I seek leave to move the following motion:
That the House:
1. Notes that yesterday, the Prime Minister said in Question Time in relation to the Special Minister of State’s involvement in the Ashby affair: “The evidence or the information about them has been in the public domain for some time. There have been no new developments, no changes or additions to that material”;
2. Resolves that in making this statement, the Prime Minister ignored numerous new developments, namely:
(a) The Australian Federal Police conducting a raid on the Special Minister of State’s home in relation to the Minister’s involvement in the Ashby affair;
(b) The Special Minister of State misleading the Parliament on three separate occasions this week;
(i) On Tuesday in Question Time when the Special Minister of State was asked about statements he had made in relation to the Ashby affair, the Minister said “In relation to the 60 Minutes interview, what was put to air was not the full question”. But On Channel Nine Television News on Tuesday, in a story by journalist Laurie Oakes, the original vision of the 60 Minutes interview was played and makes it clear that there were no words omitted which could in any way be considered part of the question the Minister was asked;
(ii) On Wednesday, the Special Minister of State made a statement on indulgence in the House in which he claimed during his interview on 60 Minutes, he was answering a different part of the question which prompted his admission when there was clearly only one question asked;
(iii) On Wednesday in Question Time when the Special Minister of State was asked the exact same question that he was asked on 60 Minutes, he changed his answer from “Yes, I did” and said “No”. This was not withstanding the subsequent questions in the 60 Minutes interview which clearly affirmed his statement “Yes, I did”,
3. Therefore censures the Prime Minister for failing to enforce his own criteria for taking action and sacking the Special Minister of State for repeatedly misleading the Parliament and breaching the Prime Minister’s own Statement of Ministerial Standards.
Leave not granted.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Isaacs from moving the following motion forthwith.
That the House:
1. Notes that yesterday, the Prime Minister said in Question Time in relation to the Special Minister of State’s involvement in the Ashby affair: “The evidence or the information about them has been in the public domain for some time. There have been no new developments, no changes or additions to that material”;
2. Resolves that in making this statement, the Prime Minister ignored numerous new developments, namely:
(a) The Australian Federal Police conducting a raid on the Special Minister of State’s home in relation to the Minister’s involvement in the Ashby affair;
(b) The Special Minister of State misleading the Parliament on three separate occasions this week;
(i) On Tuesday in Question Time when the Special Minister of State was asked about statements he had made in relation to the Ashby affair, the Minister said “In relation to the 60 Minutes interview, what was put to air was not the full question”. But On Channel Nine Television News on Tuesday, in a story by journalist Laurie Oakes, the original vision of the 60 Minutes interview was played and makes it clear that there were no words omitted which could in any way be considered part of the question the Minister was asked;
(ii) On Wednesday, the Special Minister of State made a statement on indulgence in the House in which he claimed during his interview on 60 Minutes, he was answering a different part of the question which prompted his admission when there was clearly only one question asked;
(iii) On Wednesday in Question Time when the Special Minister of State was asked the exact same question that he was asked on 60 Minutes, he changed his answer from “Yes, I did” and said “No”. This was not withstanding the subsequent questions in the 60 Minutes interview which clearly affirmed his statement “Yes, I did”,
3. Therefore censures the Prime Minister for failing to enforce his own criteria for taking action and sacking the Special Minister of State for repeatedly misleading the Parliament and breaching the Prime Minister’s own Statement of Ministerial Standards.
The Special Minister of State made a nationally televised admission to a serious crime and then repeatedly misled this House in a pathetic attempt to cover it up. What does it take for this Prime Minister to act? What is he waiting for? He will not express his confidence in the minister's integrity—no member of the government will—and yet the Prime Minister does not have the character to put this to an end. He does not have the judgement; he does to have the leadership—
The member for Isaacs will resume his seat. The minister for resources.
I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
The member for Isaacs will resume his seat. The question is that the member for Isaacs be no longer heard.
An opposition member: He didn't have the call!
He did have the call. I asked the member for Isaacs to resume his seat; he ignored that, and I called the minister. The question is that the member for Isaacs be no longer heard.
Is the motion moved by the member for Isaacs seconded?
I second the motion. The minister has misled this House three times in two days, and the Prime Minister thinks that is okay.
I move:
That the member no longer be heard.
The question is that the member for Watson no longer be heard.
The question is that the motion be agreed to.
The fact is that this is a government where no-one is prepared—
The member for Grayndler will resume his seat. The Minister for Resources has the call.
I move:
That the motion be put.
The question is that question be now put.
The question now is that the motion moved by the member for Isaacs be agreed to.
I thank all honourable members for their contribution to the debate on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Proceeds of Crime and Other Measures) Bill, which will make significant improvements to Commonwealth criminal justice arrangements. Serious and organised crime poses a significant risk to Australian communities, and the government is committed to ensuring our nation is safe and secure and taking tough steps to strike at the heart of organised crime. The Commonwealth proceeds of crime scheme is an effective weapon in the fight against serious and organised crime. This scheme allows law enforcement agencies to confiscate illegal proceeds from a person to prevent them from reinvesting these funds in further criminal activities. Confiscation proceedings often take place at the same time that criminal charges against a person are being pursued. In response to recent court decisions, this bill clarifies that authorities may proceed with confiscation action under the Proceeds of Crime Act where there are related criminal matters on foot.
The amendments seek to ensure that compensation proceedings are only stayed where absolutely necessary, as staying proceedings until after a criminal trial is complete would create significant delay and undermine the intent of the non-conviction based forfeiture scheme under the act. This measure is supplemented by additional protections that aim to reduce the risk of prejudice to an accused in related criminal proceedings. The bill also makes a technical amendment to the Proceeds of Crime Act that will clarify that matters relating to restraint of assets should be heard and finalised before forfeiture applications are heard. A robust proceeds of crime scheme is vital in the fight against crime. This bill takes a balanced approach to maintaining the resilience of the Commonwealth's proceeds of crime laws while ensuring respondents' rights are appropriately protected.
The bill will also introduce two new offences of false dealing with accounting documents. These measures reflect the government's zero-tolerance approach to bribery and corruption in all its forms. The new offences will implement Australia's obligations under the OECD anti-bribery convention. In particular, they will implement a recommendation of the OECD working group on bribery that Australia should:
Increase the maximum sanctions against legal persons for false accounting under Commonwealth legislation …
By creating these two new offences, the government is demonstrating its commitment to stamping out white-collar crime.
The bill also makes amendments to clarify the serious drug offences. They will ensure that the offences apply to all substances that are structurally similar to listed illicit drugs and to all manufacturing processes, irrespective of whether they create a new substance or convert a substance from one form to another. These amendments will make the legislative framework for the serious drug offences stronger, clearer and more effective. They will assist our law enforcement agencies in their important work to stop the supply of illegal drugs and bring traffickers and manufacturers to justice, forming another part of the government's continued work to tackle serious and organised crime, including serious drug offending.
The bill also contains a number of amendments to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 to remove operational constraints identified by law enforcement agencies, facilitate access to financial intelligence information and remove information sharing. The financial intelligence information obtained by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre plays a central role in identifying and preventing terrorist activity. Recent terror events across the world have highlighted that very little is required to conduct an attack, and that the time frame between planning and execution is shrinking. In this environment, the ability to share information quickly between those who need it is critical in preventing the loss of innocent lives. By enabling information to be shared faster and more easily—including with key agencies such as Interpol and Europol—this bill will maximise intelligence value and assist regional and international partner agencies in early identification, targeting and disruption of terrorism and transnational crimes. By providing the Independent Commission Against Corruption of South Australia with access to AUSTRAC's financial intelligence data holdings, this bill will also considerably enhance the commission's ability to investigate serious and systemic corruption and misconduct in public administration.
The amendments made by schedule 5 of this bill will ensure that AusCheck's information-sharing provisions are better suited to the current law enforcement and national security environment. It is important that AusCheck can share information with relevant and accredited Commonwealth, state and territory agencies for law enforcement and national security purposes. Information shared by AusCheck is already protected by strong and appropriate safeguards. These safeguards will continue to apply to information shared under the revised provisions.
I thank all members for their contribution to this debate. I want to correct the record on the rather silly contribution made by the member for Throsby, who had the enormous audacity to claim that the government is misspending proceeds of crime account money when, of course, this is money that the Labor Party actually refused to spend on what it should be spent on, which is law enforcement priorities. When we came to office, the Labor Party had locked up the proceeds of crime account. They had refused to spend it on policing matters or on other matters that might make the community safe. This account, if we had not come to office and unlocked it, would have currently held over $112 million worth of assets that are much better deployed in doing something useful. The only reason the Labor Party refused to spend proceeds of crime money was that they were using it to try to pretend that they had a better budget bottom line than they actually did. I thank the member for Throsby for his contribution to the debate, but it was actually just a reminder of how clueless and hopeless this opposition is that they cannot even get basic facts right about their time in government.
This bill will enhance the ability of Commonwealth agencies to investigate and prosecute criminal offences, and ensure that the Commonwealth can effectively target and confiscate proceeds of crime. It will better address law enforcement and national security risks through improved information sharing and it will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of various laws relating to criminals justice administration. I, therefore, commend it to the House.
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.
on indulgence—I wish to make some remarks about the year we have just had. Today is the last day sitting day of the year. Of course, every year in this place feels like a momentous one, and particularly for those who take part in it. The end of year valedictories are a very good opportunity to thank those who work so hard behind the scenes and make this parliament work successfully as the centre of our great Australian democracy.
I should, however, observe at the outset that this has been a year in which there have been great challenges to our security both at home and abroad. It is about a year since the Martin Place siege, which shocked the nation and shocked the city of Sydney, where my wife and I and many other members live. It is only weeks ago that Curtis Cheng, the police worker, was murdered in Parramatta. And it is only a few weeks ago since the killings in Paris, followed by a similar terrorist attack in Bamako, with, of course, those following hard on the heels of terrorist attacks in Beirut and Ankara. It is a reminder of the vital importance for this government and every government of ensuring that our people are safe both at home and, so far as we are able to, abroad.
The battle against violent extremism, against terrorism, is one that all nations are now engaged in. In my recent travels to many summits, I have had the opportunity to discuss with many other leaders the way in which we can better work together to cooperate in a military sense. There is an important military dimension. The single most important objective in the battle against the violent extremism as practised by Daesh, or ISIL, is to defeat them in the field in Syria and Iraq. That has a military dimension and of course a political dimension. We have discussed both of those with our partners in the international coalition and, indeed, with other countries with an interest in the region, including, for example, the Russian Federation, and with leaders such as the Prime Minister of Israel only a few days ago.
So we are very keenly interested in securing a stronger commitment both on the military side and on the political side of this solution. But, as I discussed in the national security statement I made last week, it is a very complex environment and one where the limitations of military power have to be recognised, and the complexity of the political solution has to be recognised as well. On both fronts, there is good progress. The talks in Vienna show some promise.
Plainly, in terms of Syria in particular, the disenfranchised, alienated Sunni majority of the country needs to be reconciled in a new political settlement. Similarly, on the Iraq side of the border, the Sunni minority, which has felt left out by the majority Shiite government, has to be part of a new settlement, and the Prime Minister of Iraq is committed, he assures all of us, to achieving that. But this is an immensely complex area.
Australia is already making the second largest military contribution to the international coalition effort in that theatre. We are making a very substantial effort, and that is very much appreciated. However, the extent to which we are committed and the extent to which we have the support of the opposition in this regard—and I thank the opposition for their support—is in marked contrast to that in other countries. In the UK, even as we speak, Prime Minister David Cameron is seeking to secure the support of the House of Commons to enable his Air Force to operate against targets in Syria.
In summary, in the Syria-Iraq theatre we continue to provide a very substantial military contribution and we engage constructively with our allies to see how we can better deploy that. If there is a call on us to provide further resources or resources in a different way, we will consider that constructively. From the Australian government's point of view, we would like to see other like-minded countries making a larger contribution. Australia is making a very large contribution there, relative to others, given the size of our economy and our proximity to the conflict.
Closer to home, our security is in very good hands. Our police and our security agencies are the best in the world. They are providing the government with constant advice on this matter. Everything I say about security, about terrorism, about the battle against Islamist extremism and its various manifestations here is done in the light of that advice.
It is very important we ensure that we do not allow our enemies to divide us. That is what they seek to do. They seek to divide us and cause us to turn against, in this case, Muslim Australians. That is their objective. We know that, from a practical point of view, we are the most successful multicultural society in the world. Having just returned from Paris, we can see the challenges when you have, in France's case, a large Muslim minority where the levels of integration and harmonisation, if you like, have been well below those of Australia. The French face great challenges and they recognise that they do; they recognise that they have to make changes—but it will take a long time. We have a much stronger foundation upon which our security is built, but we have to maintain it.
At the heart of our security, yes, there is the hard edge, if you like: national security, strong laws, the laws that we have passed—and passed with the support of the opposition too, and again I thank them for that—as well as professional agencies, good intelligence and strong law enforcement. All of that is important. But at the heart of all of this is a culture of mutual respect and a sense that all Australians, regardless of their race, their cultural background, their ethnicity or their religion, have a common share in this great Australian project. That is the critical thing: to ensure that all of our citizens believe that they have a share in the great Australian project.
I have spoken about the national security challenges and I do so in a sombre sense, not least because, even as we have been sitting here in this parliament, a shocking crime has been committed in San Bernardino in California—a shooting
There is a shocking prevalence of violence around the world at the moment, and we recognise that our key objective is ensuring that these events are thwarted or prevented from happening in Australia and that, if they do, we respond to them quickly and effectively. The first duty of every government is the safety of the people.
While that background is sombre, one of the very noticeable features of this year has been a sense of optimism. Overwhelmingly, Australians understand that we are in a moment of transition in our economy. We are coming off the biggest terms-of-trade boom in our history and a mining investment boom, during which investment in new mines and infrastructure went above seven per cent of GDP. However, we can now see that there are more opportunities than ever in the global economy. We have signed three free trade agreements with Japan, Korea and China, the latter being the most extensive free trade deal ever negotiated by China with another country. The unprecedented market access China has offered to Australia puts all of our businesses at a very significant competitive advantage.
Later in the year, quite recently, we saw an historic agreement on the TPP—the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. The economies included in that agreement account for 40 per cent of global GDP. This year, services contributed around 80 per cent to our economic output, as you would expect in a developed economy, but they contributed only 20 per cent to our export performance. So, over time, with these new trade deals and the growing middle class in Asia, as big economies like a China move from being investment led to consumption led—a transition which many economists would say is inevitable, has been inevitable and has not actually happened for quite a long time but is now happening—that provides unprecedented opportunities for every Australian business that seeks to expand its horizons. Our government has an absolutely laser-like focus on jobs. We seek to drive stronger economic growth and more and better jobs. More than 300,000 jobs have been created over the past year. It is the fastest-growing calendar year for job creation since 2006.
I spoke earlier about national security in the context of terrorism and violent extremism. This has also been a year when we focused on security in a very personal way, with the focus on domestic violence. We as a nation have resolved that we are better than this. There can be no tolerance of violence against women and children. I want to acknowledge the work of the Australian of the Year Rosie Batty, who has been instrumental in putting this issue on the national agenda. In response, the government has unveiled a $100 million domestic violence package. It is simply not acceptable to regard domestic violence, somehow or other, as something else, a different kind of violence. Violence against women and children is unacceptable, whether it occurs in the home or in the street. We must not forget that, while disrespecting women does not always end in violence against women, all violence against women begins with disrespecting women. At the core of this is the importance of mutual respect. It is very important for all of us to recognise that we must ensure that our children, particularly our sons, are brought up to respect their mothers and their sisters.
This year we saw the passing of Don Randall. Don was one of the great characters of our parliament and he is sorely missed. His motto was, 'You talk, I listen,' and he really practised that. Every politician says, 'You talk, I listen.' Perhaps most of us do more talking and less listening than we should, but Don really meant it. He was completely authentic in his love of family, his love of his community, his service to his community but above all in being nothing other than himself. His wife Julie and their children, Tess and Elliott, will sorely miss him as we all will too.
In March, we farewelled former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. It is worth remembering, as we did in the motions and the debates in this House, his great contribution to Australian life and politics. He was—and this is particularly relevant in the current days—the first Australian politician to use the term 'multiculturalism'. He established the SBS and he welcomed the refugees from Vietnam. It is instructive that his contribution to public life was not merely here in the parliament. He was a young Prime Minister and he continued throughout his life to be an active participant in our big debates, including the republic debate, where we shared a common platform. His last tweet—he was a great latter-day devotee to social media—was on Chinese foreign policy.
We also farewelled Tom Uren, former finance minister Peter Walsh and, of course, our beloved and irascible former member for Hume Alby Schultz.
We could not function in this place without the many parliamentary staff who keep the show running smoothly. In particular, I want to acknowledge the hard work of the Clerk, David Elder; the Deputy Clerk, Claressa Surtees; the Serjeant-at-Arms, Bronwyn Notzon and all of the attendants; the House Table Office of Catherine Cornish, Richard Selth, Glenn Worthington, Sarah Fielder and their staff, the House parliamentary liaison office of Annette Cronin, Suzanne De Smet and Tim Moore. I also want to thank the government whip and deputy whips; you, Mr Speaker, your Deputy Speaker, Second Deputy Speaker and Speakers' panel. I also thank Anne Dowd, Anne O'Connor and Sue Klammer from the legislative team of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, who so ably support the parliamentary business committee; and Peter Quiggin and his staff from the Office of Parliamentary Counsel.
I would like to thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his support this year and my own deputy in the Liberal Party, the Foreign Minister. Having spent the past couple of weeks involved in many summits, I can just say that I have never had more respect, not just for the job she does but for the way she does it with minimal amounts of sleep. Of course, the end of the parliamentary year does not mean the end of the political year. All of our colleagues will be working hard through to Christmas on a range of policies. The Treasurer, the member for Cook, has already released some key planks of our economic platform, including reviews into the financial sector and competition framework. The Leader of the House, the member for Sturt and the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, will be presenting an innovation statement very shortly. I want to thank all of our staffers throughout our various offices who are the engine room of what we do as politicians. As I said last night, we could not do our job as members of parliament and senators without the staff and the support teams in each of our offices.
Finally, on the thanks, can I acknowledge, once again, the debt we all owe on our side of the parliament and I believe right across the parliament and the community to the great service of my predecessor as Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Party, Tony Abbott. He has been a great Prime Minister and I thank him for his service and I thank him for his support today as a member of our party.
In conclusion, I encourage everyone to have a joyful and restful Christmas and New Year's break. Spend time with your families and your loved ones. We will all come back, I believe, re-energised for, dare I say it, an exciting 2016. I am looking forward to a year of great opportunities.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your service and the patience which you and all the occupants of the chair offer this parliament. On this final sitting day—a day of tired eyes and possibly, for some, sore heads—as all of us in this place look forward to returning home, we think of those Australians who will not be home this Christmas—the men and women of our Defence Force, serving our nation in the cause of peace around the world. To our emergency services personnel—firefighters, ambos, nurses and police officers—for their sake and for the sake of all Australians, we hope those on duty have a quiet Christmas. And then there are the ordinary hardworking Australians for whom Christmas is another day when they will sacrifice time with their family to help provide for their family. Too often, all of us in this place leave thanking our families to the end of our remarks. They give up so much and take on so much so that we can serve here. To Chloe, Rupert, Georgette and Clementine, thank you for making it possible to do this job. I love you. I am looking forward to seeing you very soon.
When this parliament rose last year, we all knew of the threat posed by the sectarian hatreds in the Middle East and the violent extremism here at home. Since then, two gunmen, one in Martin Place and one in Parramatta, have reminded us of the need for heightened vigilance and stronger cohesion. Attacks in Paris, Lebanon, Turkey and Mali have only emphasised that this is the world's problem to confront and to solve. Just as in the face of bushfires in the West and South and cyclones in the North, Australians have stood strong. Australians summon time and time again the courage to carry on and the compassion to care for those in need. Australia can be proud of this and much more in the year that has been.
We celebrated Australia Day with a wonderful new Australian of the Year and a somewhat surprising new knight. Rosie Batty has helped Australians face up to the national crisis of family violence, and in acknowledging her today we remember the 78 Australian women who have been killed this year. Let us all vow not to rest until that number is zero each and every year. As a parliament and as a nation we commemorated the centenary of a chilly dawn when a group of brave young men clambered out of small boats onto an unfamiliar beach and into history. For our sports loving country there was much to cherish. On our home soil, our netballers and cricketers both won world cups. In England, the Southern Stars reclaimed the ashes. At Flemington, Michelle Payne made history by half a length and told every bloke whoever doubted any woman to 'get stuffed'. And on the hottest grand final day on record the Hawks barely broke a sweat on their way to a three-peat. And in a script he must have written himself, Johnathan Thurston kicked truly to claim glory for the Cowboys.
There was loss and sadness too. Richie Benaud and Bart Cummings passed away—the voice of our summer and the embodiment of our spring. We farewelled Labor giants Tom Uren and Peter Walsh. In March, the towering presence of Malcolm Fraser left us. His legacy, particularly his contribution to multicultural society that we all celebrate, will live long after him. In this place, we offered our condolences to Don Randall's family. Don Randall was an unstinting, unashamedly parochial advocate of his electorate. We bid farewell to Joan Kirner, a trailblazer and a fearless champion for women, for education and for Victoria, and to Faith Bandler, an activist, a fighter and a warrior, who only ever wielded the weapons of compassion, respect and intelligence.
All of us who speak in this chamber and in the other place are merely visitors here for some 20 weeks a year. We rely on the hard work, good humour and boundless patience of the people who come to work here every day. The smooth running of this place depends on the calm civility of the clerks, the Serjeant-at-Arms and their office, the tabling office, the Parliamentary Library, Hansard and all of the attendants in this chamber. The kilometres of corridors around us house thousands more people without whom there would not be a parliament. I refer, of course, to the guards, the plumbers, the printers, the switchboard operators, the caterers, the physios, the nurses and the IT support. Dom and the cheerful crew at Aussies can always be counted on for a bacon and egg roll and a cup of coffee at a critical moment. And in a place and in a profession that creates a lot of mess, I want to pay a special tribute to all the Parliament House cleaners Joy, Maria, Anna and Lucia. You and your colleagues are stars and you deserve a much better deal.
The Australian Federal Police are expert at fading into the background but we are all grateful for the work they do to keep MPs and senators safe. I can give a special mention to those who work in the Melbourne CPO. I also want to thank my Comcar drivers Steve Smith and Peter Taylor. I know that my youngest daughter appreciates your high standard of eye-spy work, just as I am sure they appreciate my navigation skills and helpful driving tips. On the subject of low-profile people working quietly behind the scenes to make a much appreciated contribution, I want to thank all the members of the press gallery. Your advice is always 'available'.
All of us called to serve in the Labor caucus are only the tip of the spear. We stand here as representatives of Australia's oldest continuous political movement proud of our past but, as ever, looking forward. We are a great, generous, sprawling, diverse, feuding and loving family. I am grateful every day to every member of every branch of the Labor Party for their dedication, energy and passion. I would like to acknowledge the extraordinary contribution of our national secretary, George Wright, and our national president, Mark Butler, particularly for all their work in preparing for the highly successful national conference.
To my deputy leader, the member for Sydney: Tanya, you are a formidable advocate and a firm friend, and I thank you for your steadfast support. To our leadership team in the other place—Penny Wong and Stephen Conroy: thank you for the way you have worked with the crossbench, through committees and estimates, to stand up for Labor values and hold the government to account. To my shadow Treasurer, the member for McMahon, and my shadow finance minister, the member for Watson: thank you for your counsel and your friendship. In fact, I could name the whole caucus. All of you can be proud of the year that we have had—a year defined by unity of purpose and by more positive plans and policies than any opposition has released in a generation. All of you own a share of this and I thank you for everything that we have done to make it possible.
To make sure that my staff were still listening I decided to thank them last! They know better than anyone how hard they work and how much their hard work means to be. Unfortunately, I cannot read the rest of their handwriting so I will just leave it there!
Predictions and assumptions in politics can be a fraught business. If you had told me in January that by December we would have a new Treasurer, a new Speaker and a new Prime Minister I would have been rapt—but I had an election in mind! There is a long way to go and a lot more to happen in the months ahead of us. With that in mind, I wish the Prime Minister a restful and happy Christmas break with Lucy and the family. As long as the truffles are up to standard, there has never been a more exciting time to be Malcolm Turnbull!
I want to extend to all members of the government and the crossbench, and their families and staff, my wishes for a safe and restful break. Serving in this place is an honour known to very few. Regardless of allegiance or ideals it is the privilege of service that binds us all. The greatest loyalty we owe is not to ourselves or to our party but to the people and the nation we have been honoured to represent. Let's remember this and live up to it next year and always. Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy New Year. I thank the House.
I thank the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and associate myself with their remarks, and I will just make a few brief remarks myself. I thank those who help me do my job—the Deputy Speaker, Bruce Scott; the Second Deputy Speaker and the entire Speaker's panel; the Clerk, David Elder; his deputy, Claressa Surtees; the executive staff and all the departmental staff; all the attendants, particularly my attendant, Luch, who we all know very well. There is no show without Luch. I thank the Clerk, David Elder, in particular. I have known David for a very long time; but before becoming Speaker I had not been a member of the Speaker's panel, so it was not something I advertised. When I sat in this chair on the first day it was the first time I had been here. He was very patient as I worked out what all the buttons meant. I kept wondering on the first day why Luch kept turning up with water when I tried to get David Elder. I was pressing the wrong button! I thank them very much for their support.
I join with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in thanking the Australian Federal Police, who have a presence in this building; all the DPS staff and the executive; the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Mr Phil Bowen, and his staff. Prime Minister, I hope you and Lucy have an enjoyable Christmas with your children and grandchildren. It is a very special time for all of us. Leader of the Opposition, I hope you and Chloe and your children have a good break before what is going to be a busy year. Like me, you have young children so there will be lots of beach cricket and all the things you have at an Australian Christmas.
My staff said, 'Whatever you do, don't forget Pyne!' Leader of the House, thank you for all the work you do. Manager of Opposition Business, the member for Watson, I thank you. I obviously work closely with both of them as we go through the parliamentary day. I thank the Chief Government Whip, Nola Marino, and her team, and the Chief Opposition Whip, who ensure that all the speakers are here on time to keep the parliament going. All members work hard in this place for the betterment of Australia. There is no doubt about that. We bring to this House different ideas and it is a robust debating place as it should be. I thank them and I thank their staff as well.
As the Prime Minister said, on this last day we remember the late Don Randall, the former member for Canning. The Prime Minister's characterisation of him was spot on. In the last parliament I sat where the member for Cunningham is sitting and the member for Canning sat where the member for Lalor is sitting. Occasionally after question time members of the opposition would ask me why I had a horrified look on my face—it was all the interjections that the Speaker did not hear! We remember Don and, as the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition said, we remember other former members who have passed away this year. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser died as well. This time 40 years ago a very intense election campaign had 10 days to run. We reflect very much on his contribution at so many levels.
As the Leader of the Opposition said, we need to thank the press gallery for bending over backwards to always show us in a good light! They are very much part and parcel of this building.
To my staff, including my chief of staff, Cate Clunies-Ross, and the entire team here and back at the electorate office in Chirnside Park: thanks so much for your hard work right throughout the year. Thanks to my family—Pam, Thomas and Angus—for your support. None of us could do what we do without the support of our families. To Thomas and Angus I promise lots of time for cricket in the January period, and I also promise I will hit lots of catches! I wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas. It is a nice, quiet time to reflect on the year. I wish everyone all the best.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Australian government is committed to implementing the Basin Plan in ways that deliver the best social, economic and environmental outcomes for the Basin and its many industries and communities. Water lies at the core of agricultural production, and the associated wealth supports regional communities and the nation.
The Water Amendment (Review Implementation and Other Measures) Bill 2015 further delivers on the government's commitment to support communities, businesses and the environment in the Murray-Darling Basin. It also shows that the government takes the opportunities that arise from ongoing statutory reviews to consult the community and respond to their concerns.
The main purpose of this bill is to implement the recommendations of the Report of the independent review of the Water Act 2007, following an extensive consultation with state and territory governments and stakeholders across the irrigation, community, Indigenous and environment sectors. Of the 23 recommendations made by the panel, 21 have been accepted in full and two have been accepted in part.
The government thanks the review panel members—Mr Eamonn Moran, PSM QC; Mr Peter Anderson; Dr Steve Morton; and Mr Gavin McMahon—for their efforts in reviewing the Water Act, for their consultative approach and for identifying a package of balanced and sensible amendments.
The amendments proposed by the panel support this government's approach to delivering the Water Act's objectives, including:
This Bill supports each of these objectives, and in doing so underpins the government's aim of delivering water reform in ways that support communities, businesses and the environment.
Water recovery— background
The government's approach to achieving the sustainable diversion limits outlined in the Basin Plan is to prioritise investment in productivity-enhancing water infrastructure and cap surface water buybacks at 1,500 gigalitres. The government recently enshrined the 1,500-gigalitre cap in the Water Act. This provides vital reassurance to communities by limiting any potential economic impacts associated with water purchases.
Capping water buybacks provides greater certainty to basin communities that the government is focused on water recovery through investment in infrastructure as a priority to bridge the gap to the sustainable diversion limits. Indeed, the government is undertaking the most significant water infrastructure program in Australian history, investing over $2.5 million per day in the future sustainability of irrigated agriculture out to 2019. A total of almost $13 billion has been committed to basin initiatives out to 2024, with the majority of funds assisting irrigators and communities to make more efficient use of the basin's water resources in the production of food and fibre. To put that into perspective, this expenditure represents a bigger investment in real terms than that made by the Commonwealth to build the Snowy Hydro scheme. These investments are already delivering very good results from both off-farm and on-farm infrastructure projects, with more than 10,000 individual irrigators benefiting from infrastructure renewal and upgrades.
The government, through the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, is now the largest license holder in the basin, for the purpose of sustaining environmental assets.
The government is committed to delivering the maximum outcome from the sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism. Delivering the same environmental outcomes with less water is common sense and will reduce the impact on basin communities. We have already seen projects—such as pumps at Hattah lakes and regulators at Perricoota forest—markedly improving our environmental water use efficiency.
There are significant opportunities in the Gunbower forest, Chowilla flood plain, Burra Creek flood plain and Lindsay Island for works and measures to deliver environmental benefits with less water. And then there is the Menindee Lakes. This is a great opportunity to undertake environmental works that actually provide more water to the basin without removing water from productive use.
Basin water ministers continue to strive towards a supply contribution of up to 650 gigalitres. In other words, and noting that 70 per cent of the Basin Plan water recovery target has already been achieved, the adjustment mechanism will see the 2,750-gigalitre water recovery target fall to as low as 2,100 gigalitres, reducing the socioeconomic impacts of implementing the Basin Plan.
Separately, the Northern Basin Review, which is supported by all basin water ministers, is re-examining sustainable diversion limits set for the northern basin in light of new and additional scientific and socioeconomic information. The government is looking forward to considering the outcomes of the Northern Basin Review when its findings are released next year. We must identify detrimental economic impacts as a result of the reduction of water available for agricultural production and determine whether substantial environmental outcomes have been achieved as a result of that reduction.
Efficient and effective management of environmental water
We know that farmers and irrigators are working hard to ensure that their use of water is as efficient and effective as possible, and so too is the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder—and so it should.
One way in which Commonwealth environmental water can be used more efficiently is through trade. Trade opportunities for the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder can arise when, for example, the annual allocations associated with permanently-held entitlements are not needed in one part of the system, and water could be used more effectively elsewhere or at another time. To date, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has traded water for this purpose in a number of catchments, such as the Gwydir in New South Wales. This has assisted communities to finish off crops, with the associated social and economic gains to the local towns.
Recently, the sale of 20 gigalitres of environmental water allocations in the Goulburn catchment—the first in the southern Murray-Darling Basin—represented a good outcome for irrigators, who purchased over 20 billion litres of water for agricultural use at a time when prevailing seasonal conditions are dry.
This bill amends the act to provide greater flexibility for trade while ensuring that the environmental outcomes sought by the Basin Plan are maintained or improved. The bill enables the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder to use proceeds from the sale of water allocations to invest in activities that improve the effectiveness of Commonwealth environmental water use and help to achieve Basin Plan environmental outcomes. The flexibility will enable the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder to get the best environmental outcomes possible, as efficiently as possible, whilst also assisting in the socioeconomic requirements of Basin communities.
This recognises that achieving environmental outcomes in the Basin will often require both water and complementary environmental activities. We know it is not just about adding water, because the lack of environmental works and measures, such as fish ladders and carp screens, can be a real barrier to maximising environmental outcomes.
The bill also implements important safeguards recommended by the review panel including:
The scope of potential environmental activities that can be funded through the water sales is broad, but must be tied to improved outcomes from the use of Commonwealth environmental water. This enables targeted investments that complement, rather than duplicate, existing environmental programs. The government wishes to make it clear that the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder will not use this new flexibility to invest in natural resource management activities that are already being funded by other programs, whether at a local, state or federal level.
A further change in this bill is to bring the conditions of the sale of water allocations in systems with continuous accounting into line with systems which have an annual accounting framework. This means that if the water is not required to meet environmental objectives in a water period, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder will have the option to sell the water rather than forego allocations due to account limits.
Flexibility and practicality are central to these amendments and key to achieving positive environmental outcomes in the Basin in ways that also deliver social and economic benefits to Basin communities.
The government also recognises that there are many other stakeholders besides the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder that are working to improve environmental outcomes in the Basin. For example, the development of a biological control for European carp, which comprise over 70 per cent of all fish in the Basin, could deliver transformative change to this most iconic river system. This collaborative work between the federal and state governments, research and development corporations and universities has the potential to massively reduce carp populations and significantly improve the health of rivers and wetlands—and there are many recreational fishers who would just love the opportunity to get rid of carp!
Transparent and effective water markets
In a drought-prone country with a highly variable climate, it is particularly important that water has a market price that reflects its changing value, and that farmers can realise that value through a transparent and effective water market. It is clear that the development of a water market has made a significant difference in helping Basin industries to get the most out of their water assets, and to navigate their way through the worst of our dry times. However, while trade is vital to many agricultural industries, it is apparent there are some concerns within the Basin community in regard to how water markets operate.
In line with the recommendations of the review panel, the government will encourage water market industry representative bodies to establish industry-led self-regulation of water market intermediaries. Commonwealth regulation will be considered if evidence emerges that this would alleviate or remove risks in the water market and provide an overall net benefit to business, individuals and community organisations.
The review panel made a number of recommendations which aim to improve water market transparency. Two recommendations were accepted immediately on release of the panel's report—a review of the water charge rules and a review of the water information reporting requirements.
The ACCC is undertaking extensive consultation across the Basin as part of its review of water charge rules and released draft advice on 24 November 2015 for comment. Among other things, the review is considering how best to ensure consistency in the application of national water charging objectives and principles across the Basin. The review of water information reporting requirements was completed in June this year and is due for release in coming months.
The bill also ensures transparency and accountability in the trade of Commonwealth environmental water, requiring it to publish details of all water it sells and the purpose for which the proceeds are used.
Separate to the review of the Water Act, but complementary to its aims, the government is also improving transparency in the water market by agreeing to introduce legislation to parliament by December 2016 to establish a register of foreign ownership of water entitlements. Foreign investment plays an important role in funding the development of many industries in Australia, including the agricultural sector. A register of foreign ownership of both land and water will provide more reliable and transparent information to the public, participants in the water market and the agricultural sector about the value and extent of foreign investment in the sector, as well as trends. Improved oversight of foreign ownership is in response to a wide public call across all sectors.
The government is aware there is some anxiety in the Basin about speculators in the water market and will be looking at further options that improve transparency in the water market.
Monitoring and evaluating Basin Plan impacts
Aside from monitoring and evaluating the environmental outcomes of the Plan, this bill amends the act to improve monitoring of the social and economic impacts of the Basin Plan, which is incredibly important. This is an important amendment that responds to many stakeholders' concerns that insufficient attention is being paid to the social and economic impacts of the Basin Plan. This recognises that community confidence and support is integral to the attainment of triple bottom line outcomes in the basin.
This bill will also provide further certainty to stakeholders about the direction and pace of water reform. In line with the review panel's recommendations, a further review of the Water Act will be conducted in 2024. Furthermore, the first legislated review of the Basin Plan, previously set for 2022, will now take place in 2026, with 10-yearly reviews thereafter. This strikes the appropriate balance between regulatory certainty and allowing the Basin Plan to be reviewed when its outcomes can be better assessed.
Reducing the regulatory burden
A key focus of the review panel's terms of reference was to identify opportunities to reduce or simplify the regulatory and reporting burdens imposed by the Water Act. Even small changes in regulatory burden can have a large productivity effect on the many small- and medium-sized businesses that operate in the basin, leading to improved farm gate returns.
In this respect, the bill makes several important amendments that will streamline the Water Act by improving regulatory clarity, simplifying the process of water resource plan accreditation and repealing redundant provisions.
The Water Act empowers a number of water agencies to provide and collect information on Australia's water resources and to monitor Australia's water markets. The review panel recommended that the government consider the regulatory burden on industry and water managers in respect of water information requirements, while ensuring that critical information on Australia's water resources continued to be collected. As mentioned earlier, this multi-agency review has now been completed and will be released in coming months. Some of the measures proposed by this review will streamline data collection and reporting requirements, further reducing the regulatory burden on stakeholders and cutting red tape.
Indigenous engagement
Indigenous Australians have a long, rich and close association with the rivers and wetlands of the Murray-Darling Basin. As the submission to the review from the Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations noted, 'water is our lifeblood, and all of us depend on healthy rivers and wetlands.'
Accordingly, this bill includes in the Water Act the existing Basin Plan requirement to have regard to social, spiritual and cultural matters relevant to Indigenous people in the preparation of water resource plans.
The bill also clarifies that one of the functions of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority is to engage with the Indigenous community on the use and management of basin water resources.
The bill adds an additional field of expertise that can be considered for potential appointment to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's six-person board.
For the first time, 'Indigenous matters relevant to basin water resources' will be a recognised field of expertise that can qualify a person for appointment to the authority.
Further, the bill amends the act to specify that the Basin Community Committee must be comprised of at least two Indigenous persons with expertise in Indigenous matters relevant to basin water resources.
Summary
The coalition has a strong track record of delivering water reform for the benefit of the nation. Under the Howard government, the Council of Australian Governments agreed in 2004 to the National Water Initiative, laying the foundation for nationally consistent water planning and management for rural and urban use, and delivered balanced economic, social and environmental outcomes.
The coalition also introduced the $10 billion National Plan for Water Security in 2007 and enacted the Water Act, establishing a framework for water reform that included infrastructure modernisation, increased agricultural production and significant environmental improvements.
And earlier this year, the government announced the establishment of the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund to start the detailed planning needed to build or upgrade dams and pipelines and undertake managed aquifer recharge. This will help secure the nation's water supplies and deliver strong economic benefits for Australia, while also protecting the environment.
This bill continues the coalition's longstanding commitment to sensible and balanced water reform that boosts agricultural production, strengthens communities in our food and fibre production regions, and delivers environmental outcomes.
I also table the response by the government to the Report of the Independent Review of the Water Act 2007.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
CrimTrac and the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) are two of Australia's most important national law enforcement bodies, created to provide police with access to national policing information and intelligence. Both agencies are shared national assets that reflect the cooperative approach between jurisdictions that is central to Australia's response to crime.
The Australian Crime Commission Amendment (National Policing Information) Bill—or the merger bill—implements the historic decision of all of Australia's Attorneys-General, police ministers and justice ministers to bring CrimTrac and the Australian Crime Commission together under one banner.
This bill forms a package with the Australian Crime Commission (National Policing Information Charges) Bill, which will allow the merged agency to continue the self-funded model that has supported CrimTrac's services for over a decade at no cost to the budget.
The merged agency would be supported by a new Intergovernmental Agreement to ensure that it maintains a focus on providing national information systems to police, as CrimTrac currently does.
These systems and services are critical to supporting day-to-day policing and the investigation of all forms of crime, from terrorism through to street crime, to drug trafficking, to domestic violence.
Australia has first-rate—in fact, world-class—police and intelligence agencies that are highly capable, professional and committed to protecting our community.
We need to make sure that these agencies continue to have access to the tools and information they need to do their job.
Merging CrimTrac and the ACC continues this government's commitment to ensuring Australian law enforcement agencies are in the best possible position to protect us from criminal and national security threats.
The merger will enrich the ACC's critical intelligence function with direct access to CrimTrac's national police information holdings and sophisticated information technology capabilities.
This will improve the quality, access and timeliness of the intelligence that the merged agency provides to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Improved intelligence will better equip these agencies to detect and disrupt significant threats, such as terrorism, international drug trafficking and cybercrime.
Key measures
The merger bill contains a number of amendments to give effect to the proposed arrangements for the merged agency.
Primarily, the merger bill amends the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002 (ACC Act)to enable the merged agency to carry out all of CrimTrac's functions. These functions will be referred to as 'national policing information' functions under the merged agency structure. This includes making national information-sharing systems available to police and providing nationally coordinated criminal history checks.
The merger bill will also change some of the merged agency's governance arrangements. Currently, the ACC and CrimTrac are both governed by boards. Following the merger, there will be a single board overseeing the merged agency.
The amendments enable the board to set high-level priorities for the merged agency's new national policing information functions. They also provide the board with additional, specific functions currently exercised by the CrimTrac board.
Amongst other things, this includes making recommendations to the relevant Commonwealth minister about expenditure from the National Policing Information Systems and Services Special Account.
The special account was established under the Howard government to support CrimTrac to develop and maintain new and existing information-sharing systems for Australia's police forces.
These amendments will ensure that state and territory police commissioners will continue to play a key role in decisions that directly affect their agencies.
The merger bill will also make changes to the merged agency's information disclosure regime. These ensure that the merged agency can continue to share national policing information, in the same way as CrimTrac currently does, and provide nationally coordinated criminal history checks to a range of stakeholders.
Continuing the CrimTrac funding model
CrimTrac is entirely self-funded through revenue generated primarily from criminal history checks. This has allowed CrimTrac to provide services to police and the community at no cost to the budget.
The measures in these bills will ensure the continued financial security of policing information services.
The charges bill will allow the merged agency to impose charges for certain services, in order to fund or subsidise the provision of other services to police and the community.
The merger bill will provide a mechanism for the board, which comprises representatives from each jurisdiction, to make recommendations to the Commonwealth minister regarding these charges. This reflects the national nature of the merged agency and its national information holdings.
The merger bill will also allow the merged agency to charge fees on a cost recovery basis for discrete services, separate to the revenue mechanism in the charges bill.
The revenue that CrimTrac currently generates accrues into the National Policing Information Systems and Services Special Account.
This allows revenue generated by CrimTrac to be kept separate from other Commonwealth funds and readily invested in national policing information services.
The merger bill will continue the special account, set out the funds that must be credited to the account, and the purposes for which the account may be debited.
These provisions ensure that the special account will continue to support the provision of information-sharing systems and services to police.
Consistent with this, the merged agency will only be able to use the special account for CrimTrac-type, national policing information purposes.
Conclusion
These bills implement an important merger of Australia's two key law enforcement information and intelligence agencies. The merged agency will be better able to fulfil its role as Australia's national criminal intelligence agency, supporting and informing the efforts of law enforcement agencies all around Australia.
At the same time, the merged agency will continue to provide nationally coordinated, high-quality information technology systems and services to Australian police, which are critical to supporting their day-to-day operations.
I, therefore, commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill forms a package with the Australian Crime Commission Amendment (National Policing Information) Billor the merger bill, which implements the historic decision of all of Australia's jurisdictions to bring CrimTrac and the Australian Crime Commission together under one banner.
CrimTrac's success as a cooperative federal scheme supporting the information needs of police has been built on its self-funded business model.
This bill will allow the merged agency to impose charges for certain services, in order to fund or subsidise the provision of other services to police and the community.
This reflects CrimTrac's current arrangements, where criminal history checking provides most of the funding for other services. However, the bill will also enable the merged agency to charge for new services in the future, should this be desirable. This will ensure that the business model can adapt to meet emerging police and government needs.
The bill will create a mechanism to allow the minister to specify in a legislative instrument the services that the merged agency will charge for, who has to pay the charges, and the amount of each charge.
This provides the merged agency with the flexibility to impose different charges for different classes of persons, such as reduced charges for volunteers seeking criminal history checks.
Conclusion
This bill is a key ingredient in the merger of CrimTrac and the Australian Crime Commission.
CrimTrac's nationally coordinated, high-quality information technology systems and services are critical to supporting day-to-day policing operations. The importance of these services will only grow, as crime and criminal methodology change.
This bill will allow the merged agency to continue to provide these services to Australian police in an adaptable and fiscally sustainable way.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to introduce this bill to implement the Common Reporting Standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information.
This bill is a key part of the international fight against tax avoidance; and a key component of this government's commitment to ensure Australians pay their fair share of tax.
The Common Reporting Standard is an international framework developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), working with non-OECD G20 countries, to tackle and deter cross-border tax evasion.
Cross-border tax evasion is a problem faced by jurisdictions all over the world. International cooperation and sharing of information between tax authorities is essential to tackling it.
By participating in this international effort, we are enabling the Australian tax office to gather information on Australians who may choose to dishonestly hide foreign income offshore.
Globalisation and other technological advances have made it easier for individuals to hold investments in offshore financial institutions, which increases the opportunity for tax evasion.
The standard will help ensure all taxpayers pay their fair share of tax by providing tax authorities with information on individuals with offshore accounts, regardless of where their financial accounts are located.
When the standard is implemented certain financial institutions in Australia will collect information on foreign residents' accounts and report it to the ATO. The Australian tax office will provide the information to the foreign resident's tax authority.
In return, the Australian tax office will receive information on Australian residents' offshore accounts. It will use this information to verify if the offshore income has been declared.
The standard is comprehensive in the different types of investment income to be reported, such as interest, dividends, and income from certain insurance contracts. In addition, financial institutions will also report account balances and sales proceeds from financial assets.
The standard is also comprehensive in the different types of account holders covered, such as individuals and the controlling persons of companies, partnerships and trusts.
The standard will build on the Australian Taxation Office's current information exchanges. In 2014-15, total tax liabilities raised as a direct result of exchange of information with Australia's treaty partners was approximately $255 million.
G20 leaders endorsed the standard under Australia's presidency and committed to begin to exchange information by 2017 or the end of 2018.
To date, over 95 jurisdictions have committed to implement the standard, including former tax secrecy jurisdictions, such as Luxembourg, Switzerland, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey.
People that do not comply with their Australian tax obligations undermine the integrity of the tax system. The standard will improve the integrity of the tax system by engendering confidence in the community that taxes are not being evaded.
The standard will also encourage greater voluntary compliance as taxpayers will now be safe in the knowledge that it has just got a whole lot harder to hide funds offshore without the tax office tracking you down.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Today I introduce this bill to ban excessive and unfair payment surcharging by merchants.
This bill forms an integral component of the government's response to the Financial System Inquiry, and is delivering on our commitment to implement fairer outcomes for Australian consumers.
There is significant community concern around the abusive practice of excessive surcharging. Of the 6,500 submissions received by the Financial System Inquiry, more than 5,000 related to the opportunistic practice engaged in by some merchants to drive profits through card acceptances.
This government has listened to the community concern; and this government has chosen to take action.
We are committed to stamping out rapacious behaviour by a select number of merchants who choose to take advantage of Australian card users.
Where a merchant charges a customer a card surcharge, that carries with it an irrefutable representation that the merchant is seeking to recover his or her costs. While many merchants do pass on costs fairly, some merchants intentionally charge many times more than the true cost of accepting a credit card payment.
The coalition government believes consumers are entitled to a fair deal, which limits surcharging to genuine cost recovery. Consequently the government is taking action to ensure customers are charged no more than the amount that reflects the true amount of the merchant's costs in accepting that payment.
The government will not stop merchants from recovering their own costs of accepting cards—importantly.
That is reasonable, and it also helps to send a price signal to the community about the cost of competing kinds of payment facilities. However, profiteering by merchants under the guise of cost recovery will not be allowed by this government.
Each month around $45 billion of purchases are processed through more than half a billion card transactions. Given the widespread problem of excessive surcharging, this measure will therefore provide considerable savings overall to Australian consumers.
This bill will amend the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and ban merchants from engaging in excessive surcharging of customers for use of a particular payment method. A surcharge will be excessive where it exceeds the costs that merchants are charged by their payment provider for using that payment method.
We will put in place a flexible framework that government and regulators can adjust to changing circumstances. The bill allows for a broad range of payments to be covered by the surcharging restriction either by the Payments System Board making a surcharging standard in relation to a payment system or by a regulation made under the Competition and Consumer Act.
For most payment types, the Reserve Bank will be responsible for setting the boundaries of the application of the scheme and the permitted surcharge that applies for each payment type. However, provision is made for these matters to be determined by regulation if necessary for any reason in the future.
With technological innovation bringing new types of payment methods into the market, maintaining flexibility in the application of this regulatory regime is important.
The Reserve Bank will begin public consultation this week on standards that may be made for this purpose.
This measure, apart from establishing a framework for protecting consumers, will also empower the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to enforce the ban on surcharging. The ACCC shall be given new powers to gather information from those involved in the payments process and the authority to issue infringement notices against those engaging in excessive surcharging.
The ACCC will be able to require merchants and other payment system participants to provide documents or information to help it assess the costs incurred against any surcharges imposed by a merchant. It will be an offence to fail to provide the documents or information requested by the ACCC.
If the ACCC forms the view that a merchant has engaged in excessive surcharging, the ACCC may issue an infringement notice including a penalty for listed corporations of up to 600 penalty units, currently $108,000, for each alleged contravention.
So, these new rules do not merely establish a 'best practice' framework but contain real teeth to achieve targeted and meaningful behavioural change.
These are real protections for customers and consumers.
This reform is both good for consumers and good for the overall efficiency of retail and wholesale markets, as it will allow for a fairer reflection of the costs of different payment systems.
As new, smart and innovative methods of payment are developed and rolled out, this government wants to ensure that Australia has a system in place where they can compete on a level playing field with other payment systems, rather than being subjected to inaccurate overstatements to consumers of their actual costs through excessive surcharging.
We want to remove any disincentives or discouragements for commercial activity.
Of course, if a merchant faces a high cost for accepting a certain type of payment, they are still entitled to pass that cost on. Otherwise, consumers using lower cost methods of payment will effectively subsidise those using higher cost payment methods like premium cards.
A merchant should however never be able to give a false impression that certain payment methods cost more than they actually do and profit as a result. We never want consumer behaviour to be distorted by these practices.
This legislation will ensure that they cannot legally do so, and will put the ACCC on the beat to ensure that they do not.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Corporations Amendment (Crowd-sourced Funding) Bill 2015
This bill sets out amendments to the Corporations Act 2001 and consequential amendments to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001 to facilitate crowd-sourced equity funding in Australia. It implements the commitment made by the government in the 2015-16 budget as part of our Growing Jobs and Small Business package.
Crowd-sourced equity funding is a relatively new and innovative concept. It allows businesses to obtain capital from a large number of investors through an online platform, where each investor typically contributes a small amount of money in return for an equity stake in the business.
In 2014, the Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee, otherwise known as CAMAC, completed a review into the crowd-sourced equity funding landscape in Australia. It found that this form of fundraising is costly and impractical for businesses, largely due to regulatory impediments in the Corporations Act that imposed an excessive compliance cost for start-ups and other small businesses.
The government acknowledges the detailed recommendations put forward by CAMAC. This bill responds by establishing a legislative framework for crowd-sourced equity funding that addresses these regulatory impacts identified in CAMAC's report.
The framework the government is introducing will enable public companies that are issuing equity through crowdsourcing to do so with reduced disclosure compared with what is required under a full public equity fundraising. It provides, for newly registered public companies that meet the assets and turnover tests, concessions from some corporate governance and reporting obligations. To ensure that investors are able to make informed investment decisions and are not exposed to excessive potential losses, the framework also sets out the minimum disclosure requirements and a $10,000 per issuer per 12-month period investor cap for retail investors. It also sets out a number of obligations that intermediaries will need to perform as part of providing a crowd-funding service.
It is not the government's role to pick winners, but creating the right economic conditions for small businesses and start-ups to grow and thrive and taking steps to remove unnecessary regulatory barriers are. The framework set out in this bill will enable Australia's innovative early-stage businesses to obtain the capital they need to turn good ideas into commercial successes.
Crowd-sourced equity funding will also offer a new funding option for small businesses. It complements other forms of crowd-funding already available, such as rewards-based crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, to offer start-ups choices in how they fund their operations. It will serve as both a complement and a source of competition to more traditional funding options for small businesses, including bank debt products.
The government has consulted extensively on the design of the proposed crowd-sourced equity funding framework. The model detailed in this bill strikes the right balance between supporting investment, reducing compliance costs and maintaining an appropriate level of investor protection.
In December 2014, the government released a discussion paper that raised options for a potential crowd-sourced equity funding model for Australia. The government consulted on this over early 2015, including through two industry roundtables. Over 40 submissions were received as part of this process.
The government also took into consideration the recommendations of the CAMAC review, including specific requirements for businesses, intermediaries and investors. International experience was also taken into account, in particular the framework in New Zealand, which has been in operation for nearly two years.
The consultation process indicated broad stakeholder support for a regulatory framework for crowd-sourced equity funding. Many stakeholders also recommended adoption of a framework quickly, noting that delays would risk impeding the development of the crowdfunding market in Australia. A number of crowdfunding platform operators also indicated interest in becoming licensed to provide platform services in Australia.
Stakeholder views were more varied on the specific model to be implemented. Some indicated support for the CAMAC model, others for adopting the same approach as taken in New Zealand. There were also views that a hybrid of the two was preferred. Concerns were raised that the CAMAC model would increase the complexity of the regulatory regime and may be burdensome for smaller companies. Others considered that the New Zealand model provides flexibility for companies to raise funds but may not provide enough protection for investors.
In August 2015, the Government released an outline of its proposed framework for public companies, reflecting many of the key aspects of New Zealand's approach, such as licensing and other gatekeeper obligations for intermediaries, reduced disclosure for companies raising funds, and a liberal approach to retail investor caps along with investor protections such as risk warnings for investors. Following a four-week consultation period, over 50 submissions were received.
The government undertook targeted consultation on the draft legislation prior to its introduction into parliament, making a number of improvements to the draft legislation on the basis of this feedback.
The government has also consulted with state and territory governments, which have agreed to these amendments to the Corporations Act and consequential amendments to the ASIC Act, in accordance with the Corporations Agreement 2002.
I would like to thank all of the stakeholders who participated in these consultations over the past year. It is important that the regulatory framework for crowd-sourced equity funding operates effectively in order to maximise the benefit to businesses, intermediaries and investors. Stakeholder feedback has assisted with development of a framework that achieves this.
I would now like to turn to the provisions of the bill.
Schedule 1 to this bill inserts a new part into chapter 6D of the Corporations Act. This sets out the various elements that comprise the crowd-sourced equity funding framework.
Australia's crowd-sourced equity funding regime will allow eligible companies to fundraise up to $5 million per year from retail investors. This amount is higher than that allowed under both the New Zealand framework and the model recommended by CAMAC. The ability to raise higher amounts will enable entrepreneurs of innovative early-stage businesses in Australia to obtain the capital they need to turn good ideas into commercial successes.
To ensure the regime is appropriately targeted, companies will be required to meet turnover and assets tests before they are eligible to fundraise under this part. The threshold is set at $5 million. As the market develops, the ongoing appropriateness of these thresholds can be reviewed.
Unlike some overseas jurisdictions, in Australia there has been a historical distinction between public and proprietary companies. Proprietary companies are generally relatively small and closely held, and have low corporate governance and reporting obligations. They are limited to having no more than 50 non-employee shareholders, and are generally prohibited from offering shares to the general public. Public companies do not have these limitations, but have greater corporate governance and reporting obligations to ensure that their broader shareholder base has ongoing access to information about the company. It is important to note that public companies are not automatically listed on the ASX; a public company may be unlisted.
For small business people, time spent on regulatory compliance is time not spent working to ensure the success of their business. While businesses wishing to access crowd-sourced equity funding must be public companies, the government is conscious that the demands involved in transitioning to a public company structure and complying with the corporate governance and reporting obligations, for the amount of funds that an early-stage business would typically seek, can be onerous. As such, the government is providing a holiday of up to five years from these key requirements, which is set out in schedule 2.
Schedule 2 to this bill sets out a number of concessions for newly registered public companies that have restructured in order to access crowd-sourced equity funding. Provided a company undertakes crowd-sourced equity fundraising within 12 months of registering as a public company, it is eligible for exemptions of up to five years from requirements to:
Further, companies fundraising under this framework will be able to offer equity securities to retail investors with lower disclosure than currently required. This will improve access to crowd-sourced equity funding for small businesses and start-ups as a full disclosure document can be costly and time consuming to prepare.
The government recognises that reducing disclosure may also diminish investors' confidence about their capacity to make informed decisions about an offer. The government proposes to set out disclosure requirements in the regulations that will ensure that investors have access to the key facts about the company, its structure and the fundraising. Investors will also be able to interact directly with the company to ask questions relating to an offer and the company will be able to respond to any questions. This is consistent with the approach in New Zealand.
The government has listened to stakeholders on how to best balance the fundraising needs of businesses and investor protection. The framework in this bill permits retail investors to invest up to $10,000 per issuer per 12-month period, allowing investors the opportunity to make substantial investments in a product, while also seeking to mitigate the size of their exposure. The bill also provides a regulation-making power to amend this amount as the market develops. Retail investors will not be limited in the total amount of investment in crowd-sourced equity funding they can undertake, allowing them to diversify their investments. Investors will also be protected in the form of cooling off rights for a period of five days after making an investment.
The final element of the bill I would like to highlight is the importance of intermediaries to the operation of an equity crowdfunding market. As a gatekeeper, intermediaries provide an important quality assurance role, and in recognition of this intermediaries will be required to hold an Australian financial services licence.
Requiring intermediaries to be licensed provides issuers and investors alike with confidence in the integrity of the intermediary and their capacity to carry out the obligations of operating a crowd-sourced equity funding platform. The framework sets out certain obligations that intermediaries will need to perform, including the requirement to conduct checks on issuers before listing their offer.
Ongoing responsibility for issuing licenses and monitoring the operation of the framework set out in this bill will sit with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, commonly referred to as ASIC. To support this, ASIC was provided with $7.8 million in funding through the 2015-16 Budget.
This bill also makes amendments to chapter 7 of the Corporations Act, to ensure the Australian market licensing regime can, in the future, be tailored to intermediaries operating crowd-sourced funding platforms. Schedule 3 to this bill provides the minister with an exemption power to exempt certain market operators, including intermediaries, from specific obligations under the Australian market licensing regime. This will enable the government to further reduce the compliance burden for operators of emerging and specialised markets, such as the crowdfunding market, as it matures. These amendments commence on the date this bill receives royal assent.
The full details of the amendments are contained in the explanatory memorandum. The government proposes to make regulations to support the operation of the measures in this bill.
Introducing this bill today delivers on the government's budget commitment. It helps to deliver on the government's commitments to foster innovative economic activity, unlocking a new source of funding. The crowd-sourced equity funding framework will take effect six months from the date the bill receives royal assent. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Today, I introduce a bill that implements the first phase of the government's reforms to strengthen and streamline Australia's bankruptcy and corporate insolvency regimes.
This bill addresses a number of identified weaknesses in the current regulatory framework governing insolvency practitioners.
These have been revealed in numerous inquiries and were comprehensively discussed in the 2010 Senate Economics References Committee report: The regulation, registration and remuneration of insolvency practitioners in Australia: the case for a new framework.
Despite increased activity by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in relation to its oversight of the corporate insolvency industry, it is clear that the level of confidence in the insolvency industry needs to be improved. Insolvency practitioners received the lowest rating for perceived integrity in the latest survey of ASIC's stakeholders.
The government believes progressing this package of reforms will provide benefits to creditors, businesses and insolvency practitioners. The reforms will increase the efficiency of the insolvency administrations and cut unnecessary costs and red tape.
Members of this House would also be aware that earlier this year, the government commissioned the Productivity Commission to examine, amongst other issues, the impact of the personal and corporate insolvency regimes on business exits.
The government is currently considering the Productivity Commission's recommendations to ensure that financially distressed businesses are given the best opportunity to restructure, or be wound up efficiently where the business cannot be saved.
The government will consult with the community on further possible amendments to the external administration regime to provide additional flexibility for businesses in financial difficulty shortly.
However, any future reforms will require an insolvency profession that stakeholders can have confidence in. The measures in this bill will assist in providing that confidence.
A key aim of the bill is to restore confidence in the insolvency profession by raising the standards of professionalism and competence of practitioners, and identifying and removing 'bad apples' from the profession more swiftly.
The bill does this by aligning and strengthening the registration, disciplining and regulator oversight of corporate insolvency practitioners with the framework currently in place for personal insolvency practitioners.
The existing paper based process for the registration of corporate insolvency practitioners was identified as a weakness in the 2010 Senate Economics References Committee report.
Under the measures in this bill, the process for registering corporate insolvency practitioners will be strengthened to require applicants to be interviewed and assessed by a three-person committee, including industry and regulator representatives.
Rules to be made following the passage of the bill will require new entrants to have completed formal insolvency-specific tertiary studies, as well as accounting and legal studies.
Corporate insolvency practitioner registration will no longer be indefinite. In line with the current arrangements for personal insolvency practitioners, a practitioner will need to renew their registration every three years. At that time they must show evidence of compliance with any new requirements for continuing professional education set by the regulator, as well as show that they have maintained their insurance coverage.
Once again, the framework for the disciplining of corporate insolvency practitioners not meeting the appropriate standard will be aligned with the framework currently applying to personal insolvency practitioners.
Practitioners who have breached their statutory obligations will be asked to 'show cause' why they should remain in the industry. If the regulator is dissatisfied with the explanation, it may refer the matter to a committee for consideration.
The adoption of the committee approach for practitioner disciplining will mean that the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board will no longer play a role in the regulation of the sector.
A disciplinary committee will have a broad range of powers in addition to deregistration and suspension, including being able to prevent an insolvency practitioner from accepting further appointments for a specified period and issue public reprimands. Where a rogue practitioner is struck off, in appropriate cases they may also be banned from working in the industry for another practitioner for up to 10 years.
ASIC and the Australian Financial Security Authority play an important role in promoting an efficient and equitable market for insolvency services. This bill will strengthen the powers of the regulators to monitor insolvency practitioners, provide information to stakeholders and intervene in individual corporate and personal insolvencies where appropriate.
Under the bill, ASIC will be given further powers to seek information or records from corporate insolvency practitioners—similar to the existing powers in relation to auditors. These new powers will aid ASIC in its efforts to undertake proactive surveillance of corporate insolvency practitioners.
To improve the level of information available to the regulators, practitioners will also be required to notify the regulators when any of a range of prescribed matters occur which may impact on the continued registration of a practitioner.
The penalties for a range of offences relating to the practitioner misconduct have also been increased to better reflect the seriousness of the breaches and to provide a more appropriate deterrent. In particular, the penalties for failing to maintain adequate and appropriate insurance, as well as failing to comply with rules regarding the banking of administrations funds, have been significantly increased.
The government recognises that confidence in how practitioners handle the funds of external administrations, as well as the protection from potentially negligent behaviour, is crucial to the overall confidence in Australia's insolvency laws.
The bill promotes market competition within the insolvency industry. It removes barriers to creditors receiving relation in the course of insolvency administrations and to creditors taking action to protect their interests in relation to an administration.
Creditors will be empowered under the bill to remove a practitioner appointed to a personal or corporate insolvency through a simple resolution of creditors at any time, and without court involvement. These changes will remove a significant barrier to removing an unjustifiably expensive or poorly-performing practitioner.
In order for creditors to better inform themselves of the conduct of the administration, creditors will also be able to appoint an independent specialist to review the performance of an insolvency practitioner.
The reforms to the registration framework for practitioners will improve the balance between the need to protect consumers of insolvency services with the need for a competitive market that provides the best opportunity for maximising returns to creditors.
The bill will also remove the unnecessary and outdated distinction between official and registered liquidators, and, as a result, all registered liquidators will be able to undertake all forms of external administration. This change will also remove the obligation on some practitioners to take on matters even where there are no assets available to meet their costs and remuneration.
While the bill removes unnecessary distinctions, it will allow for a person to apply for registration on a restricted basis to increase the number of service providers in limited sections of the market. For example, the insolvency practice rules to be made under the bill will facilitate an applicant being able to seek registration to perform receiverships only.
Rules will also reduce the period of experience that applicants must satisfy before they can apply for registration.
The bill provides a first step in aligning the regulation of the corporate and personal insolvency regimes. Removing unnecessary divergence between the two regimes will reduce legal complexity, risk and costs for insolvency practitioners, creditors, shareholders, regulators and other stakeholders.
Default creditor meeting and practitioner reporting requirements will be removed. Instead creditors will have more powers to tailor these requirements to the needs of the particular administration. A resolution of any form will also be able to be passed through a postal vote, instead of requiring the holding of a meeting.
The need for a meeting to be convened in order to obtain approval for remuneration in low-asset administrations will also be removed. Instead practitioners will have the ability to draw down up to $5,000 in remuneration before creditor approval is required.
Measures are being taken to encourage electronic communication between practitioners and creditors by allowing practitioners to make information such as reports and other documents available on their websites.
Enhancements to the initial and ongoing education of practitioners, as well as improved regulatory powers for the surveillance of practitioners, are also aimed at improving practitioner standards with flow-on effects to practitioner performance. The expected improvements in practitioner performance should result in increased efficiency of administrations.
The bill will commence upon proclamation within 12 months of royal assent. This will facilitate ASIC making the administrative and IT changes necessary to implement the package, as well as allow industry participants time to adapt to the new measures.
The new measures in this bill are currently estimated to result in savings to the insolvency industry of $50 million per annum from the commencement of this bill, with positive flow-on impacts for creditor returns. These savings will be achieved while improving confidence in the industry, improving competition for insolvency services and enabling creditors and other stakeholders to better look after their own interests.
This bill will allow for the making of insolvency practice rules which will provide further guidance on the provisions contained in this bill. The government will be consulting on these rules shortly.
Finally, I can inform the House that the Legislation and Governance Forum for Corporations was consulted in relation to the amendments and has approved them as required under the Corporations Agreement 2002.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill introduces amendments to Australia's taxation laws to improve the operation of Australia's capital gains tax regime. The measures in this bill are two of the 92 announced but un-enacted measures left by the previous government.
Schedule 1 to this bill clarifies the treatment of earn-out arrangements by making any financial benefits payable under such rights part of the original value of the business or business asset for capital gains tax purposes.
An earn-out arrangement is a sale or purchase of an asset where the consideration includes a right to future financial benefits linked to the performance of the asset. For example, a 'standard' earn-out may involve an up-front payment for the sale, with the seller having a right to future payments that are contingent on the business's performance.
Earn-out arrangements are a legitimate and efficient way of structuring the sale of a business (or business assets) to deal with uncertainty about its value.
Under the Australian Taxation Office's current administration of the law, each earn-out right is a separate and distinct asset from the underlying business and must have its market value estimated for capital gains tax purposes. The complexity involved in this system affects the ability of businesses to efficiently price their business assets.
This bill will result in any payments made under the earn-out right being added to the capital proceeds or the cost base of the original sale, through amendments to the taxpayer's tax return at that time.
This bill will not only help provide certainty for businesses entering into earn-out arrangements, but will also protect any entitlement they have to small business capital gains tax concessions.
This bill will apply to all earn-out arrangements entered into after the draft legislation for this measure was made public on 23 April 2015.
In addition, to protect taxpayers who have reasonably and in good faith anticipated changes to the tax law in this area as a result of the May 2010 announcement by the Labor government, this bill also includes protections to preserve their current tax outcomes, without requiring amendments.
Schedule 2 to this bill introduces a new collection mechanism to support the operation of Australia's foreign resident capital gains tax regime.
Foreign residents are liable to pay tax on capital gains when they dispose of certain Australian assets—broadly direct and indirect interests in real property. The Australian Taxation Office has indicated that voluntary compliance with Australia's foreign resident capital gains tax regime is poor. In addition, there are difficulties in the Australian Taxation Office undertaking effective compliance activity after a transaction takes place, given the funds would likely be offshore and the foreign resident may otherwise have little connection to Australia.
The Australian public rightly expects that foreign investors into Australian property comply with their Australian legal obligations. This is why the government recently enacted reforms to Australia's foreign investment framework to increase scrutiny and transparency over foreign investments into Australian residential property. It is also why the government is implementing this measure.
Under this measure, from 1 July 2016, where the seller of certain Australian assets is a foreign resident, the buyer will be required to withhold and pay to the ATO 10 per cent of the purchase price. The amount collected is an estimate of the vendor's final income tax liability. The vendor is still required to lodge an income tax return and pay any outstanding debt. They may claim a credit for the amount of tax withheld in the income tax return at this time. In this way, the withholding measure also encourages participation and engagement by foreign residents with the Australian Taxation Office.
To ensure that this measure is appropriately targeted at those areas where revenue is at greatest risk, and minimises the impact on other property transactions, the measure does not apply to direct real property transactions below $2 million.
Other design features of this measure have been developed following extensive consultation with stakeholders.
Full details of both measures are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill is part of a broader package of bills that amend various taxation laws to introduce a new system for taxing managed investment trusts.
The new rules will modernise the tax rules applying to eligible managed investment trusts, increasing certainty for those trusts and their investors, and reduce complexity. It will reduce compliance costs by $30 million per year for managed investment trusts and their investors. These reforms will enhance the competitiveness of Australia's funds management industry.
Our managed funds industry is one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world. As of 30 June 2015, Australia had $2.6 trillion in funds under management, larger than Australia's gross domestic product and the capitalisation of the Australian stock exchange. It is one of the largest pools of managed funds in the world, and contributes jobs to the broader financial and insurance services industry, which employs over 400,000 people in Australia. We need to ensure that this industry continues to support Australian jobs, and remains efficient and internationally competitive.
Managed investment trusts are used by many Australians. Most of us are investors in managed investment trusts, either directly or indirectly through our superannuation funds. Managed investment trusts are used to invest in a diverse range of assets, including shares, property, bonds and cash.
The current taxation arrangements applying to trusts are complex and uncertain. This is unacceptable for an industry so significant to the economy and the financial security of all Australians. This bill will ensure that the funds management industry is able to operate more effectively through trust structures.
This new tax system will also provide an opportunity for Australia's managed funds industry to grow by exporting more of its expertise and attracting additional international investment. This will in turn increase jobs and growth.
The government's new tax rules for eligible managed investment trusts follow recommendations made by the Board of Taxation in its report on the Review of the tax arrangements applying to managed investment trusts.
In its review, the board found that current tax arrangements applying to trusts create undue complexity and uncertainty for managed investment trusts. Specifically, trust tax rules have not kept pace with the growing use of trusts as collective investment vehicles. The board recommended the creation of new tax rules for eligible managed investment trusts.
The new tax system has been actively sought by the funds management industry. Key stakeholders have been extensively consulted during the development of the new tax system.
These new rules will apply from 1 July 2016. However, trustees can choose to opt in earlier and apply the rules for income years starting on or after 1 July 2015.
The new tax system will apply where the members of the trust have clearly defined interests in relation to income and capital of the trust and the trustee of the managed investment trust makes a choice to apply the new rules.
Trusts that are not eligible or choose not to apply the new tax system will continue to apply the general trust tax rules.
The bill will provide for taxation at the investor level, rather than at the entity level. Investors will generally be taxed on amounts as if they had derived the income directly.
Members will be taxed only on amounts 'attributed' to them. This amount is determined by the trustee according to the member's interest as set out in the constituent documents of the trust. The tax characteristics applying to that income will flow through to members.
The introduction of the attribution model will provide greater certainty for trustees and members, by more closely aligning the commercial and tax consequences of activities of a managed investment trust.
Under the new rules, trustees will continue to provide statements to the members shortly after the end of each income year to assist members to complete their tax returns. However, trustees may not have final information from entities that they invest in by the time they have to report to members. This means they often need to make estimates in the statements issued to members and then make adjustments at a later point in time when more information is available.
This can be administratively onerous. Because of this, these bills will give the trustee a choice to reconcile the variance in the income year it is discovered, or to reissue statements to members for the income year to which the variance relates. If the trustee reconciles the variance in the discovery year, members will not have to seek amendments to their income tax assessments. This will reduce compliance costs for managed investment trusts and their members, as well as administrative costs for the ATO. This approach is consistent with current industry practice. Associated integrity rules will encourage managed investment trusts to bring income to account in a timely way.
These bills also introduce a new rule so that multiclass managed investment trusts will be able to elect to treat each class as a separate trust all for the purposes of the new managed investment trust tax system. The effect is that the gains and losses within a class will be quarantined to those members. Currently, gains and losses relating to one class can affect another class of interests within the same trust. This amendment means that fund managers will be able to offer a range of different investment options through a single trust, rather than incurring higher costs from establishing multiple trusts to achieve the same outcome.
These bills also remove the incidence of double tax for members of attribution managed investment trusts that currently arises under the capital gains tax rules. Where amounts distributed to members differ to the taxable income of the managed investment trust, members will now be able to adjust the cost base of their investments so that they are not taxed twice. The current law required reductions in cost base where amount received by the member exceeds the taxable component of the distribution. However, there is no corresponding upwards adjustment to the cost base if the amount received is less than the taxable component of the distribution. The amendments will now allow upwards adjustments to the cost base in certain situations.
The government will also introduce transitional provisions and consequential amendments as part of this package of bills relating to the new tax system for managed investment trusts. This includes consequential amendments to ensure the managed investment trust withholding tax rules apply appropriately under the new attribution model of taxation.
In addition, this package contains an arms-length rule that was recommended by the Board of Taxation. This rule will discourage managed investment trusts from shifting profits from an active business of a related party to the attribution managed investment trust. The Commissioner of Taxation will be given powers to make a determination where a managed investment trust has derived non-arms-length income. The trustee of a managed investment trust will be liable to pay tax at the corporate rate on this income and other administrative penalties may apply. This will protect the integrity of the corporate tax base.
The 20 per cent tracing rule applying to certain unit trusts will also be amended so that superannuation funds and certain other exempt entities will be excluded. This will reduce compliance costs and allow trusts to avoid being taxed as a company simply because certain entities, such as superannuation funds, own more than 20 per cent interest in the trust.
Further, rules that tax corporate unit trusts as companies will be repealed. These rules were introduced when Australia had a classical tax system to discourage companies from restructuring as trusts. Companies had an incentive to restructure as shareholders faced the prospect of double taxation, due to the lack of imputation. Since the introduction of imputation, the integrity rules for corporate unit trusts are considered to be no longer necessary and will be repealed.
Together, the measures contained in this package of bills will reduce complexity, increase certainty and minimise compliance costs.
In conclusion, this package of bills recognises the commercial needs of the industry and the growing use of trusts as commercial investment vehicles. Greater certainty will benefit investors and the managed fund industry.
It will improve the attractiveness of Australian managed investment trusts to international investors. It will assist our managed funds industry to develop and export more of their services. This should increase growth and jobs.
The new tax system for managed investment trusts has been actively sought by the managed investment funds industry. The government has listened to this. The government has undertaken extensive consultation with industry representatives and other key stakeholders in the development of this new managed investment trust tax system.
The new rules will ensure that the managed funds industry is able to continue to operate through trust structures having regard to the commercial needs of industry, the needs of investors, and the need to ensure appropriate integrity, and minimise compliance and administrative costs.
As a result, the government is confident that these new amendments will modernise the tax law applying to managed investment trusts. The measures contained in these bills are vital to ensuring that Australians have the best opportunity to grow their income. The measures will also enhance Australia's managed funds industry and promote the greater export of Australia's funds management expertise.
Full details of the new tax system for managed investment trusts are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Income Tax Rates Amendment (Managed Investment Trusts) Bill 2015 forms part of a package of bills to introduce a new system for taxing managed investment trusts (MITs).
This bill specifies the rate of tax payable by trustees of attribution managed investment trusts in some circumstances. Under the new tax system, investors are generally taxed on amounts attributed to them by the trustee of a managed investment trust, as if they had invested directly. In limited circumstances, tax may occur at the trustee level instead of at the investor level to ensure that correct tax outcomes occur. This primarily occurs if the trustee does not attribute all income to members. In this case, the trustee is taxed on the unattributed income, to ensure that this income does not escape taxation. The unattributed income is generally taxed in the hands of the trustee at the highest individual marginal tax rate, plus the Medicare levy.
Further details of the bill and the new tax system applying to managed investment trusts are set out in the explanatory memorandum for the Tax Laws Amendment (New Tax System for Managed Investment Trusts) Bill 2015.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Medicare Levy Amendment (Attribution Managed Investment Trusts) Bill 2015 forms part of the package of bills to introduce a new system for taxing managed investment trusts.
The bill amends the Medicare Levy Act 1986 to impose the two per cent Medicare levy on trustees of attribution managed investment trusts in some circumstances. Under the new tax system, tax is generally applied at the investor level. However, tax may be applied at the trustee level to ensure that correct tax outcomes occur. This primarily occurs if the trustee does not attribute all income to members. Where this is the case, the trustee will be taxed on the unattributed income at the highest individual marginal tax rate plus the Medicare levy in certain circumstances. This operates to ensure that income does not escape taxation.
Further details of the bill and the new tax system applying to managed investment trusts are set out in the explanatory memorandum for the Tax Laws Amendment (New Tax System for Managed Investment Trusts) Bill 2015.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Income Tax Rates Amendment (Attribution Managed Investment Trusts-Offsets) Bill 2015 forms part of a package of bills to introduce a new system for taxing managed investment trusts (MITs).
This bill imposes income tax on trustees of attribution MITs where they attribute excess tax offsets to members in some circumstances. This can happen if the trustee overestimates the amount of offsets it has available to attribute to members in an income year. This means that members are able to reduce their tax liability more than they otherwise would had they not been attributed excess offsets.
Tax will be payable by trustees of attribution MITs on the amount of the excess tax offsets at a rate of 100 per cent. This has the effect of clawing back excess tax offsets and neutralising the impact on tax revenue. This is consistent with outcomes that arise when a company passes out excess franking credits.
Further details of the bill and the new tax system applying to managed investment trusts are set out in the explanatory memorandum for the Tax Laws Amendment (New Tax System for Managed Investment Trusts) Bill 2015.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The government is introducing the Fair Work Amendment (Remaining 2014 Measures) Bill 2015 because we believe in a fairer and more efficient workplace relations system.
This bill contains the same important reforms the government included in the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2014.
Earlier this year, after constructive engagement between the government and crossbench senators, agreement was reached on four of the measures in that former bill. It was decided with the crossbench that, so as to not delay passage of the agreed measures, those measures would be passed while discussions continued on the remaining measures.
This bill, as its name suggests, reintroduces into parliament the six remaining 2014 measures. The measures are unchanged from the former bill.
This bill is being introduced to allow for the continuation of constructive discussions with crossbench senators on these fair reforms that will bring some balance back to the workplace system. The government intends to work constructively with the crossbench to deliver on its election commitments.
The Fair Work Amendment (Remaining 2014 Measures) Bill 2015 implements our clearly stated election policies—nothing more and nothing less.
Many of the measures in this bill were matters recommended by the 2012 Labor appointed Fair Work Review Panel.
As with the previous bill, these measures were part of the coalition government's comprehensive policy document released well in advance of the 2013 election.
By way of high-level overview, the six measures in this bill are:
Part 1: clarifying that, at the end of employment, annual leave loading is paid on outstanding annual leave if the enterprise agreement or award says it is to be paid.
Part 2: clarifying how leave accrues, and how it is taken while a worker is already away from work and receiving workers' compensation.
Part 3: making Labor's individual flexibility arrangement provisions practical and accessible so they can be utilised to benefit employees and employers.
Part 4: adopting Labor's review panel's recommendation in relation to transfer of business to fix an unintended consequence where an employee wants to voluntarily change jobs.
Part 5: bringing balance back to the right of entry laws and giving the independent umpire a reasonable opportunity to become involved and deal with right of entry disputes; and
Part 6: giving the Fair Work Commission, the independent umpire, further administrative powers over its own hearings.
For further details on the bill and these six measures, I refer the House to the second reading speech and debate associated with the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2014.
I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
Mr Speaker has received a message from the Senate informing the House that the Senate has agreed to the following resolution:
That the resolution of appointment of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters be amended to provide for participating membership, omitting from paragraph (3A) “the 2013 election” and substituting “political donations”.
I move:
That consideration of the amendment to the resolution of appointment of the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Immigration Detention Network be made an order of the day for a later hour.
Question agreed to.
I present the first report from the Publications Committee sitting in conference with the Publications Committee of the Senate. Copies of the report are being circulated to honourable members in the chamber.
Report—by leave—agreed to.
On behalf of the Standing Committee on Tax and Revenue, I present the committee's report, entitled the Tax expenditures statement,together with the minutes of proceedings.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—I rise today to speak on the committee's report for its inquiry into the Tax expenditures statement.
Tax expenditure estimates represent the use of tax concessions provided to particular groups of taxpayers. Often, a tax concession has a particular policy goal, such as encouraging a valuable activity or improving equity.
In the late 1960s, the observation was made that tax expenditures are similar to government spending and deserve similar scrutiny. Following a report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure in 1982, Australia's first comprehensive tax expenditures statement was published in 1986.
Publishing a regular listing of tax expenditures is now a legal requirement under the Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998.
The tax expenditures statement has been reviewed several times in the past decade. This includes by the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, as part of the Australia's Future Tax System review, and twice by the Australian National Audit Office.
The committee conducted a thorough review of the tax expenditures statement, building on the work of these previous inquiries. We found that the statement achieved its stated goal of facilitating scrutiny of tax expenditures and informing debate on the tax system.
However, it is important to remember that the statement is only a starting point for analysis. The committee noted that there is an unmet demand for more sophisticated information beyond the statement. The committee recommends that Treasury conduct prioritised reviews of tax expenditures, calculate a meaningful aggregate of tax expenditures and calculate the longer term costs and benefits of superannuation.
The committee found there were areas in which efficiencies could be found, and the statement improved.
For example, producing the statement is labour-intensive and there are significant costs to enhancing it. While Treasury draws on highly skilled staff to compile the statement, greater consultation with stakeholders may have benefits. These could include: improving the data; establishing benchmarks; and determining which expenditures should receive longer term estimates or should be calculated using the more sophisticated revenue gain method.
The resources issue meant that the committee also supported Treasury's suggestion that it put less effort into estimating smaller, more technical expenditures and focus on other parts of the statement. Further, the committee would support a budget bid by Treasury if it believed that additional resources were warranted to implement some of the report's recommendations.
Finally, the committee has made several recommendations that would improve the explanation of data and methods used in the preparation of the statement, as well as increasing the visibility of its limitations.
The tax expenditures statement is held in high regard around the world. It is an integral part of budget transparency, and it informs the national debate on taxation. While it can be improved, I commend Treasury on producing a document of high quality and technical complexity.
I would like to thank my fellow committee members for their assistance in the inquiry and acknowledge the support of the secretariat, so ably led by David Monk. I would also like to thank the parliamentary agencies of the Australian National Audit Office and the Parliamentary Budget Office. Their expertise and access to data mean that parliamentary committees are now well equipped to undertake technical inquiries of this nature.
Finally, I extend my thanks to the agencies, organisations and individuals that contributed to the inquiry through submissions or evidence at public hearings.
I commend this report to the House.
by leave—I also thank the committee members for their diligent hard work and their valued input into the preparation of the Tax expenditure statement report. I also thank the chair, the member for Forde, for his good work and diligent work also in producing a great report on a complex matter that is of great interest to the committee members. Tax expenditures might not sound very interesting to most people. They may be even less interested in tax expenditures statements, but they serve a very important purpose and play a very important role in decision making and policy setting for people to better understand what is done through tax expenditures. While I have the opportunity, I would also like to thank the committee secretariat for making the members of the committee look very good, because they do the hard work in putting the report together. So I thank the committee secretariat as well.
In its report the committee concluded that the statement is effective, noting comments by the Parliamentary Budget Office that it makes a significant contribution to budget transparency. The committee absolutely agrees with that. We think it is very important. The PBO also stated that it uses the document in its work. However, the committee also noted the statement's limitations—in particular that it is only a starting point for analysis. Like anything, it should not be the end-all of anything. We learned through this process that there is a lot of data. There are lots of different reference points. There are lots of places to start and to end. No-one should just take any one figure out of a tax expenditure statement as the be-all and end-all of everything. There was a lot of deliberation and debate over one particular area, which I will get to in a minute, which caused some controversy.
In the end, intelligent people looking at the TES would understand that you do not just pick one number out of those expenditures and say, 'Well, that's it; everything else hinges around that.' It is a much more comprehensive set of data and work. It does involve judgement from intelligent people—for example, in setting the benchmark. It also needs to be acknowledged that it is a really expensive exercise. It is resource intensive for Treasury to do this work. It might be convenient for all of us to want the best of everything all of the time, but there is a cost attached to that. The committee's view was that we need to be cognisant of that as well.
I would just like to add a little bit of history so that people can understand that tax expenditure statements are not something that we just dreamed up in the last couple of years or in the last term by either a Liberal or Labor government. Tax expenditure statements were initially proposed by Stanley Surrey of the US treasury department in 1967 because he felt and wanted to make the point that tax concessions given to particular groups were similar to giving them a government grant or payment. The same concept and ideas would apply here in Australia as well. The tax expenditure statements are really good for setting policy goals and achieving them as well.
In Australia in the 1970s, Treasury started producing some information on tax expenditures. However, it was not until 1982, following a report by the House of Representatives committee on expenditure, that we noted that we needed more comprehensive information. The government responded in 1986 with the first tax expenditure statements. So they have quite a bit of history not only here in Australia, but in the United States. Importantly, it was not until the Charter of Budget Honesty Act in 1998 that the statement was made a legal requirement. That was followed with the insertion of a list of the largest tax expenditures sourced from the statement as well.
The committee's inquiry follows on from the Auditor-General's reports in 2008 and 2013. It particularly covered the areas of prioritised reviews of tax expenditures, integration, improving the accuracy and better reporting and also, as I said earlier, the limitations around them only being a starting point for analysis that involves judgement and that they do cost a lot of time and money to put together.
The committee made 13 recommendations. They are good quality. I will only refer to recommendation 4 because I think it is important in the context of the work that was being done and some of the debate at the moment—that Treasury model the long-running interactions between superannuation and the age pension, develop present value estimates of the future costs and benefits of superannuation and its tax concessions, and publish those results. All of the other recommendations are equally as important.
There has been more attention paid to the tax expenditure statements this year than there probably has for quite some time. This attention has particularly focused on the very large size of the concessions that are allowed on superannuation taxes. This debate around the size and beneficiaries of super tax concessions, I am sure, will rage on regardless of the work of the committee or any of the unanimous findings in our report.
As a matter of fact, having access to quality data does help government and others to formulate policy. Tax expenditure statements are an important part of that policy process, as is each component such as the data on superannuation tax concessions, whether or not there is any other data which shows corresponding or offsetting tax collection of superannuation as well.
With those comments, I commend the report to the House.
As required by resolution of the House, I table Notification of alterations of interests received during the period 24 June to 1 December 2015.
I present the report of the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests concerning an application from Mr Evan Rolley for the publication of a response to a reference made in the House of Representatives, and I ask leave of the House to move that the report be agreed to.
Leave granted.
The report that I have presented concerns an application from a person to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests for the publication of a response to references made about him by a member in this House. The committee has recommended to the House that a response, in the terms included in the report, be incorporated in Hansard.
The document read as follows—
Response by Mr Evan Rolley to remarks
made by the Member for Denison
On 4 June 2015 in the Federation Chamber, the Member for Denison,
Mr Andrew Wilkie MP, made certain statements, and presented certain material, which adversely reflects on me.
The documents presented by Mr Wilkie were never discussed by him with me to check on any matters of fact. They contain numerous serious errors of fact, make defamatory references without foundation and are based on popular conspiracy theories. I reject the parts of the documents presented by Mr Wilkie which reflect on me and my reputation.
Forestry Tasmania and Ta Ann Tasmania have operated both ethically and legally in their commercial dealings that arose from a competitive expressions of interest process to develop value adding local manufacturing of previously exported hardwood woodchip logs in Tasmania.
Tasmania is the only state to now have a lower grade log recovery of thin hardwood veneers and modern local plywood manufacture for the Australian building and construction industries.
Wood supply agreements were backed by independently verified sustainable log supply reviews. None of the reviews have been shown to be wrong. External changes, influenced by the Global Financial Crisis, the high Aussie dollar, and Environmental Non-Government Organisations (ENGO) market attacks led to a new forest resource supply position in 2013 and changed operating conditions and sustainable log supplies.
Subsequent changes to wood supply contracts and agreements to protect more forests have required changes to business models and have been widely supported in the market place.
I personally remain, as always, willing to answer any questions on matters of fact raised in any parliamentary inquiry at any time.
In recommending that the response be incorporated in I, the committee emphasises that, as required by the right of reply resolution, the committee has not considered or judged the truth of any statements made by the member in the House or by the person seeking the response.
Report—by leave—agreed to.
I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to the Republic of Indonesia from 27 September to 1 October 2015, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.
Leave granted.
Indonesia is just to the north of Australia. It is a nation of some 250 million people. It is a nation with which we share much. It is also a nation with which we should be sharing so much more.
I am very proud to have been part of our delegation to Indonesia. Led by Senator Chris Back, and with the member for Throsby and Tasmanian Senator Anne Urquhart, we ventured into Jakarta and Balikpapan. It was a visit where we saw what Indonesia had been, what Indonesia is today and what Indonesia wants to be tomorrow. We met with young entrepreneurs and leaders of the digital economy, with the mining industry, with the cattle industry and with the food and textile value-adding sectors.
We should all be very proud of our foreign office staff. As parliamentarians, we are able to visit other countries and see, firsthand, the expertise and commitment of our DFAT people who make up our embassies and missions. We can be justifiably proud of our Ambassador to Indonesia, Paul Grigson, his Deputy Head of Mission, Dr Justin Lee, and their entire team at our embassy, who went out of their way to ensure we received an holistic Indonesian experience.
To the chairman and directors of the Sunda Kelapa mosque, the management and staff of the Bogasari flour mill, to the school children at the local madrasah, we say thank you for your hospitality, your openness, your willingness to include us in your discussions and plans for the future.
We also travelled to Balikpapan, where we toured the sites of Thiess and Coates and witnessed the training and expertise of expat Australians and the hardworking Indonesian locals. We also visited the World War II memorials and paid our respects to those who made the ultimate sacrifice during World War II. To me, Balikpapan was the highlight of the tour, as it helped me crystallise my thoughts on the challenges of infrastructure deficits in Australia.
While in Jakarta, the terribly urgent need for massive infrastructure spending was obvious. In Balikpapan, we saw a city of some 700,000 people put up with power continually tripping out because of the emergency infrastructure spending in Jakarta. The more they spend in the capital, the more they need to spend. Balikpapan, like Northern Queensland and regional Australia, has very real infrastructure needs, but is continually put on the backburner while emergency infrastructure spending is carried out in the major metropolitan centres. The end result is that more people move to the major centres and more emergency infrastructure is needed. I found our discussions with Balikpapan mayor, Mr Rizal Effendi, illuminating, as he calmly goes about his business of fighting for his region.
Our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, tells us that our country's greatest assets are its people. That is just as true in Indonesia as it is here. The ability that we have to travel to other countries and meet, discuss, and recognise more and more just how much alike we actually are and that the challenges that we face are so similar is a gift that this parliament should never ever let go. Trade and business break down barriers between our people. We must do everything that we can to ensure that we do exchange more and more on business, trade, educational, and cultural bases. Only then will the walls between our two nations come down.
I give a special mention to Sophie Dunstan, our liaison officer and factual tour leader. Her ability to keep us all in line while seeming to be in the background was noted by absolutely every one of us, especially the member for Throsby, who was a continual challenge!
I thank the parliament for allowing us to take this trip. I would encourage all parliamentarians to engage at this level. It is a lot of work for our DFAT people at both ends, but it is worth it. I thank the House.
Thank you, Deputy Speaker Mitchell, for the work that you do. It is greatly appreciated by all of us in this place. In thanking and acknowledging the work of the past 12 months, I really want to start by thanking the previous chief whips that I have worked with. I have learnt so much from them. That started with Alex Somlyay back in 2007. He was a wonderful whip in opposition. I learnt so much of my craft from Alex, and I thank him for that. Also Warren Entsch, Philip Ruddock and Scott Buchholz; I want to thank them for all of their efforts as chief whip. I learnt much from each one of these gentlemen.
While I have the member for Herbert here, I really want to thank the member for Herbert, Ewen Jones, and Brett Whitely as well for joining the whips team. We have a great team. We know that the member for Herbert is extremely entertaining and very witty. What were you in your previous life?
An auctioneer.
Having been an auctioneer, he has a wonderful talent with his words. Equally, he is very willing and very capable, which is often overlooked when people have as big a personality as Ewen does. Brett is extremely efficient as well. I am delighted to be working with such interested, enthusiastic and very capable people. They are very positive. I thank them very much.
Equally, I acknowledge the Leader of the House, Christopher Pyne. Until they do the job, nobody who has worked in this place quite understands what the job entails—like your own, Deputy Speaker. I think that his leadership has been exemplary. I thank the Prime Minister for the great honour he gave me in appointing me as the Chief Government Whip. It is not something that I take lightly. I have a great respect for this House, for all members, for the smooth operation of this place and for the traditions and history that go with it.
I also thank Annette and Suzanne in the PLO office for their assistance in the smooth running of the House. What a wonderful group of people we have in this place. None of us take for granted the people who make this place run smoothly. They do it so well that you do not actually see it happening. To all of those who help this place and are wonderful friends to us: thank you. What is not well understood at times is that we come from all around Australia and spend many months here and develop wonderful friendships. I thank those who are part of that. It is almost like a family within itself here. We always see a friendly face. There is always a very warm hello. It does not matter who we meet: they take their job so seriously in making this parliament work well and working with the members and their staff. I do not think that we should ever underestimate that. Thank you to all members of the House on my side and also on the other side for assisting with their cooperation to all the staff, who, as the Prime Minister has said, are the ones who make all of us, irrespective of our side of parliament, look good. They do an enormous amount of work—so often out of hours—and they do it selflessly. I thank them for all of the work that they do.
I acknowledge the Chief Opposition Whip, Chris Hayes. We work very well with Chris and his office and with Jill Hall and Joanne Ryan. They are a pleasure to work with. They, like us, are here to ensure the smooth and effective management of the business of this particular chamber. I really need to thank my own personal staff. They make the whip's office run very smoothly, and the 'Can I help?' attitude is very much what we are about. I thank Vicki Riggio, who has been with me from day one. Back in 2007 when I was first preselected I looked for someone who would be able to do all of the work that I needed done but also be a very strong individual supporter. As members, we need people who will tell us the truth. We need people who are honest and loyal. They are two qualities that I respect most of all, as I think most members in this place would—loyalty and being honest—because as members of parliament we are constantly approached by a range of people who have particular views. We need to know what we stand for ourselves, but equally we need people around us who, when we are looking at issues or taking a position on an issue, are prepared to say to us, 'There are a range of matters that you need to take into account,' or, at times, 'You are on the wrong path.' You need honest people with good intentions who are part of that. That is what I have with my team. Vicki is very much a part of that, and she has stepped into the Whip's Clerk role. It has been a very steep learning curve. However, she has had years of experience in the Deputy Whip's office and is doing a great job and providing excellent service not just to the members but to this House and the smooth running of this place.
Many on our side, and even on the other side, also know Nathan Winn, who has returned to work with me. It is great to have him in the Whip's office. His knowledge of the procedures of this place is probably second to none, and I value that greatly. Julie O'Sullivan has come to work with me and is quickly becoming renowned for a range of her skills, but she has certainly made sure that the members have had some particularly tasty Christmas goodies to enjoy.
Chocolate crackles.
'Chocolate crackles,' I hear on my right, but they are not quite chocolate crackles. Member for Hebert, don't you even know the difference between a fabulous product and a chocolate crackle? I think your education leaves something to be desired. Julie helps us run this very well. Regarding my electorate staff, Steve in policy is just an outstanding individual and Samantha and Michelle keep my office running and support my constituents while I am away. Every member in this House has people who work tirelessly in the service of our community, and that is a great part of what we do—the service for our community. They do a great job.
Deputy Speaker, I thanked you when I first started this speech, but I want to thank all of the deputies and even the new Speaker. I think he has done a particularly sound job in this place. I want to thank not just the Speaker but the Speaker's panel in its entirety. We need to wish all of the families a very happy and safe Christmas. To the Clerk, the Deputy Clerk, the Serjeant-at-Arms, all the deputy serjeants and the clerk assistants: thank you so much for an exemplary service. Every member in this place owes you an enormous vote of thanks for the way in which you do your jobs for each and every one of us. There is a great deal of respect in this place for the work that you do.
There are countless people that I see around here, whether it is those who work in all of the different administrative departments as well as those like Alan, who helps out making sure our offices have all of the equipment that they need, or Bill, who deals with stationery. We have a range of cleaners. We have people who work tirelessly in the bottom part of this building. But I see all these happy, positive faces on a regular basis, and they certainly make our lives so much easier. To every single person, whether it is in Hansard or wherever you are in this place: you provide an extraordinary service not just to the parliament but to our nation.
Every day I come in here quite early. Inevitably, when I come in in the morning I look up and see that beautiful flag, and every day I get a shiver. All of us who are here are helping with the democratic process in this wonderful country that is Australia. It does not get any better than that. Every day, no matter which side of politics we sit on in this place, it is a privilege to be here for each one of us, and we get to make amazing decisions for this nation. I thank every member of this House for all of their work not just here but in their electorates, and I really want to acknowledge our families. As each member knows, it is our families who make huge sacrifices. It is being acknowledged constantly but, as has been said previously, we are the ones who put our hands up. We are the volunteers, in a sense; they are the conscripts. It can be a very tough job for them.
I wish every member a very happy, healthy and safe break. I have just been to the lifesavers of Australia event. Thousands of lifesavers around our beaches and a whole range of community volunteers in emergency services will be called on over this period of the break. They will do an extraordinary amount of work. I refer to the fires last year in the southern part of my electorate. There were over 100,000 volunteer hours for that particular fire—an extraordinary contribution. I wish every member of this House, all of the staff, everyone who helps to make this work, a very happy and safe break over the Christmas period. I really look forward to seeing all of you again in the new year. I hope it is a very happy one, and I look forward to seeing every member at that time. Frank, if you are watching: have a wonderful Christmas. Buon Natale.
I would like to give this valedictory on the year that has gone past in agriculture and show what a brilliant year it has been for the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, and go through some of the achievements. First of all, there is the $4 billion Agricultural Competitiveness white paper. It was a paper that lays out a path, not only for agriculture for this term of government, but, hopefully, for governments into the future. It is a path that reflected on over 1,000 submissions that people had given back to the government as a way to say, 'These are the things that we want.' Now we are rolling out that path.
Overall agriculture has seen one of the most dramatic turnarounds in soft commodity prices in the history of our nation, and we are bringing real money back through the farm gate, as we said we would. Our modus operandi within the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources is a better return through the farm gate, and we are delivering that with record cattle prices, record meat sheep prices, turnaround in the wool market, new access for tropical fruits, turnaround in the wine market, new markets for almonds and all our protein lines are moving. We can go through so many other things. This has worked on the back of three new free trade agreements where we worked with the trade departments, both here and overseas, to make sure that we could bed down the most substantial agreements in trade this nation has seen. We have also noted that, whether it is Japan, Korea or China, that these markets now are booming. They are booming in the product that they are purchasing from our farmers, and we are making sure that the protocols are in place to get the smooth transition to get the flow of funds so that we can actually add to the pie. People talk about how we actually earn more money, how we increase our revenues. We increase our revenues by making sure that we get more market share, and we are doing that.
We have also brought water across into the agricultural portfolio. This is something that is incredibly important. Just prior to that we had the Water Amendment Bill passed capping buybacks at 1,500 gigalitres so that we can make sure that we do not create excessive detrimental effects to the socioeconomic substance of the people in the basin.
We have also made sure that we reflected on the Australian people's views where they had concerns about our oversight of foreign investment, and we have made sure that we have reflected on that by lowering the thresholds to $15 million for individuals and $55 million for agribusiness. Still, we have people lined up out the door trying to make sure that they can be part of the action in agriculture, because we are a great place to invest. We are still the most liberal place on earth. The Australian people asked for greater oversight, and we have delivered greater oversight.
We have made sure that we have more and proper competition in the farming sector. Part of the white paper was the delivery of a quarter of a billion dollars a year in concessional loans. We already have loans rolling out. We have Drought Recovery Concessional Loans of 2.71 per cent, the drought farm finance at 3.55 per cent and drought loans at 3.05 per cent. $191.2 million went out in farm finance to well over 400 approved farm businesses by 31 October. We had $194.5 million lent out in Drought Recovery Concessional Loans to 323 approved businesses. We had $14 million that went out in drought recovery loans for 28 farm businesses, and that will come more into play now. We have made sure that the concessional loan scheme is suited to the people in the areas. We have delivered for people who want cash, straight onto their kitchen table, so that they can make payments for their medical requirements, for fuel and for basic groceries. We have a direct payment that allows a couple to get around $1,000 a fortnight, and 5,584 of those claims for household allowance had been granted by 27 November.
We have over $4.6 billion held in Farm Management Deposits. We have approved for the extension of these deposits up to $800,000 and for them to be offset against a loan on their farm. Basically, we hope to get this working well and operating as a tax deduction to pay off a property, because we all know that the greater equity you have in your property, the greater chance of survival you have. Probably one of the greatest protections in drought is to have equity in your farm.
We have made money available for pest and weeds management in drought-affected areas of $25 million. We are now seeing claims come through for the construction of such things as dog fences so that we can get sheep back into the areas, get the shearers back into the areas, get the economies working again and getting employment working again. This is absolutely vital for stimulating the economic effect. I know that the member for Grayndler is just as interested as I am in making sure that those on the edges are well looked after, and that we look after the shearers of western Queensland and western New South Wales, who were, once upon a time, the heart of the Australian labour movement. We have continued to work on stimulus packages for those in the drought areas, making $35 million available. That money is rolling out as well.
We have expanded social and community support programs. We have put further money towards additional rural financial counsellors. We have received more than 8,300 calls to the ATO hotline for drought-affected taxpayers. We have assisted small exporters by making money available to programs assisting small exporters to get their products to the world.
In biosecurity, we have made substantial moves forward, getting one of the largest acts in the history of this parliament, the Biosecurity Act 2015, through; it passed both houses of parliament. That took substantial work over a long period of time; it was completed by this government. We have made sure that we have put further money into the white paper for pest control, pest eradication and biosecurity upgrades. We have made more money available for the National Fruit Fly Research, Development and Extension Plan so that we can get in front of the issues in some of our permanent planting areas and make sure that those markets are also able to export to the world.
Country-of-origin labelling has been a fundamental requirement, not only of the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources but of the Australian people. We have made sure that we are now progressing with the proper country-of-origin labelling process so that we get away from these amorphous and misleading concepts and give people a clear understanding of whether the product they are buying is from our nation or another nation, and not only tell them whether it is from our nation or another nation but tell them what proportion of the substantial product that is in that package comes from our nation. I want to commend the work that was done by the minister at the time, Ian Macfarlane, as we worked together to make sure that we got this through—working very closely together for a substantive outcome for the Australian people.
We have made sure that we have further assisted, working with the minister for infrastructure, to get money given to the CSIRO TRANSIT process so that we can get a clearer understanding of how we properly and methodically give a tactical reason for investment in infrastructure in regional areas. I want to thank Warren Truss for the amazing work that he has done, especially in progressing such vital infrastructure as the inland rail. We have waited for so long for the inland rail, and finally it is happening—because we have a person who does not just talk about building things but actually builds them.
We have made sure that we have started streamlining agvet chemicals. We have made sure that we have continued to work on getting proficient trawl areas for fisheries.
We have made sure that, in our timber industry, we stand behind them so that they have a lively capacity to not only deliver to the domestic market but also take up the opportunities that are overseas. We have opened an over-$370-million biosecurity facility near Melbourne. We turned the first sod on this, and the other day I went down there to open it up. This shows a competent government with the capacity to turn the first sod and the capacity to actually finish the project off.
It has been a great honour to take agriculture and water resources back to the centre of government—to make sure that this fundamental pillar of our nation is well respected. This pillar is now actually carrying the load. It is doing what it has always done before for the Australian people—delivering more money back into our economy.
In 2013-14, we had a nine per cent growth in the gross value of our exports. In 2014-15 we had a seven per cent gross increase in the value of our exports. And we had 12 per cent growth over the first quarter last year.
This has been a year of delivery, and we are absolutely certain that we have the competence and the calibre to go to the Australian people in the next year showing that we have delivered and we have been effective—that it has not just been hyperbole and rhetoric; it has been real delivery.
The best result you could ever get as the minister in this area is to go to the saleyards and have people walk up to you and say, 'You actually have made a vast difference, because you have got the live cattle trade going again.' We now have new markets in Egypt, Bahrain and Lebanon; new markets in Iran, if the health protocols are together—in Iran, after four decades of it being closed; and new markets in Cambodia and Thailand. Live cattle are now moving into China. We are making a difference. We have made and we will continue to make a difference.
I commend all the work of my department and all the work of my staff, and we look forward to doing it again.
In closing, I would like to thank all those who have assisted—all of those in the chamber, all of those who have done every job in this building, and all of those throughout the department of agriculture across our nation. I wish everybody all the very best. All the best, and God bless.
I am pleased to be able to make a contribution to the valedictories of the 2015 sitting of the parliament. Of course, they are earlier and longer than the normal valedictories because this is a government that has literally run out of business—there is no legislation before this chamber. Today's speakers list is a one-pager—with a Christmas tree taking up half the page!
I will begin by thanking, firstly, my personal staff, led by my chief of staff, Damian O'Connor, and my electorate staff, led by Kris Cruden in the Marrickville office. Staff of parliamentarians work incredibly long hours, and for remuneration that is certainly not what they deserve. They—across the board, it must be said—do it out of commitment: a commitment to making a contribution to their nation. That is so, similarly, for the staff of the parliament: the Clerks; the library staff, who are particularly important when you are in opposition; the drivers; the cleaners; the attendants—the people who look after us on a day-to-day basis.
I thank the new Speaker of the parliament, who I must say has performed his job admirably and is lifting the standards of the parliament through his actions.
I thank my parliamentary colleagues, particularly the Leader of the Australian Labor Party, Bill Shorten, and his team, and my friend the Manager of Opposition Business, Tony Burke. He is, in my view, the second best Manager of Opposition Business there has been over recent years! He is certainly fulfilling his task with diligence and taking a strategic approach. The fact that we end 2015 with a different leader of the government than we began 2015 is, in my view, in no small part due to the fact that the parliamentary tactics of the opposition have put the government under extreme pressure by drawing out the unfairness of their approach and the fact that they really do not have a positive agenda for this nation.
It has indeed been a year of difficulty on the government side with its bruising change of leadership and the retirement of the former Treasurer, but I thank the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, for his service. I believe that the position of Prime Minister is one which must be respected. It brings with it onerous responsibilities and I pay tribute to his service and that of the former Treasurer, Mr Hockey, who I enjoyed a good relationship with over many years.
I thank my counterparts on the other side, particularly the Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss. I have a positive relationship with him and his office in particular. I have a view that, where we can get agreement, that should be done. Many issues, including the second Sydney airport and the Moorebank intermodal terminal, require bipartisan support and are particularly important to advance. I hope that extends to projects in the future like high-speed rail down the east coast of Australia, because I believe that is a very important component of Australia's economic future.
I thank the member for Sturt. I spend much more time than is comfortable with the member for Sturt. Indeed, we get to see each other very early every Friday morning. He undertakes his duty as Leader of the House with good spirit. I believe that he has developed a good relationship with the Manager of Opposition Business, and that is important to the functioning of this parliament, which we all have an interest in.
In my own portfolio area of infrastructure and transport it has been an interesting year, with Qantas returning to profit and a government-led recovery in the helicopter charter industry. We have also seen the retirement of Sydney Airport Corporation boss Max Moore-Wilton—good! We have seen the opening of the highly successful Regional Rail Link project in Melbourne—the single largest ever Commonwealth investment in public transport.
Tomorrow I will be inspecting the Moreton Bay Rail Link, which was funded by the Commonwealth Labor government, the Queensland Labor government and the Moreton Bay Regional Council. Of course, we know that on the day it was announced, as the Deputy Prime Minister can confirm, the then candidate for the seat of Petrie went on Brisbane radio and opposed the project. They later on changed their mind about that and announced that they would not oppose the project. But I think it is a tragedy that all funding for public transport projects that were not under construction had their funding withdrawn by the incoming government.
There is an element of concern for the Deputy Prime Minister, because he has shown a great deal of stamina in his magical infrastructure re-announcement tour, which has gone on from the beginning of the change of government. Right around the country, government ministers and local members have pretended that old projects were somehow newly funded. In some cases they have changed the names of projects in order to pretend that they were new—the F3 to M2 became the NorthConnex project in Sydney. I am expressing my concern that this magical infrastructure re-announcement tour is approaching Leonard Cohen tour lengths.
The government said there would be cranes in the sky and bulldozers on the ground. Instead, there are choppers in the sky and prime ministers in the ground. That is my concern—the only hole that was dug, of course, was the one that they placed their own former Prime Minister in. They did dig a hole in Palmerston for the hospital site but they filled it in the following day—the very next day. It was dug for a photo opportunity. I think it was a highlight for the government in terms of its approach to nation building.
I will conclude with a sad thought, which is that this year is the year that I lost my mentor and friend Tom Uren on Australia Day. Tom Uren taught me a lot about politics and a lot about parliament. Indeed, when I worked for Tom in the old parliament, he was in charge of the construction of this very building. I used to come to it when it was a building site. Tom Uren leaves an extraordinary legacy which my generation, and those to come, cannot even comprehend. They cannot comprehend the hardship of those people who went through the Depression and fought for their nation in the Second World War—in Tom's case, as a former Japanese prisoner of war for four years. Then, he went on to serve his nation in this parliament without any element of bitterness towards his fellow human beings, including being a promoter of reconciliation with the Japanese. I think it is a great example for all of us of the approach we should bring to public life. I pay tribute to Tom. Next Australia Day I will certainly be thinking of him.
We had a very successful launch here just weeks ago of the Tom Uren Foundation, which has been created to raise funds, essentially in his name, for the cause of ICAN, the international organisation that campaigns for nuclear disarmament. Tom witnessed the dropping of the second atomic bomb, the one on Nagasaki, and became a campaigner for nuclear disarmament for the whole of his parliamentary and post-parliamentary political career. I can think of nothing better than being here with his widow, Christine Logan, and his son, Michael Uren, who were able to be in attendance on that day.
I conclude by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and, with my shadow transport hat on, I remind people that Christmas, unfortunately, every year sees a jump in the number of road fatalities and accidents on our roads. It is a time when we should take that into account and make sure that we get to our destination, even if it is a little bit slower than we would want. I certainly hope that everyone has a safe, peaceful and restful Christmas with their families and their friends.
It has been two years since I was able to present a valedictory speech on the last day of parliament. I was ill last year, so I begin with an expression of gratitude for a year of good health. I am pleased to make some remarks on this last day of parliamentary sittings. It is an opportunity to recognise and thank those who have supported me and other members of the parliament throughout the year.
The year 2015 has been a long and at times tumultuous one—a year of many highs and lows. We have seen a number of natural disasters, including bushfires, most recently in South Australia and Western Australia. There were cyclones, such as Cyclone Marcia, which hit parts of Queensland in February, and there has been the ongoing and heartbreaking effect of drought, which is continuing to plague many of our farmers and regional communities.
In January, Rosie Batty was announced as the Australian of the Year and has continued her courageous campaign against the national disgrace of domestic violence. Australia won the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, in January, defeating South Korea. In February, journalist Peter Greste was released from an Egyptian prison. In March, Australia claimed the 2015 Cricket World Cup and in August our amazing Australian netball team, the Diamonds, won the 2015 Netball World Cup. In November, Michelle Payne became the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup, taking the 2015 prize.
We said goodbye to a number of good friends, including former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, and the previous member for Canning, Don Randall. We have continued the search for flight MH370 in the waters off Western Australia. We have had two prime ministers. Let me acknowledge the cooperation, support and assistance that I have had with both of them. I pay tribute to the previous Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. I would like to thank him for his support and friendship. We will always cherish the relationship my wife, Lyn, and I have with Tony and Margie. They are good friends as well as colleagues. We recognise the enormous contribution they have made to our country. Over the past month or two I have been pleased to work with Malcolm Turnbull. I am sure that the good working relationship we have been able to enjoy with the previous Prime Minister will continue with Malcolm and Lucy. I certainly look forward to continuing the successful and constructive partnership between the Prime Minister and the Liberals and the Nationals over the year ahead.
Perhaps most significantly, 2015 saw us commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign. I believe it is therefore fitting that in my list of thankyous I particularly recognise the brave men and women who continue to sacrifice their lives for our country. Their bravery, professionalism and skill are a credit to them and a source of pride for all Australians. For many, deployment will mean that they are away from family and friends this Christmas, so I particularly want to recognise the many Australian families who are left behind as their loved ones serve overseas. We pray for their safety and we hope that they may have an opportunity to enjoy a Christmas respite.
Deputy Speaker Kelly, I would like to convey my thanks to you and to the entire Speaker's panel. Thank you for all the work that you and your staff do in managing the parliament and in making sure that the parliamentary process works well. In the same vein, I also thank the member for Mackellar for her service as Speaker for the first part of the year.
Furthermore, I would like to make special mention of the Deputy Speaker, my good friend and neighbour, the member for Maranoa, for his service to the parliament. The member for Maranoa will retire at the next election. He will not only be missed by his electorate but by the National Party room, and also, I am sure, for his work as Deputy Speaker. It is a position in which he served with great pride and also with integrity, dignity and devotion to duty.
I would like to express my gratitude for the services of the Clerk and the clerical team, including the attendants and the Serjeant-at-Arms. We certainly appreciate the role of the whole team and the way they serve the House, provide us with advice and help to ensure that the committees of the parliament work well. That is becoming an increasingly heavy load, and it is important that the committees, when asked to look at matters of particular significance, have the capabilities to present a quality and well-argued report to further the debate on key policy issues. I particularly appreciate their courteous attention, their patient advice and the cheerful way in which they go about their duties. We also particularly appreciate the work of the parliamentary attendants, who are always alert to assist members, whenever that might be required.
The Hansard staff, the 2020 staff, COMCAR drivers, Tim and the catering staff, and those in FCm Travel Solutions all deserve our utmost appreciation. Thank you for your hard work, often in difficult circumstances; it is greatly valued. To some of the unsung heroes of the building, the Limro cleaning staff, Maria, Lucia and Anna—who have, I guess, been serving, particularly in the ministerial wing, now for several generations of ministers—thank you very much for your service. We appreciate very much the work that you do.
To my colleagues on each side of the chamber: next year is another election year, which often means extra stress and spending more time away from families as we campaign. I hope you are all able to enjoy some relaxing and restful time with loved ones over this Christmas period. I particularly want to acknowledge my National Party colleagues and my deputy leader, Barnaby Joyce. As usual, Barnaby has been unwavering in his support, despite having to deal with two nuisance dogs through the year. I would back Barnaby in a fight with Mr Depp any day—and, for that matter, with almost anyone else. To the National Party leaders in the Senate, Nigel Scullion and Fiona Nash: thank you both for all your work and assistance over the past year. To our party whips—Mark Coulton, Senator Matt Canavan and Senator Barry O'Sullivan—and their staff: thank you for continuing to organise the affairs of the party for us. To the rest of my party colleagues: we are a team and I am proud of the way that we work together to achieve some amazing things for our electorates, for our country and, in particular, for those living in rural and regional Australia, who will always be the focus of the National Party's care and attention. I look forward to continuing this trend and this cooperation in the year ahead.
I would also like to acknowledge the role that my department plays in putting together the business agenda and helping to deliver on our policy platform. In particular, I acknowledge my departmental secretary, Mike Mrdak, who has been at the head of the department for a very long period of time and who provides so much leadership, guidance and corporate knowledge about transport and regional affairs, ensuring the smooth running and administration of the government's policy programs.
I thank Minister Fletcher and Assistant Minister McCormack for the work they have done across the portfolio in the past couple of months since coming into our team. I particularly also want to acknowledge my previous assistant minister, Mr Briggs, for his work. I acknowledge my ministerial colleagues and cabinet ministers and thank them all for their tireless and often difficult work in serving our country. I think we have an exceptionally talented cabinet—a cabinet that is capable of deliberating on the most difficult of issues in a constructive way, while being innovative but also realistic in what it is able to achieve.
We have had to face difficult times. There are challenges economically; there are challenges on the security front; there are challenges in delivering the quality of life and the care for disadvantaged people in our own country that are key priorities and essential responsibilities of government. Those tasks are difficult now, and I fear they are going to get more difficult in the future. So we need to be attracting people into this parliament with the capabilities and skills to deal with those issues and with the capacity to make decisions—good decisions—that are in the interests of our nation.
I also acknowledge the opposition spokesman, Anthony Albanese. He is right when he says that we work reasonably well together. We do not always agree, but he has been supportive in projects like the Western Sydney airport and many of the construction projects. We were not able to reach an agreement on shipping reform and so that is some space for next year where clearly something has to be done; otherwise the scope of our domestic shipping industry will continue to slide.
The reality is that the big projects that governments are taking on these days invariably cross governments and cross jurisdictions. I acknowledge that some of the projects that this government is building were ideas that we shared with the Labor Party when they were last in office. Some projects which were under construction were finished by this government, just as projects that this government starts will be finished by a future government. An example is the Western Sydney airport. I would love to be minister for transport when the first plane lands in 2025. That would be a wonderful objective, but I suspect that is not going to happen and, once more, I suspect the minister of the day will take the credit for the whole of the construction of Western Sydney airport and my role in getting it to this stage will probably have been well and truly forgotten. That is the nature of the processes of government.
I am very proud of some of the huge infrastructure projects we have in this country at the present time. The fact that, by the end of this decade, we will, for the first time as a nation, have a four-lane highway connecting our three east coast capital cities is, I think, an important national achievement. Perhaps five or seven years later we will have a direct railway line connecting Melbourne and Brisbane. We will be upgrading and flood-proofing the Bruce Highway. Work is being done in Perth and in northern Western Australia to better connect the roads and the regional communities in the west. These sorts of projects are nation building; they do genuinely make a difference to the efficiency of our country and our capabilities to deliver better opportunities for our people.
Finally, I would like to thank the people of our country, Australians who daily entrust us with the great responsibility of managing our nation as parliamentarians. I hope the coalition will continue to be a government that pursues its agenda, that keeps its promises and that continues to deliver a positive plan for the future. I have said many times in this place that when our regions are strong, so is our nation. As Leader of the Nationals, I will continue to resolutely ensure that our regions are not forgotten in decisions that are made for the future of our country.
In this regard also, I acknowledge my own staff: David Whitrow, my Chief of Staff, and the whole team, including my electorate staff, many of whom have been with me for a very long time—in one case, since I first was elected to parliament. Those people help make sure that we are able to achieve the objectives that are set out, arrange the affairs of the day and manage the administration and delivery of government policy and our agenda.
Especially, can I acknowledge my wife, Lyn, who works so hard to help me keep me going. I love her very dearly and greatly appreciate everything that she does for me and, of course, the party.
Christmas is a very special time of the year that presents an opportunity to put aside other commitments and spend time with family and friends. However, as we celebrate with families, friends and loved ones, it is important to remember, in the true spirit of Christmas, the people in our communities who are less fortunate: the homeless, the jobless, the sick and those people who are spending Christmas alone. The celebrations and the symbols that accompany Christmas remind us of the joyous reason for our festivity—the birth of Jesus Christ, who brought salvation and the message of peace and goodwill to us all. I hope that you all have a safe and happy Christmas break, and please stay safe on the roads if you are travelling over the holidays.
There is one thing I should say as transport minister before I conclude these remarks. With my authority in charge of air safety regulation, I have issued an instruction that air traffic controllers are to give priority to reindeer on 24 December to make sure that they get priority access to all of the airports in Australia. I am going to do something else very brave politically: I am going to suspend all curfews at airports so that the reindeer can operate all through the night on Christmas Eve!
At this time of year we often find ourselves remembering those who are no longer with us. As I look across the chamber, I remember, as his friends on both sides of the chamber do, Don Randall. When someone we see every day in this workplace is suddenly gone, I hope that it reminds us to be perhaps a little kinder to one another—not gentler, necessarily, because politics is about things that matter, and it is important to be fierce in our arguments, to debate fully and forcefully, but perhaps a little personally kinder, a little more conscious that those sitting opposite are, as Gough Whitlam used to insist, our opponents but not our enemies.
Last year we lost Gough. This year we lost his great opponent, Malcolm Fraser, a tireless and outspoken advocate for human rights, among his many other achievements. We also farewelled three of Gough's ministers. We lost my dear friend and very generous mentor, Tom Uren, and Kep Enderby, former Attorney-General, another friend of mine and a branch member of mine, as Tom was. Kep spent his later years working hard on a number of issues that were very important to him, including voluntary euthanasia, something that he was passionately committed to. And we lost Les Johnson, a former Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and the local member in my seat when I was growing up—a wonderful man. All three of them were wonderful men and part of the great enterprise of the Whitlam government. All three of them left legacies that continue to shape Australia today.
Les, as I said, was my local member when I was growing up—the member for Hughes. It was a sign of just how much he was loved by the local community he represented that, when I went to his funeral earlier this year at the Sutherland Entertainment Centre, it was full of people whom he had represented—branch members, of course, and community members but also ordinary people who remembered him as a very hardworking, very dedicated local member. Despite the fact that he had left politics in 1983, the funeral, as I said, was very well attended by his former constituents.
1983 was also the year that the then member for my seat of Sydney, Les McMahon, left politics. This year Les also passed away, leaving a great record of devotion in the seat that I now represent—his home and his constituency. He stayed interested and involved in his local community, including in the Labor Party locally, throughout his life and long after he left parliament. This year too we lost Peter Walsh, the long-serving finance minister of the Hawke government—six years in that portfolio. It is a tough portfolio. Anyone who has done it knows how tough it is. And we lost Alby Schultz, who was elected to the federal parliament in the same year that I was, in 1998, and went on to serve his electorate of Hume until the last election. He gave 15 years of service in the federal parliament after 10 years serving his community in New South Wales Legislative Assembly.
We also lost Joan Kirner. This really was a deep sadness for many of us, men and women, on our side and I think more broadly across the Australian community. Joan was an inspiration. She was a mentor and an encouragement to so many on our side of politics, so many women in particular. She was a great role model for continued political engagement long after leaving parliament. Her work with EMILY's List and for affirmative action made it possible for many women who might not have otherwise got their foot in the door to represent their community. I think Joan's pushing for our affirmative action targets sees us now at about 45 per cent of Labor representatives being female
It is really, truly a remarkable life's work, aside from her many other great political achievements. I think all of us here, whether in the House of Representatives or in that other place, got involved in politics for a pretty simple reason: to make Australia a better place. And when I look around the benches on this side of the House and see a party that looks like the community I know that Joan is one person who could honestly say that she succeeded.
On the international stage, the founding father of independent Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, died this year too, and I was pleased to be able to offer my condolences in person on a visit to Singapore. His role in steering his nation and developing the institutional architecture of our region remade the Asia-Pacific. His achievements were extraordinary.
We saw two Labor senators leaving this year for very well earned retirement—Senators John Faulkner and Kate Lundy. Of course, we miss both John and Kate—very much. We miss them tremendously, and we sent them off with our very best wishes for a post-political life that is full, rich and enjoyable. These two much-loved senators have been replaced by two wonderful new additions to our senate team, Senators Katy Gallagher and Jenny McAllister, who bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to their positions. We know they will make an enormous contribution in coming years—indeed, they have already.
Three Labor MPs and one Labor senator have announced that they will not contest the next election: the member for Bruce, the member for Oxley, the member for Wills and Senator Jan McLucas. Each of them has made an enormous and important contribution not only to the Australian Labor Party and to the Australian parliament but, most importantly and most particularly, to their constituents, the people who put them into the House of Representatives or into the Senate in the first place. We look forward to working with their replacements after the next election.
On the other side, I want to make a particular mention of the member for Maranoa, a wonderful gentleman who I am sure will be missed not just by his own colleagues but indeed by many of us on this side too.
Got a soft spot for him!
I will take that interjection. It is very true: I do have a soft spot for him. He will be very much missed, and I am hoping I will get an invitation to the farewell party.
Consider it done.
Excellent. In happier news, I think it is important to note that it has been a year not just of farewells but of welcomes, too. We are happy to congratulate the member for Watson on his upcoming wedding and the member for Adelaide, the member for Kingston, the member for Rankin, the member for Higgins and Senator Penny Wong on the new additions to their families. It is a great opportunity for us to remember our humanity when these beautiful new little babies come into the world and, when we are very lucky, come into the caucus room for a bit of a cuddle.
Internationally a number of incidents this year have been deeply troubling. We have seen terrorist attacks, including large-scale terrorist attacks, in places as far apart as Kenya, Paris, Ankara and Tunisia. In Australia, of course, we remember the Martin Place siege and the murder of Curtis Cheng. This will be the first Christmas that Curtis Cheng's family spends without him. We remember his family and the families of Katrina Dawson and Tori Johnson particularly at this time of year. No doubt they carry a very heavy burden every day, but at this time of year in particular, when families are drawn together from all corners of the world, we miss the people who are missing.
Non-state actors continue to be a significant security challenge. We very much thank our security personnel, our intelligence agencies and our defence personnel overseas who are working so hard and so effectively to keep Australians safe. Our defence personnel, particularly those who are away at this time of year, will no doubt be missing their families very much, but they follow in a fine tradition of brave and effective personnel, and on this 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings we particularly remember that.
We continue to see the desperate plight of refugees from the Syrian conflict and from Iraq worsening. I talked about that at this time last year, and, sadly, we have made little real progress and in fact the humanitarian situation is even more acute now than it was then. We are seeing mass movements of people seeking safety and security that sometimes have the most tragic consequences. The photo of little Aylan Kurdi brought home those tragic consequences in such a direct and human way for so many people.
But it has also been a year of hope. It seems that discussions about a political solution in Syria are minutely closer than perhaps they were at this time last year. Peshmerga fighters have liberated Sinjar, which had been held by Daesh for more than a year. So, a little bit of good news there, and a little bit of good news in Myanmar: the first free and fair elections in many years. In fact, I talked about free and fair elections in Myanmar in my first speech, when I was elected to the parliament—about working for and wishing for that outcome. This is the first openly contested election since 1990 and the first to determine the government since 1960. I want to congratulate Australians who were involved in this, including our fantastic Australian Electoral Commission, which has provided training and support for many of the Burmese staff who were involved in the elections. The fact that the election went so smoothly is a credit to the locals who worked so hard in the first instance to argue for the election and to win the right to vote and who worked on the polling booths. But I think it is also a credit to the assistance that our Australian Electoral Commission and other Australians were able to provide. We all wish the people of Myanmar well in this transitional time. We join our hopes to theirs that this will be a government where the rights of all the people of Myanmar are respected and protected.
This year, globally, we saw the adoption of the new Global Goals for Sustainable Development, following on from the Millennium Development Goals. Guided by the Millennium Development Goals, more than a billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. The number of children not in school has almost halved.
At times the scenes of conflict and suffering on the news can be overwhelming so it is important to remember that at the same time the work of digging latrines, teaching in schools and training in health care and agricultural techniques is going on every day and succeeding. Every day incremental advances are made that over years and decades add up to extraordinary results.
Domestically, we have seen some turbulence this year. We saw the election of a new Labor government in Queensland, after just one term in opposition. We congratulate and welcome the election of Annastacia Palaszczuk and her team. Federally, I know that events will have left some members opposite a little bruised. I remember what that feels like. We always say that politics is not personal, but politicians are people. When people go through a leadership change in the way that those opposite have it can leave them feeling a little dented, and certainly we think of the families of those who have lost their leadership roles. However hard we take it ourselves, I think our families really feel the slings and arrows of our profession more than we do. I hope everyone in the chamber on both sides, but especially those who have experienced setbacks this year, have the chance to rest and recuperate and heal over the summer.
Our jobs take a lot of our time and our attention, and we do not often have the chance to set them aside and spend time with our friends and our families. I like to think that our friends and families miss us a little bit—it could be that they are delighted we are not around so much! Our families make enormous sacrifices to allow us to do the work that we do. I feel particularly fortunate to have married a man who has never made it difficult for me to be away from home half the year and to pursue the career that I feel so passionately committed to. I feel so very lucky to have three healthy children who welcome me home with such enthusiasm when I get there.
I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Maribyrnong, for his leadership and his vision this year. Being the Leader of the Opposition is probably the hardest job in federal politics, and this year we finish with a Leader of the Opposition who has brought down a Prime Minister, brought down a Treasurer and seen well over 40 new policies announced—more than during any other opposition at this stage of the electoral cycle that I can remember. It is down to our leader's focus on the future, his determination and his positivity. I thank Bill for the work that he has done in leading us this year. Our achievements are also down to the work of my colleagues on the front bench. We are very lucky to have one of our key frontbenchers here, our shadow Treasurer. To all of my colleagues on the front bench and also the back bench, I thank them for their extraordinarily hard work this year, for their camaraderie and their friendship. I also thank our staff, and my own, for the work that they do: Bronwyn, Dan, Ashley, Nina, Marty, Laura, Michael—who has left but we hope to lure him back one of these days—Ruth, Christine, Hannah and Rachael; all of the staff who have worked so hard to assist me this year. I know members on both sides feel the same way about their staff—we could not do what we do without the enormous support that we get.
That is true of all the people who look after us here in the parliament. They have been listed, and I have to add my own thanks to those of previous speakers. To the chamber attendants, whose jobs require them to be unobtrusive but who are always there when we need them, especially 'Luch'; the Hansard staff, who set down everything for posterity and make sure our constituents know how we represent them here in this chamber; the clerks; the Library staff; the staff at Aussies and the cafeteria, and of course the dining rooms, especially Tim; and the cleaners. I want to make particular mention of Joy, who is the cleaner who looks after us in our office and takes such good care of us every day. To Joy and the other cleaners, I want to say that we support you in your fight to get a decent day's pay for a decent day's work. I thank the serjeant's office, too, who do such a remarkable job particularly in the more demanding security environment that we have been operating in in more recent times. It is impossible to name all of the people who keep us going here in this building, from the basement to the flagpole—every one of them does valuable work and we thank them at this time of the year.
There are also the Comcar drivers—it is incredible, the friendships that develop over the years with the Comcar drivers, and I am sad that this year a number of them are retiring. We wish them all the very best in their retirement. We would not get anywhere without them and without our friends who do the travel bookings. We know there is a degree of focus that comes on us as the principals, but we could do nothing without this army of people who help us each day. Thank you to all of those in the building and in our electorate offices who help us each day. I wish them and my colleagues on both sides of the chamber a very happy Christmas.
Two thousand and fifteen has been a challenging year in Australia's foreign relations on the global stage. Tragically, the year ended as it began—with attacks in Paris by terrorists in January and then again in November. These attacks have left us shocked and remind us, again, that no nation is immune to the scourge of terrorism. This morning, in fact, I opened an exhibition of the best political cartoons of 2015. David Pope's cartoon, He drew first, brought it all back to me—the January assault on the French satirists Charlie Hebdo, and then last month's attacks in Paris horrified us all. Australia stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of all nations who are dealing with violent extremism and terrorism.
Two thousand and fifteen will be remembered as a year in which the world struggled to deal with the range of threats spreading out from the conflict in Syria and Iraq. The flight of so many Syrians—the largest group of displaced refugees in Europe since the Second World War—is a profound policy challenge that the international community will take into 2016 and beyond. Australia is committed to playing its part in helping address this refugee crisis, the humanitarian crisis, counter-terrorism and Islamic extremism and extremist violence. We announced we would permanently settle 12,000 refugees to Australia from Syria. The first of those arrived in Australia a week ago. We announced we would provide an additional $44 million in humanitarian assistance for those displaced by the conflict. Australia's humanitarian assistance to Syria and Iraq since 2011 is over $200 million, which has supported hundreds of thousands of people. Australia is a leading military contributor to the US-led coalition to counter ISIL, or Daesh—this violent, medieval terrorist organisation. We are contributing to air strikes against Daesh in Syria and Iraq, and we are helping build the capacity of the Iraqi security forces so that Iraq can take back control of the territory claimed by the terrorists and keep their people safe. We are also seeking to address terrorism by working with partners in Europe, the Middle East and in our region. Terrorism is a global threat that demands a global response.
In 2015, our economic diplomacy initiatives made some unprecedented gains. We secured some very significant wins on the economic front: our Minister for Trade and Investment finalised a free trade agreement with our biggest trading partner, China, and we began to see the benefits flow from our free trade agreements with Korea and Japan. Australia was one of 12 countries that concluded the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement—a historic free trade agreement that will set the platform for an Asia-Pacific free trade zone. These are 21st-century agreements that will help build prosperity and stability in our nation for decades to come. We also continued our strong push for more and greater global growth through the G20, through APEC and through other global and regional forums.
In 2015, Australia joined all other nations in making the most substantial advance in the international development agenda since the turn of the century. Agreements were reached on development finance in July and new sustainable development goals in September. The past 12 months have been particularly significant for Australia's international development agenda. In addition to helping reach a global consensus on the sustainable development goals, the Australian government continued to involve the private sector in our $4 billion aid program, with an increasing emphasis on the economic empowerment of women and empowering girls. We are on track against our performance targets. We are bringing new ideas and creativity into our aid program, with the unveiling of an exciting InnovationXchange within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The InnovationXchange is transforming our development assistance program with new strategies, the use of technologies, and private sector and NGO partnerships that will better enable us to help solve the development challenges of the future in our region. That is our focus—the Indian Ocean and the Asia-Pacific—and this is where we can make the biggest difference.
In 2015, we continued our focus on specifically helping the countries in our immediate neighbourhood, the Pacific, grow their economies and deal with the consequences of natural disasters—for the Pacific is one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world. We led international efforts to assist communities in Vanuatu following Cyclone Pam and we were a supporter to Nepal following its devastating earthquake.
Our commitment to multilateral engagement was reinforced when we announced Australia would seek a term on the Human Rights Council for 2018-2020 . Of course, the year is not over—I will be leaving Perth late Saturday night to attend the 2015 Climate Change Conference in Paris, following the Prime Minister's visit earlier this week and the current visit by the Minister for the Environment. Australia will play an appropriate role in helping secure a global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
I want to place on record my thanks to the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Peter Varghese, for his leadership of our diplomatic service. And I thank the staff of the department, who have been tireless in their efforts, with absolutely outstanding performances during the course of this year. I also thank all of our staff in our overseas network of posts—far away from home but all of whom are doing an exceptional job, often in exceedingly trying circumstances. This year, Australians have made more than 9½ million trips overseas. In that context, I want to commend our consular services team, who have managed nearly 16,000 consular cases. They certainly deserve praise for their efforts in assisting Australians who get into some form of trouble or need assistance when they are overseas.
On the political front, I pay tribute to the Prime Minister and leader of our Liberal Party. I acknowledge the efforts of the Leader of the Nationals and the whole coalition team, including our members and senators, whose judgement, tenacity and desire for good policy and a strong, effective government are what brings us all together to serve the Australian people and ensure that we are uphold the values that underpin our nation. I acknowledge the enormous contribution that the member for Warringah made as Prime Minister. With the change of leadership, inevitably there are changes to the ministry, and I acknowledge the efforts of those who have held ministerial positions over the past 12 months.
I put on record my thanks to my Western Australian parliamentary colleagues, who share the challenge of commuting from our west coast. I pay tribute to my dear friend and colleague the late Don Randall. We are reminded of him every day with the white rose at his seat, and we certainly continue to miss Don.
I thank my staff in my ministerial and my electorate offices, who serve with loyalty, professionalism and dedication, and for that I am truly thankful. I thank my family, and David and my friends for continuing to be there for me, as my duties as foreign minister, deputy leader of our party and the member for Curtin regularly take me away from home for long periods of time.
I join my colleagues in recognising and thanking all who contribute to the running of Parliament House, the national parliament: the chamber attendants, the Hansard staff, the International and Parliamentary Relations Office, the switchboard operators, the Comcar drivers, the service providers, and all those in the chamber as I speak. You make this building and the business of the parliament operate in the most efficient and professional way.
I make special mention of the security guards and the Australian Federal Police. As we were reminded when Canada's parliament house was attacked, no-one anywhere is immune from terrorism. Those who serve us every day to protect this building, those who work here, those who visit here and the values that this building espouses deserve our recognition.
I acknowledge the role of the Speaker—he has been marvellous in maintaining a level of decorum in this House—and all those on the Speaker's panel. I wish the leader and members of the opposition well. I hope they have a very happy Christmas—and long may they stay in their current roles! I acknowledge the members of the press gallery and thank them for their continued work.
I wish everyone a happy and safe Christmas and festive season, and I hope that we return in 2016 with renewed enthusiasm for creating good policies as part of a great democracy with fine traditions. Our nation has an enviable reputation as an open, export-oriented market economy in its 24th consecutive year of economic growth. We are an open, liberal democracy committed to freedom, the rule of law, democratic institutions and an international rules based community. Let us hope that 2016 is a year of continued economic growth, greater prosperity, safety and security. I wish you all a happy Christmas.
At this time of year, let me share a few brief remarks. I begin by thanking those who make this place work, and foremost amongst those are the cleaners of Parliament House. We could not function without the cleaners of Parliament House. They do remarkable work in the middle of the night when we are all at home sleeping. We leave the building in a less than pristine condition every night; we return in the morning to see it looking wonderful. The cleaners do that. They are going through a tough period at the moment. They need to know that their work is appreciated, respected and supported, and their very legitimate claims are honoured by members of this House. So I begin my Christmas remarks today by prioritising the Parliament House cleaners, who really are the unsung workers of this building.
I also thank the other workers in Parliament House, including the chamber attendants who look after us and the Comcar drivers in Canberra and in our home towns. In my case, in Sydney, I thank John Stikovic, and John Chapman, who keeps threatening to retire but has not got around to it yet. He is also trying to convert me to the South Sydney Rabbitohs—and I will continue to confer with the member for Grayndler about these matters—but he has to date failed. I thank the security staff. As has been mentioned, events during the year in Canada showed just how much we take for granted here in Australia and, in some instances, our safety in this building. The security staff make sure that that is something we can continue to enjoy.
At this time of year, I give my best regards to the Treasurer. The Treasurer is absent today, dealing with family matters. We wish him the best with those. I personally also wish the Treasurer's family the best for the Christmas season—his wife, Jenny; and his children, Abbey and Lily. All of us are doing our best for Australia; we just have different perspectives as to how that should be done. But I know the Treasurer's children must miss him, with the amount of time he spends away, as all of us do. So I wish him and his family the best. I thank his office, led by Phil Gaetjens, for their interaction on matters of national interest. This time last year, I was giving my best wishes to Joe Hockey, the then Treasurer. I also note him and his family in these remarks today.
I thank the shadow Treasury team—Andrew Leigh; and Ed Husic, my parliamentary secretary—and I welcome this year two very fine additions to the shadow Treasury team, Dr Jim Chalmers and Michelle Rowland, who have joined us. They are fantastic additions to the shadow Treasury team. I also pay my best regards to the member for Oxley, who has announced his retirement from this House, who is a valued colleague and friend in the shadow Treasury team.
I thank the shadow minister for finance and Manager of Opposition Business. Obviously, the shadow Treasurer and the shadow minister for finance work very, very closely together. Tony and I both joined Young Labor 26 years ago; we were both Sydney activists in the Labor Party; and we have been members of parliament together for 11 years, and now as shadow minister for finance and shadow Treasurer respectively—and, should all go to plan, finance minister and Treasurer this time next year!
I thank members of the Treasury portfolio: the Treasury itself, led by Secretary Fraser; ASIC; APRA; the ACCC; the Australian Bureau of Statistics; the Royal Australian Mint; the Commonwealth Grants Commission—many, many fine Australian men and women who work tirelessly. They need to know that their work is respected by the opposition. Again, this time last year I noted the departure of Dr Parkinson from Treasury. It turns out a year is a long time not only in politics but in the Public Service, and I understand we are welcoming Dr Parkinson back. He also has my best wishes.
I thank my own staff, led by James Cullen, my chief of staff, who has worked with me now for 11 years continuously. I could not wish for a better friend, a more loyal staff member or a more competent chief of staff. To all the other members of my staff—Hugh Hartigan, Alistair Beasley and Clare Brosnan, and electorate staff Carole Field, Thomas McCrudden, Ninos Aaron, Theresa Alphonse and Josh Robertson: I wish you the best. We will be having a Christmas meal, and perhaps a little bit of a drink as well closer to Christmas, but I take this opportunity in the House to wish them well.
I wish all members well, including you, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, and the other members of the Speaker's panel. It has been a big year for this place, a particularly big year. There have been winners and losers, but all of us, winners and losers and those of us in between, can go home to the bosoms of our families for Christmas and return refreshed next year for a year of battle in which the Australian people will make a decision about our nation's future and in which we intend to be successful. But we wish the other side good luck and best wishes personally while we work towards the demise of the government! We wish them the best for their future as well.
I thank the honourable member for McMahon, and I wish him and his family all the very best for Christmas and the new year.
The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.
I have a great news story to share with the House today. A group of young people, business students at Wodonga's La Trobe University, have won the national Big Idea competition. It is sponsored by PWC, Social Traders and The Big Issue. I warmly congratulate Jenny Bevis, Nathan Potter and Samantha Richardson for their terrific idea to energise social connection and build businesses and business pathways by encouraging young people to be part of a six-month program of workshops, live music, arts events and festivals. More details can be found at http://www.thevibecollectiveevents.com
The Vibe Collective is an example of social enterprise, a movement that is going from strength to strength in my electorate of Indi. We had a fantastic discussion last Friday night in Wodonga, when Matt Pfahlert shared what he learned from the Churchill Fellowship. We talked about the importance of social enterprises being based on solid, profitable business models. It is definitely happening in Indi. Jenny and all her team know this, and I wish them well. In preparing today's speech, I would particularly like to acknowledge and thank David, Nicole and Jenny for their terrific work in my office as volunteers and the over 120 volunteers from my electorate of Indi who, over the years, have served us all by coming up to Canberra and being part of a terrific event. Thank you all very much.
I am pleased to report that the Queensland parliament last night did the right thing by Queensland sugarcane growers by passing a law to ensure that they have a choice in the marketing of their sugar. This ends a protracted battle with the foreign owned mills who were going to take that right away from canegrowers. I congratulate the LNP, in particular Lawrence Springborg and Deb Frecklington. I congratulate Katter's Australian Party and the independent MPs who overrode the minority Labor government to get this bill through. It was disappointing that Labor voted against it, including the MP for Mirani, Jim Pearce, whose electorate includes the largest sugar-growing district in Australia. Labor sided with the foreign milling company, using its monopoly to ride roughshod over 4,000 farming families.
Now the Palaszczuk Labor government is looking for a means to overturn that law, including approaches to this federal government in the vain hope that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will step in. But Ms Palaszczuk should know that asking the coalition to vote against freedom, competition and Australian farmers would be an invitation to swell the ranks of the crossbenches in this place, so it will not happen. Offering choice is hardly anti-competitive, and the federal coalition will only override state legislation if it is inconsistent with federal competition laws or our trade obligations with Singapore. Given the free trade agreement with Singapore allows for laws about anticompetitive conduct, the new law is here to stay; it is a win for farming families right across Queensland.
While many members opposite were wondering whether to take the walk across the hallway to join a different party room over the last 48 hours, we have been focusing on the government's promises and, more importantly, their failure to deliver on some of those promises. I stand here today to speak on behalf of literally thousands of families and individuals around the country who pinned their hopes on this government and the Minister for Health to deliver real action when it comes to medicinal cannabis. They had good reason to have hope because six weeks ago the minister, with more fanfare than detail, promised that there would be a bill introduced into the House before Christmas which would start the process of legalising medicinal cannabis and the production of medicinal cannabis products throughout the country. We welcomed the announcement by the minister in a bipartisan way. We said that we thought it could have gone further. We said that it would be much better if we had a truly national scheme, but, not to be churlish about it, we welcomed the announcement. The government has failed on this point. There is no bill before the House; in fact, there is very little legislation before the House at all. As we draw towards the end of the year, it is a big fail on the government's report card when it comes to medicinal cannabis, as with so many other issues where they have promised much but not delivered.
It is with great pleasure I rise in the House today to speak about some of the very talented young sportsmen and women we have in Calare. The second round of Local Sporting Champions have been picked and will receive a $500 grant to support their passion, helping them pay for transport to get to competitions or allowing them to purchase better equipment. The recipients include Tamara Thompson from Kelso, Nicholas Job from Parkes, Matthew Reeks from Blayney, Erin Naden from Orange, Phoebe Litchfield from Windera, Jack Cole from Orange, Darcie Campbell from Mount Rankin, Phillipa Mannix from Orange, Georgia Kiel from Orange, Megan Redpath from Mount Rankin, Jackson Willis from Ophir, Jacob Mitchell from Parkes, Luke Mutton from Kelso, Robert Van Gend from O'Connell, Jordan Bruce from Orange and Aiden Kelly from Orange.
I congratulate each of them for their commitment to their sport, whether it be hockey, soccer or softball. Each of them is a budding expert at what they do. As a young person, I played football and cricket, and I have to say some of the great memories of my life are of team sport and the people and the team mates I did it with. I encourage each of these young people to continue with their dedication to training, as I believe being involved in physical activity and, in particular, team sport, is one of the greatest things that young people can do.
I know that, for many members opposite, there is a lot going on in their minds at the moment . There is a Special Minister of State regretting that TV confession, a new Prime Minister trying to figure out how he is going to get over this disastrous captain's pick and, of course, other members contemplating crossing the floor to try to work out which party they should belong to, as the member for Throsby pointed out. But we on this side of the House know what we are up to. Our focus here is on how families this Christmas are going to be faring given the sorts of hits they have continuously had from this government this year. We know very well that this might be the last Christmas before this government tries to slap a 15 per cent GST on pretty much everything.
If you are a family that enjoys fresh seafood for your Christmas lunch and you are going to get that fish from down at the co-op, there is going to be an extra 15 per cent on that. If you like fresh berries, cream and passionfruit on your pavlova, you will be paying 15 per cent GST on all of that too. How about those cherries, apricots and magnificent mangoes that we all enjoy as Christmastime? Well, you will have another 15 per cent slapped on that too. But it does not stop there, of course. For families who are already struggling to keep their heads above water, there is the electricity bill, the gas bill, the grocery bill and all the other bills that will be going up and up. It will cost more to visit a doctor, go to the hospital and get school uniforms for the kids.
I want to address the House today about a very important issue in the area of innovation. Start-ups are an incredibly important part of our economy but there is an opportunity for them to become even more important. Start-up businesses are critical because many of the great innovations and developments in the world economy are driven by start-ups, by companies that take a risk, that come up with new ideas and that point the way to the future.
I believe one way that the government can assist more start-ups getting off the ground is by making changes to our laws in relation to capital gains tax. Specifically, I believe that investment in early stage company start-ups should be free of capital gains tax on exit. What it means is that we will make start-ups a very attractive investment option for people looking for somewhere to put their money and that in turn will help more start-ups to get off the ground. This means more jobs in that sector and more Australian companies shooting for the stars, which can only be a good thing. It is a very important matter and very consistent with our goal of driving an innovative economy, and it is certainly something which I believe is of the utmost importance.
It is nearly time for us all to go home and it is nearly time for Christmas. I have been thinking about families and what they are going to find in their Christmas stocking from our Christmas Grinch. We know what is not in the Christmas stocking. Transparency around tax is not in the Christmas stocking. Multinationals paying their fair share is not in the Christmas stocking. So what is in the Christmas stocking? There are family tax benefit cuts to 1.3 million families and family tax benefit cuts to 21,000 families in my electorate. What else is in this stocking? GST increased by 50 per cent on the things already attracting a GST, and 15 per cent GST on education, fresh food and health. For the first time in our history that is on the list. What else is in this stocking? Families are going to open up this stocking and find that they have had six consecutive falls in income per person. So I wish all of the families in Lalor a safe Christmas. I wish I could give them a Christmas without the $80 billion cuts to health and education, but we will keep fighting on this side and maybe by next Christmas we will have a new government, a Shorten-led Labor government, and families will get some presents, finally.
And now for some good news! I would like to congratulate Gilgandra Community Radio station, WAR FM, for winning two prestigious national awards at the 2015 Community Broadcasting Association of Australia Conference at the Crown Plaza in Terrigal last month. There was an award for Excellence in Community Participation, and Susan 'Del' Gordon won the award for Outstanding Volunteer Contribution.
The community radio station first began in 1999 in a small ex-bakery shop. The station is operated purely by volunteers, who dedicate over 100 hours of their time per week to broadcast a variety of programs to the community of Gilgandra. It is a fantastic achievement for such a small community radio station to win these national awards. It also provides a timely reminder of just how valuable and successful local radio stations are. They are our local voice and they provide a significant support mechanism for local communities. Gilgandra is a strong rural community in the central west of New South Wales, which is in the centre of the Parkes electorate. I congratulate WAR FM on their remarkable success at the recent awards.
We have a Prime Minister who wants to redefine 'fairness' by supporting a tax that takes more from the poor than it does from the rich. Now we have a Treasurer wanting to redefine 'friendly' by claiming the GST is a friendly tax. It is political spin to soften up the community for the Prime Minister's and the Treasurer's plan to increase the GST by 50 per cent.
There is nothing friendly about increasing a tax that hits lower income Australians the most. There is nothing friendly about adding a new tax to medical expenses, fresh food, utilities and other essentials of life. There is nothing friendly about adding $4,000 a year to the cost of living of households that are already struggling to make ends meet. There is nothing friendly about a Treasurer and a Prime Minister who are out of touch with the daily living costs of families and who want to hit them with more GST while cutting thousands of dollars from their family payments.
Former Treasurer Peter Costello used to talk about broadening the base and lowering the GST rate. This government wants to broaden the base and increase the rate. For a government that made political capital out of the phrase 'a great big tax on everything', just what do they think broadening and increasing the GST is? If the Prime Minister and the Treasurer think the GST is a friendly tax and that more of it is good, they are no friends of Australian families, many of whom are struggling to buy Christmas presents for their kids.
I rise today to speak for the last time for the year in this chamber. I want to take this opportunity to briefly reflect on the achievements of the past 12 months. As everyone in this House would agree, this year has been a very busy one, including for me in the electorate of Brisbane. We have seen many projects funded and many issues fought. We secured $750,000 for the Brisbane Inner North's Sporting Community and more than $150,000 for ANZAC Centenary Local Grants. We also delivered $125,000 for a food van for OzHarvest for the homeless in Brisbane. We also delivered $5.4 million for a new gate to the Enoggera Barracks and $5 million was signed off for the Brisbane Broncos for the redevelopment of community sporting facilities.
When we are not here representing our constituents, we are in the electorates meeting with many of those constituents. This year I have had a total of 50 mobile offices and I have had hundreds of private constituent appointments
We have rolled out four Green Army projects, opened numerous buildings and witnessed Brisbane recover from being a flood-wrought city to a metropolitan destination thanks to a Liberal government. But the year has also produced many horrific events around the world and, in this devastation, we have seen our wonderful city galvanised to bond, not to battle. As we head towards Christmas, I have witnessed a sense of optimism for the future and for the economy.
It was all happening in the Lyne electorate last weekend, particularly in the Manning Valley. Firstly, I would like to congratulate the Old Bar Growing Friends Garden Club, which organised a Cancer Council fundraiser. It was one of the biggest morning teas I have ever attended, with 136 people turning up. We were well entertained by beautiful singing from the Wingsong Choir from nearby Wingham. I congratulate the choirmaster, Heather Bolster, and also Helen Cadden who organised the event for Growing Friends Garden Club.
Nearby at the Old Bar Community Preschool we had a wonderful celebration on the occasion of the opening of a new half-million dollar extension. Merrilyn McLoughlin and all the children and their parents and grandparents and community contributors all turned up. What an amazing facility it is. I would like to congratulate architects Carolyn and Russell McFarland, who have designed a really fantastic building.
Down at Harrington Crowdy Head Marine rescue station Keith Richardson was awarded for his 15 years service in SES and marine rescue.
I congratulate all the strong community members for making our place so wonderful.
'Now for some good news,' said the member for Parkes a minute ago. I thought he was referring to the new members who had defected from the government to the National Party. They are going up by 15 per cent, too. There is a 15 per cent increase in the National Party along with their prospective increase in the GST. My constituents are going to be very interested if this government imposes a 15 per cent increase in the GST, because 64 per cent of kids in my electorate attend private schools—probably the most in a Labor electorate in this country. Kids in grade 6 at St Mary's, St Aloysius, St Columbus, Mount Scopus, Sholem Aleichem, Yavneh, Beth Rivkah, Wesley, Grimwade House and Caulfield Grammar are all going to see school fees increase by an enormous amount—in some cases by $1,000—if this government imposes a GST of 15 per cent. It will be even worse if, as the member for Newcastle said before, there is going to be an increase on fresh food. That would be a terrible message to send people this Christmas and next Christmas. I think of the many people across the electorate who for the first time are going to enjoy a big celebration and a big feed. It would be terrible to put 15 per cent on fresh food. In particular, I am thinking of parents and the schoolchildren in all the great schools in my electorate who are going to have an extra $1,000 put on their school fees by a GST.
I rise today to speak on Darwin's newest centenarian, Lillian Kym Salter, affectionately known as Kym. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Kim at the Pearl residential care facility where she lives. It was amazing to meet with her. I presented her with a card and some flowers. She is an amazing lady. Unfortunately, I was not able to be there on her actual birthday because I was here in parliament. Kym's birthday was on 23 November. She had a lovely morning tea with her family and friends and the residents and nursing staff at the Pearl facility. I am reliably told that there were lots of celebrations and they went down very well. Kym loves balloons, so there were lots of balloons in her rooms. Kym told me that the secret to a long life is to not drink alcohol and to eat plenty of beetroot—and the proof is in the pudding! So please, everyone, eat a lot of beetroot! It was wonderful to meet Kym. I would also like to put on record my thanks to the fantastic staff at the Pearl facility. They do a great job and it is a credit to them that the residents there are so happy—and I got to see that for myself. Happy birthday, Kym.
In the lead-up to Christmas I cannot help but think about the negative impact a GST would have on families at this particular time of year. This mean-spirited government is hell-bent on punishing the families of Australia, and a GST is one way to deliver that sort of punishment. I received a letter today from one of my constituents. He and his wife are pensioners but fortunately they own their own home—if they had to purchase one, they would have to pay a GST on that. Their individual income is $16,445 per annum, which is half the minimum wage. They need to draw down an extra $20,000 a year to be able to survive. They can see just how bad this GST will be for them. Even with the minimal amount of GST compensation, they will still be in a much worse position—and they are like thousands and thousands of pensioners throughout Australia. And families will feel this even more. Families with young children are buying Christmas presents and getting ready to go back to school. It is an absolute disgrace and this government should hang its head in shame!
I rise to pay tribute to the extraordinary life of Joanna Christina Cash, who passed away on 20 November. I extend my sincere condolences to her parents, George and Ursula; her sisters, Michaelia and Melinda; her brother, Andrew; and her extended family and friends. A crowd of more than 200 people gathered at Karrakatta cemetery in Perth for her funeral last Friday. It was a moving service which celebrated Joanna's bright, vivacious nature and contagious love for life.
The youngest of four siblings, Joanna was born on New Year's Day 1982. Her career as a make-up artist saw her develop her talents on the production sets of a number of popular Australian television dramas and international movies. She will always be remembered for her caring, gentle and kind nature. Joanna can be described as an extraordinary Australian who lived life to the fullest. She travelled the world, seized all of life's opportunities and always made the most of her situation. Her positive disposition remains an inspiration to others. Even when faced with illness, she carried on working and enjoying life's experiences. On behalf of the parliament, I pay tribute to Joanna Cash and her well-lived life.
Families can be forgiven if they are slightly confused in the lead-up to this Christmas. First this government said, 'Don't worry. If we introduce a GST, there will be compensation.' We kept asking, 'What do you mean by compensation? What kind of compensation can you offer families, particularly those that are currently getting family tax benefit A and B? What kind of compensation can you offer them?' When the government withdrew their tax cuts, we thought, 'Maybe that is the compensation they were talking about.' But, no. Just like a boomerang, this government in this last sitting week reintroduced cuts to family tax benefit part A and part B. This Christmas, they have said to families all over Australia, particularly those in regional electorates, 'Next year when we come back we are still going to cut your family tax benefit A and B.'
To make things worse, this government in this last sitting week has refused to rule out increasing the GST. This government has refused to rule out broadening the GST. So families this Christmas know exactly what is on the cards and what is going to happen next year. This is the last Christmas for families that they will not have to pay GST on fresh food if this government gets its way. This is the last Christmas that families in regional areas all around the place will not have to pay 15 per cent on the basics if this government gets its way.
On 14 November I had the pleasure of attending the inaugural Bedfordale Connect Bush Markets at the Bedfordale Hall. I was very pleased to see the local community out in force on a Saturday morning to support the stallholders and the Bedfordale Connect Bush Markets Committee, who worked so hard to get this event up and running. I would also like to acknowledge the City of Armadale, which I know was fully supportive of the project from inception to realisation. It was great to see their mayor, Henry Zelones, and Councillor Guenter Best, who also were in attendance. My state colleague, the Hon, Tony Simpson, had even baked a festive twist for the lucky winner of the raffle.
There was a fantastic variety of goods on offer, including arts and crafts, farm fresh produce, children's entertainment and plenty of food and drink. A special mention goes out Bedfordale locals Linton and Kerry Batt of The Butchers Block, a farm-to-plate producer. They cooked me one of the best bacon breakfasts I have ever had. Their son, Geordy, was equally impressive on the didgeridoo.
As we well know, small businesses are the backbone of a strong economy, and I am pleased to report that business in Bedfordale is thriving. By bringing the goods to the consumer, the Bedfordale Bush Connect Markets forge important and lasting connections between local producers and small businesses and the wider community. I would like to thank Kerry Batt, the Bedfordale Connect Bush Markets Committee, the stallholders and the City of Armadale for putting on a great event. I look forward to visiting again in the future.
On the International Day of People with Disability, I offer the deep sorrow and sympathy of all of us in this place to the victims of the senseless shooting that has occurred in San Bernardino, California, at a centre assisting people with developmental disability.
I rise to pay tribute to Australians with disability, their carers and the people who love them. I am pleased to announce that a Labor government will provide an additional $2 million in funding a year to peak disability advocacy organisations. Australians with disabilities and their advocates spent decades seeking an end to the exile of neglect and national indifference, the second-class life imposed on our fellow Australians. These advocates have fought for peace of mind for ageing parents, awake at midnight worrying who will love and care for their child with disability when they no longer can. Their courage and their resolve helped make the National Disability Insurance Scheme real.
Independent advocacy for people with disability will only become more important as the NDIS rollout continues. Organisations like Blind citizens Australia, brain injury Australia and Deaf Australia and peak bodies like the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations and Disability Advocacy Network Australia have dedicated years to protecting the rights and upholding the interests of Australians with disability. We commend and salute them today and every day.
One of the great things about the Mallee is not only the food that is grown here but the tourism. So it was with a lot of pride that last night the Heartbeat of the Murray Experience was opened in Swan Hill. This is a laser show. It is a $3.5 million laser show, with $1.8 million funded by the National Party, announced by Warren Truss.
Opposition members interjecting—
It was not done by you at all. You like to take the credit for things you did not do. The Heartbeat of the Murray is a great project because it tells the story of the Murray River from the Aboriginal heritage on the Murray River are all the way through to the pioneers. It also tells a story about the people who have gone out there and been pioneers. Those are the people who the National Party represent. So I encourage people to come to the Heartbeat of the Murray to see the laser show and then to go on to Red Cliffs, Robinvale and Mildura and see all the fantastic towns we have.
The Labor Party like to take credit for things, and I noticed that the state Labor Party turned up to try to announce the opening of the show. It needs to be made very clear in this chamber that this was federally funded by the National Party and the Liberal Party. This was state funded by the National Party and the Liberal Party. This is the National Party and the Liberal Party delivering for regional Australia so that it is not only a great place to grow good food but a great place to enjoy some tourism. Come to Swan Hill, have a look at the show and take your kids along. It will be a great night out.
I note from media reports that the member for Groom and the member for Wright are defecting from Malcolm Turnbull's Liberal Party to the Nationals.
The member for Gellibrand will refer to members by their proper titles.
I say to all those opposite: if they want to oppose a GST increase, join the Labor Party. Stand up for the Australian public. We are the only party opposed to the 50 per cent increase in the GST being pushed by those opposite. If they have seen the light, the proper direction to defect is this side of the chamber. We will care for the Australian people and fight a GST increase. Member for Gippsland, I know where your heart lies. Member for Mallee, come aboard. Oppose the GST—
In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
I inform the House that the—
Mr Watts interjecting—
I think the answer to the member for Gellibrand's invitation would be, quoting Billy Hughes many years ago, that you have to draw the line somewhere! I inform the House that the Treasurer will be away from question time today attending to a personal matter. The Minister for Social Services will answer questions on his behalf. The Assistant Treasurer and the Minister for Small Business will be away from question time today. She is unwell. The Minister for Social Services will also answer questions on her behalf.
My question is to the Special Minister of State. I refer to the minister's answers and statements in the House. What discussions did the minister have with the Assistant Minister for Innovation about the Ashby affair?
A government member interjecting—
I will not take interjections of advice from on my right. The question referred to the minister's previous answers. The minister can address the first part of the question. The second part of the question—going to the Assistant Minister for Innovation—I do not believe has been addressed in any of the minister's replies.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The member for Grayndler will not interject with advice: just be silent for a minute.
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The answers that the minister has given so far have included reference to the 60 Minutes program and have included reference to all the evidence before the Federal Court.
I will allow the minister to answer.
Obviously I have conversations all the time with colleagues. But if the member for Isaacs is asking the specific question: did I discuss any time, at or around these issues—I do not know how much more clear I can be—with the member for Longman, the answer is no.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the importance of productivity, growth and innovation in maintaining a high-wage, First World, fair, social welfare safety net economy? How will policies to encourage greater innovation and more rapid productivity growth help Australia transition to a post mining boom economy?
I thank the honourable member for his question. I note his keen interest in innovation and economic growth. As a former experienced businessman in the media industry, he understands how disruptive technologies are changing the economic landscape, how they offer challenges to establish businesses and established ways of working but contain within them enormous opportunities.
The key to our future success—our future prosperity—is innovation and productivity driving competitiveness. This is a time when the opportunities for Australians have never been greater. The global economy is expanding at an extraordinary rate. We now have more than half of the world's middle-class consumers in our region, and it will not be long before that is the overwhelming majority. China, a country which had barely participated in the global economy 40 years ago is now, by many measures, the world's largest, single national economy. Its online trade and commerce is larger than that of the United States. The changes in our region are enormous, and we are able to take advantage of them.
We see in yesterday's national accounts real cause for optimism and confidence that we are heading in the right direction. The Australian economy grew by 0.9 per cent in the quarter and 2½ per cent throughout the year. As the Commonwealth Bank noted, positive GDP growth and employment incomes indicate that the non-mining economy is more than offsetting the decline in mining activity.
That decline is not because mining is going out of date or out of fashion; it was inevitable. There was a massive increase in demand for commodities driven out of the China boom, particularly out of China's stimulus at the time of the GFC. That, of course, was not able to be met by an instantaneous supply response, so prices went up and investment followed—a massive construction boom. Now you are starting to see much bigger volumes but, obviously, lower prices. To have that massive shift in the terms of trade while maintaining strong economic growth and strong employment growth is a tribute to the flexibility and the agility of our economy.
I should note that at the core of that is trade. We have negotiated free trade agreements with major trading partners this year. The architect of those agreements is the trade minister, Andrew Robb, and I note that he has been nominated as the international policymaker of the year by PublicAffairsAsia for his efforts.
Government members: Hear, hear!
An outstanding achievement by our minister for trade—driving jobs, driving growth, securing prosperity.
My question is to the Special Minister of State. I refer to the minister's answers and statements in the House, and I refer to the claims made by James Ashby about the Assistant Minister for Innovation, where he said, 'he presented me a sheet of paper with instructions of what I should do, and one of the first steps was to get a copy of the office diary.' Was the minister aware of or did he have any input into drafting these instructions? Is conduct of this nature consistent with the standards of this government?
Mr Speaker—
Mr Sukkar interjecting—
The member for Deakin will cease interjecting.
Honourable members interjecting—
I refer all members to the statements that I have made about interjections when I am trying to hear points of order and trying to hear questions and answers. Let me make it abundantly clear again—I should not have to—that I will deal with any interjections very strongly. I am not going to have the House disrupted when I am trying to hear answers and hear points of order. I really do foreshadow that, if it continues, I will give ministers the option just to sit down. If I cannot hear the answer, parliament becomes unruly.
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The government has been very generous in terms of not taking points of order on the member for Isaacs's questions, but this question is impossible for the minister to answer, because how can he know what was in the mind of another member of parliament based on allegations made by a person who is not even a member of this House, about which the Special Minister of State has no specific knowledge and nor has he any responsibility?
Ms Kate Ellis interjecting—
The member for Adelaide is warned.
Mr Speaker, on the point of order: the question goes directly to the awareness that the minister may or may not have had and is a way of further interrogating the previous answer that he gave.
Mr Speaker, this is where the Manager of Opposition Business has just exposed himself, because, quite frankly, it is not the job of the member for Isaacs to interrogate the Special Minister of State as though he were in a court of law in a case. In question time, in the parliament of the House, there are standing orders that govern questions and what a minister can be asked. As long as he can be asked matters that are within his ministerial responsibility or about which he has commented, as you pointed out before, they may well be in order. But a question like this, which is purely a fishing expedition, probably would not even be allowed in a court of law.
Just to add to what I said previously, the final part of that question is, 'Is conduct of this nature consistent with the standards that this government applies?'
I have been very generous in the questions that I have allowed. That has been quite deliberate, because, as I said when I became Speaker, I want to see free-flowing debate, and that flows both ways. It is important that questions draw a connection. I have pointed that out. This question is stretching it further than other questions. The last point that the member for Watson made, I think, is a valid one. To me, that is the only part of the question that is in order. So I foreshadow now that, certainly, questions can be asked about previous answers, but that does not open up the possibility for the member for Isaacs or, for that matter, anyone else to simply refer to previous answers and then ask a question about a different event or subject. I will allow the minister, if he wishes, to answer just that last part of the question, which was about his ministerial responsibilities, if he can recall it.
I am struggling to recall it.
Opposition members interjecting—
You poor diddums! The last day of the parliament, and this is good as you get! If I am to understand the member for Isaacs, he is asking me to some make statement or some reflection on—
The minister will resume his seat. The member for Isaacs can just read the last part of the question. I gave a long ruling, and it is unfair to the minister. Just the last sentence of the question.
Was the minister aware of—
No, that is not the last sentence, I don't think. I have asked you to read the last sentence. If you read any more than that, I will simply sit you down and move to the next question.
Sorry. Is conduct of this nature consistent with the standards that this government applies?
It is a strange question from the member for Isaacs.
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The member for McMahon will cease interjecting.
He asked me to reflect on conduct about a document that I have never seen. I do not know what is contained in that document, and then I am to make a judgment upon it. That would seem to be the approach that the Member for Isaacs has taken for the last two weeks.
Ms MacTiernan interjecting—
The member for Perth is warned.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on how the government is protecting the consumer by dealing with excessive credit card surcharging?
I thank the honourable member for her question. The government's response to the Financial System Inquiry included an important commitment to protect Australian consumers from excessive credit card surcharging. We have listened to the community, and we are going to stamp out behaviour which seeks to take advantage of Australian consumers. Every month, about $45 billion of purchases are processed through credit card or debit card transactions. It has become the standard means of transacting commerce and, of course, it is the standard means of transacting most e-commerce.
Of the 6,500 submissions to the Murray inquiry, 5,000 related to the issue of credit card surcharges. Clearly, contained within the claim for a surcharge for a credit card is an implicit representation that the merchant is recovering the cost imposed on the merchant by means of processing the credit card. These credit card surcharges have, in many cases, been significantly higher than the actual cost. The government's commitment is to ban merchants from engaging in excessive surcharging. Merchants will instead be expected to act on a cost recovery basis, so a surcharge will be deemed to be excessive when it is higher than the amount that the merchant is charged by their payment provider. We will protect consumers and we will empower the ACCC to enforce this ban on surcharging, and it will be able to impose substantial penalties of up to $108,000. The government have clearly held consultations, but these are technical changes. We will work with all the relevant agencies, including the Reserve Bank, to implement them from 1 July next year.
Consumers are entitled to a fair deal. They should get exactly what the merchant is representing. If the merchant—whether it is an airline, a hotel or a store—says credit card surcharge, so much, then that should be no more than the merchant needs to recover to recover the costs of processing the card. If the merchant wants to charge more for their goods or for their service, of course they are perfectly entitled to do that. This is an example of the government seeking to ensure that our economy works transparently and efficiently and that consumers are given a fair deal. It is all about our commitment to ensuring that we have strong growth, good jobs and future prosperity based on competition and productivity right across the board, right down to the retail level.
My question is to the Special Minister of State. This week in question time, the minister said:
… I at no time passed any diaries to any journalists. Can I be any clearer than that?
Can the minister be clear with the House now: did the minister pass any documents concerning the former Speaker to anyone, including, but not limited to, members of parliament or staff?
I can confirm for the member for Isaacs that every document that I have ever had any part to do with has been in the Federal Court. They have been presented to the Federal Court. There is no more; there are no less. Any document that you are referring to that has gone through my lawyers to the Federal Court is the sum total.
() (): Prime Minister, media photos of the $5,000 million Northern Australia development fund featured giant monopolists Wilmar and JBS Swift, and Darwin port monopolist Landbridge, describing them as potential beneficiaries. Since setting fund entry at a prohibitive $50 million precludes northern entities, and since water is the north's golden asset, are we northerners also going to see our water taken by downstream foreign corporates whilst cattlemen upstream continue to perish in drought? Prime Minister, is this a market fundamentalist's dream come true—
The member's time has expired.
Mr Katter interjecting—
The Prime Minister will address the questions that were asked within the 30 seconds.
I caught the last part of the honourable member's question, about cattle farmers upstream and foreign purchasers of water downstream. It reminds me of the great wisdom of Mark Twain, who said: 'Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.' As a former minister for water resources, I have found, very often, that there are very difficult to reconcile arguments between users upstream and users downstream. There clearly is more concern from downstream users about diversions upstream, so I am surprised that somebody upstream on a river would be disadvantaged by somebody downstream. Normally, it is the other way around—anyway, maybe water flows uphill up there.
Ms Claydon interjecting—
The member for Newcastle will cease interjecting!
I say to the honourable member that the government has a very deep commitment to the development of the north, as the honourable member knows. The honourable member is right that there are very substantial unexploited or underexploited water resources in the north. There are challenges, of course. Northern Australia—which, of course, is a gigantic piece of real estate—is generally flat. That is one of the challenges for Australia as a continent overall, because we do not have as many natural dam sites as we would like. In very flat country, it is expensive to store water, both from a construction point of view and because of the consequent evaporation.
But I can assure the honourable member that the government is very focused on ensuring that water resources in the north are sustainably exploited. The Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources has an absolute commitment to dams. I think it was Peter Walsh, wasn't it, who said: 'You know when an election is underway—you can feel a dam coming on.' Well, let me tell you: the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources has dams coming on in his mind in every part of the electoral cycle. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that water is exploited—sustainably, of course—to the economic benefit of all Australians and, in particular, where the honourable member comes from in Northern Australia, where there is plenty of opportunity for further exploitation of those vast water resources.
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on what infrastructure projects have been delivered by the coalition government over the past 12 months?
Of course, on Tuesday, I delivered the government's second annual report on progress on the development and implementation of our $50 billion infrastructure program, Building the infrastructure of the 21st century. I think, perhaps, in the spirit of Christmas, let me mention some of the many projects that the government has completed through the year.
In the 12th month before Christmas, the government delivered a $140 million duplication of the Princes Highway east near Traralgon in the Gippsland electorate. In the 11th month before Christmas, we delivered the next stage of the Western Highway in the member for Wannon's electorate. In the 10th month before Christmas, we delivered the $2.1 billion Roads to Recovery Program to local councils. In the ninth month before Christmas, we delivered the $50 million upgrade of the Bruce Highway from Sandy Corner to Collinsons Lagoon in the electorate of the honourable member for Dawson. In the eighth month before Christmas, we delivered $212 million for 51 projects under the National Stronger Regions Fund. In the seventh month before Christmas, with the help of the Brisbane City Council, we delivered the $1.5 billion Legacy Way tunnel project in Brisbane. In the sixth month before Christmas, we delivered safety works on the Moss Vale Road in the electorate of Gilmore—
Mr Conroy interjecting—
The member for Charlton is warned!
to make the road safer in those parts. In the fifth month before Christmas, we delivered the Moree Bypass—sixth months ahead of schedule—in the electorate of Parkes. In the fourth month before Christmas, we delivered the Glenorchy Straight upgrade for the people of Wide Bay. In the third month before Christmas, there was $35 million for drought assistance for projects in outback Queensland and New South Wales. In the second month before Christmas, we delivered stage 1 of the North West Coastal Highway in the electorate of the honourable member for Durack. In the last month before Christmas—in fact, next week—the government will deliver the $170 million upgrade to the Yeppen floodplain in the electorate of Flynn. So those are many examples of the way in which the government is delivering safer motoring for people over the Christmas period, delivering presents, but presents which will deliver for our nation's economy as it grows stronger—
Ms MacTiernan interjecting—
The member for Perth has already been warned.
with better infrastructure, the kind of infrastructure that is needed for the 21st century.
My question is to the Special Minister of State. I refer to the minister's answers and statements in the House concerning his 60 Minutes interview with Liz Hayes. On 30 July 2012 on ABC radio, the minister was asked about the same issue: 'You're comfortable receiving material from someone else's diary?' and the minister responded, 'Absolutely.' Is conduct of this nature consistent with the standards this government applies?
Or were you misquoted?
The member for Sydney will cease interjecting.
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The member for Sydney will cease interjecting. The minister has the call.
For two weeks we have been trawling over the member for Isaacs going through material that has all been in the Federal Court, so let me outline everything for him again. All of the material of any consequence to this matter—Ashby-Slipper—that involves me has been in the Federal Court. It is a matter of public knowledge. And it has been there for a very long time.
Why did the Prime Minister appoint you then?
The member for Ballarat is warned!
Everything that the member for Isaacs has raised today, or in the last two weeks, has been dealt with comprehensively by the Federal Court.
Ms MacTiernan interjecting—
The member for Perth will leave under 94(a).
The member for Perth then left the chamber .
Mr Speaker, I would like to table several paragraphs from the judgement of the Federal Court of 27 February 2014 dealing with my entire involvement. I would encourage the member for Isaacs to review that, to come back to the dispatch box and to point out anywhere at all where the Federal Court has found anything other than that I acted totally appropriately.
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The member for McMahon is warned!
Secondly, let me deal with misleading the House. I can confirm—and I again reconfirm to the House—that I have not misled this House at all this week—
Opposition members interjecting—
or last week, or at any time.
Opposition members interjecting—
Members on my left!
The last two weeks, the last 12 years—where would you like me to go? Despite the best efforts of the member for Isaacs to prosecute this case in this place, this country fortunately has very substantive ways—they are called courts, judicial systems and police forces—who are empowered to do those things. As you know right now, the Australian Federal Police have a wide-ranging investigation into issues of which they have asked me for assistance.
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The member for McMahon has been warned.
I have provided them that assistance. I have said to them, 'At any time in the future, if I can assist in those inquiries I will do so.' So I say to the member for Isaacs: you do not accept the full bench of the Federal Court's findings—and I am pleased to see they are being handed to you now, and I hope you take the time between now and your next question to review them. I would also say to you: pay some respect to the Australian Federal Police, because there are others in this place that sit across this chamber who have had the unfortunate circumstances to have been looked upon, and no-one tried to prosecute the case in here. So I would say: please respect those processes. I remain at the disposal of the Australian Federal Police or any other authority or system as and when they require. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Trade and Investment. I congratulate the minister for overnight winning the prestigious Gold Standard Award for policymaker of the year from PublicAffairsAsia for his outstanding work in delivering free trade agreements for Australia. Will the minister update the House on the progress of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement? What impact will this FTA have on our largest trading partner and on jobs and growth in the years to come?
I thank the member for her question and note that her rural electorate will reap huge benefits from this trade deal with China. To this end, I am pleased to confirm today that entry into force of this historic agreement remains on track to take place before Christmas, with our exporters being able to reap the benefits before the end of the year. Furthermore, entry into force this year will deliver a double whammy, with the first year's tariff cut to take place before the end of this year over the next three weeks and the second year's tariff cut to take place on 1 January 2016. So we are putting Australian exporters at the head of the pack when it comes to securing market access to this lucrative market, and they will get two years of tariff cuts by the end of the first week of January next year. Entry into force this year is expected to save our agricultural sector alone some $300 million—a great outcome for jobs and for growth and for our nation's prosperity and for confidence in the business sector.
The importance of this deal is further confirmed today with the release of new research carried out by the Australia-China Relations Institute in partnership with the National Australia Bank. This is the first ever report comparing attitudes of Australian and Chinese business leaders on bilateral engagement. The research involves more than 1,500 business leaders. The survey found three principal things: 94 per cent of Chinese business leaders are favourable to doing business with Australia, with Australia ranking No. 1 compared to the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Russia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and Canada. Secondly, 76 per cent of Chinese companies cite the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement as playing some role in their decision to increase engagement with Australia. Finally, both Australian and Chinese firms identify manufacturing and wholesale trade as focus points for further engagements.
In other words, there is a great sense of anticipation in both countries. We have a situation in which we are seeing interest across the board, which helps us diversify our economy, our growth prospects and our job prospects outside of the resources and energy sector following the finish of the mining boom. I suggest that these results give the Australian business community, large and small, the confidence to not only seek to capitalise on the trade opportunities but in particular also consider the possibility of establishing a presence in China itself, especially to take advantage of the unbelievable liberalisation of services access for Australian companies and the exclusive access to Australia and no other.
I inform the House that we have present in the gallery this afternoon the former member for Hasluck, Mr Stuart Henry. On behalf of the House I extend a warm welcome.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Special Minister of State. I refer to the minister's answers and statements in the House concerning his 60 Minutes interview with Liz Hayes. On 20 July 2012 on ABC Radio the minister was asked about the same issue, 'You're comfortable receiving material from someone else's diary?' and the minister responded, 'Absolutely.' Is it consistent with the standards of this government to receive material from the diary of the Speaker without authority?
Mr Bowen interjecting—
I remind the member for McMahon that he has been warned.
As the member for Isaacs knows, and as is a matter of fact in the court, there was a text sent to me purporting to be diary notes, which subsequently have been seen to be such. I will confirm for the House—again—that I have never received any other form of documentation that was sent to me and that was sent to me unsolicited, as has been shown in the documents. I would say to the member for Isaacs that you have no intention of allowing the appropriate authorities to make their inquiries and to come to their conclusions. You, the member for Isaacs, feel that it is your duty to do it here today for your own political purposes, not because you have any interest in the judicial process.
Mr Mitchell interjecting—
The member for McEwen!
You have no interest, member for Isaacs, in due process.
Mr Bowen interjecting—
The member for McMahon!
If you did, you would acknowledge that those statements of fact have not been in dispute at all, despite your best efforts over the last two sitting weeks of this period.
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the minister update the House on how the coalition government has backed farmers, agriculture and rural and regional Australia more broadly over the course of 2015? How has this support delivered on the coalition's commitment to restore agriculture as a fundamental pillar of the Australian economy?
Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—
The member for Hunter will cease interjecting.
I thank the honourable member for his question. He is from a family that has had a strong and continued involvement in politics. His brother is one of the local mayors. His wife, Robyn, is an absolute tower of strength and support of the local member. His son is a rather capable advisor too, I might add. But the member for Parkes asked the question of what we have done in agriculture, and I am proud to report to the member the wonderful work this coalition government has done in agriculture, including the $4 billion agricultural competitiveness white paper that was launched in July—a pathway not only for this government but for governments in the future—one that took into account over 1,000 submissions and made sure that we were dealing with issues and through which such things as the 100 per cent write-off on fencing, the 100 per cent write-off on water reticulation and a write-off over three years for fodder storage have already been delivered. These are all terribly important.
We have also managed to get water back into agriculture, and with water resources and agriculture tied together we now have the capacity for that unity of purpose as we drive forward for better delivery in such things as dams. To that purpose, we have $½ billion in the kitty to start that process of building new dams, because we are a nation that believes in dams. We are a nation that believes our best days are ahead of us. We are the sort of people who are excited about water infrastructure, and we believe that we have the competence to do it.
We can also report that we delivered on the three free trade agreements, and I acknowledge the wonderful work done by the Minister for Trade. But it is not just that. It is also the live animal destinations, opening up markets to Egypt, to Bahrain, to Lebanon and to Iran—the protocols to Iran after four decades—and to Cambodia, to Thailand and in China. We are already moving product into China as we speak. It might also be the $379 million we have spent on a post-entry quarantine facility in Melbourne. It is also very important to clearly understand that this is a government that has seen the greatest turnaround in soft commodity prices in the history of our nation. We now have record cattle prices. We have had record sheepmeat prices. We have had a turnaround in the broader wool market, and I think cotton is getting $517 a bale for next year. We are a nation because of our research and development, which has the highest yielding cottons in the world. And here comes a man who never has much to say!
Mr Speaker, a point of order: Reps Practice is writ large—
You must state the point of order.
I am entitled to make reference to Reps Practice.
The member for Hunter will state his point of order or he is going to resume his seat.
Then I will take it on relevance; I think that is appropriate.
On relevance? There is no point of order. The minister has the call.
You cannot rule that—
Yes, I can. I refer you to page 189 of Practice. You should have a good read of it. The member for Hunter will resume his seat, and I will address his point. I have made clear many times in the House that I can rule on a point of order at any point once it has been stated. If you look at Reps Practice, there are many precedents where previous Speakers, including Speaker Jenkins, did not even allow a point of order and ruled that way immediately. It is on page 189. I suggest you have a read of it. There is no point of order. The minister has the call.
Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—
The member for Hunter is warned.
Also, I know that in the west of the member's electorate they have been doing it tough with drought, and that is why more than 5,500 people have had access to claims for Farm Household Allowance to deliver real cash benefits back to them, and over $400 million has been lent out in concessional loans. This is a government that has taken agriculture back to the centre. We are a government with vision, and we are delivering.
My question is to the Special Minister of State. I refer to the minister's previous answer. How can the diary have been unsolicited when the minister asked James Ashby, by SMS, for a clearer copy, in these words: 'Can that be emailed James it is hard to read Mal.brough2@bigpond.com'?
The honourable member continues to try to prosecute a case here.
They're your words!
The member for Moreton will leave under 94(a).
The member for Moreton then left the chamber—
Why don't you take a cold shower, wait and allow the judicial system and the legal system to take its course.
Ms Burke interjecting—
The member for Chisholm is warned!
Or is it the fact that the member for Isaacs knows full well what the outcome of that will be and so he wishes to prosecute it today for his own pathetic political purposes?
My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister advise the House what the Australian government is doing to help Australians travelling overseas during the Christmas period stay safe?
I thank the member for Bonner for his very timely question. As we head into the holiday season, we are reminded that Australians are travelling overseas more than ever. There are nearly 13 million Australian passports, and there will be an estimated 10 million overseas trips by Australians this year alone. Christmas is the peak season for overseas travel, and, while the vast majority of Australians' overseas trips will be uneventful, a significant number will experience difficulty. In 2014-15 the government assisted nearly 16,000 Australians who found themselves in trouble overseas. This could range from a lost passport to vastly more serious issues—1,200 Australians were arrested, 1,500 were hospitalised and there were 1,300 deaths while Australians were overseas. There are Australians facing lengthy sentences in foreign jails; there are Australians facing huge medical bills because they had no cover. Some cases have bankrupted whole families.
The government provides extensive consular assistance, although there are limits to the assistance we can provide. Our consular staff are magnificent but the government cannot get Australians out of jail, we cannot intervene in the court proceedings of another country and we do not pay hospital bills, let alone hotel bills. To raise awareness of these issues I urge Australians to become familiar with the government's smartraveller website, smartraveller.com.au—smartraveller with one 't'. This reminds Australians to be informed and be prepared. Register your travel on the smartraveller website or app. When the terrorist attacks were under way in Paris in November, my first thought was for Australians—how many Australians were likely to be in Paris on a Friday night in cafes or theatres. As it turned out, only 2,500 had registered their presence, and there were vastly more there. Our consular staff were combing through hospitals and emergency stations and police stations to locate any Australians. So register, read the travel advisories on the smartraveller website, always obey local laws, do not carry, use or get involved in drugs, ever, and take out the right travel insurance—if you cannot afford travel insurance, you really cannot afford to travel. I know of so many heartbreaking cases where people have faced huge medical bills because they have had no or inappropriate travel insurance.
Travelling overseas is exciting, it can be rewarding, but the unexpected can happen. Some preparation can greatly lessen the impact of adverse events. So to all Australians travelling overseas this Christmas, I wish you a very happy and safe journey—but, please, do register your travel on smartraveller.gov.au.
My question is to the Special Minister of State. I refer to his previous answers about the Federal Court decisions. How can the minister claim that the Federal Court exonerated him when the full Federal Court found on 9 February 2015 about the Ashby proceeding:
There had not then been a trial of all issues. The relevant evidence had not been given, and the reliability of the witnesses had not been exposed to testing by cross-examination. In the event … that will not occur because Ashby has discontinued his proceeding.
Minister, when you claim to be exonerated, aren't you misleading the House yet again?
This is a desperate opposition. This Leader of the Opposition leads a pack who are now referring to a civil matter that I have no involvement in.
Opposition members interjecting—
You show your ignorance. This is the document relating to the appeal between Ashby and Slipper.
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The member for Grayndler!
The honourable member just referred to 2015. I just told you—
Mr Albanese interjecting—
The member for Grayndler will cease interjecting.
You people are so ignorant of the facts, and that is why you say what you do. This is the 27 February 2014 judgement. I will quote it again for the benefit of the House:
There is no evidence that Brough offered to assist either Ashby or Doane to find new careers. That Brough was prepared to consider allegations of misuse of travel entitlements in relation to Slipper and to look at evidence produced by Ashby which might support these allegations does not necessarily mean that his purpose was to harm Slipper politically.
I can go on:
Brough referred Ashby to Russell QC to give informal advice to Ashby. Russell QC’s advice was temperate and cautious. The recital of his evidence includes that he made it clear that the LNP would not help Ashby, or give him or Doane any assurances of later employment.
It goes on and on. No matter how much the member for Isaacs tries to paint a picture that does not exist—
What about the Federal Court?
The member for Grayndler is warned.
The Federal Court found in full in regard to this matter, with a full bench. I know that pains the member for Grayndler, and I am sorry for him. In relation to the matters before the AFP, surely as a QC the member for Isaacs has enough decency to respect the processes. What is it that you are so afraid of?
Ms Owens interjecting—
The member for Parramatta is warned!.
You wish to prosecute this case for political purposes—you are not interested in the substantive processes of our country and respecting them.
Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table paragraph 46 of the decision of the full Federal Court—the same judges in Ashby and Slipper No. 3, 9 February 2015, that made the earlier decision.
The member for Isaacs has made his point. Is leave granted?
Leave not granted.
My question is to the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science. On innovation, I would like to commend the Speaker on his support of the employee share ownership schemes earlier this year and in recently hosting some innovative technology entrepreneurs in Parliament House with both sides of parliament. Onto the question: can the minister explain to the House how the government's innovation policy will help facilitate more jobs and growth to help companies in the automotive aftermarket sector around Australia, including in my seat of Hindmarsh?
I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question. I know that he, like most members of this House, is very interested in the advanced manufacturing sector, the potential in the automotive industry to grow manufacturing and the fact that the automotive sector is actually growing in terms of the aftermarket sector. Since the global financial crisis, in fact, it has increased quite dramatically; it now employs 21,000 people directly and exports $800 million of locally manufactured products. So the aftermarkets part of the automotive sector is growing and doing very well.
In his own electorate of Hindmarsh is a business called Milford Industries, which some people would know because it is associated with a cargo-barrier product which is in many four-wheel drives and other vehicles in Australia. Milford Industries is an industry leader in this particular area. It has grown and exports and employs Australians. There is great potential in the automotive sector, for the aftermarkets part of it, in terms of jobs and in terms of growth. In fact, the aftermarket sector represents 36 per cent of all automotive manufacturing in Australia—it is a very substantial part of it. It generates $5.2 billion per annum. So there is good news in the automotive sector and in advanced manufacturing for business like Milford Industries.
The innovation and science agenda that we will be announcing next week is designed to turbocharge that particular part of the advanced manufacturing automotive sector. It will give tremendous chances for innovation and for the use of research and collaboration with universities to grow jobs and to grow the economy in areas like high tech and advanced manufacturing. As every business person in the automotive sector knows, the capacity to increase jobs has improved and the capacity to increase profits has improved through the use of innovation to change their processes, to change their management styles, and to create new products and new services—and that is exactly what the aftermarket part of the automotive industry has done over the last few years. As it became apparent that businesses like Ford and Toyota and Holden were not going to continue to build cars in Australia, many of those kinds of businesses took advantage of things like the Automotive Diversification Program and the growth fund that services South Australian and Victoria to find new supply chains, to open new export markets overseas in order to create their profits. That has been working. There are lots of good-news stories in the automotive sector. For example, Ford, when they close down their car-manufacturing business will leave 1,100 workers behind in Victoria who will be working on design and technology. (Time expired)
My question is to the Special Minister of State. I refer to the fact that James Ashby signed a statutory declaration confirming that everything he said in his 60 Minutes interview was true. How, then, does the minister reconcile his statements to the House with this exchange on 60 Minutes, where Hayes says to Ashby:
He's asking you to be deceptive? To hand over information that isn't Mal Brough's?
And Ashby responds:
I must admit I was more than willing to assist Mal with the information that he was seeking.
Why is the minister continuing to mislead the House?
Once again, the question is referring to the minister's previous answers, but it is seeking to introduce new material, and I think that takes it outside the standing orders. I will hear the member for Watson. I am trying to listen very carefully to the questions and the answers, as I have said.
On a point of order, I put to you, Mr Speaker, that earlier, when you ruled out additional information, you were ruling out additional information that was coming from other sources to what the minister had referred to in his answers. This is from the same 60 Minutes program—the exact same program and not another article from somewhere else. It is the same program that the minister has referred to and this goes to the exact same issue as the Liz Hayes question.
On the point of order, I hear the member for Watson and his remarks. The point is that the minister has commented on the 60 Minutes program, but he is now being asked a question by the member for Isaacs about the remarks of Mr Ashby on the 60 Minutes program, about which the minister has not commented. Yet again the opposition are trying to extend and extend the boundaries of what they are trying to get up in question time. He has commented on the 60 Minutes program, so he can be commenting about what he has said, but he has never mentioned Mr Ashby's remarks on the 60 Minutes program.
Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—
The member for Gorton will cease interjecting. I am going to allow member for Isaacs to rephrase the question that covers the substance of the minister's previous answers. He cannot be expected to deal with new information that he has not commented on in answer to questions. I give the member for Isaacs an opportunity to rephrase; he can do it now or I can move on to the next question.
My question is to the Special Minister of State. I refer to the questioning between Liz Hayes and James Ashby on the 60 Minutes program, to which the minister has referred, in particular Liz Hayes saying:
He's asking you to be deceptive? To hand over information that isn't Mal Brough's?
Mr Ashby's answer was:
I must admit I was more than willing to assist Mal with the information that he was seeking.
How is that answer in the same program consistent with what the minister has told this House repeatedly?
I will allow the minister to address the question in the way he sees fit.
Thanks again, Mr Speaker. Again, the member for Isaacs continues to try and prosecute a case of innuendo and press release and media commentary. What the Australian Federal Police are looking at is the law, and the law seeks to answer the question: did anyone procure or counsel another person and then pass information on to a third person? That is what they will seek to answer. I have said categorically: I did not procure, counsel or pass any information to any third party in relation to this matter.
My question is to the Minister for Territories, Local Government and Major Projects, representing the Minister for Communications. Minister, reliable communications are essential for the education, productivity and safety of rural and regional communities. Will the minister update the House on what the government is doing to improve telecommunications reception in my electorate of Durack?
I thank the member for Durack for that very important question. Indeed, I am very pleased to update the House on these important matters—matters which are properly pursued by a member who is assiduous and vigorous in representing her constituents in the enormous, 1.6 million square kilometre electorate of Durack, where the needs in relation to regional and remote communications are very distinctive. You could not find an electorate which is more remote from the inner-city latte land of the Greens and Labor than Durack. It is the coalition which can be relied upon to meet the communications needs of electorates like Durack, and it is the coalition, represented by Melissa Price as the member for Durack, which is being a vigorous advocate for those communications needs.
Let us look at the fixed wireless network which is in the course of being delivered in the electorate of Durack. Already, 2,300 premises can order services today. There will be another 500 services—
Mr Mitchell interjecting—
Member for McEwen, that is your final warning!
over the next six months which can be ordered. Already it is possible in Cape Burney, Moonyoonooka, Moora town and Moresby Range—and soon it will be possible in Nungarin, Ballidu and a whole range of other locations—to order a fixed wireless service to meet the communications needs of the electorate and the constituents of Durack.
The satellite service will be available from mid-2016, so people in the remote areas of that 1.6 million square kilometres will have 25 megabits per second down, five megabits per second up. This is an extraordinarily high-quality service, and that will be available by mid-2016. In the city of Geraldton, some 16,500 premises are now able to receive a service.
Let me turn to the Mobile Black Spot Program. Under the Mobile Black Spot Program, the member for Durack succeeded in securing—
Mr Mitchell interjecting—
Member for McEwen!
some 45 base stations where there will be mobile coverage. Labor spent not one dollar on delivering new mobile services in regional and remote Australia.
The coalition is delivering when it comes to the NBN fixed wireless. There were a mere 39,000 premises covered when we came to government; now there are 310,000. We are delivering in Durack with the National Broadband Network. We are delivering around the country with the National Broadband Network, and the advocacy of members like the member for Durack is critical to that delivery.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the answers and statements that the Special Minister of State has given in parliament over the past two weeks. Today's Sydney Morning Herald reports that a senior government minister has said that the Special Minister of State's position 'has become unviable'. When even the Prime Minister's cabinet colleagues recognise the Special Minister of State's position is unviable, why won't the Prime Minister sack the Special Minister of State?
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question.
Mr Conroy interjecting—
Member for Charlton, this is your final warning!
As he was getting up to ask the question, getting his papers together, I thought for one happy moment we were going to get a question about the Paris climate change conference. He has just been there. He has been to Paris. He has flown over there and back. He has announced a 45 per cent target. You would think he would ask about—
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: given the gravity of the issue, I ask that the direct relevance rule be strictly enforced.
The Prime Minister has the call and will bring himself to the question.
I would just say with respect to the member for Watson that his stern demeanour is as convincing as the member for Isaacs' indignation.
There are so many other issues that we could be discussing here on the last day of sittings, and yet we have had dozens and dozens and dozens of questions addressed to the Special Minister of State. Honourable members opposite know full well that the Australian Federal Police are making inquiries into this matter. They understand—
Ms O'Neil interjecting—
The member for Hotham is warned!
how the justice system works. The member for Isaacs seeks to charge, try and convict the Special Minister of State right here in the parliament, as though guilt were determined only by public denunciation. He knows better than most and the Leader of the Opposition knows better than most that, simply because somebody is being accused of something or being investigated, that does not mean that they are guilty of whatever is being looked into. They understand that there is a process of law that has to go through, and you would think that the member for Isaacs and his leader would be wise enough to say, 'Well, the police are looking at that; let's see what they find, let's see if they charge somebody, let's see what comes out of their investigations.'
Ms Owens interjecting—
The member for Parramatta is warned!
But instead they want to pursue this by one allegation after another. Members of the Labor Party have been accusing the Special Minister of State of committing a crime, not just under parliamentary privilege but on the radio this morning.
Ms Rowland interjecting—
The member for Greenway is warned!
Mr Mitchell interjecting—
Member for McEwen, this is your final interjection.
This is no way to respect the criminal justice system. There is a process of investigation which may or may not result in charges being laid with the consequences that follow.
Ms Plibersek interjecting—
The member for Sydney will cease interjecting.
There are so many other issues. I will return to issue of the Paris climate change conference. The Leader of the Opposition travelled to Paris to look into climate change—I do not know whether it was at public expense or not—and he has come back and does have not one question about that great challenge.
My question is to the Minister for Health. I was pleased when the Nepean Blue Mountains PHN was chosen as the first Australian trial site for the all-inclusive creation of My Health Records with an opt-out option available. This will give doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare providers instant access to the information needed to treat patients safely and efficiently and possibly save lives. Minister, could you please advise my constituents in the Hawkesbury in the Blue Mountains when this trial will commence?
Just before I call the Minister for Health, I point out again to those asking constituency questions that I am keeping a tally. I can see the member for Bennelong's disappointment, but he has already asked two questions, so I will get to him later.
Thank you to the member for Macquarie for her question. I was very pleased to announce in October that the Nepean Blue Mountains Primary Health Network, which is jointly under the custodianship of the member for Macquarie and the member of Lindsay, is going to be part of the government's trial of the personally controlled electronic health record—Labor's name—which has transferred to us as My Health Record. This is an important example of this government harnessing digital innovation and cleaning up Labor's mess. They designed and spent millions on an electronic health record that made no sense at all because it was opt in. We have changed it to an opt-out system.
We are conducting two trials: the one I mentioned and the one in the electorate of Leichhardt. I know that, after this, we will be able to trial something that is a key microeconomic reform in Australia today, and that is e-health. This is not just turning a paper record into an e-health record. My Health Record is transformative. It will, indeed, result in better services for patients and a better understanding of the transition between the primary care that you receive and the hospital care that you sometimes go in and out of. Imagine someone turning up in emergency, clutching a fistful of documents: diagnostic imaging, pathology records and letters from their GP et cetera. Pharmacists, specialists, doctors and even allied health professionals—very important in the overall clinical care of a person—will be able to add those clinical records to a person's e-health record.
Beyond this My Health Record, there is no doubt that the harnessing of digital innovation and consumer engagement is a key new frontier for digital health care in Australia. We know that the internet of things is moving the value proposition into applications and services away from connections and devices. There are real, key opportunities for consumers to inform providers of the data on their own health, which can make a real difference to them and their lives. Thank you to members on this side who have strongly supported My Health Record. I know that it will really develop into a key health tool and a key innovative tool in the future.
():
I seek leave to move:
That the House has no confidence in the Special Minister of State and Minister for Defence Materiel and Science.
Leave not granted.
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Maribyrnong from moving the following motion forthwith:
That the House has no confidence in the Special Minister of State and Minister for Defence Material and Science.
If the Prime Minister will not act, the parliament must. We heard an answer from the Prime Minister, who loftily dismissed these issues and said that nothing has changed in the last two years or since this issue was first raised. Oh, yes it has, Prime Minister. In the last two weeks, we have seen the Special Minister of State mislead the parliament. We did not ask the Special Minister of State to go on 60 Minutes and make the statements that he did to Liz Hayes, the journalist, on 60 Minutes. We did not ask that. That was entirely a conscious decision by the Special Minister of State. We did not ask this current Special Minister of State to come into this House and to propose—
I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
Opposition members interjecting—
The members on my left will cease interjecting. I remind those who have been warned. The motion moved by the Leader of the House is that the Leader of the Opposition be no further heard.
Is the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition seconded?
I second the motion. This minister has misled the House five times, two of them in the last hour.
I move:
That the member be no longer heard.
The question is that the member for Isaacs be no longer heard.
The question now is that the motion be agreed to. The member for Watson.
This is the last chance for someone to defend the minister from that side—
The member for Watson will resume his seat. The Leader of the House.
I move:
That the motion be put.
The question is that the motion be put.
The question now is that the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition be agreed to.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
For the information of honourable members, I present a schedule of outstanding responses to reports of the House of Representatives and joint committees, incorporating reports tabled and details of government responses made in the period between 25 June 2015, the date of the last schedule, 2 December 2015. Copies of the schedule have been made available to honourable members and will be incorporated in Hansard.
The schedule 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
25 June 2015, the date of the last schedule, and 2 December 2015)
3 December 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 25 June 2015. 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.
3 December 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 The committee still awaits a response to this report.
5 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. The committee still awaits a response to this report.
6 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. The committee still awaits a response to this report.
7 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. The committee still awaits a response to this report.
8 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. The committee still awaits a response to this report.
9 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.
10 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. The committee still awaits a response to this report.
11 On 1 July 2015 the Government provided a response to Chapters 2 and 3 of this report. The Government has advised that the response to Chapter 4 was given effect to in the National Security Legislation Amendment Act (No. 1) 2014. The response to Chapter 5 was given effect to in the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Act 2015.
12 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. The committee still awaits a response to this report.
13 This Report contained a series of recommendations directed at multiple Agencies. The Committee has received responses to some recommendations.
14 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 Auditor-General's Audit reports for 2015-16, Performance audits:
No. 11—Indigenous Home Ownership Program: Indigenous Business Australia.
No. 12—Administration of the Child Dental Benefits Schedule: Department of Health; Department of Human Services.
Ordered that the reports be made 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.
by leave—I move:
That standing order 31 (automatic adjournment of the House) and standing order 33 (limit on business after normal time of adjournment) be suspended for this sitting.
I am sure members would like to know the plan for the last day of sitting. I regret to tell the House that the opposition in the Senate is filibustering on the multinational tax bill. As a consequence, the expectation I had that we would be able to leave at the normal time will not be realised. My proposition—and I have discussed it with the Manager of Opposition Business—is to suspend the House at five o'clock after he and I have given our valedictory speeches for the end of the year. Then we will resume the sitting of the House at the ringing of the bells. My expectation would be—and I make the offer to the House—than we will not ring the bells before 8.30 pm. So it will not be any earlier than 8.30, which means that people can, between five o'clock and 8.30, have a meal or do whatever they feel like doing, knowing there will be no divisions. After 8.30, as soon as the bills return from the Senate with amendments, we will ring the bells and deal with those. The general consensus on my side of the House is that people would rather sit late tonight than sit tomorrow, but if that situation changes I will return to the House, having spoken to the Manager of Opposition Business. That is my expectation—to suspend the House at five o'clock and resume at the ringing of the bells, not before half past eight.
Question agreed to.
Mr Speaker, I wish to raise a matter of privilege under standing order 51. I would ask you to examine the statements of the Special Minister of State in relation to his involvement in matters concerning James Ashby and the former Speaker Peter Slipper. To assist you in considering this matter, I provide you with the following material: the Hansards of the minister's answers in question time in the House of Representatives from 23 November to 2 December 2015; the Hansard of the minister's statement on indulgence to the House of Representatives on 2 December 2015; and tweets by the Executive Producer of 60 Minutes which include transcripts of an interview between journalist Liz Hayes and the minister for 60 Minutes on Channel 9.
I also request that you examine any statements made or answers given by the minister to the House of Representatives today, the 60 Minutes television program broadcast on Channel 9 on 7 September 2014 and a story by journalist Laurie Oakes broadcast on Channel 9 television news on 1 December 2015 in which an excerpt of the original version of the 60 Minutes interview was played. Specifically, I ask you to consider the interaction between the minister's admission on 60 Minutes that he had asked James Ashby to procure copies of the former Speaker's diary for him, the minister's answer during question time on 1 December 2015 in relation to the 60 Minutes interview that what was put to air was not the full question, the minister's statement on indulgence in the House on 2 December 2015 and the minister's denial in question time on 2 December 2015 that he had asked James Ashby to procure copies of the former Speaker's diary for him.
In light of the contradictory nature of these statements and given the minister's particular responsibility for matters affecting the standards of integrity for members of parliament, I ask you to consider giving precedence to a motion to refer to the Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests whether the minister's statements in the House from 23 November to 3 December 2015 have deliberately misled the House such as to constitute an offence of an improper interference with the free exercise of the House of its authority or functions.
I thank the member for Watson. I will carefully consider the matter he has raised and all of the material he has provided as well. I will report back to the House at the earliest opportunity but, given the volume of the material, it clearly will not be today.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Isaacs proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
“The need for the Government to maintain standards of integrity”.
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—
Why is the Prime Minister still defending this discredited minister? He has let this go on for far too long. It is not just about the member for Fisher anymore; it is about the Prime Minister. It is about the integrity of his entire government. How can anyone trust this Prime Minister's judgement while the member for Fisher remains a member of this Liberal government? It is now beyond clear that he should have been dismissed from the ministry.
The Special Minister of State and the Prime Minister must take us all for mugs. They must take the Australian people for mugs if they think they can weasel their way out of the scandal that is engulfing the Special Minister of State, the member for Fisher. They seem to think that if they can just make it through these last two weeks of parliament—if they can hold on, white knuckled, through these last question times—then it will all go away. They seem to think that if they can make it to the summer recess, we will all forget that this minister was raided by the Federal Police. Just think about this: this is a Commonwealth minister who was raided by the Federal Police and is under investigation for the suspected commission of serious criminal offences.
They seem to think that we will forget the disgraceful way in which the member for Fisher sought to defend himself in this place when this came to light, the way that he has dissembled, the way that he has blamed everybody but himself—the way, shamefully, that he has misled this parliament not once, not twice, but five times. I bet the Prime Minister wishes we would all just forget that he had ever appointed the member for Fisher to the ministry. Well, that is not going to happen. We are not going to forget. We are not going to forget this week and we are not going to forget over the summer. We are not going to forget, because this scandal is not just about the member for Fisher; it is about this Prime Minister. It is no longer just about the member for Fisher; it is about the type of leader this Prime Minister is; it is about the type of government that he runs; it is about his integrity.
Let's remember what the member for Fisher has done. In 2014, in an interview on 60 Minutes, journalist Liz Hayes of Channel 9 asked him, 'Did you ask James Ashby to procure copies of Peter Slipper's diary for you', and the member for Fisher said, 'Yes I did.' Think about that. It was an admission that has been corroborated by Mr James Ashby, who was quoted this week in The Australian as saying:
I met with Mal—
That is, Mr Brough—
and he said at one stage that he was interested in Slipper’s use of taxpayer entitlements and about a few trips he had taken to New Zealand and I said I had a copy of his diary and would check it out.
Ashby went on:
So I went home and pulled the copy of the diary out of my cupboard, took some pictures of the relevant dates and sent them to Mal.
That is, the member for Fisher—
He couldn’t read them and texted me and asked if I could send them again…
We have seen these text messages. They are publicly available. Not surprisingly, the authorities took an interest in the member for Fisher's admission. They decided to investigate whether he had committed a criminal offence.
On 17 November, after he had been appointed to the ministry—this is one of the new matters—the Australian Federal Police raided the home of the member for Fisher in the execution of a search warrant. A copy of the AFP warrant published by The Australian sets out the criminal charges being considered against the member for Fisher, and these are serious matters indeed. It is alleged in that search warrant that the member for Fisher counselled and procured a member of the former Speaker's staff to take parts of the former Speaker's diary. It would be a serious criminal offence: it carries a maximum sentence of over two years jail.
Over the last two weeks I have asked the member for Fisher a series of simple questions about his involvement in the grubby Ashby affair, questions about how it is that, as a government minister, he came to be raided by the Australian Federal Police and about the standards of integrity that this government holds itself to, which—and this is the incredible thing—as Special Minister of State, the member for Fisher himself is responsible for maintaining. These are simple questions, and the member for Fisher owes it to this House and owes it to the Australian people to give a full and frank explanation for his conduct. He ought to be able to explain why he should be permitted to continue as a minister, especially given that he is the minister responsible for government integrity. He ought to be able to explain what disclosure, if any, he made to the new Prime Minister before he was appointed to the ministry. But he is not up to that, is he?
The Special Minister of State is not even up to the most basic standards of integrity owed by a minister in the Commonwealth government, the most basic of his obligations of candour and honesty in this House and the most basic of his obligations to explain himself to the Australian people. No—the member for Fisher has writhed, slipped and slithered around, inventing excuse after excuse. He would say anything—do anything—to get back into this parliament. He wanted to destroy his rival, the former member for Fisher, by any means possible—whatever it takes. He would say anything—do anything—to get back into the ministry. This minister loves a good plot. He was up to his eyeballs in the plot to take down the member for Warringah as Prime Minister of Australia.
Now it is clear that he will say anything—do anything—to stay in his job. He refuses to answer questions in this place. He shows contempt for this parliament and contempt for the people we represent in this parliament. He tries to blame others for his own misfortune. Wildly clutching at straws, he claimed he had been fitted up by Channel 9—an incredible allegation, and an allegation that was quickly proven to be untrue. He will even go so far as to mislead this parliament not once, not twice—but, after today, this minister has misled the parliament five times.
In all of this he has failed to meet the standards this Prime Minister says that he expects of his ministers. In this Prime Minister's Statement of Ministerial Standards, he has said that when there is a prima facie case of wrongdoing a minister must stand aside until any investigation is complete—that is, when there is a real case, when there is an obvious case, not a concluded case, the minister must stand aside. You do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out the case against the member for Fisher. He went on national television and admitted what he had done. The police were tipped off because, apparently, the suspect went on TV and bragged about it! If that is not a prima face case, I do not know what is.
We all know what the Prime Minister says he thinks about ministers who mislead this parliament, as the member for Fisher has done five times to date this week.
An opposition member: Sounds like prima facie to me.
Sounds like prima facie.
When the Prime Minister was opposition leader, in June 2009—and members may remember this event—he used to pontificate about this matter. I am referring to utegate. I am referring to this Prime Minister, when he was the opposition leader, putting his trust in Godwin Grech. On that occasion in June 2009, this Prime Minister said about misleading the House:
That is an offence that should result in the dismissal or resignation of a minister. It is perfectly clear.
Well, that was then, for this Prime Minister, and this is now. Because now applying that standard could cost the Prime Minister something. Now the Prime Minister would have to sack one of his own numbers men, and now the Prime Minister would have to admit that his appointment of this minister was an error of judgement from the very beginning—from the day that he was appointed. Now, apparently, this Prime Minister is a whole lot more flexible about standards of integrity. That is why I say that this no longer just about the member for Fisher.
In his handling of this matter, the Prime Minister has shown his true colours. He has shown us what type of leader he is. He has shown us the type of people that he considers fit for public office. That is something that no-one is going to forget over the summer. We are not going to forget the charade. We are not going to forget the ducking and weaving from the member for Fisher over the course of the last two weeks. In particular, we are not going to forget the way in which no-one on the government side has been prepared to defend the member for Fisher. We are not going to forget that this Prime Minister has refused to dismiss the member for Fisher when it is crystal clear by the standards set in this Prime Minister's own Statement of ministerial standardsthat the member for Fisher has to go. The Prime Minister is failing the people of Australia.
Honourable members interjecting—
Indeed, a Nat. I refer to Louis Dreyfus, a grain merchant and part-owner of Newcastle Agri Terminal or NAT, who supplied the wheat for the largest grain train ever in Australia. It is a 1.3-kilometre long grain train. Louis Dreyfus supplied that wheat, sourced from Moree and Narrabri, with the mother lode being consolidated at Narrabri before being hauled into port by Southern Shorthaul Rail’s locomotives. That came from the electorate of Parkes. I talk about Mr Dreyfus and I talk about NAT because that speaks to the integrity of our government. Our government is delivering integrity—integrity in infrastructure and integrity in what we do.
Labor is looking for anything at all to discuss, other than policies, because Labor has no policies. Labor came to the parliament and we heard the member for Maribyrnong, the Leader of the Opposition, talk about the year of big ideas. Those opposite have hardly had a single idea. In fact, it could be Labor's year of no ideas or at least Labor's year of no good ideas. The Liberal-Nationals government have many, many good ideas, including investing in rail infrastructure and investing in agriculture, such that we are getting a grain to port train to help Mr Dreyfus's company, NAT. What a good acronym! I could not think of one that would be any better myself. Labor is looking for a distraction, and any distraction will do. It is reverting to its usual negativity, which is its modus operandi—anything to distract from 'Mr 15 per cent' and anything to distract from their poor performance in the opinion polls.
I am not a big believer in opinion polls. I believe that there is one opinion poll that should be followed and that is the ballot box. When you have an opposition leader whose rating as preferred Prime Minister is down to 15 per cent, it does not bother me. As I said, I do not give too much countenance to opinion polls, but it is worrying those opposite big-time. It is really disturbing them. If anybody is being thought about over the summer period, it will be the member for Maribyrnong. He will be sweating nervously not just because of the Boxing Day test and how Australia will go; he will be very, very nervous about his position, because he has many members breathing down his neck.
The coalition government will not bogged down in Labor's rather petty political games, and it is all rather pathetic. We are delivering on all fronts: from the Federation, the taxation and the agricultural white papers to record investments—$50 billion—in infrastructure, including the sorts of rail infrastructure that I talked about earlier. We are delivering. We are building our nation. We are harnessing creativity. We are fostering innovation. We are investing in our future, in our children's future and in our grandchildren's future. We are facilitating economic transition. We are seizing the day. We hear the Prime Minister talk about the fact that there has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian. I would add to that and say that there has never been a more exciting time to be a regional Australian. We are securing our country.
Opposition members interjecting—
I can hear a wall of noise from those opposite; they should know that we are securing our nation, because securing our borders is something that they failed dismally at. They failed absolutely. They were hopeless at securing our borders. There were 55,000 unauthorised arrivals. We only had four in detention centres when Kevin Rudd, the then member for Griffith, took over government. When we acquired government, it was 55,000. Labor put more money into detention centre beds than they put into hospital beds. Shame on them!
Moving on, we are looking after those in need; we truly are. We are building business confidence. When I go around my electorate and I talk in places such as Wagga Wagga, Temora, West Wyalong and Griffith, there is a sense of optimism in the air. There is a buoyancy about business people. People are willing to spend; they are willing to buy up for Christmas. That is good, and it is because of the policy positions that we have put into place. There is a good sense of confidence in the economy, and we need that. The retail sector absolutely needs that leading up to Christmas time.
We are much more positive than those opposite. We have a plan; there is no plan from those opposite. We are delivering; they never delivered. They had six years to do so, but they never ever delivered when they were in government, save for delivering a huge budget deficit of $124 billion, and it would have been $667 billion had it gone unchecked. I talked about our $50 billion investment in infrastructure—in roads, rail, bridges, airports and ports—which is so vitally needed. That infrastructure was neglected by those opposite, for those six sorry years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments.
On Monday, the second round of the National Stronger Regions Fund, a fund which is going to deliver $1 billion over five years, will be announced. I am looking forward to telling my colleagues and even those opposite about the wonderful programs and projects that are going to be delivered in their electorates. They are a good thing. The Stronger Communities Program will deliver $150,000 of funding per electorate—a program initiated from an idea by the member for Parkes, my good friend Mark Coulton. In my portfolio area, I am also responsible for the Community Development Grants Program. Again, this is a really good initiative which is getting on with the job of building those projects and funding those programs that are so vitally needed.
In the National Highway Upgrade Program, $228.7 million is going into vital infrastructure. We getting on with building the infrastructure for the beef roads in Northern Australia, which are really valuable roads, proving that we have integrity as a government and that we are doing the sorts of things that people expect us to do. The Black Spot program is another important roads program. As the minister responsible for road safety, I went to the global road safety conference in Brazil a couple of short weeks ago. Australia is a world leader in road safety, but we can always do more. The road toll is always too high, and one death on the road is one death too many—we all know that—but Australia is a world leader in road safety initiatives.
We have committed $300 million to the Bridges Renewal Program. People are very, very pleased in my electorate about it—and everything is about local. Everything that we talk about in the federal parliament is about local, because that is who we represent. We represent people who send us here to bring about a better life for their local electorates. I was very pleased to take part in a sod-turning exercise at Carrathool Bridge. I compliment Margaret Merrylees for her tireless advocacy for that. Just last week, I stood alongside the member for Cootamundra, Katrina Hodgkinson, and the roads minister in New South Wales, Duncan Gay, to open the Gobarralong Bridge, which was flooded to the point of disrepair in March 2012. It was funded under the New South Wales coalition government, partnered with the federal coalition government. It is a good bridge and Gundagai shire is a good shire; they are good people and they needed that bridge.
We have the Heavy Vehicle Safety and Productivity Program and Inland Rail. We are talking about the Regional Aviation Access Program, with more than $80 million over four years. All these good programs talk to our integrity as a government. We also have the Mobile Black Spot Program. I heard the member for McEwen going crook in a 90-second statement the other day—it was almost comical, actually—talking about mobile black spots. I must correct the member for Bradfield, the minister, who got up and talked about Labor not actually delivering a dollar for mobile black spots during their turn at government. He was wrong in one sense: it is not that they did not deliver a dollar—it was not a single cent. You cannot come into this place and criticise us; we are actually getting on with the job of the Mobile Black Spots Program. We have committed $100 million; I wish it were more and I am certainly lobbying to that effect.
We are building the Western Sydney airport and developing Northern Australia. We have the Tasmanian Jobs and Growth Package, which is absolutely necessary. We are getting on with building and finishing the Pacific Highway and the Bruce Highway. The Bruce Highway, in particular, is an absolutely vital transport linkage that was completely ignored by Labor in government. I look forward to announcing the National Stronger Regions Fund on Monday and, on the same day, because we are so full of good news, the member for Sturt is going to herald the National Innovation and Science Agenda at the CSIRO in Canberra. That is another example of us getting on with the job of governing Australia in a way that is full of integrity and full of merit.
I grew up in country Queensland ,where we only had one radio station, the ABC, and one TV station, the ABC. On those radio programs, every now and again, you would get the Country Hour. For one hour it would go through things that are important for the country. Well, we just had the country 10 minutes. Here we are, debating an MPI about government maintaining standards of integrity, and the member for Riverina treated it with contempt. He just read out a list of achievements connected loosely with the country. I cannot believe it, when we are talking about something as serious as this, Mr Deputy Speaker—and it is significant that you are sitting in that chair, the Speaker's chair. Let us go back to what this is about.
Where is everybody?
I take that comment from the member for Grey—'Where is everybody?' It was amazing. There was an MPI about those opposite, and there were three people in the chamber. No-one was prepared to defend the Special Minister of State—the person charged with the responsibility of looking after the integrity portfolios in this government. Unbelievable.
The member for Riverina's speech was 10 minutes wasted when instead he could have been talking about how important integrity is—especially today, 3 December. As I am sure the member for Mitchell would know, 161 years ago today we had the Eureka Rebellion, where people actually took an oath under the Southern Cross. Unfortunately, it was a situation where people died, including six soldiers and police officers. But people found something to believe in. They believed in that idea of being represented in parliament, so it is significant today that, when we had a chance for the government to defend the integrity of the Special Minister of State and to defend parliamentary integrity, instead we had 10 minutes of noise and nothing of substance whatsoever.
The reason I mentioned your chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that, as you well know, this building is designed with a basic cross principle. You theoretically look straight down the barrel to the President of the other place. So we can look straight from the 150 representatives here, under the flag, over to the state elected representatives, the senators. The other line of power to make that cross is from the people's part of the building straight through the Great Hall, under the flag, through the cabinet room to the Prime Minister sitting at his desk. Those two architectural lines intersect under the flag, with the building having grass on the roof, because we all know that the people are more important than the politicians—they are our bosses; they are on top of us. That is why it is important for the government to turn up to this MPI about government integrity. Instead they have deserted the field. When we had the representative from the executive speaking, there were three people in the chamber, and at best they were uninterested. It is unbelievable.
Unfortunately, we have a situation where the Special Minister of State facilitated an arrangement in relation to the diary of the Speaker of the House. We know how important the Speaker's role is. I have a copy of our Constitution here. There is no mention of the Prime Minister, but it sets out very clearly how we elect the Speaker. It does not matter what party the Speaker comes from, whether from the Liberal Party, the National Party or the LNP. I think Peter Slipper was a member of all three of those parties. I have never been a member of any of those parties. I know there is a little bit of fluidity on the benches opposite when it comes to switching from Liberal to National to LNP or whatever. I know what the Labor Party stands for. I believe in democracy and I believe in the Labor Party values.
Unfortunately, we have a government opposite where the Prime Minister is prepared to defend a minister—in fact, put him in charge of all of these decisions that involve the strongest possible ethics—and we have found him to be wanting.
In the iconic movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, an arrogant Pittsburgh TV weatherman. During an assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, he finds himself in a time loop repeating the same day again and again. Eventually Phil, not surprisingly, becomes depressed and makes more and more desperate and drastic attempts to end the time loop.
Question time and MPIs for the last two weeks have been some kind of bad Groundhog Day. Not only have we completely lost track of the date; I am losing track of whether it is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. But I have spent some time this week pondering why we are caught in this time loop. Why are we caught in this time loop, repeating day after day, as Rumpole over there asks the same questions over and over again, with nothing new—
Mr Deputy Speaker—
Order! The member will refer to members by their title.
I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker. The member for Isaacs asks the same question over and over again, with absolutely nothing new of substance emerging. But then it struck me: Labor is stuck in a time loop not because it is Groundhog Day but because Bill Shorten had announced that this was the year of ideas—but he did not have any. It seems to me that those opposite were so sick of the year of ideas that they had handed question time over to the member for Isaacs, their Rumpole of the Bailey, because everyone else is sick of 2015, the year of ideas.
What have they done in this grand year of ideas? The first thing they did was spend $60 billion that they did not have. If you want to spend more, the bad news for those opposite is that you have to tax more. It is true—you can defer that to the next generation by carrying more debt. But if you do that it costs a lot more later on, because you have to pay interest on the debt. It is true that they have found $5 billion to make up for that $60 billion. It does not add up. Sixty minus five equals 55. Where did they find that $5 billion?
The first place they found it in this great year of ideas was to put a tax on smokes—we have never heard of that before; that is new!—hurting those who can least afford it. We get lectured every day by those opposite about fairness. What they want to do is put a tax on smokes. Bad news, guys. Let me explain a very simple fact to you: those who are worst off in society are often also smokers. Many of us would prefer that they did not smoke, but they do. If you want to hit those who smoke with a new tax, you are hitting those who can least afford it.
The second big idea they had to pay for their $60 billion of spending was a one-size-fits-all multinational tax policy. They decided that they were going to impose a multinational tax policy on a company regardless of the make-up of that company, which will mean jobs and investment go overseas. I have worked for many of these companies and I know how they work. If you are going to impose a one-size-fits-all tax policy on them, they will simply go.
Their next big idea was a $200 carbon tax. If you are going to raise a carbon target to 45 per cent, we know from modelling that you commissioned that the only way to do that is to impose a carbon tax or a carbon price of over $200. The last time you had that big idea was when you imposed a carbon tax of $23. This is almost 10 times worse, and that is your big idea for this year. Meanwhile, we have been getting on with the job of free trade agreements, telecommunications investment, infrastructure investment and the agricultural competitiveness white paper, and on Monday you will hear about the innovation statement.
With any luck, like Phil Connors, Labor will go away on their break and find virtue in looking for ideas in the interests of Australians in the next year, 2016.
What a grave disappointment it is to be standing here at the dispatch box again talking about the absence of integrity on the government benches. It is such a disappointment. You can see how one would be outraged. You can see how someone would be angry at the way this mob is besmirching the reputation of this place and of Australian democracy. You can see how you could be furious about that. But, most overwhelmingly, I am disappointed to still be here at the end of the parliamentary sitting year talking about the absence of integrity on the part of this government. I am particularly disappointed that this Prime Minister seems to have less integrity than Prime Minister Abbott and Prime Minister Howard before him. Prime Minister Abbott, when the then minister and now minister again, Senator Sinodinos, was under a cloud, had the fortitude to do the right thing and seek that he stand aside. Similarly, remember that Prime Minister Howard had the fortitude to have then minister Gary Hardgrave stand aside, but apparently not this Prime Minister.
This Prime Minister, who purports to care about the health of our democracy, who purports to care about whether or not the Australian people can have the trust they deserve to have in the institutions of our society, including this parliament, does not have the integrity of either Tony Abbott or John Howard and has failed to act. It is a failure that really emphasises just how weak he actually is. We already know that he stands for nothing. We already know that he is a man who would have done anything to become the Prime Minister of this nation—and did. He is a hollow man. He is a man who seems to have continued to emphasise style over substance. And the Australian people want substance. Not just is he a hollow man, but he is apparently someone who lacks the spine to even come into this House and do what everyone knows needs to be done, and that is to stand up for integrity.
We are talking about a Prime Minister who only in September published a statement of ministerial standards. It was as recent as September that the statement was published. That statement of ministerial standards emphasises integrity, accountability, responsibility—all concepts that we ought to hold very dear here. But this Prime minister will not stand up for those concepts, will not enforce them, does not have what is needed to do that job. He is not up to it. So spineless is this government that today they gagged the opposition leader, they stopped the opposition leader from speaking out on these issues of integrity. It was such a low point. There have been some low points this year—the onion eating, just by itself, must have been one of the lowest points of the year—but actually gagging an opposition leader from speaking about integrity, on a day when we are dealing with a situation where a special minister of state, the person supposedly charged with handling integrity on behalf of the government, has misled the House five times, was such a low point. For the Prime Minister to have his manager of government business, the Leader of the House, actually move to gag the Leader of the Opposition is an utter disgrace.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I do not want to alarm you, but it is probably time we recognised that the people who watch this parliament—our constituents—think the people in this place lack integrity. They think we are in it for ourselves. Some of them think we are a mob of crooks, unfortunately. That is not true. It is unfortunate for us. We are not a mob of crooks; we are not people who are in this for ourselves, by and large. But when you have a Prime Minister who is comprehensively failing to uphold integrity standards, then unfortunately that wrong perception gets reinforced. So, it is not just a problem for the Prime Minister—although of course it is a problem for him—and it is not just a problem for the people sitting in this chamber and in the other place, although of course it is a problem for all of us in our capacity to do our jobs when integrity is not upheld. It is a problem for the health of our Australian democracy. And when you do not have a healthy democracy it is a problem for the future of the nation. Those are the stakes.
Mr Hawke interjecting—
This is a question that seems to have attracted some entertainment from the government benches, but this is actually a serious and important matter. The parliamentary secretary might think it is entertaining, but I do not. As an Australian I want us to have a Prime Minister who will uphold integrity standards. Even if he is from a party with whose views I disagree, I want him to uphold integrity standards, and it is about time he did.
What a disappointment this Labor opposition is to the people of Australia. Here we are, on the last parliamentary sitting day of the year—the year they self-proclaimed as the year of big ideas—and what do they come up with in this matter of public importance? They come up with nothing other than a bucket of slime. The people of Australia listening to this debate, the people who are out there working and driving this economy, deserve better than this. On the last day of parliament, after the opposition delivered a duck egg—well, they did have one idea, and that was to put the price of a packet of smokes up to 40 bucks; in the year of big ideas, that was their total contribution: let's raise the price of a packet of smokes to 40 bucks, just brilliant; that is all they could come up with—we see this MPI to be nothing other than a bucket of slime.
Whey couldn't they, on this last sitting day of parliament, really come up with some ideas? Why couldn't they come up with some ideas and let us debate how we can increase the exports in our country? How about having a debate on how we can improve national productivity, or how we can continue to cut red tape, or what we can do to enhance our nation's competitiveness? What about things we can do to encourage entrepreneurship, or to encourage innovation and start-ups? What about new job creation? We should be here having a debate on that during this MPI. What about upgrading our nation's roads?—especially when we know people in this country will lose their lives over the Christmas holiday. Why aren't we having a debate about our nation's roads, or building more dams, or upgrading our infrastructure?
What about tackling the problem of Islamic extremism? Why are we not having a debate here on this last day of parliament? Or tackling domestic violence? Here is a novel idea: how about working to bring the budget back to surplus? That might be an idea. We could go one further—we can even look at paying back that hundreds of billions of dollars worth of debt that you blokes ran up when you were sitting on this side of the chamber. But, no, we get nothing other than a bucket of slime.
Those opposite should be ashamed of themselves. Today, 3 December, is the International Day of People with Disability. Why would you not propose for the MPI how we could work together in this parliament to improve the lives of people with disabilities? We all agree on the NDIS, but we have no idea how we are going to afford to pay for it. Why aren't we discussing that? Instead, the opposition just come up with a bucket of slime. They should all be ashamed for putting up this matter. We should not be debating this here in the parliament—we should be debating ideas about making our country a better place instead of this disgraceful slime bucket they have brought to the parliament.
This discussion on the need for the government to maintain standards of integrity can be rebutted with three words: 'pot', 'kettle', 'black'. We are happy to debate integrity with those guys every single day of the week. We can remember those infamous words, 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead' and yet when they all came over to this side and were asked who wanted a carbon tax, they all said 'Aye'. And they want to lecture us about integrity! These are the ones who cooked the books in the 2011 budget to move expenditure forward out of the budget and bring revenue in, trying to create a phoney surplus. They could not even achieve that. We are getting on with the job of doing the right thing by this country. We are working with those free trade agreements; we are working to increase competitiveness. We are working to create jobs and we are working to drive the entrepreneurial spirit of this nation. I hope that over the Christmas period the opposition go away and think about things so that maybe next year they can come up with a few big ideas rather than return to the disgraceful performance that they have put up with over the past 12 months.
Why are we having this debate on government integrity? Why was the minister responsible for the standards of members and senators raided by the Australian Federal Police? Why, knowing that the Special Minister of State had told 60 Minutes that the member for Fisher had purloined the former Speaker's diary and spent a further three minutes explaining why this was justified, did the Prime Minister appoint him to that august and particularly sensitive position—a position that requires the highest ethics? Some say that 'Lord Turnbull', the member for Wentworth, who maintains that nothing has happened over the last two years, does not watch 60 Minuteshe does not care what they broadcast; he does not know what the plebs think. No, the public is right in guessing that the member for Fisher was elevated not because of his ethical status but because he was a player in the putsch that removed the member for Warringah to satiate the ego and ambition of the member for Wentworth. The appointment is a political mistake that goes to the heart of the Prime Minister's judgement.
In 2012 the Liberals believed they could use chaos to bring the Labor government down—chaos in parliament, chaos in refusing all duties such as chairing this House. From the first minute, the Abbott conservatives wanted to exact revenge on Slipper. The sudden falling out of the then Speaker with his staff member, who made a harassment claim against him, contributed to this atmosphere of chaos. Why did the member for Fisher involve himself in this sordid destruction of the then Speaker? Even without the status of the Special Minister of State as an individual member of parliament, is this the kind of behaviour that has integrity? It is not just a matter of the revelations he made to Liz Hayes on 60 Minutes. As the member for Isaacs recalled, he confirmed this in a subsequent broadcast on ABC radio on 30 July when he was asked:
You're comfortable receiving material from someone else's diary?
The minister responded:
Absolutely.
On 27 February 2014, in the judgements that the Special Minister of State, the member for Fisher, has constantly referred to, the judges said:
That Brough was prepared to … look at evidence produced by Ashby … does not necessarily mean that his purpose was to harm Slipper politically.
He was not exonerated, he was not vindicated; the judges simply said 'does not necessarily mean.' The current member for Fisher mistakenly believes this vindicates him, but the paragraph is clear that the court did not decide the question of procuring the diary excerpts. It merely stated it 'does not necessarily mean' that the current member for Fisher was motivated in that way. Today we saw the beleaguered Special Minister of State claim that the costings decision on the same case had nothing to do with whether he knew about the procuring of the diary. The same judges in the same case awarded $3 million in costs against Brough's confederates, Ashby and the solicitors Harmers. The judges said:
There had not been a trial of all issues. The relevant evidence had not been given, and the reliability of the witnesses had not been exposed to testing by cross-examination. In the event, as noted above, that will not occur because Ashby has discontinued his proceeding.
We have had the raids on Ashby and Brough, and we have had the misleading of parliament, as the member for Isaacs has so ably pointed out, five times. We have had the silencing of the opposition over these censure motions. And, most extraordinarily—I have never seen anything like it—the government has repeatedly refused to defend the member for Fisher on any of these issues. I cannot believe that none of the front bench—the Prime Minister or the Attorney-General—appear to have read the judgements, especially the costing judgement, which says exactly that no judgement was made about these kinds of things. Exoneration was not given, vindication was not given, because these issues were never finally judged. There was no cross-examination. The case was dropped because Ashby, who made all these allegations of harassment by Slipper, dropped the case. As the minister's own state newspaper, The Courier-Mail, has said:
PM's loyalty is admirable but Brough should do right thing and go.
That is clearly the choice that the Special Minister of State should make. In the interests of this parliament, in the interests of parliamentary integrity, how can he sit there as the Special Minister of State when none of his colleagues will defend him? All of them are worthy people who want to speak on other issues, but none of them will specifically defend him on this issue. For the sake of this parliament, for the sake of Australian democracy, he should resign.
I missed the intellectual contribution of new ideas and vision for the future of our nation from the member for Melbourne Ports. I thank the member for Moreton for his comments about integrity because, if we look at the definition of integrity, it is about being honest. To review Labor's track record when they were in government for six years and go through the surplus, the NBN and Defence shipbuilding, let's just examine a few points around what they proposed to do as a government and what they delivered. Were they honest? Did they have integrity? Let's see what the answer will be. Labor delivered a deficit. It was our friend the member for Swan—who has disappeared, not surprisingly, given that he failed to follow through with a surplus that he promised for four years. Even the member for Maribyrnong, now the Leader of the Opposition, said in a 2012 budget media release:
A budget surplus for a strong economy—spreading the benefits of the mining boom to all Australians.
We know from the history that there was no public surplus. There is one myth exposed—and one misleading, deceptive and dishonest statement.
Moving on to the NBN: in 2007, Labor promised a National Broadband Network costing close to $5 billion, to be completed by 2013. What did they do? After six years of Labor, only three per cent of Australians had access to the NBN and fewer than 100,000 homes were using it. They achieved just 16 per cent of the original rollout. What rubbish, what myth, what falsehoods, what dishonesty and what lack of integrity. Onto defence: Labor raided defence, cutting or deferring $16 billion from 2009-10 to 2016-17. Defence is very dear to my heart as a South Australian, and I once again remind the opposition of the commitments to the bring forward the Future Frigate program and the patrol vessels. Let's look at submarines, because I might have heard something about submarines from those opposite. Labor delayed the program to replace the Navy's Collins class submarines by four years, after promising it in 2009. I will read from the 2009 white paper, since Labor like to quote the white paper now and again. Labor said it would:
… double the size of the submarine force [and] replace the current Anzac class frigate with a more capable Future Frigate …
What happened? There was nothing on submarines and nothing on frigates. It took us being in government to do something—to deliver, to bring the projects forward, to deliver jobs—
Have you delivered submarines?
There will be more to come, Member for Moreton. There will be frigates and patrol vessels—more to come. I have not mentioned Labor's school hall rip-offs or the pink batts disaster—that would be a bridge too far.
Going further to integrity, I want to raise something that the ACTU did to many of my colleagues earlier this year with the China free trade agreement forums. They advertised the forums. They knew that I and other colleagues were unable to attend, but they still advertised them. Why was I unable to attend mine in the electorate of Hindmarsh? I attended a parliamentary employment committee hearing that heard from Group Training Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the New South Wales Business Chamber in Sydney, and it actually heard from United Voice. Where were the Labor members on that day? Do they care about employment? No. There was not just one absent Labor member; the member for Gorton, the member for Kingston and the member for Perth were nowhere to be seen. They showed no interest in employment, but, yes, the whole of the coalition wanted to know about how to make our country better and how to get more people employed. The people up there in the gallery are interested in jobs of the future, they want a vision and we are delivering. I see they are waving their hands, saying, 'Thank God for the coalition. Thank God they are fighting for our country.'
Finally, as we come to the valedictory, let's look at our achievements. They are trade agreements, more jobs and a better future. They are childcare packages—and there are some young mums up in the gallery who will be happy about more affordable, flexible child care. I see their hands raised again—hooray for the coalition! I see small business people up there as well—hooray for the coalition! Infrastructure spending; better roads—thank you to the coalition. Climate change—thank God we are talking about climate change today, unlike Labor, who did not make one mention of it in parliament. It is not even on your radar. Violence against women and domestic violence is something that we have launched into. There is mental health—the list goes on. Please do something, Labor. Go to summer school. Go and learn how to be a government. Do your homework. Look in the mirror and come back a better opposition in 2016.
Over the last two weeks, and perhaps most especially in an odd last five minutes, we have seen the truth behind the rhetoric about a new politics. We have had a close look at the new Prime Minister's new politics and it is not pretty. It is not good to look at, at all. The Prime Minister today in question time took great pleasure in quoting Billy Hughes. This was funny for a variety of reasons, not least that, of course, the Prime Minister has often been a bit flexible about which party he wishes to attach himself to. Perhaps it is the start of his long journey away from integrity. It is a sad journey for him, and a sadder one for this place and for our country.
An opposition member: Is he defecting to the Nats?
Indeed. The thing about it is that Billy Hughes drew the line. The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, the member for Wentworth, will not draw the line. He will not even tell this parliament or the Australian people where it should be drawn—that is his grossest failure of all. He will stand behind those who gave him this high office through the machinations of the Liberal Party instead of standing up for parliamentary standards, standing up for accountability, standing up integrity and standing up for some faith in the new politics he spoke so grandiosely about as he pursued 'Utegate' in opposition and as he acquired the office of Prime Minister. All those words were just that—just words amounting to nothing, Assistant Minister.
The member for Isaacs, the shadow Attorney-General, has taken us through this matter today, as he has done over the last two weeks. The case has been built, though, not really by the member for Isaacs—I say this in deference to my senior colleague—but by the minister, the member for Fisher. It is he who has misled the House not once, not twice, but on five occasions. He should have been stood down. In fact, he should never have been appointed. The Prime Minister's judgement has let down all of us in this place, but he has compounded the sin through his arrogance, or, should I say, his hubris—and hubris will be followed, inevitably, by a nemesis. He must act, because the position of the Special Minister of State is, as one of his cabinet colleagues said, 'unviable'.
That was demonstrated by the special minister's performance in question time today. What an extraordinary performance, dripping with false bravado. The commentary that he embarked upon about the judicial proceedings was shameless; 'disingenuous' does not even touch it. He could not have characterised the court decision, or indeed the other processes he is presently subject to, in a more misleading manner. Put simply, he is desperate to create a fig leaf to hide behind. It is not a very convincing one, and that has been demonstrated in this debate as it was in question time today. The past two weeks have been deeply revealing of the character, or lack thereof, of the Special Minister of State; the character, or lack thereof, of this government as a whole; and, in particular, the lack of character—the lack of integrity—of the Prime Minister of Australia.
Today we again saw government ministers unwilling to stand behind the Special Minister of State. They not only shut down the opposition leader; the Leader of the House shut himself down—again! It is extraordinary. Instead, in the debate, they say nothing. Why do they say nothing? Because there is nothing to be said. There is nothing to be said to defend this man. It really is extraordinary. It is extraordinary and it is instructive. In this matter, it is clear that government members do have the courage of their convictions; they say nothing because there is nothing to say.
Sadly, as parliament rises for Christmas, we have to recognise that this is about so much more than the member for Fisher. It goes to the heart of our democracy. It goes to the heart of how politics should work. It goes to the heart of the claims the Prime Minister made that politics can be meaningful to Australians.
A new paradigm!
On the other hand, this new paradigm is repelling our constituents. It is turning them away from engagement in debate in this place. This is a debate about our democracy. It is about this parliament doing its job—holding the executive to account—but it could be fixed by the Prime Minister doing his, and standing down a minister whose tenure has been unviable for too long. The Prime Minister signed up to a statement of ministerial conduct; now he must stand by it. Integrity and responsibility are the watchwords— (Time expired)
It is my great pleasure to speak on this MPI on the issue of integrity. I reflect on the comments just made by the member for Scullin that politics can be meaningful and that this sort of debate is repelling our constituents. Politics can be meaningful. So what a great disappointment it is, on the very last sitting day before Christmas, that we are seeing the sort of muckraking and debate from Labor that we have seen not just for the last couple of days but for the last couple of weeks. Day after day, we have seen the same thing. It is like groundhog day—and this is how the day began, with motions to try and disrupt the ordinary course of parliamentary business. At a time when this government is doing so much to help Australians, what a shame it is that we are not debating some of the really important issues, as the member for Hughes and the member for Hindmarsh argued so well.
It is International Day of People with Disability. We have joined together in unison as a parliament, with a great deal of bipartisanship, to roll out the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We have the National Disability Insurance Agency—in my great city of Geelong, in the great electorate of Corangamite. We have done that together, ostensibly. What a shame that we could not talk about some of those big issues.
In the wake of White Ribbon Day, we know we cannot talk about family and domestic violence just for one day. We cannot talk about things that need to change in our society just for one day; we need to keep those debates going. The last time I spoke on that issue—groundhog day again; it was during an MPI about integrity—I implored the Leader of the Opposition, 'Please, could we have a really constructive debate about family violence,' because it is through debate that we can bring new ideas to this parliament and canvass the various issues raised by our constituents.
Ice is a scourge that is destroying so many families in my communities and in communities across Australia. That is another very important issue. The National Ice Taskforce is doing an extraordinary job, led by former Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police Ken Lay, along with the Assistant Minister for Health, Senator Fiona Nash, with the enormous support of the Prime Minister.
Australians do respect the fact that we contest ideas and that we do not always agree in this parliament. But, please, at this time before Christmas, we do need to talk about the issues that really matter to Australians: national security, jobs growth, innovation, the transformation that we are seeing in our economy and the way in which our government is leading that transformation.
The health minister, Sussan Ley, made an announcement just a few days ago in relation to mental health. Mental health issues affect one in four to one in five people in Australia at some point in their lives. Why can't we speak about that?
I think it is really important to make the point that, in so much of what happens in this parliament, there is an enormous amount of good spirit, goodwill and bipartisanship. This morning I joined my colleague the member for Kingsford Smith, a Labor member representing the southern part of Sydney along the coast, at an event hosted by Surf Life Saving Australia. We are co-chairs of Parliamentary Friends of Surf Lifesaving. We were talking about important issues in the lead-up to summer—staying safe on our beaches, swimming between the flags and the importance of learning how to swim to make sure that we do not see drownings this summer. So much good happens in this parliament, and I am just saying to all Australians who are listening, who are watching this debate or who will be reading the Hansard, please do not lose sight of the good things that members of parliament are doing together.
On this final day of sitting before Christmas, I wish we had had a better spirit of goodwill in the debate that was brought before the parliament. I want to reflect on one other issue that has been debated. If we are going to talk about integrity, I implore members opposite: please debate with integrity. Do not run a debate about tax reform and make false allegations about a GST increase when it is actually untrue. It does the parliament no credit whatsoever. I wish everyone a happy Christmas, I want us to reflect on the good work we are doing together, and I wish happy Christmas to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta.
The discussion is now concluded.
On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I present the committee's report entitled Empowering women and girls: the human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean-Asia Pacific region.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—I thank the honourable member for Moreton for agreeing to the tabling of this report. It is a very welcome report and a unanimous report. I speak as the Chair of the Human Rights Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on the report Empowering women and girls: the human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean-Asia Pacific region.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs has declared the promotion of the human rights and empowerment of women and girls in Australia's region to be 'a personal passion'. This is a passion that was shared by the human rights subcommittee and all our members, and we hope that the report presented today will be a practical contribution to Australia's effort to support the advancement of human rights of women and girls across the Indo-Pacific region.
The terms of reference were extremely broad. They involved nothing less than a comprehensive examination of the human rights circumstances of women and girls across a vast region. It is a region that includes six of the world's top 10 most populous nations, including countries as different in size and character as China, Afghanistan and Nauru. We often speak of all of them.
The report reflects the weight of evidence received from those who contributed: the Australian government, especially the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and a wide range of non-government organisations and academic experts. The committee also sought the views of all governments in the region and we were pleased to receive submissions from Afghanistan, Mauritius, Vietnam, Timor-Leste and Sri Lanka. The report addresses in considerable detail all the human rights issues in the countries in Australia's immediate region, especially the South Pacific, and in countries that are significant recipients of our development assistance.
Over the course of the inquiry, the availability of reliable data and particularly evidence on what programs and initiatives are working and what are not working emerged as significant issues. This was particularly relevant because of our terms of reference. We were asked to inquire into achievements to date in advancing women and girls' human rights in these key areas that have obviously been identified: women's leadership, economic opportunities and related matters. We were also asked to examine the effectiveness of Australia's programs to support efforts to improve human rights of women and girls in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific region. For me, that meant we were expected to look at these issues with a view to coming to conclusions based upon achievements and effectiveness.
The importance of data in understanding the extent of these problems was succinctly expressed in the International Women's Development Agency submission, which stated:
What we measure matters. It reflects what we value. It drives the visibility of issues. It influences where resources are invested.
The committee's task was confronted with the difficulty of addressing these questions with effective key performance indicators. We therefore made a number of recommendations, particularly to address the paucity of data, so that future policy and development assistance programs are better underpinned by evidence.
Despite this, a very clear picture emerged that the circumstances of hundreds of millions of women and girls across the Indo-Pacific region are dire, blighted by violence, poverty and exclusion from economic, social and political participation.
While many countries have made great progress in advancing the human rights of women and girls, especially in recent decades, it is all too clear that, more than 6½ decades after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a great deal more progress must be made for women and girls to be truly considered equals.
The committee did not wish to single out any particular country or countries for criticism or judgement. Instead, the report details the extent and depth of problems across the region and examines ways in which governments, communities and non-government organisations can work together to make further progress in protecting and improving the lives of women and girls, empowering them to the benefit of all.
In particular, evidence received by the committee documented nothing less than an epidemic of violence directed against women and girls in many nations. This is a most serious problem across the Indo-Pacific region. Oxfam told the committee:
In the Pacific, these rates are the highest in the world, with up to 68 per cent of Pacific women reporting physical or sexual abuse and 40 to 70 per cent of women experiencing violence from family members in their lifetime. Across to West Asia, in Afghanistan, as many as 87 per cent of women suffer at least one form of physical, sexual or psychological violence, with more than half experiencing multiple kinds of abuse.
It should not be forgotten too that the economic consequences of such problems are enormous, and constitute a significant drain on national economies, and indeed on the region as a whole.
By virtue of its nature, its embeddedness in cultures and social attitudes, as well as its different triggers, violence perpetrated against women and girls represents a very deep-seated challenge.
The diversity of the Indo-Pacific region also presents a major challenge for the implementation of development assistance programs to address this problem. What may work in one country or social group may be of limited effectiveness elsewhere. Again, I stress, programs that seek to empower women and girls must be backed up by good local consultation and research that takes into account a program's possible benefits, economic value and its cultural impact.
However, as Oxfam observed:
… the scale and complexity of the challenge should not overwhelm or dissuade us. Violence is not inevitable, and it is preventable.
Our report acknowledges the good work of the Australian government in seeking to combat violence against women and girls.
This includes the advocacy of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Ambassador for Women and Girls, former Senator Natasha Stott Despoja, and a wide variety of development assistance programs, including support for law reform and more effective law enforcement.
However, the committee has recommended an intensification of efforts and further work that takes into account both the cultural and social diversity of the region, and the insights of further research to identify the most effective responses.
Similar challenges are evident in relation to health, education, economic participation and the involvement of women in community decision-making and political life more broadly. In all these areas there has been significant progress in many places, but much remains to be done, and in some areas urgent action is required to ensure that hard won gains are not reversed or lost.
The committee's recommendations consequently span a wide range of issues and government programs, and underline the need for a broad and sustained commitment of resources.
There are no easy solutions for any of the problems discussed in this report. All of them require a preparedness by policy makers to commit to programs that are likely to only deliver substantial progress over decades rather than years, and in some cases perhaps only through intergenerational change.
The committee has therefore been mindful of the many demands on Australia's overseas development assistance budget.
Nonetheless, given the magnitude of the problems, there is a strong case for giving women and girls greater priority.
Consequently, the report recommends that Australia lift the percentage of total official development assistance that is 'primarily' focused on women and girls from the current five per cent level to between eight and 10 per cent over the next five years, particularly as a proportion of aid to the Pacific region.
We also recommend that we focus our investments and expertise in programs that deliver best return on investment, on large-scale, long-term programs—for 10 years or more—designed directly for women's empowerment in key countries.
Indeed, the long-term benefits, including the economic benefits, of greatly reducing domestic violence and improving educational and economic opportunities for women and girls are potentially very large.
As the Minister for Foreign Affairs has observed:
When women are able to actively participate in the economy, and in community decision-making, everybody benefits.
On behalf of the committee 1 would like to thank all of the non-government organisations, academics and individuals for generously donating their time, effort and resources to make submissions and appear at public hearings or private briefings.
I would also like to thank the Australian government agencies that provided submissions and gave evidence, as well as the foreign governments that contributed to the inquiry.
I would especially like to thank the staff and students of Auburn Girls High School in Sydney, which hosted two days of public hearings on 21 and 22 August 2014.
The committee was very pleased to have this opportunity to bring parliament to the people.
The question and answer session with students that accompanied the public hearings was particularly enjoyable as members of the sub-committee heard the views of articulate young women who may be future community leaders and, to judge by some of their challenging questions, may well one day think about entering political life themselves.
I would also like to thank my predecessor as Chair of the Human Rights Sub-Committee, the member for Cowan, Mr Luke Simpkins MP, and my other colleagues on the joint standing committee who closely engaged with this inquiry.
It would not do if I did not also commend the committee secretariat, led ably by Jerome Brown, but I might say particularly well served by Sonya Fladun. I can also say that we were generously supported with senior research officers Emma Banyer, Loes Slattery, Nathan Fewkes, Dorota Cooley and Karen Underwood. Without their outstanding work and commitment to preparing this report in time for tabling, I would not be standing here today. I am particularly grateful for their professionalism and for the way in which they undertook assisting the committee in preparing this report. I can say genuinely that, without their support, we would not have been able to undertake this very important task.
I commend the report to the House
I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.
Leave granted.
I move:
That the House take note of the report.
In accordance with standing order 39(c), 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 indulgence, I am very pleased to rise in the House at the end of the year 2015 to make a few remarks to thank the people in this building who keep the House operating very successfully and smoothly and making us look good every day. However, I should begin by thanking you, Mr Speaker—and also the former Speaker—for the work that you have been doing in the last few month I think it is obvious to everyone that you have taken to the role very well and bring an authority and a knowledge of the standing orders in the chamber and an experience of politics which means question time and the rest of the House is allowed to flow and be allowed to be combative but also respectful and sensible. I thank you and congratulate you on the very good job you are doing as Speaker.
I should also acknowledge the former Speaker, the member for Mackellar, as I nominated her for the role and famously dragged her to the chair with Tony Abbott, who was of course the Prime Minister at the time.
How did that work out?
It did not work out too well, Graeme; that is the answer to that question. Politics is like that sometimes. The member for Mackellar did a sterling job in the role of Speaker. I think she did a very, very good job. She faced a lot of pressure from the opposition over that period of two years and left the office in circumstances that I am sure she regrets and that I too regret. She is a valued colleague and a very good friend. She is a very good member for Mackellar and I look forward to her continuing in that role for many years into the future.
I would also like to thank my staff first—because often we leave the staff right until the end. My staff have had a very busy year in 2015. They do a wonderful job. They are led by Adam Howard, who is my chief of staff. Before him it was Meredith Jackson—until the reshuffle moved me from Education to Industry, Innovation and Science. I would like to thank all of my staff, led by Adam. I would like to thank John Bathgate and Hannah March. Hannah is the House adviser and before her it was John Bathgate. They have established an excellent relationship with Ewan Kelly, from the office of the Manager of Opposition Business.
What most people do not realise is that the Manager of Opposition Business and I talk to each other a great deal. Certainly, our staff talk a great deal and they all get to know each other pretty well—because, while we do like to be 'hard at the ball' in a political sense, we also have to make sure that democracy in this country works. It is one of the great features of our country over the last 115 years that, because of compulsory voting and the preferential system, we have been dominated by two major political parties—or two major sides of politics. That gives us great stability in government—and the 43rd Parliament was particularly interesting to people because that did not happen. The 43rd Parliament was probably not one of the best parliaments in recent history. Usually, either Labor or the coalition is in power and that does bring a great stability. We work as much as we can together—as much as you can work with the opposition, who want to take your seat—to make sure democracy is working.
I would also like to thank Lisa Paul, the Secretary of the Department of Education and Training, which was my former department, and Glenys Beauchamp, the Secretary of Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, which is my current department. They are both very professional public servants leading very professional teams. Not necessarily every member of the Public Service was a devotee of the government's policies in Education—and that was probably the case in Industry, Innovation and Science but perhaps less so—but they all operated entirely professionally and I never felt that my departments were ever working against me in any respect. They are led very ably by Lisa Paul and Glenys Beauchamp.
I would like to thank the current Prime Minister and my cabinet colleagues, and I would like to thank the former Prime Minister for appointing me to the cabinet and giving me the job of Leader of the House. It is one of the more exciting jobs, for those of us who love the parliament—and I know that the member for Watson does, as did the member for Grayndler before him. Being Leader of the House is to reach the apex of the parliamentary chamber and being Manager of Opposition Business is not a bad consolation prize in opposition. At least it keep you busy in opposition trying to cause me trouble in government!
I would like to thank all the clerks. Led by David Elder, the clerks make sure we keep on track and they make us look good. I thank the Serjeant-at-Arms, Bronwyn Notzon, and her team. I thank the House Table Office, led by Catherine Cornish. I thank the House Parliamentary Liaison Office, led by Annette Cronin, with whom I work closely. I thank Peter Quiggin and his staff at the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, with whom I meet every week as part of the Parliamentary Business Committee—of which the member for Eden-Monaro is now an esteemed member. I thank Anne Dowd, Anne O'Connor and Sue Clamour, who do a lot of legislative work through the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in terms of the schedule and the sittings and the legislation that comes to the parliament.
I would also like to thank the government whips—the member for Forrest, the member for Herbert and the member for Braddon—and their staff, led by Vicki Riggio and Nathan Winn. And I thank former whips the member for Wright and the member for Berowra for their work over the last two years. Being the whip is one of the hardest and most unpleasant jobs in the parliament, because you have to keep saying no to people's requests. The whip is not usually the most popular person in the government or the opposition. They are always very charming and very nice, and they work very hard to make our colleagues very happy, but it is a tough job. The member for Forrest is leading an excellent team in that role on behalf of the government—as, of course, is the member for Parkes, who has been the Nationals Whip since I can remember. He adds a bit of consistency and stability to the whips team—and I look forward to the other whips doing the same over the coming years into the future. I would also like to thank the Opposition Whip, the member for Fowler. Long may he reign! We on this side of the House are great supporters of the member for Fowler.
I'm with him!
I am glad that you are with him as well. He leads an excellent team. Like the Manager of Opposition Business and I, the whips also talk to each other on a daily basis to keep the business flowing and to make sure everybody gets a chance to represent their electorate. That is the purpose of a good whips team—to make sure the members who have been elected to this place get the chance to represent their electorates, to put their arguments, to make their speeches and to do what they can to be good members serving their electorates.
I would also like to thank your staff, Mr Speaker, led by Cate Clunies-Ross, a person I have known very well for a very long period of time. They are very competent and I think they have taken over the role very successfully.
I would also like to thank the Manager of Opposition Business, the member for Watson. The member for Watson and I have had quite a challenging year in some respects. We have been thrust together far too often over issues to do with entitlements and family travel. I must say that I think both of us were rather unfairly treated, but we have come through that process and held our families intact and made them understand that this is just the vagaries of politics. I hope that we have a less challenging year next year from a family point of view. I thank him for his good cheer, integrity and honesty in his dealings with me and with the government. It is a very important relationship, and it is a relationship that can only work on the basis of your word being your bond. I have to say that, whether it has been the member for Watson or the member for Grayndler—and I hope they would say the same of me—that has been the case.
I do not think I could finish without mentioning Don Randall and his tragic passing. As the member for Canning, he is the only member we have lost this year. Every now and then a member of parliament does pass away, and it is a very traumatic period for everyone in the parliament, not just the party from which that member comes. Don Randall was a personal friend and a colleague. I spoke on the condolence motion for him when he passed away, but I would like to say in closing that we miss him and we will continue to remember him in this place.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for their forbearance. As Tony Abbott is very fond of saying, we are volunteers for this business; they are conscripts. My children are getting older in the service. My twins are now 15. I have a 13-year-old and a seven-year-old. They have only ever known politics. They are very good and very sensible, and I am very proud of them and very lucky to have them.
I wish everybody season's greetings or a happy Christmas, as I know the Manager of Opposition Business will wish everybody. Happy Christmas!
In participating in the valedictories, I begin by acknowledging that, for the balance of the year, a whole lot of different people were in a series of key roles—in particular, the former Prime Minister, former Treasurer and former Speaker. I want to wish all of those three people, regardless of arguments back and forth that have occurred during their time in office, all the very best. Certainly the former Speaker and I continue to see each other at many events in Sydney. We both have a passion for the arts, so we see each other at intervals at different things. We speak very strictly about the show! I do wish the former Speaker well, as I do the former Prime Minister and former Treasurer.
Mr Speaker, I join with the comments that have been made about the way you have fitted into your role. You said you wanted free-flowing debate. I think it is fair to say that the best example of how you have achieved that is that you let the government say more than we think you should let them say and you let us ask more than the government think we should be able to ask. In terms of that balance and keeping to the standing orders in that way, the parliament is no doubt better for it. I will say, Mr Speaker, that you have been a disaster for my profile—an absolute, abject disaster! I used to be able to get on the news all the time when parliament was sitting and you have wrecked that! I wish you well during this break. You and your staff have done an extraordinary job in the role.
I contrast this place with the other place. Whenever you flick over the channel in a moment of madness to the other place and watch what is happening in the red room, almost always there is a debate going on about the order of debate. That is almost without exception. The more we can be debating the issues rather than the procedures or rulings the more the parliament is doing its job. I think that has been the case in this place in your time, Mr Speaker. I wish you and your family all the very best for the sort of summer you spoke about hoping for earlier on.
I also acknowledge your team—the Deputy Speaker, Bruce Scott, who has been very well regarded around here for a long time, and our own Rob Mitchell, who is not our own when he is in the chair, and the other members of the Speakers panel. However, the utility that we have always had in telling people, 'If you get on the Speakers panel you might be a great Speaker one day,' is another thing that you are starting to wreck as an argument, Mr Speaker, given that you have not yourself served on it!
I want to acknowledge the whips and their teams on both sides. The whips have a similar circumstance as what happens between the Manager of Opposition Business and the Leader of the House, which is that, while they can have disagreements, they must absolutely trust each other and keep their word to each other. Otherwise, the parliament cannot operate effectively. I want to acknowledge them.
Leader of the House, you are on my list, but you are a long way down, so I am going to move you up! I want to acknowledge the Leader of the House. The Leader of the House has been fearless in his advocacy for his own side and for getting legislation through. He would probably see it as a great victory that the House has frequently run out of anything to do when the legislation before us has been sent across to the Senate early so that it can sit there until late! There have been many times when the Leader of the House and I have had to manage difficult procedures through the parliament, and there has never been a circumstance when the Leader of the House has done anything other than keep his word or follow through exactly on the procedures that he said would happen. That is appreciated and respected.
In return, I would remind people, as a gesture of goodwill, that A Letter to My Children is available as a Christmas gift for those who choose to contribute. In doing so, they would not just provide a wonderful gift to whoever they decide to put it under the tree for; they would also give the Leader of the House the opportunity to pursue another career at some point in time!
On my own side, I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition. It has been said for a long time that there is no harder job in politics. The Leader of the Opposition has seen off a number of people who he has been in fierce debate with during his time in opposition. There is one more who we are seeking to do that with! I certainly wish the Leader of the Opposition, as well as Chloe and the kids, all the very best, and I hope they have a good break over summer before what will be a relentless 2016.
Similarly in the leadership team, Tanya, her husband Michael and their kids are good friends of mine. I thank the Senate leadership although members of the Reps, depending on the hour tonight, will have varying degrees of gratitude to those in the other place. I should also add the member for Grayndler, who, as my predecessor in this role for my party—for some time in between he held the position of Leader of the House—has always been available and contributed actively to providing guidance for tactics in the House and for the procedures of the House. I am grateful for both his counsel and his friendship.
To the rest of my parliamentary colleagues, I wish you well, my caucus colleagues and the family that you have within your own party. On that note, I would acknowledge that, when I talk about the family that you have within your own party, while we all shared in feeling the loss of Don Randall, I am very conscious that, for those who were in the same party, it is a very acute loss. There were staffers who had gone from office to office. There was very much a collegiate feeling among members of the Liberal Party and Labor continues to offer not only sympathy to Don's family but sympathy to all members of the Liberal Party, who have undergone a particular loss in the course of this year.
The Labor staffers do an extraordinary job at making all of us look significantly better than we would otherwise look and I want to extend my appreciation to them. There is an unfortunate claim that happens here, where people say someone has never had a real job when they work as a staffer, which is a terrible thing to say about people who devote their professional life to something they believe in passionately. I think it is important that we acknowledge that no-one should ever feel that it is not a real job to dedicate your professional life to your personal beliefs.
Thank you to those who work in the parliament itself: the Clerk, David Elder; Deputy Clerk, Claressa Surtees; the Serjeant-at-Arms and everyone in the clerk's, sergeant's and table offices, and parliamentary counsel as well. To the attendants, Luc and the team, I wish you all the very best for Christmas. It is not simply the work that the attendants do throughout the parliament but it is the smile, the friendship, the genuine concern, which means a lot when it is not always being shown by everyone else in the room at any particular time. To the Hansard staff, depending on who is on their feet, your challenge is greater from time to time, but I acknowledge your work as I acknowledge the work of the Parliamentary Library.
When I talk about our staff, allow me to acknowledge the Leader of the House's adviser, John Bathgate, who we worked with in the first half of the year, has moved on to bigger and better things in that office. I congratulate him on his escape from parliamentary procedure and welcome his replacement, Hannah March, who, I understand, has made a very good start in what is a challenging role.
I am grateful to my own staff, in particular Ewan Kelly. A lot of the administrative work in bringing everything together here is done by Michelle Melihar in my office and I also acknowledge my chief of staff, Alex Lim. Ron Mizan is in the office but he is off doing other things. He has not come into the chamber so I will acknowledge him next year. I thank everyone at Aussies, the coffee cart, the staff cafeteria, the staff in the dining room and the catering services. The cleaners of the parliament have frequently this year and last year found themselves the subject of parliamentary debate. They have kept their professionalism the whole way through and are an extraordinary group of individuals. Best wishes to the grounds people and maintenance staff, the drivers, the travel agency, FCM—who handle the bookings—the Federal Police and security staff.
We thank the Press Gallery on different levels on a day-to-day basis. I think we are all mindful that the Press Gallery contains fewer people than it used to and that is not a good thing. I certainly hope people in the gallery get through the different challenges that are happening at the moment. With changes in the media itself and how people get their news, I hope that we start to see over time a resurgence in the number of people who are able to dedicate their lives to reporting in this place.
There are a few people in the public gallery, but, because there will not be a photo, I will put on the Hansard that the public galleries are absolutely packed with people wanting to hear the valedictories tonight! The crowd is going wild! I want to thank those people who, during the course of the year, have given up a chunk of their day—which they may have regretted, depending on what they watched—and come in to watch the parliament directly in action.
A number of people have been lost in the course of the year, in addition to Don. I was close, even though he was on the other side of the House, to Alby Schultz. I am very conscious for two members of my own side that at the beginning of the year, the member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon, lost his father, a former member of this place as well, Eric Fitzgibbon, and, in the loss of Tom Uren the member for Grayndler lost someone who was like a father. I want to acknowledge that. In my own portfolio, I want to acknowledge the passing of Peter Walsh, who, from the Labor perspective, very much made and designed the Finance portfolio.
It has been a roller-coaster of a year. Given that next year is an election year, I suspect that we will see more of that. I would like to conclude with two thoughts. Sometimes people look at these speeches and say: 'Everyone is so civil. Why can't it always be like that?' Thank heavens it is not, because we come here on behalf of communities that want us to represent them and that means that we will argue for different things. Those arguments should be fierce; they should be passionate. That is what the parliament is about. It is a parliament not a club, and that is exactly what it should be. Finally, people would be aware that, depending on how you factor it in—and this is a constant argument between me and Chris Bowen, but I will argue it because I am the one before the microphone—my electorate is the most multicultural in the country. I am always glad that we have not gone the way of the United States where people just say, 'Happy holidays,' and are reluctant to wish people the best for individual feast days that mean the world to them. People will wish me the best for Hanukkah, they will wish me the best for Holi, they will wish me the best for Deepavali and they will wish me an Eid Mubarak. I appreciate it when they offer those from the bottom of their heart, because they are feasts and festivals that mean the world to them. For myself and my faith, we are about to enter what is, together with Easter, the most special time of the year. In the same spirit, I would like to wish each and every member of the parliament, the attendants and everyone who is here all the very best for a happy Christmas and a peaceful new year.
I move:
That the amendments be agreed to
I welcome the support by this parliament for the measures contained in this bill, which will allow the VET FEE-HELP system to remain sustainable as we move to a new model of VET FEE-HELP for 2017. The measures in this bill will protect the interests of students and taxpayers. The government is committed to ensure that we have a vocational education system that delivers high-quality training to meet the needs of students and that delivers the skilled workforce that this nation needs for the 21st century. I commend the bill to the House.
It is the case that the opposition will be supporting the bill before us. I want to put on the record that we had some frustration about the fact that this original bill was significantly amended at the last moment. The minister did give me a briefing, but it was sadly only 15 minutes before the shadow minister in the other place had to speak on the bill. I am sure that the minister will understand if we retain the right to continue to vigorously raise any issues that arise out of the changes that the government is putting in place.
It is the case that I remain disappointed that the government did not accept our amendment to put price caps on courses. One of the great problems within the VET FEE-HELP sector has been the quite unacceptable level of price increases that have occurred for training courses. Given that that will continue for another 12 months, pending a redesign of the VET FEE-HELP system, I do think it would have been good for the government to accept that particular amendment. However, I acknowledge the government did accept other amendments from the opposition. We look forward to working together to progress those—in particular, to establish an ombudsman for the sector. A voice for students must put in place; there must be a place where they can go to raise their concerns and have them mediated. The regulator, ASQA, does the job of enforcing standards and auditing the particular providers that are approved. But it does not fulfil an individual role for students. That is very frustrating for many students who report to ASQA. Their expectation is that that will be resolved for them individually. But it is not the case; it is actually just intelligence for the regulator. I think it is really important recommendation. It has come from a variety of stakeholders calling for an ombudsman to be put into place. I do acknowledge that, in the other place, the government accepted that amendment. We look forward to working together to progress that.
Hopefully, over the next 12 months all of these measures will work to drive the shonks and spivs out of the sector. The way they have been exploiting young people has been appalling. We have seen report after report of young people signing up to courses that, firstly, they really did not have the capacity to undertake. Therefore, we have seen very disappointing completion rates. Secondly, they are quite often unaware of the size of the debt that they have been left with. That, of course, creates real issues for them in their longer term studies. Thirdly, as a result of being poorly recruited, very often by brokers who have no educational experience, many of them are unable to complete their courses. So quite often they have ended up with a debt and without a qualification—which is, potentially, the worst outcome.
We should also acknowledge that, for some people who have finished courses, the courses have been of such poor quality that the industry has blacklists of providers. Child care is one outstanding example where some employers have gone public. A young person has a qualification and is applying for jobs in good faith, unaware that they are not succeeding because the qualification is poorly regarded in the industry. So it is absolutely critical that we take stern action to make sure that this is weeded out.
It is not just young people who are being affected, as the minister, I know, is aware. Providers have been trawling aged-care sector and signing people up, saying, 'Because you're on the pension, you will never have to pay the debt back.' A program that should be there to support people who want a vocational qualification at the diploma level, in the same way that we support university students, ends up being trashed by that sort of behaviour. It is being trashed to the point where not only the funding stream is being discredited but also the whole sector, potentially, is being discredited. So we are a bit frustrated.
We are glad to see that, in a moment of panic, the government did some last-minute reform to its own legislation. We will support that. We do appreciate that the government has adopted some of the amendments that we put forward. I think it will pay for all of us to remain very alert and agile—to borrow the government's terminology—to make sure that this behaviour is absolutely stopped in the interim 12 months and that we can work together to establish a better scheme for the longer term.
On indulgence, Mr Speaker, I would just like to thank the member for Cunningham for the constructive way in which she has dealt with the government. I acknowledge her commitment to the importance of VET training and her desire to see a better VET system.
Question agreed to.
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: Brisbane and Cairns control tower life extensions.
As the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance advised the House when referring this project to the Public Works Committee, Airservices Australia is implementing new technology into air traffic control towers, known as the Integrated Tower Automation Suite, to combine flight and operational data, surveillance and voice communications into a single, integrated, tower-specific layout. To achieve this outcome, Airservices Australia is proposing to refurbish the existing facilities and upgrade supporting infrastructure to extend design life at Brisbane and Cairns airports.
The Brisbane and Cairns towers were built in 1987 and 1990 respectively. The fit-out and supporting infrastructure is from the original installation and is at the end of its design life. The committee has conducted an inquiry and is of the view that the project signifies value for money for the Commonwealth, and constitutes a project that is fit for purpose and expedient to carry out.
On behalf of the government I would like to thank the committee for once again undertaking a timely inquiry. Subject to parliamentary approval, the construction works of the Brisbane tower are planned to commence in late 2016 and be completed by mid-2017. The construction works for the Cairns tower are planned to commence in early in 2016 and be completed by late 2016. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
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: HMAS Stirling redevelopment, Stage 3A, Garden Island, Western Australia.
As the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance advised the House when referring this project to the Public Works Committee, the Department of Defence is proposing to upgrade and replace ageing critical infrastructure and to construct new facilities at HMAS Stirling on Garden Island, Western Australia.
The existing infrastructure at HMAS Stirling has reached or is nearing the end of its design life, and will not continue to effectively support Navy operations for Western Australia without immediate and substantial redevelopment. The HMAS Stirling redevelopment stage 3A project will include critical upgrades to civil, maritime, electrical, water, sewerage and communications infrastructure. It will also include general building upgrades to key facilities, and a new base entrance to improve and extend functionality essential to support current and future naval operations.
The committee has conducted an inquiry and is of the view that the project signifies value for money for the Commonwealth and constitutes a project that is fit for purpose and expedient to carry out. On behalf of the government I would like to thank the committee for, once again, undertaking a timely inquiry. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction is expected to begin in mid-2017, and should be completed by early 2020. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
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: Growler Airborne Electronic Attack Capability Facilities Project.
As the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance advised the House when referring this project to the Public Works Committee, the Department of Defence is proposing to refurbish existing facilities and construct new facilities at three locations across Australia to support the introduction of 12 new EA18G Growler aircraft and support systems for the Australian Defence Force
The works are proposed at RAAF Base Amberley, at the Army Aviation Centre at Oakey in Queensland and at Delamere Air Weapons Range in the Northern Territory.
The project will provide fit-for-purpose facilities to support and sustain the operation and maintenance of the Growler aircraft capability. The project works include civil works, living accommodation, administration facilities, logistics and maintenance facilities, training and simulator facilities, multistorey car parking, landscaping and demolition works. Once again, the government is committed to delivering world-class defence capabilities to support our soldiers, sailors, airmen and airwomen in their roles at home and abroad.
The committee has conducted an inquiry and is of the view that the project signifies value for money for the Commonwealth and constitutes a project that is fit for purpose and expedient to carry out. On behalf of the government I would like to thank the committee for once again undertaking a timely inquiry.
The project is valued at an estimated $348.6 million, excluding GST. This includes construction costs, escalation allowances, professional service fees, design, construction, Defence contingencies and information technology equipment. This investment will provide local employment opportunities for subcontractors in Queensland and the Northern Territory and will provide economic benefits for local business and industry. Subject to parliamentary approval, the project construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2016 with completion expected at all sites by mid-2021. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
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: Melbourne and Brisbane air traffic services centre—extension works.
As the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance advised the House when referring this project to the Public Works Committee, Airservices Australia and the Department of Defence are proposing to replace their existing air traffic control systems with the new civil/military air traffic management system being delivered under the OneSKY project to provide a common platform for provision of air traffic control in both civilian and military controlled airspace. To achieve this outcome, Airservices is proposing to extend existing facilities in Melbourne and Brisbane to modernise the facilities and upgrade the existing supporting infrastructure to enable delivery of the new system.
The proposed works comprise new air traffic services centres, which include controller rooms and amenities, in Melbourne and Brisbane to house the new air traffic control consoles and associated facilities. The existing air traffic services buildings in Melbourne and Brisbane will continue to contain air traffic control support facilities and, following the decommissioning of the existing air traffic control system, will be repurposed to house non-operational staff.
The committee has conducted an inquiry and is of the view that the project signifies value for money for the Commonwealth and constitutes a project that is fit for purpose and expedient to carry out. On behalf of the government I would like to thank the committee for once again undertaking a timely inquiry. Subject to parliamentary approval, the proposed works are scheduled to commence in early 2016 with a staged practical completion and commissioning from 2017. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
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: Delamere Air Weapons Range Redevelopment Project, Northern Territory.
As the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance advised the House when referring this project to the Public Works Committee, the Department of Defence is proposing to construct new fit-for-purpose facilities to support the Royal Australian Air Force's primary training area for air-to-surface weapon deliveries at the Delamere Air Weapons Range, Northern Territory. The Delamere Air Weapons Range includes targets representing an airfield complex, an urban environment and a fuel storage complex. The range also includes a high-explosive impact area, practice bombing impact zone, practice rocketry impact zone and air-to-surface gunnery lanes. The project will support increased exercise activity and the desire from coalition partners for increased exercise access and greater operational fidelity. The project will also support the safe employment of the Air Force's weapons capabilities and the new Growler mobile threat training emitter system.
The committee has conducted an inquiry and is of the view that the project signifies value for money for the Commonwealth and constitutes a project that is fit for purpose and expedient to carry out. On behalf of the government, I would like to thank the committee for once again undertaking a timely inquiry.
The project cost is estimated at $74.4 million, excluding GST. This includes the construction costs, escalation allowances, professional service fees, design, information technology, equipment and contingencies. This investment will bring economic benefits for the Northern Territory. Subject to parliamentary approval of the project, construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2016, with completion expected by early to mid-2018. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
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: Battlefield Airlifter Facilities Project, Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley, Queensland.
As the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance advised the House when referring this project to the Public Works Committee, the Department of Defence is proposing to construct new facilities at the Royal Australian Air Force Base Amberley, Queensland, to support the introduction of 10 new C27J Battlefield Airlifter aircraft and support systems for the Australian Defence Force.
The C27J Battlefield Airlifter aircraft is replacing the Caribou aircraft, which was retired from service in 2009 after a career spanning more than four decades. The flexibility of the C27J allows it to undertake a wide range of missions, from delivering ammunition to frontline troops to undertaking aeromedical evacuation of casualties.
The project includes a new headquarters building; hangars; a new apron including high-mast lighting, airfield ground lighting and hydrogen refuelling points; maintenance and deployment facilities; new training facilities; space for a flight stimulator and fuselage training stimulator; and associated engineering and site works.
The project will also construct facilities to replace functions displaced by the Battlefield Airlifter operational facilities and relocate a heritage building on the base.
The committee has conducted an inquiry and is of the view that the project signifies value for money for the Commonwealth and constitutes a project that is fit for purpose and expedient to carry out. On behalf of the government I would like to thank the committee for once again undertaking a timely inquiry. Subject to parliamentary approval of the project, construction is expected to commence in early to mid 2016, with all construction completed by early 2019. I commend the motion to the House, and I wish everyone a merry Christmas.
Question agreed to.
Sitting suspended from 17:29
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) took the chair at 09:30.
For many of us, sporting clubs and recreational activities are the centre of our social lives. This is especially the case for young people. Some of these young people are lucky that they identify which sports are for them from a younger age and then really strive for excellence in their field. This is the case for one young man from Craigieburn, Jack Bowen. I first met Jack back in 2014 when I awarded him a Local Sporting Champions grant of $500. At that time, Jack had already been training for five years, having started to box when he was just 11 years old. I watched him train and I could see the fire in him that drives him to win.
I met up with Jack and his mum, Michelle, last week at his graduation from Mount Ridley College. Michelle is intensely proud of her son and she told me what Jack has achieved since receiving the local sporting grant. She said, 'The grant went towards helping him achieve one of his dreams.' In April, he went to Queensland and competed in the Australian boxing titles and won the 52-kilo youth gold medal. Following that competition, he was selected to compete for the Australian team at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa. He left in August to train at the Australian Institute of Sport for two weeks before flying to Samoa in September. It was his first international competition. Jack won a gold medal in the 52-kilo division in the Commonwealth Youth Games in what they reported was the upset of the games because he easily beat the Asian youth champion from India. Last week, he won the Leader junior sport star of the year award for the second year in a row and took out the overall junior sports star of the year award as well on the same night. He is training hard to be selected for the youth world titles for Australia next year in November. That is a great update, and I am proud of what Jack has achieved in such a short time. Jack is keeping his eye on the prize and he is looking forward to the Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast. This fine young athlete will be a name to watch in 2018, so put your money on it. I am sure of it.
But successful kids like Jack do not do things on their own. They have supportive teams around them including family, coaches and peers. I am sure that Jack has expressed his thanks to these people in the roles they play—the mentors, coaches, sounding boards and cheer squads—for the support that is always in his corner. I would like to take the opportunity this morning to express my thanks to the unsung heroes in communities—volunteer coaches, managers, administrators and officials, as well as the parents and volunteers who do anything to assist their club like turning sausages at barbecues, canteen duty or bringing on the oranges at halftime. Without volunteers, our community sports and recreation organisations would not function.
A number of junior sporting groups out there are doing it tough as they are competing directly against each other for participants, volunteers, funds and grants. I encourage all local businesses to consider sponsoring youth junior sports clubs and organisations and working with them to help make young individuals or teams reach their goals and achieve their dreams as Jack has been able to do.
The Local Sporting Champions grant, funded by the Australian Sports Commission, is one of the ways that the government is involved in this space. Applications are open until 29 February 2016. I encourage all young kids in my electorate to get on board and put in an application for Local Sporting Champions grants.
The electorate of Lindsay is bound and cut through by the beautiful Nepean River. This wonderful freshwater river has served our community for many generations. Many of the farming communities in Western Sydney were started along the fresh water from our Nepean River. Upstream from the Nepean River is the Warragamba Dam, which is Sydney's major water supply. Downstream this river further feeds the Hawkesbury River system, on which many people enjoy boating and recreational activities. For more than a century, the Nepean River has been a playground for people of Penrith, and even today we have the beautiful Nepean Belle, a paddleboat that goes go up and down the river. Our river, though, has also been under much stress for many different reasons in many different ways. The overfertilisation of crops has meant the growth of various weeds which have damaged our river.
However, today I am very proud to say that the local Landcare groups have done amazing work to rehabilitate the river. About a decade ago the river looked more like a stagnant millpond. Many hundreds of thousands of weeds were choking the river, including black willows, which had been introduced after the Second World War. The noxious alligator weed had left the river, in some places, looking like a grassy lawn. The drought fed into the condition of the river, making the work look all the more challenging.
The changes to the river through dredging and quarrying to build the Warragamba Dam had massive effects on our river. I am pleased to say that the federal government has helped to steer the state and local authorities with programs to tackle weed management. Groups like Landcare and programs like the 20 Million Trees project—one million of these trees will be coming into the Cumberland Conservation Corridor—have helped to turn the health of our river around. I was very privileged recently to take a canoe trip from Emu Plains to Agnes Banks, where I could see this work in action. Where once alligator weed was choking the river, beautiful fresh water flows. These weeds have now been replaced with many native plants.
A lot of work has been done by biosecurity organisations like the CSIRO to find ways of fixing this problem. I would like to commend the work of Bill Dixon, David Hogan, Peter Chia, Matt Plunkett, Vanessa Keyzer, Jeff Cottrell and Den Barber for the work that they have done in rehabilitating our stunning Nepean River.
I rise today to commend the work of the Reconnect West, the Reconnect Youth Homelessness Prevent Program in Hobsons Bay and Wyndham. This is a joint program between Uniting Care Werribee Support and Housing and Anglicare Victoria Western Region. It delivers early intervention in youth homelessness. It is funded through the Department of Social Security and it works with young people and their families to reduce the risk of homelessness.
I have had a personal connection with this program, having referred students there who were in situations of chronic disconnection from family and who felt that they had nowhere to turn. When you are working in schools it is important to have long-term associations with organisations like Reconnect West. There are sometimes frequent changes of staff in schools. I frequently found myself in situations where I was working with a young person who felt that he or she could not return home for various reasons. Having the phone number of a reliable organisation, which can give a young person immediate assistance is absolutely vital in reducing the homelessness of our young people.
Reconnect West works with about 62 young people across a given a year. The organisation does case management, outreach, counselling and advocacy. It provides support for parents—the other side of disconnected youth. The organisation offers single therapy sessions and assisted referrals. It conducts mediation between young people and their peers, or young people and their families. But, most importantly, the Reconnect West does case management. That means that young people have someone that they can rely on, across a significant amount of time, to ensure that they get reconnected. I would like to commend the workers from Reconnect West: Cath Guerrieri, Essam Shehata and Sharon Tyrrell, who have been working with young people across the cities of Wyndham and Hobsons Bay for some time.
This program is funded until the end of this financial year. I received an email this week from Carol Muir, the chief executive officer of UnitingCare Werribee Support and Housing. She has long been serving in community organisations. Her question is simple: is this program still much loved by government? She asks, 'Can we get some assurance about funding beyond the next financial year?'
I am very proud of the fact that the electorate of Bradfield is home to the second largest Jewish community in the state of New South Wales. One of the pillars of the Jewish community in the electorate of Bradfield is the North Shore Synagogue, located in Lindfield and fondly known as the 'garden synagogue' for its beautiful surroundings.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the North Shore Synagogue. In 1940, the first Jewish service was held on the North Shore at Warringah Hall, in Neutral Bay. As the community grew, they established a building fund with the aim of creating a permanent home. Lindfield was chosen as the location in 1949—coincidentally, the same year that the seat of Bradfield was established. Over the following decades, the North Shore Synagogue and its community continued to grow in size as well as construct an impressive array of buildings, all of which have been well utilised, and, of course, help to found the Masada College and synagogue.
Much of the synagogue's history was under the guidance of the venerable Rabbi David Rogut, who joined the synagogue in 1975 and served until his retirement in 2003. In addition to his work with the North Shore Synagogue, he held many positions of distinction in the Jewish community, including as the dayan of the Sydney Beth Din.
I would like to pay particular tribute to the women's guild of the North Shore Synagogue, which has played an important part in the development of the synagogue since its founding in 1950, raising funds for such projects as supplying new office equipment, refurbishing the bathrooms, refurbishing the kitchen, supplying a new sukkah and contributing to the garden makeover.
Today, the North Shore Synagogue continues to be an integral part of the vibrant Jewish community in northern Sydney under the leadership of Rabbi Paul Lewin and president Trevor Collins. I was pleased recently to attend the gala concert to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the North Shore Synagogue. It featured the prominent Australian pianist Simon Tedeschi, who gave an absolutely dazzling performance. I was pleased to offer a letter of congratulations, which was included in the synagogue's 75th anniversary tribute book, which also featured letters of congratulations from many dignitaries, as well as fascinating information about the history of the synagogue.
The North Shore Synagogue has made an important contribution to the community life of both the broader community and the Jewish community on the North Shore of Sydney for 75 years. I congratulate all who have been involved. I wish the North Shore Synagogue well and wish it all the best for the future.
We are clearly approaching the festive season. In that spirit, particularly for my constituency, which had some challenges late last year and this year, it is a time, regardless of where we have come from and what faith we have, for all of us to come together and to celebrate what is good about our community and what is good about our country. Holt is often represented in a particular way, but one of the great things about the electorate is the way it responds to adversity, the way it holds together when there are pressures and the way that as a community it celebrates the festive season and the spirit of Christmas. It does it regardless of faith.
The reason I am now going to talk about the community carols is that these events are not well known outside the Casey region, but one of the carols events that I will be talking about can get up to 10,000 people attending. It is an amazing spirit. It is a great end of the year—the full stop at the end of the year—to attend these as a politician, as I know the member for Shortland would agree. It is great to be able to go there and not have a political hat on and just basically experience that spirit of togetherness in the festive season.
In the time remaining, I want to mention some of these carols for those who might be listening and might watch this a bit later on. The Endeavour Hills Community Carols will be on 12 December between five and nine at 2 to 8 Gleneagles Drive, Endeavour Hills. The Narre Warren North Community Carols will be between 6.30 and 10 at the corner of Tom Jones Road and A'Beckett Road, Narre Warren North. The Lynbrook Moonlight Cinema and carols will be on Saturday, 12 December from 6 pm till late, whatever that means, at Banjo Paterson Park, Lynbrook. The Doveton community carols will be Saturday 12 December from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm at 2 Frawley Road, Eumemmerring. The Hampton Park carols by candlelight, which is a pretty large event attended by over 4,000 people last year, will be on Friday 18 December between 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm at the corner of Cairns Road and Campbell Drive, Hampton Park. The Cranbourne Christmas carols will be on Saturday 19 December between 4 pm and 9:45 pm at 101 Lesdon Avenue, Cranbourne. And the large one—I hope the others do not say this—the very large carols by twilight, which I have had the honour of going to for 10 years now, will be on Thursday 24 December between 6 pm and 9:30 pm at 340-350 Princes Highway, Narre Warren.
I would just like to say to the people of Holt, it has been again a great honour to represent you, which I have now done for 16 years. You are a community that is often misrepresented, often badly portrayed but there is no better community in this country to represent. It is just wonderful to be amongst you. I will be thinking about that, thinking of the new year and remembering the privilege of representing you when I see you at these carols.
The Central Coast was brought to life at The Entrance last weekend with the 63rd annual Tuggerah Lakes Mardi Gras Carnival, formerly known as The Entrance Mardi Gras. The colourful, bright and fun filled weekend was packed full of entertainment for all of the family. The traditional Mardi Gras parade did not disappoint, with over 50 floats making their way through The Entrance while crowds gathered along the footpaths to cheer and wave. The floats were outstanding and included circus people, fire blazers, dancers, four brass bands, OzTrikes, Segways, motorbikes, the Marching Koalas, traditional Bara Barang Aboriginals, surf lifesaving, the Fun Engin and many more. Of course, Santa Claus was riding in the parade too.
The Entrance is home to the famous historic carousel and has been a favourite of young and old since 1930. Owned and operated by Hannah Haas, the carousel was a huge hit during the Mardi Gras celebrations. The Entrance is well known for carnival rides and games during school holidays and festivals and, for the first time, the Avenger ride was also included. Gotham Coffee did an amazing job showcasing the ride, with staff dressing up as Avengers, Gotham characters and other superheroes and villains from Batman and the Joker to Captain America and Hit-Girl. All the characters were hugely popular with the kids and lots of photos were taken with their favourite hero. There was face painting, plaster painting, plenty of food stalls and carnival rides. There were zorb balls, giant bubbles to climb into and float and roll around on the water. There was an obstacle course for kids and self-defence demonstrations. Everywhere you turned, there were activities and entertainment and it brought an electric atmosphere to The Entrance.
Not to be missed were the main stage acts, which kept everyone entertained, including: the Brisbane Water Brass Band; the Central Coast Music Association; Rockgod Music School Singers; Big Obsession, a 17-piece big band; local dancers; and Philipino dancers. Of course one of the most anticipated attractions for families was the arrival of Santa Claus and the Christmas carols in Memorial Park, which concluded with a brilliant fireworks display.
The Lakes Festival incorporated executive committee and subcommittee truly did an amazing job in bringing it all together. President Angelika Koop led a dedicated team of volunteers. Thank you to Hans and Janet Schryver, Mark Tansley, Michael Ahchee, Chris and Kate Wallace, Glenn Clarke and everyone who gave many hours of their time, as well as the event sponsors for their contribution to the success of this important and special tradition.
The Tuggerah Lakes Mardi Gras Carnival was once again a highlight in Dobell and was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone who ventured to The Entrance over the weekend.
I would like to acknowledge the achievements of Lisa Butson, a young woman, who went to school at Swansea High School and who has been chosen as a New Colombo Plan fellow. Lisa is an outstanding young woman. The first time I met her, she was competing in the Lions Youth of the Year at Swansea. At that time, I could see what a fantastic young person she was, what great values she had, how she had a big future in front of her. As members of parliament, we all meet special young people but Lisa is one of those very special young people. She has done some volunteering with me in my office and she has even come in on a casual basis and worked because she is just so talented.
I will tell you a little bit about Lisa. She is at Newcastle university. She is studying a Bachelor of Development Studies and she will do an honours year after she has completed the bachelor course. She has a grade point average of 6.6 out of seven. She has achieved distinctions and high distinctions in all courses. She has been placed on the Faculty of Science and Information Technology commendation list for outstanding academic performance in 2014. She is a student mentor at the University of Newcastle; she assists new students in their transition to university life. Lisa is the kind of person who understands what it is to provide support. She is just a beautiful, beautiful human being. She received a scholarship from the University of Newcastle to attend the University Scholars Leadership Symposium, in Hong Kong, in August this year. She volunteered in Nepal in 2012-13.
She has a long history of commitment to volunteering, providing support to people and academic achievement. She has a career objective to work in international development and diplomacy and I think she would do a great job in that area. While she is in the Philippines she will be looking at water and water waste. She will be concentrating on access to clean water and sewerage. Lisa knows how vital water is in nations that are developing. Lisa will give a lot to the project while she is involved in the New Colombo Plan, and I know that she will get a lot from the New Colombo Plan.
In 2013 I promised the people of Petrie that they would see the NBN rolled out more quickly and more cost-effectively under a coalition government, and with me as the member for Petrie, than they would under Labor. Last month I was thrilled to announce that locals will see construction continue on the NBN in suburbs like North Lakes, Mango Hill and on the Redcliffe peninsula from as early as 2016. Of course, in the new estates in these suburbs the NBN has already been fired up and is part of the fabric of people's lives in Petrie.
I ran for parliament because, as an Australian, I could not stand by and see our country fall into ruin with Labor's debt and deficit disaster. That is why the coalition have been running a very effective cost-benefit analysis against the money we spend. I want to thank the Prime Minister for coming up to Petrie—out to Mango Hill, out to North Lakes, down into Bracken Ridge—and looking at some of the issues. I also want to thank everyone involved in his former portfolio, the communications department; all the staff there made sure that Petrie has been prioritised.
In the five years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, only 10,400 users were connected throughout Australia and the cost was $7½ billion to taxpayers. That is more than $720,000 spent per household if you roll it out that way. Meanwhile, businesses in my electorate were suffering—I have high-growth areas in North Lakes in particular—and they were losing productivity because of poor internet connection. I made this a priority as the locals in Mango Hill and Deception Bay were calling me, saying that at times they could not even watch a YouTube video without the video buffering every few seconds. These experiences, of course, will soon be a memory and I would like to thank everyone in my electorate who has signed my petitions and helped campaign for this locally.
If you live in the older estates in North Lakes, Mango Hill and Griffin, you will start seeing the NBN construction by June next year. For those in the Brisbane City Council area, many homes in Aspley, Carseldine and parts of Fitzgibbon already have access to this technology, and construction will start in the second half of 2017 for Bridgeman Downs, Fitzgibbon, Bald Hills and Bracken Ridge. It is great news for people on the Redcliffe peninsula. The HFC networks are some of the most competitive in offering superfast broadband, and the first trial site in the country is in Petrie. Labor paid billions of dollars to decommission this old Optus cable TV network and was going to junk it. We are using it to get it to people's homes a lot quicker. Under our plan the NBN will be rolled out to the whole of my electorate two years quicker than the rest of the country and 10 years sooner than what would have happened if Labor was still in power.
I rise to express my disappointment at the suspension of the Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation centre, otherwise known as MITA, located in my electorate in Broadmeadows. News of this was brought to our attention by Sister Brigid Arthur who was interviewed on ABC radio yesterday. We were subsequently contacted by others expressing their surprise, concern and disappointment. The Brigidine Asylum Seekers Project has been in existence for 15 years. For the past four years, a small number of volunteers have been able to take people, including children, out of detention in MITA at various times throughout the year for excursions. Past excursions have included visits to the Collingwood Children's Farm, the zoo and the various parks around our beautiful city. These outings have been very successfully run for four years without incident. They were put on hold, pending review, six months ago without warning or explanation, and to date there has been no conclusion to this review. The program provides an invaluable social and education interaction for the children detained in MITA who, otherwise, are missing out on the normality, the curiosities and the simulations vital to the healthy development of their childhood.
I know from my own personal visits to MITA over the years just how beneficial these sorts of programs are and how vital they are for the young people, as well as the adults, in detention. I myself previously initiated a soccer program which involved weekly soccer matches between our local youth sporting clubs and the unaccompanied minors who were sent to MITA some years ago. This program was a success. It gave my local community an opportunity to meet and interact with those detained in MITA. It also brought some normality and humanity to the young people in detention. It certainly showed me the decency and the humanity of my constituents. Most people in detention do not know if or when they will be released. This uncertainty is very distressing. Programs where they are able to leave the centre or interact with the wider community are, therefore, very important for their wellbeing and welfare. Furthermore, if they are able to engage with the community at large whilst in detention they will be better able to integrate when released.
My office has contacted both MITA in Broadmeadows and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection regarding the suspension of the program. Both have advised that this is a matter for the minister. Therefore, in addition to writing to the minister, I want to ask the minister in this place to explain why the program is being reviewed, after four years without incident. I appeal to him to reinstate it immediately. MITA has been serviced by many volunteers over the years. The Brigidine sisters, in particular, have brought much love and compassion. It is why we are all very baffled as to why this very valuable volunteer program has been put on hold and, in fact, has been put on hold for such a long period of time. The uncertainty is unhelpful to all of us. I call on the minister to act immediately.
At this time of year every year we tend to look towards our constituents and our families as we approach the end of the parliamentary year. We all know parliament is an adversarial place. I see here the member for Chifley, who is no less adversarial than anyone else in this place. But at this time of the year I know he always sends out a nice Christmas card to many on this side of the House, as well as to all the people on his side of the House. We do tend to temper our adversarial nature as it comes to the end of the year.
This has been an eventful year. Mr Deputy Speaker Southcott, I know that you and I along the road have lost a great mate in Don Randall, the member for Canning. It also makes us turn and think about our families. Also, we think about his family—Julie, Tess and Elliot. I know that, as you have been in this place for so long now—20 years—your thoughts have turned to your family, and you will be leaving this place at the next election. I would just like to pay a compliment to you for the service that you have given to the parliament, for the committee work we have done together and for your great mateship towards our mate, the member for Canning.
Also, we tend to spend time with and focus more on our constituents over the summer period because we have fewer interruptions from parliament. I have always spoken about being inspired. I heard a recent story about a young man who is living in Anglicare. He is 16 years of age. He has had to leave home because both of his parents have drug issues and the rest of his family are in the UK. He had been working three jobs and he wanted to finish off his year 12 in a school. He approached one of the schools in my electorate and asked if he could attend that school for the final year. The school said, 'There are certain costs involved with that.' But this young man, who has been working three jobs and paying his board at Anglicare at the age of 16, turned around to the principal and said, 'I've saved up $8,000 at the age of 16.' This is a young man who wants to improve himself, so I took it upon myself, with some other people I know, to raise the extra money he needed for that particular education. I would like to thank Mike Litis, Mark and Heather Gatty, Robert and Ellen Pierce, Peter Treven, Terry Stabback, Jim and Kathy Crone, Bill and Sheryl Harding, and Brian and Ally Thorburn for their contributions to help this young man.
At this time, I would also like to thank all of my staff—Jonathan, Candice, Gail, Keith, Amber and Susanne—for the work they have done for myself and for the electorate of Swan during the year. In particular, I would like to thank my wife, Cheryle, not only for her selfless behaviour and for her contributions to my life and to my role as a parliamentarian but also for the sacrifices she has had to make by leaving her family to join with me. She is the hardest working volunteer I have on my team. Thank you.
I wanted to speak in relation to the provision of healthcare services for Aboriginal communities residing within the Chifley electorate. Earlier this year there were a series of changes being made to the funding arrangements of the then Aboriginal Medical Service Western Sydney. I was, in particular, concerned with a number of things about the way in which that was managed. Specifically, I wanted to ensure that in any transition in those arrangements there was uninterrupted service and that the front-line health services and the people providing them would be maintained and not lose their jobs. I also wanted to ensure that there was effective consultation with Aboriginal communities that reside within Chifley. We are proud within the Chifley electorate to reside within Dharug lands and thank our custodians past and present for their custodianship.
We called on the government—and I was joined in this by the member for Lingiari—to maintain an open approach to the way in which they managed this issue. I note the presence of the health minister here. I want to, if I may, extend to her my deepest gratitude for the fact that this was an approach where both sides of politics were committed to working towards the maintenance of health services for Aboriginal communities in our area. I have to commend the minister for the way that she, her staff and also the assistant minister worked cooperatively to ensure that this was never an issue of funding cuts, but, rather, it was an issue to try and improve the way health services were delivered to communities in our area. I am happy to say that on 26 November, through the auspices of WentWest and other people who have been committed to this process, including the New South Wales government, the Sydney West Aboriginal Health Service was opened and available. It is providing primary care GP services, child and family services, dental services, drug and alcohol services, mental health services and other services for patients with chronic conditions. I wish it every success and congratulate the government on its willingness to work with us in maintaining this service in this area.
In contrast to that, a few weeks ago I wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister complaining about the way in which community consultation was being mismanaged around the creation of the second airport in Sydney's west. The member for Greenway and I jointly wrote to him. He refused to consult with me or my office, and his office refused to consult on this. In fact, they talk with anyone rather than working with us on this. I think I have a track record, as evidenced earlier, in my commitment of working with the government on areas where we believe that there can be cooperation. But the Deputy Prime Minister has singularly failed to work effectively with us. In particular, I raise my objections as an individual member of parliament about his mismanagement of consultation and call on him to improve the way he works.
As 2015 draws to a close, it is timely for me to acknowledge the young people in O'Connor whose school year is coming to an end. For many of them, their secondary schooling is about to end forever. For those students, it represents the end of 12 long years of schooling and the beginning of a new and exciting phase of their lives. It is their turn to take that leap of faith into the unknown and into their futures. Most of them probably already have an idea of what comes next: taking a gap year, going straight to university or TAFE, starting an apprenticeship or starting a new job. I wish each and every one of them great success as they start their post-secondary education journey.
What I wish more than anything else is that they are able to pursue further studies on a level playing field with their city cousins. The undeniable fact is that most country kids have no choice but to move to the city for some if not all of their tertiary studies. It puts country students at an enormous disadvantage. Slowly we are closing that gap. Recent budget changes to remove the family assets test and the family actual means test and allow all family tax benefit children to be considered for eligibility will make it easier for a subset of country students who were previously ineligible for youth allowance.
It is a first step, but we have more to do to level the playing field. I continue to work closely with the Minister for Social Services, Christian Porter, and the Minister for Education and Training, Simon Birmingham, to explore ways to make it easier for country students to access higher education. Some time soon I hope we will stop being the country cousins when it comes to education. Country cousins of course punch way above their weight when it comes to education. Despite the difficulties of remoteness and lack of opportunities, many of them grasp every opportunity they can, and the results they consistently achieve are a tribute to them and their communities and their commitment to doing the very best they can under any circumstances.
I want to make special mention of two young men who have made their mark on the sporting field and have been recognised at a national level. Kade Stewart of Katanning, from my old football club of the Wanderers, has been drafted to Hawthorn. I know that his teammates and particularly his mum and dad, Brenton and Anne-Marie, will be very proud. Also, Declan Mountford of North Albany has been drafted to North Melbourne. I know his grandfather Fred and father, Ray, will also be very, very proud.
To all the students of O'Connor, I say well done on completing yet another year. To those of them who are graduating from high school this year: my very best wishes for the future. I also want to take this opportunity to thank my staff for their dedication not just to me but to the people of O'Connor and for their hard work. I also want to acknowledge the sacrifices that my wife, Tanya, and my children—Emma, Annalise, Phillippa and Archie—make to allow me to do this job. Thank you very much.
I join our colleagues on the other side of the House and wish everyone a fabulous Christmas and a magnificent 2016. Unfortunately, I have to talk about a topic today which is not joyous, and that is the delivery of the NBN into the electorate of Perth. Many punters in my electorate are pretty cross about their broadband service and the fact that they have been excluded even from the dumbed down fibre-to-the-node rollout. They have absolutely no hope of any upgrade for at least the next four years.
The Prime Minister promised at the last election that those with the worst speeds would be prioritised, but this clearly has not happened, as I have demonstrated in this place before. Over the last two weeks we have actually had 300 complaints about broadband, and I want to give you some examples of these. First of all we have Paul Dickinson. Paul is from Dianella. He says:
I am a sometimes Liberal supporter but this NBN issue coming as it does on top of road before rail, Route 8, lavish spending on pet projects like Elizabeth Quay whilst cutting funding to essential services, means I for one will not be voting Liberal in either State or Federal elections in future.
We have Craig Heath from Dianella. He says:
My son who is doing Engineering at UWA has to go to UWA to do any internet work as its not reliable, we have to rely on wireless that is so slow and drops out all the time and what makes it worse is we are in a wireless black hole.
This is less than 10 kilometres from the CBD, and a young tertiary student cannot do their work at home.
I want to read this from Julie Scott from Maylands:
From my home I have a clear line of sight to the city centre 4kms away and yet we have to rely on ridiculously expensive hotspot options along with appalling internet speeds.
I have travelled extensively and have never experienced such slow connection speeds and the fact we have no other option is both galling and frustrating when we see other suburbs going on to the NBN before us when they at least already have some broadband coverage.
And Helena and David Pak from Bedford wrote:
We love our suburb but this broadband issue diminishes the amenity of Bedford. We find it frustrating that in 2015 we are unable to enjoy services such as video on demand and any data related services offered by major tech companies.
This must be dealt with. It cannot be left unattended for the next four years.
As the 2015 school year comes to a close and all are looking forward to a well-earned break, I take this opportunity to acknowledge the tremendous work of teachers, principals, governing councils, students, parents, volunteers and the school community generally. As I have stated in this place on a number of occasions, education is a passion of mine, and Hindmarsh is home to a number of great schools doing some great things. At every opportunity I enjoy visiting schools, where I meet the many committed teachers and principals and appreciate speaking with students of all ages. I have greatly valued attending recent end-of-year award presentation ceremonies and valedictories, where I have heard some amazing stories of students' excellence and talents in academics, sport, music and broader school involvement. I have been very impressed with the achievements of all award winners across the electorate, and I congratulate all recipients.
In 2014 I introduced the Hindmarsh Shield Award to recognise and celebrate those who go above and beyond in their contribution to their school. The Hindmarsh Shield Award is presented in the spirit of Sir John Hindmarsh, who the electorate was named after and who was the Governor of South Australia from 1836 to 1838. The award acknowledges the valuable contribution of a student, recognising excellence in their studies, in leadership, in community service, in the sporting or musical domain, or in entrepreneurship. I take this opportunity to mention of the 2015 Hindmarsh Shield recipients thus far: from St Michael's College, Anthony Bonini; Underdale High School, Isabella Martin; William Light, Nook Sayendi; Brighton Secondary School, Stella Batelaan; Sacred Heart College, Emily Kirk; Warriapendi School, Natasha Lonsdale; Nazareth Catholic College, Adriano Ricchetti; Tennison Woods Catholic Primary School, Brianna Bakota; Fulham Gardens Primary School, Carmen Leong; Henley High School, Lachlan Fairall; and Star of the Sea, Ersilia Pascoe.
I would like to make special mention of Adriano Ricchetti. Through his five years at Nazareth Catholic College, Adriano has displayed a maturity well beyond his years. As well as being a full-time student with pleasing academic results across a wide range of subjects, Adriano has been regularly involved in the college's extracurricular activities, most notably soccer. Beyond the school arena, Adriano has also taken on a great deal of responsibility given his family's unique circumstances. Both of Adriano's parents are hearing impaired and consequently have some difficulty communicating with others. As well as this, Adriano's father has had to deal with a serious medical issue for a number of years. Being the responsible person he is, Adriano often spent time away from both school and his friends to help his parents communicate with medical professionals and to remain with his family during these trying times. This selflessness and care for others above himself exemplifies his character and is something he can certainly be proud of. I said hello to him and his family briefly last week at the Nazareth College presentation, where they had over 1,000 people. It was a fine event.
I congratulate all year 12 students in Hindmarsh on their 13 years of education and wish them the best of luck in whatever their endeavours may be.
We have a new PM but the policies remain the same. Today I call on the Turnbull government to drop Tony Abbott's plans to privatise Australian Hearing and its research arm, National Acoustic Laboratories. I am very pleased that the health minister is here with us this morning to listen to this discussion. The proposal to privatise Australian Hearing was part of the Abbott government's unpopular and unfair first budget. Strong opposition from community groups and peak bodies has caused the government to delay the sell-off, but the finance minister has indicated that a decision will be announced prior to the end of 2015.
Advocates for Australians with hearing impairments, including the Deafness Forum of Australia and Parents of Deaf Children, have said that privatisation puts deaf and hearing-impaired people at risk of reduced services. Labor will fight to ensure that people who have hearing difficulties, including in my own electorate of Hunter, get the support and services they deserve. Australian Hearing has offices across my electorate, including at Cessnock, East Maitland, Maitland, Muswellbrook, Scone and Singleton. Alex Jones, who is profoundly deaf and has a profoundly deaf son, told the ABC's 7.30 program:
'It's vital for deaf children all around Australia …
'To privatise Australian Hearing, that will lead to risk, risk where children aren't well looked after.
'Why would the Australian Government privatise something that's working?'
Australian Hearing operates 137 permanent hearing centres, 380 visiting centres, 20 remote sites, seven hearing buses and 233 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander outreach sites. There are no guarantees that those services will continue if the Turnbull government goes ahead with Tony Abbott's plan to privatise the organisation. Australian Hearing provides low-cost, accessible hearing health services to young people under 26, adults with complex hearing needs, people on Centrelink services, our returned services and, of course, age pensioners.
The unregulated private audiology industry has been plagued by accusations that patients are being misled into buying more expensive hearing aids in order for staff to meet sales targets and to receive commissions. Leading audiologist Dr Bill Vass told the ABC, 'It's a cowboy industry that needs to be reined in.' The Turnbull government has not made a case for this privatisation and has failed to address the widely expressed concerns about risks to the quality of services and access to trained audiologists that privatisation poses. Labor will continue, and I will continue, to oppose privatisation in the best interests of hearing-impaired people and the wider community.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak to the parliament today not as health minister but as local member for Farrer in the New South Wales Murray region. Today I want to sound a note of alarm and caution with respect to my communities, the irrigators of the New South Wales Murray region. Today the water minister has tabled the government's full response to the Report of the Independent Review of the Water Act, alongside legislation, and this tabling has, I am pleased to reflect, picked up on all of the 23 recommendations that were made in full or in part. I thank the water minister, and I understand that this is, if you like, an important start on the process of making the necessary adjustments to the Basin Plan.
However, when I say I want to sound a note of caution, I want to make it very clear to the parliament today how unhappy, anxious and desperate my communities are feeling at this point in time. For farmers who are fourth and fifth generation to not be able to plant a rice crop this season because of low allocations and the high cost of temporary water—close to $300 a megalitre—but to watch the Murray River rapidly delivering large volumes of water downstream and know that they are effectively excluded from their livelihood is causing great angst, and I understand that very well. So I believe we as a government have to do some important things, and I appreciate the minister for water's close understanding and contact with me on these issues.
On 1 January next year there will be a new CEO of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, and I want to call out the culture in that authority right now. It simply does not recognise that the communities need to have their voice heard and they need to be understood, and you do not just tick a box and say, 'We've covered off on social and economic outcomes.' You actually have to understand the cumulative effect of so much removal of water from the vital infrastructure of their farming operations, so when we do these exercises we have to look not only at the most recent social and economic effect but at the total effect. That culture has to change, and we have to understand that the Basin Plan as it stands now is not deliverable. I want the new incoming chief executive officer to prove to my communities that it is deliverable and to take the steps to give them the understanding and make the changes that I know need to happen.
Despite the harmful legacy of the 2014 budget, the Turnbull government is still intent on hurting families by cutting the family tax benefit. Labor has managed to protect grandparent carers from the worst of the cuts, but the Turnbull agenda remains steeped in unfairness. Hardworking families will be hit hardest by these cruel and unfair cuts to the family tax benefits. In my electorate of Moreton, 8,884 families on family tax benefit A will lose $726 a year for every child. The 7,708 families in Moreton who are on family tax benefit B will also suffer a cut of $354 per family. I was raised by a single mum so I know that single parent families find it tough enough already to raise their children alone. They will face, sadly, a massive reduction in family tax benefit B when their youngest child turns 13. They will typically be facing a cut of $4,700 a year. A family with two parents and two children in school will typically be facing a cut of $2,600 a year.
Most families understand that every dollar is crucial when it comes to balancing the family budget. Children are expensive. My boys are six and 10 and I know that it does not get less expensive as they get older. In fact, 13-year-olds can be much more expensive than three-year-olds. I am really looking forward to that! For example, active children who are involved in sports cost their family a lot of money in sports clothing, equipment and club registration and insurance. A cut of $4,700 a year for single parent families, or $2,600 a year for two-parent families, might make participating in sporting activities out of reach for many children. This is at a time when childhood obesity is on the rise. As I saw at a diabetes conference recently, even diabetes is on the rise for young children.
It is not only unfair; we also want our next generation to be fit and healthy members of Australian society. We want them to have had the benefit of a childhood where their parents can afford to give them healthy food, to provide them with proper medical care and education and to encourage them to be active members of society. These cuts from the Turnbull government will make that impossible for many families so many children will suffer. These are cuts to families who cannot afford more cuts. More than 600,000 families receiving family tax benefit A earn less than $40,000 a year. Once again, the Turnbull government is attacking those who can least afford it.
On top of that we have had flagged a raising of the GST. If the government carries through this 50 per cent hike, taking it up to 15 per cent, households will be hit by up to $4,000 extra on top of those cuts to the family tax benefit that I have outlined. They will be paying more for healthy food for their children—for fruit and veggies—for medical expenses, for clothing, for education, for electricity, and even sporting club fees. Labor understands fairness and values families. We will always stand up for those.
I rise to speak about my concerns in relation to the lack of questioning time under preventative detention legislation and the interviewing of suspects held in detention for terrorist-related events. Back on Monday, 28 November 2015 I rose to support the Anti-Terrorism Bill (No. 2). I quote from my speech on the day:
I am greatly concerned there is no provision to interview a terrorist suspect whilst in preventative detention. To be interviewed, the suspect must be released and re-arrested under part 1C of the Crimes Act, where investigators will only have 48 hours of interview time.
This has now been increased to seven days:
After the London bombings, British authorities determined that 14 days to interview terrorist suspects was insufficient and increased the interview and detention period to 28 days.
My views on preventative detention have not changed. The great concern I have is that you can have a person in preventative detention who may have knowledge to prevent a terrorist attack and police are not able to question that person. It is a basic tool for policing to ask questions to elicit information. It has never been used at a Commonwealth level. That tells me there is something greatly wrong with the legislation; that is why it is not being used. The states have 14 days preventative detention. That has been used in Victoria and New South Wales and, again, they cannot question. I note that Mike Baird, the Premier of New South Wales, has requested 28 days.
The big concern I have with multiple terrorist attacks or planned attacks, numerous offenders, search warrants being executed, interpreters being used and computers being analysed is that the time frame to interview a person under part 1C of the Crimes Act, which totals eight days, is insufficient. I am proposing that we look at the UK model. They have preventative arrests without warrant which must be from ongoing investigation into a suspected terrorist. It was 28 days; it has now been reduced to 14 days for constitutional reasons.
In order for the 28 days preventative arrests without warrant, we need our law enforcement agencies to be prepared to be vocal on this. I have spoken to numerous law enforcement officers in the past. At the low levels they are very supportive of change; at the upper levels they do not dare ask the government for this. That needs to change, and change very quickly. I have no doubt that the new Victorian Chief Commissioner, Graham Ashton, who led the charge on the royal commission into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, and his new assistant, Commissioner Ross Guenther, who I know personally, will be prepared to put their hands up when it comes to making this change, as will the Commissioner of the NSW Police Force, Andrew Scipione, and the Commissioner of the AFP, Andrew Colvin. They are all great law enforcement members. We need to make sure that we are no longer protecting the rights of the terror suspects when we should be protecting the rights of the people they wish to harm.
This Saturday marks International Volunteer Day, and I rise to celebrate and recognise the outstanding contribution and spirit of volunteerism in my electorate of Greenway. There is no area of my local community, and indeed of our national way of life, that has not been strengthened by everyday Australians willing to donate their time and energy for the benefit of others. Through countless acts of compassion, charity and dedication, volunteers exemplify the values we as a society cherish. The number of Australians who volunteer their time and skills has now exceeded 6 million, well over a quarter of our entire population, and they contribute over $200 billion to the Australian economy annually. Yet the true measure of their contribution can be seen each and every day through the energy they impart into the very fabric of our community, the real and lasting impact their selfless deeds have on the people of this life they have touched and whose burdens they have lifted.
Today I would like to highlight just a few people who demonstrate the kind of volunteerism in Greenway that our residents are providing across our community, such as Ms Deborah Martin from Toongabbie, who every day for more than six years has voluntarily cared for injured wildlife from across Western Sydney; Ms Savannah Zwerus from Quakers Hill, who at just 21 years of age took it upon herself to make time to combat the debilitating effects of social isolation and helped visually impaired teens go out and enjoy social events they would otherwise not have been able to attend; and Ms Biddy O'Malley, an amazing woman and a great character who this year once again volunteered at St Anthony's Primary Girraween Annual Spring Fair, just as she has done for the past 46 years—her scones have been my downfall.
The spirit of volunteerism in Greenway is not confined just to our borders. Take the Blacktown City Lions Club, who donate through their Feed the Children Program, who have helped nourish children devastated by natural disasters overseas and who truly embody their 'We Serve' motto every day. Volunteers like Geoff and Cherie Harrison and Paul and Rissa McInnes give so much of their time, as do as many other members of their strong team. Through the Australian Volunteers for International Development program Ms Anne Gan of Stanhope Gardens went to the Philippines and selflessly dedicated her time and energy to their Red Cross.
Too often we hear of great cynicism about our society, yet day in day out volunteers throughout Australia, with little fanfare and even fewer resources, stand united to foster stronger communities, build bridges among people and set a powerful example of leadership and compassion, irrespective of ethnicity, colour or creed. As we celebrate International Volunteer Day, let us all therefore recognise and celebrate this quintessential Australian ethos. May we each strive to make that kind of difference in our own lives and may volunteers continue to set a powerful moral example for years to come.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. You'd better watch out, you'd better not cry, you'd better not pout, 'cos I'm telling you why: Braddon in Tasmania is heading in the right direction. I would like to give a 2015 report card to my electorate. In the midst of some ongoing challenges that probably every electorate faces but which we certainly do in the north-west of Tasmania, there is a great story to tell. But you would not know that if you just listened to thee opponents of the government. You would only hear the bad news stories—and the glass is always half empty; it is never half full. I want to say to the people of Braddon: chins up and let us be confident about the future, because there is a great story to tell.
In August 2013, just before this government was elected, the unemployment rate in Tasmania was 8.2 per cent. It now sits at 6.2 per cent. The Braddon unemployment rate was 9.2 per cent and two years later it is 7.2 per cent. The youth unemployment rate was 21 per cent before we came into government. It is now still too high, but it is 16.5 per cent. Housing approvals are up and there are green shoots everywhere in the Tasmanian and north-west Tasmanian economies. Confidence in the advanced manufacturing sector of the north-west coast is enormously high. It is not misguided confidence; it is because we know we can. We know we can compete at a global level and we know we have the competence and the capacity in our workforce.
On the ongoing challenge of the Caterpillar factory closure, heads are held high at the moment as we look forward to many opportunities. We are involved locally in a high-level consortium bid to produce and manufacture the LAND 400 Defence contract. We have a local company called Haulmax that is in a current negotiation and a strategic build of Orica's mining explosive trucks. We have just announced the Hydrowood project, which is an exciting project, not to mention the high-level excitement in our agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture—all -cultures—of the north-west coast when it comes to free trade agreements. We are about to prove to the world not only that Australia is producing some of the best produce in the world but also, over and above that, that Tasmania will compete on a global market now as it has not done before. The glass is more than half full in the state of Tasmania and in the electorate of Braddon. This is on top of the support by the government through irrigation—$60 million—and there will be new projects rolling out there. The exciting news for all our exporters is that on 1 January the expansion of the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme will come into effect and those who export will be able to make an application for $700 for every 20-foot container.
I want to say to the people of Braddon: have a great Christmas and a wonderful new year. Stay confident because we can. It is not misguided confidence but a confidence built on a very positive outlook.
In accordance with standing order 193 the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.
I am delighted to speak on the Standing Committee of Procedure report Provisions for a more family-friendly chamber. I felt it was important that this report not go unremarked in this chamber, because it is a very important part of ensuring that we send a very clear signal from this parliament that we want to make sure that breastfeeding is available in every place in Australia and that it is not banned anywhere in Australia, including in our own House of Representatives and here in the Federation Chamber.
This report came about because over the course of many years we have seen a number of women and men who have young children in this place, and we have subsequently started to improve our procedures and our standing orders as a result. I am delighted to say that the report in particular has a couple of really important implications for women generally but also for families here in this place to enable them to continue to be able both to do their work as parliamentarians and also to continue to breastfeed or care for very young infants in the place. The first is that it lifts the notion that you cannot bring infants or small children into the chambers, whether it be for breastfeeding purposes or for caring for them. It also reiterates the commitment that was made back in 2008 for this place to ensure that Parliament House should be accredited as a breastfeeding-friendly workplace. We achieved that accreditation in 2008. I know the Speaker and both the Government Whip and the Opposition Whip were incredibly instrumental in making sure that happened. Whilst the accreditation is a yearly thing, I think it is something that does need some attention because some of the procedures in place, the requirements for separate rooms and the attention that is needed to some of those, have slipped off the agenda a little.
Much of the media attention on this report and in its lead-up was about the recommendation that breastfeeding be allowed on the floor of the parliament. If women choose to do that, that is fully supported by the recommendations of the report. I think it is important to make it clear that, as the report also says, it should be a matter of choice for women. What was removed from women was, in essence, that breastfeeding was banned from two rooms in this entire building. The principle should be that breastfeeding is not banned anywhere. Where women choose to breastfeed is entirely a matter for them, but it should not be banned. In essence, the procedures have done that.
The report notes that a number of members said that it would be their preference to use the proxy vote. Again, that is something that has been a very important part of the change in procedures for this place. It came about in 2008, when the government whip and the opposition whip recognised my own personal circumstances. It was an incredibly important part of my being able to not only continue my commitment to breastfeeding my young son but also continue to exercise my vote in this place. As the report says:
The proxy vote offers greater flexibility compared to provisions in other legislatures that require nursing mothers to either breastfeed in the Chamber or leave their baby in order to vote. It has been put to the Committee, however, that if the Parliament is to fully support breastfeeding, it should not be prohibited in any part of the building, including the Chamber and Federation Chamber.
That is an important principle for all places in this country. It is important that choice continue to be made available and that we not attempt to inflict a single solution on nursing mothers. The report also notes that the proxy vote is currently only available to women in the House. I strongly urge that this option be also made available in the Senate.
Of course, making parliament friendlier for women is not just confined to breastfeeding. Like parents everywhere, we have all had to juggle those sudden work commitments that make child care unavailable or difficult. We are incredibly fortunate in this place to have the use of a childcare centre—indeed, I was the first MP to use that parliament centre regularly—but it is still far from ideal, given that parliament on some days sits from nine in the morning until quite late at night. As the report notes, from my own submission, on occasion I did need to bring my very young son into the chamber during late-night sittings when other suitable care was not available. The flexibility shown to me by the then Speaker and both the government and the opposition whips allowed me to travel to Canberra with my son until after his third birthday. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that that allowed me as a new parent not to miss out on those early years of my child. The bond between my little boy and me has been absolutely strengthened because of the accommodations that were made at that time. Being an MP does require lots of travel and lots of time away from home, so trying to keep your baby with you so that you can breastfeed is certainly difficult enough.
This report stands on the shoulders of many. Often when you have your own children you see everything through the prism of what is happening to you, but there are women who have come before every one of us. Ros Kelly was, I think, the first MP to be pregnant and give birth. We then had Jackie Kelly, who was the first federal minister. We have since had many women, such as Anna Burke, and Jacinta Collins in the other place. It has become something that it should not be surprising we are trying to juggle. This report will, I think, be very welcome. The change in procedures will be very welcome. It is regrettable that it has taken until 2015 for us to actually do it, but I am glad we have. Hopefully the publicity around the instigation of the report will send a strong message to women on all sides considering a political career that they do not have to choose between being a parent and being an MP.
We want all workplaces across this country to be breastfeeding friendly. I strongly encourage all of them to become accredited by the Australian Breastfeeding Association as breastfeeding-friendly workplaces. Our workplace is no different and should continue with that accreditation. All mums must have the best possible support to breastfeed their baby in that first year, and that includes support from their workplaces. I am very pleased that this, which in essence is our workplace, has recognised that by ensuring that there is no ban—no prohibition—on where women can breastfeed their children and that, if there are circumstances in which you need to have your children accompany you because it is very late at night and you do not have any care, this place is available for it. Again, I encourage making sure that the breastfeeding accreditation remains up to date. One of the issues in this place is that no one department has taken ownership of the breastfeeding rooms in the building; also the family space down the end of my corridor had been neglected for quite a long period of time because no one department took ownership of it. I encourage that to be the case.
I want to again commend the member for Boothby, who chaired this committee, and other members of the committee. It has been a very short, sharp inquiry, but it is an important one that sends a very important signal from this place that breastfeeding-friendly workplaces are important. It is an important signal for this parliament to send to women and parents, to show that we want them to be able to balance their careers and their families. These procedures and the changes that are made in this report certainly go a long way to doing that here in our workplace.
I really appreciate the indulgence of the House to say a few words today on the committee report that has just been put before the parliament by the procedure committee. The report is entitled Provisions for a more family-friendly chamber. This committee of really terrific and motivated members of parliament has set out to explore some of the ways that we can make our parliament an environment where parents can feel that they can combine their work and family responsibilities in a more effective manner.
One of the provisions that has been recommended to be adopted by the parliament is that we allow breastfeeding to take place in the chamber. I am very supportive of this provision, and I am really glad that the committee has made that recommendation. I have to say though, I do not think that is the part of the report that is most important to me as a mum and as a member of parliament. The thing that I am most pleased about and most excited about is the recommendation the committee has made that working parents in this building be allowed to take their infant children into the chamber when they need to do so. People who I have discussed this with in the past have sometimes come back to me and said: 'This is ridiculous. This is a workplace. People are making critical decisions.' So I want to share a little bit about my experience as a mum, my experience of having an infant and being a member of parliament, in the hope that explaining it will shed some light on why this is so important for us.
When I was elected to parliament I had a little baby. He was less than three months old on the day that I was elected. From that point on, I basically went through this situation where we would come to Canberra for 20 weeks a year while I was trying to breastfeed my young son and learn the new job of being a member of parliament. One of the really crystallising experiences that I had was when I came to work one day and a division was called almost immediately. I was looking after my baby on my own that day—I did not have my partner or my mum with me; I sometimes brought someone along to help me look after my child while I was working—and almost the instant that I got into my office, a division was called and my baby started to cry. He was really, really upset; he was about five months old at the time. It was a division, so I had to run down to the chamber and vote. I had to leave my baby there with a staff member who had never had a child. When I handed the baby over, she honestly looked like she was going to cry herself! She did a wonderful job, but anyone who has been a parent knows that it is gut-wrenching to walk away from your own child at that early stage of their life. That is something that, as members of parliament, we are called on to do relatively frequently. I can think of another situation where I was carrying my baby through the halls of parliament, having just finished feeding, and again a division was called. I was standing in the middle of parliament with a baby, knowing that I needed to be in the chamber in the next three or four minutes.
It is these difficulties that we have been facing for a while here. I am sure that no-one would want to create a situation where new mums who are trying to establish breastfeeding, or new dads who are trying to develop that early bond with their child, have to throw their child to someone who is not really equipped to care for them. I am not the only person who has had experiences like this. There are lots of members of parliament who have had to do the same sort of thing, and it is in our interest that this sort of situation be prevented. This provision that will allow people to take kids into the parliament when it is necessary is a really important one for me.
I want to echo some of the words of the member for Ballarat in her contribution to this. The reality is that all families are trying to find ways to juggle work and childcare responsibilities. This is absolutely not something that is unique to members of parliament, and there are many aspects to our role as members of parliament that are more consistent with parenting than the roles of other people who face issues like casual work and not being able to plan child care around those sorts of things. Of course, as members of parliament we have more resources to manage our childcare responsibilities and our work, and we have a lot more flexibility than most people.
None of this is to say that the difficulties that we face are worse than those of any other parents and families trying to manage these, but we do face some specific aspects of our role that makes this difficult. We are away for 20 weeks a year, when parliament is sitting, and we are here from somewhere around 7.30 or eight o'clock in the morning until nine or 9.30 at night. Of course, having a baby or an infant makes things really hard sometimes. It is something that all families are juggling, but something I am really pleased to see the parliament taking some leadership on.
I think that is what we should strive for as a parliament. We should not be lagging in areas of combining work and family; we should be leading on that. That is because it is so crucial that we have a family-friendly working environment in, of all places, this parliament, so that people—and women in particular—who are of the age when they are having their first kids can make a real contribution to the public life of this country. Surely that is something that is of interest to every Australian.
I will make one final point. We face some huge issues with women's engagement generally in work in Australia. I read some really interesting statistics recently: there are more men by the name of Andrew or David by a factor of five than there are women running top-200 companies in this country; and there is a 17 per cent gap between the wages of men and women that is growing over time, not diminishing. One of the critical things here—the Pandora's box—is trying to find ways in which both men and women can get a balance between work and family during those periods of time when their kids are really young. I am so pleased to see that the parliament is tackling this challenge head-on.
I want to thank the members of the Procedure Committee for what is a terrific report. I really do hope that the parliament adopts the recommendations in it.
Debate adjourned.
) ( ): I rise today to speak about bushfires and tourism in my electorate of Barker. My electorate of Barker, and South Australia more broadly, is facing a once in a hundred years rainfall deficiency that has seen farmers across much of my electorate face significant challenges. Whilst previously I have raised the failure—and, indeed, the failure of state government—to deliver drought concessional loans, today I would like to take the opportunity to discuss the impact drought conditions are having on many parts of my electorate.
Drought has affected primary producers in almost every corner of my electorate. As we approach summer, those effects are, sadly, starting to translate into heightened bushfire conditions. In recent weeks we have seen the devastating impact of these dry climatic conditions and high winds with the bushfires that have struck rural South Australia. My thoughts and prayers are with my fellow South Australians who have lost so much in these recent fires, especially in the electorate of Wakefield, which borders mine, where lives and livelihoods have been lost. In the face of such tragic circumstance and elevated risk it is right that we are cautious and react accordingly. As we approach what is going to be a dry and hot summer, we should prepare for bushfires, just as we have done in the past.
However, recently I received some important advice from Anne Moroney, Chief Executive Officer of Regional Development Australia Barossa. I would like to share that advice with the House. Whilst it is absolutely critical that we acknowledge the loss and grief of those in the affected areas, we should not compound that loss and tragedy by cancelling travel arrangements to the Barossa wine and tourism region, which was fortunate not to be touched by the fire. My electorate is about the size of Croatia, and the Barossa Valley itself is a large area.
It is important that people do not conflate reports that bushfires have affected the region. All reports that I have received indicate that the Barossa is continuing with its world-class services and continuing to deliver excellent produce alongside hospitality.
There are many people across the fire-affected regions who earn off-farm income in the Barossa, and it is time to generate more activity, not reduce it. The people of the Barossa Valley are open for business. It is absolutely essential that people continue to engage the excellent services that can be found across the valley. Tourism is an important part of the economic activity that drives growth and jobs across all of my electorate. This is particularly true with the Barossa Valley, which has earned a reputation for excellence worldwide. It is important that people across Australia acknowledge the dangers that bushfires pose without allowing such an assessment to blanket their plans in the lead-up to Christmas and the festive season thereafter.
In closing, I would like to encourage each and every Australian to flock to the Barossa Valley to see the excellent produce and the friendly people who reside there. The Barossa continues to go from strength to strength and is certainly one of the best tourism locations in South Australia, if not the nation. As well as encouraging Australians from interstate to come and experience the Barossa, I also encourage people throughout Barker to take some time off these holidays, be a tourist in their own backyard and come and enjoy some of our premium food and wine. While Australia continues to be an unforgiving country, and we have seen further examples of that in recent weeks, particularly as it relates to drought and bushfire, I am encouraged to see the industry of the people of the Barossa Valley has seen them come through these recent fires relatively unscathed, and I encourage people to go and see this wonderful region for themselves. Do not compound the harm that has been occasioned to South Australia by failing to visit the Barossa Valley these holidays and during this festive season.
The Timor Sea Treaty, following the restoration of independence in Timor-Leste in May 2002, did not settle maritime boundaries between Australia and Timor-Leste. If these boundaries were drawn under international law, the fields of gas inside the treaty's Joint Petroleum Development Area and outside it would belong to Timor-Leste in its exclusive economic zone, or EEZ. The Greater Sunrise gas field, located 100 kilometres from Timor-Leste's coastline, is expected to generate about $40 billion in government revenue. If boundaries were established in accordance with international law, Greater Sunrise would lie within East Timor's EEZ. Another field—Laminaria-Corallina—has yielded $2 billion in taxes and royalties for Australia since 1999, all of which would flow to Timor-Leste.
As a sovereign nation, Timor-Leste wants maritime boundaries and is legally entitled to them. Unfortunately, the Australian government has persistently refused to establish permanent maritime boundaries with Timor-Leste in accordance with international law. Immediately prior to the restoration of independence to Timor-Leste, the Australian government withdrew from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for the specific purpose of delimiting maritime boundaries, leaving East Timor with no legal avenues to assert its rights. Not only would permanent boundaries bring some closure to the Timorese's long and determined struggle to become an independent and sovereign nation but they would also deliver a significant income to the second poorest country in Asia.
Australia asserts that Timor-Leste sits on a separate continental shelf that collides with Australia's continental shelf at what they call the Timor Trough; therefore, because Australia's continental shelf extends to the Timor Trough, it is entitled to claim seabed and subsoil resources up to this marker. Timor-Leste holds that it is entitled to claim sovereignty up to the median line, which is a line equidistant from the coasts of Timor-Leste and Australia. Timor-Leste seeks a permanent maritime boundary on this legal basis.
According to experts, Australia's position is wrong. Australia and Timor-Leste do not sit on separate continental shelves; Australia and Timor-Leste lie on the same continental shelf, which extends north of Timor-Leste to the islands of Flores and Wetar. The Timor Trough, they state, is simply 'a narrow, deep buckle at the leading edge of the Australian plate' and not a 'break' as Australia asserts. Where two countries lie on the same continental shelf, the continental shelf principle, as asserted by Australia, simply does not apply. Article 7 of the Convention on the Continental Shelf of 1958 requires states to determine their boundaries by 'agreement between them'. In the absence of agreement, and unless another boundary line is justified by special circumstances, the boundary is the median line.
Australia is not being generous by allowing Timor-Leste to share in profits from resources in the Timor Sea. Under international law, these resources rightfully belong to Timor-Leste. A common misconception is that Timor-Leste is asking for its maritime boundaries to be redrawn. In fact, Timor-Leste has never had maritime boundaries; it is simply seeking to have them established for the first time, as is the right of every sovereign nation. Australia has refused to negotiate permanent maritime boundaries. Instead, it has jostled Timor-Leste into three temporary resource-sharing arrangements. The latest is the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea. Timor-Leste initiated arbitration proceedings seeking to have this treaty voided on the basis that it was concluded in breach of Australia's obligations of good faith. The uneven negotiating positions have resulted in a series of temporary resource-sharing agreements that short-change Timor-Leste billions worth of government royalties from Timor Sea oil and gas resources.
The maritime boundary between Australia and Timor-Leste has been a significant and unresolved issue since the late 1960s. The dispute has involved four states—Indonesia, Australia, Portugal and now Timor-Leste. The Australian government needs to give Timor-Leste a fair go in the Timor Sea by establishing fair and permanent maritime boundaries, in keeping with current international law. The Timorese fought for 25 years for their independence. They do not want or need our charity. They simply want what is theirs by law. Timor-Leste seeks to exercise its legal and sovereign right, and Australia seeks to stymie Timor-Leste's right. Australia has taken the position, rightly, that all should abide by international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In practice, and specifically in relation to Timor-Leste, however, Australia needs to practice what it preaches.
I seek leave to speak without closing the debate.
Leave granted.
The approaching Christmas and New Year period is always a time for reflection. I was going through some clippings from Launceston's The Examiner, an award-winning newspaper in northern Tasmania, which I thought were worthy of reflection and comment today. I came across an editorial dated 16 February 2012 by the deputy editor, Barry Prismall. He was, in essence, bemoaning a dire economic outlook in Tasmania under the Giddings Labor-Greens government in Hobart and the Labor-Greens government in Canberra. He said:
A predicted underlying surplus has been revised as a big deficit … economic growth is expected to decline … the Government will fail to meet savings targets … unemployment will continue to be relatively high … on top of this gloomy set of numbers, the forestry peace process has collapsed … Ms Giddings and her Greens cabinet colleague Nick McKim are at war … cabinet solidarity has been so bastardised as to be unrecognisable.
It was a very sad situation, indeed, culminating in an unemployment rate in Tasmania above eight per cent—the worst in the nation. In fact, it got so bad that on Friday, 12 July 2013, the front page of Launceston's The Examiner reported that then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd travelled to lead a 'rescue mission' to Tasmania on the back of the state's worst unemployment figure for a decade. Mr Rudd, at the time, promised to 'spend some time with Premier Giddings to see what we can do'. But after 16 years as state Labor government and six years of federal Labor at that point, people just wanted to see the Labor-Greens governments gone. They wanted people in place who could make a difference to some of these strategic structural problems that were besetting my beautiful home state of Tasmania.
I am pleased to report that in just two years much has been accomplished to remedy some of those things. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the positive indicators are very clear. The Examiner, in contrast, on 20 October this year told a much different story:
TASMANIA is experiencing an economic resurgence that is good for battlers and business.
The unemployment rate is in line with the national average—a huge change.
Since September 2013 more than 10,000 full and part-time jobs have been created, which is a turnaround on job losses that at one stage a few years ago approached 10,000.
Growth is tipped for international exports, tourist arrivals and in the ever-reliable retail sector.
Economic growth overall is predicted to be up by 14 percentage points within four years, according to a Deloitte Access Economics report.
The value of a series of positive reports about Tasmania is that it encourages more settlement and investment … the state is no longer the nation's basket-case.
Let the facts do the talking. South Australia has an unemployment rate of eight per cent and rising, while Tasmania's is 6.2 per cent and falling.
The ABS figures for September 2015 show that Tasmania's unemployment rate is 6.2 per cent, the lowest rate since 2011. This encouraging progress demonstrates the synergy that results from working with our state Liberal colleagues on job-creating investment, which has resulted in 242,000 Tasmanians now being in work, the highest level ever achieved in Tasmania. According to the latest CommSec report, Tasmania is No. 1 when it comes to its labour market. And, importantly, we are no longer on the bottom of the national unemployment benchmarks, with our jobless rate now lower than those of South Australia and Queensland and equal to those of Western Australia and Victoria.
There is a lot more to be done. We have got the free trade deals, and many of the businesses in my electorate and across the state are leveraging the benefits of those free trade deals. A Deloitte Access Economics business outlook report last October gave a positive report on the Tasmanian economy, saying, 'The economic pain of the past decade is dissipating.' Instead of short-term political sugar hits, we are putting in strategic investment that will enable us to build on those great results: $203 million for the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme, $60 million for irrigation schemes which will enable us to turn marginal farmland into something much better—and I could go on. I am simply pleased to deliver my final speech in parliament for 2015 on such an optimistic note, confident of the future for my great state of Tasmania.
Over the past three months I have had the pleasure of hosting Tuan Anh Nguyen as an intern in my office. Tuan is a Vietnamese citizen who for the past two years has been working with VOICE, a civil society group located in Manila. VOICE—the Vietnamese Overseas Initiative for Conscience Empowerment—works not only to advocate for stateless Vietnamese refugees in need of protection but also to raise awareness of the lack of human rights in Vietnam. In his capacity as a civil society program manager, Tuan has worked with many non-government organisations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to raise awareness of the violations of human rights in Vietnam. During his internship with me, Tuan has also had the opportunity to work with Amnesty International; the Health Services Union; and the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia.
Particularly in relation to labour rights, Tuan has been involved in educating and empowering young Vietnamese citizens on the rule of law and developments in civil society, which are very much restricted in Vietnam. Freedom of assembly, association and expression are all tightly controlled. In Vietnam the government has virtually prohibited the formation of independent political parties, labour unions and human rights organisations from operating in that country.
On 22 November, last month, Ms Do Thi Minh Hanh, a 30-year-old woman, was arrested in Bien Hoa, a city in Dong Nai Province, for attempting to assist in organising 2,000 workers who were being dismissed by a foreign company. Ms Do, as well as Mr Trung Minh Duc, were involved in organising a strike for these workers and compiling a petition demanding the appropriate compensations. Given her previous industrial relations involvement in the My Phong shoe factory case, Ms Do is no stranger to the Vietnamese authorities or to their harsh and brutal treatment. While the pair have been released, I understand that they remain under very tight surveillance. This case is just another example of the labour rights violations that continue to occur in Vietnam.
I have spoken on many occasions about Ms Do's activities as a labour activist and about her advocacy for labour rights in Vietnam and standing up for workers who are being exploited.
In June this year I had the opportunity to meet Ms Do when she visited Australia. She is a heroic, patriotic young woman. She has the courage and resilience to fight for workers' rights, which seem to be pretty well compromised by a totalitarian government and a legal system that fails to operate without fear or favour.
Ms Do's recent arrest comes just weeks after the release of the side agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership between Vietnam and the United States. This agreement urges Vietnam to pass laws that would ensure the rights of workers to freely form and join labour unions of their own choosing. Currently, the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour—a state sanctioned union—is the only union available to Vietnamese workers. While we have seen a downturn in human rights violations in Vietnam during the TPP negotiations, Vietnam has now moved to tighten its control following the formalisation of the agreement. This is the same sign-and-forget mentality that Vietnam has adopted in various international treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The 67th annual International Human Rights Day will be marked on 10 December this year. In my electorate I will be attending a forum hosted by the Vietnamese Community in Australia (New South Wales Chapter) on the current human rights situation in Vietnam. I will also be attending a ceremony to mark the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This is being organised by Viet Tan.
I have worked closely with these organisations and commend them for their endeavours in raising awareness of the continuing struggle for human rights, freedom and democracy in Vietnam. I also take this opportunity to wish Tuan a safe return to Vietnam. I applaud his courage and commitment, particularly with respect to labour rights. Many of us in the free world take these things for granted. I am in awe of the courage of people such as Tuan Anh Nguyen and Do Thi Minh Hanh and others who are prepared to put their safety in jeopardy to fight for the rights of others.
A group of young inventors from South Grafton Public School took part in the FIRST Lego League, in Sydney on Tuesday 1 December. The Lego League is a worldwide event with 250,000 students from 90 countries competing in the event. The Grafton students were successful, and received a $5,000 robotic kit for the league event.
The competition this year had a theme of waste and recycling, and the children had to come up with real-world solutions. The students identified disposal of everyday household batteries as a major concern. There research showed that 97 per cent of normal batteries—like AA and C batteries—are put into general waste. This puts massive amounts of heavy metals and toxins into our landfill sights. The competition has three aspects. Firstly, the team has to identify a waste or recycling issue in the real world, research the problem and then devise a solution. Secondly, they have to work as a team and show a professional attitude to devise real outcomes. Lastly, they have to build a robot that can complete 12 missions in 2½ minutes. The missions are based on the theme.
Thirty-two teams competed in Sydney. Every school was faced with the same set of parameters. The children then have to code the robots and commence the challenge. The Skydivers, as they named themselves, performed exceptionally well, finishing in 10th place—an outstanding result, given that the age group they entered was the nine-to-16 year division, and these students are all 10 and 11 year-olds.
Congratulations to Leah Henderson, Aiden Jenkins, Tia Burchell, Sharys Eggins, Brooke Jackson, Ella Nicholson, Jessica Vasallo, Zlatta Vorontsova and Nathan Banks. I especially thank Ainslie Pope, for taking the children on this wonderful journey.
The Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service is an icon of the Northern Rivers community. In the lead-up to the Christmas break, they have launched a special new fundraising campaign called Rip it for Rescue. This campaign was created by Casino local Samuel Ivers, a young upcoming rugby player. On 1 August this year, Sam was involved in a serious tackle during a rugby match which left him with possible spinal injuries. He was assisted by the Westpac life saver rescue helicopter and now wants to give back to this vital service that helped him when he was in need. With this in mind, Sam and community leaders, including Mark Sewell, Kris Beavis, Andrew Gordon and Tom Hulse, have offered to 'rip it for rescue', and are calling on their families, friends and the community to donate to this worthy cause. If the rescue service reaches their target of $10,000 by 18 December, Sam and the leaders in the Lismore community will wax or shave their chests. I encourage everyone to get behind this most worthy cause.
The Northern Rivers Social Development Council is a community based not-for-profit organisation that supports some of the most vulnerable people in our community. They recently held their Community Sector Ball, an awards night to highlight the great work individuals in our community are doing in a number of categories. The Young Star Award winner was Jindeena King. Jindeena works for the Mijung Jarjum Kids in Mind program as a group facilitator and case worker for early intervention in mental health for young people, and as a Links to Learning facilitator for Richmond River High School. The Volunteer Lifeblood award was awards to Dr Ian Tiley. Ian has been a volunteer at Indigenous Community Volunteers for more than five years and has worked on more than 14 community driven projects. In the last year, Ian has worked with five Aboriginal communities on projects ranging from business development, governance, strategic planning, funding submissions and employment programs.
The Most Inspirational Award winner was Sarah Sherlock. Sarah is the program manager of Life on Track—a court support program delivered by Mission Australia. The Centre of the Universe Award winner was Tracey Schofield. Tracey provides IT tech support and development for Northern Rivers Social Development Council and has done with this quiet patience and amazing professionalism. She goes above and beyond the call of duty. The Collaborating Champions—Over 20 Staff—Award winner was the Connecting Home Program through the Northern Rivers Social Development Council. The team works tirelessly and effectively to case manage people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The Collaborating Champions—Under 20—Award was the Jarjum Centre Aboriginal preschool. This is a wonderful preschool that I have been to many times. They do wonderful work and I congratulate them. The Social Justice Champion Award winner was Matt Cassels from RED Inc.
I rise today to talk about childcare reform at a time when we can see just how much of a missed opportunity and, indeed, an anticlimax the government's childcare reform process is turning out to be. After two years, a Productivity Commission review and three ministers, yesterday we finally saw the government's childcare legislation. I am going to talk about that a little bit more in a moment, but I want to first talk about what we have not see in this reform process.
We were told that this would be the biggest and the most comprehensive review that we have seen in decades in this country. We were told that it would look at addressing all of the issues in early childhood education. But what we now know is that this package includes absolutely nothing to address the issue of waiting lists, which are reaching a critical point in many areas across Australia. We also know that there are no bold, visionary reforms that many of us hoped to see through participating and going through this lengthy process. Other countries around the world are clearly heading in a certain direction when it comes to early childhood education. The evidence is compelling, and we can see around the world that leading nations are all moving towards universal access to early education. Many nations are looking at a number of free hours being provided for four-year-olds, moving down to three-year-olds as the reforms are further entrenched.
But, this government is not taking us in that direction. In fact, we are heading in precisely the opposite way. This is a missed opportunity for bold reform. It is a missed opportunity for us to really look at how we can make Australia's childcare system meet the needs of the future. When people suggest that we might want to look more at our school system, how parents find places in local schools and pay for them for their children, this is entrenching a bureaucratic, confusing and complicated system.
We have now seen the legislation and we still have more questions than answers. We do not know how many families will be worse off. We do know that the government have come up with an extraordinary way to spend over $3 billion making tens of thousands of Australian families pay more for their child care. We do not know how many children will have their access to early education cut in half. We do not know how many children will be kicked out of the system altogether. Key details are simply missing. They have been pushed off to the future. Definitions are missing. Details about eligibility are missing. Most troubling of all, information about the so-called safety net is completely absent. The government are saying: 'Just trust us—we'll deal with that later. We'll come up with solutions for vulnerable children at a later date.' When it comes to the most vulnerable children in this country, and the government are simply saying 'trust us', we know that we need better than that. We need solid information to be put forward. We need to not just specify a limit on how much support those children and families will get. It is just not good enough.
I stand here proud of a record of reform in early childhood education. I am proud that in government we managed to negotiate with every state and territory government of every different political persuasion to put in place the National Quality Framework and ensure that we further progressed the transformation of the sector from a babysitting service to professional early childhood educators. I am proud that we increased the childcare rebate from 30 to 50 per cent and that we moved from annual payments to not just quarterly payments but, indeed, fortnightly payments. I note that those opposite often get given talking points to parrot across the chamber about childcare fee increases. What they do not talk about is out-of-pocket costs and the fact that under the previous Labor government out-of-pocket costs for parents went down. Under this government they have soared, to the point where the government has stopped releasing data about it. We know that many families will be more out of pocket as a result of these reforms.
There are too many questions which have not been answered, but I can assure the families of Australian children and early childhood educators and providers that Labor does not intend to give the government a blank cheque when it comes to these childcare reforms. We have referred them to a Senate committee. We will make sure that the government stump up the basic information for this important debate. That means, at a minimum, that the government, who have done all the modelling, who know exactly how many people will be worse off and by how much, need to come forward and be honest with Australia about answers to these questions.
I rise in the House today to remind the people of Capricornia that I am in Canberra fighting for a significant share of Commonwealth support for water infrastructure projects. There are three key water infrastructure projects in my electorate that I would like to see developed in the coming years: Rookwood and Eden Bann weirs near Rockhampton, Connors River Dam between Sarina and Moranbah and Urannah Dam near Mackay, which would boost irrigation potential at Collinsville.
Today I want to highlight Rookwood and Eden Bann weirs in particular. The reason is that these two projects are the closest of any water infrastructure project in Queensland to being shovel ready—awaiting financial approval and not relying on the coal sector to proceed. I am fighting for Rookwood and Eden Bann to be one of the key water infrastructure projects developed in northern Australia to be approved next year. This project has the backing of the Vice-Chancellor of CQ University, Growing Central Queensland, the Regional Development Australia Fitzroy and Central West Committee, Capricorn Enterprise, Gladstone Area Water Board, Livingstone Shire Council and Rockhampton Regional Council. The future potential from these two weirs must not be underestimated. Rookwood and Eden Bann weirs have the potential to double agricultural production in the Fitzroy corridor from $1 billion to $2 billion, increase additional services and secondary industry in the area to three times the current size, and create a further 2,100 local jobs.
Rockhampton, Gladstone and Livingstone shires all need the weirs to secure a stable water supply as urban and industrial development continues to grow. According to Growing Central Queensland, the group charged with investigating the projects, Rookwood and Eden Bann represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build water infrastructure in Central Queensland.
In terms of economic potential, northern Australia is our nation's next pioneer frontier. In terms of location, northern Australia starts from the Tropic of Capricorn. This makes Rockhampton the new gateway to northern Australia—a fact that we should be highly promoting.
The federal government's white paper on agricultural competitiveness endorses the need for water infrastructure in northern Australia through a $500 million National Water Infrastructure Development Fund under the federal agriculture minister. In addition, there is a $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to allow major investors to access funds to build new projects under the minister for northern Australia. That is why today I called upon the federal agriculture minister, the federal northern Australia minister and the Prime Minister to back Rookwood and Eden Bann weirs near Rockhampton.
Support is also needed for Eden Bann and Rookwood at a state level. The state member for Rockhampton, Bill Byrne, is also Labor's agriculture minister in Queensland. I challenge Bill Byrne to come out and back his own city, back his own people, back his own local area and publicly support my push for Eden Bann and Rookwood weirs.
There is talk on the rumour mill that certain politicians may want to back another project in Queensland called the Nathan Dam. If the Nathan Dam gets the green light from the state government before Rookwood and Eden Bann, we may never see these weirs built. That would be detrimental to Rockhampton, the Capricorn Coast, Gladstone and their futures. That is why I call upon Bill Byrne and his Queensland cabinet to back the local project, to support Rookwood and Eden Bann. Preliminary estimates indicate that the cost of Nathan Dam is $630 million and the dam will supply only 66,000 megalitres of water while, in comparison, Rookwood Weir would cost an estimated $238 million and provide 86,000 megalitres at full capacity. Rookwood and Eden Bann are the only two water projects in Queensland to have environmental impact statements for agriculture.
I am prepared to cooperate with all levels of government across all political platforms to ensure that this project has the highest priority in Queensland. If we can, through such cooperation, secure a water supply for agriculture and urban use, we will have a stronger, more diverse future for local businesses and jobs in the Rockhampton, Livingston and Gladstone regions.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak today about the fantastic work of my local Hume City Council. Just in the past two weeks, Hume City Council has hosted two very successful and important events.
The first was the Freedom of Entry Parade into the City of Hume, which was conducted at the Broadmeadows Town Park on the weekend of 15 November. Freedom of entry is a medieval tradition whereby municipal authorities would grant military units entry into the city as a symbolic gesture of the trust and bond between the regiment and the community. The tradition is thought to have begun following Charles II's accession to the throne in 1660. It is said that the regiments believed that they were entitled to enter the City of London, whereas the Fathers of the City of London claimed that they had the right to forbid bodies of armed troops entering the city precincts. Thus, a process was formalised whereby the city would grant troops entry into the city in an official ceremony for regiments with peaceful intent. This tradition became known as Freedom of Entry. In the absence of a Freedom of Entry agreement, military forces were often turned away at city gates. Whilst this custom finds its roots in 17th century Britain, it continues to be celebrated in a number of Commonwealth countries to this day.
The new mayor of the Hume City Council, Councillor Helen Patsikatheodorou, had the honour of granting the Freedom of Entry right to the 4th Combat Service Support Battalion based at the Maygar Barracks in Broadmeadows. The 101-year-old Maygar Barracks site is named after Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Cecil Maygar, a Victoria Cross recipient, who established the base to train soldiers for World War I. The soldiers participating in the parade two weekends ago serve in those very same barracks, making this particular Freedom of Entry into the city very timely for us to honour and acknowledge our military, especially in the centenary year of the First World War.
I thank the mayor and Hume City Council for hosting this wonderful tradition, which included the regiment's band playing, with swords drawn and flags flying as the regiment marched through Broadmeadows with the community following behind. It was a privilege to honour and acknowledge the Australian Army through a centuries old tradition. My sincere thanks and appreciation go to 4th Combat Service Support Battalion; North West Metro Division 4 Commander Acting Superintendent Peter Seiz; host officer for the parade, Brigadier Westphalen, Commander 4th Brigade; Colonel Commandant Royal Australian Army Medical Corps Major General Rosenfield; Colonel Commandant Royal Australian Corps of Transport Colonel Rowe; head of corps representative Royal Australian Army Ordnance Corps, Major Graham; and Warrant Officer Class One Buliman, Regimental Sergeant Major 4th Brigade. To every soldier who has been stationed at Maygar Barracks, past and present, I hope that the parade showed how honoured and appreciated you all are by the broader community.
The second event was held last Wednesday, 25 November at Broadmeadows Town Hall to acknowledge International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, known by all of us as White Ribbon Day. Hume City Council holds an event each year which aims to raise awareness and change attitudes towards violence against women. This year's event was attended by hundreds of people who listened to speakers such as Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove, Victorian state Minister for Women and Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, Fiona Richardson, as well as special guest speaker and Australian of the Year Rosie Batty. Rosie Batty, as we all know, is a tireless family violence campaigner. She is a highly sought-after speaker but on this occasion Rosie chose to speak at Hume City Council because of how proactive the council has been in campaigning against family violence.
Hume needs to be proactive as it has the second-highest rate of police call-outs for family violence incidents in metropolitan Victoria. Police receive a call-out for a family-violence incident every three minutes in Hume. This is a worrying, shocking and distressing statistic for all of us. I thank Fiona and Rosie, who spoke about hope for change in what is often considered an overwhelming and distressing issue. They mentioned social changes regarding other social issues such as restrictions on smoking and seatbelt usage—30 years ago, these issues were huge problems. Because of great public campaigns and advocacy, today they are things we take for granted. Their message was that social change can occur where there is a will and momentum. I am very pleased that both those women were in my electorate last week speaking on a very important issue, White Ribbon Day. (Time expired)
It is hard to believe that 2015 has come and almost gone. It has been another busy year which has had its ups and downs. We said goodbye to two members of our Tuesday lunch group, Don Randall and Alby Shultz. They will be missed enormously. I cannot let the year pass by without paying my thanks to those who work so hard behind the scenes, both here in Parliament House and back in the electorate of Solomon. I put on record my thanks to the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, to our whips and their fantastic staff, to the House of Representatives attendants and particularly to Leon, who will be turning 21 in a few weeks time. To the Clerk and the deputy clerks, to the cleaners in Parliament House, and also a special thanks to Hup, who cleans my electorate office. Thanks to the Parliamentary Services staff, to the House committee staff, to our security staff and of course to the Australian Federal Police who ensure our safety while we are here in Canberra.
Thanks also to the Comcar drivers. Our special thoughts go to Stewie on the passing of his partner, Annie, who was a legendary Comcar driver. Sadly she passed away a few weeks ago. To my colleagues here in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, thank you for your support and friendship. I hope you all enjoy spending time back in your electorates. Thanks also to my good friend former Prime Minister Tony Abbott—I offer my thanks for his service to our great country. I hope that he enjoys a well-earned break with Margie and their family over the break.
I look forward to working with our new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in what will be very exciting year. He is doing a great job. I am really pleased that he has already visited my electorate—it is a bit sad that the member for Capricornia is not here!—because my electorate is the best electorate in northern Australia. I expect that the Prime Minister, along with the Minister for Resources, Energy and Northern Australia Mr Frydenberg, will pay many visits to my electorate.
I thank, in advance, those who serve the community in my electorate of Solomon—the staff of our local police, fire services, emergency services and hospitals. I also thank them for serving us for 365 days of the year. We need to spare a thought for those who will sacrifice their time over Christmas and the New Year to make sure that our community is safe.
I thank our Australian Defence Force personnel, who make the ultimate sacrifice to protect our nation. I would like especially to thank Brigadier Ryan and the 1st Brigade. It has been wonderful to work with Brigadier Ryan; he is a breath of fresh air. We do not thank our ADF often enough. This year we went over to Afghanistan and we saw the work that the ADF is doing over there. We need to pay tribute, too, to the families of ADF members, who are going to miss out on spending time with them. We will be thinking of the ADF members and their families during the festive season.
I would like to pay tribute to my staff: Mel, Jessie, Alex, Greg and Sarah, for the work that they have done. We have had a huge year and I look forward to 2016. I would also like to pay tribute to my husband—my very, very patient husband—and to my family. My husband said he likes it better when I am in Canberra because at least he knows that he can speak to me on the phone. When I am home I am out and about, doing everything. I will be home until February, so I am sure we will be able to have a bit of time off in the electorate between Christmas and the New Year.
I am looking forward to 2016. I think it is going to be a very exciting time. I hope that everyone stays safe. Remember not to drink and drive, and make sure that you drive safely and think about your neighbours. We want to see everyone return back to this parliament in 2016. Merry Christmas to members and their families from the people of Solomon.
On Saturday 5 December, I will be attending a community peace dinner hosted by the Leigh Memorial congregation of Parramatta Mission. This follows on from a Parramatta Mission peace service event held on 21 September, where some 16 different faiths were brought together to celebrate working towards peace and harmony. Faith groups included the Baha'i, Brahma Kumaris, Buddhist, Catholic, Coptic Orthodox, Hindu, Islam, Jain, Jewish, Mandaean, Sikh, Sufi and Zoroastrian. Prayers for peace were held for each of the different faiths present, with some people praying in both English and their mother tongue—including a Muslim prayer in Arabic, a Buddhist prayer in Pali and a Hindu prayer in Sanskrit. We all prayed according to 16 different faiths and in 12 different languages. Seven cultural organisations attended and provided dance and entertainment, and 25 peace doves were released at the end of the ceremony.
This weekend's event promises to be just as diverse and interesting, and again brings together these groups in a celebration of peace. My congratulations go to Reverend Dr Manas Ghosh and all those involved in Parramatta Mission and the Leigh Memorial Church for organising these events, along with all the community groups that attended the last one and will come along on Saturday. It is a great thing to see events such as these bringing people together in the cause of peace.
On Sunday 15 November we saw, in Parramatta, the unveiling of a plaque honouring the Maltese Anzacs, who joined the Australian and New Zealand forces in World War I. It was raining that day so we unveiled the plaque in a scout hall next to the park where it will have its final home at the bi-centennial monument at Civic Park in Pendle Hill.
It was my pleasure to join the President of the Maltese RSL Sub Branch, Charles Mifsud, at this event. He worked tirelessly to ensure the service and sacrifice of our Maltese-Australian soldiers is not forgotten. Seven Maltese Australians died in the battlefields of Europe: Private Charles Bonavia, Gunner Francis Brown, Private Francis Bellia, Private Thomas Rizzo, Private Waldemar Beck, Private Francesco Bartolo and Private Andrew Camilleri. They died in battlefields in Turkey, Belgium and France, including at the Gallipoli landings and at the Battle of the Somme. There were 41 other Maltese Australians who engaged in combat in Gallipoli and the Western Front, and all of their names are engraved on the plaque that we will see installed in its permanent place early next year.
Their part in this combat was just a small part of the Maltese-Australian experience. While individual Maltese convicts and immigrants arrived in Australia from around 1810, the first mass migration of 70 labourers and nine stowaways arrived in 1883. The Maltese experience in Australia was not without its hardships. Australia, for much of its days immediately before and after Federation, had issues with discrimination, and quotas were applied to Maltese immigration from 1920. The sacrifices of these Maltese Australians, particularly in spite of the negative aspects of their Australian experience, are just a snapshot of their great contribution to Australian society.
The memorial plaque came from a $3½ thousand grant as part of the Anzac grants commemorating 100 years of Anzac. I absolutely congratulate the Maltese branch of the RSL for their extraordinary work in researching the contributions of these great Australians and producing a plaque that will remind us in perpetuity of their service.
Friday, 27 November marked the 74th anniversary of the sinking of the HMAS Parramatta, killing 136 on board and leaving just 24 survivors. To honour this ship, the second HMAS Parramatta and the others bearing its name are honoured each year in a ceremony held in Parramatta on a Sunday as close as possible to 27 November. This year's ceremony was organised by the Parramatta Memorial Subsection of the Naval Association of Australia. The service was officiated by Bruce Richens, the Honorary Secretary of the Parramatta Memorial Subsection of the Naval Association of Australia; Commander Simon Cannell, the most recent commander of the current HMAS Parramatta, who gave a moving oration; and the Sydney detachment of the Royal Australian Navy Band, who provided stirring music for the occasion.
We are particularly proud of the HMAS Parramattasall four of them. The first one was the first fleet in the Australian Navy. They have all served our country well and it is a pleasure every year to join in commemorating their service down on the banks of the Parramatta River.
When I look back upon the last eight years, I can see that a lot of infrastructure has been provided in Cowan. I personally have been involved in many petitions and other advocacy is since 2004. Numerous black spots have been improved, such as at the intersection of Illawarra Crescent North and Alexander Drive, where traffic lights were installed and funded by this government. I remember having many discussions locally about the need for improved safety at that intersection. The brick wall at No. 1 Illawarra Crescent North has, I hope, been rebuilt for the last time. With the traffic lights helping to control traffic there, I also hope there will be no more car crashes.
The interchanges on the Reid Highway at Mirrabooka Avenue and Alexander Drive have been in place now for a couple of years, and I certainly advocated for them in the past, from 2008 in this place and before that as part of the 2007 campaign. Currently there is much work going on at the federally funded interchange at Malaga Drive and Reid Highway. That is a project I first called for on 12 November 2008. It is very pleasing to see the outstanding progress, with the bridge sections now in place. When work is completed on this project in the coming months, it will be very good news for the business traffic in Malaga and for the many of my constituents that use the Reid Highway. Adjacent to Malaga, this government's NorthLink project will provide the Swan Valley bypass a far better route for heavy traffic from and into the north-eastern parts of Perth.
Further east in Cowan, there are also important needs relating to roads and other community infrastructure. Marshall Road east of Beechboro Road is in need of being a dual carriageway over to Lord Street. This is important because of the increasing amount of traffic accessing the suburb of Bennett Springs from Marshall Road and also the Beechboro Christian School, the Cracovia Club, the Shree Swaminarayan temple, the Sikh temple and the nearby Vatthanak Samaky temple, along with a number of residences and businesses located along Marshall Road. The speed limit is mainly 80 kilometres an hour and there is a safety issue for those trying to turn into the driveways and those that try to go around them on an unsafe surface. I understand that this issue has not been raised before but I think it is important and should be done.
To further assist with the traffic flows in the nearby area, the Reid Highway should also be made a dual carriageway between Beechboro Road and Lord Street. This is a major arterial road and, although I appreciate the existing demands on the Barnett government, that dualling is important to improve traffic flows.
Between Beechboro and Kiara, there is also an issue with traffic congestion on Benara Road. Benara Road links the Tonkin Highway to West Swan Road and at various times there are problems with the way the traffic flows through there.
Roads obviously affect the day-to-day lives of everyone as they move around, but there are other important projects that are being planned in the eastern parts of Cowan. I have already mentioned on previous occasions the Kingsway Regional Sporting Complex in Madeley, but the City of Swan also plans a similar complex of facilities on the land between Marshall Road and Beechboro Road. Such a complex of sporting fields and facilities would of course also be well served by a dual carriageway on Marshall Road. The total cost of the Whiteman Regional Open Space is expected to be in excess of $250 million but they are seeking some initial funding for several ovals at $20 million.
In Beechboro just near the Altone Park shopping centre, the City of Swan is looking to rebuild Brockman House. Apart from rehousing the Brockman House organisation, this will enable the city's west Swan homes support facility, as well as providing a multipurpose and multicultural community hub. It is planned that this hub would be supported by the state Department of Communities and other state and federal agencies.
I know as well that the Dungeon Youth Centre in Ballajura is an organisation that is well regarded in Ballajura and by young people locally. With the facilities at the centre and with the close-by skate park, this is something of a model that the City of Swan would like to see in the Altone Park complex in Beechboro. The provision of local government and state services and support would also be welcomed by local people. These are worthy infrastructure projects and, together with the CCTV proposals I have advanced previously, comprise important needs of the community.
In overall terms, although there have been great infrastructure achievements in Cowan in recent years, there is more to be done. Yes, much of what needs to be done is of a local government responsibility, and clearly the main roads belong to the government of Western Australia, as does service delivery in some of the areas I have mentioned. That all being said, these projects have my support and I will pursue planning for them and their delivery on behalf of my constituents.
Urbanisation has changed our way of life. Four out of every five Australians live in our cities. By 2031, our four largest capitals, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, will have increased by 46 per cent. The other capital cities, including the nation's capital, as well as Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin are expected to grow by nearly 30 per cent. I support urban renewal and I also support appropriately increasing density in our cities. But, as Danish architect Jan Gehl said, 'First life, then spaces, then buildings—the other way around never works.' Hence the concern that I have about the Sydenham to Bankstown Urban Renewal Corridor and the Parramatta Road Urban Transformation Strategy.
I am concerned that there has not been appropriate community consultation in a meaningful way on these proposals. I have met with local groups including the Save Dully Action Group, Save Marrickville, Help Save Lewisham, and the Hurlstone Park Association amongst others. They have been out in their neighbourhoods making sure that people have the information that they need and coordinating a community response.
I have also raised my concerns directly with the New South Wales planning minister, Rob Stokes. Community engagement should be at the core of any change to people's neighbourhoods. What we have here is a considerable proposal that will change the character of many of the suburbs. We need to make sure that we get planning right, that community services and infrastructure are in place to deal with increased densities. There are examples where it can be got right and examples where it is being got wrong right in my local neighbourhood. An example is a recent new development in Dulwich Hill on Wardell Road, right near the station. It is a box with a couple of windows on the side. It has no character. It is a considerable increase in density and an eyesore that has brought nothing to the character of our local community. In my view, it is an inappropriate development that has undermined support for increasing density. There are other cases—even some that were controversial at the time—where it has been done properly. For example, the old Marrickville RSL site on Illawarra Road near my electorate office, right next to Marrickville station, is a considerable increase in density but it is appropriate. Right next to the station, it is appropriate that people have that rail access.
We need to make sure that we have appropriate green buildings—that we bring in renewable energy, water recycling and appropriate development that takes into account the need to also have open space and recreational facilities so that there is an improvement in the quality of life. I look to examples like the One Central building on Broadway. Again, it is a considerable increase in density but an appropriate development which has open space and therefore can bring the community with it. If there are simply lines done on a map in way that does not have appropriate community consultation and where there is, in some circumstances, overdevelopment and no accounting for community space and facilities, then the support for increased density will simply not be there.
Urban renewal does bring great opportunity. It is a chance to address issues of inequality associated with drive-in, drive-out suburbs as well as to tackle the growing problem of congestion, given that a lot of the jobs growth has been in the inner suburbs of our communities. But we need to make sure that we get it right. We have one chance to get it right. I call upon the New South Wales government to do much better and to have appropriate consultation that is meaningful and that can change the draft plans where they need to be changed. At the moment it is very clear that there is some inappropriate development whereby there will be an increase in traffic congestion rather than an improvement in the quality of life for people directly affected in my local community by these proposals.
Today I rise to make a desperate plea to my own government in relation to the scourge of ice in our community. Let me first say that the initiatives by our government in consultation with the states and territories, including the National Ice Taskforce, have been incredibly important in combating this dreadful drug addiction which is causing so much grief to so many families.
For many months now I have been speaking out for the need for long-term rehabilitation beds funding. Back in May in an article headed 'Henderson demands beds for ice addicts' I said that we have been crying out in the Corangamite community for more funding because we recognise that, without the tools in the community to combat the demand in relation to the drug, we are not going to overcome this. In contrast to the Victorian government, which seems to be only supporting community day stays, I have been fighting for many months for long-term rehabilitation funding. This is absolutely vital. It costs about double for someone to have a long-term rehabilitation bed compared to a day stay. But organisations in our region like Foundation 61, with Rob Lytzki, are doing an incredible job. To get over ice addiction can take up to six months or even more. We need that concerted, long-term rehabilitation to really make the difference.
There is no doubt that in our community ice is playing a major role in an increase in community crime. This is a huge issue across the Bellarine, across Geelong and the Surf Coast. I am delighted with our Safer Streets program, with $20 million to put into local CCTV, infrastructure to improve community lighting and other infrastructure to make our communities safer.
It is an absolute disgrace that in recent applications to the Victorian government not one community in my region was successful in obtaining funding for CCTV cameras. We have seen headlines like 'CCTV rejected', on the front page of the Ocean Grove Voice. In the Bellarine and places like Ocean Grove, traders are crying out for assistance and support. There has been a huge increase in the number of robberies of traders and break-ins of cars and local homes, and enough is enough.
I also want to put on record again my very deep disappointment that the state Labor government has breached a commitment to open the Queenscliff Police Station seven days a week. That was a commitment by Lisa Neville and Daniel Andrews. They have not delivered. The police station will be open four days a week over summer, and that is it. It is a breach of the commitment that was made to provide more policing on the Bellarine and across our region.
I want to commend the many people in my community who are working so hard to deal with issues of community safety. It was my pleasure to meet with the Ocean Grove Business Association recently to talk about how we might be able to give them the support they need to make the community safer. I also want to mention Tony Francis, a local police officer, and the work that he is doing with local community clubs, service groups and agencies to spread the word about what the community can do to combat the scourge of ice. I particularly want to pay tribute to Senator Fiona Nash, who, in June of this year, joined with me and many others in the community, to hold an ice summit. I am very pleased that the work that we are doing at a local community level is resonating, but what we need now, in contrast to what the Victorian government is doing, is a serious commitment to funding.
Ice is destroying many lives. There are people on the waiting list, waiting to get into Foundation 61 to receive the wonderful service that they provide. People are dying on the waiting list. We need more funding. Foundation 61 is looking for at least an extra $1 million. We need more funding for long-term rehabilitation beds and more funding for ice, drug and alcohol services. I am looking forward to our government's report on the National Ice Action Strategy about the action that we need to make our communities safer.
Most members of this chamber will agree that Australia's future prosperity depends on our making our way in the Asian century. It is well known that four out of our five top trading partners are Asian nations. Indeed, 10 of our top 15 trading partners are countries in Asia.
For Australia to prosper in the Asian century we need to truly enmesh ourselves in the region—economically, but also culturally and strategically. In a demographic sense this is already happening. Today, Chinese Australians and Indian Australians are our third and fourth largest migrant groups, and their numbers are growing rapidly.
The number of Chinese-born Australians has doubled, going from just over 200,000 to almost 450,000 in the decade to 2014. In the same period, the number of Indian Australians almost tripled, from around 130,000 to almost 400,000. It is often noted that Beijing is geographically closer to Berlin than it is to Sydney, but it is indisputable that Australia's human geography is far closer to our regional neighbours in Asia, than Europe's will ever be.
Each member of these diaspora communities in Australia offers us a human bridge to better understanding of and better engagement with the region in which we live. However, there is much more work to be done. Indeed, a 2015 report for the Australian Council of Learned Academies, Smart Engagement with Asia, recently highlighted a soft power deficit in the attitudes and understanding of Asians to Australia. Outdated and inaccurate perceptions of Australia as a monocultural colonial outpost in the region persist amongst our neighbours. At the same time, levels of understanding of our region by the Australian public can be alarmingly low. It is a personal frustration to me that around only one in three Australians realises that our immediate neighbour to the north, Indonesia, is a democracy.
The upshot of the lack of mutual understanding is that we cannot afford to allow our relationships in the region—the Indo-Pacific—to be the work of diplomats alone. We need to build as many of these bridges of individual understanding as possible. Track 1.5 and Track 2 diplomacy initiatives, that bring together non-official academics, religious activists, leaders of non-government organisations, civil society experts and individual members of our community are crucially important.
That is why I am pleased to be taking part in two youth dialogues over the coming months that bring together young Australians with young people from two of our most important partners in the region, the Indo-Pacific—China and India. Tomorrow I will be travelling to Brisbane for the Australia-China Youth Dialogue. The ACYD brings together 15 young Australians and 15 young Chinese who are emerging leaders in their fields of expertise.
The dialogue was established in the wake of a 2009 article by Dr Stephen FitzGerald, Australia's first ambassador to China after 1949, which highlighted the need for more institutions that facilitated both government and non-government dialogue between Australia and China. As Fiona Lawrie, a delegate to the ACYD in 2011 and the current manager of the dialogue, recently noted:
The idea with ACYD is that in 20 years' time, ACYD alumni will be running their countries, largest companies and more successful creative organisations. The ties delegates make during the activities are the spark, but it's our hope that the fire burns for a long time.
Indeed, that is a worthy sentiment. From 27 to 30 January I will be in Delhi, Mohali and Bengaluru in India for the Australia-India Youth Dialogue. The AIYD is a newer youth dialogue and has been bringing young Australians and young Indians together since 2012. The dialogue is a great way to connect with young leaders and exchange ideas and perspectives, as well as think creatively about how we can strengthen the Australia-India relationship. The delegates will work together during the dialogue and then present the outcomes of the dialogue to both the Australian and Indian governments.
I certainly look forward to reporting to the parliament on the discussions at these dialogues, and I encourage all MPs to support and engage with these important institutions of regional engagement. Indeed, we all play an important role in this chamber in building these relationships with our neighbours. Michael Wesley, the former director of the Lowy institute, has said on a number of occasions that diplomacy in our region is too important to be left to the diplomats alone.
As members of parliament, we engage on a daily basis with our enormously culturally diverse communities. In my own electorate, two-thirds of my community were either born overseas or their parents were born overseas. That represents an enormous pool of potential cultural understanding and cultural projection into our region. I encourage all MPs to draw on that very valuable pool of human capital in our own communities and to use that to project a more modern, multicultural, national identity of our country into our region. The idea that we can be defined in our region by the Union Jack on our flag, by the Queen as our head of state and by the Queen on our currency is an unfortunate and outdated stereotype and misconception in our region. There is an obligation on all of us to project a more up-to-date vision into the region.
Today in the first part of my address I am going to celebrate and then in the second part I am going to recriminate. I am celebrating country sport in the first instance. Because of my inability to maintain my fitness at the highest level I was not part of two grand finals in my time with the Koo Wee Rup Football Club. A few weeks ago I found a photograph of a whole lot of former Koo Wee Rup footballers, some of them of my vintage—players and supporters of the Koo Wee Rup Football Club premiership golden area—who gathered at the Royal Hotel, Koo Wee Rup recently to celebrate the 70th birthday of their coach, John McKenzie, who led them to grand final glory in 1979 and 1981.
Teammates helped John relive a period when the Demons were a force in the now defunct West Gippsland Football League and families such as the O'Hehirs—who were at the Pakenham races the other day—the Ingrams and the Dwyers produced a string of star players. During the celebrations, stories of some of the torrid clashes with neighbouring clubs such as Nar Nar Goon, Pakenham and Garfield were relived and possibly slightly embellished.
John, who now resides in Queensland, told the gathering that he was honoured to coach the Demons, but equally important were the many lifelong friendships he made during his term. He further stated that his coaching philosophy was fairly simple—control the ball more than the opposition and be prepared to run all day. Many of his players vividly remember McKenzie's training runs from Koo Wee Rup to Bayles and back home again. Back then they thought he was losing the plot, but his method produced two flags in 1979 and 1981 and runner-up in 1980 and is now used by many AFL clubs. John still follows his Demons online via the Pakenham Gazette and looks forward to seeing the Koo Wee Rup Football Club back as a force in the EDFL. He is particularly interested in where they will be playing football following the current restructure of local football by AFL Gippsland, which is planned for season 2017.
The recrimination is this: while we celebrate those years, the death toll in Victoria in those same years from car accidents was 1,091 people. That was the year we had just begun to bring in parts for car seatbelts and a reduction in the amount of alcohol that a driver can consume. We were going to bring the toll down. On the weekend, I was thinking of the 233 deaths so far on Victorian roads. That does not account for the thousands that will be completely impaired for life from a motor accident or from being part of a motor accident.
This is important to me because at this time of the year some 50 years ago I was in an after-school accident and my best friend died. I have been physically impaired, though not noticeably, I hope, for all of my life since that time. That loss destroyed lives, families, careers and futures. My loss was the loss of a friend who was a brilliant hockey player, academically very good, and someone who would have made a fantastic contribution to this nation—Adrian Webb.
In that 233 road toll, how many hopes and dreams have been destroyed? How many people will die in car accidents today, tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next? How many 50-year-olds on motorbikes will die? There was an accident the other day that was just read out on the eight o'clock or the nine o'clock news and they then just moved on to another story. Yet there is a whole family devastated—three families, four families, five families. If we lose them in a bushfire, we race in to help. If we lose them in a terrorist attack, it consumes us for days. But here we have in Victoria, 233 people killed in one year—and the year is not finished.
I know there are people who have the idea that people in Bendigo and throughout Gippsland will still be there after Christmas, that the children will still be there after Christmas. What I would love would be a nil toll; for them to announce that in the Christmas period in Gippsland nobody died in a road accident.
It has been a big year for us in central Victoria and it has had its high points and its low points. Given what our town has become world famous for, I thought it was important to put on the record the high points and talk about how we are going to challenge and change our image overseas. The high points, firstly. This year we opened the Ulumbarra Theatre. That project was funded by the former Labor government through the Stronger Regions Fund. It converted an old jail into a brilliant world-class theatre. It was jointly funded. There was funding also put on the table from the state government and the local government. Since the theatre has opened, it has really brought not only a performance space for our artists and our performers but also a lot economic development and tourism. There are groups who are choosing to have their conferences in Bendigo.
We also opened the Regional Rail Link, another vital infrastructure project that was funded by the former Labor government. Our town, our amazing innovators and manufacturers, secured the Hawkeye contract—the world-class defence vehicle that will now replace the ageing Land Rover fleet. This is a vehicle that will be manufactured in Bendigo at the Bendigo Thales site.
On the low points, we did see the closure by this government of the Australian Emergency Management Institute. It has sat kind of oddly for me and been a bit frustrating that, with speaker after speaker on the government side talking about the importance of having excellence in emergency management and the vital role firefighters play in our communities, this government would seek to close the Emergency Management Institute in the Macedon Ranges—not only making the 60 people at that place redundant but also losing their expertise in managing emergencies, particularly during the most critical moments. Serco is another contract that has been lost to Bendigo. Sixty jobs in a call centre that does work for this government have been cut. We have lost our ATO office. We have no idea where those jobs will go but our Bendigo ATO office has been shut. So this government has lost jobs. It has sacked people in Bendigo. That is not fair.
Our community has also seen our town invaded from time to time. We have had the United Patriots Front and Reclaim Australia come in and spread misinformation throughout the year. They have caused great heartache in our community. That is what I refer to as our town's name being in lights for all the wrong reasons. On the other side of that, we were able to reclaim some of our space as to who we are as a community through our 'Believe in Bendigo' campaign, which was run and organised by local community leaders, local business leaders and political leaders who came together to say, 'We believe in Bendigo.' They put on the yellow and brought our community back together to celebrate who we are—to celebrate our diversity and our inclusive nature—and to share our stories, making sure that everybody in our town as well as outside our town understands who Bendigo is. That was a moment for our community to come together to reclaim some of the space, some of our reputation, that had been taken away.
Outside our community of Bendigo, Castlemaine has a strong energy and a passion for renewable energy. 'The People's Republic of Newstead' will be one of the first towns in Victoria that may actually succeed in being 100 per cent renewable, through its community solar project. In Woodend there is a similar project. Renewable energy and the commitment to action on climate change are strong in our part of the world. Just last weekend almost 2,000 people gathered at three different rallies to voice their support for real action on climate change.
Bendigo, and the Bendigo electorate, is a vibrant place. In 2015 we have had highs and we have had low points, and we are coming through those challenges. We know that there are people locally who are doing it really tough. Through the generosity of people in Bendigo and in our neighbouring towns and communities, the giving has already started to ensure that everybody will have a happy and safe Christmas and new year.
I rise today to update the House on the vital and important work of the Robertson Tackling Drugs and Alcohol Committee. Over the past several months the committee has met several times and discussed a number of ways to help our community tackle the challenge of illicit drugs. A number of community led strategies have been raised by members of the committee. Today I am pleased to advise the House that, arising from these discussions, the Brisbane Water Liquor Accord has now extended its successful 'barred from one, barred from all' program to also target illicit drugs and violence around licensed premises. This means that if you are barred from one venue, you are barred from all venues in our local region.
Committee member Zane Tredway, the licensee of the Central Coast Hotel and secretary of the Brisbane Water Liquor Accord was the key driver of our initial discussions on this scheme, which aims to curb dangerous and antisocial behaviour. I am advised that the accord has already resulted in venues being safer for patrons, staff and the community alike, so extending it to drugs and violence was voted on and passed unanimously by members of the liquor accord. I congratulate Zane for his work and important advocacy on this issue. To ensure that the community is aware of this initiative, new artwork is on clear display now in pubs and clubs in my electorate, just in time for summer holidays. I spoke with Zane, who said that this fantastic result demonstrates the hard work and diligence displayed by those involved in the Tackling Drugs and Alcohol Committee in Robertson. I also commend Daniel Brian, the president of the liquor accord, for his work in this area. There is a genuine confidence around the committee that these steps will complement and support the united front presented by the community and police towards antisocial behaviour and illicit drug activities on the Central Coast.
Committee member and Brisbane Water Local Area Command Superintendent Danny Sullivan told me he is already seeing a very positive response to these measures in our community. The new poster, for instance, has been viewed by around 3,000 people online already, and Superintendent Sullivan said it was a really clear way of helping to make venues safer by offering a real incentive to modify behaviour.
Another initiative that the committee is looking at is the Party Safe program, which we would like to be able to support and extend in some ways. This program will target 15- to 18-year-olds and focus on alcohol, drugs and mental health. It already does a great job in my electorate. It is called 'building a better tomorrow', and the program involves a series of community forums which we will be working on collaboratively together and looking at rolling out next year. These forums will help reach parents and students and will encourage access to support groups, hotlines, online support and drop-in centres.
The committee is also keen to develop closer engagement with local schools across my electorate through specific teacher development days with principals, deputy principals, head teachers and teachers. I really want to thank Paul Gilmore, principal of the Brisbane Water Secondary College, for his initiative and vision to help enable this to happen. Paul told me that enabling teacher awareness on the Central Coast will help unlock greater student awareness about very important issues relating to drugs and alcohol. Fiona Morrison from the Australian Drug Foundation, who joined us at our last meeting, also underlined the urgent need for families to receive support. Fiona said this work will be vital to reduce usage and harm and that the community has an important role to play in tackling drugs and alcohol in the community. Julie Clark, the project officer of Family Drug Support and fellow committee member, said families can be a vital force for positive change in communities when they are able to cope with the reality of their situation and then survive the journey.
These initiatives have all arisen as a result of a brief meeting with Ettalong Diggers CEO, Bill Jackson, on the peninsula. He said to me one day, 'What can we do to help? There must be more that we can do to help our community tackle this very important matter of drugs and the use of drugs.' It was around ice, but of course it then extended to other drugs as well. As a result of his desire to help, we now have very strong representation from community leaders and experts all working together.
I really want to commend the committee members I have mentioned so far and also Russell Cooper from the Gosford RSL; John Green, Director of the Australian Hotels Association; Ben Bradley from Davistown RSL Club; Tim McGavin from Ettalong Bowling Club; Carly Tredway from the Party Safe program; Andrew Tuck, CEO of Coast Community Connections; Tina Davies, the New South Wales government representative and Central Coast regional liaison officer from the Department of Premier and Cabinet; Steve Childs, the manager of the drugs and alcohol service of the Central Coast Local Health District; and Matt Hanrahan, the CEO of the local health district. Combined with the outstanding initiatives of the federal government, including the National Ice Taskforce, whose report I understand will be unveiled shortly, this has been a tremendous community effort of which the Central Coast can be rightly proud.
I rise in the House today to acknowledge the passing of a Labor stalwart of the Mornington Peninsula, Jane Hill. Jane was the state member for Frankston and then Frankston North during the time of the Cain and Kirner governments from 1982 to 1992. Prior to that Jane was also a councillor in the City of Frankston. She will be greatly missed.
She came from very humble beginnings. Her father worked on the railways and her mother was a nurse. She had a high school education. She trained as a mothercraft nurse and also worked, as members would know, as a housewife, which was itself a very demanding vocation. But she always had an interest in politics and the community. She took that interest into the Labor Party and then into the local council. This was back in the 1970s. In those days it was quite unusual for women to be successful in local government. At the time that she was elected to council in 1979 she was the first female councillor for some years, and she was the only female councillor for that first couple of years. Of course, that has now changed, thankfully.
She then stood for the state seat of Frankston at the 1982 election. This was at a time when it was thought there may well be a change of government, after a long period of conservative rule; however, the seat of Frankston was not on the radar. Jane succeeded with a swing of over seven per cent and won that safe Liberal seat, knocking off a minister at the time, Graeme Weideman, by just 76 votes. Subsequently, there was a redistribution, and she was endorsed as the candidate for Frankston North and held that seat for two terms. When another redistribution occurred, which was not so good, she narrowly lost to Peter McLellan at the election in 1992.
She was a strong local advocate for issues in the local community. If you go to her maiden speech, you will see her talking about issues in Frankston around hospital and health funding, the need for a strong police presence, and also for the public transport needs in that area, amongst a range of other issues. She maintained that advocacy right through her time in parliament, and was successful in ensuring the government funded a range of issues in the area over her time.
She was also part of that first Labor government in Victoria in a generation. She was one of a number of members who helped ground that government in its understanding of the needs of the community. Many of those were women—people like Carolyn Hirsh, Kay Setches, Judy Dixon, Margaret Ray—who were active within there communities and were often able to stand up in caucus and in the parliament and ensure that people as ministers understood the needs of the community.
She struggled with health issues over her life, but she never gave up. Although at times she was uncertain about her role as a member, she was always fiercely passionate about the issues she took forward on behalf of the community she represented. I have to declare a personal interest, which is probably why I am struggling a little bit with this speech. She was a mentor of mine. She was also my mother-in-law, and someone whom I will dearly miss. It has been a great loss to Barrie, her husband, who has been a very important partner to her over so many years. Her achievements were also very much Barrie's. His support to her over time could never be overestimated. It is also a loss to her children, Vic, my former wife Marianne, Kerrin and Richard, and to her grandchildren—my children, Hannah, Bridget and Sophie—and also James and Elise, as well as her wider extended family.
It is also a great loss to the Labor Party in the area, given the role that she played, although in later years to a lesser degree. She was always a voice of wisdom within the party. She was always someone who was prepared to say the sorts of things that people needed to hear but did not always want said. She was always someone who was prepared to be out there having a go. She will be missed and in my case more than many would understand or know. My condolences to her family on what will be a great loss.
Sitting suspended from 12:18 to 12:30
Over the last few months I have been collecting signatures for a petition. It is a petition calling on the government to prioritise Canberra's NBN rollout, and today my petition has 774 signatures—774 Canberrans who are desperately hoping that their signature will make a difference. Under Labor, every home in the ACT would have had access to a world-class fibre-to-the-premises version of the NBN. Under this government, Canberra has literally been taken off the map.
The situation as it stands is bleak. The next three-year rollout plan for the NBN, released in October, failed to include the Canberra suburbs that have the poorest broadband connection rating in the country. The vast majority of Tuggeranong including suburbs like Monash and Theodore, which have the lowest rating in the country for both availability and quality of broadband, is not even on the rollout map. Compare this to large sections of Canberra's north, which already have access to Labor's world-class fibre-to-the-premises NBN. It is creating a digital divide between the north and south of Canberra. I am concerned that Canberrans in my electorate are being left behind: they are being denied access to educational tools, to learning tools, to small business opportunities, to entertainment and to engage in active citizenry, and many other benefits that having access to the internet provides.
And this is what I am hearing from Canberrans across my electorate, particularly those living in the suburbs that have the lowest rating in the country. We are in the nation's capital, but some of the suburbs in my electorate have the lowest rating of availability and quality of broadband in the country. This is what I am hearing from Canberrans like Geoff, who wrote to me saying:
We cannot even get ADSL2 service although we are paying for a higher end service. If we are serious about becoming a clever and innovative country it starts with having top end infrastructure. Don't cut us short.
Or Rebecca, who wrote:
I am so tired of living in a fantastic area that has broadband far, far worse than I got while living in Brisbane 10 years ago. Some nights my broadband is so slow I can't download text emails. How is this acceptable in 2015?
We are talking 20 kilometres from this building. Rebecca goes on:
I am about to commence university studies online: I will need to be able to view/listen to lectures and download/upload large files. Please make this possible!
Or Roger, who wrote:
It's a situation verging on the tragic. Only fast internet will allow us to compete on an equal footing with countries like South Korea. The NBN has the potential to transform our economy, create new jobs and businesses, and cut urban congestion and pollution. But it's still off in cloud cuckoo land for many. Along with thousands of other people in the ACT, I am starting to wonder if I will ever see higher-speed internet. Contacts in Melbourne are already on the NBN and think my speed is a joke. Canberra should be a high priority because of our government and tertiary education sectors.
Or Mary, who said:
It is very sad for a country like Australia to not be more advanced in our technologies. To think that parts of our capital city do not have access to the NBN is so backward.
I literally have hundreds of emails echoing these concerns and these sentiments. And the overwhelming sentiment and concern is frustration and the feeling that they have been let down by this Liberal government. So I am here on behalf of all of Canberrans, but especially the 774 people who have signed my petition, and I am calling for change. Today, on behalf of these Canberrans I ask the Minister for Communications, Mitch Fifield, to take action. I ask of him to please prioritise Canberra's NBN rollout. We are in the nation's capital and our situation is bleak. It is dire and we are being left behind. My constituents are being denied economic and active citizenry opportunities. The NBN is just another broken promise from a Liberal government that has no vision for this country. It could be five years or more before suburbs in my electorate are connected, and it is just not good enough. The message is loud and clear from these 774 Canberrans, the many others I have spoken to and the hundreds of others I have received emails from. The message is loud and clear: we want the NBN, we want Canberra prioritised and we want it now.
May I ask the member for Canberra: is the document being tabled?
No.
Tomorrow, Bundaberg will become the first city in Queensland to connect to the NBN fibre-to-the-node network. As many in this place will already know, I fought hard to ensure my region was one of 10 trial sites prioritised nationally. As a result, Bundaberg will be the second location in Australia to receive the FTTN. Bundaberg's main street and neighbouring areas like Avenell Heights, Thabeban, Norville, Bundaberg South and Bundaberg East will be the first to make the switch. The surrounding areas will also be connected in coming weeks, bringing the total number to 24,000. The National Broadband Network will transform local education and health services, enabling businesses to better engage in the rapidly evolving digital economy. The NBN will help create jobs.
FTTN construction will begin in the southern end of the Hinkler electorate in 2017 to connect 19,000 premises in Craignish, Dundowran, Dundowran Beach, Eli Waters, Kawungan, Nikenbah, Pialba, Point Vernon, Scarness, Toogoom, Torquay, Urraween and Wondunna. FTTN construction will also start in Avoca, Branyan, Millbank, Burnett Heads, Coral Cove, Elliott Heads, Innes Park, Childers, Woodgate, Howard, Burrum Heads, River Heads, Booral and Urangan in 2018. About 20 wireless towers are either operational or under construction across Hinkler's many rural communities. By the end of 2018, about 70,000 Hinkler premises will be able to connect to the NBN. This is just one of the things that I have helped deliver to my electorate in 2015.
Tomorrow, local businesses will attend an Austrade seminar to discuss how the recently signed free trade agreements will enable them to expand into new markets and create jobs. Yesterday, I spoke about a proposal to create a military dive wreck in my region which would boost the local economy by up to $5 million a year and create more jobs. I tabled a petition containing 4,042 signatures. I have written to Bundaberg's mayoral candidates seeking a commitment of $1 million to match what has been provided already by the Fraser Coast Regional Council. I have also written to the Queensland Premier to seek an urgent meeting about the future of HMAS Tobruk. Until the Queensland government indicates it is willing to accept the vessel as a gift for scuttling in state waters, we are unable to further progress our case.
I have spoken about unemployment in this place more times than I care to remember. Jobs are sorely needed, which is why I am trying to attract investment to the region for the long term. State member for Burnett Stephen Bennett and I successfully lobbied the state Labor government to maintain the previous LNP plan to build a gas pipeline to the Bundaberg port. This is already attracting major international companies to the underutilised site. The coalition government is doing everything it can in the meantime to give job seekers a hand up. I am concerned that many people are not aware of the assistance that is available, which is why I will host a community jobs forum in Hervey Bay in the new year. Taskforce Cadena, a multi-agency task force, was established to target unscrupulous contract labour hire contractors in the horticulture sector. Cadena has made some progress, but I look forward to receiving an update from the relevant ministers in the new year.
The coalition has made significant progress on the introduction of country-of-origin food labelling laws. Minister for Health Sussan Ley and I hosted a meeting for local GPs to discuss ways we can make Medicare more sustainable. Assistant Minister for Science Karen Andrews and I hosted a community forum encouraging businesses to innovate and young people to pursue a career in science, engineering or maths. The Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis, visited the electorate. We hosted a community forum about national security and border control at the Bundaberg RSL. This year, of course, we marked the Centenary of Anzac. I had the absolute pleasure of attending many events across the electorate. My office received an Inclusive Community Champions award for excellence and accessibility from Spinal Life Australia. With the help of my dedicated staff, I have made strong representations to ministers on behalf of individual constituents and organisations, delivering some very positive results. Over the next few weeks, I will announce the successful applicants in the coalition government's Stronger Communities Program.
I would like to thank patron senator Senator James McGrath for his support and, of course, thank my staff for their dedication. As everyone in this place knows, they are the keeper of the gate. They are the soldiers on the wall. We could not do this job without them.
In my last statement in this place for the year, can I say we are all thinking of our former colleague, the late Don Randall, and Don's family. I am sure our sense of loss is as a raindrop in a thunderstorm to that felt by Don's nearest and dearest.
I would especially like to thank the people of Hinkler for engaging with me, for sharing their views with me and for keeping me informed of the issues that matter to them. Next year I will undergo my first performance review as the member for Hinkler—99,049 Hinkler constituents will have their say. I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I have worked extremely hard in my first term to be the representative that the people of Hinkler deserve. If I am elected to serve another term, I will continue to give the role my all.
In 2009, when the rather questionable suggestion emanated from the then Labor government in New South Wales to abandon and abolish Hurlstone Agricultural High School, the then Liberal opposition quite correctly stated:
The Liberals/Nationals believe the relocation of Hurlstone is impractical and the school should be retained in its current form.
How a few years and the duties of government change people's concepts, because this opposition that was so opposed to the sale has announced it in the last fortnight. I have to say that that suggestion in 2009 was totally rejected by the independent Peters inquiry, which said that the plans to sell the majority of the farmland from the school site were not to be supported.
Hurlstone Agricultural High School, of course, is an agricultural selective coeducational public high school. Established in 1907 and moved in 1946 to its current site, it is regularly among the top schools in New South Wales. To give an instance, last year it was the 24th school in New South Wales and back in 2012 it was the 11th. It is the alma mater of three former federal members of parliament and of noted Wallabies, academics around the world—some of them in the United States—agriculturalists and the current commissioner for racial vilification with the Human Rights Commission. It is a first-rate amenity for our region. It is typical that it was renamed for a while in the 1940s to Macarthur in memory of John Macarthur, who played such a central role in Australian agriculture and also in this region.
It is being sold for one reason alone, and that is for real estate purposes. There are 140 hectares, and that is going to go on the market in an area that is currently experiencing phenomenal urbanisation. You can go down a road there one week and a few weeks later, basically, there are new houses there. But they have seen the opportunity for the quick dollar here. I have to say this was a deplorable decision under Labor or Liberal and, quite frankly, it is a major backward step for our region. As I say, it is one of the top state schools and it attracts people from the whole region. There is also an ingredient of local students going there as well as well as selective. The fact that it is selective and is local, available and easily accessible is a major asset for our region.
I just looked this morning at what the realities are for students. They are saying that in 2020 those students that are interested can relocate to the Richmond campus of Western Sydney University. If one were fortunate enough to live across the road from Glenfield Station, for the perfect trip to the school one would have to catch the 7.10 am train. You would get to Richmond at 8.49, and then there is an eight-minute walk, according to the indicators of travel. So the 7.10 train would probably get you to school two hours later, and they are saying that people might relocate there. This is ridiculous; very few are going to do it. They have also promised that there will be a selective school there with an additional number of students—360 students I think they talked about. It will not be this selective school, which is so respected in New South Wales and which attracts students of such a high calibre. In the nature of life, they have a very high Asian student population because of their absolute obsession with education as the way of their liberation. They will not be moving most of these people out there. It is a major loss to the region.
I have to say that Laurie Porter, typically of the region, said:
My older son graduated from HAHS in 2001. He then gained a degree in Veterinary Science at the university of Sydney; but he would not have been able to achieve this goal without his wonderful years at HAHS at nearby Glenfield.
Typically, he is a person in urban Australia who has opportunity in the agricultural sector going on to, as I said, veterinary science. Those realities are going to be denied to students in our region.
It is not as though there are many alternatives in south-west Sydney. Quite frankly, while there are a few selective schools out there, nothing private or public goes anywhere near the eminence, respect and outcomes of this school. I see that to try and get this concept through, they have corralled the University of Western Sydney into being a major supporter. The University of Western Sydney academics are going out publicly telling us how fantastic it is. It is just like the Badgerys Creek suggestion: what is supposedly good for the region will actually undermine living standards. This will deny education opportunities for people. I strongly condemn the government's decision to follow the previous, Labor government momentary madness.
Australia's economic growth is being underpinned by investment in liquefied natural gas, which is currently at record levels. The growth rate for the quarter was stronger than forecast. The growth rate was driven by resource exports, led by an 11.4 per cent increase in oil and gas production. The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science is projecting that natural gas production will more than double in the next five years.
In the next five years, LNG exports are expected to increase from 26 million tonnes per year to more than 76 million tonnes per year. It is great news for the local economy and the economy of my electorate of Flynn. The LNG industry is especially important to the Flynn electorate. There are three new LNG projects in Gladstone—Australia Pacific LNG, Queensland Curtis LNG, Santos GLNG. The construction projects for those plants are coming to a completion.
QGC is up and running, with the two trains now intact. The first scheduled maintenance contracts on train 1 are starting. QGC is creating new jobs for Gladstone—some 150 jobs per plant and a maintenance crew of about 200, which will rotate from plant to plant. These projects are supporting local industries and local jobs. All the accommodation for the permanent production jobs will be in Gladstone.
During the construction of the Curtis Island project, more than 10,000 locals were employed and there were many thousands more fly-in fly-out workers. The workforce included 200 apprentices and 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Local employees earn more than $1.5 billion in wages. Local contractors and subcontractors had purchase orders from the plant worth more than $1 billion. The LNG industry has helped support more than 600 local businesses in Flynn, including transport, logistics, accommodation, furniture movers, furniture suppliers, restaurants, fruit and vegetables and the trades businesses.
My electorate has seen the LNG industry go from strength to strength. QGC announced two weeks ago an expansion of 300 to 400 new gas wells in an area in the Surat Basin located 20 kilometres west of Wandoan and 40 kilometres south-east of Taroom. This $1.7 billion investment went down very well in that area. The people out there are suffering from drought, and this will supplement the income of those communities. The project will sustain natural gas supplies to the QCLNG plant at Curtis Island, and there will also be provisions for domestic gas.
It is anticipated the construction associated with the investment announced two weeks ago will result in jobs ago for 1,600 extra workers in the gas fields. That will also boost the regions around Wandoan and Taroom, boost accommodation, and of course all the other industries that have been involved in the gas scene for the last three or four years.
The project will run from 2015 to 2017. While we continue to develop other industries, this source of revenue will remain valid in the future. The life of these plants will probably last 25 years or longer. That equates to about $200 billion of investment in the LNG industry across Australia, and Gladstone will be the focal point of gas supplies to our South-East Asian neighbours. This means long-term skilled jobs for future generations of Australians in the electorate of Flynn. Farmers with gas wells on their properties have also benefitted. (Time expired)
The international conference in Paris this week has placed a timely focus on climate change. Climate change is a global problem; it is a serious problem. Mounting scientific data confirms that. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are now over 400 parts per million, compared with about 280 parts per million in the pre-industrial era. Scientists tell us that the longer we delay action, the more difficult will be the decisions that need to be made and the more pain they will cause. That in turn will make global consensus even harder.
Climate change is not just an environmental issue; it is equally an economic and social issue. Extreme weather events, higher temperatures, changing weather patterns, melting ice, rising sea levels, bushfires and loss of biodiversity all have economic, social and environmental consequences, and the costs run into billions of dollars. Linking weather events to climate change will always be difficult, because weather pattern changes have always been part of life, but the evidence is mounting that the climate is permanently changing. Quoting from the second draft report of the Climate Change Authority's special review:
The global scientific consensus is that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities (such as burning fossil fuels and clearing land) have been the dominant cause of warming since the mid-20th century, and will drive additional warming and more serious impacts and risks in the future. This is why … global emissions need to be reduced so that global average warming is kept below 2 degrees …
The difficulty with reaching universal consensus about how to do that is that no-one likes making sacrifices. Developing countries do not believe they have caused the problem, and there are disagreements about the use of per capita emissions rather than total national emissions, which allows countries to shirk their responsibilities.
The most difficult issue, however, is dealing with the investments already made, the income generated by those investments and the influence of those who have the most to lose if we listen to the scientists. It is also claimed that those same people, and the entities they direct, are making substantial efforts to discredit the science and undermine governments that pose a threat to their investments.
I also note that amongst the strategies discussed very little is said about limiting global population growth. The Prime Minister who previously lost his leadership over climate change has been prepared to sell out the scientific community and future generations of Australians to secure his personal ambition of becoming Australia's Prime Minister. He now desperately tries to recover some of his lost credibility by attending the Paris conference, joining the innovation bandwagon and talking about future reviews. Innovation, however, does not prevent the government from adopting a much higher emissions reduction target. The government's concocted targets may be politically convenient but will not fool the scientists or other nations, who expect Australia to do its fair share.
Nor is it responsible climate change policy for the Prime Minister to rob the aid budget to pay for his climate change announcements or to use clever accounting to fudge the reduction figures. Governments should not play politics with climate change. Avoiding responsibility today will not only deprive future generations of the world as we know it but saddle them with a worse burden than today's generation refuses to deal with. It is the worst type of intergenerational theft that I can think of. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was established in 1992. Over the past 23 years, there has been not nearly enough progress. Nations cannot keep pushing back the difficult decisions that need to be made without adding to the consequences that we already know about.
Inaction could be excused if mankind were unaware of the climate change consequences of human activity, but that is no longer the case. The evidence is clear and it is compelling. That is why the outcomes of the Paris conference are more important than ever before. If the science is right, and I believe that it is, what is at stake is the future of our planet and all that it gives life to. Perhaps nature will find its own way of protecting the planet as it has done in the past. My fear, however, is that that would be a much more drastic action than what could otherwise be achieved at the Paris conference if today's world leaders show the coverage and the statesmanship to do what is right.
I speak for the final time in 2015 and I think it is probably an apt time to reflect on some of the achievements of this year. Before I do, I want to talk about the overwhelming sense of optimism that pervades throughout my electorate. Sure we are dealing with drought, and sure we are experiencing the lowest rainfall over a 24-month period that we have for over 100 years, but notwithstanding that there is a strong sense of optimism throughout Barker. We have seen cattle prices better than twice the price they were this time last year, and I see nods from the member for Flynn. He knows it too. Sadly, he knows about the effects of drought as well. We have seen lamb and sheep prices up and up and up. Sadly, this year I do not think I will be eating any crayfish, because it is selling on the beaches of my electorate at close to $120 a kilogram. In terms of the softwoods industry in the south-east of my electorate, quite frankly, the millers tell me they cannot cut enough timber, and that is a product of a significant increase in house starts on the eastern seaboard. So notwithstanding the climatic conditions, which no doubt over the next year or so will make the economic conditions in my electorate tougher, there is an overwhelming sense of optimism.
I would like to think that I have done something to add to that sense of optimism. The member for Hinkler was saying that he is looking forward to next year and his first ever performance review—a very interesting way to refer to an election but an apt way, because ultimately we are all here thanks to the good grace of our electorates. I too am looking forward to that challenge. But before we get to that point there is obviously more work to do.
An honourable member interjecting—
I am absolutely looking forward to that challenge. I wonder whether you will be in the same seat next time—maybe seeking to encourage other electors to vote for you. We will see. But nothing makes constituents in rural communities happier than hearing about investment in infrastructure and regional development. I was reflecting on this today and noticed that in this year alone the federal government has committed over $220 million in infrastructure and regional development funding in my electorate of Barker. There has been $74 million for road programs. There has been $20 million for the National Highway Upgrade Program. We have seen a commitment to the Wireless Road-Penola Road intersection. We have seen a commitment to complete the long-awaited Penola bypass.
Not everything comes down to commitments in the infrastructure space. When the now former Prime Minister visited Mount Gambier this year, I was able to persuade him of the need for an MRI licence for the community of Mount Gambier. I am pleased to say that the magnet is now operating in the Mount Gambier hospital and being funded effectively via rebates from Medicare. But before that magnet was installed in that facility we saw the ludicrous situation where people in Mount Gambier, to undergo even basic diagnostic tests like an MRI scan, would need to travel to Adelaide. The cost to individuals was immense. This was as good as a 1,000-kilometre round trip, with cost of accommodation, for a service which people take for granted—indeed, a service you can have in one of two facilities in Warrnambool on the other side of the Victorian border, in the member for Wannon's electorate.
But there have been other commitments as well: $5 million for the Murray Bridge Racing Club and $7½ million for a motorsport park. There will be upcoming announcements in terms of the National Stronger Regions Fund and the Stronger Communities Program. The sense of optimism that has purveyed my community has also, I think, been added to by the member for Barker. In the few short minutes I have left can I thank you everyone for their assistance, particularly with my office. I thank the electors in Barker for their perseverance. I reflect also on the death of the late Don Randall. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I hope it is a safe New Year and I hope we see everyone back here in 2016 because we have all been safe on the roads after Christmas.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 13:00 .