming up, so who knows how many jobs will be lost in this sector. We are getting on with the job—creating the jobs, building the infrastructure.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to this email sent by the Victorian Liberal Party that sought to raise political donations by referring to national security matters. Did the Prime Minister authorise his image in the Parliament House courtyard to be used by his political party in this fundraising email? Will the Prime Minister ensure that national security will never again be used for political fundraising?
On the basis of part of that question being within the standing orders and part of it being outside, I will give the Prime Minister the call.
I do thank the member for Holt the question. I appreciate the good work that the member for Holt does in the national security space as the deputy chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence and Security. It was good to go to the Endeavour Hills police station recently with the member for Holt and the member for La Trobe to talk about what we are doing to counter violent extremism and to talk about the good work that both Victoria Police and Australian Federal Police have done there. I think the member for Holt, more than most on the other side of the parliament, appreciates that this government would never knowingly politicise national security.
Opposition members interjecting—
The Prime Minister is answering the question.
I was asked a serious question by a serious member of this parliament and I am attempting to answer it.
Opposition members interjecting—
There will be silence. The Prime Minister is answering the question that has been asked.
The advertisement, the appeal that was put out by the Victorian division of the Liberal Party was put out by that division without any consultation or foreknowledge from me, from my office or from the federal secretariat of the Liberal Party. It should not have been done. It was wrong. It was in poor taste. It was, I suppose, an attempt to take advantage of something which should not be taken advantage of. Certainly the instruction that I have given is that no such use of anything to do with this parliament should ever take place.
My question is to the Minister for Small Business. Will the minister inform the House how the government's budget is helping small businesses to invest, grow and create jobs particularly in my electorate of Tangney.
I thank the member for Tangney, who is doing a great job representing more than 14,000 small businesses and family enterprises in his electorate. And aren't all of the members on this side doing a great job for the enterprising men and women of Australia? That is one of the real take-home messages that the Australian community has from this parliamentary session—who could not be aware of the fantastic Jobs and Small Business package? And what a change it has made for those enterprising men and women—5½ billion dollars worth of support and encouragement, the largest small business package this country has ever seen.
Rather than think of this time of year, as Labor does, as the killing season, we actually think it is the small business season. I tell you what, we actually think there is a reason for every season to be a small business season, because there is so much importance on the success of small business for our economy and the millions of livelihoods that depend on it.
We have seen in that package the lowest small business company tax rate in 50 years, the fantastic instant asset write-off that the Treasurer just spoke about—five days to go of this financial year and still an opportunity to benefit. But unlike Labor, We know that two-thirds of small businesses are not incorporated. We have not forgotten about them like Labor did. We have ensured there is a five per cent discount up to $1,000 for those businesses.
In the member's own electorate, Terry Southam from Southam Automotive Engineering in Williton will be taking advantage of this opportunity. The instant asset write-off has given him the encouragement and the confidence to upgrade the software that allows virtual testing of cars to meet Australian design regulations—another great example.
It has not just been about the budget. This parliamentary session has seen us get on with the job of supporting the job-creating men and women of small business. Obviously there is the budget package. The destruction that Labor inflicted on the employee share schemes, we have fixed that. That has passed through the Senate. That is remedied and that is another opportunity for small business. We have seen introduced for the first time in this country legislation for an Australian small business and family enterprise ombudsman. We have got the food and grocery code of conduct up and going for the first time in our nation's history. We have got unfair contract terms protections for small business. It just keeps going. And we will keep going because we know the men and women of small business are working hard and we are working hard for them.
Over this winter recess, our colleagues will be out there sharing the optimism and the positivity that this government is nurturing. We have got more work to do—the horticulture code, getting in place a crowd source equity funding model. There is a reason every season to get behind small businesses.
I have two requests. Australian consumers, do your bit too. Get behind a local small business. There is no substitute for customers and that is part of it. The other thing is: for those families that have got a Samsung top-loading washing machine, a few of these have caught on fire. In all seriousness, everyone in this place should make sure, if you have got a model starting with SW or Western Australia—they have caused house fires—get them checked out. Use the recall machinery. Get them repaired. That is something worthwhile to do over winter as well.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, I refer to this email produced last night to the Senate inquiry into the Monis letter to the Attorney-General. That email confirms the secretary of the Prime Minister's own department made a call from the Prime Minister's personal office on the evening of Monday 1 June to ensure the Attorney-General's Department corrected false information to the parliament. Prime Minister, given this, why did it take the government until after question time on Thursday 4 June to correct the record?
This matter has been well and truly canvassed in this House over the last few days. But for the benefit of members opposite, who do not appear to have anything better to pursue, let me remind them that the senior official of the Attorney-General's Department gave testimony to Senate estimates early the following week. It was realised that there was a problem with that testimony. There was a thorough review undertaken by the Attorney-General's Department to ascertain what had actually happened in respect of various letters. Subsequently, the results of that review on the Thursday became known to us.
The Attorney and the foreign minister corrected the record at the first available opportunity. Let me go into some—
Madam Speaker, on a point of order on relevance: the question went to the call from the PMO that happened on the Monday and the difference between that and the Thursday.
The Prime Minister has the call.
Once there was a realisation that there was a possible problem with the testimony of the senior officer of the Attorney-General's Department, a thorough review was undertaken. And, as soon as that review had been completed, the record was corrected by the Attorney-General and by the foreign minister.
The relevant matters here are these. First of all, the director-general of ASIO said that the letter from the Martin Place murderer had been handled appropriately. The secretary of my department said that the access to that letter would have made no difference to the inquiry that was conducted by him and the secretary of the Premier's department. Any suggestion coming from members opposite that different treatment of that letter might have averted the Martin Place atrocity is just fanciful.
I am very surprised that members opposite are raising this question of the length of time that it has taken to correct the record because, reluctant though I am to refer to it, no less a person than the Leader of the Opposition himself took two years—two years—to correct the record with Neil Mitchell the other day. He took two years to correct the record with Neil Mitchell the other day.
There was no question of needing to be found out with this government—no question. As soon as we were aware that there had been possibly inaccurate information given to Senate estimates, we took appropriate steps to clarify the situation, and as soon as the situation was clarified the record was corrected—nothing inappropriate, nothing untoward; all in accordance with the best traditions of this parliament.
Madam Speaker, I seek leave to table the email from the Prime Minister's department that says that Michael Thawley rang from the PMO.
Leave not granted.
My question is to the Minister for Communications. I ask the minister to advise the House of the action the government is taking to reduce mobile phone black spots in my electorate of Casey and across Australia, and I further ask that he outline the benefits that will be delivered to outer suburban, rural and regional Australia.
I well remember in 2009, with the honourable member, visiting Steels Creek in the wake of the tragic Black Saturday bushfires and, again, holding a communications forum in Steels Creek in 2013. On each occasion it was obvious, as it is in so many parts of regional, outer suburban and rural Australia, how vital it is that there be mobile phone connectivity for public safety reasons, be it bushfires or floods; for private safety reasons, such as car accidents or farm accidents; and of course to enable people to be connected. In the Howard government we had a proud track record of funding the remediation of mobile phone black spots. In six years of Labor, tens of billions were committed to the National Broadband Network; not one cent was spent on mobile phone black spots.
Thanks to the commitment of $100 million by the Abbott government, and thanks to the extraordinary efforts of my parliamentary secretary, the member for Bradfield, we have been able to announce today that 499 new mobile base stations will be built around Australia. Out of 6,000 black spots that were nominated, 3,000 will be addressed in whole or in part. Three hundred and eighty-five million dollars is mobilised from our funding; from state governments—every state except South Australia contributed; from Telstra and Vodafone; and from local governments.
There has never been as big a telecom bang for the buck as we have seen here, right across Australia. This has been a very, very big result, and I should make this observation: mobile signals are no respecters of electorate boundaries. There are a number of electorates—I think of the member for Hinkler's seat, for example—where there is no base station being funded within that seat, but a large part of the black spot problem is being addressed from connectivity from a base station across the electoral boundary. So the benefits of this go well beyond the electorates that actually have the base stations being built.
But there is more. From 1 July 2016, for two years, there will be another $60 million, so those black spots that missed out on being remediated this time will be back into the mix. We will continue this proud Liberal-Nationals tradition of ensuring that people in regional and rural Australia get equality of treatment in connectivity and, above all, that we address those inequities in telecommunications that Labor so shamefully neglected.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Why did the Prime Minister promise 'no cuts to health' the night before the election and then cut $50 billion from hospitals after the election?
There is no truth whatsoever in the Leader of the Opposition's assertion. I fear he has been as truthful with the parliament today as he was with Neil Mitchell a couple of years ago. But, for the benefit of the Leader of the Opposition and members opposite, let me repeat: over the next four years, there will be a 25 per cent increase in public hospital funding—a 25 per cent increase in public hospital funding. Public hospital funding will be $3.8 billion more over the next four years.
If the Leader of the Opposition is serious, if he seriously thinks that there has been a $50 billion cut to public hospitals, I have a very simple challenge to him: put the money back. If he seriously believes that $50 billion has been cut out of public hospital funding, if he seriously believes that public hospitals are going to be $50 billion short, there is only one thing that in conscience he can do: put the money back. If he is not prepared to put the money back, this line of questioning is simply fraudulent.
And yet again we see a Leader of the Opposition, and an opposition more generally, which is simply floundering. They are simply floundering. They do not know what they believe in. They do not know where they stand. And over the last couple of weeks they have been outdone, when it comes to fiscal responsibility, by the Greens. I do hope, as we go into the winter recess, that members opposite will have a long, hard look at themselves and repledge themselves to being a responsible political party, not just on national security but also on economic security, because this country needs responsible opposition. This country needs a responsible Labor Party. This country needs a Labor Party in the best tradition of Hawke and Keating, but that is not what we have got now.
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister update the House on steps the government is taking internationally to starve terrorist organisations like Daesh of the funds that they need to wage their war of terror?
I thank the member for his question and for his concern about this very serious issue. The government is taking strong action internationally, and at home, to starve organisations such as Daesh of the support it seeks to carry out terrorist attacks. To fund its campaign of violence, Daesh engages in nefarious activities, including kidnapping for ransom, establishing fake charities, drug and human trafficking, looting banks and museums, and smuggling oil and gas from Syria and Iraq. We believe that Daesh has income streams of millions of dollars from its transnational criminal activities. In the last 12 months it has raised up to $60 million from ransom payments for kidnap victims and tens of millions of dollars more from selling stolen antiquities.
Australia is taking a lead role internationally to protect the integrity of international financial systems and to starve terrorist groups of funds. During the term of our presidency of the global Financial Action Task Force, which ends on 30 June, Australia has advocated for strong and effective measures to combat terrorist financing. The 180 international members of the task force, and related organisations, are meeting this week in Brisbane, with terrorist financing a key agenda item. Australia is also an active member of the anti-Daesh coalition's counter-terrorism financing group, which establishes ways for coalition members to disrupt key areas of Daesh's economic activities.
At the UN, we have cosponsored UN Security Council resolutions 2199 and 2178, which provide a range of tools, including sanctions and other binding measures, to degrade terrorists' financial networks and deny them funds. At home, we have a targeted sanctions regime listing 93 persons and entities. This makes it a serious criminal office under Australian law to provide the likes of Mohamed Elomar, Khaled Sharrouf and Neil Christopher Prakash with financial or material support or to deal with their assets. Under the government's $630 million counter-terrorism package $20 million has been provided for Austrac, our financial monitoring agency, to develop a new intelligence team to improve our efforts to detect terrorist financing. Austrac is working closely with our security agencies, the financial sector, NGOs and other charities to monitor financial transactions to prevent foreign fighters receiving the financial support that they would otherwise need.
While there is more to do, we are disrupting the flows of funds to Daesh, we are weakening their financial support and we are weakening this brutal regime. The government will continue to take all steps necessary to starve terrorists of finances, to starve terrorists of foreign fighters and to keep Australians safe.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Why did the Prime Minister promise no cuts to education the night before the election and then cut $30 billion from schools?
The government has done no such thing. As the minister for education has made clear again and again in this parliament over the last few days, every year school education goes up and up. It goes up eight per cent this year, it goes up eight per cent next year, it goes up six per cent the year after that and it goes up four per cent in the final year of the forward estimates. It is true that the former Rudd-Gillard government made a whole lot of pie-in-the-sky promises that were never funded, that were never in the budget forward estimates and that could never be paid for. Going into the 2013 election, this government made it absolutely crystal clear that we supported the commitments that the former government had made for the then forward estimates only.
Mr Husic interjecting—
The member for Chifley.
And we made no guarantees whatsoever beyond the forward estimates except this: that we would ensure that we had the best possible public schools and public hospitals. But unlike members opposite, we do not think that it is all about money. That is the problem with members opposite. They think that it is only about money.
Ms O'Neil interjecting—
The member for Hotham is warned.
They think that money is the answer to every problem. And because members opposite think that money is the answer to every problem, they were driving this country into an unsustainable budget situation. They were saddling our children and our grandchildren with unsustainable debt. It was intergenerational theft that they were practicing against our country's future. We will not do that. Not for a second will we do that. We will deliver better schools and public hospitals, but we will do it not just with more money—although there will be more money. We will do it through better structures. We will do it through independent public schools. We will do it through community controlled public hospitals. We are absolutely committed to better public schools and better public hospitals. Unlike members opposite, we will do it in a sustainable way. I have one final point I want to make in response to the member for Newcastle.
An opposition member: This will be deep.
It may not be deep, but it will be important. If the member seriously believes that somehow public schools have been short-changed by $30 billion, she must insist that her leader put that money back and not fob her off with lies, the way he treated Neil Mitchell.
My question is to the Acting Minister for Employment. Will the minister update the House on the importance of ensuring fair and lawful workplaces? Are there any threats to the government's approach?
I thank the member for Longman for his question. It is a very important question. Obviously we on this side of the House—and I am sure those on the other side of the House—are following closely the evidence that is being adduced in the royal commission into trade union corruption. We have ever since we have been in government—
Mr Champion interjecting—
The member for Wakefield will leave under standing order 94(a).
The member for Wakefield then left the chamber.
trying to put in place the architecture that will support honest union leaders and ensure that dishonest union leaders are brought to justice.
Opposition members interjecting—
There will be silence!
We are doing that through the Registered Organisations Commission and through the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
Madam Speaker—
This could not be more relevant, Madam Speaker, so I am not sure what point of order he could possibly make.
The minister will resume his seat. The member for Grayndler on a point of order.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I make the point that the member for Wakefield is the 400th person to be thrown out. He is the Brian Lara of this parliament.
The member will resume his seat. I remind the member for Grayndler that this parliament has only 150 members but you have a lot of recalcitrant offenders. I call the honourable minister.
The Leader of the Opposition has done a lot of correcting the record this week—a lot of correcting the record today and yesterday. It is very important that witnesses in the royal commission are entirely truthful with Dyson Heydon about what they knew and when about the scandal that is embroiling the Australian Workers Union. That applies to all the witnesses—
The minister will resume his seat. The member for Perth on a point of order.
Madam Speaker, I wish to raise the point of sub judice in relation to royal commissions. It is quite clear that members are entitled under the convention to refer to the evidence at a concurrent royal commission but what is equally clear is that it is entirely inappropriate for any construction to be drawn on that evidence. There is an important reason for that. That is in fact to protect the integrity of the royal commission.
The member has made her point. I have ruled on this point previously.
Opposition members interjecting—
There will be silence. The sub judice rule does not apply in this case. Indeed, I follow the ruling of the former Speaker in 1995 who dealt with these issues, Speaker Martin. I call the minister.
Madam Speaker—
No. The member will resume her seat. This is not a debate.
It is very important obviously that all witnesses give truthful evidence and correct the record when they appear at the royal commission. The Leader of the Opposition has indicated that he wishes to do just that on 8 July when he appears at the royal commission. He wants to correct the record. He has also tried to correct the record this week about his lie on Neil Mitchell, which he has explained as a lie, which occurred on 21 June 2013. There is another record that he needs to correct. Ten months after the Neil Mitchell interview, 10 months after the coup that removed Julia Gillard, the Leader of the Opposition appeared on the Ben Fordham 2GB program.
The member for Grayndler on a point of order.
Relevance, Madam Speaker.
The member will resume his seat. The minister has the call.
Everybody should be truthful before the royal commission. A lack of truthfulness presents a threat to the government's agenda. I was asked about threats to the government's agenda, Madam Speaker. On the Ben Fordham program Ben Fordham said to him:
Considering that this is all history now, are you willing to admit that you did give your word to Rudd supporters a week before the coup?
Bill Shorten said:
On June the 19th I hadn't changed camps.
We know that is not true. Ben Fordham asked, 'You hadn't?' And Bill said no. The reality is that is just as bad a lie to Ben Fordham on 2GB as the lie he told to Neil Mitchell on 3AW. It behoves the Leader of the Opposition to correct the record, to ring Ben Fordham and apologise to him and all of his listeners for lying. If Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard could not trust the Leader of the Opposition and if Neil Mitchell and Ben Fordham could not trust the Leader of the Opposition, why should the Australian people trust him on election day next year? The reality is that the Leader of the Opposition is a dead political duck.
My question is to the Prime Minister. For over a year the Prime Minister has pretended that he has not cut $80 billion from Australian schools and hospitals despite it being written in his budget papers. This week the New South Wales Liberal Treasurer described these cuts as 'a cut to growth funding which is substantially a cut to the budget—no doubt about that'. When will the Prime Minister finally admit that he has cut $80 billion from our schools and hospitals?
Honourable members interjecting—
The question has been asked. The Prime Minister will have the call and he will be heard in silence with no more caterwauling.
The money that the Leader of the Opposition claims was somehow cut from school and hospital budgets was never included in any forward estimates under the former Labor government. This was not money that the former Labor government ever put into any budget. The former Labor government never put this money into any budget. This government said, when in opposition, that we would entirely keep the commitments that the former government had made over the forward estimates but that we were not going to be bound by any statements that the former government had made beyond the forward estimates, because, as we made clear again and again before the election—as indeed we were attacked by members opposite again and again. Before the election we made it clear that beyond the forward estimates this was just pie in the sky. It did not exist. It was a myth. It was a fantasy. Because the members opposite did not have the money, they could not afford to spend it. It simply did not exist. It was a fantasy of the first order. We were absolutely up front before the last election. We said we would honour Labor's commitments in the forward estimates but would never be bound by pie-in-the-sky promises beyond the forward estimates.
We have absolutely honoured that undertaking. Every year school and hospital funding goes up under this government. It will go up by 28 per cent over the forward estimates for schools; it will go up by 25 per cent over the forward estimates for hospitals. Every year it goes up and up. The only thing that goes down and down is the credibility of the opposition—the credibility of an opposition leader who has been caught out again and again and who is now absolutely floundering. I have one piece of advice for the Leader of the Opposition as he ponders his own performance over the recess: to try to be as responsible on economic security as he mostly is on national security. That is my advice. That would be honouring the best traditions of his party. That would be doing the best thing by his own party right now. Is he up to it? We will find out. I hope for our country's sake and his party's sake he is.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
I present the Presiding Officer's report to the parliament on the Parliament House building conditions summary for June 2015.
For the information of honourable members I present a schedule of outstanding government responses to reports of House of Representatives and joint committees, incorporating reports tabled and details of government responses made in the period between 4 December 2014, the date of the last schedule, and 24 June 2015. Copies of the schedule are being made available to honourable members and will be incorporated into Hansard.
The document read as follows—
THE SPEAKER ' S SCHEDULE OF
OUTSTANDING GOVERNMENT RESPONSES
TO REPORTS OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND
JOINT COMMITTEES
(also incorporating reports tabled and details of Government responses made in the period between
4 December 2014, the date of the last schedule, and 24 June 2015)
25 June 2015
THE SPEAKER ' S SCHEDULE OF OUTSTANDING GOVERNMENT RESPONSES
TO COMMITTEE REPORTS
The attached schedule lists committee reports tabled and government responses to House and joint committee reports made since the last schedule was presented on 4 December 2014. It also lists reports for which the House has not received a government response. Schedules of outstanding responses will continue to be presented at approximately six monthly intervals, generally in the last sitting weeks of the winter and spring sittings.
The schedule does not include advisory reports on bills introduced into the House of Representatives unless the reports make recommendations which are wider than the provisions of the bills and which could be the subject of a government response. The Government's response to these reports is apparent in the resumption of consideration of the relevant legislation by the House. Also not included are reports from the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, the House of Representatives Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests, and the Publications Committee (other than reports on inquiries). Reports from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights are only listed where the committee has examined and reported on a specific item(s) of existing legislation. Not listed are that committee's regular reports on the human rights compatibility of bills and legislative instruments that come before either House of Parliament.
Government responses to reports of the Public Works Committee are usually reflected in motions for the approval of works after the relevant report has been presented and considered. Reports from other committees which do not include recommendations are only included when first tabled.
Reports of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit primarily make administrative recommendations but may make policy recommendations. A government response is required in respect of such policy recommendations made by the committee. Responses to administrative recommendations are made in the form of an Executive Minute provided to, and subsequently tabled by, the committee. Agencies responding to administrative recommendations are required to provide an Executive Minute within six months of the tabling of a report.
25 June 2015
Notes
______________
1 The date of tabling is the date the report was presented to the House of Representatives or to the Speaker, whichever is earlier. In the case of joint committees, the date shown is the date of first presentation to either the House or the Senate or to the President or Speaker (if presented earlier out of session). Reports published when the House (or Houses) are not sitting are tabled at a later date.
2 If the source for the government response date is not the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives or the Journals of the Senate, the source is shown in an endnote.
3 For reports up to the end of 42nd Parliament, the time specified is three months from the date of tabling. While the Government has undertaken to continue to respond to reports within three months, from the 43rd Parliament (28 September 2010 onwards) the period within which the House requires a response is six months—see resolution of the House of Representatives of 29 September 2010. This resolution also puts in place additional steps for reports not responded to within that six month period. The period from when the 43rd Parliament was prorogued on 5 August 2013 and the commencement of the 44th Parliament on 12 November 2013 is not included in the response period.
4 In correspondence dated 22 December 2014, the Minister for Communications wrote to the committee in relation to the report, advising that since the report was first tabled many of the issues raised and the recommendations contained in the report have been addressed, implemented or superseded by the advent of new technologies and government policies. Accordingly, the committee no longer expects a response to this report. A copy of the correspondence has been made available on the committee's website. This listing will be removed from the next schedule.
5 In correspondence dated 22 December 2014, the Minister for Communications wrote to the committee in relation to the report, advising that since the report was first tabled many of the issues raised and the recommendations contained in the report have been addressed, implemented or superseded by the advent of new technologies and government policies. Accordingly, the committee no longer expects a response to this report. A copy of the correspondence has been made available on the committee's website. This listing will be removed from the next schedule.
6 Since July 2011 the Government has advised that it does not intend to respond to the report because of the time elapsed since the report was tabled. The committee no longer expects a response to this report. This listing will be removed from the next schedule.
7 Since December 2013 the Government has advised that it does not intend to respond to the report because of the time elapsed since the report was tabled. The committee no longer expects a response to this report. This listing will be removed from the next schedule.
8 In December 2013 the Government advised that it did not intend to respond to the report as this matter is being considered as part of the Government's Financial System Inquiry. Since December 2014 the Government has advised that it does not intend to respond to the report because of the time elapsed since the report was tabled. The committee no longer expects a response to this report. This listing will be removed from the next schedule.
9 Since December 2014 the Government has advised that it does not intend to respond to the report because of the time elapsed since the report was tabled. The committee no longer expects a response to this report. This listing will be removed from the next schedule.
10 A response to this report is no longer expected, as the issues covered in the report have been superseded by Queensland State policy. This listing will be removed from the next schedule.
11 The committee still awaits a response to this report.
12 Since December 2014 the Government has advised that the need for a response was overtaken by legislation introduced by the previous Government and passed by the previous Parliament.
13 On 7 February 2012 the Government provided a statement regarding the reasons for the delay in presenting the response, in accordance with the House resolution of 29 September 2010 on government responses to committee reports. The Government advised that the 37 recommendations required detailed consideration and analysis, and that as an interim response to the report, and to progress the priority measures, the Government intended to introduce legislation in the 2012 Autumn sittings. Since December 2014 the Government has advised that given the passage of time and the change of government, the Government does not intend to respond to the report.
14 Since December 2014 the Government has advised that given the passage of time and the change of government, the Government does not intend to respond to the report.
15 Since December 2014 the Government has advised that given the passage of time and the change of government, the Government does not intend to respond to the report.
16 In June 2009 the Government advised that it did not intend to respond formally to this report. In November 2009 the Government indicated a response was being considered and would be tabled in due course. In November 2011 and December 2013 the Government indicated it was in discussion with the committee on this matter. In July 2014 the Government advised that the Independent Contractors Act 2006 was assented to on 1 December 2006 and that the Government's response was covered during debate on the Bill. The committee has not agreed to the removal of this report from the schedule.
17 On 22 June 2015, during debate on the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015, the Senate noted that the Government has not responded to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications report on its inquiry into information technology pricing.
18 In December 2014 the Government advised that it will not be tabling a response to this report and commented that the committee's report was effectively responded to by the enactment of the Coastal Shipping (Revitalising Australian Shipping) Act 2012 under the previous Government. The Government indicated that it is considering options to improve regulation of Australian shipping.
19 In the Advisory report on the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014, presented on 27 February 2015, in addition to recommendations relating to the bill, the committee recommended that the Government provide a response to the outstanding recommendations from the committee's 2013 Report of the Inquiry into Potential Reforms of Australia's National Security Legislation by 1 July 2015. On 24 June 2015, in the Government's response to the previous schedule dated 4 December 2014, the Government indicated that it intended to respond to the outstanding recommendations to this report by 1 July 2015.
20 Reviews of this nature containing a standard recommendation in relation to the listing do not typically require a response. However, the Government tabled a response to this report on 12 May 2015.
21 Reviews of this nature containing a standard recommendation in relation to the listing do not typically require a response. However, the Government tabled a response to this report on 12 May 2015.
22 The Committee has resolved that a government response to this report is no longer required. The listing will be removed from the next schedule.
23 On 4 December 2014 the Government provided an interim response to the report, advising that the committee's report is informing the Government's White Paper, which is being prepared. The White Paper will set out a clear and well defined policy platform for unlocking the full potential of the north, including actions through to 2030. The Government indicated that it will respond to the committee's specific recommendations through the White Paper. On 18 June 2015 the Government released the White Paper on Developing Northern Australia: Our North, Our Future.
24 The Australian National Audit Office has responded by Executive Minute.
25 On 14 July 2014 the Government advised the committee that on 25 June 2014 it announced funding for the National FASD Action Plan, and that the plan would form the basis of the formal response to the inquiry. The committee still awaits a response to recommendations of the report.
I present the following Auditor-General's performance audits for 2014-15: No. 51, Administration of capital gains tax for individual and small business taxpayers and No. 52, Australian Defence Force’s medium and heavy vehicle fleet replacement (Land 121 Phase 3B).
Ordered that the reports be made a parliamentary papers.
Documents are presented as listed in the schedule circulated to honourable members. Details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
I move:
That leave of absence be given to every member of the House of Representatives from the determination of this sitting of the House to the date of its next sitting.
Question agreed to.
I have received a letter from the honourable Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The Prime Minister's failure to deliver on his promises to the Australian people.
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—
Another question time and again no answers—another day like every day under the Abbott government. New Liberal lies—new Liberal lows. Every day we see the quality of the parliament and the debasement of the government of Australia continue downwards. There will be six weeks away from this place when we will all have the opportunity to be amongst the Australian people. But we know what the Liberals will be up to. We know that those opposite will continue their trademark politics of fear and smear. We know that the bar is never too low for those who sit opposite. Look at their form in Victoria. Never in my wildest imagination did I imagine that the Liberal Party of Australia or any of its divisions would stoop so low, crawl so low, as to be raising money on the back of national security fear. Frankly, the Prime Minister gave an unsatisfactory answer. He said that of course one would go down to ASIO for briefings—probably true; of course that may be true—but he could never explain why he needed a TV camera in tow. When the opposition legitimately questioned him on these matters, he said it was an attack on ASIO. This man is addicted to wrapping the flag of patriotism around him and then saying no-one has the right to ever question the judgements of this government on that basis.
We know that every dirty trick will be played by this government, by this Prime Minister, in the next 12 months. They will keep going on the low road of character assassination. They will stick with the same bullying, the same base politics of division and suspicion. The last day of this sitting fortnight has been typical of every day under this government. This government and Mr Abbott will say anything to get your vote. They will say anything; they will do anything; they will promise everything. But his words mean nothing. His promises mean nothing. Let me tell the government and Mr Abbott about this. If he wants to lecture us about lying, if he wants to keep on talking about keeping promises, if he wants to make the next election about trust, he should have a go—give it a try. Bring it on.
Today Mr Abbott postured in question time, in the style which only he thinks befits a Prime Minister of this country, with his faux indignation and finger wagging, about an interview I did with Neil Mitchell two years ago. As I have said more than a couple of times, I made a mistake and I regret it. I did, though, what Tony Abbott is incapable doing. I have apologised. Tony Abbott has never apologised for the lies he told the Australian people. He has never apologised for the fraud he perpetrated on millions of hardworking people who trusted him with their vote. He never apologised for saying, on the eve of the election, right down the barrel of a camera—probably capable of tricking even polygraph—'no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts or changes to the pension, no cuts to the ABC or SBS'. That is five broken promises in 10 seconds—one lie every two seconds.
The problem is that Mr Abbott's lies have real consequences for all Australians. His lies are hurting people every day— $30 billion cut from schools and $50 billion cut from hospitals. Once and for all, will the government finally acknowledge the authorship of their own budget papers which demonstrate the change in their spending profiles and the cuts behind them? This Prime Minister thinks that Australians are as silly as some of the people who backed him in his parliamentary party. The truth is in black and white, green and blue. He has hurt 300,000 pensioners in this last sitting week—people on modest incomes. He talks about some people who get $30 a fortnight being better off. But he presses the 'delete' button at that point. He never mentions 330,000 pensioners who are having their pensions cut. He said before the election, 'no cuts to pensions'. But 330,000 people are going to have their pensions cut. He says that because it does not happen until a certain date it is not really a broken promise. This man has too many excuses and not enough truth in his election promises. He has frozen the superannuation of 8.4 million Australians. He said that there are no adverse consequences that they would administer on superannuation, but he has frozen superannuation for 3.5 million low-paid Australians. He has taken away their tax support for the superannuation contributions they make. But it goes further than that.
The Prime Minister for Indigenous matters has cut half a billion dollars from Aboriginal services. The Prime Minister for women has cut $270 million from community services, including counselling for the victims of family violence. And we know this is just the beginning. This is a most miraculous government. They get their public servants, paid by taxpayers, working for months to talk to other senior officers all around the country. They prepare a federation green paper, and then they say, 'It's just a sensible discussion'. Prime Minister, there is nothing sensible about an option which says you will take every dollar out of public hospital funding. Prime Minister, there is nothing sensible about cutting the 15-hour minimum per week guarantee to four-year-olds. There is nothing sensible about means testing public schools and the parents who use public schools.
The Prime Minister has form on this. Before the last election he said there would be no cuts to health. In fact, he continued to say it all around the streets of Brisbane, before the Griffith by-election, when he said of his GP tax on the sick and the vulnerable: 'nothing has been proposed and nothing has been considered.' Nothing has been considered, nothing has been proposed and nothing is planned. Mr Abbott's pattern is the same: all things to all people before an election; afterwards, 'Please don't bother me. I'm about to break my promises.' I know what the next six weeks will be like with the government members. They will get out there and they will whip up fear. They will whip up smear. They will make it such that Australians feel more worried about their future than they even should be. Indeed, this is a government who is obsessed with the opposition. They do not want to stand up for Australia and fight for a vision of the future. The Prime Minister is never any happier than when he is attacking us. But he is never more unhappy than when he actually has to run the government in the interests of the Australian people. They are fixated on the past. They are spending $80 million of taxpayer money trying to denigrate the reputation of the union movement. They are trying to turn baseless allegations into a headline.
On this subject, let me say to the most appalling Acting Minister for Employment that this Commonwealth has ever had the misfortune to have serve in that position. He has said more than once in recent weeks of my time in the AWU representing working people, 'He was there for the good times in Beaconsfield'. He has implied that somehow Beaconsfield was a good time. Well, Christopher Pyne, I was at Beaconsfield. A man died and two men were trapped for 14 days not knowing whether they would be rescued. For the first five days their families did not know if they were alive and, for the next nine days, ordinary men dug through hard rock to rescue them. It was a remarkable effort by hundreds of people. Their families went to hell and back. And Christopher Pyne is so out of touch that he says they were the 'good times'? How dare you, Christopher Pyne. You are not fit to tie the shoelaces of those people in that rescue.
I say to the Prime Minister and to the government: we will never apologise for standing up and giving service to working people. Every day you talk about Labor, every day you talk about me, every day you look back to yesterday, is another day that confirms you have nothing to say about the future. You have nothing to say about Australians, their concerns, their priorities and, indeed, the future of this country. Labor is better than that. It lasted a day. We saw the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection getting back into the gutter with his interjections and mindless contributions. Yesterday we were his best friends because they needed Labor to do the right thing for the nation. But these people have short memories, as I predicted yesterday. But we are different. We will support budget measures that we think are in the best interests of the nation. We will not be mindlessly negative, as this Prime Minister made his trademark of opposition. We are interested in the Australia of the future and setting up Australia for the future. That means making sure that there are jobs and skills for the workforce of the future and our young people of today. We want great schools and yes, we want great coding in our schools. We want proper funding for our hospitals—not these rubbishy federation green papers which you propose, with your madcap options. And we want universal Medicare. Australians are sick of you trying to wreck the Medicare system. We want accessible and affordable universities, not $100,000 degrees. We will fight youth unemployment and we will back TAFE all the way—training and apprenticeships. We believe in a fair pension and we believe in strong superannuation.
In the next six weeks we will outline our positive agenda. You can play your cheap political games all you like. You can take the low road, you can do your very worst. But we will see you off. We will not only endure; we will most certainly prevail.
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his contribution. I wanted to touch on eight notable matters that have occurred in the last two weeks. They have been a very busy last two weeks. I have only got time for eight, but bear with me and you will get them all in due course.
The first of them is that last Wednesday the Senate saw passage of the budget tax messages which will provide $3.3 billion worth of improvement to Australia's budgetary position. Second, two days ago there was $3.5 billion worth of budgetary repair measures moved through the social services amending legislation. Third, yesterday there was the passage of an instrument that restores the biannual petrol indexation. That improves the budget bottom line over five years to the tune of $3.36 billion. Fourth, last Monday the small business package was passed. Two million small businesses will benefit from $5.5 billion worth of expenditure to supercharge their organisations, their growth and their employment.
Fifth, last Tuesday we secured the Senate's support for pension reforms. 170,000 pensioners with modest means will be better off; members opposite was voted against that. Six, on Wednesday we signed the FTA with China. We now have, due to the heroic efforts of the Minister for Trade and Investment, three major FTAs landed with our three major trading partners. That will add billions of dollars to the Australian economy and create thousands and thousands of jobs. Seventh, the thoroughly critical legislation that allows for the removal of citizenship from dual nationals who betray the Australian nation has been introduced and debated in this place. Eighth, on Thursday the white paper on northern development was tabled. It has an incredible range of recommendations for the development and growth of Northern Australia.
Those eight things alone mark out a really rather exceptional fortnight for this government. The reality is the reason why members opposite are so desperate to talk about press conferences is because without question, in my independent and fair-minded observation, this has been the strongest two weeks for this government since we were elected, which just happened to coincide—as sometimes in politics these things too—with without question the weakest two weeks that you have suffered as an opposition. Any independent, fair-minded observer would have to realise that that is the case. The topic of this MPI was talking about a failure to deliver on promises. I will give you a fair go: I will not merely compare the whole time that we have been in government with your previous government, I will back our last two weeks against your previous six years.
I will start with a very scholarly contribution that was made on The Killing Season program. I will not go into the contributions of members opposite. They speak for themselves. There was one very scholarly contribution to that show. That was by a former member of the UK Labour Party from 1992 to 2010, Mr Alan Milburn. This is not a Tory. This is a former member of the Labour Party, a comrade of yours from the United Kingdom. He said:
The hard question that the Australian Labor Party has to ask itself is this: How is it possible that you win an election in November 2007 on the scale that you do, with the goodwill that you have, with the permission that you’re gifted by the public, and you manage to lose all that goodwill, to trash the permission, and to find yourself out of office within just six years?
He went on to say:
I’ve never seen anything quite like it in any country, anywhere, anytime, in any part of the world. No one can escape blame for that, in my view.
Ouch. That is a scathing condemnation. That is a comrade of yours from the UK Labour Party saying this: you were the worst government over six years that he had ever seen in any country, at anytime, anywhere in the world. Unless you were the best at something!
Why is it that that fair-minded, independent observer would make those comments? Why is it? What was it that the Labor Party achieved in six years in office? In two weeks, we have achieved fiscal consolidation through this parliament to the tune of $14 billion. What did you achieve in six years? Over six budgets, the Labor government increased government spending in Australia by a staggering $137 billion. That is a 50 per cent increase in the size of government spending. It was a staggering $137 billion. Right now, the fastest growing bill that we are experiencing as a government is the interest bill on the debt that you left. It is an interest bill that was zero when you took office and which you ramped up to $13.5 billion a year. As said by the PBO, if you just continue the trajectory of payments and revenues prior to the budget—that is, if you continued the Labor trajectory—you would have the highest rate of debt growth in the OECD.
How is it that you go from zero to $13.5 billion worth of interest in a year on borrowings? It takes some imagination, it takes some effort and it takes some unbelievable waste. You can send $900 checks to deceased Australians. That will help get you there. You can lose complete control of your border protection, which not only costs lives but also costs $6.6 billion in taxpayer money above and beyond that which was routinely budgeted for. You can have an NBN which blows out by a staggering $29 billion. You can spend $69 million advertising the carbon tax. You can even be forced into a situation where you assassinate Prime Minister and have to pay out his staff, who also find themselves without jobs, to the tune of $1.3 million. We and the Australian people are supposed to believe that we can trust you and we can believe you that you will bring this country back to surplus?
In the big year of ideas, Labor has had two ideas so far. They are both taxes. One of them is with respect to multinationals, which is already adequately covered in this budget, and the other is with respect to superannuation—yes, it is an idea. It is an idea about tax and it is a terrible idea. There have been two ideas in the year of ideas. I have got a prediction for you. We have not yet reached peak oil. I do not think we are anywhere near it. In the hipster movement, I doubt that we have yet reached peak beard. But what I can tell you is: halfway through this year, we have reached peak idea for the Labor Party. We have hit peak idea, six months through the year. You are halfway there, and two ideas in a year? What a staggeringly good effort! There are some absolute gems from the Leader of the Opposition. When he was pressed about the year of ideas, in an interview, we got this amazing level of detail:
Today, I say very clearly, Labor will support reform which is fair. Labor will fight reform which is unfair.
That is very, very helpful, isn't it! Let me give you this description. The light bulb is an idea. The saying 'Let there be light' is just a motherhood statement. They are two very different things. When pressed again, in an interview, to describe what the ideas are, one idea was described as:
… to have a growing economy, which is fundamental to our future, we've got to make sure that we don't leave people behind.
That is not an idea. That is a motherhood statement. Quote:
… rather than cut pension increases, we should encourage Australians to save for themselves for the future. These are big ideas.
And yet we are encouraging Australians to save for themselves for the future by taxing the hell out of their superannuation? Not only is it not an idea; it is a motherhood statement that is inconsistent with one of the only ideas for the year. When we look at all of this, we are meant to believe that members opposite are going to, with a plan, get us back to surplus. One of the very sensible contributions that members opposite have made was that of the shadow Treasurer in outlining Labor's fiscal policy approach to the National Press Club last year. He said this:
Let me be clear. There are medium and long term challenges in our budget. They are real.
Okay. Thank you. He said:
We will go to the next election with an alternative vision for the nation …
He said:
Labor does not necessarily object to the quantum of fiscal consolidation in this budget.
He was talking about our first budget. In other words, they consider that you have to make similar savings to those which we proposed. But the thing is: their savings are a secret. Even in the year of ideas, we are not there yet. (Time expired)
The Prime Minister argued, during the republic debate, that you cannot trust politicians. In 2010 he told Kerry O'Brien on The 7.30 Report that Australians should not take anything he says as 'gospel truth' unless it is 'carefully prepared, scripted remarks'. Thanks for the warning. Australians have certainly learned that they cannot trust this Prime Minister and they cannot believe what he says, whether scripted or unscripted. He has broken so many promises—so many times he has done the exact opposite of what he said he would do before the election—he has lowered the bar to such a degree, that it is no longer remarkable and there are no longer any consequences. 'No surprises, no excuses,' he said. Well, it is not a surprise when he lies. He does not even bother trying to make excuses anymore. He said, 'No cuts to education.' Schools have been cut by $30 billion. He said, 'No cuts to health.' Hospitals were cut by $50 billion in the first budget alone. He said, 'No change to pensions,' and they went after full-rate pensioners and then after part-rate pensioners.
But saying that the Prime Minister has broken promises is too kind. I think he deliberately lied before the election because he knew he could not do what he said he would do—no cuts, no new taxes and bring the budget back to surplus faster. Those three things simply do not go together. He knew that he could not keep the promises that he made. The cynicism of the government is beyond belief. They will say anything, they will do anything, for political gain. While Labor was this week working with the government, in a bipartisan fashion, on national security, what was the Prime Minister doing? He was dragging the cameras through ASIO headquarters, for political gain. And what else was he doing? For political gain, for a Liberal Party fundraiser, sending out messages on the back of the national security legislation that Labor is working with the government on. It is unbelievable—using ASIO as a backdrop for a photo opportunity and using national security as a cash generator for the Liberal Party of Australia.
The Prime Minister is demanding bipartisanship from Labor on national security at the same time as we find leaked question time briefs showing that the national security proposals that the government is making were nothing about national security but all about politics. But we are used to it from this Prime Minister—the Minister for Women who thinks Australian women are 'housewives doing the ironing', the Minister for Women who thinks that a woman going on maternity leave is the same as a bloke going on holidays, the Minister for Women who says, 'I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons,' the Minister for Women who says that a woman's right to say no to sex should be 'moderated' and the Minister for Women who saw nothing wrong with posing with signs calling Australia's Prime Minister a witch and a bitch. This is the so-called Prime Minister for Aboriginal affairs who said that Australia was 'unsettled' before 1788. This is the man who now says marriage equality is an 'important issue', after previously saying it was the 'fashion of the moment' and also saying that he was 'a bit threatened' by homosexuality. He is the man who will not let government MPs have a free vote on marriage equality, who remains the single obstacle to the achievement of marriage equality in this nation.
But it is not just the cynicism, the sexism, the insults to Australia's values, the insults to the intelligence of Australians, the broken promises. All of these things make the Prime Minister unfit to lead this nation. But it is even worse. It is the damage that he is doing every day through the decisions that are being made. It is the half-billion dollars cut from Indigenous programs by this so-called Prime Minister for Aboriginal affairs. It is the cuts to maternity leave by this so-called Minister for Women. It is the funding chaos for legal centres, which help women escaping domestic violence. It is wage growth stalling, debt doubling, taxes up, unemployment up. It is cuts to schools and hospitals that even Liberal-run states say are 'unsustainable'. It is higher prices at the chemist and the GP. It is the $100,000 university degrees. Australians deserves better than being lied to by this Prime Minister. They deserve better than his cynicism, and they certainly deserve better than the trashing of this country we have seen from this man.
I find it extraordinary that the Leader of the Opposition would bring this MPI to this parliament on the very day that he has had to front up to the Australian people and say that he lied to Neil Mitchell, that he lied to Ben Fordham and, through them, that he lied to the Australian people about the political assassination of Julia Gillard, something that we always knew he was up to his neck with. Today he has come clean. Today, two years after the date, he has fessed up that he was the key part of the bringing down of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister just as he was a few years earlier he key part of the bringing down of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. On this very day when he self-confessed he lied to the Australian people on one of the most brutal things that has occurred in Australian political history, he brings to this parliament a motion condemning us for our supposed broken promises?
I find it absolutely extraordinary, Mr Deputy Streaker—
Deputy Streaker!
Mr Deputy Speaker! And then we had the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Tanya Plibersek, very proudly being the second speaker, strutting her stuff because she knows the Leader of the Opposition is under intense pressure for his leadership. Yes, Kevin Rudd, the man that he politically assassinated, made it so much harder to get rid of Labor leaders, but it will not be hard enough. That is my prediction. Yes, it now requires 60 per cent of the caucus rather than 50 per cent of the caucus to get rid of their leader; but, believe you me, if they can get rid of a first-term prime minister and they can get rid of a second-term prime minister, they can easily get rid of an opposition leader even if it requires 60 per cent of the caucus.
My colleague the other parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister very neatly outlined exactly what we have achieved just in two weeks alone—incredible accomplishments. But the nature of this MPI is that it calls for us to describe the promises that we have delivered to the Australian people. I would like to take us back to what we committed to the Australian people before the last election. There were five key commitments that we said until we were blue in the face, and in some respects people were sick to death of us saying these five commitments. I am sure the members of the gallery will recognise them.
First of all, we said that we would build a stronger economy so that everyone could get ahead. We now have some of the fastest growth in the OECD. We have jobs growth which is four times higher. We have retail sales up. We have almost record levels of residential housing approval. We have confidence up. We have consumer and corporate confidence up.
The second thing we said we would do—everyone remembers this one—is scrap the carbon tax so that everybody would be $550 better off, and indeed we have done exactly that.
We then said that we would get the budget back under control by ending Labor's waste, and indeed that is also exactly what we are doing. Eighteen months down the track, we have halved the debt trajectory given to us by the Labor Party. We have scrapped Labor's waste—no more $900 cheques to dead people from the Australian government, and there never will be $900 cheques to dead people from the Australian government again. We have put ourselves back onto a path to surplus, reducing the deficit by half a per cent of GDP each and every year.
Number 4 was our commitment to stopping the boats, and indeed we have stopped them. One of the absolute great moral tragedies of the former government was to unravel the system that was working that the Howard government painfully put in place to stop the people smugglers' trade, and they unravelled it. Over 1,100 people died as a consequence, and they should never forget that. The Australian people will never forget that. And yet today they will still not commit to our policies which have stopped the boats again. They will not be fit to govern until they do commit to turning back the boats as we have done.
Finally, we said we would build the roads of the 21st century, and indeed we are absolutely doing that. We have a very proud record halfway through this term. I am very proud to be a part of this government.
If we ever needed a demonstration of what this government is all about, we have seen it in the last two speakers. To give credit to the last speaker, he did spend a minute talking about some of the promises made in the last election, but there was nothing about the promises on health, education, families or young people. There was nothing because they broke them. This is a government given a chance to talk about the promises it made to the Australian people that wants to talk about us.
Just as after the last budget—the day after the last budget—they came into this place talking about us, they could not even keep their focus on their own so-called 'achievements', and I do not blame them for not wanting to go there for a day. Day 1 they tried to take the focus off their own performance, and you cannot blame them. Let's look at it.
A recent promise was to act on domestic violence. There is a lot of talk about domestic violence, an incredibly important issue. The number of women who have died in domestic violence since the beginning of this year is unacceptable. It is important to talk about this, but they slashed funding to women's shelters and legal services. They walk about what they are going to do, but the reality is to cut the funding to women's shelters and legal services.
We have the 'rolled gold paid parental leave' as a policy of Tony Abbott for years now, and for years he said he was going to deliver this for parents. What they finally delivered is something that cuts paid parental leave to thousands of women. It actually cuts it. They promised to build this great system; the reality is the opposite. They have cut the level of existing funding that women will receive under paid parental leave.
They have done a wonderful advertising campaign on the ice epidemic. It tells you how bad it is—and it is; it is terrible, and we should take action on it—but in parallel to that they have cut funding for the treatment centres. They talk about it, but they have cut funding to the treatment centres.
I can see some of the backbenchers looking up in surprise. I can tell some of the backbenchers that the people who come to this place to talk about some of the changes you have made across education and training tell us that you do not know what your government has done. And we can tell from the interjections that you have made that you are not paying attention to what your government is doing. You are slacking off on the backbench, accepting the spin without looking at the detail. Please pay attention. This government is doing fundamental damage to our education system, to our health system and to our training system. Eventually, you are all going to be held to account. If, by some chance, there is an early election, quite a number of you will be sitting in the House today for the last time because you have not paid attention and held your own leadership to account.
So let's look at some of the promises that were made. Let's not just do the cherry picking that the last speaker did, let's actually look at them. No cuts to education. Remember that? No cuts to education—not even a cigarette paper between Labor policy and Liberal policy because they knew it was hurting them and they knew it was going to cost them votes, so they lied in order to win the election. Your leadership lied.
Government members interjecting—
Come to terms with it, backbench! You will all be held to account for it. Let's look at the reality: $30 billion cut from the school budget.
Now, your leader gets up here every day and says, 'No, no, no—look at the budget papers! You don't have to look very far.' Look at the budget papers! It has a negative in front of it—just look at page 7 on the budget overview. It has a negative—that means 'cut'. Do not believe the lies that this man who sits here tells you. He lied to the public before the election and he is lying to you now. And he is lying to the Australian people and this parliament about lying!
Mind you, perhaps it is not deliberate—I suspect he is not very good with numbers and he does not know that a minus sign means 'cut'. Perhaps that is the answer. That could be the answer; I would believe it. But, backbenchers, please pay attention: you will be held to account. They have abandoned the Gonski model and every school in Australia will now be, on average, $3.2 million worse off, including schools in your electorates. Check the budget papers, if you do not believe me. But do not believe this man, who will say anything—anything!—to keep his position and to win an election.
Look at the promises of no cuts to health. The GP tax came along really quickly in the first budget. Mind you, he said there would be no cuts to health prior to the election and then he said there would be no cuts to health prior to the Griffith by-election and no cuts to health prior to the Senate election in WA. So he held that line—three times he lied! Fool me once, three times he lied. And then as soon as those elections were out of the way out came the GP tax. Out it came, hitting people in the primary healthcare area, which is one of the most important ways that we actually keep our overall health expenditure down.
This man, this government and all of the backbenchers, by default, will say anything to keep power. It is outrageous.
I think I will commence this discussion by going through the centre of that earlier argument about what a cut is.
To me, a cut means that what you get one year is reduced the next year. It is not what is hypothesised out in blue sky or on a whiteboard, or what is on the back of a beer coaster. The so-called cuts in health and education are the first thing to take issue with. A cut means that next year is less than this year. That is what everyone works on in life.
In transfers to the states for the public hospital system, the federal government is giving $3.8 billion more, or 25 per cent more, over the next four years. That is more. That is a plus sign—plus $3.8 billion more to the states for the hospital system, or 25 per cent over the next four years.
In education, as the Minister for Education has reiterated many times, the so-called 'cuts' are actually eight per cent more, eight per cent more, six per cent more and four per cent more. They are all pluses. When you go to the school of 'ouzo economics' and you graduate, you are given a recipe book and that talks about hypothetical promises that are never in the budget papers in years 5 and 6. That is the first lecture you go to. Not only do you learn how not to manage a budget you also learn all these obfuscations.
In the health space we have also delivered certainty. We have the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement and we have the PBS funding legislation through, and that delivers certainty. The health system depends on the PBS and it depends on the pharmacy system, and those budgetary measures have been managed. It was difficult but they were managed well.
The other thing you learn when you go to the school of ouzo economics is about debt and deficit. You create a myth about how well you have managed the budget by putting ridiculous projections in, like a $17 billion deficit. Then you get control of the Treasury and you find out that really the $17 billion deficit is a $47 billion deficit. That is one of the things that we campaigned on, to bring the debt and deficit under control. We have reduced the daily overspend from $133 million a day to well under $100 million a day. And that is going to continue.
We also said that we were going to stop the boats. That might seem to be a bit of an embarrassment for the members of the opposition, but we did. We put in place policies and enacted them, and we have stopped the wicked trade that led to at least 1,100 deaths at sea.
The other thing that we have done is the roads of the 21st century. Every time I drive into town from my home I go past roadworks on the Pacific Highway that account for about a billion dollars, just in the electorate of Lyne. We have also delivered on three new bridges in the Taree local council area and we are starting to repair the Gloucester Road. Bucketts Way, another major roadway in the Lyne electorate, is being delivered $8 million and another $8 million next year.
Many people in the Lyne electorate are small businessmen and women, and we have delivered a small business boost with a 1½ per cent reduction in their tax rate. That is ongoing. The accelerated depreciation of equipment up to $20,000 is delivering dividends and improving the bottom line for lots of small businesses—that is the exact opposite. We are giving small businesses the power to choose to spend their money wisely and to get an accelerated depreciation rather than the opposition's method of sending $900 cheques in the mail to people who are dead or overseas. My goodness! We have done so many things to help small business. A lot of the small businesses are agricultural enterprises. All the changes in depreciation— (Time expired)
Thank you for the opportunity to follow the member for Lyne on this matter of public importance. You would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, having been here a long, long time, that at this time of the parliamentary session, when you get to the end of a session just before the winter recess and when the government has been around for almost two years, you get a lot of election speculation. Around this time, you would recall, there is a lot of speculation about an election. Some of us who have been reading the news wires this afternoon would know that the Prime Minister's office has asked for members of the government to come around and get their photos taken with him to use in election material. I do not think there will be a lot of takers. I do not think that people will be lining up to include the Prime Minister in their material. The Prime Minister will be in my material, the Prime Minister will be in our material, but I cannot imagine that the Prime Minister will be in too many brochures, pamphlets and letterbox photos for those opposite.
Mr Taylor interjecting—
I do not think the member for Hume is going to have Tony Abbott plastered all over his election material. Well, he is not in the Prime Minister's office getting his photo taken, so we know that he is not real keen on that.
We do not know when the election will be. Mr Deputy Speaker, not even a person of your immense experience and knowledge knows exactly when the election will be, but we do know one thing: the promises that the Prime Minister makes in the coming election campaign will not be worth the breath he expends on them and will not be worth the paper they are written on. We know that because he has form when it comes to saying one thing to the Australian people before the election and another thing afterwards.
In Australia we like nicknames. It is no coincidence that the Prime Minister has the nickname of phoney Tony. No, it is no accident that his nickname is phoney Tony. People in the Australian community, right around Australia, know that this is a guy who will say anything. He will lie to anyone to get elected in this country. We know that because he has done it already. There are few people in the Australian community he has not done over in the last 21 months, whether it be the manufacturing workers in the electorate of the member for Makin or the pensioners in the electorate of the member for Hotham—all kinds of people from our community on pensions or on fixed incomes—or people who are relying on the low-income superannuation contribution in the electorates of the members for Greenway, Parramatta, Lalor or Fraser. There are very few people this Prime Minister has not done over. His behaviour when it comes to making promises and not keeping them borders on the pathological. That is best evidenced every time the Prime Minister gets up in question time and denies that this sentence is in his own budget papers, revealing $80 billion of cuts to schools and hospitals—not in the Labor Party document but it is in the budget papers of the government. We know that this 2015 budget—with all the awful things that were done back in the 2014 budget—is just the last budget with a dodgy coat of paint.
It does not stop there when it comes to broken promises about cuts to schools and hospitals. We have broken promises on the GP tax, pensions, the pension age, the car industry, submarines, wages, jobs, debt and deficit and Indigenous affairs—right across the portfolios. There would not be a minister on that side of the House who has not presided over a substantial broken promise in the last 21 months of this term. When it comes to the economics of this country and confidence, they said there would be an adrenaline surge, but confidence is down. They said there would be new jobs created, but unemployment is higher now than at any point during the global financial crisis. They want to pat themselves on the back for an unemployment rate of 6.0. That is higher than at any point in the sharpest synchronised downturn in the global economy since the Great Depression.
No Prime Minister has done more to diminish this place, to diminish the trade of politics, in my view, than the current Prime Minister. I could read out pages and pages of quotes where before he was elected he talked hand on heart about the importance of keeping promises. Promise after promise after promise has been broken. They promised overall to be part of the solution to the challenges faced by this country, and every day of the last 21 months they have shown that they are part of the problem instead. This Prime Minister is incapable of the type of leadership that is befitting of the highest elected office in the land. He is desperate to be the opposition leader again. It reeks from him when he is at the dispatch box during question time that he is desperate to be the wrecker, the person who pulls things down, the person who sets fire to things, the person who creates division and disunity in an Australian community that needs to be united if we are to be successful in the 21st century. He is desperate to be the opposition leader. He is hankering for his old job as opposition leader of this country. What we say from this side of the House is that if he wants to call an election we are happy to accommodate that wish.
It is my pleasure to rise and speak on this MPI. It started off with the opposition leader making an apology for the lie that he told Neil Mitchell. He has not made an apology to Ben Fordham that he was not involved in 'assassinating' Prime Minister Julia Gillard. It is terrific to hear this apology, and it is very embarrassing for the opposition leader, but Labor has many more apologies to make: an apology to Australians for spending like there is no tomorrow. Even on Sky this morning the member for Rankin, when the member for Reid talked about the cupboard not just being bare but disappearing altogether, the member for Rankin started laughing, because he knows that that is the case. They not only made the cupboard bare but also they absolutely destroyed and wrecked out nation's finances.
So, while Labor is at it, they should be making an apology to Australians for bringing down not one Prime Minister but two, an apology for saying that there would be 'no carbon tax under the government we lead'—a carbon tax that destroyed jobs, racked up electricity bills and inflicted a $1.1 billion penalty on manufacturing, which for my electorate, for Geelong and for Corangamite, was an absolute disgrace. The damage it did to small business was unbelievable: 519,000 people lost their jobs in small business under six years. They should be making an apology for delivering a mining tax that raised virtually no revenue, an apology for delivering virtually no NBN and blowing out the NBN by $29 billion and an apology for not delivering three free trade agreements. And just to remind Australians of how important these are, a Chinese FTA will deliver 178,000 jobs over the next 20 years. It is a fantastic achievement, and we are very proud of it.
An apology is needed to Australians for not fixing mobile phone black spots—an appalling decision by Labor to neglect and abandon country communities. I am so proud today that we have announced such an extensive mobile phone black spot program, including 10 mobile phone base stations in my electorate of Corangamite. I can tell you that we have fixed 115 blackspots in Corangamite—they know which side of politics stands up for them, and it is certainly not the Labor Party. That was a disgraceful decision to leave those people high and dry with no communications—small businesses, small farmers. Not one cent was spent on mobile phone black spots. It was a very grave error of judgement and they should be ashamed of that decision.
Labor should be apologising to pensioners for not backing a pension increase of $30 a fortnight to the most vulnerable 170,000 pensioners in our community—the most vulnerable. The Greens were even ashamed by Labor's stand and that is why they backed our economically responsible decision in relation to pensions.
An apology is needed to seniors for Labor threatening their superannuation, creating anxiety and uncertainty. An apology is needed to Australians for leaving our economy in rack and ruin. An apology is needed to young Australians for doing virtually nothing to combat youth unemployment. An apology is needed to Australians for losing control of our borders. We all know the hideous consequences that flowed from that absolute neglect.
I would like to raise one particular issue. The member for Sydney owes the Prime Minister a personal apology. Talk about lying—the member for Sydney made an allegation about the Prime Minister she knows to be false. She said the Prime Minister knew about a fundraising activity from the Victorian division of the Liberal Party. The Prime Minister in question time made it quite clear he knew nothing about that. That is an example of the Labor Party asserting whatever it likes—it does not matter what the facts are.
The member for Sydney should get to that box and make a personal apology to the Prime Minister for the most appalling mistruth before this parliament, knowing that that was absolutely untrue. She stood there while she was in the process of trying to assassinate the Leader of the Opposition—we all know what is going on. Will she confess to what she is doing or will she tell Australians that she stands by the Leader of the Opposition? Many people on the other side no longer stand by the Leader of the Opposition. You wrecked our economy and we are fixing the economy and we are securing Australia's borders. (Time expired)
It is always interesting to follow Madam Fifi and her friends, who live in this world of fiction, a world of fiction that starts directly—
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker Whiteley, I rise on a point of order. I would ask the member to withdraw that very derogatory term, which reflects on a member, is also sexist and is also not calling the member by her correct title. I find it very offensive what you just said and I would ask you—
I thank the member for Corangamite. Member for McEwen, the member feels that she has been offended by your comments. Would you please withdraw to assist the House?
I withdraw to assist the House, but the member should read the standing orders and learn what offensive words are.
Thank you. Would you please move on, member for McEwen.
I am happy to move on because there is so much to talk about. We have heard all the fiction from the other side about how wonderful they have been and how great they have been. Let's go back and start talking about what they actually said. Every single one of those people on the other side lied to the Australian people when they said, 'We will deliver a budget surplus in our first year and every year after.' That never happened. You hear the lie that gets parroted from them over there, reading their little note saying, 'They're saying that we are going to tax your superannuation.'
Let's be very clear: that lot on the other side went out and took the $500 that the government paid to people earning less than $37,000 a year—people on the minimum wage. They took the money out of their superannuation. What they did do was then put the tax concessions back on to people whose superannuation has $2 million, $3 billion, $4 million and $5 million in it. You can understand that this is the best government that Gina Rinehart was able to buy, because they took away income-producing things which actually were benefitting the Australian economy.
They come in here and say, 'Look at all the things we've done.' But they do not talk about the budget papers where it says, 'An $80 billion cut to health and education.' They say, 'It's not a cut.' But you would watch them squeal like stuck pigs when they were expecting their thousand dollars a week wages if you only paid them $800 and said, 'Look, that's not a cut; it's a bonus.' That is the mentality there because they have a leader, Tony Abbott, who by his own words confesses you cannot believe what he says and you cannot believe what he has written down. That is what the leader said.
We had the member for Lyons in here—I tell you, Acting Deputy Speaker, you missed a comedy show—who says, 'We're gonna do a tax cut to small business and it will be ongoing.' The budget paper says, 'The 1.5 per cent tax rate is only for two years', not ongoing, for two years—slightly different to what they say in here. They do it because they think that no-one cares.
We have a good laugh when the member for Corangamite—temporary, as she may be—and the clowns over there say, 'You never put money into mobile phone towers.' We didn't and do you know why? We built these things called NBN wireless towers, which actually have capacity to put telecommunications on. Since those opposite got into government, there has not been one new NBN connection. Each and every day, they come in here, fluff their heads up and pretend it is great, but they are led by a man who cannot tell the truth. He lies in this place all the time.
Today, we heard his faux outrage, because Bill Shorten was man enough to admit that he had made a mistake. Let's be clear, none of the people on the other side have ever come in here and apologised for Christopher Pyne admitting that he lied about the James Ashby affair. Let's be very clear, one of the most significant things that has happened in this parliament that they have been complicit in is the theft of the diary of the Australian Speaker. Not once has any of them said that that wrong. They have been happy with it.
We were not elected.
Oh, you were not elected but you can tell us all about what happened in the last one. We hear about the deaths at sea and they come in here and say 'look how bad it was'. None of these people were here when in the back corner Morrison and Abbott sat over there with Sarah Hanson-Young and did a deal, which caused the death of 600 people on the water.
Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I do not need any assistance from the member for Corangamite. The member for McEwen will refer to members of this House by their correct titles.
The member for Cook and the member for Warringah were very complicit in doing a deal with the Greens—another broken promise. Tony Abbott said before the election 'I will not do a dirty deal with the Greens'. He is covered in it. He would have flies all over him because he is covered so much. (Time expired)
Order! Before I give the call to the member for Moore, I do remind members of the House there are only 51 minutes left until school is out. I give the call to the member for Moore.
Since the last election, the Abbott government has delivered on a number of key election promises to the Australian people in a number of areas including budget repair, abolition of the carbon tax, abolition of the mining tax, restoring border security, cutting red tape and delivering a range of social services to support families, youth and seniors in our community.
The government has begun the budget repair process by correcting the trajectory of debt and deficit left by Labor. As the Treasurer stated on budget night, this government inherited $123 billion in cumulative deficits. However, as a result of responsible budget measures, the projected cumulative deficit is expected to be reduced to $82 billion over the next four years. On a daily basis, the Treasury currently borrows $96 million just to pay the bills, down from the $133 million a day that this government inherited. This government has a plan to reduce the deficit and debt.
The government has abolished the carbon tax introduced by the previous Labor government, which made Australian industry less competitive against emerging nations in our region and burdened consumers with higher electricity prices. The abolition of the carbon tax has resulted in reductions in electricity prices across Australia. Treasury estimates that the abolition of the carbon tax will reduce CPI by around 0.7 percentage points for the year to the June quarter of 2015.
The abolition of the mining tax has benefited the mining industry, which employs thousands of workers and is a significant part of the economy in my home state of Western Australia. The mining industry is experiencing hard times and if the mining tax have been left in place, it would have resulted in further job losses.
The Abbott government has restored order to Australia's planned immigration system by stopping the stream of illegal maritime arrivals seeking to enter our borders through people smuggling networks. Under the previous government, there was an $11-billion blow-out. Stopping the boats is saving the Australian taxpayers $50 million a month and ensuring that the borders are secure.
The government continues to deliver on its deregulation agenda by cutting red tape. Under the former Labor government, Commonwealth regulation was costing Australians approximately $65 billion a year, equivalent to 4.2 per cent of GDP. As a result of the Abbott government's deregulation program, the regulatory cost burden is reduced by $2.45 billion. To date, the government has implemented $1.57 billion of the $2.45 billion in projected savings.
The government is delivering on its commitment to increase employment participation and provide the skilled workforce needed to build the economy including $212 million earmarked for the youth Transition to Work program to assist job seekers transition into the workplace. Six thousand places have been provided in the National Work Experience program and $106 million to provide intensive support trials for job seekers of all ages from disadvantaged backgrounds. Furthermore, $1.2 billion has been included in the national wage subsidy pool to counteract long-term unemployment.
The government is delivering for families through a family support package of $4.4 billion through the current budget. It is estimated that up to 165,000 Australian parents have a willingness to return to work but find the cost of child care prohibitive. By providing families with childcare assistance, parents will be assisted to return to the workforce bringing skills, expertise and productivity back to the economy.
The government has provided a $44-billion package in the budget for the age pension, which accounts for 10 per cent of all government spending. The age pension will continue to increase twice a year, using the highest available indexation rate. Seniors who currently have a pensioner concession card will continue to be eligible for a concession card that provides the same benefits, such as subsidised utilities, transport, bulk billing, and cheaper PBS prescription medicines. For self-funded retirees, there will be no new taxes on superannuation under the Abbott government. (Time expired)
The discussion has now concluded.
I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: 17th Construction Squadron Relocation Infrastructure Project.
As I advised the House when referring this project to the Public Works Committee, it is proposed new, fit-for-purpose facilities will be constructed to support the relocation of the 17th Construction Squadron from Holsworthy Barracks, Sydney, New South Wales, to Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley, Queensland.
The proposed project will provide new working accommodation, vehicle and equipment shelters, quartermaster stores, workshops for the Army and a new fire training area for the RAAF Fire Services.
The committee has conducted an inquiry and is of the view that the project represents value for money for the Commonwealth, is fit for purpose and is expedient to carry out.
Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is expected to begin in late 2015 and should be completed by late 2016.
I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs, I present the committee's report entitled Alcohol, hurting people and harming communities, together with the minutes of the proceedings.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—I also mention that the deputy chair of this group will also ask leave to speak after my remarks.
If he must.
This is a very significant report. I have to say that it is a tragedy, a part of Australia's great shame, that the drinking culture which affects all Australians, of course, in particular affects the Indigenous communities. It is a fact that some Indigenous Australians are less likely than others to drink at all, but, when Indigenous Australians—Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders—do drink, it is more likely that they will drink at highly harmful levels.
This has extraordinary impacts on their communities. We know that, if you are drinking at a harmful level, there are incredibly serious health impacts. It is well known what the impacts of drinking over a period of time at extremely harmful levels will be. But of course it also impacts on the violence that ensues when you are under the influence of alcohol. Your children, if their parents are both afflicted by or under the influence of alcohol, are neglected. There is a serious situation where a lot of Australian Indigenous fathers but more often, more commonly, even mothers are incarcerated as a result of crimes associated with the abuse of alcohol. When the children's parents are incarcerated, that is a tragedy. You have lost that parenting and that experience of a child growing up with the mother and father in their home.
One of the key recommendations of this inquiry, in that it costs nearly half a million dollars to keep an Indigenous youth in prison for a year, is that we have a justice reinvestment strategy. We understand that it is the states which mostly have the responsibility for building and maintaining prisons and detention centres in Australia, but we are arguing that, through the COAG process, our minister should lead a discussion to look at the introduction of justice reinvestment, where, instead of just building more prisons, spending more effort to incarcerate Indigenous Australians, associated with alcohol abuse and other abuses of illicit substances, we put that funding into some of what we found to be the socioeconomic determinants of alcohol abuse. These are the homelessness, the lack of employment, the disrupted education and the hearing loss that accompanies chronic infections with young children.
When we undertook this inquiry, we were determined not to simply, yet again, do a report on how to curtail access to alcohol in Indigenous communities. There have been so many reports written like that. We also wanted to address: how do we reduce demand? How do we have Indigenous people not reaching for the grog in the ways that they do right now? An important term of reference for us was: what are the socioeconomic determinants of alcohol abuse in Australia? As I have just mentioned, we found that it was about the sense of powerlessness and about unemployment. So many of our young Indigenous Australians in remote Australia do not speak English anymore, so they are locked out of the broader Australian society and certainly out of the economy. We found that even racism had an impact on Indigenous communities—their sense of powerlessness and hurt, the legacy of colonisation in Australia.
We also found that there is a strong peer pressure to drink to harmful levels in many Indigenous communities. Given the communalism of an Indigenous community, when someone has something like some funds or indeed some alcohol, there is a pressure to share. Even if you have decided not to drink so much, the pressure is for you to join your others—your brothers, your sisters, your cousins, your family in that community—and to drink as you have before.
In this report we have made numbers of recommendations to address access to alcohol and the pricing of alcohol. We talk about the need for a minimum alcohol price in Australia, and also we look at the recommendations of previous tax inquiries which refer to numbers of recommendations including looking at a volumetric tax. We argue that too often, where we have had treatments—millions of dollars have been spent on looking at treatments in Indigenous communities for addiction to alcohol and alcohol harm—these programs have been very short term, just six months or 12 months. A sobering-up shelter is not of great value if every night you show up at the sobering-up shelter and there is no follow-up to support you if you want to be detoxified and you want long-term counselling and support so you can give up the need to drink at high-risk levels.
Another key term of reference in this report that the minister particularly required us to consider was: what is the impact of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder and foetal alcohol syndrome not being designated officially in Australia as a disability? We found that tragically, in Australia, with the few incidence studies that have now been done, some of the highest levels of FAS and FASD in the world are found in some Indigenous communities. FAS and FASD can occur when the mother drinks while she is pregnant. Babies are brain damaged at birth, which is incurable. It is a lifelong affliction. Of course, it is 100 per cent preventable if the mother simply does not drink alcohol.
You will not be surprised that our recommendation was that the lack of a formal recognition of FAS and FASD is a serious problem in terms of proper funding or resourcing for diagnostic centres and for treatment of the children born with this condition—because treatment will ameliorate some of the secondary impacts of this condition. We therefore strongly recommend that we must have these two conditions immediately put onto the official list of disabilities, especially with the NDIS coming through. Already in the trials around Geelong we are finding that Indigenous families who have FAS or FASD children are not getting appropriate support.
There are numbers of recommendations in this report which are extremely important. We looked at the processes or programs which have worked. For example, in Groote Eylandt and Fitzroy Crossing we were in awe of the courage of those communities, often led in the first instance by their women, who took it upon themselves to say: 'Enough is enough. We are not going to continue to live in fear of our lives, seeing our children abused and neglected, because of the alcohol consumption levels.' In both those two communities, for example, the women-led restrictions on alcohol consumption led to a complete change in the numbers of violent episodes and health impacts of harmful risks of alcohol drinking.
We also saw a lot of communities with their alcohol management plans held up for too long. They had put a lot of effort into those plans. They had been put into the system and some of them have been sitting there for several years. That must be addressed.
So, this is a very important document. I want to commend the secretariat, which as always was highly supportive, but also my committee. I would like to now leave sufficient time for the deputy chair to make his remarks. He is, of course, the member for Lingiari, and as a Northern Territorian he knows very well the impacts—the harm to people and communities—that occur with alcohol abuse. I commend the report to the House.
Is leave granted for the member for Lingiari to make a statement?
Leave granted.
Can I say how pleased I am to be able to speak to the tabling of the report Alcohol, hurting people and harming communities. I thank the chair, the member for Murray, for her leadership of the committee. I thank the other members of the committee for their forbearance—I hope there was not too much of that, but there may have been a bit!—and the convivial way in which we worked together, the collaborative way in which we discussed the issues and the way in which we were able to come together to have a unanimous report with recommendations.
I also thank our secretariat, who are sitting here in the advisers gallery, for their wonderful work. They showed a great appreciation of the issues which were of concern to us and were of great assistance to us in coming to our deliberations.
I want to thank all of those who gave evidence for the report. It is well-informed and canvasses a wide range of issues and highlights, as the chair has said, the tragic impact alcohol is having on communities across Australia. The committee was able to interrogate the issues closely despite, in some cases, a lack of cooperation from some. In particular, I note the lack of cooperation from the Northern Territory government, who refused to allow us to speak with those with the most knowledge as witnesses to the committee. That included the health professionals at the Alice Springs Hospital, who had firsthand and ongoing daily experience of the impacts of alcohol on the health of the community and on violence because of alcohol misuse.
Significantly, the committee was able to assess what should be done to address the misuse of alcohol and the impact of alcohol in families and communities. The report considers under a number of headings the social and economic determinants of harmful alcohol use, health and alcohol related harm, best practice strategies to minimise alcohol misuse and alcohol related harm, best practice alcohol abuse treatments and support, FAS and FASD, and determining patterns of supply and demand. As a result of those deliberations around those headings, a number of very important recommendations have been made. I want to highlight just a number of them, because they will be contentious. There is no question that there will be people in the community who will be opposed to what we are recommending. Nevertheless, we believe that these recommendations are vitally important. Recommendation 6, for example, goes to the question of advertising and suggests that the Commonwealth take steps to establish a nationally consistent and coordinated approach to alcohol advertising, including banning alcohol advertising during times and in forms of media which may influence children and, significantly—and I think probably most contentiously—banning alcohol sponsorship of sporting teams and sporting events, including but not limited to those in which children participate or may be involved. There is another aspect of that, which is included, and people may want to refer to that themselves.
The recommendation which I think is going to be of most use to us, in terms of harm, goes to the issue of a minimum floor price and the introduction of a volumetric tax. The report speaks significantly about these things and talks of the evidence. It gives the recommendation of the introduction of a national minimum floor price for alcohol and that prompt consideration be given to the recommendation on the Henry review of volumetric tax.
Lastly, knowing that my time is limited, I want to refer to recommendation 8, which is that the Northern Territory government do something which was successful in the past. They need to reintroduce the banned drinkers register and set up a comprehensive data collection and evaluation program which monitors criminal justice, hospital and health data. That, I believe, is self-evident. We also recommend, at 9, that the Commonwealth re-establish the National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee—very, very important. And in other parts we talk about the need for justice reinvestment and other preventative measures.
I commend the report. I thank all of those who have made a contribution to it and most particularly my colleagues on the committee.
I move:
That the House take note of the report.
The debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I move:
That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Joint Select Committee on the Australia Fund Establishment, I present the committee's report entitled Joint Select Committee on the Australia Fund Establishment and seek leave to make brief statement.
Leave granted.
I want to thank the members of the committee, those being Senator Glen Lazarus and fellow colleagues Butler, Carr, Husic, Pitt, Porter, Reynolds, Seselja and Wilkie and also the groups that made substantial contributions to this report, which looked into assisting rural and manufacturing industries in crisis and supporting communities that are affected by natural disasters—in particular, the National Farmers' Federation, the Australian Prawn Farmers Association, Oysters Australia, Queensland Farmers Federation, AusVeg Limited, Regional Development Australia, Australian Dairy Farmers, GrainGrowers, AMWU, the Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers and the Rural Business Development Corporation.
I want to thank the secretariat for their exemplary assistance—Mark Fitt and Gerry McInally—and congratulate all of them for a new high bar in streamlined and efficient report compilation and preparation.
The Speaker has received a message from the Senate acquainting the House that Senators Gallagher and Wong have been appointed members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.
On the Sunday before last a group of friends gathered at our house in Alice Springs to remember Phillip Toyne, who had passed away that weekend. Among them was Frannie Coughlan, Phillip's first wife and mother of their boy, Jamie. These friends had all known Phillip since the 1970s when Phillip arrived in Central Australia. After a decade he left, having made a huge impact on the lives of so many. A mate and former housemate said of him:
Vale, my old friend and housemate Phillip Toyne.
Phillip passed away today at the far too young age of 67. Many remember him from his days as head of ACF.
Many don't know that before that he was quite a true legal hero of the Warlpiri Nation (and Pitjantjatjara, Arrernte and quite a few others besides!) and before that a teacher at Haasts Bluff Aboriginal Community.
Indeed, Phillip did make a huge impact on the lives of many—never mind his role as head of the ACF, his role as joint architect of Landcare, along with the then NFF's Rick Farley, who has sadly left us, and his work with Bush Heritage Australia. Sadly and unfortunately, outside of those who do know about his life in Central Australia his work in the Centre is not widely understood and appreciated—his great work with the Pitjantjatjara Council with people such as Yami Lester, Kunmanara Thompson and Kunmanara Baker. Yami Lester said:
He's a great, great fella on land rights for Anangu, a very good friend of Anangu and a good talker.
His role in the development of the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act needs to be properly appreciated and in the transfer of the title at Ayers Rock. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the momentous day when Uluru was finally back in the hands of those who have owned it for tens of thousands of years previously.
Phillip was a contributor, a great strategic thinker. He was not without flaws—and I am sure none of us are—as those who knew him well would testify. But his brilliance affected so many. Simon Balderstone said, in a Sydney Morning Heraldarticle by Michael Gordon:
His combination of principle and pragmatism was simply brilliant and mightily effective.
Another good friend Peter Garrett said:
He was smart, politically savvy and highly principled—a rare combination in politics, whether you are inside or outside the tent.
I knew Phillip very well for a period of time when I first started to work in Central Australia. I was working the Pitjantjatjara lands of the north-west of South Australia and Phillip was one of the first professionals that I had engagement with. Indeed, he escorted me through that country on a number of occasions. We spent a lot of time together. I have to say that I was enthused by his knowledge and also his dedication and commitment. He turned out to be a very good advocate. He was sublimely good at understanding the nuances of politics and he achieved outcomes that hitherto would have been seen as unachievable.
I have mentioned the Landcare movement before, but successfully getting the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act through the South Australian Parliament and its impact and importance to the people of the north-west of South Australia need to really be properly understood. He was there at the time as a lawyer for the Pitjantjatjara Council, and subsequently there was his work at Uluru. I was at that grand celebration and I hope to be back for the 30th anniversary later this year.
Many Australians have felt sadness in Phillip's passing. He has left a huge footprint on our national landscape. None feel his loss more than his family: his wife, Molly; their boys, Atticus and Aaron; Jamie, his son with Frannie; his brother, Peter; and his family. Our thoughts and love are with you.
I was pleased earlier today to join with many colleagues for the announcement by the Minister for Communications and the parliamentary secretary to him of the important mobile phone black spot program funding. As you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the at the table, know, in outer suburban rural and regional electorates, such as those we represent, this is a vitally important issue. I want to speak today about the two communities I have worked very closely with that have received funding for base stations. It is going to make a real difference to mobile phone connectivity.
I will speak first of the Steels Creek community. The Minister for Communications mentioned this in question time today. Back in March 2013 I drove the now minister to Steels Creek to meet 30 or 40 locals who were desperate to see what they could do to get a mobile phone tower. There was little coverage in the area. In fact, most people had no coverage at all at their residence. They were understandably passionate about this issue in the wake of the Black Saturday bushfires that had such a devastating impact on the Yarra Valley and the Steels Creek community in particular.
That meeting with the minister and subsequent meetings over the course of 2013 helped form the basis of the policy that we took to the election that led to the funding commitment, the assessment and the announcement of the locations today. I want to pay particular tribute to some of the leaders in the Steels Creek Association—Eva Matthews, Allan Giffard, Jo Spears and Athel Smith—and many others in that association for all of their hard work. They will be very pleased with the announcement today and even more pleased when the mobile phone tower goes up. In April of the same year, I attended a large and robust community meeting in East Warburton, where similarly mobile phone coverage was negligible or nonexistent for many residents, as it is today. A group was formed out of that public meeting. I want to pay tribute to them: John Harry, Noel Arnold, Roger Lynch and Jane Halper, who I have spoken with at that meeting and subsequently.
Having gone to those meetings and seen those two priority areas, when the program came into existence when we formed government I met with the Yarra Ranges Council when the time came for submissions. I want to pay tribute to the council. In electorates like ours there are lots of challenges with mobile phone connectivity. If submissions for tens of areas were put in it would not be as effective as if we could agree on the two priorities. The council agreed that Steels Creek and East Warburton were the two most important locations at that time and joined with me in putting in a joint submission to the department on those two locations, which have now been funded. I thank the chief executive officer, Mr Glenn Patterson, for his intense interest, and Ali Wastie, the director of social and economic development. I thank the two councillors representing those communities—Councillor Jim Child, who represents East Warburton and the upper Yarra Valley, and Councillor Fiona McAllister, who represents Steels Creek and the Yarra Glen and Healesville area. And I thank the mayor of the Yarra Ranges, Maria McCarthy, for her ongoing interest in and vigorous representations on the issue. This is a wonderful program and it is a wonderful day for those two communities of Steels Creek and East Warburton.
I also rise today to talk about the great big announcement about black spots and the funding that the government has announced for mobile phone towers. I am one of the regional MPs. We received funding for two black spots for the whole of central Victoria—one in Mount Macedon and one in Guildford. I do welcome the towers for those areas, because they are in need of extra support and service. But I have to say that it is not going to go down well in my electorate, because what my area is crying out for and what my electorate has been wanting for a very long time is fast broadband. Bendigo and those two areas were knocked off the rollout map by the minister. So I believe that what has happened today is a fabulous smokescreen for the real communication issues that we have in our region. Telecommunications is not just about being able to use your mobile phone; it is also about having access to the internet. That is what I believe the government has lost sight of in its announcement today. One of the reasons why we have so much pressure on our mobile phone network is that people do not have access to decent fast broadband. We have mobile phone black spot issues in the heart of Bendigo. We have mobile phone black spot issues in Woodend. The previous speaker talked about having to walk up the top of the hill to be able to make a phone call. I have to walk out of my house and on to the street to make a phone call on my mobile phone, and I live in the heart of Bendigo. That is because of the number of users that we have in the area.
We have a problem in central Victoria—a triple problem. First, we have had the explosion of smartphone technology, iPads and tablets. Because we have had that explosion and houses have gone from having one device to having four or five, in some cases up to 10, all trying to access the mobile phone coverage continuously, we have more users in an area. Second, we also have unprecedented growth in central Victoria. We welcome people moving to central Victoria, but we have more people with more devices trying to access an ageing network. The third problem we have is the ageing infrastructure. What the government is not telling us today is that if it had continued with Labor's plan to build the NBN—the fast broadband fibre to the premises—that would have taken pressure off the mobile phone network. We have households in the Bendigo electorate who are told that there is no internet access available to them—that they need to rely on the mobile network. There is no ADSL1, no ADSL2 and no dial-up option; they need to rely on the mobile phone network. If we just got on with building the fast-speed broadband, putting Bendigo back on the map and getting us fibre to the premises like they have in Shepparton and Ballarat, then we would not have the mobile black spots problem that we are experiencing today.
I agree that it is good that our telcos have come on board and are co-funding in some of our regional areas where they otherwise would not have invested to build mobile phone towers. I welcome that. That is a smart project. It is good to see that areas like Guildford in my electorate, which is a smaller town, will have a tower. I welcome that. But let us not pretend for one moment that this is the silver bullet that will fix all of the issues—just build more mobile phone towers—because it is not. It cannot be done in isolation. The government should not pretend that today is a great day for telecommunication. In areas like my electorate, where we got two mobile phone towers, what we have not got is a rollout plan for the NBN—and the rollout plan for the NBN is what will make the real difference to my community. That will make the difference to the businesses who cannot connect to the internet. That will make the difference that allows manufacturers, whether they be small or large, to get their product to their customer more quickly. That will make the difference to the households and families who rely on broadband for schoolchildren to be able to do their schoolwork. That will make the real difference in moving our communities forward and making our economy truly productive and innovative. We will hear more and more from government members about how great this is. I would not say it is great. I would say it is needed. But a lot more needs to be done by the minister before we fix the telecommunications crisis in this country. (Time expired)
One of the most common questions I am asked by school groups is: why did I go into politics? At the time, I was in the early stages of a career in medicine, which I was finding challenging and rewarding. However, when the chance arose to stand for office, I thought it would give me the opportunity to make a contribution to Australia's health system at a larger level and to influence health policy for the better.
At a local level in my electorate, I have had some wins in that area. I consider the work I did in securing the initial $10 million in federal funding for the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer to be one of my proudest local achievements. Currently, I am fighting very hard to keep the state government from shutting down the Daw Park Repatriation General Hospital.
I am also proud of some of the broader health initiatives I was involved in as part of the Howard government, like the significant expansion of Medicare to cover to mental health, dentistry and allied health and chronic disease management. A few years ago, as the coalition spokesperson for primary health care, I was very conscious that while as a nation we have seen great improvements in our health, everyone was grappling with how we could manage chronic disease better at a systems level. For me, that is the great current challenge in health policy, and quality primary health care is key. Since the coalition formed government in 2013, I have been working closely with the health sector and lobbying to see a health reform become a reality. What I am talking about is the idea of embedding an integrated health check into standard GP practice, right across the country.
What does that mean? It is not what many people might consider a 'big' reform. It can be done within existing programs. If it does become policy, I do not expect it to make headlines across the country. But I believe it is something that, if implemented, could have a very large, very real impact on the long-term health of Australians. Put simply, it would be a comprehensive series of tests undertaken as a routine by your GP, that cover indicators and risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, kidney disease and diabetes. Then the risk would be stratified by the GP and managed with the GP. I am sure that most people who hear this would ask, 'Doesn't my GP already do that?' The answer is yes and no. They are already part of the RACGP preventive health guidelines and they are already part of quality practice. But what I am talking about is ensuring that, within the payment made to practices, there are incentives to encourage quality improvement.
Having an integrated check for all cardiovascular disease, kidney disease and diabetes at once, as a normal part of general practice, could be a major, important initiative to move our health system further towards prevention of disease and managing chronic disease better. I would like to pay tribute to the hard work being done on this issue by the National Vascular Disease Prevention Alliance. This alliance consists of the four groups who represent the diseases which, combined, are the biggest killers of Australians: Diabetes Australia, Kidney Health Australia, the Heart Foundation and the Stroke Foundation. The alliance was established in 2000, with the goal of reducing cardiovascular disease. Getting an integrated health check in place is one of the group's core priorities. That fact should illustrate that, while it might sound like a small thing, this reform has the potential to have a huge impact on health outcomes.
There are some positive signs that this issue is getting attention. I have to say that Minister Ley and the Prime Minister's office have been taking the time to listen to the arguments in favour of an integrated health check and have been very helpful in taking steps to further the discussion both within Parliament House and with the Department of Health.
There are three developments which give an opportunity for this idea to go forward. Firstly, the current practice incentive payment review conducted by the Department of Health; secondly, the establishment of the Primary Care Advisory Group, which is led by former AMA head, Dr Steven Hambleton; and, thirdly, an Inquiry into Chronic Disease Prevention and Management in Primary Health Care has begun, through the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health. The decision to go ahead with this inquiry had bipartisan support and, amongst a range of other issues, I am sure that the topic of integrated health checks will be raised.
Beyond this one issue, however, I would encourage any organisation with an interest in chronic disease to make a submission to the inquiry before the deadline for submissions, Friday, 31 July 2015. For me, championing an initiative like integrated health checks represents one of the main reasons that I went into politics, and it is one of the things that I am fighting very hard to achieve in this term of government.
Over the last couple of weeks we have seen some pretty appalling behaviour by the Minister for Education and Training as he has comprehensively breached the convention in relation to commenting on royal commissions in this place. He really has gone a long way to reducing public confidence in the objectivity of the royal commission that we currently have into unions.
One of the things that is quite surprising about the royal commission is the degree of ancient history that it is wanting to explore. It is my intention to refer a matter of ancient history to the commission myself. Going back to 1994, which is a period which they are apparently looking at—some 20 years ago—there was the most appalling case of secret payments being made by the Court government in Western Australia to form a new industrial organisation, the WA Principals Federation. It was only with considerable detective work that we were able to extract the fact that the government of the day had been buying cars, renting houses and paying consultants fees—some in the order of nearly $150,000—to form this organisation to undermine the state school teachers union. It will be very interesting to see if their passion for ancient history continues in this regard.
Secondly, before we close this parliament, I want to use this opportunity to put on record my profound contempt for what the Abbott government is doing around our response to climate change, with their attempts to dismantle ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency; their continuing attempts to dismantle the Clean Energy Finance Corporation; and their actual demolition of the Climate Commission, which was a very important body providing us with information on the impact of climate change in Australia.
Meanwhile, what is happening on the international front? We are a joke. We are being mocked by countries around the world. Brazil noted that Australia's current five per cent reduction target of 2020 was a low-level of ambition. China also noted that this level of ambition is far below the requirement that Australia set up for advanced economies. They ask:
… please clarify the fairness of such requirements.
The US wanted to know what else we were doing other than the dodgy Emissions Reduction Fund. The European Union asked
Could Australia provide information on the anticipated mitigation potential of the ERF to meet the two conditional more ambitious emission reduction targets?
Even the Pope has recently weighed in recent weeks. The Pope has really reflect very negatively some countries:
Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change.
That is exactly what this government is doing. They are doing what the Pope is attaching. What the Pope is attacking is those people with political and economic resources who are paying lip-service and not taking substantial action. But it is not just the Pope. We have retired Admiral Chris Barrie, who this week said:
Most of the people I work with in Defence actually get this; they understand about climate change, and they're very enthusiastic to get to grips with it … The problem we've got is at the top level of politics in this country it seems to be a toxic term. … That's bad news and they know it's rubbish so let's get real about it and start having a decent conversation.
I know that there are decent members on the other side of the House, but you are allowing Tony Abbott to fail you, to fail your children, to fail your grandchildren and to fail our community by not doing something meaningful on climate change.
I want to commend the Senate, which yesterday decided to set up a select committee on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This was put by Senator Day, a senator for South Australia. I also am very pleased with the terms of reference that have been listed to guide this particular reference. They include the implementation of the plan; its progress; its costs, especially those related further implementation; and its direct and indirect effects on agricultural industries, local businesses and community wellbeing, which picks up on the fact that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was always expected to be a balance of the environment, the economy and the community's wellbeing. It has been lost along the way, sadly. But I am so pleased the Senate is going to look at just how this balance is being achieved.
They are going to look at any evidence of environmental changes to date and the effectiveness or the appropriateness of the planned Constraints Management Strategy. At last, we are going to have the words which so many people dare not speak put out into the open air. The Constraints Management Strategy was a Labor-Green urgent, political fix by Gillard and Premier of South Australia in the dying days the Gillard government. Julia Gillard, the then Prime Minister, was hoping for a sign-off by all states and she found that the Premier of South Australia was backing off, saying, 'No, I just want more water. There's not enough water for me. I know the rest of the states have agreed and are about to sign-off, but there should be more water for me.' So this 450 gigalitre extra volume of water was put into legislation and rushed through without consultation.
Shame, shame!
The member for Riverina understands this only too well and the impacts on his electorate. I have to say, we are in the second year of this Constraints Management Strategy legislation. $1.77 billion has been put aside for it. My Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority told me last week that they have been asked to do a business case and a cost-benefit analysis of the Goulburn Valley within just 12 weeks in terms of the Constraints Management Strategy impacts.
You cannot do anything sensible in just that number of weeks. They cannot really do any genuine assessments of the impact of throwing more water out of the Eildon dam just keep the mouth of the Murray open 95 per cent of the time without the aid of bulldozing, because in the Goulburn system we do not monitor or gauge the tributaries to the Goulburn River. How the heck are they supposed to know what happens with a rain event on top of that water being thrown down to keep the mouth of the Murray open? Well, what you do get is floods.
I am so pleased that the Constraints Management Strategy is going to be looked out earnestly in terms of its effectiveness and appropriateness. We are also going to identify constraints and options to mitigate the identified risks. Out of the $1.77 billion, only $200 million of that $1.7 7 billion is supposed to be spent on raising the bridges and the railway lines and building the levies higher to protect the cities, towns, prime farmland and the Wagga Wagga sewerage works when those floods go through every two or so years.
They are also going to look at environmental water flows and river channel capacity. I hope they will really look at the Barmah choke and the management of the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray mouth, including the environmental impacts of the locks, weirs and barrages on the Murray River. Let us remind ourselves that many of those locks, weirs and barrages are now at the end of their life and they do need serious consideration in terms of their effectiveness and efficiency. I am very pleased about the Senate inquiry. It has got a reasonable amount of time, up to 26 February, to have its results in.
I did think that there would be another good way to look at the impacts of this plan on the state of Victoria, particularly the Goulburn-Murray Water authority and that irrigation district; that is bigger than the state of Tasmania. But unfortunately, in the mid-term review of the efficiency and effectiveness of the Commonwealth of Australia's $1 billion investment in the project stage 2, when I look at the actual terms of reference for this mid-term review, I am astonished to find that the review will be based on interviews with project personnel and analyses of relevant documents and project reports. Who is writing those project reports and relevant documents? The Department of the Environment, Goulburn-Murray Water itself and the department of environment in the state of Victoria. No stakeholders are to be consulted. The farmers who are suffering the impacts of this mismanagement and botched scheme, which requires another 200 gigalitres to be taken out of their farms, are not to be consulted.
I am so please we have got this Senate inquiry. I want the mid-term review and terms of references amended. The state of Victoria cannot get away with this. I commend the Senate's inquiry to the people of Australia.
It being 5 pm, the debate is interrupted.
House adjourned at 17:00
Recently in the Blacktown Advocate calls were again made for CCTV cameras to be installed in the Blacktown CBD to monitor the crime-prone area. It said:
Businesses and police want to crack down on crime in the Blacktown CBD — a known hot spot for muggings, robbery and assaults.
Blacktown crime manager Detective Inspector Paul Tickner said police were in favour of installing CCTV cameras. He said:
If CCTV cameras are around, the likelihood of people committing any offence are usually diminished.
I could not agree more with those sentiments, which is why, in 2013, I was very pleased that the then minister for home affairs and justice, Jason Clare, came to Blacktown on several occasions and announced significant funding for crime prevention programs in Blacktown. This included Com4Unity obtaining $270,662 to enhance a contemporary music program called LYRIC and expand the capacity of the SWITCH urban hip-hop program. As I said at the time, the advice from Blacktown police is that this project has helped to reduce antisocial behaviour at Blacktown train station and the Westpoint shopping centre. Blacktown council was also to receive nearly $200,000 to fund the installation of CCTV cameras in the Patrick Street precinct, between the Westpoint shopping centre and Blacktown railway station.
It is therefore with great regret and, indeed, great anger that I report these funds were cruelly cut by the Abbott government, redirecting this vital funding away from the Greenway community to other areas. We know that this decision to reallocate these funds was subsequently referred to the Australian National Audit Office, which found a whopping 88 per cent of the Abbott government's reallocation of funds were awarded to coalition held seats, and only 12 per cent to Labor seats. The ANAO's report also stated:
The administration of the merit assessment process is an aspect that was handled particularly poorly by the department.
… … …
… it was common for the department to complete its assessment of applications without fully addressing each criterion, and without having obtained sufficient information from the applicant.
As Sid Maher reported in The Australian on 5 June this year:
Tony Abbott’s law-and-order plan to install cameras in crime hot spots is under fire from the audit office after it emerged three-quarters of the applicants failed to supply any statistics to demonstrate they were needed.
This decision to remove funds from Greenway is another devastating blow from this government. The communities, including Seven Hills, Blacktown and Riverstone, deserve better than to have their crime prevention funding raided by a petty government only focused on ensuring that Liberal seats are safe. But our communities are not safer. We all deserve safer communities. These projects in Blacktown were backed by our local councils, businesses and police, all working towards the same end in Greenway. It is a pity that this is clearly not supported by this government in this vital area, which our community so desperately needs support in.
It is fair to say in this place that the ABC brand has been diminishing in its value for some time. I also need to say this morning that on Tuesday night, the grand ABC brand of decades and generations was finally trashed through an incompetent production of the Q&A program. This is truly a serious matter. Under the law, the ABC is funded by the hardworking taxpayers of Australia to provide an impartial service. Any fair-minded person who watched the Q&A program on Monday night would be able to see quite clearly that, in performing its role, the ABC has well and truly crossed the line.
Facts are coming to light as we speak, but there are still far too many questions that remain unanswered. We find that this man, a criminal convicted of offences that would cause great disturbance to all Australians, found his way into a studio audience and found his way onto a taxpayer funded ABC shuttle bus where names, as I understand it, have to be provided to the ABC. For goodness sake! Where on earth are the processes of the ABC to ensure that the people that it actively encourages to be a part of its live show are processed appropriately and that security matters are taken in account?
I do not want to use this platform to cause unnecessary alarm, but anyone of a fair mind only has to read the tweets of this man to know the history of this man. You would have to be insane to allow this person into a live audience with a soapbox that is bigger than most to make a point. Following the show, the man in question tweeted:
I would pay to see that Minister dumped on #ISIS territory in Iraq!
What a disgraceful tweet! In the past he has also tweeted about our former Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He tweeted:
Australian Citizenship test: Question: Do you support the throat slash of Australia's first female prime minister? Please tick YES or NO?
I need say no more. The ABC have let this country down. Q&A is letting the brand of the ABC down, and much more needs to be done to restore our confidence in it.
On Sunday, 21 June I had the great honour of attending the International Day of Yoga at the Springers Leisure Centre. I shared that experience with a number of dignitaries, including the speaker of the legislative assembly of Victoria, Hon. Telmo Languiller; the Consul General of India in Melbourne, Manika Jain; Inga Peulich, who was there representing the Premier, as I was representing the Leader of the Opposition; and the Mayor of the City of Greater Dandenong.
We were there with hundreds and hundreds of members of the Indian community to celebrate a day that had been initiated by Prime Minister Modi at the end of September 2014. It tied into the great gift that India has given Australia, which is its people. We have over 450,000 people of Indian origin living in our country. Many, many communities have come to our shores, but I have to use this chamber to praise the Indian community for the amazing people that it has given to us. They make such a great contribution to our country and to our country's future.
I was very impressed by the initiative of Prime Minister Modi. It appeared to me, when I spoke to the hundreds of people gathered and noted the many millions around the world that were participating in this event, that it says a lot about a culture when it wants to share, in the most visceral way possible, something that is so meaningful to its own society and its culture. Yoga has been practised for over 5,000 years. You see it in the sacred scriptures. It is the essence for many Indians of what it means to be Indian. What better way could you have of commemorating Indian culture?
I also saw the invitation from Prime Minister Modi to the Australian community to share Indian culture as almost a hand across that vast expanse of the Indian Ocean saying: 'Come share our culture and our history with us. Come and experience that with us.' In doing so, what we are doing is seeing the world through the Indian community's eyes—and what better way in these tumultuous times internationally.
India has a great role to play in the emergence of Asia as the centre of political and economic gravity in the 21st century. What better way of experiencing that than to share one of the most sacred parts of Indian culture? I commend the Indian community and Prime Minister Modi for this great initiative. I look forward to reporting back to this chamber in many years about the great success of this sharing of our two cultures.
On Wednesday 10 June I had the great pleasure of representing the Parliamentary Secretary for Education, Senator Scott Ryan, at the project opening for stage 2 of the new primary school at the Lumen Christi Catholic College in Pambula. The school is a coeducational primary and secondary college with almost 700 students. It caters to a growing demand for private, faith-based education and the coalition is proud to strongly support this choice being extended to parents in Eden-Monaro.
For this project, the Australian government contributed a grant in excess of $968,000 under the capital grants program. The college, with support from the wider Catholic education system, contributed over $1.3 million. These new facilities, which include four classrooms, a meeting room, a boardroom and learning pods are a real cause for celebration. I thank the principal, Steve Centra, for hosting the opening and acknowledge his and his team's work in bringing this project to fruition.
Monsignor John Woods, Episcopal Vicar of education of the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, blessed the new rooms. Lumen Christi has a committed parent body, their College Community Council, ably led by chairperson Jenny Sheedy. Long may they and the student body live out the school motto, 'Be the Light of Christ', in Eden-Monaro.
Further, on Friday 12 June, it was my great pleasure to attend the Foundation Day ceremony at Snowy Mountains Grammar School in Jindabyne. Foundation Day is an important milestone each year, where the school shows its gratitude for the wisdom and commitment demonstrated by those who contributed to the establishment of the school, which will complete 20 years of education at the conclusion of the school year.
School Captains Bellamie Hansen and Sean Richards welcomed all to the ceremony. Oscar Litchfield then entertained us with his own guitar composition. Former Snowy Mountains Authority employees Ian Graham and Jim Crocker regaled the audience with a brief description of working life in the maintenance section of that organisation.
Following the address by Principal Bell, I presented this fine school with an Australian flag that has flown in this House of Representatives. The senior singers then performed a very good version of Man in the Mirror, and this was backed up by an equally enjoyable Titanium by the secondary girls vocal ensemble.
Congratulation to the various recipients of school awards, including Daniel Ternes-Dixon of year 6 and Sean Richards of year 12, for the junior and senior esprit de corps, or heart and spirit award. Thank you to Snowy Mountains Grammar school for letting me share your celebration of establishment, growth and achievement.
Firstly, I would like to associate myself with the remarks that were made previously by the member for Parkes. I would like to say that the ABC's Q&A has done a great disservice to Australians of Muslim faith and an even greater disservice to the people in my electorate. I have a very large constituency in Calwell of Australians of Muslim who, quite frankly, are sick and tired of unsavoury characters speaking on their behalf, especially on national television.
I would now like to speak about something more pleasant. I was very honoured to attend a very simple but beautiful memorial service in an old pioneer cemetery in my electorate last Friday. The ecumenical service at Will Will Rook Cemetery was held in honour of approximately 400 babies and young children who died while in the care of local orphanages and other institutions between the years of 1901 and 1942.
It was arranged and hosted by Francis Trimboli and her team at the Dallas Neighbourhood House in conjunction with a local group of forgotten Australians. I have spoken in this House before about the forgotten Australians and the lifelong impact they bear from being raised in institutions of various denominations. For a range of reasons these people were removed from their families as children, made wards of the state and endure many hardships and even horrors: the loss and lack of family, nurturing, love, encouragement, educational opportunity and basic personal health and safety throughout their formative years continues to haunt the forgotten Australians well into adulthood and old age.
As I have done on other occasions, I note the incredible advocacy work done on behalf of this group of citizens, and by one of my constituents in particular, Wendy Dyckhoff, who herself is a forgotten Australian. It was in fact Wendy's initiative to hold the memorial service last week. Together with the fine people at the Broadmeadows Historical Society, she had been researching the history of local babies and children's homes. She discovered that many infants who had died while in care and who did not have known families had been buried in unmarked mass graves, probably without sanctification. She and other forgotten Australians felt it was important to finally lay their souls to rest with a proper memorial service.
Dallas Neighbourhood House continue to play an important role in supporting local forgotten Australians, and it is to their credit that they took up Wendy's suggestion and arranged the service. They also used the opportunity to prepare for the ceremony through an innovative art therapy program in partnership with La Trobe University's school of nursing. Titled 'Start Talking', the program helped a group of forgotten Australians and other clients of the neighbourhood house to use art to explore their feelings and fears, reconnect with their innate creativity and produce beautiful artefacts that were exhibited as part of the memorial occasion.
In Australia, our governments over the years have always taken the attitude and responsibility that we should care for those of us who are struggling with unemployment and other issues. As a result, we have a comprehensive welfare system that reaches most people. Unfortunately, sometimes what we see is the money that is allocated to families for the welfare of their children and the welfare of the women in the house is being used for other things such as alcohol, gambling and the purchase of drugs.
Over the years, and certainly in my 7½ years as a member of this place, we have struggled with different ways to address this inequity. One of the things that has been mentioned of late is the use of a welfare card, whereby recipients receive a large percentage of their welfare payment for that household—child support and unemployment benefits or whatever else—on the card, with an amount of cash that would obviously be used at the person's discretion. This card would look like any other credit card; it would not hold the recipient out as being anything noticeable, but could be used to purchase a whole range of things. The only places it could not be used at would be places where you can purchase alcohol, ATMs or in locations where there is gambling.
Around Australia there are some trial sites being considered by the government. One of those is in Moree, and there are discussions going on with the community there. There have been for some time, and there was another discussion yesterday. I just want to reiterate that this will not happen if the community does not get behind it; however, I would also encourage the community to open their eyes to the possibility that this might work. One of the reasons why Moree has been chosen is that the welfare recipients in Moree are about fifty-fifty Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal. The last thing I would ever support is a measure that was based on race, but this is a measure that is based on trying to improve the welfare and wellbeing of those in our society who need our care the most. The discussions will be ongoing in Moree. A decision has not been made, but hopefully we will soon get to that point.
My electorate of Fraser has the honour of being the nation's seat of government. Despite this government having cut 17,000 Public Service jobs, around one in three Canberrans works for the Australian Public Service. Despite attempts to pork-barrel with Canberra public servants' jobs, this remains the centre of administrative government for Australia as well as the legislative capital.
Here in Canberra many of my constituents are struggling to get a toehold in our property market. Like hundreds of thousands of young Australians across the country, they are finding that homeownership is an increasingly distant dream. Australia is now ranked as the third worst country for housing affordability in the OECD on the measure of prices to incomes. Here in the ACT the median house price has risen rapidly, faster than inflation. If the government's desultory wage offers to public servants are to continue then housing in the ACT will become even more unaffordable.
The lack of affordable housing for Canberrans to buy flows through to higher costs in the rental market as well. Despite unprecedented investment and the National Rental Affordability Scheme during Labor's last term in government, the ACT Council of Social Service estimates in its annual rental affordability snapshot that only one in 300 rental properties is affordable for people on low incomes. The council found that some Canberrans are paying up to two-thirds of their income in rent, just to have a secure roof over their heads—a situation that places them in extreme financial stress.
Housing affordability is one of the biggest challenges facing Australia. It undermines the ability of young Australians to build a secure financial future. Yet the Abbott government has suggested that it cares little about the problem of housing affordability for everyday Australians—from the Treasurer's comment that if housing were unaffordable people would not be buying it to the Prime Minister's faux empathy and tales of his own mortgage stress on a cabinet minister's salary. It suggests the government does not get the housing affordability challenge.
Labor has been hosting roundtables with experts and community groups to look for solutions. We have not been striking things off the table, but we are willing to look at a range of options. We have had a discussion paper out for public consultation. All of that stands in contrast to the government's suggestion that Australians should simply go and get a good job. We need a focused response to housing affordability that addresses issues like supply. We need to make sure that the 50 per cent of young people who are still renting into their early 30s have a government that is willing to act on housing affordability, to acknowledge the problem and to consult with experts to find a solution.
I rise today with good news for tens of thousands of people in my electorate of Macarthur. Thanks to the tremendous work of the Minister for Communications, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull MP, and his lovely staff, 20,900 premises in Macarthur are due to start NBN construction in coming months. The suburbs included in the 2016 rollout are Airds, Bradbury, Rosemeadow, St Helens Park, Ambarvale, Campbelltown, Englorie Park, Glen Alpine, Blair Athol, Blairmount, Claymore, Eagle Vale, Woodbine, Kentlyn and Ruse.
Superfast broadband will help local businesses in these areas innovate and explore new and exciting online opportunities. It will create more flexibility for people to work from home, for students to do their homework or just watch high-definition movies without interference from slow speeds or patchy service.
In earlier deployments, NBN technology has delivered average speeds of 91 megabits per second and upload speeds of 36 megabits per second. Those speeds would allow someone to stream up to 18 high-definition Netflix movies simultaneously. Delivering these kinds of speeds to millions of premises across the country is truly a staggering achievement.
Labor spent $6.5 billion on the NBN but only managed to deliver broadband to two per cent of premises nationwide. When announcing the NBN, then Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Conroy promised the rollout would be complete by 2018 and would cost the government no more than $26 billion. The latest strategic review into the NBN found the project under Labor would not have been finished until 2025—10 years from now. Labor failed to meet every rollout target it set itself. A policy audit of Labor's NBN found its project relied on flawed advice and was created from scratch in only 11 chaotic weeks.
When the coalition inherited the project, we found that construction had stopped in Tasmania and had all but stopped in Western Australia and South Australia. By introducing a range of innovative strategies and hybrid technologies, the Abbott government has managed to avert disaster. Since coming to office, the coalition has worked with NBN Co to dramatically expand and accelerate the NBN rollout. Now the number of Australians with access to superfast broadband has increased ninefold. The NBN is now available to over one million premises nationwide. By September 2016, the NBN will have passed or construction will have started on more than three million homes and businesses or a total of one in four premises.
The NBN rollout in Macarthur is an important milestone for my electorate. It is something that people have been crying out for for years, but under Labor the experience was one of disappointment and frustration. We were told the NBN would revolutionise connectivity and offer a new range of online services and applications, yet its construction was painfully slow, if not virtually non-existent. I am delighted that thanks to the Abbott government 20,900 homes in Macarthur are now being connected sooner and at less cost to taxpayers than Labor would have achieved. I look forward to making further announcements for Macarthur as we get on with the job of rolling out the NBN.
Before I became a politician and a lawyer, I was a schoolteacher for 11 years. In that time, I became very passionate about giving people the right opportunity in life. That is why I am particularly passionate about TAFE. Yesterday, we celebrated National TAFE Day. Politicians from across the divide came together with TAFE teachers to acknowledge the great work that they do. There was even a member from the Liberal and National Party there. Senator Birmingham, the Assistant Minister for Education and Training, came along to acknowledge the great contribution that TAFE makes to our nation. It is a real national asset.
Labor understands the importance of education and understands that education must be for everyone. TAFE is about building skills for the future. Apart from skilling up youth, TAFE fulfils an important role for mature age people who find themselves in a situation where they have to change careers. TAFE provides them with the opportunity to undertake an apprenticeship and to re-enter the workforce so they can provide for themselves and their families. The importance of TAFE cannot be overstated. It provides school leavers with more than just basic workplace skills. It gives them the confidence to learn independently and then to move into the workforce. TAFE helps mature age workers not only to re-skill but also to transfer their skills to other employment opportunities. TAFE also provides employees with the chance to train up in their profession so they can be more effective in their employment.
It is a travesty that this Abbott government has cut $2 billion from TAFE and vocational education, including $1 billion from apprenticeships. Not satisfied with its attempts so far to wreck the sector, Tony Abbott's green paper proposes that the federal government completely abandon its role in funding vocational education and training. This government has no plan for our youth and no plan to ensure that Australia has a skilled workforce for the future.
Labor believes in the necessity of skilling the workforce for tomorrow. We have a plan to make skills and training a national priority. A Shorten Labor government will guarantee a portion of federal funding for vocational education dedicated to public TAFE. I am proud to say that under the previous Labor government, the number of people participating in government funded training grew from 1.2 million in 2007 to 1.5 million in 2013.
In my electorate of Moreton, we have a small scale TAFE at Yeerongpilly which holds Adult Migrant English Program classes, which is appropriate for a diverse and multicultural electorate like Moreton. We also have TAFE training provided at Salisbury, which I have inspected. At the suburb of Acacia Ridge, we have the world-class facility of SkillsTech, which operates under the TAFE umbrella and focuses on a range of trades including welding, engineering and the like. Labor will ensure that those wanting to pursue a career path that is trade based, which is crucial for our future, will always have the opportunity to do so under a Labor government.
I wish to update this place on the public conversation regarding citizenship that is underway in my electorate of Tangney. This has originated organically over many months. My constituents welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the formal citizenship review process. Indeed, I encourage all of those interested in the issue of what it is to be a citizen in terms of rights and responsibilities to make a submission. Submissions can be made until the end of this month and further information on the process is available at www.citizenship.gov.au or at my electorate office.
Tangney is an electorate with a rapidly changing face. The common bond of citizenship must not and cannot be diminished. The Abbott government will strengthen the ties that bind us. In Tangney, there are 16,400 businesses and each knows the value of a contract. In a crude way, citizenship is the highest contract between the state and the individual. Fidelity, honour, respect, rights and responsibilities: these cannot be but words; they are clauses in the contract. Violating any of these does invalidate the contract. That is the clear message my constituents have relayed to me over the last six weeks. This feedback has been given through community forums, community surveys and my website. Some 1,200 people per week still come to Western Australia to make it home, and many, when they find themselves in Tangney, avail themselves of some of the state's best public schools. Those who feel most offended by those who defile the idea of Australian citizenship are those who have worked, wanted, wished and waited for citizenship—our new Australians.
The current citizenship test is an insult to the true value of citizenship. Having only 20 multiple-choice questions does a great disservice not only to the value of citizenship and its place but also to the new immigrants looking to integrate. The key to integrating in a melting-pot society is melting. The only way to melt is to know English, to know where we have come from and to have the same desires and values—all of this—because by knowing the road travelled yesterday we can forge a new and better road together for tomorrow.
Last Friday I attended the 25th birthday party of Eastlakes Legacy at Swansea RSL. Eastlakes Legacy is a group of senior women who have made enormous contributions within their group. They provide support for each other. During that birthday party, we reminisced about our long-term relationship.
I remember attending one of their first birthday parties held down at Caves Beach: all the women sat together and we had a picnic lunch. Those same women are a little older now and there are fewer of them involved in the group than there were back then, but they are still there for each other. The oldest member of the group, Mavis Kanaar, is 95 and looking forward to the celebration of her 100th birthday. Last year she received one of the Shortland Awards for her work as a volunteer. She is an outstanding woman.
In addition to that, tribute was paid to June Hughes, who has retired as president. June has been involved with Eastlakes Legacy widows for 19 years. She has provided enormous service to the group and support to many widows over that period of time. Unfortunately, June now has very poor eyesight and quite a few health problems, so instead of being the leader of the group she is now a member of the group and getting support from all of the other members of Eastlakes Legacy. An award was given to her on the day, and she was given flowers and chocolates and everyone expressed their appreciation for her contribution to the group.
The new president is Marie Pyne. She is a vibrant lady who is looking forward to taking over where June left off. I know that Eastlakes Legacy widows will be in good hands under her leadership. Noelene Seaborne will continue in the role of secretary and continue to do the fantastic job that she has been doing so many years. I congratulate Eastlakes Legacy widows on the fine work that they have done in supporting each other, and I look forward to attending their 26th birthday party next year as well as catching up with them at Christmas time.
( I rise today to update the House on the great work of one of the schools in my electorate—the Tallebudgera State School. They are doing some outstanding work in technology. I would particularly like to speak about some of the work that they are doing in computer coding.
By way of background, Tellabudgera State School is, in my view, an outstanding school. It has terrific staff, terrific students and a very engaged parent community. Last Friday I took the opportunity to visit the school to attend one of the classes. It was actually the computer coding club that the school runs twice a week. It is a before-school activity, so it is extracurricular activity that is purely voluntary for those students who wish to attend. Generally about 20 students, sometimes up to 30, attend the club before school and learn about computer coding. The students who attend range quite widely in age and ability. Some entry-level students come along to learn the basics of coding, and others, who have been going along for quite some time and do a lot of work, particularly in their own time, have developed great skills in more advanced computer coding.
The club was the brainchild of one of the parents, Jason Vearing, about three years ago. He approached the school and talked about his belief that coding was going to be needed into the future. He had skills in that area, so he offered to participate at the school to help start up a computer coding club. The school really welcomed that opportunity and took it up. The IT teacher, Timm Hayer, under the leadership of the principal, Toni Robinson, is now very much engaged in helping these students build their computer coding skills.
When I went to along last Friday, two of the students, Kate and Kira, worked with me in helping me write a program. I may have required a little bit more assistance than some of the students in their class, but I had a fantastic time. Those two girls did a terrific job of guiding me through the program that they were using, which was Scratch, developed by MIT. It is available free online for anyone who would like to have a go at writing a program. I do encourage you to go online and have a look at that. It was a terrific opportunity for me to learn firsthand from the students what they are learning in their computer club and to improve my own skills, because, quite frankly, I had not tried to write a game before, so I learnt something that day. It was a great opportunity. A big congratulations to Tellabudgera State School, which is certainly leading the way in technology. I congratulate you. Keep up the good work.
A fair pension and a decent superannuation policy is the bedrock of a fair society. About 330,000 part age pensioners are about to receive an extremely rude financial shock, courtesy of the Liberal government and the Greens. I do not believe the government or the Greens fully understand the magnitude of the cuts that are going to flow through to part-pensioners: 330,000 part-pensioners are going to receive some very substantial cuts to their total income—a very nasty shock.
People who will be hit include, for example, a single person with assets exceeding just $250,000, and a couple with assets exceeding $375,000. These people have been slurred by the Prime Minister and government ministers as millionaires, and they are not. They have accumulated a small retirement nest egg and receive a reasonably small part-pension—something that we urge them all to do for the future of the country. These changes and these cuts to their part age pension will, in fact, encourage these people to divest, to spend their money rather than to take a part-pension.
There are a lot of people in Australia who are being dudded by the Liberal Party and dudded by the Greens, and people are telling lies about them. The Liberal Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of a number of billionaires in the top end of town. These people opposite go around and call these people millionaires, when they have very modest incomes. If you have a combined income of $36,000, you will have your part-pension cut by $8,000. You have got a nerve to call those people millionaires! You do not know what you have done. You will be punished in your electorates at the next election for this attack on people on very modest incomes, who have saved all of their life.
Government members interjecting—
Vandals like you, who will not tax multinational companies when they shift their profits offshore, shift the burden onto low-income retirees. Shame on you! Shame on you for this attack on pensioners. Shame on you for attacking the very people who made our country great. That is what you have done. The superannuation system in this country was always meant to connect with the age pension.
On our side of the House we put in place a decent age pension, the single biggest increase in the history of the pension. The first thing you did in government was to attack that age pension in your first budget by trying to change the indexation. Having failed to do that, you are now getting stuck right into part-pensioners, people on incomes as little as $36,000 a year. They are not millionaires. You are attacking the very people who made our country— (Time expired)
It gives me pleasure to rise and speak today about the Parliamentary Friends of History and Heritage. We had our first meeting yesterday. I am very pleased to advise that 23 members of parliament and senators agreed with our prompting to join the Parliamentary Friends of History and Heritage. Yesterday, I was joined by my co-convenor, Mr Laurie Ferguson, the member for Werriwa, and I thank him for his contribution and his interest in this, and his bipartisan support of the work we have before us. Can I also acknowledge Minister Greg Hunt, who has been very supportive of this initiative and I welcomed his attendance yesterday at our initial meeting, and all my parliamentary colleagues, some of whom were apologies yesterday.
Our special guests included Mr Scott McAlister, the president of the Australian Council of National Trusts; Professor Don Garden, president of the Federation of Australian Historical Societies; also Professor Elizabeth Vines, the president of ICOMOS Australia. I also had Mr Dallas Baker AO, who is from my electorate in the beautiful town of Lachlan who is the immediate past president of the Friends of Deal Island. It was great to have him there.
I am very pleased to advise that we have two patrons that have agreed to participate with our Parliamentary Friends group, Mr Peter FitzSimons, whom many would know, and also Mr Les Carline. Both are authors of note and they have agreed to be the patrons for our group. I look forward to opportunities when they will address the parliamentary friends group in the future.
The charter of our group is to raise public awareness of history and heritage—natural, Indigenous, cultural and built heritage. It is all around us. It is part of who we are as a nation. It is our story. It is our national identity. In my electorate alone, I have five of the 11 national convict World Heritage sites at Woolmers Estate in Brickendon, Darlington on Maria Island, the coalmines on the Tasman Peninsula, and—the one that is perhaps most well-known to most Australians—Port Arthur. There are enormous opportunities around heritage and history tourism opportunities. I was very pleased to see that the minister has given the parliamentary friends group a wonderful opportunity to nominate properties that we as a group decide could be considered for assessment by the National Heritage Council. It is a great opportunity.
Particularly, in the time I have left, I want to talk about one of the other charters for our group, which is to establish a national heritage and arts lottery. This is overdue. It is something that works extremely well in the United Kingdom. There are no impediments and there seems to be bipartisan support—and I thank the ALP for that—to see something that will provide additional funds to community groups and arts groups all around our country to protect our natural and built heritage.
The swift parrot is a small, fast-flying, mostly green parrot with a blood-red head, exclusive to Australia. According to Birdlife Australia's head of conservation, Samantha Vine, it is on track to extinction at a faster rate than almost any other Australian bird. Swift parrots spend their winters foraging across Victoria, New South Wales, the ACT and Queensland. Indeed, they have recently been sighted at the MacLeod railway station in my home city of Melbourne.
The less than 1,000 pairs of remaining swift parrots rely on Tasmania's mature eucalypt forests to breed. As stated in the 2011 National Recovery Plan for the Swift Parrot, the persistence of this species is mainly threatened by loss and alteration of habitat from forestry activities. Documents obtained under Tasmanian freedom of information laws show that the Tasmanian environment department sought specialist expert advice regarding five proposed logging coupes within an identified swift parrot important breeding area in the southern forests. The expert advice warned that logging in the coupes would result in the loss of critical breeding habitat and interfere with the recovery of the species. Despite the advice, the department approved logging in three of the five coupes for which information was provided.
If this was not bad enough, last year scientists from the Australian National University published their discovery of a new threat to swift parrots—sugar gliders. Introduced to Tasmania and small enough to enter the tree hollows where swift parrots nest, the gliders are eating not only swift parrot eggs and nestlings, but also adult females. On the Tasmanian mainland most swift parrot nests are currently failing as a consequence of sugar glider predation. Fortunately, Bruny Island is free of sugar gliders. It is a critical refuge for swift parrots. Nevertheless, swift parrot breeding habitat on the island is currently being logged. Logging is now proposed adjacent to the beautiful Inala Private Reserve. Forestry Tasmania has served a notice of intent to clear-fell the neighbouring property identified as Coupe SB016B in October this year. In April, local businesses and landowners called for the immediate cessation of logging Bruny Island coupes known to contain swift parrot nests.
I support the call by BirdLife Australia that logging of swift parrot breeding habitat on Bruny Island free from sugar gliders should cease. The swift parrot belongs to all Australians, just like koalas or the Great Barrier Reef. A federal safeguard should exist and be used so that a state government cannot allow a beautiful species such as the swift parrot to die out and never be seen or heard again.
The CFMEU, for some reason, has attacked the federal government through my offices in Gladstone and Emerald over the Chinese FTA agreement, which was signed last week by our Minister for Trade and Investment, Mr Andrew Robb. This is a bit hard to explain. I cannot see where they are coming from. They say that the agreement is an attack on Australian jobs and on Australian standards and quality of imports from China. There have been no changes under an FTA to our Standards Australia agreement with any nation. That has not changed. We still have the high-quality quarantine restrictions on faulty products or impure products coming into Australia. That has not changed. It is not part of the FTA. But for some reason the CFMEU think that our standards have dropped because of the signing of the FTA.
The CFMEU put out a robocall to a lot of people in my electorate. I know it was not the local CFMEU. It had to be a southern CFMEU group who orchestrated these phone calls because they put them out on State of Origin night. This is sacrilege. No self-respecting unionist in my area would ever dream of putting a robocall out to people in my electorate and want to talk about FTAs on State of Origin football might. That is the first lesson they should remember. Do not do that in future. The second lesson is that they should check their facts before bringing on such a leaflet drop in my area and making these robocalls, especially when they are not right. They had the audacity to put it in writing. That makes it even worse. But I could tell by the number of phone calls we got in both our offices in Emerald and Gladstone that no-one took much notice of them. That was a good thing. Sensible people indeed!
The free trade agreement with China has been going on for 10 years. It started back in the Howard years. Then the Labor Party had it for six years. It took Andrew Robb 18 months to finally get around to signing it. This is a bipartisan agreement. Both sides of the House are in favour of free trade. Overall it does bring benefits to our nation—job wise, investment wise. So why would the CFMEU knock their own people, who will benefit from jobs and investment in Australia?
The Australian community is a very rich and diverse society encompassing many cultures and religions. At times, medical emergencies occur and paramedics are required to respond to a range of health care needs in our diverse community. At present, there are 13,000 paramedics in Australia. They play a key role not only in the provision of vital health care services but also in delivering emergency care in what are often very dangerous and highly complex situations. Most of these high-risk interventions occur totally unsupervised. Therefore, the regulations that underpin matters associated with this profession are of particular concern to paramedics. Despite the risks associated with paramedic practice, there is currently a total absence of a national regulatory framework for paramedics in this country.
For a number of years now there has been a significant push for the registration of paramedics under a national registration accreditation scheme. The primary objective of registration is to ensure greater public safety through the recognition of a paramedic's fitness to practise, regardless of the workplace setting they operate in or their association with either public or private health care providers. Currently, there is no national consistency when it comes to what constitutes a paramedic. I think the community would be pretty concerned about that. Currently there is a myriad of state regulations creating various and different conditions. These apply particularly to education and training and to the safeguards going to patient care. There is no consistency.
The national registration of paramedics would enhance the profession's standards and ensure consistency while delivering on the community's general expectation of what it is that a paramedic does. It would mean that regardless of where you are in this country, you will know that a paramedic is trained to, and operates at, a consistent professional standard. The public safety benefits that would accrue through national registration would be national consistency in regulation of a paramedic's fitness to practise, national consistency in qualifications and a compulsory and independent accreditation of training and education. The overall purpose of national registration is about public safety, minimising risk and having the best safeguards available for our community.
Today I acknowledge the initiative of the unions who support paramedic registration, namely the Health Services Union, the Ambulance Employees Association, United Voice, the Health and Community Services Union and the Transport Workers Union.
On Wednesday 24 June, at Ballajura Community College in the electorate of Cowan, Choirfest took place again this year. This excellent annual event brings together a number of choirs from the Ballajura and Alexander Heights suburbs within the electorate Cowan. The schools involved include Alinjarra Primary School from Alexander Heights, Ballajura Community College, Ballajura Primary School, Illawarra Primary School, South Ballajura Education Support Centre, South Ballajura Primary School and Dianella Heights Primary School. This is an outstanding annual event where the performing arts—in this case song—are put out there into the community. The performing arts programs in the schools that I mentioned within the Cowan electorate really are of a very high standard.
The choirs of Illawarra Primary School and Alinjarra Primary School were supported by the Ballajura Community College Intermediate Band. Ballajura Primary School had their choir there, as did South Ballajura Primary School. The Ballatonix, which is the Ballajura Community College choir, were also there and the Dianella Heights Primary School choir performed as well. Guest performer Bernardine Grigson performed Pete Murray's Opportunity. The South Ballajura Signing Club and the all-schools choir performed to round out the program.
I would like to thank the people that made the event possible: Asha Goves, All Choir's leader and performing arts specialist at Ballajura Primary School; Helen Southerland, All Choirs leader and music teacher at Alinjarra Primary School; Tegan Borstal, music coordinator at Ballajura Community College; Silvana Ferrara, music teacher at Illawarra Primary School; Natalie Harney, education assistant at South Ballajura Education Support Centre; Lyndell Miller, music teacher at South Ballajura Primary School; Jenny Quigley, education assistant at South Ballajura Education Support Centre; Pasqueline Stynes, music teacher at Dianella Heights Primary School; Holly Ballam and James Fazio, presenters at Ballajura Community College; Patrick Boyle and Kaitlin Stoeckel, sound technicians, from Ballajura Community College; and Louise Moore, who did the artwork and design, from Ballajura Community College.
Congratulations to all those involved with Choirfest, a great part of the Cowan electorate.
In late February of this year, Cyclone Lam struck the township of Galiwinku, an Aboriginal community in north-east Arnhem Land. Today I want to pay tribute to the people of Galiwinku, and most particularly to the people who make up the Aboriginal health service at Galiwinku.
Among the many stories of post-cyclone survival and recovery—and there are many—one important to emerge has been that involving the Ngalkanbuy clinic, which provides health services to the people of Galiwinku. Ngalkanbuy comes under Miwatj Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service, which provides health services in the north-east Arnhem region. The people who make up the Ngalkanbuy service—its members, committee and dedicated and skilled staff—have worked over many years to develop health services that are fully integrated with their local community.
Ngalkanbuy has provided an outstanding example of how an understanding of culturally based brokership of health and delivery of health services is very important. Their understanding and expertise came to the fore in the Lam's aftermath, in many ways. Hundreds of homes in Galiwinku and surrounding homeland communities serviced by the Marthakal Homelands agency have been repaired or demolished; education, local government and other services which were disrupted have been largely re-established successfully, thanks to the hard work of community members and the Commonwealth and territory agencies involved in the emergency response.
A stand-out story has been the work done by Ngalkanbuy in addressing the mental health issues attendant to the disruption, displacement and hardship post the cyclone. Aboriginal psychologists Cherise Daiyi and Amanda Hart were brought in to the Ngalkanbuy team to work with the well-established mental health team. Ms Daiyi has stated that the Ngalkanbuy mental health model 'should actually set the scene for other natural disasters, having the community drive what their recovery looks like from a natural disaster'.
Consider this—in the words of mental health team members, Joan Dhamarrandji, Johnny Dhurrkay, Charlie Dhamarrandji and Daisy Gumbula—'Our model is successful because it is community-based and run by Yolngu people'. Ms Dhamarrandji said:
We go around and sit down at family groups, we have to do it with family, we want the whole family to hear about it, that's how we do it here.
You cannot walk into a community if you're an outsider and think that you know the problem, think that you know the term psychosis or paranoia. You have to understand the general context culturally.
Post cyclone, the team has organised activities to help the people living in the tent city active and occupied—including, hunting, fishing and collecting shells. They do very important work which has been recognised by the National Mental Health Commissioner Pat Dudgeon, who visited Galiwinku recently. She said:
There's a range of different best practice examples that not only could be useful for the rest of Indigenous Australia, but for the rest of Australia, Ms Dudgeon said.
In the short time that I have available to me I want to put on record how appalled I was with the Q&A program on Monday night and the way the ABC handled this particular incident. From one perspective in particular I have the most grave concerns. Here we had the ABC knowingly and deliberately putting their whole ABC team who were present at risk. There was a person present who had made very clear terrorist threats to ASIO officers. There were no security checks when people were entering. We not only had the ABC team who were producing that program but also a live audience. We also had a range of guests who were put at risk by the actions of the ABC. I raised this matter yesterday with Mr Mark Scott, and I let him know how appalled I am and, equally, how my constituents cannot believe that a taxpayer-funded organisation such as the ABC would show such total disregard for citizens of this nation.
An honourable member: Shameful!
Shameful indeed. When you consider the broader ramifications of that, and how this could be and will be used by ISIL in furthering their murderous cause, I would further say that the ABC has a serious case to answer. I could not believe when I looked at this live audience—I have seen IEDs and all sorts of different mechanisms used—that the ABC could take the threat of terrorism, given what Australia has been through and the people we have lost, so lightly. It is just appalling. It is absolutely appalling. The ABC needs to know that the Australian people, particularly the ones who have been in touch with me, are absolutely gobsmacked by this dreadful decision. The ABC knowingly and deliberately did this. They knew exactly what type of person they were inviting into their studio and they had a whole live audience that was at risk. It beggars belief, and I just cannot believe the irresponsibility of this particular act and what the potential ramifications of that situation could have been.
by leave—I move:
That consideration of orders of the day Nos 1 and 2, committee and delegation reports, be postponed until a later hour this day.
Question agreed to.
It is my pleasure to speak to the report Governance in the Indian Ocean Territories—interim report: economic development from the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories, which was recently tabled in the main chamber. I want to refer to the three recommendations of the report, remembering that this is an interim report—there will be other reports of this committee—and understanding that its terms of reference are broad-ranging. The point that I want to make is that the three recommendations are, of themselves, quite important, but they should not be seen as being the limit to what we are going to be talking about through the remainder of the report. That itself is quite important, because there may be an impression by some that what we are seeing here is the report. This is not the report—it is an interim report and should be understood as that.
One of the inquiry's terms of reference is to look at opportunities to strengthen and diversify the economy whilst maintaining and celebrating the unique cultural identity of the Indian Ocean Territories. Economic development is crucial to this community given where it is—its geographical location—and the ups and downs that have occurred in the place since I first became involved as far back as 1987.
The economy has been sustained by a mine, which was initially owned by the Commonwealth. It was closed in 1987 and reopened some time later in 1988. It was effectively given permission to open under a different guise. That mine has been the mainstay of the economy ever since, and in my view it will be the mainstay of the economy at least into the next decade. In the meantime, there has been a large detention facility built by the Howard government, which has of course been in the media because it is looking after detainees who sought to come to this country, principally by boat. Now we know that that has been down scaled again because of decisions taken by the government to place people elsewhere. So the local economy has been dealt a bit of a blow in terms of the winding back of these services.
At the same time the tourism industry, which is another important part of the community, is quite small. It is quite small for a range of reasons, not least of which is air access and opportunity for further land development on the island. You will recall that during the early 1990s a casino operated on Christmas Island—in fact, I issued its first licence. It was closed in the mid-1990s for a range of reasons. Ultimately, it has been the desire of the community for some time to have that casino reopened. I am pleased to say that one of the three recommendations of this interim report involves the reopening of the Christmas Island casino. I understand that the government is proactively looking at how that might actually be pursued.
The second recommendation is something which has been mooted for some time on Christmas Island, which involves having international students on Christmas Island. There has been some experience of that through the local high school, which has hosted international students from time to time. Then there is a recommendation on shipping and freight.
Ultimately, there is a range of other issues which we need to be addressing here, and which will no doubt be addressed in the final report or further interim reports of this committee. They involve issues around the release of land. Clearly, in excess of around 60 per cent of the island is a very important national park. It has pristine rainforest, which needs to be protected. But coexisting alongside it is a mining operation. I have to say that the mining operation has been very aware of its environmental responsibilities and has been working cooperatively and collaboratively with the national parks and other organisations to try to ensure not only the sustainability of the mining operation but also improving the local environment.
There is a massive invasion of other species on the island which are causing havoc—for example, feral cats and crazy ants, which are devastating the local environment. The mining operation have been using their income to work with the island community and the national parks and the Commonwealth government to address some of these issues. They do not need to do that, but they are doing it because they see a benefit to the whole of the island community, and their interest is a sustainable economy. I am very much aware of the needs of Christmas Island, and indeed of the Cocos islands. In terms of Christmas Island specifically, we do need to get our heads around the importance of land and how land is to be developed and released, and for what purpose it is to be developed and released.
There is a desire of the mining company to try to get access to further pockets of land for mining—not out of the national park, but on crown land. But there is an issue around the Commonwealth policies on crown land release and there is an issue about planning. Also, there are issues which are being advocated by the local shire around these same questions. They are concerned about matters to do with land release and also believe that it is holding back development on the island. This has been an issue which has been around for a couple of decades, but which has really not been satisfactorily addressed by successive governments. Now is the time to address it.
I am hopeful that in the course of the deliberations of this committee we will get to examine in great detail these issues around land and land release and the way in which the national park can coexist with its neighbours, who are involved in other activities, whether they be tourism or mining or whatever. There is a lot of work, initiated by the mining company, which is being done collaboratively to look at what other economic opportunities might exist on the island. They are aware that, once the mine finally closes, that will ultimately have a devastating impact on the island community unless alternative forms of employment and economic development can be found. It is important therefore to see it in that light.
Whilst I have a great commitment to Christmas Island, I do understand the frustration of Christmas Islanders themselves around the way in which policy from governments has been done without a lot of consultation recently. There is a real desire for community members to be engaged with the Commonwealth in decision making in a way which gives them far more responsibility around those decisions than they currently are being accorded. This has been the case since 1996, when the Howard government came to power and changed that relationship. We need to go back to where it was and give the local community a lot more responsibility for decision making, participating in decision making and keeping them advised of the relationships which have been developed between the Commonwealth and the Western Australian government through the service delivery arrangements the Commonwealth has with the Western Australia government.
This report is an important report. I thank the chair and other members of the committee and the committee secretariat for the work that they have been doing, along with the work we have been doing. I am looking forward to the further deliberations of the committee; in fact, I am leaving the chamber in a moment to go back to a committee hearing.
Most people in Australia know nothing about Christmas Island or the Cocos Islands. It is important that they start to understand not only the strategic relevance of these two places but also how important they are in themselves. They are culturally diverse and very different from other parts of this country, and we need to recognise their legitimate aspirations to long-term sustainable economic development and economic opportunities, including employment.
We know that a large number of kids leave these islands to go away for education. I have to say though that the Christmas Island District High School has won many awards over recent years for the standard of education they are providing. The kids go away into higher education well equipped and then have the opportunity come back. I am looking forward to the further work of this committee and to providing more support to the Indian Ocean Territories.
Debate adjourned.
My speech today is about a very special organisation in my electorate—the Murray Valley Sanctuary Refugee Group, a group which resettles refugees as part of the humanitarian visa program. Humanitarian visas are government-approved applications for acceptance to come to Australia as refugees. The people must apply to come to Australia, but they also must have UNHCR recommendations. They are screened for security and health issues. Sometimes it can take up to three years between an application and acceptance.
The Murray Valley Sanctuary Refugee Group was formed in November 2004. It is part of a wider Australian network—Sanctuary Australia Foundation, formerly the Sanctuary Refugee Foundation, which was formed in 1988 in Coffs Harbour. The Murray Valley Sanctuary Refugee Group's vision is to assist refugees to settle in Albury-Wodonga by providing funding and support to those on humanitarian visas in order that they may achieve independence and integration. Sanctuary has over 50 members, who work to raise funds and train as volunteers to assist new arrivals in their settlement. To date, the Murray Valley Sanctuary Refugee Group has sponsored and settled over 60 people. Over the past 10 years they have given out more than $150,000 in interest-free loans to new settlers and 31 loans for airfares. The repaid loans for the airfares are then used to pay for the next family to come. Rates of repayment are discussed with each family so that it is not a financial burden. They also assist with loans for the fees involved with child and orphan visa applications.
And what else do they do? Gaining a driver's licence is important for all people in the country, and so Sanctuary provides assistance in paying for six driving lessons as well as having volunteers who accompany the learners while they gain their driving skills.
Education is also very important to overcoming social disadvantage. The Sanctuary group provides assistance with the cost of tertiary education, whether it is for books or course fees. A cultural fund helps children participated in extra school activities, such as trips to Canberra, which have been offered by schools but would normally be outside the resources of newly arrived refugee families.
I am told that the arrival of people on 202 visas has slowed of late. While there are still many applications waiting to be processed, Sanctuary is keen to continue their work and they ask if there is anything that we can do to speed up the process.
Another issue for Sanctuary is working with young adolescents. In 2004, under the community proposed scheme, Sanctuary assisted some adolescents out of a refugee camp where they had been in a lot of danger. The four adolescents have now joined their slightly older brother, who had come out earlier on a 202 visa and has recently completed a social work degree. The pilot scheme was draining on the funds and put them under a lot of pressure as a small fundraising group. They are very keen to do it again, but they are finding it very challenging. I have to say that Sanctuary is now proud to celebrate 10 years of successful settlement and will look forward to another 10 years of work welcoming new arrivals to the community and helping them settle into life in Albury Wodonga.
In closing, I would like to sincerely acknowledge all of the community for their work, but particularly the members of the Sanctuary board: President Dr Penny Vine, Chris Gabriel, Joan Landy, Tony Smit, Sandra Blake, Ann McDonald and Paul Craane—the latter two for their terrific work on the website. I would certainly encourage people to visit the website and see how they can donate to this worthy cause. Finally, I would like to thank all of the people in my electorate of Indi, who take such an interest, with such care and compassion, in refugees and around asylum seeker issues. I am very proud to be your representative and your voice in this place.
I rise to welcome the successful passage of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill 2015 through the Senate a couple of nights ago and particularly the inclusion of wood biomass as a renewable energy source. Passage of this legislation is a welcome outbreak of common sense which will result in more than 23.5 per cent of Australia's electricity being derived from renewable sources by 2020.
Importantly for Tasmania, the renewable energy target includes biomass as an eligible form of renewable energy generation. This allows waste that otherwise would be burnt or would rot on the forest floor to generate power and reduce emissions. It is no different to when you slaughter a beast for food. I have next to me a Nationals MP, Mr Pitt, who will understand this better than most. When you do slaughter a beast for a group of families—as we used to a couple of years ago—and share it amongst those families for food, you do not do that just for the eye fillet. You use every piece of the animal, and this is no different. You do not use that wonderful sustainable timber resource in Tasmania just for planks; you use everything, and biomass is part of that. It is a sensible, evidence based way of making sure that we get the most out of our resources.
The use of biomass has the potential to deliver a boost to Tasmania's earnings, creating hundreds of new jobs, sustainable environmental benefits and a shot in the arm for regional communities like mine. Indeed, a recent survey found that in the seats of Braddon, Bass, Franklin and Lyons there was either support or strong support for the re-inclusion of wood waste in the renewable energy target from 67 per cent of those surveyed. It beggars belief that Tasmanian Labor politicians would have opposed this sensible, evidence-based approach to getting the most out of this wonderful renewable resource. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—and I know that those opposite are keen to quote the IPCC—recognises the environmental benefits of using biomass.
This bill protects industry and jobs by providing 100 per cent exemption for emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries like Bell Bay Aluminium from costs associated with the Renewable Energy Target. I would like to put on record a letter that I received from Mr Ray Mostogl, the general manager of Bell Bay Aluminium, in my electorate of Bass. Mr Mostogl writes:
Dear Mr Nikolic,
Bell Bay Aluminium … welcomes the passage of the Renewable Energy Target … legislation through the Parliament and thanks you for your support in achieving this outcome which is so vital to our industry …
You and your colleagues' support through many years of negotiations to finally achieve this outcome cannot be underestimated. We know you have been our champion behind the scenes and we thank you for this. You were an invaluable link to my staff which enabled us to best work together to achieve this outcome.
On behalf of the 430 people employed directly here at BBA, and many more families who are indirectly supported by our site, we thank you for your efforts.
Mr Mostogl included a handwritten note, which has touched me deeply, because Bell Bay Aluminium is one of that dying breed of organisations in Tasmania called big business. We do not have many of them left anymore, and this company supports the employment, directly or indirectly, of 1,500 Tasmanians, and that is why this is so important. His handwritten note says:
Andrew, there are at least 1500 Tasmanians who have a more certain future and I'm sure say "thank you" for your relentless effort to give us an even chance to compete globally.
I am as proud as punch at this outcome. I am as proud as punch at the fact that what we have done is provided some certainty for the people in my electorate, particularly in areas like George Town which have been doing it too tough for too long. I am pleased that what this means is that Bell Bay Aluminium sees this as easing the burden on their business and providing some more certainty going forward. That is a company that has worked closely with its workers, with unions and with others in recent years to make sure they can be as competitive as they can be. That is why removing this pressure on their business cost is something I am very proud to do.
I conclude by saying that the government that I am proud to belong to is committed to ensuring renewable energy continues to play an important role in Australia's energy mix. This legislation achieves that, and it is great for my electorate of Bass.
I will talk about food labelling this morning. I am quite convinced I will not do justice to the topic because there are enormous issues and so many different dimensions to food labelling. There are the issues surrounding country of origin and there are issues surrounding things such as traffic-light labelling, animal-friendly labelling, cosmetic labelling and genetically modified food labelling. It is a very big issue that covers so many different dimensions, and it is something that I do not think we have got right here in Australia.
We have had food standard laws since 1991 and these relate to where the food was made, produced or grown—food needs to be labelled, and it needs to state where the food was manufactured or packaged. Really that does not give consumers in Australia confidence. I have been contacted by many people in my office who are very concerned about the fact that the labelling system is very confusing. 'Made in Australia' could mean that all the ingredients were sourced overseas but the product was packaged in Australia. They do not have the confidence that the food they are buying is actually made in Australia. Australian consumers overwhelmingly favour locally produced products and there have been many surveys that show this. This is mainly because they have confidence in the food that is grown in our country. They have confidence that food adheres to strict food-testing procedures. They are pretty confident that food that is manufactured and produced in Australia is suitable for human consumption.
We have had numerous examples of situations where food has been produced overseas and packaged in Australia and has led to people believing that the food they were purchasing was Australian-grown and produced. We only have to look at the issues around the berries and the hepatitis, earlier this year, to see the degree of confusion in this area. Ministers Macfarlane and Joyce undertook to look at this issue and come up with some recommendations but as yet nothing has changed.
The other aspect was looked at in the Blewett review. It recommended that consumers needed more information and that industry had a need for more flexibility and minimal regulatory burden and government objectives in the area of individual and public health. So there are some conflicting issues when it comes to food labelling. The report recommended that the government introduce a national food labelling bureau—which did not happen; consumer protections should be a higher priority for government agencies—I think that Australian consumers are pushing for this to be a higher priority; and that there should be a voluntary code of practice.
In 2007, the parliament inquired into obesity. We learnt and heard from a number of people that advocated the need for better labelling around the nutritional value and 'traffic light' labelling—issues such as added sugar, added fat, vegetable oils. Even palm oil was a big issue that was identified as one that needs to be looked at in labelling. I call on the government to actually look at the labelling and come up with some sensible laws.
It is a great opportunity in the adjournment debate to raise issues that are of importance to my constituents. I am not sure how many of my fellow members and colleagues have been to the great island of King Island, in my electorate—a magnificent place, a small population of maybe 1,400 people. At the heart of King Island, amongst many other great community organisations, is Phoenix House—an important community hub and really the centre of community life on the island. In recognition of their continued work in the community, I am pleased to announce that the federal Liberal government has awarded Phoenix House $141,000 in additional funding to continue to operate the King Island SELF project.
The SELF project is what Phoenix House —being a community hub— calls its core activity. If you have the opportunity to visit this unique island in Bass Strait and drop into Phoenix House , as I do on every occasion that I go to the island—I always enjoy a cuppa and a sandwich and a bickie with the great staff there. To Charles Pearce, who is the chairman of Phoenix House, and to the wonderful staff and volunteers that work there, it is a tremendous privilege, from the federal government's point of view, to help them in the continuation of their work.
A number of groups that rely on Phoenix House. So this funding announcement will be very much welcome. Phoenix House hosts adult literacy programs, book groups, social groups for disabled people, chronic disease prevention, new parents groups, day care, school holiday groups and many more activities. Phoenix House also hosts the King Island Men's Shed. Men's sheds, as we all know, are an integral part of the community, offering men of all ages a place of support, health education and community engagement.
This funding is great news for the community and follows strong representations that I have made to the Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison. These additional funds, for two additional years to 30 June 2017, will be delivered to ensure Phoenix House can continue to provide these important services to the community. I thank the minister for his strong support. This is good news for King Island and particularly for our residents who benefit from Phoenix House. I am proud to have assisted in providing certainty for Phoenix House and look forward to them continuing to provide their services in the local community.
I will stop short at that particular announcement. I have been waiting for an email, which I have just received, in relation to announcements for black spot funding that are being made by the government as we speak. I am sure we have all been working hard as local members to ensure that mobile black spots in our electorates are up there as sites for priority. It is tremendous that after six years of Labor, when not one cent was put into black spot funding for mobile phones, $100 million has been found by the federal government to work alongside local government, state government and telcos to actually find the spots that are of priority, to fund them and to get them up. I am thrilled today to be able to announce that in my electorate we will be receiving seven either updated or new base stations, which will be covering 26 locations in Braddon, with a total investment of nearly $5 million. That is great news for my electorate of Braddon. Stations are to be upgraded, or base stations are to be built, in Elliott, Gawler, Loyetea, Melrose, Sisters Beach—which is a tremendous tourism area, and they will be thrilled with that announcement—South Riana and Takone.
When if comes to communications, there has been a lot of talk about NBN and the fact that people do want faster, more affordable and more reliable broadband services, but I have to say that in regional seats—and I am sure the member for Hinkler would agree—whilst we all want more affordable, faster broadband, I have people saying to me, 'Brett, don't talk about broadband; talk to me about my mobile black spots where I can't even use my phone'. So this is tremendous news, and I want to thank all those people who have been very much in the mix in lobbying for this, particularly the Sisters Beach community, who have done tremendous work with petitions, lobbying and so on. I had Paul Fletcher, who came for a visit; we went to Gunns Plains. Gunns Plains will be covered—the great tourism attractions up there. Both Sisters Beach and Gunns Plains with be covered by this infrastructure. We are waiting on details of the timing, but I am pleased that Telstra is involved in six of those seven stations . I look forward to updating my constituents, but they can welcome the announcement of the government. (Time expired)
Deputy Speaker, as you know, I am the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Innovation and Enterprise, a bipartisan group that has been established to draw greater connections between parliamentarians, innovators, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and others who are looking at the new jobs of the future and the start up sector in Australia. We are a group that is very interested in understanding how we can best promote the skills that people are going to need in this country to work in the jobs and careers of the future, how we can support entrepreneurialism, how we can support start-ups, and in what ways government can play a role in ensuring the settings are right. That is why I have been so delighted to have the opportunity to speak to so many people who are engaged in the sector.
There are three things that I want to mention that have arisen out of those discussions that I have had over the course of the past few weeks and months. The first is the importance of computational thinking, science, technology, engineering and mathematics from as young an age is possible. The next is the significance of improving the regime for access to finance and capital here in Australia, particularly for start-ups. The next is the importance of diversity, particularly getting women engaged in innovation and entrepreneurialism in this country, both on the venture capital and funding side and on the business and entrepreneurialism side.
The reason those three things are important is that we need to think about how our economy is going to look in the future. As our economy transitions, we all know that a lot of the construction work in the big resources projects is coming to an end. It will mean that there will be a transition into a new form of resources work in this country where we are in the production phase rather than the construction phase, and that is going to mean a change to our economy. We also know that there is going to be growing opportunities and markets for services both domestically and internationally as Australia builds our services exports, which we need to do for the future of our economy. We also know when we look at the nations where there has been great entrepreneurialism that those nations are reaping the economic benefits of that entrepreneurialism.
I want to say the following few things about those three topics I mentioned. First is computational thinking. There is unanimity amongst the sector that we need to develop computational thinking skills in kids from as young an age as possible—preferably kindergarten and certainly throughout primary school and into senior. That is why I believe really strongly in the announcements that Bill Shorten made on budget reply night in this place in respect of ensuring that coding gets into schools, that kids have access to coding. It is really delightful to hear about work that organisations such as Google do to get out to remote and rural schools to give kids who might not have the same opportunities as their city counterparts to engage in coding and robotics work, for example, the opportunity to do that. It is great to hear of opportunities like the FIRST program—a robotics program through competitions in robotics—which kids are now getting access to. It is really important to hear about that.
I am also really proud of Bill Shorten's announcements in respect of getting teachers and kids skilled up and knowledgeable about science, technology, engineering and maths. Everyone I speak to from a big resource company to a new cutting-edge start-up wants to know that there is a real commitment in this nation to building those STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—skills in our children and our adults as we move into a changing economy and the jobs of the future.
The next thing I quickly want to touch on is finance and access to venture capital. It is really important when we look at the way that finance for start-ups, venture capital and angel investment work in this country that we think about what we need to do to ensure that we start to promote and really invigorate venture capital in Australia. We are seeing a lot of really interesting work being done in that space. For example, I have recently had conversations with AVCAL, with Lynne Thornton from Scale Investors and with other venture capitalists. They want to know what can be done to further encourage venture capital in this country, and it is something which our group is very interested in. Of course, access to finance is not just about VC; it is also about things like employee share ownership, which we have had a very bipartisan approach to in this parliament. I also went to mention Bill Shorten's budget reply announcement of finance for start-ups in a way that does not require you to put your own house on the line—a very important initiative from Bill Shorten in this space.
Finally, I want to mention the really important issue of women in innovation. I spoke to an entrepreneur who has a great business, an online shopping business, and she told me of the fact that when she went looking for capital almost everyone in the sector was a man. That is fantastic but it does not mean that you understand the venture capital needs of the businesses that are going to attract female consumers into the future. So we need to work on diversity.
I would like to speak about a little town with a big heart. At the centre of my electorate is the town of Childers. It is a town which is surrounded by red soil, blue sky and rolling greenfields of sugarcane. Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough, I am sure you were around in 1985 and the Gang Gajang song Sounds of then. It is something which always comes to mind when I think about Childers. It is part of the Isis District—a district which has been around for much longer than the current terrorist organisation, which we hear so much about on the news.
Much of the main street of Childers is heritage listed. Many of the buildings in the CBD had to be rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1902. As a result, the main street now has a largely uniform and authentic architectural style. The original Palace Hotel, located in the centre of the main street, was one of the buildings destroyed by that fire. It was rebuilt and opened for business in 1903 and operated as a hotel continuously for some 85 years. During its heyday in the thirties and forties, it was the premier hotel in Childers. As well as serving the very first thirsty canecutters. it offered accommodation, a dining room and, at one stage, a grand ballroom. In the early 1990s it was converted to backpacker accommodation. This week marks 15 years since the Palace was gutted by fire for the second time. On 23 June 2000, tragedy struck when the Palace building was the subject of an arson attack that killed 15 backpackers. Twelve of them were visiting from overseas. Miraculously, another 70 escaped unharmed but with minor injuries such as smoke inhalation. The fire compromised the structural integrity of the building and the main street was partially blocked as a result of support being installed on the facade.
In October 2002, two years and four months after the devastating fire, countless members of the Childers community, survivors and victims' families rallied together for the opening of the Palace Memorial Building. Twelve of the families who lost loved ones attended that moving ceremony. Today the restored building encompasses a glass memorial wall, a portrait of the victims of the fire, the Childers Regional Art Gallery and the Childers Visitor Information Centre.
Over one million people have visited the memorial site since its dedication. Last year, Rob Jansen, a traveller from the Netherlands who survived that fatal fire, became a father for the first time. In a heartfelt tribute to an event that changed his life and the community that came to his aid, he named his daughter Lea Isis Jansen. At this point in my delivery I would like to make special mention of the mayor of the Isis district at that time, Mr Bill Trevor. I have spoken to Bill on a number of occasions about this event. It is something which has clearly effected him personally as it has many others in the community. It is a very small community that rallied, and rallied strongly, to support those who were affected. But it is a community which continues to feel the effects of such a terrible tragedy. I know that their hearts go out to the people of Ravenshoe, who have suffered a similar issue in recent weeks.
This tragedy was always in the back of my mind when the issue was first raised about backpacker exploitation in my district; the fact that we can have in this country houses or units which accommodate many people—up to 15 or 20 in one house—without the sufficient protections of a proper hostel, without fire warning services and without the systems needed to save a life if there is a terrible incident. This incident at the Palace Backpackers has always been in the back of my mind as something which we must always try to avoid in the future.
So I am very pleased to be part of a government which has put forward Taskforce Cadena. Taskforce Cadena is a multijurisdictional task force to address worker exploitation, in particular for workers who do not have legal work rights in this country—for people who are on 417 visas and working holiday makers. These are people who are absolutely essential to the horticulture industry and, in particular, to my electorate. There are some 230,000 people on 417 visas in this country at any one time who are assisting us to build this great nation and at the same time using the money that they earn to support our local businesses, and to travel and see this great country.
So, Taskforce Cadena is an incredibly important task force put forward by this government. It is something which will address this issue and, certainly, being of a multijurisdictional nature, it will be able to tie in state government and local government, because there are so many levels and so many departments involved. It is absolutely incredible that this has been allowed to go so far for so long without being addressed.
I am very pleased that is has kicked off. It has been successful already. There have been some raids which caught 38 illegal workers in recent weeks. I will be very interested to see the outcome, so I thank Senator Michaelia Cash and, of course, Minister Keenan and Minister Abetz for the work that they have done.
Yesterday in the Federation Chamber I raised the concern of a range of national trade unions about the impacts of the China free trade agreement on their members and on working people more broadly.
I have to report to the House that the concern expressed by representatives of Labor is also matched by concern expressed on behalf of business. Indeed, no lesser body that the Productivity Commission has launched what has been described as a 'scathing' attack on Australia's latest series of free trade agreements, saying that they grant legal rights to foreign investors not available to Australians, expose the government to potentially large unfunded liabilities and add extra costs on businesses attempting to comply with them.
The Productivity Commission has devoted a special chapter of its trade and assistance review, which was released yesterday, to the agreements and it describes them as 'preferential' rather than 'free trade' agreements. I have to say that I have always had that view myself, that they were not actually free trade agreements and might more properly be described as bilateral trade agreements. But I am happy to embrace the expression used by the Productivity Commission, that they be referred to as preferential agreements.
The Productivity Commission goes on to say that by favouring some countries over others and excluding firms from sourcing substantial inputs from other countries from special treatment, they:
… add to the complexity of international trade and investment, are costly and time consuming to negotiate and add to the compliance costs of firms and administrative costs of governments.
According to the Commission, the Japan and Korean agreements were concluded without a rigorous and independent assessment of whether costs would exceed benefits and that there was also no mechanism in place to monitor the outcomes of the agreements after they come into force. In the trade review the say:
Without such a detailed assessment it is not possible to form a view as to whether the aspirational goals typically ascribed to the formation of preferential agreements are commensurate with real-world impacts.
It is an important point because we have entered into trade agreements with a range of countries over the years and at the time all manner of glowing accounts are given of what their benefits will be for Australian business, for Australian workers and so on, but we do not often come back to find out what the outcomes of these agreements have been in practice. Indeed, in relation to many of the countries with whom we have engaged in trade agreements, we have in fact found an increasing trade deficit and some negative impacts on the Australian economy and on Australian workers as a consequence. So they make a very important point about the lack of mechanisms in place to monitor the outcomes of these agreements once they come into force. The Productivity Commission also notes that:
The history of intellectual property arrangements being addressed in preferential trade deals is not good.
It has been noted not so much about the China free trade agreement but about the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the leaked text suggests it will:
… include obligations on pharmaceutical price determination arrangements in Australia and other TPP members of an uncertain character and intent'.
This is an important point as well. We have both in the Korean and Chinese agreements investor state dispute settlement clauses which:
… depart from national treatment principles by affording substantive appeal rights to foreigners not available to domestic firms.
he Productivity Commission warns that this could create the risk of regulatory chill where Australian governments will be cautious about enacting new laws for fear that they are challenged in foreign tribunals. That is a very important point. It is most unsatisfactory that we have a potential situation where Australian businesses are in a poorer situation than overseas businesses that are able to take advantage of the ISDS provisions in the China agreement. There have been objections to this from a whole range of experts and I urge the government to have greater regard to them.
one of the roles I particularly enjoy is that of Honorary Ambassador for the City of Brisbane and I am very honoured to have been reappointed by Lord Mayor Graham Quirk to this role. So I thought it only appropriate today to talk about a special event coming up on the Brisbane calendar, the 2015 Asia Pacific Cities Summit and Mayors' forum, to be held in Brisbane from 5 to 8 July. We have already seen Brisbane shine when it hosted the G20 last year and how well Brisbane as a city can host international events, but as Australia's new world city, Brisbane is so well placed for an event such as this, not only in social and cultural connections with other cities in our region but importantly in trade and businesses connections.
We know the importance of local government. Local government delivers infrastructure, local government delivers projects on the ground. While people in Canberra and my colleagues may think that we run the country in Canberra, the reality is that the people deliverying our policies on the ground are in local government and no-one does it better than the City of Brisbane.
The Asia Pacific Cities Summit was started in the late 1990s by then Lord Mayor Jim Soorley, an I do credit him with this—not with many other things, but this was a great initiative: lord mayors and mayors from cities in the Asia-Pacific region coming together to discuss challenges of cities going forward. So much challenges them—the big-issue items like planning and development, coping with increased population, coping with congestion and transport, but also those ones that are never going to go away, like water supply and garbage collection. As I keep telling my colleagues, it does not matter what issues you are talking about; if a garbage collection is missed, that is the most important issue of the day for people in our cities.
The mayors get together in this event that is held every two years, and every fourth year Brisbane as a city hosts it. I am delighted that it is going to be back in Brisbane this year. Other cities we have shared this event with include Seattle in the United States; Chongqing, one of Brisbane's sister cities in China; Incheon, in South Korea, which was an amazing event, because we went to look at the site where it was planned, and there was actually nothing there as it was all reclaimed land, so it was quite special; and, two years ago, Kaohsiung in Taiwan. This is a very special event, bringing together not just our elected officials and mayors from more than 100 cities—70 different mayors—but also councillors and people working as a team for their cities and looking at how we can partner to do things better and also to develop trade and business ties between cities.
We have seen many important initiatives come out of these events and also benefits not only for Brisbane but also for other cities in our region. This year's summit is going to look at shared learning and strategic partnerships and economic opportunities. It is going to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas and support the development of strategic and commercial partnerships between all levels of government as well as the private and public sector. As we know, it is much better for the private sector to deliver a lot of these projects and have the government facilitate with a hand up, not for the government to do it themselves.
The city summit also provides a platform that delivers long-term economic outcomes for cities and businesses seeking trade and investment opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region. As I said, this is an initiative of the Brisbane City Council, but of course we have other cities from Australia there as well. We sometimes forget the immense contribution made by local government to the function of good government in Australia. The infrastructure and services most often utilised by Australians—everything from roads and footpaths to waste collection services to libraries and child care—are disproportionately provided by local government. Having served as a councillor myself in the Brisbane City Council, I can say with authority that local government gets things done. That is the level of government that actually delivers, and that is where the greatest change can be effected for the greatest local benefit for communities.
Brisbane City Council sets the high standard for good local government. Professionally run, financially secure and ambitious, the council is well placed to showcase Brisbane as our new world city. I congratulate Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, Councillor Julian Simmonds, and the great Brisbane City Council team—the staff and everyone involved in this great event. I know it will be incredibly successful and will once again put Brisbane on the international stage.
Today I regret having to do what I am now going to do. I will be tabling a petition calling on the government to help a struggling doctor in my electorate. More than 1,400 people have signed this petition. The petition has been considered by the Petitions Committee and has been found to be in order. And I say that I regret having to do this because when Dr Stephen Wilson first approached me it struck me that his particular problem was one that was going to be really quite easy to resolve, that once we drew this matter to the attention of the relevant minister the minister would take the action to resolve this issue and use her powers to provide an exemption so that this doctor could continue his practice. Unfortunately, two letters later and many, many more phone calls to the minister's office, we have not been able to get a single response. I think this is a grave dereliction of duty. As I said, I am very disappointed that this has become an issue where we have had to go out and agitate on this because it is a problem that is so eminently solvable.
Dr Stephen Wilson has operated a practice in Bassendean for more than 22 years. He is currently having great trouble finding a new doctor to come in and help him. His previous partner has had significant health issues, as Dr Wilson himself is beginning to experience, and the practice needs a new full-time doctor. But his practice is not one that is very attractive to the average GP because it is a very low-income practice. More than 70 per cent of the patients are bulk-billed, and the next 15 per cent are low-income people who are provided with a reduced fee for services, so it is not an attractive practice.
Dr Wilson has an overseas trained doctor—she is from Ireland—who is already in Australia and who is keen to come and work in his practice. But of course that doctor needs to be provided with a Medicare user capacity. International doctors can only be employed in areas where the state government has classified an Area of Need. I have spoken to the senior officials at the health department. They are very sympathetic; however, the state government cannot classify Bassendean as an Area of Need until the Commonwealth Department of Health grants a district workplace shortage status. So the state government wants to act, but it cannot because it has to wait until the federal government takes action.
The federal government has determined—and I understand these policies—that we are going to have some areas where we allow this and some where we do not allow it, but, by virtue of definition, Bassendean is considered, under this scheme, to be an inner urban area, although it is 12 kilometres from the CBD. It has an appalling GP ratio. It has a GP population ratio of one GP to 4,800 people. This is well below the state average, which is one GP for 1,500 people, and the national average, which is about one GP for 1,200 people. So here is a man who needs our help so that he can continue to provide medical services in his practice to some of the poorest people in my electorate and, indeed, in Perth. Under the legislation the minister has the power to provide an exemption to this definition, so it is not necessarily the case that, because this is defined as an inner metropolitan area, this cannot be done. For a very good reason, the minister is given the power to make an exemption. The minister is given the power to look at the practical circumstances of a case such as this and make an exemption. I call upon the minister to please consider this case—1,400 people have supported this. (Time expired)
The document will be forwarded to the Standing Committee on Petitions for its consideration. It will be accepted subject to confirmation by the committee that it conforms to the standing orders.
I welcome this opportunity to speak about a very good organisation within Western Australia, the Organisation of African Communities of Western Australia. On Saturday night I attended the OAC WA's function in conjunction with AfroPacific Connect. It was to celebrate the Africa Day celebration and World Refugee Day, and it was held at Gloucester Park. The OAC came to me several months ago. The aim of the organisation is to provide a platform on which Africans from diverse backgrounds and countries living in Western Australia can present economic, social, political and cultural issues of concern to the community and work collaboratively to find a lasting solution.
Western Australia is blessed by having many people of African origin who have made great contributions. They have made contributions in social areas, in cultural areas and certainly in the religious area. A great example is the Flaming Bible Church in Malaga—a very positive organisation that have their own building and have done a lot of work to establish their ministry in the local community, and that draws people from a range of different countries.
Regarding the OAC and function I attended, the keynote speaker was the Hon. Dr Mike Nahan, the Treasurer and Minister for Energy, Citizenship and Multicultural Interests. It was a very good event. It was a well-attended event. I could see that this is an organisation that is determined to achieve for former refugees and migrants from Africa. I pay tribute to the executive management board that includes: the very well-known Joe Tuzama, the president, from Liberia; Constance Dewan, the vice president, from Zambia; Timothy Ayam, the assistant treasurer also acting secretary, from Nigeria; Henrico Mafuamkadi, the treasurer; Chingala Mayawa, assistant treasurer, from Zambia; Theo Habariman, the public relations officer, from Rwanda; Paul Odongo, the event coordinator, from Kenya; Ann Kibiku, the director for communications, from Kenya; Ibrahim Kebe, the youth leader ,from Sierra Leone; Isaac Barrister Mpere, the youth secretary, from Ghana; Viola Laki Wani, the youth liaison officer, from South Sudan; Magdi Suliman, the sport events coordinator, from Sudan; and Casta Tungaradza, the chief patron, from Tanzania.
They also have an elders/advisory council, consisting of: Caroline Gumede from South Africa, Pastor Earnest Nnadigwe from Nigeria, John Mwiragua from Kenya, Peters Ebekwe from Nigeria, Umile Gwakuba from Botswana, Sorie Bangura from Sierra Leone and Peter Make Panther Jokngeth from South Sudan.
From these names and their places of origin, it really does say something about the way that people from nations in Africa have sought to come to Australia and embraced the opportunities in this country. It is an amazing list of people. I have great confidence that the OAC will do great work for people who have originally come from Africa. They are determined to be great Australians and great citizens. As some in the past have told me, they want to bring the good stuff from Africa and leave the bad stuff behind. I certainly saw from the work that they did at their celebration last Saturday night that they have achieved great things. They are a very positive organisation.
I also briefly mention Inspector Don Emanuel-Smith of the WA Police. He has been a great aid to the OAC and the African community. As the local MP, I thank him.
People say, 'Mike Baird is a nice guy but his government doesn't seem like that.' In my area, he has presided over or sat on his hands as people in the suburbs I represent are stuffed over by terrible funding decisions. It was a New South Wales state government that ripped out a cardiac ward from our local hospital in Mount Druitt, an area where heart disease takes the lives of so many people. They got rid of it. They are standing by as the Abbott government rips billions out of education funds. There has been $270 million ripped out over 10 years in the Chifley electorate, and you hardly hear a peep out of the New South Wales Liberal government.
They just brought down a budget, and they crow about all the infrastructure spending they are doing. They are completely craven. There are a number of railway stations that are relics of the fifties in Western Sydney—Toongabbie, Rooty Hill and Doonside, off the top of my head. They are now supporting large growth in population through new estates in the area and cannot even get things like lifts, except of course in Toongabbie, because it sits in a marginal seat. They want to get one of their own up and they do it. I get it—both sides of politics will obviously dedicate resources to their own. I totally understand that, but they should do it in a way that recognises need elsewhere and at least seems balanced. If you are going to give one to your own, why are you not also recognising the need down the track—pardon the pun. When I am meeting constituents in Doonside and Rooty Hill, they are there literally puffing at the top of these steep ramps because we cannot put simple things like lifts in there, and the recent state budget, brought down this week, does not even provide it.
I will now come back to health care and the cuts that the Abbott government is undertaking. The New South Wales shadow health minister, Walt Secord, has found the figures out of the New South Wales government that admit that what the federal coalition government is doing to the New South Wales coalition government in health is going to hit the poorest the hardest in my area. Mike Baird might be a nice guy but he does not run a nice government, and he does not run a strong one that stands up for New South Wales people. It should be looking after them, and again I call on them to meet the needs of the local area—be it in education or health care, and especially infrastructure in our local suburbs.
Turning to a positive note, I want to commend Arnott's, which has a facility in Huntingwood. They recently conducted their first family fun day at their facility. There were hundreds of people there, and I was particularly impressed that there were people from as far away as Wagga Wagga that had come up to see the facility. The family fun day was not just about fun; it was about a serious issue as well—to support fundraising for cancer treatment, and in particular for Camp Quality. It raised over $60,000. It was a terrific effort by a bunch of people at Arnott's who have a very strong community heart. Congratulations to them.
I also wanted to take a moment to congratulate the new Miss Universe Australia, Monika Radulovic, from Botany in New South Wales. She was crowned the prestigious winner. She arrived in Australia, aged four, as a refugee. She is now a 24-year-old psychology graduate from the University of Western Sydney. Her parents came here with literally nothing, and I wish her all the best as she goes on to represent our nation in the finals.
If I may, I also want to reflect on the presence of a group that are doing some very important work in economic reform and supporting the emergence of some bright talent in this country. The group is called StartupAUS, and they have put out a very important report, Crossroads 2015: An action plan to develop a vibrant tech startup ecosystem in Australia, which updates the previous year's report. It talks about what we can do to create an ecosystem that will generate economic growth through the activity of people—young people, in particular—who are developing their own start-ups.
Importantly, they are meeting parliamentarians from both sides of the political fence. They met with the coalition last night and with Labor representatives this morning at a roundtable hosted by Jason Clare, the shadow minister for communications. I think it is important that both sides of politics embrace this area and drive reform that will benefit the emergence of start-ups in this country, because these guys are developing the jobs of the future. We all benefit—both sides of politics, the community and the economy—if they do very well. Congratulations to their new CEO Peter Bradd. (Time expired)
I rise again today to draw the attention of this House to an issue that is of great concern in my electorate of Deakin. The basic freedom that we all take for granted. The right to walk our streets freely and without fear of harm is something that some people feel is under threat.
When I raised this matter in the House earlier this year, what prompted me to do so was the tragic death of local school student Masa Vukotic, who was fatally stabbed in a suburban park, and the resulting concern this raised about public safety in our area. This attack did not take place in a strange area far from the victim's home but, rather, just a few hundred metres from her home on the Koonung Reserve near the border of the Deakin electorate. In this instance, the accused had been recently released from prison for other serious charges, when it is now abundantly clear he should still have been behind bars. Sadly, this is too late now for the victim. It was too late for another victim who none of us will forget—that is, Jill Meagher, who was murdered just a few short years ago at the hands of an offender who, at the time, was serving parole for multiple heinous and violent crimes against women. Our society cannot accept the slap-on-the-wrist mentality of our judiciary in relation to sentencing any longer. Enough is enough. We owe it to these and other victims to do better. Regrettably, over the last few years, this problem has been getting worse, not better, particularly in cases of violence against women.
It is terribly upsetting to say that we know of at least 47 Australian women who have died as a result of some form of violence this year. This is why I have repeatedly called on all jurisdictions around Australia to look into introducing mandatory minimum sentences for acts of violence against women and children with set periods of nonparole. Far too often the violent perpetrators of this violence are a known quantity, but sufficient action is not taken before the ultimate fateful consequences. In my view the time has long passed for activist judges and unelected parole boards to be entrusted with keeping violent offenders off our streets. They have proven themselves incapable of that task. This situation cannot be allowed to continue. Serious action must be taken now.
Unfortunately, in my home state of Victoria things seem to be moving in the wrong direction on this front. Recently a Victorian magistrate made the decision, in a well-publicised case, to release, on a community corrections order, Khodr Taha, an individual convicted of assault with a weapon; assault; criminal damage; stalking; making threats to kill; multiple counts of using communications services to threaten harm, harass and intimidate; and possessing prohibited weapons. In particular, one of the assault charges related to an attack on his own 67-year-old mother. This sentence is way out of line with community expectations and further undermines public trust in our judicial system. I have therefore written to the Victorian Attorney-General expressing my absolute disgust that the magistrate in that case would let the offender walk out of court with a community corrections order. I have asked the Victorian Attorney-General to ensure the DPP appeal against this sentence as being manifestly inadequate. We know that Jill Meagher's killer was out on the streets thanks to an activist judge and weak parole policies of the former Labor Attorney-General of Victoria, Rob Hulls. I urge the new Victorian Attorney-General to chart a new course and to not follow the previous views of Labor governments in Victoria.
It is about time that the rights of violent criminals are no longer placed above the rights of decent people who just want to go about their daily lives in safety. I once again call on all jurisdictions to look at legislating for mandatory minimum sentences for crimes involving violence against women and children. The talking must stop. We must act now—before tragedy strikes again.
It was National TAFE Day yesterday, and last night I attended a function celebrating National TAFE Day here at Parliament House. It is important to acknowledge and celebrate the importance that the TAFE sector has for our community. I welcome all the organisations and representatives of the sector who were present yesterday, throughout the day and last night at the function. I want to acknowledge that their passion and commitment for TAFE should be recognised. It was especially great for me to catch up with my dear friend John Speight. He is still working for the union cause as part of his lifelong commitment to his community; for the rights of workers and for the right to education.
TAFEs provide opportunities for many people from varied life circumstances; people who are currently in the workforce looking to retrain or looking to develop new skill sets in order to be better equipped for their current job and/or possible future jobs; people who are looking to become qualified for future employment; people who are looking to enter a pathway to other employment; and, in particular, early school leavers and the many young people in my electorate. TAFEs also provide opportunities for people who have been out of the workforce for a long period of time, whether it be as a result of redundancy or other situations in their life. They too require some opportunity to reskill and re-educate themselves.
I have a wonderful TAFE facility in my electorate, the Kangan Institute of TAFE, which has a campus in Broadmeadows, a very large and good campus. It also has a campus in Docklands. It is a fantastic facility that is very important to the local community. It not only provides our local students and residents with excellent opportunities for training and opportunities to achieve practical experience; it also provides many social and community services—including community development for my residents.
My electorate is very diverse, and there are many people who live there who have a very large range of skill sets. In particular, I am thinking of the many Iraqis who have settled in Calwell over the last 10 years who have come to Australia with qualifications and skills that unfortunately are not recognised here in this country. As a result, they are unable to pursue careers that match the skill sets that they have. One of their best options for reskilling and requalifying is to take part in the many courses that are available to them at Kangan TAFE. Many of my constituents have a very large skill set in relation to language competency, and that is often an underappreciated skill. You can see that if not for TAFE being present in my electorate many of my constituents would probably not have an opportunity to either refine or further develop their skills and qualifications.
The Kangan Batman Institute of TAFE, apart from providing excellent courses for the local constituency, also has a social engagement role and a particular focus on Indigenous education. I want to speak a little bit about the Indigenous school at the Kangan Batman Institute of TAFE. The school is the Gunung-Willam-Balluk Learning Centre. We are very proud of that learning centre. It delivers more than 20 nationally and state accredited courses to members of the local Indigenous community.
This Gunung-Willam-Balluk Learning Centre is a fine example of Kangan's commitment to Indigenous education. The importance of the centre was acknowledged when it was awarded the 2013 Wurreker Award as the Training Provider/TAFE Institute of the Year. So we are very proud we have a fine tradition and a fine institution in my electorate for our local Indigenous community.
TAFE touches the lives of many people in so many ways. Therefore, it is important that governments elevate and maintain TAFE funding, and also that they elevate and maintain the importance of TAFE. The results are of course very evident in my community. (Time expired)
If ever we need proof of just how out of touch our national broadcaster, the ABC, has become, this week provided it to us in spades. We saw their production team, especially at Q&A,show how far removed they are from mainstream Australia.
As the Prime Minister correctly asked: whose side are they on? I think it is quite clear. This is a case of: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We have no stranger bedfellows in this country than the socialist left and the Islamic extremists, because they share the same hatred of the coalition.
Look at what we saw this week on the Q&A program; look at the facts that we know. The program allowed itself to become a mouthpiece for terrorist recruitment. This is an absolute outrage. But not only that: we find that the ABC actually had someone who had pleaded guilty and served a jail term for purchasing a firearm with ammunition and threatening to kill an ASIO officer, and was acquitted on much more serious charges. We now know that the ABC paid his travel to their studios and actually helped him write the question.
I am thankful for one thing though: this has clearly backfired. We have seen an example of exposing the Q&A program and the ABC for what they have actually done—being a group of terrorist sympathisers. This is an absolute outrage and a disgrace. Sadly, it is not just a single case of poor judgement; this is just another example of poor judgement in a long list that we have seen from the ABC, which has become a parody of itself and an embarrassment to the taxpayers of this nation. Ultimately, the problem is that the ABC has become reflective of its environment. Being based in Ultimo in the inner city, it reflects the views of Ultimo in the inner city.
This brings me to SBS, and one of the reasons why we should be very careful not to allow SBS to follow the same tracks that the ABC has. It raises the issue of why we need SBS to remain an important institution servicing our multicultural community. The question is: are they best able to continue to do that on the leafy North Shore at Artarmon or should they actually move? Could we relocate them out into Liverpool in south-west Sydney with much more area and much more reflective of the multicultural basis of SBS?
It has been very pleasing to see the New South Wales Premier, Mike Baird, come out strongly in support of calls to relocate the headquarters of SBS to Liverpool. Of the plan or the suggestion to move SBS out to Sydney's west, the Premier said:
I think it's a great idea; indeed, it's logical … If you look at where western Sydney is moving, where Liverpool is moving, the opportunity in terms of future jobs ... I mean, SBS could be a pivotal part in terms of technology.
Indeed, the New South Wales Premier is right. It is logical that we shift the SBS out to Western Sydney. Of course, there is the issue of the cost, and that is something, given the current budgetary environment we have inherited, that we must always give enormous consideration to. But an assessment undertaken by the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales estimated that an equivalent complex in Western Sydney to the one that they have in Artarmon could be worth one-fifth of the price. Not only could we move SBS out to Western Sydney to make sure that SBS is more reflective of the multicultural community of Western Sydney and prevent them falling into the abyss that we have seen the ABC fall into from their inner city headquarters in Ultimo; but in doing so we could actually save the taxpayers' money. So I am calling for the communications minister to have a close look at—as well as all the mess that he has to clean up with the ABC—what can be done to relocate the SBS out to Western Sydney, especially to the Liverpool area. I thank the House.
Of all of the promises broken by this government, the big game they talked on the National Broadband Network before they came into government is right up there. Let us have a look at this government's statements in July 2013, nearly two years ago. It said:
Our goal is for every household and business to have access to broadband with a download data rate of between 25 and 100 megabits per second by late 2016.
That promise did not even see the end of 2013 before it was abandoned. The second part of this promise said:
Suburbs, regions, towns and business districts with the poorest services and greatest need for upgrades will receive first priority.
Let us have a look at some areas which do not have proper internet access in my area. Overall fixed broadband availability in suburbs like Glenwood, Acacia Gardens and Stanhope Gardens—what is available? Fibre-to-the-premises availability: not available. This is from the NBN's own website. HFC availability: not available. Fibre-to-the-node availability: not available. Overall fixed broadband quality: E, the worst category possible. And yet these are parts of the suburbs which have been taken off the map by this government. I am not surprised therefore that my constituents time and again raise this with me as the single biggest issue. Why can't they have access to the National Broadband Network—particularly as these suburbs were in whole or in part on the last rollout maps under Labor, but which were taken off by this government? I will just give you a couple of examples. This is one from Andy in Glenwood, who said:
For school kids, a lot of school works needed to be completed online. Internet speed is vital!! I cannot stress it enough how NBN is so important for Glenwood residents. I have been waiting for it since it was first announced.
And it goes on. Suraj from Kellyville Ridge says, 'Can't wait for the day when NBN will be introduced in Kellyville Ridge'. We have Jake Allen from Acacia Gardens, who says:
My name is Jake and I was a first time voter this year and I voted for Labor—
it must have been in the state election—
because I believe they know what is best for the community. I ask that you help the community of Acacia Gardens who are currently being left with a huge limited access to Internet.
You do not even have to take it from these few constituents; you can see it on the front page of my local paper. We have resident Peter Allsopp talking about how the only availability he has is literally through dongle access. This article goes on:
Before last year's election, then opposition spokesman and now Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull promised everyone would have access to the NBN by the end of 2016.
As I said, it was one of their first promises to break. It goes on:
Because they live in a blackspot, the only technology option accessible to the Allsopps is Wi-Fi.
It takes a fortnight for them to reach the 25-gigabyte monthly limit for which they're on a contract.
And it quotes Mr Allsopp, who said:
We don't even have a tablet because we don't have the facilities to use it. We don't live 400 kilometres out in the bush. We live in the middle of Sydney and we don't have access to broadband.
The final sentence of this article says it all:
Mr Turnbull's office was contacted for a comment, but did not respond.
It goes on and on and on from my constituents. For example, Monir in Glenwood said:
I am writing about the need of better broadband in Glenwood area … I wish we could haver fast internet to catch up with today's need for this services.
And it goes on. Craig writes:
… I have spoken to you before about the nbn in my area … is there any time frame as to when it will reach us is there anything we can do.
We are being left behind and the future does not look bright for us.
I can say to Craig and many of these other residents: unfortunately, time and again when I have placed questions about your specific suburbs on the Notice Paper, what I have received back from this minister is just a rant. Just a nonsense rant. He has no time for these real consumers who have actual concerns about the lack of proper broadband access.
But I must say the minister's tone in some of these responses has changed somewhat. Now I just get a few lines saying, 'Oh, that's up to NBN Co when they're going to get it.' Absolutely no assurances whatsoever. This minister promised that areas of need would be prioritised. These are areas of need: Acacia Gardens, Glenwood, Stanhope Gardens, Kellyville Ridge. This government talked a big game when it was in opposition but it has delivered nothing for these residents. I call on this government to keep at least partly true to its promises in this area and deliver the NBN to these residents.
I want to talk about a brochure called Community 2020that I have just sent to my electorate. There is a lot happening in my electorate with different infrastructure projects and, obviously, the future of not only the country but also individual communities is very much in the hands of the people of those communities because we have a lot of say in what we do want and what we do not want to see in different areas.
There is an amazing amount of infrastructure happening right now all over my electorate. In the southern end, in the Clarence Valley, we have the Pacific Highway dual duplication between Woolgoolga in the south and Ballina in the north, for which the tender has just been announced. That is a $5 billion project that will have 3,000 to 4,000 direct jobs. When you count indirect jobs there will be over 10,000 created just with that project. We also have a new bridge being built in Grafton. There are a lot of hospital upgrades happening: Bonalbo in the west, Lismore, Ballina and, again, Grafton. They are just some of a lot of the infrastructure projects that are happening. Obviously, those upgrades will all come to an end, and they bring great opportunity with them about what types of commerce—whether it be tourism-related or manufacturing-related—we want to attract to our region after these infrastructure upgrades.
In this brochure I have asked questions for the electorate to give me feedback on. These are about things like the different issues that are important to them, whether they be roads, jobs or coal seam gas—this is a contentious issue in my electorate and I am asking people for their opinions on that. I am also asking open-ended questions. What do they think is the best thing in our region? What are our greatest advantages? If there were one thing they could change what would that be for them? What are the types of things they want government to act on? What ideas do they have about creating more jobs or lowering the cost of living? What infrastructure projects do they want to see happen after the ones that I have just mentioned? There is a website—www.community2020.com.au—that is open for people in my electorate to give feedback to me on all of these issues.
Going back to infrastructure, it was great to come straight here from the mobile black spot funding that we announced today. There are 91 identified black spots in my community that we are going to fix. In the first round of our mobile black spot program we are going to build 11 base stations around the whole electorate. Two are at Bonalbo—I have been to all of these communities, and Bonalbo certainly has an issue with mobile phone access, as a lot of communities do. When I am in Bonalbo I have to go up the hill, away from the shops and the centre of town, to get mobile phone reception. But now Bonalbo, along with 91 other communities in my electorate, is going to have much better mobile phone access after today's announcement. That was a great thing to be part of. In relation to what the previous speaker, the member for Greenway, was saying about the NBN rollout, it is pleasing to note that some of our more remote communities are now getting great access to NBN with the wireless system that is being developed.
Besides wanting everyone's opinions and ideas on the direction they want us to head, there is also a report card in the brochure about what we have done in the electorate in the first 20 months or so of our governance. I have split it into the five different local council areas. There is obviously far too much to mention. At the risk of using a prop, here is one! There is a lot here—again, hospital upgrades. There is a lot of money being given to local councils for roadworks. There have been a lot of grants given out to different community and charity organisations, which are very important for the ongoing maintenance of our community in lots of different ways. There are also things like the Casino Drill Hall, which is a historically and culturally important building in Casino. I had the sale of that stopped because the community did not want that to fall into private hands. There are many other things. I encourage the community to have a look at this brochure and to also give me feedback on where they would like us to go.
In rising today I want to reflect on a few things that have been happening this week in the Canberra bubble and in politics, but also more broadly, since this government was elected and in fact you could fairly say for the last decade. Politics today has become a very exclusive business and we see that when we are out in our electorates when people say to us, 'I don't want to talk to you. I'm not very political. I'm not engaged in politics.' I find that statement quite sad and heartbreaking—that people in our community do not want to engage with their local representatives, that they see it as what is going on in Canberra and that they do not have the confidence to be part of the discussion. When I say to them, 'Look, that's okay. What do you think about your local school? What's going on? Does your school have enough resources? Do you have enough teacher aids?', I find they very quickly get engaged in a conversation about education and the resources they would like to see for their local school. I then say, 'That's politics. Funding for our schools is a state-federal partnership. That's politics.' This week the government has released a white paper or a green paper, a discussion paper from the Prime Minister's own department, suggesting that school fees should be paid not just for private schools, not just for independent and Catholic schools but also for our public schools. For the first time students in our public schools would be forced to pay fees. That is politics.
Another example—it is not education—is that quite often work places can be a contested space of politics. What concerns me is the conversation this week and in previous months since this government was elected. It is not about workers' rights, it is not about ensuring that we have fare pay and conditions, it is not about ensuring that regardless of who they work for people working next to each other get the same pay; it has become this hatchet job and this hack on union leaders. It has become the naming and shaming of unions. It is not focused on workplace conditions, it is not focused on building good strong inclusive industries; it is focused on unions.
Another area that I find quite frustrating when I talk to local people and what has been flooding my social media in the last fortnight, if not year, is the way this government is using issues of national security for political gain. I do not say this lightly and it is not something that I usually talk about in this House, but when you have a photo opportunity with maps from ASIO, it is only for one purpose and that is to incite division and fear in our community. If this Prime Minister and government were serious about building strong inclusive and connected communities, if this government were serious about multiculturalism, if this government were serious about safety, it would not exploit these issues. It would work with ASIO and it would work with communities to resolve this. Instead, what we see is photo opportunity after photo opportunity. Australians expect every government, regardless of who is the Prime Minister to put the safety of Australians first, but it should not be politicised. It should be bipartisan and should be worked through, but what we see from this government is the opposite.
What I have tried to highlight in this adjournment speech today is how people in our community, through the way in which politics is being exploited, are being excluded from the conversation and are turning off. That does not make for a healthy democracy. On the rare occasion when people step up and want to engage, these people are attacked. I will finish with a few words to really support the work of a small business community in Bendigo, which took the unusual step of running full page adds in support of marriage equality. Good on them for having a voice on an issue that they passionately care about. What disappointed me in the debate about these businesses taking this stance was that they were criticised and attacked for getting involved in politics.
We want to encourage businesses, individuals and our communities to engage in the conversation. If we are serious about bursting the bubble of Canberra, then we encourage people to engage; we do not attack, we do not demonise and we do not use our agencies for political purposes.
On 14 May this year I had the great pleasure of opening the St Bridget's Primary School and it was a tremendous event. I was lucky enough to open it as a result of another great capital grants project for St Brigid's Primary School. It is great to see the school growing and doing so well.
The success of the developments to the school were a testament to all those involved. I would like to thank first of all Mrs Maria Kirkwood, director of the Catholic Education Office, in particular for their contribution of $400,000. I would like to thank the ninth Bishop of Sale, The Most Reverend Patrick Michael O'Regan, who has just recently moved into Victoria; and The Very Reverend Peter Slater, parish priest at St Michael's Parish. Peter has been around for a long time and has been doing a great job on the ground. I would also like to thank Mr Ken Gale, principal of St Brigid's Primary School. Ken, you are doing a fantastic job out there with your school students.
I also want to acknowledge their school captains on the day, Declan Curran and Stephanie Woods. They are great representatives of all of the students of the school. I would like to acknowledge Conor Benson, student religious education leader, for doing a tremendous job.
St Michael's Parish made an incredible contribution of $50,000, that went along way to making sure they turned a good school into a great school. It is extra money that makes a huge difference, and it takes me on to talking about the fundraising committee itself at St Brigid's—$80,000. Well done to every person involved. I have been told by the school there are too many people to name, but their contribution to the students and the future students of the school is greatly appreciated by the entire community.
I would like to also acknowledge Greg Strickland, the architect from Rahan Construction, and Brendan and Nathan Pryor from Pryor Constructions. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the staff and parents of the St Brigid's community, who have been tremendous supporters of the school. As I said on the day, it is all about the students, and the students have a fantastic school.
For your hard work, you have made the school into something very special, and it was a pleasure to officially open the fantastic new facilities. I am very proud to say the Capital Grants Program provided $1.8 million to St Brigid's Primary School, and as part of that they built general learning centres, an external amphitheatre and a multipurpose room which can be used as a chapel, gym or performance centre.
I have been lucky enough to open quite a few school developments in my electorate of La Trobe that have received money through the Australian government's Capital Grants Program. At each of these openings, I have seen a real and tangible achievement for each school community.
The story of St Brigid's is just that. It is a very new school, which opened its doors in 2010 and is growing fast. Inspired by Saint Brigid of Kildare, the school community describes her as:
A compassionate woman who demonstrated a strong will but also charitable nature. She wanted to help those in need and often handed out bread, butter, eggs and chickens from her father's dairy farm. And she could not bear to see anyone hungry or cold.
Saint Brigid's life gives the school community many examples of willingness to free people from oppression and poverty. She had a special love of the poor and was renowned for her hospitality. Saint Brigid also founded a school of art at Kildare.
When their inspiration is taken into consideration, it is clear to see that St Brigid's have a very strong vision to create a modern, contemporary and innovative approach to learning that is purposeful and relevant to the lives of children and families today. Again, I am incredibly proud to have been part of that very special day, and I would like to thank all those involved.
It is a pleasure to share with the House the achievements of Mars Food Australia, an outstanding successful local manufacturer located at Berkeley Vale in my electorate of Dobell.
Mars Food Australia has been located on the Central Coast for 22 years and has made an investment of $13.6 million in local manufacturing. Its state-of-the-art facility officially opened in 1992, and since then it has continued to expand operations to become one of the largest employers on the Central Coast, employing over 300 people, who work in manufacturing, engineering, market research and development, human resources, finance and supply and logistics.
Rather than refer to their staff as employees, Mars refers to them as associates and each associate has a direct role to play in the pursuit of business objectives. This common purpose links all who work in the company. The majority—that is, 99 per cent—of Mars Food Australia products are manufactured at the Berkeley Vale site, with many of their quality ingredients sourced from reputable Australian suppliers and local Australian farmers.
Mars Food Australia is part of the privately owned Mars Incorporated group, originally founded in the United States in 1911, that employs more than 72,000 people worldwide. Mars Food today offers over 500 products in categories as diverse as mustards, marinades, relishes, sauces, herbs and spices, pasta and stir-fry sauces. Australians would be familiar with the Mars Food brands, including Masterfoods, Dolmio, Kan Tong and Uncle Ben's, all of which are manufactured on the Central Coast. Although most sales are in Australia and New Zealand, Mars Food Australia exports to more than 30 countries around the world.
As a family owned, private company for over a century, Mars is guided by five principles: quality, responsibility, mutuality, efficiency and freedom. As a company they are committed to these principles. Mars Food Australia are committed to offering stimulating, high-demanding and rewarding careers, while providing excellent lifestyle choices, with their facilities located in major regional centres such as the Berkeley Vale site. With their emphasis on providing a great place to work, Mars were recognised and named in the BRW's top 25 best places to work in Australia. They were the winner of the 2013 Australian Corporate Health and Productivity Management Award, having been nominated by their associates, many of whom have worked for the company for more than 10 years.
Mars Food Australia supports local charities and community projects throughout Australia. This support is focused on three themes that reflect and complement their business: environment, which contributes to a safer, cleaner and healthier environment; healthy active lifestyle, promoting sport and healthy eating; and pet welfare, supporting the welfare of animals. In terms of community engagement with the Central Coast, Mars Food Australia donated more than $400,000 in 2013 alone to local community partners and 481 hours to local charity, and has donated more than 360 food hampers to local organisations every year. Another example of community support is Mars Food's sponsorship under the Masterfoods brand of the Central Coast Mariners. Many of us who attend the Mariners home games at Gosford stadium have also been entertained by the flying sauce bottles that are part of Mars Food's sponsorship. Mars have also provided assistance to local charities such as St Vincent de Paul at Wyong and Coast Shelter that provide assistance for the homeless.
Mars Food Australia has a clear purpose and vision as an employer of choice for Central Coast residents: to make food today for a better world tomorrow. Mars Food has a commitment to excellence that extends to being a leader in improving the health and nutrition of Australians. It is committed to the production of healthier and tastier food that Australians share every day with their families and friends. Eighty per cent of Australian homes have at least one Mars product in the pantry and 68 Mars Food Australia products have been granted the National Heart Foundation's tick. Mars Food Australia continues to improve the nutritional value of its recipes. Through reformulation, it has added one million kilos of vegetables per year to Australian diets. This is equivalent to nearly 13.5 million serves per year.
There are many social benefits for families that come together to share a meal at least once a week. They are more likely to eat healthier foods, less likely to experience eating disorders and, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, less likely to suffer from substance abuse. A key member of many families is the family pet. Mars has also created better lifestyles for these treasured family members with the production of products to promote pet nutrition and wellbeing.
Mars Food Australia is a prime example of an outstanding corporate citizen who leads by example. I invite other such corporates to follow Mars Food's lead and consider making my electorate your next corporate home. We will make you most welcome.
Thank you, Member for Dobell, although I do feel that perhaps some samples would have been good for those in the chamber!
F ederation Chamber adjourned at 12 : 24