Pursuant to standing order 17, I lay on the table my warrant nominating the honourable members for O'Connor and Fisher to be members of the Speaker's panel to assist the chair when requested to do so by the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker.
I present the second report of the Petitions Committee for the 46th Parliament. I also present a corrigendum to report No. 1 of 29 July 2019.
I present the following ministerial responses to petitions previously presented:
I'm pleased to inform the House of enhancements to the e-petitioning system introduced at the end of August. The enhancements originate from recommendations of the previous Petitions Committee to simplify online petitioning. Each petition now has its own landing page that petitioners can share easily through their email or social media platforms. A new status bar highlights where the petition is up to in the House process. Searching for petitions is also simpler with the introduction of a new search-and-sort option on the list of petitions online and a faster response time.
The committee extends its thanks to staff in the Department of Parliamentary Services, particularly to Chris Leonard and Anthony Lewis, who are in the gallery this morning, who helped make the committee's recommendations a reality. The committee will monitor the public response to the enhancements as the parliament progresses.
Thank you, and I look forward to further updating the House on the work of the Petitions Committee.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I rise to introduce the National Integrity Commission Bill 2019. This bill is essential for the future of our democracy. We desperately need a national ICAC.
Not a week goes by in Australian politics without the case mounting further for the need for a national anticorruption watchdog. In recent weeks and months, Australians have been forced to watch as scandal after scandal continues to plague politics in this country. There's the revolving door between the senior members of the major parties and the lobbyists who roam these halls, a Murray-Darling Basin Plan which breaches the Water Act, Aldi bags full of cash arriving at political party offices, major contracts and grants delivered through closed tender processes, fast-track visas for high-roller customers at Crown Casino who just happen to be major donors to both Labor and Liberal.
These are the reasons why so many people around this country, including the Greens and myself, believe we need a National Integrity Commission to be an anticorruption watchdog that can actually hold members of this place to account. This is why we have been introducing bills to create a national anticorruption watchdog for almost 10 years, despite the opposition of several from the old parties along the way, and why I introduced the first bill for an anticorruption commission into this House back in 2012. With this bill today, we can see a long-lasting reform of our laws to deal with corruption and integrity. This bill creates a national commission through the establishment of a national office of integrity commissioner comprising three elements: the National Integrity Commission, the existing Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity and the new office of the independent parliamentary adviser.
The National Integrity Commission in this bill would be established as an independent statutory agency. The bill builds into a comprehensive legislative framework a critical addition to the national integrity system through the establishment of a National Integrity Commission to enable the investigation and prevention of misconduct and corruption in all Commonwealth departments and agencies and by federal parliamentarians and their staff.
This bill brings together and co-locates this function with the independent oversight functions of the law enforcement integrity commission for the investigation and prevention of corruption in the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission, thus creating an integrated federal approach to misconduct and corruption in the parliament and the Public Service.
This bill will operate alongside a second bill, which will be introduced into the Senate by my colleague Senator Larissa Waters at a later time, the national integrity (parliamentary standards) bill 2018. Together, it is our intention that these bills will boost confidence in the Commonwealth parliament by equipping it to prevent, manage and resolve its own integrity issues, where possible, while also providing clear pathways for investigation and resolution of serious corruption issues.
Before I proceed to talk a bit more about the bill, I want to pay tribute in particular to the former member for Indi, Cathy McGowan, and also to the current member for Mayo and other current members of the crossbench. I said earlier on that I was the first one to introduce a national integrity commission bill into this House, several years ago. Since then the case has only grown. The other members of the crossbench, current and former, have been the ones who have taken up the running to make this a reality. We now stand in a position where we have changed the mind of one of the old parties in this place, and I think it will only be a matter of time before we change the mind of the other one—it is currently sitting on the government benches at the moment—because the Australian people want a national integrity commission with teeth. The Australian people want a corruption watchdog. One of the things about the crossbench is that we will bring to this place without fear or favour the reforms that are needed to make our democracy work and to restore trust in this place.
In this country at the moment there is no national corruption agency with the powers or jurisdiction to investigate claims of misconduct and corruption across the federal parliament or Commonwealth agencies. This is not good enough. It can no longer be justified. People have seen in New South Wales in particular that when you have an anticorruption watchdog that's able to investigate all sides of parliament without fear or favour it exposes some very disturbing things—so disturbing, in fact, that members of both the Labor and Liberal parties have found themselves prosecuted as a result of the investigation and convicted in many instances. The question is: if that is what is happening at the New South Wales level, can we really stand up here and justify to the people of Australia that we think it's somehow not happening at the federal level?
If you think that corruption only stops at state boundaries and somehow doesn't happen here in Canberra then I've got a bridge to sell you! Is the reason we don't hear about claims of misconduct or corruption at a federal level precisely because there isn't a national watchdog that is able to investigate and hold people at the Commonwealth level to account?
Public trust in parliaments and in our institutions is at an all-time low. In 2007, 86 per cent of Australians had trust in our democracy, but by late last year it had plummeted to just 41 per cent. Our constituents across the country are tuning out and turning off, and, given recent events, who could blame them? It's our job, and our job alone, to try to restore people's faith in the work that we are doing and in our system of democracy. One of the best ways that we can do that would be to ensure that there is a federal anticorruption watchdog that can hold every one of us to account, and that can hold everyone at the federal level, at the highest levels of our federal bureaucracy, to account as well. This is key to restoring public faith in our democracy.
People say, 'Why is there an anticorruption commission at the state level but not at the federal level?' and there is no good answer to that question. It is time for us to fix it. We need to reform a number of things in this place. We need to reform our donations laws and we need to stop the revolving door between politicians and big business, but we also need an anticorruption watchdog. This is an integral part of that reform to restore faith and transparency in our democracy.
The argument that existing agencies and mechanisms are sufficient or appropriate for fighting graft ignores the reality of the situation that we currently face, alongside the important role of prevention, the promotion of ethical conduct and the integration of integrity systems across federal and state jurisdictions. In July, Australians were shocked by the Crown casino high-roller scandal, and after days of public pressure what did the government do? It referred allegations of ministerial misconduct to a body that can't investigate ministers or former ministers. The current system is not up to the task.
This bill will operate in a federal jurisdiction and it won't override or replace state legislation. It provides for the ACT and Northern Territory to contract the national integrity commissioner to operate in respect of their territories, in the same way that the Commonwealth Ombudsman acts as the ACT Ombudsman. And the national commission established by this bill will complement the state based anticorruption commissions.
The need to address corruption becomes even clearer when we compare our federal system to the states. All Australian states have established, or are committed to establishing, anticorruption bodies with various powers in jurisdictions. Importantly, they all include the power to investigate the activities of politicians. The evidence of the powerful and effective work of the state based anticorruption bodies reinforces the need for a similar mechanism at the federal level of Australian politics. This bill states what we mean by corrupt conduct, so that people know what it is and can be held to account for it. It is defined as including any conduct that adversely affects the honest or impartial exercise of official functions by the parliament, a Commonwealth agency, any public official or any group or body of public officials; or involves the dishonest exercise of functions by a public official; or involves a breach of public trust by a public official or perverts the cause of justice; or involves the misuse of information or material by a public official.
It lists all kinds of corrupt conduct, such as blackmail, bribery and fraud for the purpose of adversely affecting the exercise of functions by parliament, a Commonwealth agency or public officials, and provides for retrospectivity and that the national integrity commissioner can investigate corrupt conduct that occurred before the commencement of the bill, or before a person became a public official or outside of Australia.
We don't bring this bill here because we think these corridors are necessarily full of people who are corrupt, and the same is true for our public servants. We are lucky in Australia to be characterised by, I believe, overwhelmingly honest public servants and people who come into federal politics with the best of intention. But if there is wrongdoing at the state level, it stands to reason that there is a good chance of wrongdoing at the federal level and we need a watchdog to root that out.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the member for Melbourne's motion and reserve my right to speak.
The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I move:
That this House:
(1) acknowledges Australia is a major contributor to the Syria humanitarian response plan, designating approximately $220 million dollars to Syria and neighbouring countries between 2016 and 2019;
(2) notes that:
(a) western Sydney is a primary settlement region and has received one-fifth of Australia's recent humanitarian intake, as a result of years of ongoing conflict in the Middle East; and
(b) local health, education and migrant service providers, particularly in Fairfield and Liverpool, are running beyond their funded capacity and as a result, have been put under considerable pressure when trying to assist families to settle and integrate into our local community; and
(3) further acknowledges:
(a) that the insufficient funding to support these frontline services has widened the gap between supply of and demand for settlement services to support vulnerable individuals, particularly from the minority Christian, Assyrian, Chaldean and Mandaean communities; and
(b) the need to effectively invest in the settlement of refugees to enable them to integrate into the community, fulfil their potential and make a positive contribution to this country.
Western Sydney's played a very significant role in the humanitarian response of the government to, in particular, the Syrian crisis. In my region, which encompasses Fairfield and Liverpool in New South Wales, we received 7,000 of the 12,000 refugees who came as part of that special humanitarian response. I think it's well known that my area, as a matter of fact, did the heavy lifting on the government's response to the Syrian crisis. However, and pretty regrettably, the funding allocated through resettlement of refugees in my region in no way reflects the level of response that has taken place. Multiple migrant resource service providers have felt the impact of government cuts when it comes to settlement services. This has meant that crucial services to ensure the quality of settlement have been affected and the level of support to the migrant families in most need has certainly been downplayed, and, in many cases, neglected.
Earlier this year I met with the New South Wales Settlement Partnership program, who voiced major concerns about the narrowing ability to provide the local community with the full suite of programs that migrants, and particularly refugee migrants, need to properly settle in a local community. The Western Sydney Migrant Resource Centre emphasised that in the 2017-18 financial year, through settlement casework support alone, they provided services to over 12,000 individuals. However, despite this increase in the services provided by the Western Sydney MRC, their funding was cut by 30 per cent. What does this cut mean to an organisation like that? It means that they had to halve the youth support services that they delivered. It also meant they had to cut the number of employment participation workshops from 35 in the year to just four. I understand that for another organisation, CORE Community Services, the cuts meant that they lost three full-time positions and one part-time worker, which has put a heavy strain on that organisation in the delivering of settlement services. I spoke to Carmen Lazar from the Assyrian Resource Centre. She also raised concerns about the risk of not being able to provide elderly refugees who are isolated and suffering from numerous health issues with the necessary social cohesion activities and educational support.
With the rapid influx of refugees into my area, the resource centres are now struggling and are reaching a breaking point where they will not be able to actually do the necessary work to help people properly settle and assimilate into this country. This has also meant that the gap in supply and demand of these settlement services has widened to such a point that the services are falling way short of being able to provide our local community with what's needed to actually help people settle properly.
Proper resourcing of these organisations—and not the continual cutbacks we have seen under this government—is not just an investment in the lives of these emerging communities; it's actually an investment in the future prosperity of our nation. Only last month Oxfam released a report on the impact of family separation on refugees and humanitarian migrants in Australia. They found that there is a direct correlation between the size of our refugee and humanitarian intake and the nation's long-term productivity growth and economic performance. For a government that is constantly banging on about delivering Australia a better economic future, wouldn't you think that, in respect to Labor's policy on refugee intakes, the correlation with our future economic benefit would be an incentive for the government to properly fund settlement services for the refugees that it has committed to? By increasing funding to migrant services now, not only do we support vulnerable migrant families but we effectively invest in their futures. These benefits will ultimately flow to second- and third-generation migrants and will go a long way towards helping them make a positive contribution to this nation.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion. I rise in support of the motion put forward by the member for Fowler. We know very well that good settlement processes make for better settlement outcomes for migrants and refugees in Australia. Australia has a very proud history of providing good settlement processes and good settlement outcomes to people who come here. It's one of the reasons why Australia has a very successful multicultural society and also one of the reasons why we have managed to avoid many of the social issues of countries which have less thoughtful and less comprehensive settlement processes for refugees and migrants. It's because of this history of successful integration of new arrivals to Australia that we continue to enjoy the benefits of being a migrant nation, which is why this motion is so important. It is of utmost importance that we continue to ensure that migrants and refugees, particularly refugees who have more complex needs and higher needs, get the level of settlement services that they require to ensure that the outcomes, not just for themselves but for their children and for future generations, are positive outcomes. A positive settlement experience makes for better outcomes in the future.
When I was a teacher in the Adult Migrant English Program, which was quite a long time ago now, we weren't just teaching language to new arrivals to Australia; we were also helping them in the settlement process. We were giving them advice and we were giving them support. For many refugees and migrants coming to Australia, we were the very first Australians that they met. The 510 hours of English language tuition that they had in the AMEP was very formative for their settlement outcomes. But I would argue that 510 hours is certainly not enough, particularly if somebody is coming in with zero literacy or zero English language proficiency. It takes a lot more than 510 hours of English language tuition to get them to a functional level of English deemed to be an ASLPR2.
The member for Fowler specifically referred to changes in the funding structure for settlement services in parts of Western Sydney, in his electorate. In Western Australia, not only changes to the funding structure but also a reduction in funding to settlement services have meant that organisations like the Metropolitan Migrant Resource Centre—which operates just outside my electorate, in Mirrabooka, but which services refugees and migrants from my electorate—have had to cut back on the kinds of services they provide and are under considerable strain to continue to provide the level of service that is required to ensure successful settlement outcomes.
It should be noted that the cuts to these services often disproportionately affect women. For example, with the changes to the Adult Migrant English Program and the focus on job readiness, women—who may be learning English not in order to get employment but in order to function in Australian society, doing things like going to the doctor or the bank or doing the shopping—are significantly disadvantaged because they become ineligible for some AMEP classes. They are forced to attend community classes, and sometimes these classes are delivered by well-meaning though unqualified teachers. We already know that migrant and refugee women, because they are not in employment or education, tend to learn language much more slowly than their husbands or children do, so women are disproportionately affected.
I meet regularly with the Metropolitan Migrant Resource Centre, which is in Mirrabooka, as I stated earlier. They've raised significant concerns about the lack of funding, about the cuts to funding and about changes to the funding structure, which continue to impact on the way in which they provide services.
I should, before I finish, to acknowledge all of those services, particularly the smaller ethno-specific service providers, who continue to do a fantastic job despite the challenges of funding, despite the fact that they have no interpreters available and despite the fact that they are continuing to deal with considerable cuts to funding in an area of great need.
I rise to support the comments that have just been made by the members for Fowler and Cowan. When the previous member for Warringah was Prime Minister, he committed to permanently resettling 12,000 Syrian refugees caught in the middle of a tragic civil war. At the time, it was described by Mr Abbott as one of the largest resettlement policies in the world today. Women, children and families from persecuted minorities, who were sheltering in countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, were given priority. Of those 12,000 resettlement positions, 7,000 were settled in the region of Fairfield and Liverpool, in the electorates of Fowler, McMahon and my own electorate of Werriwa. Liverpool, and south-western Sydney in general, is one of the most culturally diverse areas of Sydney and Australia. The electorate thrives in its multiculturalism. Liverpool and Fairfield have welcomed and supported several generations of refugees from around the world and certainly through humanitarian migration.
The resettlement plan also made placing these refugees in rural areas a priority. However, four years down the track, these people are returning to their communities here in my electorate. This is supported by data from the migrant resource centre which is based in Liverpool and shows that Liverpool has the highest rate of second movements in Australia—a result of the strong multicultural make-up of the area and people wanting to come back to the places and families they know. But what we have seen is nothing short of a disaster for these refugees.
This government, which was responsible for this resettlement policy, has now made changes, including the way that complex resettlement cases have been funded. Previously, straightforward resettlement cases would be eligible for basic support for up to 12 months and more complex cases would receive more intense support for up to five years. However, after the review the resettlement plan was moved to, effectively, a three-tiered system and incorporated a number of changes which strangled the frontline services of funding.
The Western Sydney Migrant Resource Centre is the largest provider of refugee settlement services in this region. In the first year of the program it saw 1,703 clients. In the last financial year the number was 2,704—1,001 new clients over three years. The need for these vital services is clear. The MRC said that the reduced scope of service delivery built into the program framework means a loss of intensive capacity and a loss of building support to the most vulnerable of these refugees. While net funding may show an increase, other vital services were removed, such as the translation services basic booking structure. The MRC has attempted to provide these much-needed, significant services under the new system but does so at a loss, and it's not viable for the service providers to continue to do so.
It is a humanitarian injustice to commit to supporting these refugees but structure the support system to take funding from the frontline service providers that provide the resettlement service support. The effect is clear: as a result of the funding changes, the MRC employment preparation workshops have been eliminated, 50 per cent of the youth services have been reduced and, despite how at every opportunity this program is oversubscribed, preparedness and planning for emerging needs has been significantly compromised.
It is a disgrace that the government has commissioned reviews into the program and, as a result, made changes which forced service providers to operate at a loss and risk clients that need their services. These are some of the most critically vulnerable people in our society. Some of those in my community are the Yazidi women who were used as sex slaves by ISIS. Their stories are truly horrific, and they need significant intensive support. That support must be ongoing. We cannot allow these people to fall through the cracks. We as a country made the commitment to accept them and support them. They want to be part of our community. Allowing this chronic shortfall of services to continue because the program is underfunded further marginalises these people and potentially puts them out on the street.
Again, I support the motion put by the member for Fowler.
There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I move:
That this House:
(1) recognises National Science Week took place from 10 to 18 August 2019;
(2) acknowledges:
(a) National Science Week is an opportunity to recognise the economic and social contribution of those working in science disciplines;
(b) National Science Week highlights the importance of sparking an interest in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects from an early age and maintaining participation by students throughout primary and secondary schooling;
(c) last year almost 1 million people participated in more than 2,100 events around the country; and
(d) Questacon's leadership role during National Science Week and throughout the year in inspiring young people and promoting STEM study; and
(3) notes the Government's ongoing investment in science, research and innovation, which totalled $9 billion in 2018-19.
As a scientist, I have always believed in enabling others through the powerful exchange of ideas. Science represents an ideal form for this exchange, especially in encouraging greater fascination amongst people of all ages in understanding the world we live in. There are dedicated initiatives like National Science Week, which was held this year from 10 to 18 August and featured more than 1,000 registered events across the country, providing a wonderful opportunity to ensure that our country's best and brightest ideas are recognised.
Our country depends on problem-solvers who are educated, trained and curious. That is why the Morrison government is investing $9.6 billion in science, innovation and technology this year alone. Boosting the confidence and engagement of our next generation of STEM students, especially amongst young women, is fundamental to our government's agenda of ensuring the next generation is prepared for the future of work—a future that is underpinned by the growth of the knowledge economy.
I'm delighted that the recent National Science Week has been an opportunity to celebrate all things science and technology in Australia, reflecting our flourishing scientific community. National Science Week is Australia's annual celebration of science and technology, and thousands of individuals, from students to scientists to chefs and musicians, get involved, taking part in more than 1,000 science events across the nation. Science Week is designed for everyone, with events, activities, talks and shows for every age group. It provides an opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of Australian scientists in the world of knowledge. It also aims to encourage an interest in science pursuits among the general public and to encourage younger people to become fascinated by the world we live in.
In Higgins alone there were a number of events held over National Science Week in which we celebrated the problem-solving innovation of our community. I was delighted to attend the launch of the My Iron Manager app by Haemochromatosis Australia. This app will help those suffering from haemochromatosis to better manage their disease. Haemochromatosis is the commonest genetic order in Australia. Put simply, excess iron that is not properly excreted by the body results in rusting of organs. The condition tends to be underdiagnosed but can present as fatigue, arthritis, diabetes or liver cirrhosis. Get an iron check from your GP if you're feeling tired, because it could be because of iron deficiency or because you've got too much iron. One in 300 Australians carry two copies of the gene. This means they are at risk of serious consequences if it is undetected and left untreated. Giving blood regularly is the only way to treat the disease, but it also prevents it. It's really a reason to become a blood donor. The My Iron Manager app helps those affected manage their treatment by providing online tools for recording blood results and blood donation history. It also provides directories for places to have blood taken. This is a clear example of simple science enabling the lives of others.
I was also thrilled to attend the inaugural Global Table conference in Melbourne last week on behalf of the Hon. Karen Andrews, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology. The event was a dynamic, new agrifood exhibition which showcased cutting-edge agriculture and manufacturing innovations, including agtech and food tech, for solving the biggest food security challenges of tomorrow. Science solutions were on show. New technologies, such as lentil products that taste like meat that will help sustainably feed the world if grown at scale, were there to see. These innovations and technologies have the potential to make our processing facilities, farms, homes and cities smarter and more sustainable. Importantly, the event highlighted that the potential of these showcased innovation capabilities rests fundamentality upon our ability to engage in multilateral trade with emerging markets. I was also privileged to launch the Trade Barriers Register, which will help trade be better.
Science helps drive a stronger economic future for our country. I congratulate all those who hosted events for this year's National Science Week.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
I rise to speak on the motion put forward by the member for Higgins. Before I do so, I might just congratulate the Clerk on her new role. I look forward to working with her.
National Science Week was held around the country from 10 August to 18 August. This year the theme was 'Destination Moon: more missions, more science'. As I discovered, the theme was not taken lightly by the staff and students at Yeronga State High School, a school in my electorate of Moreton. They held an exhibit that was an exact copy of a living room from my childhood—my very, very early childhood, I should say. They actually set up a workshop as a replica of a lounge room from 1969. It was incredibly authentic. They even dressed up in 1960s gear. They had an old TV in the corner with an image of the moon landing attached to the glass screen. There were mannequins wearing the old school uniform from Yeronga State High School at the time; replica copies of the newspapers; and, in the corner, an original crystal radio set that was actually in working order—not to mention some teachers who particularly got into the vibe with their groovy-looking gear that they very much enjoyed wearing. Some of them said they actually wore it most days anyway.
In the background, I could hear some favourite hits from 1969, including 'Suspicious Minds' by Elvis Presley. The most controversial part of the exhibit was an old toaster on the kitchen table that was causing much confusion amongst the students. The students at Yeronga State High School couldn't believe that you had to open the side of the toaster to turn the bread over so that each side would actually be toasted. Obviously pop-up toasters hadn't been invented in 1969, and it was very entertaining to watch them try and work out what it was about. The scientific component of the workshop involved students on one table constructing a modern version of the radio set from a kit and another group constructing a satellite and data transmitter using littleBits and their phones. I was very impressed by how clever the students were.
After seeing the students and staff at Yeronga State High School, I felt inspired to conduct my own experiment for National Science Week. Now, I taught English for 11 years, and I did teach science for one year, but I had a great lab assistant. They didn't let me near the lab for many good reasons, but my staff had some faith in me and made sure that I had lots of safety goggles, and they kept back a safe distance in my electorate office. I did an experiment in my kitchen, and it consisted of bicarb of soda, vinegar, a glass bottle and a balloon. I poured the vinegar in the bottle, placed some bicarb of soda inside a balloon and carefully placed the balloon on top of the glass bottle. As the bicarb of soda slowly sprinkled out of the balloon, it reacted with the vinegar, creating a bubbly gas which caused the balloon to expand. Thankfully, it didn't burst. I did think my staff were setting me up, but they weren't. I'm very proud of my efforts, and I've posted a video for all the world to see on Facebook. I look forward to a more adventurous experiment next year—perhaps with some more protective gear!
I enjoyed myself thoroughly, and I noticed that all of my science equipment was quickly packed away, but I will be back next year.
The great thing about National Science Week is that it gives us all a chance to reflect on the importance of science and scientists, and the great role that they play in society. At the Nathan campus of Griffith University, located in my electorate, there is some incredibly important medical research being carried out, conducted as part of the Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery, headed up by Professor Kathy Andrews. Professor Andrews and her team are researching cancer, infectious diseases, Parkinson's disease, drug resistance and spinal cord injury repair. As I read this comprehensive list of research areas, I'm sincerely grateful for their research. This also confirms that I should definitely stick to my day job as a politician!
Aside from Professor Andrews's important research work she has also been involved in another project called That's Rad! Science. Professor Andrews and some of her colleagues have created a series of colourful children's books to help encourage children into STEM careers. There are currently four books in the series. Each book takes on a different theme: parasites, nanotechnology and forensic science, with the fourth being protein crystal science. Professor Andrews's book in this series is called My Mum Is A Parasite Scientist: That's Rad! It's not your normal, everyday children's book, but it serves its purpose of making people familiar with these topic areas that we don't normally consider.
I'd like to confirm right here and now that I will not be changing to teaching science or being a scientist. But we do know that there will be a shortage of science teachers and of STEM teachers coming down the track, so we need to make sure that people like Professor Andrews and others in the education and academic area cultivate as many STEM students as possible. We should be glad that Professor Andrews and her team are working on important research into areas that are going to be of benefit to us all. I look forward to encouraging other people to go down this path. We need more scientists, and I'm happy to take suggestions for a science experiment for next year's National Science Week.
Whilst I decline the opportunity to give my good friend and colleague the member for Moreton any further suggestions, I'd hate to think that he's going to start impersonating Dr Julius Sumner Miller. I think that's very dangerous territory, and so he should stick to his day job!
National Science Week is always a tremendous time for students and teachers right across Australia to get together and focus on the importance of science and technology to our community and to our economy. Not only does it recognise the economic and social contribution of those working in the science disciplines; it's also a great opportunity to inspire, motivate and encourage our young people to learn more about the sciences and to pursue a passion for science, technology, engineering and maths.
The government this year continues to back National Science Week, with funding support of $6.8 million each year going towards hosting some amazing events across Australia. We do this because we recognise the global economy is changing and that the majority of jobs in the future will require STEM skills, which is why it's so important to encourage our young students.
In my electorate, Saint Stephen's College held a science expo where the kids had the opportunity to try hands-on science activities, including virtual reality and various science competitions. My favourites were the marshmallow catapults and the science show, just to name a few of the activities available. Upper Coomera Library also held some amazing events, including the Magical World of Crazy Science Stage Show!, which is a science stage show performed by scientist and entertainer Richard Scholes. Kids as young as three enjoyed witnessing giant columns of elephant toothpaste, a genie's appearance from a lamp, massive smoke rings zooming, toilet paper flying and more. I must remind members that elephant toothpaste is not safe for human use, in case any members forgot to brush their teeth this morning! The library also hosted the free Digital Explorers Workshop in collaboration with BOP Industries. This workshop helps young people discover how science, technology, engineering and entrepreneurship can combine to help us solve some of the major issues facing our world today.
We talk at length about what our schools and universities are doing in the STEM field, but one of the things I think we forget to mention very often, or don't talk about often enough, is that the work of our small to medium-sized businesses right across this country in all manner of sectors, whether it be manufacturing, agriculture, dairy, mining—any number of our industries—requires these STEM skills each and every day. And the work they are doing in research and development we very rarely hear about. When I talk to small business, that is frequently one of the areas where they are looking to create that point of difference with their competitors.
A part of the importance of Science Week is that students developing these skills and abilities is not just about the students doing science and R&D subjects at university but about the skills they can then bring to our local business community to help it become better. A great example is Windaroo Valley State High School, where the students have the opportunity to learn and develop technologies to support the agriculture industry. The students are currently integrating robots into small planting beds to investigate how we can develop technologies to improve yields and efficiency in agriculture. It is these real-world, practical learnings that are delivering results and engaging our young people in STEM. That's why it is important in this chamber and across the political spectrum that we continue to support STEM for the development of new products, more efficient services and systems, higher quality health care, enhanced natural resource management, new ways to respond to changing environments, progress in tackling national global challenges, and better decision-making in government and industry. It is this work across the board that keeps our country going.
I would like to congratulate my colleague the member for Higgins, Professor Allen, on introducing this motion to parliament. I'm sure she, like me, is a lover of science. I have longstanding interest in a whole variety of different sciences. It is great to have some young people in parliament today and to know that their lives will be made better by the tremendous advantages and advances that science has given our community and the wider international community as well.
Recently, I've been doing some work with the Shepherd Centre, which deals with children with severe hearing loss. It is important to know that the great Australian scientist Professor Graeme Clark grew up in my electorate of Macarthur. With his invention of the cochlear implant he has made the lives of so many thousands of people in Australia and overseas better because of his love of science. Also in my electorate of Macarthur we have the Macarthur family still residing. John Macarthur and his wife, Elizabeth Macarthur, were agricultural scientists in the way they introduced the merino genetics into Australia, the birthplace of the Australian wool industry, with the first development of scientific breeding of sheep for wool. Great scientists have come from Macarthur for many, many years. My great hero, Sir John Monash, famous of course as a soldier and as an engineer, was also a scientist and the first to do experiments with concrete science in Australia that led to the development of prestressed concrete and the growth of high-rise buildings.
National Science Week is an important initiative because it not only recognises the contribution of science to the greater community and recognises the scientific community itself but also offers a fantastic system to support the development of science hubs in our education systems throughout regional New South Wales and Australia. These science hubs go a long way to inspiring young people to pursue an interest in science as well as extend networks and partnership opportunities in the regions.
In my electorate of Macarthur we have many businesses that are using science and are at the forefront of scientific technology and business to create wonderful industries and products for use in Australia and for export. I would briefly mention the DECO Group, which uses membrane technology and new technology in coatings to produce the great new products we see in building and throughout our railway network in New South Wales. Most of the signs are now made by DECO Group using their specialised technology of coatings on metal to give a wood appearance and very long-term viable results for seats and structures around our railway stations and in high-rise businesses and buildings without flammability. It is great new technology. The Sevaan Group is another engineering group in my electorate that uses high-technology computers and laser cutting to create different metal objects for use in things like medical technology et cetera. There are really great scientific advances throughout my community in Macarthur. I should also mention the Leppington Pastoral Company, which is the biggest privately operated dairy corporation in Australia. It uses new technology in agriculture to increase the yield of the dairy cows. So there is lots of great new technology occurring in my electorate of Macarthur.
I have been to many schools in my electorate, such as Broughton Anglican College, St Peter's Anglican Primary School and Campbelltown Public School, to see the wonderful advances the children are making in their learning about science. Their experiments are great to be involved with. It's exciting to see the next generation of young scientists coming along. I know that Science Week is an important week and I know that there are many more scientific advances to come from Australia that will benefit us all, both in terms of the economy and in terms of our knowledge and our future.
I thank the member for Higgins for moving this motion and acknowledging the important role National Science Week plays in engaging our communities, particularly our students, in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Our government rightly values the importance of STEM, sees its importance for future generations of our workforce and is committed to making sure that STEM education remains a priority.
National Science Week is a fantastic initiative that celebrates science and technology and engages a variety of organisations and groups within my electorate of Curtin, from tertiary institutions, including the University of Western Australia, to the 54 schools in my electorate, libraries and science centres. The primary aims of Science Week are to acknowledge the contributions of scientists, to encourage an interest in science pursuits among the general public and, most importantly, to encourage younger people to engage with science and the world we live in. This year there was fantastic engagement across Australia, with over 2,077 events registered on the website. Approximately 1.5 million people participated in National Science Week and there were more than 2,000 tweets that mentioned the #scienceweek hashtag, which of course reflects one of our most recent technological advancements, Twitter—for better or worse.
Within my electorate there were many schools and organisations celebrating National Science Week, but I would like to comment on one event in particular, the Perth Science Festival, which took place at the Claremont Showground. The festival featured more than 50 stallholders from various STEM organisations running interactive activities, with stallholders including tertiary institutions, government departments, small businesses, not-for-profits and charities. The festival featured a diverse range of fields covering more than 10 different areas of STEM, including activities that targeted a range of ages, from the 'littlest scientist' corner for young children to gaming technology for youth and resource management and sustainability for adults. I would like to congratulate the organisers of the Perth Science Festival on a fantastic event, with hands-on, interactive and engaging activities in STEM. This is the way to engage and inspire young minds to pursue paths in STEM. As someone with a background in higher education, I'm particularly passionate about ensuring that our young people have the skills they need when they leave school or university to find employment and to contribute meaningfully to society.
As the global economy changes, new industries are emerging and new skills are required for workers at all levels. As we continue to make advances in technology and automation an increasing number of jobs in the future will require STEM skills. Current stats and analysis show that 75 per cent of jobs in the fastest growing industries will require workers with STEM skills. Fifty per cent of current jobs with skills shortages are in STEM fields. It is predicted that demand for professional, scientific and technical services will rise by 14 per cent in the next five years. Employers expect their need for STEM professionals to increase by 49 per cent for university graduates and 53 per cent for VET graduates in the next five to 10 years. Ninety per cent of jobs will need digital skills in the next two to five years. Fifty-eight per cent of current students under 25 are studying for jobs that will be radically changed by automation.
In essence, what it is critical that we do now is ramp up our STEM capability across the country to ensure that we are educating people with the problem-solving, innovative, creative-thinking and digital skills which we increasingly need in society. To ramp up capability we need to ramp up interest, passion, enthusiasm and engagement. This is at the core of Science Week and was at the core of the activities in my electorate. These activities are a fundamental and vital part of the government's commitment to providing long-term, stable funding and policy settings for Australian science, research and innovation. We understand that science is critical to our continued prosperity, and we are building on and backing our policies with smart and strategic investments to deliver stable support for our researchers across the coming decade.
I'll say at the outset that I loved science as a kid. Growing up, one of my favourite possessions, and I had to get a few of them, was the old chemistry set. I used to run out of the coloured ones, and mum would doggedly go down to the shop and get another one or the replacement bits. I studied a Bachelor of Science at Monash University; I have a chemistry degree—not that I was that good, because I was otherwise occupied. My staff know that school visits to science labs can take longer than anticipated because I get a little bit stuck playing with the kids and the chemistry sets. I'm a proud nerd.
I think it's fair to say that science has transformed civilisations and societies for centuries. The tradition of reason, which emerged over many centuries and which we today have inherited—the scientific method, if you like—trumped religious tyranny and absolutism or various forms of superstition (I'm not equating the two) and has led to a much better world.
Science and research are critical, as the member for Curtin just said, to our current and future prosperity in so many areas, be it health, medical research, energy, agriculture, manufacturing, defence or just everyday living. We certainly punch above our weight—that overused phrase in Australia—in the global rankings, compared to our population. There is no doubt about it.
When it comes to the motion, I'd say that it's fine as far as it goes and that it's a worthy debate to have. Who could disagree with the platitudes that National Science Week is a great opportunity and highlights the importance of sparking an interest in science and STEM and that people participate in it? That's fine, as far as it goes. The last bit of the motion is curious—it 'notes the government's ongoing investment'. But, as always, you need to look at what's not said; you need to look at the invisible ink. The motion does not admit the government's cut of 10 per cent in real terms—$1.1 billion over five years—to investment in science and research. It doesn't talk about that; that's not said. It doesn't talk about the government's slashing of 1,300 jobs from the CSIRO; that's not said. And it doesn't talk about the government's trashing of the tradition and importance of fundamental research—basic research, research that our brightest scientists can just do, following their inclination and intuition, and discover wonderful things—and the importance of that basic research in underpinning applied research and work with industry. The motion doesn't admit that that's what this government has done. In that regard, it's the height of hypocrisy. The government as a whole, in so many areas—and I don't mean some individual members; indeed, those opposite, particularly the members for Higgins and Curtin, break the mould for the government—actually hate science. They reject science, and we have to say that actions speak louder than words.
Science means looking at evidence; it means looking at facts to inform conclusions, exposing your reasoning to peer review and changing your mind when the facts change. But the Liberals ignore and denigrate expert scientific evidence on the largest global issues—in particular, I'd say climate change and energy. Only the Liberals could pretend to love science but have a climate change policy where emissions actually rise year-on-year, and then pretend that's not the case.
For many opposite, climate change is not a matter of science. The language of belief clouds the debate. We should not have a language of belief: 'I don't believe in climate change'. Look at the evidence; at least have some evidence to back up this language of belief. But, really, as we know, it's all about politics. It's a peculiar Australian disease that the conservatives in this country have in rejecting the science of climate change. It doesn't happen in the UK. Despite Brexit and the chaos that Boris is causing, they are actually on board with the rest of the world about climate change. The government's hostility to science comes from the hard Right ideologues, and they're out of step with Australians. Those are not views held by the majority of Australians.
Part of valuing science is that you can't pick and choose your facts. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said—I just googled it, because it's an often used quote and I couldn't remember who said it:
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.
The ultimate tinfoil hatter, the member for Hughes—we called him that once in the Federation Chamber and he said, 'I proudly wear my tinfoil hat'—rejects 99 per cent of the world's peer reviewed scientists and instead follows the crackpots on Sky News After Dark, where he seems very comfortable.
I will read out a quote from the Prime Minister:
… there are those who would seek to manipulate science and use it against their fellow human beings for their own nefarious and evil purposes.
Well said, Prime Minister! It sounds like a comment on your own government when it comes to climate change and energy policy.
In closing, the invisible ink bits in this motion—the bits that are not said and the bits that the government doesn't like to talk about—are their $1.1 billion cuts to science, their cuts to CSIRO jobs and their cuts to university research funding. In the midyear financial update it was $328 million and then four months later it had gone up to $345 million in cuts. There have been cuts to the Australian Research Council and $3.9 billion in cuts to the Education Investment Fund. Actions speak louder than words. National Science Week is good to stimulate public awareness and interest in science, but the government has to do its bit and stop cutting research funding to science.
I too would like to thank the member for Higgins for bringing attention to National Science Week. In Lindsay, I am particularly committed to ensuring that our children have an understanding and a commitment to science and technology. This is very much a priority.
I was recently joined by the Minister for Education to launch the Lindsay Jobs of the Future Network. We were joined by local school, industry and business representatives to discuss how we can ensure that our local children are being educated in the jobs of the future. These are the many thousands of jobs that will be coming to Western Sydney as part of the development of the Western Sydney International (Nancy Bird Walton) Airport and the development of the Western Sydney Aerotropolis—jobs in science and technology, in advanced manufacturing and in agribusiness. Western Sydney will be the heart of Australia's advanced manufacturing industry. I want to make sure that our local kids are being educated in those jobs now—in time for the airport's opening in 2026, when they'll be looking and thinking about their future careers.
The Minister for Science and Innovation joined me to launch the Girls in STEM Toolkit. We got great insights right in Western Sydney at a great high school called Jamison High School. We met with the principal and joined students from grades 8 to 10 to launch the toolkit, which aims to build girls' confidence in STEM subjects in schools and also to look at what jobs they might do in the future. We were also able to view their other STEM activities in the school, such as drones and four-wheel drive challenges.
The Minister for Education and I also visited a local public school, Samuel Terry Public School. I was so impressed with their incredibly talented students and the work that they're doing in STEM and robotics, using Lego robotics, at a young age. Kids across Western Sydney, in primary schools and in high schools, are learning more about science and technology, engineering and mathematics. These are the critical industries that do make up the jobs of the future.
Importantly, we also visited my alumni university, Western Sydney University, and visited Launch Pad, which is providing opportunities for young entrepreneurs across Western Sydney to develop their science and technology ideas and get them into the marketplace. I was particularly impressed with Aquacell, who are developing wastewater treatment and water recycling systems. They got their start in Western Sydney and now their services are being used in Silicon Valley and across the United States. They are a great story about science and technology in Western Sydney.
Having worked in the university sector at the US Studies Centre, I know how important it is to have a great science industry in Australia and to learn from our friends in the United States. I would like to acknowledge Professor Susan Pond for the work that she's doing in Australia to address some of our most challenging issues around science and for the work she's doing to get more young girls and women interested in and involved in science and technology.
Increasing science, technology, engineering and maths capabilities are at the core of the Morrison government's science agenda, as set out in the National Science Statement. That's why National Science Week is so important. Applying STEM knowledge and skills has many benefits for local and global economies, like better quality health care, more efficient services and systems, and better decision-making in government and industry. Science aims to encourage an interest in pursuits amongst the general public. Science Week does this and encourages our young students, like those I saw right across the week in Western Sydney in my electorate of Lindsay. The Morrison government is backing National Science Week with funding of $6.8 million each year.
There were 1.5 million people who participated in National Science Week this year, across 2,077 events. Ensuring all Australians can be engaged in science is absolutely a priority of the government, as is ensuring that more girls get interested and confident in science and technology at a young age. And for me, in Lindsay, it's around ensuring that our local kids are being educated for jobs of the future.
National Science Week is a chance to shine a light on the work of Australia's researchers and innovators, and I commend the member for Higgins for putting forward a motion that acknowledges that. As one of the members of this place with a science degree—a double major in psychology from ANU, at least 20 or so years ago, when psychology was studied as an experimental science—I am proud to stand up at any opportunity to support anything which encourages imagination and inquiring minds and the promotion of facts and evidence. However, like my colleague the member for Bruce, I must confess to being a little bit confused about the line in this motion talking about this government's investment in Australian science, because, as far as I can see, over the years this has been a government which has spent too much of its time rejecting scientific evidence and facts—including, at times, the evidence about how to better support scientific evidence and facts, and, most importantly, innovation.
Data from the Australian Innovation System Monitor shows that since 2013, so on this government's watch, business investment in research and development has fallen dramatically, and, over the same period, federal government investment in research and development has also fallen in every state other than Western Australia, where there has been only a minor increase. The fall in business investment in research and development is linked to this government's cuts because the evidence shows that public investment in research and development crowds in rather than crowds out private investment.
A review commissioned by this government, undertaken by Innovation and Science Australia and released in 2017, presented the evidence for increasing R&D by shifting from tax incentives to more direct support for collaborative research. Unfortunately, this Liberal government rejected that advice—not just that recommendation but, it would seem, the whole report. And, under this government, there have been well publicised cuts to the CSIRO and to our universities. There's been political pressure on the CSIRO to be silent about climate change and, more recently, the manufacturing of a culture war over academic freedom, one might suspect, to disguise cuts to research. This government's failure to listen to and promote debate based on evidence and to promote and listen to experts has profound consequences now and into the future.
In coming weeks we expect the release of the review into the Australian public sector by a panel led by CSIRO chairman David Thodey. The Prime Minister in recent times has made it clear he doesn't want the public sector to worry about evidence; he just wants it to implement his policies. However, the Thodey review is independent, and I'm sure the panellists understand that the Public Service is about more than doing what the government of the day says. The quality of our public debate requires a public sector that knows the facts, relies on the evidence and uses that to provide advice. It requires public servants that are prepared to defend their role in the public debate.
Acknowledging National Science Week is an opportunity to remember why, in that public debate, we must stand against a creeping tide of the rejection of science, research and innovation. We must support science so that we can prepare Australia's economy for a future that we know will be different, for a shift in how we work and how our economy works. We must support science so that we can create the future that we as Australians want, where good health, education and work outcomes are available to everyone; where emissions actually fall; where we take our environmental pressures seriously; and where our cities, our regions and our communities all enjoy a great quality of life. Science can guide us in all of these things—things that my community values.
A more inclusive and sustainable Australia is possible but requires us to stand up for the role of science, evidence and facts, not to undermine it. That's the message of National Science Week. Last week I was principal for a day at Elisabeth Murdoch College in Langwarrin. One of the classes I visited was made up of students from the performing arts collective—young men and women talented in music, acting and dancing who were taking a science class. These bright young students understand the importance of science, and our parliament and government should hear their voices.
Amber Emmett loves science and maths because she wants to fight climate change. Amber's plea is to listen to the science about climate change and to give students the knowledge and equipment to fight it. Autumn Reihana understands that science is constantly changing our world and she cites the iPhone and how important it is to her as proof. Her call is for government to see the potential of women to contribute to science, research and innovation and to genuinely support girls and women to have careers in STEM. Amber's and Autumn's voices represent the students of Dunkley. They represent the voices of students across our country and they speak for the future. This parliament—particularly this government—needs to listen.
It's a great pleasure to rise in the House to support the member for Higgins's motion, which quite rightly acknowledges what a success National Science Week was. With a $6.84 million investment from the Morrison government, we saw a very successful National Science Week held across 10 to 18 August. There were over 2,077 events around the nation as part of the week, and 1.5 million people participated in it to help promote science in our nation and how we are at the forefront of it.
The global economy is changing. We know that. We know that this means new industries are emerging and new skills are required. The majority of jobs in the future will require STEM skills, which makes Science Week an important priority for our nation. Applying STEM knowledge and skills leads to new products and technologies, more efficient services and systems, higher quality health care, enhanced natural resource management and better ways that our nation can be sustainable. In particular I wanted to come back to a few of these points, particularly the new products and technology and the higher quality health care. We heard the Labor members opposite talk about and lament how perhaps there isn't enough funding from the Morrison government going to science. They disregard in its entirety the fact that it was this government that instituted the Medical Research Future Fund, a $20 billion investment that is the envy of the world when it comes to promoting science and medical research in this country and globally. It puts us at the very forefront—and I know that for a fact because it's institutions like the University of Queensland, in my electorate, that are doing some of the research—of breakthroughs that are coming through in science and technology.
We also have not only the University of Queensland but also CSIRO's Queensland Centre for Advanced Technologies in Pullenvale. As I said, it will be the jobs of the future that are going to be in this particular area of STEM, in science, so a core part of Science Week is to make sure we're encouraging young Australians, the next generation, to take up the mantle of science and innovation research. Few schools—I want to say no schools but some of the honourable members in here might disagree with me—do it better than Mitchelton State School in my electorate. It was a great pleasure to visit the school and hear about all the activities they held for National Science Week, including their annual STEM competition. With the Science Week theme of 'destination moon', students had the opportunity to discover black holes, wonder about stars, build moon bases and explore how astronauts survive. They even had noted astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker visit the school and talk to students about the universe, as well as a visit from Starlab, which is an inflatable planetarium—and, having gone in it myself, it is as fun as it sounds.
Over 300 students from the school participated in the STEM competition to show off their prowess and try and win the school prize, which was judged externally. All of the entries were exhibited during the open day and they had a real life science competition where they got to participate with the judges and do some science experiments. A particular congratulations goes to Alastair, who was the overall school winner. I had the pleasure to meet him and present his prize to him. His dad had a great time putting together their science project—overseen by mum, of course. And particular congratulations goes to the classroom teacher and STEM coach, Danielle Spencer, and principal, Chris Hart, who lead that program at that school.
In addition, I had the pleasure of welcoming Minister Andrews, our Minister for Industry, Science and Technology to the Queensland Centre for Advanced Technologies in Pullenvale and to visit a company called Emesent. Emesent have gone from start-up capital to creating 20 jobs in advanced manufacturing, science and technology in just over 12 months. They are doing leading research in cutting-edge drone technology that allows mining companies to safely map underground terrain without putting people at risk. The $160 million that the minister announced while she was there for the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund is a great example of how we are creating and funding jobs in the science and technology area so we can have and can continue to promote the jobs of the future in STEM.
As part of that, I had the pleasure of going to UQ with Minister Hunt to look at some of the genomics health work that is going on at UQ. This is cutting edge technology and— (Time expired)
This year we have celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and the voyage of Apollo11. It was one of the great scientific technical achievements of humanity. It was at the time, and indeed now, celebrated in popular culture and in the media on the front pages of our newspapers. It was impossible watching at the time—and as we relive it 50 years later—the incredible journey of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and those first steps taken without being completely enraptured about the power of human curiosity, the interest and magnetism of science, and the desire to be a part of it. In the aftermath of Apollo 11, people studied science around the world in unparalleled numbers. Indeed, in Australia, if you take year 10, the moment at which a student chooses for the first time to study science as a voluntary act, 1982 represented the peak of the graph of kids deciding to pursue science in the proportion of people who made that choice. It was the year in which I made that choice and went on to pursue a science degree. There is no doubt that, whilst I can't remember the Apollo 11 landing, the sceptre of Apollo 11 loomed large in my mind as being one of the great things which encouraged me to pursue an academic career in science. Since then, though, that is a stat which has been on the decline across governments of all persuasions, leading to a point now where encouraging kids to study science is actually a matter of national urgency.
It has been a tenet of my life that Australia has been on the cutting edge of modernity, but, if you look at the statistics today, you see that there are other nations around the world that are embracing the study of science and the pursuit of it in a way that we are not. Today, 18 per cent of degrees awarded in Australia are in STEM. In Sweden, that number is 28 per cent. In South Korea, it's 32 per cent. Compared to that remarkable event back in 1969 where Australia actually played a very significant part in it occurring, today there is a risk that, unless we change our cultural relationship to science, we are at the risk of being left behind.
It seems to me that part of that lies in a celebration of big science, and we have big science in this country to celebrate. The Square Kilometre Array telescope, which is based in South Africa and here in Murchison in Western Australia, probably represents the biggest science project in the world today. It will illuminate our view of the universe in ways that we have never before experienced. Those who are working on it talk about the fact that the Square Kilometre Array will be able to identify planets with biomarkers in different distant parts of the universe—indications that on those places there is life. Think about that: within the next decade, there is the real prospect that that will occur, which in that moment will be a profound incident in the human experience, and yet where do we read about that on the front page of our newspapers? The fact is that we simply don't. We read about everything else, but a celebration of big science in a way which encourages kids to pursue it is not happening, and it is a prime example of how we need to change that cultural relationship to science.
It's in that context that National Science Week is actually a really important week. More than 2,000 events occurred during August encouraging kids to explore the wonder of science. We do have some wonderful institutions in Australia around science outreach—Questacon being the most significant. In its field, scientific outreach to kids, Questacon is world class. It had more than half a million visitors last year, almost 150,000 of whom were students and another 50,000 of whom were teachers. It runs programs across the country. We can actually do this when we put our mind to it, but the need for Australia to change its cultural relationship to science is absolutely paramount.
The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.
I rise to speak on this motion. As a doctor in this chamber, I feel it is important to constantly raise awareness of one of the more forgotten areas of health, and that is prostate cancer. There are very few families in this country that haven't been affected by prostate cancer, and we now know that early diagnosis and treatment is vital if our survival rates are going to improve. There are much better treatments now. There are much better ways of diagnosing prostate cancer. We now know that many men who previously had advanced prostate cancer could have been saved by early screening, and with better diagnosis and better treatment.
There are currently 120,000 men living with prostate cancer in Australia who have been diagnosed, and I say that because there are many men who have prostate cancer that will never actually be diagnosed. In 2019 alone, 3,300 men have died from the disease. Studies have shown that men who are most at risk of developing prostate cancer are those who are over 50 and have a positive family history of the disease. Symptoms include difficulty passing urine, incontinence, lower back pain, pelvic pain or other bone pain. But sometimes prostate cancer can be asymptomatic until very late. While the reality of prostate cancer is harsh, I must emphasise that, with appropriate medical technology, readily available to us today, the recovery rate for prostate cancer is very good, especially if the cancer is caught early. The five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is now over 90 per cent. However, the rate at which older men actually get tested and seek cancer screening requires a lot of work. There are risk factors that we know about, such as cigarette smoking. We know that there are genetic risk factors. We also know that, with appropriate screening and management, long-term survival could be better still.
A leader in this space is Mr David Dyke, a prostate cancer survivor, who has documented his journey of diagnosis, treatment and recovery very well. He has a very popular YouTube video of his diagnosis et cetera. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer after regular PSA screening. He showed no symptoms. What I found very interesting and valuable about Mr Dyke's journey is that he didn't shy away from sharing with the general public about the rehabilitation process, and I commend him for this. It's not always easy for us men to share the really tough parts of our lives, and it's too often that we shy away from men's issues, particularly men's health issues. David demonstrated the importance of men taking their health seriously, and he continues to do so in his advocacy. I'd encourage all members of this chamber to watch and share Mr Dyke's YouTube documentary titled David Dyke Prostate Journey: From Diagnosis to Rehabilitation.
It's important that we actively combat the attitude that many men maintain in being blase about their health. We need to encourage men to be proactive with PSA screenings, at both an individual and a government level. PSA screening is just that—it's a screening test—and the interpretation of that test needs to be appropriately nuanced. I encourage all men who are concerned about having PSA screening to discuss this with their general practitioner. It is a nuanced thing and it often depends on repeat testing over a period of time, with appreciation for the other risk factors, including genetics. PSA testing is not the be-all and end-all of prostate cancer screening but it is part of the equation, and men need to discuss it with their general practitioner or with their urologist.
We need to continue the trend towards regular testing and proper follow-up of people with possible prostate cancer. There is better technology now, with MRI prostate screening, and I would encourage the government to allow Medicare listing for MRI prostate screening as an important advancement in the further management and assessment of men with prostate cancer. A prostate-specific antigen test is used with screening, as well as digital rectal examinations, ultrasounds and MRIs. I encourage all men over the age of 50 to be regularly screened.
This month is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. I encourage all men to participate by raising awareness. I am very grateful for the opportunity to talk on this matter in the House. It's a great thing that we can screen and that survival rates are getting much better.
I acknowledge the member for Macarthur for bringing such an important topic into the House. This is a key area that requires a better understanding across the population. We often talk about prostate cancer. A challenge for men is to look at some of the symptoms and to seek early treatment for those symptoms as opposed to leaving it until the cancer has progressed to a point which makes the recovery process much more challenging. Whilst technology and testing have substantially improved, the issues of awareness and the need to make a decision early and seek advice remain.
I have met with many organisations and men's groups where men are seeking support and intervention at a time in their life in which they have experienced prostate cancer but have let it get to a point where some of their treatment has been most challenging. They are left with the effects of tissue removal, which sometimes damages nerve endings within the region, impacting on their quality of life in many senses. But the work that Minister Hunt did in freeing up additional funding for prostate cancer nurses has made an incredible difference to both the informative element of the treatment process and the explanation to men about what they're going to go through with the treatment—and, equally, how they need to give some thought to planning their lives in the context of subsequent treatment.
Often one of the challenges we have is that, as men, we have the mindset that we are immortal on many fronts and that a slight pain is something we can ignore for a period of time—that is, until a prognosis is undertaken and suddenly you're faced with the challenge of having to have medical intervention. The treatment afterwards is often also debilitating to quality of life and has an impact on both the social and the emotional wellbeing of individuals. When, over the years, I've talked to men of their experiences, they've often talked about the lack of parallel supports that are often necessary when you have medical interventions of this nature. And it's absolutely critical that, in developing awareness through this motion, my colleagues take the step of making sure that they have tests at intervals within their lives so at least they have some certainty that the onset of prostate cancer isn't something that's going to impact or influence their quality of life.
Robotics has made a difference—there's much more accuracy—but so too has having access to large centres in which treatment occurs. One of the gaps that we often see when we read any data on health is that in rural, regional and remote areas of Australia diagnosis is sometimes delayed because of limited access to the right medical GP practices or primary healthcare providers and the subsequent testing. But one thing that we have done exceptionally well under various governments is to put a focus on prostate cancer in a way that we've not done in the past, and the points that you, Member for Macarthur, made around medical intervention are important.
The flip side to this is that the social and emotional wellbeing supports need to be there, because, unless you have supports, particularly if your levels of literacy are problematic and you don't clearly understand complex medical elements, then the fear aspect of cancer, particularly prostate, may mean that you don't totally grasp what is required and what the potential side effects might be in terms of quality of life. But we're getting better. Hospitals are providing levels of support on a much better basis. Models of care now mean that we see parallel supports in place to ensure that we give an individual the best possible journey through life and often recovery.
I wish to place on the record our thanks to the member for Macarthur for moving this very important motion and bringing this issue to the national parliament. There's no member of parliament better qualified to move a motion such as this, and I congratulate him for doing so.
Prostate cancer is the most diagnosed cancer in Australia, and it's our third most deadly. September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, but the disease impacts the lives of Australian men and their families and loved ones every day of the year. More than 3½ thousand men will die from the disease throughout the year, more than 20,000 Australian men will be diagnosed this year with prostate cancer and around 200,000 are living with a previous diagnosis. Prostate cancer is often a slow-growing disease, and the majority of men with low-grade prostate cancer live for many years without any symptoms and without it spreading and becoming life-threatening. However, if you're afflicted with a high-grade disease it spreads quickly and can be lethal very quickly.
The causes of prostate cancer, whilst they are unknown, have two key factors that men need to be aware of. First is the age of a person. Age is often linked to an increasing chance of developing prostate cancer. The risk of getting prostate cancer by the age of 75 in Australia is one in seven men, while the risk of a male being diagnosed with prostate cancer by his 85th birthday is estimated to be one in six. The chance of developing this cancer increases with age.
Another key factor in terms of being diagnosed with prostate cancer is of course, like many cancers, family history. This also plays a key role. Men with a male first-degree relative with prostate cancer have a higher chance of developing it than men with no such history. The risk increases again if more than one male relative has prostate cancer. So it pays to ask questions amongst paternal relatives within your family regarding the history of this often deadly disease. Risks are also higher for men whose male relatives were diagnosed when they were young.
It's vital that men take their health seriously. Let's face it: in decades gone by, men have tended to try to soldier on when health ailments come on, ignoring them rather than seeking help at an early stage. A lot of Aussie blokes don't get tested and they find out they have it when it's too late. Screening tests are available to help detect cancer in people who don't have any symptoms. In the past, many Australian men may have been turned off by the thought of the snap of the glove and what follows after that, but it couldn't be any further from the truth in terms of the way that screening is undertaken in Australia at the moment. Prostate cancer PSA tests are blood tests which can detect prostate cancer in the bloodstream, removing the need for those more invasive tests of the past.
But, unlike testing for bowel, breast and cervical cancers, there is no national screening program for prostate cancer. The Commonwealth only funds 28 prostate cancer specialist nurses across the nation. It's been great to see in recent years, through the Big Aussie Barbie and the group that's been set up in the parliament—the parliamentary friendship group to raise awareness of prostate cancer—specialists coming to Canberra on an annual basis to provide a PSA test for people who work in this building. In the past, of course, there have been cases where people have undertaken the test and have, unfortunately, found out that they were suffering from this ailment. But it's been diagnosed early and that made sure they could get the appropriate treatment.
Only one in three men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer can access some of the services. Men and their families deserve the best possible care and support when they're diagnosed with prostate cancer. We need to be doing more as a nation to fight our third most deadly cancer. If you're a bloke in your 40s or 50s, please talk to your doctor about doing the PSA blood test. It might just save your life.
I am pleased to follow the member for Kingsford Smith in talking about this very important motion in relation to prostate cancer awareness and care, something I've done in this chamber with colleagues right across the chamber in the past.
We know, quite obviously and as has been mentioned, that prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in Australia, with approximately 3½ thousand Australian men dying of this insidious disease each year. In fact, as we know, more men die of prostate cancer than women die of breast cancer, hence the importance of raising awareness of prostate cancer. The risk of getting this cancer by the age of 75 is, I'm told, one in seven men, and by the age of 85 this increases to one in five.
It's absolutely vital that men right across the country take their health seriously. I am one of many so fortunate as to have loved ones around me not only reminding me to do so but demanding that I do so. In that regard, I too acknowledge the efforts of Mr David Dyke. As the member for Perth has mentioned previously in this chamber and in the Federation Chamber, Mr Dyke works so hard as a men's health advocate to increase the awareness of prostate cancer—in his case, I'm advised, as a prostate cancer survivor. It's that sort of work around the nation that, rightly, is focused on raising awareness.
In my community of Toowoomba in the electorate of Groom just last Friday the annual Wagners It's a Bloke Thing fundraising luncheon was held for the ninth time. This year the event broke all records, raising an amazing $2,049,600 for the It's a Bloke Thing foundation, which is all about providing care for people with prostate cancer; creating, supporting and growing awareness programs; and raising funds for research into this disease. This is one of the nation's largest daytime fundraising initiatives. This year, to underpin this focus on awareness and the interest that we are growing in awareness around prostate cancer—not only here but around the world—the Irish musician and former X Factor Australia judge Ronan Keating flew in to make a special appearance at this particular even in Toowoomba. Ronan's mother died of breast cancer, so he's keen to support any cause that would raise awareness and encourage anyone to seek help. He performed at this event free of charge. Former Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe was another special guest at this same event, such is the significance of people recognising the importance of raising and maintaining awareness. This year we saw around 500 people attend this very important event. The event started back in 2010 in Toowoomba with a couple of mates sharing, over a beer, an experience that no-one else was talking about—in their case, the experience of being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Thankfully, they're both doing very well. Over the years since, that has grown into this major fundraising event.
It's awareness that we are focused on. One of the champions and advocates that I wanted to mention in particular has been, for many of us in Toowoomba, a very good friend and supporter over many years. I refer to Mrs Ruth Logan, the education program facilitator with the It's A Bloke Thing foundation. Ruth and her family have been affected by cancer. Ruth is passionate about taking the prostate health message, in particular, to the wider community. She has significant experience as an allied health practitioner, both in private practice and in managing corporate health programs. As the education program facilitator, she now works with rural communities, corporates and public groups throughout regional Queensland—in mining and construction industry operations, for example—from Charleville to Longreach, from Burdekin and back down to Toowoomba, for FarmFest and various other shows she attends to spread this very important message. I pay tribute to her and to other advocates around the country.
Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australian men. Twenty thousand men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every day, and that means that today, while we're in this House, 54 men and their families will receive the news from their doctors and their specialists that they have prostate cancer. Approximately 3,000 Australian men die of prostate cancer every year. My father-in-law was one of those many, many men. They leave behind a space in their families, and it's something that we need to address. My husband and the rest of our family, having been through that journey with him, see the tremendous toll that prostate cancer has on its fighters and on the friends, the family and the healthcare workers.
For families who are fighting prostate cancer together, this time can be incredibly distressing and confusing. Addressing the unknown when lives are at stake can never be underestimated. For the children and grandchildren of men with prostate cancer, it is a time of uncertainty and confusion. But much is being done to support all people affected by prostate cancer. Liverpool Hospital's cancer therapy centre has long been a leading research and trial facility for Australians undergoing cancer treatment. In the last few years, Liverpool Hospital has led the trials into stereotactic radiation therapy, a technique that delivers targeted beams of radiation that attach to the cancer while keeping low the dose delivered to normal organs such as the bladder and the bowel.
The challenge of the need for new approaches to treatment is being met. These include the establishment last year of early-phase clinical trials at Liverpool Hospital, where new therapies can be offered to men when other treatments have failed. One such therapy, an oral medication called c2, was discovered in Sydney and developed at the Ingham Institute in Liverpool. It is being trialled in men with advanced prostate cancer, for the first time anywhere in the world, at the new Liverpool clinical trial centre in a trial sponsored by Western Sydney University. I'd like to pay special thanks to and acknowledge the work of Dr Kieran Scott, associate professor of oncology, and his team at the Western Sydney University and thank Mr Darryl Harkness, Chief Executive Officer of the Ingham Institute in Liverpool, for bringing this research to my attention. It is research and dedication like theirs, underpinned by institutions and with the support of the community, that is creating the advances that are necessary if we are to see the death rate from prostate cancer become a thing of the past.
While prostate cancer is a serious and potentially deadly health issue, early detection can mean a world of difference not only to surviving this terrible condition but to the treatment and options available to men with the condition. Technology has come so far these days that prostate cancer can be detected with a simple blood test, and, like all of the speakers today, I would encourage men over 50 to have that blood test.
Support for these fighters is vital, as it is with any life-threatening condition. Support groups, not just for the men who fight the disease but for their teams—the men, the women and the children—also need to be supported. They are often dealing with a current diagnosis of cancer or are survivors of cancer. These groups need to meet on a regular basis to be able to help each other, discuss their shared experience and learn more about their disease and how to manage it. Psychological support is crucial to their success in fighting and their ongoing wellbeing, as it is for all people suffering from cancer and for survivors of cancer. The current five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is 95 per cent. Regardless of the survival rate, one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer by the age of 85. Their battle is no easier and shorter than it is for any other cancer.
I thank the member for Perth for this motion and congratulate his constituent, Mr David Dyke, on his continued advocacy and insights into his battle with prostate cancer. Men need to take their health seriously. Early diagnosis is crucial in improving the survival rate and increasing treatment options available to them. I support the motion moved by the member for Perth.
I thank the House for the opportunity to speak on this important motion against the backdrop of this month, Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. I also would like to begin by thanking the member for Perth for the opportunity to speak on this motion and to speak about its importance. It is a motion that touches the hearts of many of the constituents in the Goldstein electorate and, of course, of people across Australia—men over the age of 50 who are mindful of their health, or who are not mindful and therefore get left undiagnosed—because the scourge of prostate cancer is real. In Australia, prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among men. Approximately 3,500 Australian men die of prostate cancer each year, and many of those cases are preventable simply through people getting checked early enough.
The member for Groom made the point earlier that more men die of prostate cancer than women die of breast cancer. That is not to take anything away from the risks of breast cancer in women—we know very well those risks and many of the people it affects. But it highlights the awareness and the publicity that breast cancer receives and how silent many people often are about prostate cancer and why we need to stand up and voice our concern today. Of course, for many men who go and seek assistance to check a diagnosis of prostate cancer, it can often be, like many medical checks, one based on fear. That is partly an overconfidence of men who don't feel they need to go and get health checks, because, as the member for Hasluck reminded us, we're all invincible, but the reality is human frailty and health frailty comes in. Many men who go off and seek a diagnosis to make sure that they are healthy and well come out with good news, and on that basis we should be happy and relieved for them. But, when it comes down to it, if your fear is the basis on which you're not seeking a diagnosis one way or the other, it is the worst approach to take, because we know that those people who seek a diagnosis early are in a situation where they're in the best position to be able to soften the impacts and to seek assistance.
While there are many challenges that men will face as they age, prostate cancer is a very real one. Of course, if people receive a diagnosis then very quickly they will face concerns of anguish, fear, fallen pride and the need for conversations with family, with their loved ones and with their friends. And we know that there are two major factors that ultimately inform people's risk profiles: their age and their relatives having had prostate cancer in the past. That's why having those conversations and raising awareness is so critical: it is so people will take action early and so they're in the best position to put themselves forward. And one of the things that we all have to be mindful of is that, when people go and get these diagnoses, they don't face them alone.
I was just looking up the various support groups for the Goldstein electorate and the community surrounding it so that, if you've recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, you know you can seek assistance from your peers and from people going through similar challenges and, of course, to secure medical support. And there are a number of support groups within our area. There's the Bayside-Kingston support group, one based just to the north of the Goldstein electorate, in St Kilda; one to the east at Monash University; and the South Eastern Prostate Cancer Support Group. But, also critically, there are support groups for those people who come from CALD backgrounds or those where English is a second language. There are a number of support groups—for the Greek community in particular in Melbourne—to make sure that, if you come from a cultural background, you needn't be in a position of silence or a lack of support. Similarly, there are groups for the LGBTI community, particularly the Gay Men's Prostate Cancer Support Group, which, of course, are for seeking support and assistance around others of like mind or experience. And that's the basis on which we raise the profile of prostate cancer today.
There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I have to report to the House that on 20 August 2019 the Speaker received advice from the Chief Government Whip nominating Mr Pitt to be a supplementary member of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy for the purpose of the committee’s inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia. I also have to report that on 23 August 2019 I received advice from the Chief Opposition Whip nominating Ms Payne to be a member of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit and advice for Ms Sharkie to be a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. In accordance with standing order 229(b), as the House was not expected to sit for several weeks, the appointments became effective on those dates.
by leave—I move:
That:
(1) Mr Pitt be appointed a supplementary member of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy for the purpose of the committee's inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia;
(2) Ms Payne be appointed a member of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit;
(3) Ms Sharkie be appointed a participating member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for the purpose of the committee's inquiry into the 2019 election.
Question agreed to.
As requested by resolution of the House, I table a copy of the Register of Members' Interests, volumes 1 to 4, for the 46th Parliament.
Sport holds a special place in Australian culture, and for many Australians it's a central part of our way of life. Australians quite rightly expect sport to be fair, clean and safe. No nation and no sport are immune from integrity threats that can put at risk these expectations. Labor is committed to supporting appropriate responses to real threats facing Australia's sporting integrity. When the integrity of Australian sport is weakened, it can have a cascading impact on the benefits of sport to Australia at all levels—from the contribution of professional sport to our economy to the participation of Australians in grassroots community sport.
Threats to Australia's sports integrity evolve over time, and so too must Australia's response to them. I don't need to go through the sordid history of the various sports scandals, but it is true that when we see a scandal in sport it diminishes the reputation of both that sport and participation in that sport, whether it be the Armstrong doping scandals in cycling, the various scandals involving the Manly Sea Eagles and a couple of AFL teams around the use of calf's blood a decade ago, or the various incidents around betting. Integrity must be upheld in every sport. In fact, the prevalence of online betting agencies, the ability to bet on sporting events in minute detail and the ability to move markets quite easily mean that urgent action is required to make sure that the integrity of Australian sports is maintained.
That's why the review of Australia's sports integrity arrangements completed last year, known as the Wood review, was so important. It was broad and complex. It returned 52 recommendations that sit across several portfolios and agencies. The government's response to the review, including the plan to establish the National Sports Tribunal, builds on Labor's establishment of the National Integrity of Sport Unit in 2012 and the strengthening of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority's powers in 2013. Labor will continue to work with the sports sector and agencies to provide strong, appropriate protections to the integrity and reputation of sport in Australia. We will continue not only to work with the government but also to closely monitor, in response to the Wood review, the recommendations to ensure they're implemented fairly and with consideration for the rights and wellbeing of athletes. Labor supports this bill, the National Sports Tribunal Bill 2019.
The companion bill, the National Sports Tribunal (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2019, which we are debating cognately, deals with the consequential and transitional matters arising from the enactment of the National Sports Tribunal Bill 2019. In my earlier remarks on the National Sports Tribunal Bill, I outlined Labor's support for appropriate responses to threats to Australia's sports integrity. This bill enables the establishment of the tribunal through consequential amendments and transitional arrangements, and, as such, Labor supports this bill.
Given the nature of these bills, it is essential that there be a bipartisan approach. The integrity of sport must be upheld in this country. As I said before, when a scandal rocks Australian sport it undermines both the professional level of that sport and the grassroots participation in that sport, and that's something that we must avoid at all costs. On that basis, I commend these bills to the House.
Australia is a great sporting nation. In the last few days alone, we've seen our all-conquering women's cricket team winning in the West Indies, Ash Barty regaining the world's No. 1 ranking, the inspirational Dylan Alcott narrowly missing a grand slam and, of course, the Bradmanesque Steve Smith help us hang onto the Ashes and win in the UK for the first time since 2001. We celebrate victory, we celebrate effort and we even celebrate noble defeats. But, as we know all too well, when we find out that our athletes have not been playing by the rules, it leaves us feeling sick with shame. We put sporting prowess on such high pedestals that, when we find out that our people have gotten there nefariously, our national identity is shaken to the core.
Tribunals are never popular but they are necessary for Australians to have faith in the teams and individuals who represent us. To take a pertinent example, while many decried Steve Smith's ban as overly harsh, it was that unwavering decision made by those at Cricket Australia which allowed him the full redemption story we have seen him pulling off in recent days. Because of the judicious handling by authorities, there were no lingering doubts or resentment about his place in the team, a place which has brought us glory today.
Back in 2017, when we commissioned the Wood review of Australia's sports integrity arrangements, sports around the world had been through a rough patch. Locally, we had seen issues in the Essendon football team, but, on a global scale, there were problems in athletics and recent memories of widespread doping by national swimming teams at the 2016 Olympics. The previously established national sports integrity unit was a good start but had no investigative powers, making it a fairly lame duck. We commissioned the Wood review not only in response to growing global threats to the integrity of sport but also to ensure we actively protect Australia's sports and sport participants as well as the economic, health, cultural and social benefits of sport to the Australian community.
The government commissioned the Wood review in 2017 and released the review report in August 2018. It represents the most comprehensive review of sports integrity arrangements ever conducted in Australia, if not globally. The panel looked at similar models from around the world—including New Zealand, Japan and the UK—for best practice. From this, they determined a tribunal would greatly enhance the credibility of sport in Australia. The government's response is the result of extensive consultation with all stakeholders, including sports players' associations, state and territory governments, law enforcement agencies and wagering service providers. The National Sports Tribunal will offer a cost-effective, transparent, timely and independent dispute resolution function for athletes and sporting bodies.
The tribunal will hear antidoping matters in compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code and other sports related disputes, such as player selection and sports code of conduct matters. Depending on the nature of the issue, disputes may be heard through a variety of resolution methods, including arbitration, conciliation and mediation. Critically, through establishment by statute, the National Sports Tribunal will be given powers to inform itself, including the ability to summon witnesses and compel the provision of relevant documents. These powers have not been given to the agency before and will be critical in making it a successful tool for the future. These powers are not available to in-house sports tribunals, and their provision to the National Sports Tribunal will ensure informed decision-making and the provision of natural justice. Given the ongoing shift towards the need to establish antidoping rules violations through intelligence and investigations complementary to the traditional testing programs, the necessity for such powers is likely to increase. While the National Sports Tribunal will have the power to compel the attendance of witnesses at hearings and to compel a witness to answer questions, these powers do not abrogate a witness's right to claim the privilege against self-incrimination. Such an abrogation of a common-law right would need to be express.
The one downside of regulations in this matter is the manner in which they can wrap up sportspeople in bureaucracies that make demands on them that take them away from the field. Importantly, then, the tribunal will be integrated into the current sporting tribunal landscape, complementing the activities of internal sports facilities presently in place and providing a timely and cost-effective alternative to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, based in Switzerland. A trial period of two years will provide the opportunity to develop sustainable costing arrangements and refine the operations and services of the body. Some constitutional matters impinge on the general division of the tribunal. However, this is not a reason to delay its establishment. We have had reassurance from the minister that the department continues to work with constitutional and commercial law experts to assist sports to access the full suite of services to be offered by the National Sports Tribunal in the most effective way.
A version of this legislation was introduced into the previous parliament. The election and subsequent need for reintroduction has allowed for additional consultation to be undertaken with key stakeholders in both the private and public sectors. The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills provided comments in relation to the previously introduced bill, seeking clarification on the immunity granted to tribunal members and the reverse burden of proof for the lawful disclosure of information. These issues have been addressed.
The current bill, the National Sports Tribunal Bill 2019, has seen some minor language changes to aid with clarity, as well as the introduction of a civil penalty scheme in addition to the pre-existing criminal offences. This will allow the tribunal to effectively manage its affairs without necessarily needing to always deal with noncompliance in the criminal courts. One further and significant change from the previous version of the bill package is that the bill seeks to amend the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to exempt material from release where it is covered by the secrecy provision of the National Sports Tribunal Bill 2019. This proposed amendment is necessary to ensure that parties to a dispute before the National Sports Tribunal have the appropriate guarantees around the protection of their information, including sensitive medical and health information. Without this assurance, individuals may be reluctant to utilise the National Sports Tribunal due to concerns about privacy and reputation. Similarly, parties may be reluctant to fully participate in proceedings and/or provide required information.
This tribunal will be a great step forward in solidifying the integrity of our world-beating sports men and women. But it's not the only thing that this government is doing on this matter. There is a pipeline of further legislation coming forward so that everyone on the Australian field, court or tracks knows that their competitors are playing within the rules. Legislation to implement agreed enhancements to the National Anti-Doping scheme and to establish Sport Integrity Australia will be introduced in parliament in the near future. Work continues to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions—the Macolin convention—which Australia signed in February 2019. The government expects to introduce Commonwealth match-fixing offences legislation in early 2020, and negotiations are underway with all stakeholders on the design and operation of the proposed Australian Sports Wagering Scheme. Together, these will be a comprehensive suite of policies which will ensure the playing field is always level and we can watch as our athletes compete on the world stage, confident that they are representing us honourably and fairly. They can keep inspiring our young Australians and building on our sporting culture of fair and honest competition. This tribunal, as recommended by the Wood review, will provide a desperately needed service to Australian sport: an independent, dependable, honest, prompt, cost-effective and unswerving system for resolving sports disputes in all their forms.
Australia is a proud sporting nation. We have a well-earned reputation of competing hard but competing fairly. However, inevitably from time to time sports disciplinary matters arise that require resolution through formal processes. When this happens it is important that there are cost-effective, transparent and consistent policies for resolution. Australia's current sports dispute resolution mechanisms lag behind many similar countries, such as the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. They are inconsistent and subject to accusations of bias, and they lack powers to get to the truth. They can be costly for participants, and issues can take excessive time to be resolved, particularly when matters have to be resolved in overseas jurisdictions.
The new National Sports Tribunal will eliminate these problems. As identified by the earlier version of this legislation introduced prior to the election, the government will pilot the National Sports Tribunal over two years to ensure it works at its very best, giving sports and participants access to clearer, faster, transparent and cost-effective resolutions of antidoping rule violations and other sports related disputes. I know many sports have been calling for such a tribunal. The government has listened and is delivering. I thank all members for their contributions to the debate on this bill.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Road Vehicle Standards Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 will postpone the full commencement of the Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018 and Road Vehicle Standards (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2018. Full commencement will be postponed until a date that will be agreed with industry stakeholders but no later than 1 July 2021. The bill will provide more time for the government and for manufacturers, importers and in-service regulators of vehicles to prepare to transition to the new arrangements under the road vehicle standards legislation which replaces the Motor Vehicle Standards Act 1989.
The road vehicle standards legislation is the most important and extensive set of changes to the government's regulation of road vehicles in almost three decades. The reforms affect every aspect of existing practice. More time is needed for all affected parties to ensure the smooth implementation of the reforms and to avoid needless disadvantage to Australian businesses in transitioning to the new legislative arrangements. Postponing the full commencement of the road vehicle standards legislation will give stakeholders the opportunity to become familiar with their obligations under the new legislation, engage in detailed planning with the government and properly sequence required changes to business processes to maximise the benefits available to them once the substantive provisions of the legislation commence.
The government will use the additional time and flexibility to set a commencement date up to 1 July 2021, to continue engaging with stakeholders through established consultation arrangements and coordinate readiness across Commonwealth, state and territory governments to ensure the timing for the commencement of the legislation is right and to make the transition to the road vehicle standards legislation as smooth as possible.
The road vehicle standards legislation will provide a strengthened and modernised framework for the regulation of road vehicles in Australia which will maintain and improve vehicle safety, provide more choice for specialist and enthusiast vehicles, and be responsive to emerging technologies. The government remains committed to implementing the important reforms, and the postponement of the commencement of these reforms is crucial to this implementation.
I certainly welcome the opportunity to speak on these bills today; although I must say I'm disappointed to do so. In fact what we're seeing here within the parliament and what we saw when this bill was debated in the Senate is actually a failure of implementation and, frankly, a failure of leadership from the Deputy Prime Minister, the minister responsible for these bills. The bill itself, if you just listened to the person at the dispatch box before, is pretty straightforward. The Road Vehicle Standards Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 seeks to amend the commencement provisions of the Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018, which passed through this parliament last year with Labor's support. The package of legislation, in fact, received royal assent and became law on 10 December 2018, yet here is the government now coming into this place with a piece of legislation which has been over a decade in coming and has been consulted on literally to death. I don't know what other consultation the government thinks it is going to be doing over the course of the next two years, but this is a piece of government legislation that passed the Senate, passed the House of Representatives and was given royal assent in December last year, and now the government is saying, 'We need to delay this for two years.'
The reality of what the government has done is that it has failed to invest money in the department for the IT system. This is a failure of implementation from the government and it is a failure of leadership. We in Labor get that this is a tricky issue. We get that there are always going to be stakeholders in this space who are not going to be satisfied that the changes are exactly what they want. After having consulted for five years—and I'll go through some detail as to the level of consultation, the number of Senate inquiries that this piece of legislation has been through—the problem now is: how is the government going to resolve those standing problems? They're not going to get resolved; that is the problem. They are really difficult. There are opposing views on particular and specific issues. As for consultation, what assurances is the minister going to be able to give us that that consultation will resolve those issues which have been longstanding?
The reality is that they won't. The government has to either take the decision to bite the bullet and implement this legislation or say it's all too hard. If they delay it for another two years, I am going to be asking the minister very specifically: 'What investments are you planning to make in the IT system? What is your consultation program and consultation plan? Who are you consulting with? What are the outstanding issues in order to bring this in?' Because right at the heart of it this bill is about road safety. It is about the vehicles that are on Australian roads today and making sure they are the safest vehicles that they can possibly be. At its heart, that is really what this legislation is about.
As I said, the original package of legislation passed the parliament and got royal assent back in December 2018. Commencement of the substantive provisions of the legislation is scheduled to occur on 10 December this year. They had a year to basically get all of this in place but are now saying, 'No, we can't do it.' We're here today to pass a bill which would delay commencement for almost two years—potentially more, I suspect, given the difficulty that the department is going to face in trying to resolve some of these quite intractable issues, simply because the government has not done the work and has not given the department the resources it needs to implement it. It is a significant failure of implementation and, in my view, a significant failure, on the part of the Deputy Prime Minister, of leadership in terms of road safety, an area where this government is failing.
The Road Vehicles Standards Act 2018 replaced the Motor Vehicle Standards Act 1989. Clearly, we know a lot has changed in road vehicles since the 1980s, when the Motor Vehicle Standards Act came into being. The new road vehicles standards legislation that passed this place in December last year created a new framework to regulate the importation and supply to market of road vehicles and certain road vehicle components. That legislation provided recall powers to the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Regional Development to recall non-compliant vehicles. The legislation improves access to specialist and enthusiast vehicles and ensures that Australia's vehicle fleet continues to offer world-leading standards in community and environmental safety.
Importantly, the legislation to be delayed that we are now debating will reduce regulatory compliance costs to business. The government tells us that some $68 million will be saved each year as a result of that scheme coming into play. Unfortunately, industry and the Australian public will now need to wait almost two years before they will be in a position to realise the safety and financial benefits that the government claims the new Road Vehicles Standards Act will deliver. The bill before us today seeks to delay commencement of this regulatory regime until July 2021, almost two years later than when some of the provisions of the original act were due to commence in September this year.
Before I talk too much about the detail of the amended bill before us today, I want to take a few minutes to reflect on what's actually happening in road safety, because, as I said, at the core of it that is what this legislation is about: the government taking a decision to delay for two years regulation that will improve road safety. And it's not as though we are doing incredibly well when it comes to road safety in this country. If the government thinks that road safety is all okay, and we can delay the implementation of an important scheme for a couple of years because there won't be any consequences to that, then I'd ask it to reflect on what's actually happening. As legislators there is nothing more important than keeping our people safe on our roads. I had the privilege of serving as Minister for Road Safety in 2013. As a former minister for road safety, I therefore know that safety depends on three things: safe drivers, safe roads and safe vehicles. The Road Vehicles Standards Act sets the regulatory framework for one of these elements, ensuring that the safest possible vehicles are supplied for use on Australia's roads.
Almost 1.2 million cars are sold in Australia every year, in addition to thousands of trucks, caravans, trailers and other road vehicles. There are currently almost 20 million vehicles registered for use on Australian roads. Vehicle technology is, of course, rapidly changing, and over coming years we will see even more rapid uptake of new technology, such as electric and hydrogen, and also more automation in vehicles. We also will see increased automation in the freight sector. As the population grows and as businesses rely more on just-in-time delivery, we will see more freight vehicles, small and large, on our highways, roads and local streets. We will also see the continued growth of the recreational vehicle fleet, such as caravans and campervans, which we know have had such a huge resurgence in recent years. As vehicles become more and more complex, so too does the need to ensure that rigorous certification and approval processes are in place before any new vehicle or component is made available to the Australian market.
We know that every year more than 1,200 people lose their lives on Australian roads. The economic cost to the Australian community as result of road trauma is estimated to be some $30 billion each and every year. But we also know that the social and emotional cost to families, individuals and communities across this country is even greater. After many years of continuous improvement—largely brought about by road safety reforms implemented across Australia, and with the strong commitment of the Australian public, in the 1990s—Australia's road toll, unfortunately, has again begun to turn in the wrong direction. We can't allow that to continue. We need to do something different if we're going to reduce the loss of lives on Australian roads.
Last year, in the lead-up to the election campaign, we committed to establishing a national office of road safety, to give much-needed national leadership in addressing Australia's road toll. It's an important initiative. We believed that the office needed to work strongly with state and territory agencies to better understand the road safety challenges faced around the country, to develop and promote best practice and to undertake much-needed research into the factors affecting safety on our roads. It's how we can develop sensible policy and legislative responses based on evidence and real-time data and research about what is happening on our roads. This research and data collection should be used to help shape the next National Road Safety Strategy, which is due to commence next year. I am very pleased that the government pinched this idea and has now established this office within the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development. I certainly call on the government to ensure that the office is well-resourced and able to make a real difference in this important area of public policy. The opposition will continue to monitor the work of the office and to advocate most strongly for its function as part of national leadership in road safety.
But I also want to note that the government has failed in delivering the National Road Safety Strategy in particular. We know that that has been the subject of some concern by the government, as it should be. But we know that, even after nearly seven years—this government is in its third term; it's not a new government—it has been basically sitting on its hands when it comes to national road safety. For example, when it comes to the National Road Safety Strategy, there are eight indicators that the government still can't even measure, including one of the two headline targets: reducing serious injuries by 30 per cent. So, after six years in office—the National Road Safety Strategy has been in place for a while now—this government can't even measure some of the indicators to tell us how it's actually going to be able to reduce serious injuries on our roads. That's what the government has been doing.
It is not just the Labor Party saying that the government is failing on road safety. The government undertook a review into the national road safety governance, which was completed. It was dropped out on a Friday afternoon a few weeks ago. The key finding of this review into the government's capacity and leadership in road safety—the Deputy Prime Minister is responsible for this area—was pretty damning. Authored by the Deputy Prime Minister's own department, it found that this government, the Morrison government, has not provided strong leadership, coordination or advocacy on road safety to drive national trauma reductions. And what's government's response? The government's response is to come into this place and delay for yet another two years a really critical component of actually getting safer vehicles on our roads. That's what the government thinks its role is in national road safety.
The review examined whether Australia has the appropriate governance arrangements in place to deliver the commitments made by governments to mainstream road safety in line with what we call the safe systems approach. The recent transport infrastructure ministers meeting in Adelaide signed off on the Commonwealth-led review of national road safety governance. It signed off, basically, on a report that said that the Commonwealth had failed. If that's what the minister thinks leadership is, goodness help us when we come to actually improving road safety.
I note the government now is going around holding some roundtables with industry on where the next National Road Safety Strategy will go. The government has said that it wants a bipartisan approach when it comes to road safety. Well, if you want a bipartisan approach, how about you invite the opposition to the table for a start? That might get you somewhere in terms of getting a bipartisan approach on road safety. If you want to hold roundtables and tell industry that it will be bipartisan, how about you actually invite the opposition to the table in the first place?
As I said, this bill itself is basically saying that the government thinks that we need to have a delay to something that will improve the safety of our vehicles on our roads. That's what this bill is about. Frankly, one death on Australia's roads is one too many. It is why Labor supported the passage of the original Road Vehicle Standards Act and associated legislation back in 2018. We recognised how important it was and still is for the parliament to ensure that the standards applying to the supply of motor vehicles to the Australian market are kept up to date and are actually fit for purpose. Seventeen years have elapsed since the current Motor Vehicle Standards Act and its regulation were last reviewed. The new road vehicle standards legislative package, which passed this parliament last year, puts in place a regulatory regime that is more streamlined and able to respond to changing market conditions. It is true that Labor did have some concerns about the final detail of the legislation. It's complex and there are multiple stakeholders in this area. But we supported the passage of this bill through the parliament last year and we thought it was important, as the government told us then, to get that legislation in place as quickly as possible because it would improve the safety of vehicles and that will improve lives on our roads.
The legislation was developed over more than five years, with work starting on this actual reform back in 2013. The government, frankly, has consulted on this as far as it can. It consulted with industry through many rounds, including a review of the act and regulations in 2013-14, formal consultation sessions with industry in 2016 and 2017, release of an exposure draft of the bill in 2017 and 2018, and a Senate committee inquiry in 2018. These consultation exercises have given the government multiple opportunities to hear from industry not only to refine and finalise the legislation but also to begin working on implementation arrangements. It's had plenty of time.
Five years is a long time—seemingly more than enough time to have worked on an IT system to support the new legislation, seemingly sufficient time to have worked with industry on how to ensure that all parts of the industry could be ready to go with the new regulatory arrangements from the commencement date. Unfortunately, we are now considering a bill which seeks to delay that commencement by almost two years, to July 2021. This delay means that the savings and safety benefits from the new regulatory regime will be delayed by up to two years. It also means that those parts of the industry that have already invested a lot of time and resources in consultation with the government will need to embark on yet more consultation on the finer detail.
What I really want to know from the minister—I'm assuming the Deputy Prime Minister's not coming in, but the Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister could help me on this—are the answers to a few questions. I expect that Minister Gee will be able to answer these when it comes to this legislation. What resources is the government now putting into the IT system required for the department to implement this new regulatory regime? What are the areas that the government thinks it must absolutely now consult on? What are the outstanding issues the government thinks it has been unable to resolve in the past five years of this consultation that have led to this point, where it's now starting the clock again and giving itself another two years? What are those issues and how does it propose to resolve them? I don't think it can resolve them, because I think they are issues that are not resolvable; however, the government is now saying it's going to consult more and that it will be fine.
What does the government propose to say to those areas, such as the caravan and camping industry, that are already ready for the implementation of this new regulatory regime? Is there any compensation for those who have already spent a huge amount of money on implementation and are ready to go? What is the consultation process from here? What is the government planning to do to actually resolve these issues? They are questions that the minister, now that we are having a debate on this delay, should be able to answer when he comes to the dispatch box to sum up this legislation.
Now, I do want to say to the Deputy Prime Minister that there are a number of sectors within the industry that have advised the opposition that they are ready for implementation now. We know there are some that are not, and there are some reasons for that—some of them have been dragging their feet on this for quite a long period of time; others have got some other reasons—but there are sectors who have invested the time and the resources to get their systems in place. They are disappointed that they are now being asked to wait for another two years to realise any benefits.
The minister wrote to me, in advising me of his intention to bring forward this legislation:
More time is needed for all affected parties to ensure the smooth implementation of the reforms and avoid needless disadvantage to Australian businesses in transitioning to the new legislative arrangements.
In other words, the government is claiming the delay is because the industry is not ready for the new arrangements to commence. But some in the industry tell us that they are ready, and that they just want the government to get on with implementing the new arrangements. We know, for example, the Caravan Industry Association is strongly supportive of the original package of legislative changes. The association has advised me that Australian caravan and trailer manufacturers have invested significant financial resources in ensuring that they are ready for implementation on the date set out in the package of legislation. They are very concerned that the delay will both disadvantage those who are prepared and allow more potentially unsafe products to enter the Australian market, particularly from overseas suppliers.
We have a booming caravan industry in Australia at the moment. It's something that we should be very proud of. I'm the daughter of a former caravan manufacturer. I know caravanning pretty well and, as the daughter of a caravan-manufacturing small-business owner, I've seen the boom and the bust in caravanning. It's really lovely to see that we're experiencing a great boom at the moment, but they are very expensive items. And when you have got local manufacturers competing against imports that potentially may not be as safe as local product, or have local product—there are a lot of people who jump on when an industry is booming. They decide they might be able to make caravans from a smaller manufacturing facility and make a small number of those when the industry is booming like this.
This legislation—the legislation the government passed previously—is actually about making those caravans, and the trailers and chassis that those caravans are built around, as safe as they possibly can be. The caravan industry in Australia is saying: 'Yes, we agree with that. We want them to be safer. We're worried about what's actually happening in our sector.' But this government says, 'No, we're going to wait for another couple of years, if then, to see what's happening.'
Others tell us that the delay is only warranted because much of the detail that the department needed to work on has in fact yet to be finalised. On behalf of the opposition, we don't accept the assertion that the delay has occurred at the request of industry. Instead, it is pretty clear to us—to the opposition—that the delay has come about because the government has failed to give the department the resources that it needs to actually implement this legislation, and that the government is a bit nervous about the stakeholders who continue to say they have concerns about this legislation. This is instead of saying, 'Look, we've consulted and we think we've got it as best we can'—because it's never, ever going to be absolutely perfect, with every stakeholder agreeing to it—and showing some leadership by saying, 'We need to proceed with this now and we've given the department the resources it needs to do the job properly.' That's what's actually happening here.
It would have made sense for planning and implementation arrangements to have been well under development in parallel with drafting of the bills and the passage of the legislation through the parliament. Yet it would appear that neither sufficient direction nor sufficient resources have been provided to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development to upgrade the IT systems needed to support the new regulatory regime or to finalise the implementation rules and policies needed by industry. We know that this is a difficult area, one that's never going to be absolutely perfect in the eyes of every single stakeholder. But, frankly, the government, as I said right at the start, has had a failure of implementation and an absolute and utter failure of leadership when it comes to the minister.
However, as I have said, we are far from satisfied that this bill was in fact even required. That being said, as we did in the Senate, we will support the bill—grudgingly, frankly. But we want some assurances from the minister, and if we can't get them here we will pursue them through other avenues. We want some assurances about what the government actually intends to do over the course of the time that it's given and what extra money it has committed to the department, and, as I asked, what outstanding issues it thinks need to be resolved, what the process is for resolving those and the process for consultation. What is it going to do in relation to potentially compensating or acknowledging those industries that have already spent substantial money in getting this ready?
That being said, I move:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House criticises the Government for its failure to appropriately prepare for the significant reforms introduced by the act, which aim to ensure that Australians are kept safe on our roads".
Further to my amendment, as I said, I call on the minister to assure this House and to assure those members here debating this bill that sufficient resourcing and direction will be made available to the department to ensure that the revised commencement date can be met.
I make it very clear: the opposition will not be in any position to support any further delays beyond July 2020. That means the government had better do what it should have been doing for the last 12 months at least—that is, actually get on with the job. Australians need assurances that we have the safest vehicles we possibly can on our roads. Unfortunately, with a government that has completely dropped the ball when it comes to road safety, the bringing forward of this legislation doesn't give me any confidence, frankly, that it cares about this issue or that it in fact is actually going to be able to do the work to deliver on the real promises that this regulatory regime and the changes to it will make for road safety across the country.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I rise to speak in favour of the amendment moved by the member for Ballarat. I have a regional electorate that neighbours the member for Ballarat's. Like her, I have witnessed and met with far too many grieving families who have lost a loved one to road trauma. It is true that, whilst we had some years of decline in road trauma and road death, unfortunately we are going through another spike. This government's delay on these reforms could not come at a worse time, urgently demonstrating why we need the government to act and to implement these standards as quickly as possible.
Before I speak further about the experiences on our roads today, I want to support the comments made by the member for Ballarat about the need for road vehicle safety standards as soon as possible. Apart from a family home, a car or a caravan is the most expensive item that many of us have. For many young people, the first loan that they take out is for their car. The pressure on our dealerships and on our manufacturers—we no longer manufacture cars in this country, but we do manufacture caravans—is increasing. It is a significant investment that many individuals undertake, and that is why making sure that we get these road vehicle safety standards right and enacted as quickly as possible is necessary.
It's tough times for car dealerships; it's tough times for the car industry. My local dealers say to me, 'With delays and more uncertainty, we just don't know where we stand from day to day.' In the country, in regions, you cannot get around if you don't have a car; it's a fact of life. It is very hard, because we just don't have the population to support good transport routes, and that is only going to get worse under this government because of its delay in bringing forward infrastructure spending—particularly in our regions and particularly on public transport.
We have more cars, more car users and more people taking out loans to invest in cars. Whilst we know that Australian cars are safe, to make sure that we meet appropriate safety, anti-theft and environmental standards we need to continue to improve. Whilst we have some of the safest cars in the world, we also have some of the dirtiest cars in the world. It's something where our car purchasers, our car drivers and our car dealerships are actually moving ahead at a much quicker pace than our government. Did you know, for example, that there's at least a six-month wait if you want an electric Hilux ute in this country? There is a delay on the rollout of electric cars and hybrid technology in our country because the demand from people wanting to purchase those vehicles has increased. For all the scaremongering and the fear campaign that was run by those opposite in the lead-up to the last federal election, car users are embracing cleaner cars and the technology that goes with them: (1) it is more fuel efficient, and car users see that they save at the bowser; and (2) they want to do their bit for the environment. They can have their ute and have a clean car at the same time. The technology is here. Ensuring that those safety and environmental standards are rolled out across the industry is vital.
From time to time we have the debate about parallel imports. Again, this is a vexed area within our communities, because it does ask the question: do those overseas cars meet the same standards as our own cars? We've lost the opportunity in this country to really control our cars through the way we manufacture them. Because of this government, the car industry manufacturers shut down and left. Since then, legislation like this, the Road Vehicle Standards Legislation Amendment Bill 2019, is now one of the only ways we can ensure that we have the best safety standards.
Why do we care? Why do we care about the safety of our vehicles that are on our roads? Because, unfortunately, the road toll continues to rise. It is higher now than it was four years ago. We've had more than 1,200 people die on Australian roads in the 12 months leading up to 30 June 2019. There's been a spike in my state of Victoria. A majority of these deaths, unfortunately, have occurred on country roads. It is the triple effect in our regions of population growth, deteriorating roads and the mixed use of roads—that is, someone driving a family car on a road where there is also high usage by industry vehicles and truckies. We are seeing far too many lose their lives or be victims of road trauma, and, whilst there is significant investment from the Victorian state government into country roads, they don't have a partner in the federal government to ensure that that funding is matched.
Just as the previous speaker recognised that the government has adopted one of Labor's proposals about a road safety office, one proposal they have not adopted, which was put forward at the last election, was to contribute towards establishing a rural road trauma research hub at La Trobe University. It was to be based at the Bendigo campus. Labor made this commitment because we acknowledged that, whilst you have to have a safety office, you also have to ensure that you are funding research to ensure that we are meeting best practice and that we are working out and working through the challenges that are occurring. Every fatality that we have on our roads, every serious injury, is somebody's loved one. They're somebody's mother, son or daughter. They are connected to our community. This rural road trauma research hub would have combined research expertise from across the La Trobe University Bendigo campus in rural health, psychology, pharmacy, engineering, planning, education and law to tackle those questions. There is a road trauma research hub that does exist, but it's based at Monash, and in the past it has largely focused on metro road trauma, not on rural road trauma.
As Bendigo Health told me during the campaign that whilst we have lost lives on our roads there has also been an increase in trauma and injury. As our cars have become safer and as more people survive severe accidents, their recovery, unfortunately, is longer. That is where we have a gap and where we need to start the research and ensure that we are funding and supporting the work that goes on. For many, recovery from road trauma can be long, whether it be from a physical injury where they are learning to walk again or whether they have a severe disability through a mental injury where they are literally learning to speak, recovering their motor skills and so on and so forth.
As I mentioned, at the time that we made the announcement, 90 lives had already been lost on Victorian roads that year. That was from January to April. It was 50 per cent higher than the same time the previous year, and, unfortunately, it continues to increase. Road safety messages aren't getting through, and that is another reason why this research hub should be supported by the government. I urge them, like they did with Labor's proposal on the road safety office, to consider the proposal, put forward by La Trobe, to fund a rural road trauma research hub so that we can really drill down into what's happening on our regional roads and provide policymakers, this place and our state governments with the best advice on how to tackle this growing crisis in our regions.
This is all part of the discussion about road safety and the amendment that was moved by the member for Ballarat. It is another example of how the government have completely dropped the ball. As outlined, this bill has been delayed again and again. Perhaps it's because of the turnover of ministers in this portfolio. Every time somebody new comes to this portfolio, we're hit with another delay. Meanwhile, people on our roads are dying. Meanwhile, people involved in the industry are getting frustrated by delays. As we've heard, the Caravan Industry Association strongly supported the original package of legislative changes. They got on with the job—they implemented and are ready. The largest manufacturer of caravans and recreational vehicles in this country is Jayco. They're based in Dandenong. Unfortunately, they're now our largest vehicle manufacturer in many ways because we have lost our car industry. But many may not know that they started out in Bendigo—they are a proud Bendigo family, and these days they have two manufacturing bases. Their largest is in Dandenong and the other is in a town in regional Victoria where they support at least 50 jobs. They are under immense pressure because they proceeded with the changes. They support the changes, but, like many within the industry, they are frustrated that the changes have again been delayed. The changes have been delayed and delayed, and here we are again talking about them. They are going to be hit with further delays.
Also highlighted in this bill, and something of which we need to remind the government, is it's failure to respond to the inquiry into the National Road Safety Strategy. The road toll is higher now, yet of the 33 indicators in the National Road Safety Strategy that have been in place since 2011 only nine are on track to be met—only nine out of 33. That's a terrible failure rate from the government. On its watch it has allowed us to fall behind. This is a collaboration, absolutely. Road safety is the responsibility of all of us, but it takes national leadership to really help drive these changes through. Road crashes is one of those areas that are the bread and butter of regional journalists. It is terrible to hear from journalists in regional areas that crime and road crashes are what they respond to. Unfortunately, we've had so many crashes in the Bendigo electorate that they've had to employ more journalists. Basically, two or three people will get allocated to that area of responsibility each day because crashes are becoming so frequent.
The major road in and out of the Bendigo electorate is the Calder Freeway. It runs through Bendigo, through my electorate—in fact, through the electorates of many Labor MPs—into Melbourne. Far too many lives have been lost and far too many accidents have occurred on this road. We also have, to our north, the Calder Alternate Highway, where again there have been far too many accidents and far too many lives lost. That runs from my electorate through to Mildura, cutting through other electorates. Then there is the Midland Highway, where we have challenges as well. All of these roads have mixed road users. We are reminded daily about the importance of safety. That is why the delay in progress on road standards that this bill will cause is frustrating so many and is so disappointing.
I call on the government to reintroduce safe rates. The Safe Rates campaign has been organised and run by the Transport Workers Union. With great fanfare and politics this government removed the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Our roads have not become safer because of the removal. Transport and trucking costs have not reduced because the government got rid of the tribunal. Instead, we've seen the opposite occur. Our roads are unsafe. We have seen more deaths involving trucks than ever before. That is disappointing. When I say 'ever before', I mean that with the introduction of safe rates we started to see a decline. Now we're seeing an increase again. Wealthy companies at the top of the supply chain squeeze contracts. They force drivers and trucking companies to cut corners on safety. There is an issue about racing against the clock and time. A safe rates system would set standards for all transport workers. It would see the same pay for the same job. It would ensure that those working in the industry would have safe time and safe rates to complete their jobs.
I urge the government to drop the politics on this issue and to meet with the union, with the workers and families affected and with those involved in the trucking industry to consider reintroducing a safe rates scheme to ensure that all those involved in the trucking industry are safe and can get to and from work safely. We forget that for truck drivers the road system in Australia is their workplace. Every single day that they go onto the road, that is their workplace. I urge the government not to delay further when it comes to this legislation. Road safety is paramount.
I thank the member for Bendigo for her contribution and also the member for Ballarat for her second reading amendment, which reads:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House criticises the Government for its failure to appropriately prepare for the significant reforms introduced by the Act, which aim to ensure that Australians are kept safe on our roads".
As stated by previous speakers, the Labor opposition support the passage of the Road Vehicle Standards Legislation Amendment Bill 2019, but we totally reject the assertion that the delay is at the request of the industry. It's actually because of a lack of planning from this coalition government and a lack of resourcing for the department to upgrade its IT systems. Now, let's put this into the appropriate context: we've got a government well into its third term, now in its seventh year in office—yes, that's correct—and no-one to blame but itself, yet we've got a department not able to upgrade its IT systems in order to roll out this program. The Road Vehicle Standards Act and associated legislation actually passed last year, and that created a modern regulatory framework to ensure road vehicles and certain road vehicle components provided in Australia meet the appropriate safety, anti-theft and, most importantly, environmental standards that are required. They also gave affect to our international obligations when it comes to vehicle standards.
There are positive road safety innovations and environmental benefits that flow from the updated regulatory framework which would give greater powers to ensure unsafe vehicles are not on Australian roads, which is obviously what we want. That will keep more Australians safe, and there will be more flexibility to accommodate innovation, which seems to be coming on us so quickly. When you sit in a new car, you're amazed at what's there.
After an extensive period of consultation with industry, the release of an exposure draft of the legislation and a Senate inquiry—so lots of lead-up, lots of input, lots of process and lots of consultation throughout Australia—it's very disappointing to see that the Morrison government has not actually been doing its job. It's asleep at the wheel. It seems to be focused on being the opposition to the opposition rather than actually taking control of the steering wheel of government and heading the country in the direction it wants. Instead of developing policies, procedures and IT systems to ensure that the legislation can commence as planned, it's focused on cheap politics and trying to wedge the Labor Party. Every second release that comes from those opposite is saying, 'This is a test for the Labor Party.' Well, the real test comes every month when they receive their payment for being members of the government. They are paid to do their job; instead they're focused on being the opposition to the opposition. So the Labor opposition, the actual opposition, call on the Morrison government to make a firm commitment that will provide the necessary resourcing and direction to the department to ensure that there are no further delays.
Here's a little bit of history to this: the Motor Vehicle Standards Act came in in 1989. Back in 1989, the Wheels magazine Car of the Year was the Mazda MX-5—to put things into a bit of context. In 2002, the legislation was reviewed and updated. It had a grease and oil change done on the regulations. Back then, the Car of the Year was the Ford Falcon BA. Now, in 2019, the Car of the Year is completely different to those two cars that I mentioned—the Mazda MX-5 and the Ford Falcon BA. It's the Volvo XC40, a completely different vehicle. The legislation passed last year was developed over five years. There was a lot of input from industry as well as the development of international standards and technological changes. All of this work started way back in 2013. Five years is a long time for the government to not update an IT system and not work with industry to ensure that all parts of industry are ready to go from the date of royal assent.
The coalition government tell us some $68 million will be saved each year as a result of this new regulatory regime. Unfortunately, industry and, most importantly, the Australian public will now need to wait almost another 24 months before they'll be in a position to realise the safety and financial benefits that the new Road Vehicle Standards Act will deliver.
Let's hear from some of the stakeholders. The Caravan Industry Association is a very important stakeholder. Anyone who has driven on country roads in Queensland, especially around this time of year, will know how important it is to get it right for caravans. They are strongly supportive of the original package of legislative changes. The association advised that Australian caravan and trailer manufacturers have invested significant financial resources in ensuring that they are ready for the implementation on the date set out in the package of legislation. They're very concerned that the delay will actually disadvantage those who are prepared and who have made the changes and that, more scarily, it will actually allow more potentially unsafe products to enter the Australian market, particularly from overseas suppliers. They say, 'The postponement is an action of convenience, due to the provision of insignificant resources being allocated to the department to roll out the RVSA, along with actions taken from other sectors who have not taken their obligations to be prepared for the RVSA in a timely manner.' Other industry associations have mixed views on the delay and acknowledge that the department is not ready to go.
In September 2017 the coalition government appointed a panel of road safety experts to conduct an inquiry into the National Road Safety Strategy, which was clearly failing to make a material improvement in our road toll. The report was handed to the Deputy Prime Minister in September last year. I just want to point out something about the Deputy Prime Minister: he represents a regional area, a bit like the member for Ballarat and the member for Bendigo. He is a Nationals MP—the party that supposedly speaks up for the bush. Obviously anyone that understands road accidents knows that rural and remote areas do it tougher. I'm very proud of having been a member of the Labor Party that made significant investments in road infrastructure in the bush, as well as those other great contributions which, as the Labor Party, we've always made to the bush: investing in schools in the bush, NBN, Medicare—there are so many things that the Labor Party invests in and does so much for in rural and remote communities. But we find that the modern National Party seems to have forgotten the bush and seems to have forgotten what it's actually paid to do. It's supposed to represent the interests of the bush. The Deputy Prime Minister received this report in September last year, yet the champion of the bush is yet to respond. We are one year on and the responsible minister, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, is yet to respond.
The review's two co-chairs are eminent Australians in this field. Dr John Crozier, a leading trauma surgeon at Liverpool Hospital, is very eminent and well respected, as is Associate Professor Jeremy Woolley, director of the Centre for Automotive Safety Research at the University of Adelaide. In March this year they publicly released a video saying that they were 'underwhelmed'. What that is code for is that they are incredibly upset that the Deputy Prime Minister is just sitting on his hands.
The government's lack of response to the inquiry's findings is amazing. The road toll is higher now than it was four years ago. In the 12 months to 30 June this year 1,214 people died on Australian roads, compared with 1,170 in the 12 months to 30 June 2015. Coming from country Queensland, I note that rural and remote communities particularly experience the trauma, as they do so much driving. It's important that we get the settings right for the bush.
Of the 33 individual indicators in the National Road Safety Strategy, which has been in place since 2011, only nine are on track to being met over the strategy's 10-year time frame. I was contacted by one of my constituents who was concerned about this and about the fact that it was basically snuck out on a Friday afternoon. We are eight years into a 10-year strategy and the government still cannot actually measure eight of the indicators, including one of the strategy's two headline targets—that is, the reduction of serious injuries by 30 per cent.
The key finding of the Review of national road safety governance arrangements was that the Commonwealth:
… has not provided sufficiently strong leadership, coordination or advocacy on road safety to drive national trauma reductions.
As I said, it's like the National Party, in particular, is asleep at the wheel. I use that metaphor deliberately. Deputy Prime Minister McCormack is a National Party MP. His own department authored the report critical of the lack of Commonwealth leadership to drive down road trauma. The review of national road safety governance arrangements is one of the few recommendations of the inquiry into the National Road Safety Strategy to be actioned. The review examined whether Australia has the appropriate governance arrangements in place to deliver the commitments made by governments—Labor and coalition—to mainstream road safety in line with the safe system approach. That would actually save lives.
The review also identified ways for the Australian government to work in partnership with the state, territory and local governments to bring down the number of road deaths and serious injuries. Obviously, it is a three-level coordination requirement. It's time for the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, the Leader of the Nationals, to speak up. For too long the National Party in this particular area has turned into a lap dog of the Liberal Party. It's now time that the bush actually got a sheep dog or maybe even a pig dog—something with some teeth and that knows how to bite—rather than just a dog that is prepared to roll over and beg for the bone that's never thrown.
I thank the members opposite for their contributions, churlish and false though they were in parts. The Road Vehicle Standards Act 2018 and related legislation provide a strengthened and modernised framework for the regulation of road vehicles in Australia which will maintain and improve vehicle safety, provide more choice for specialist and enthusiast vehicles and be responsive to emerging technologies. The substantive provisions of the road vehicle standards legislation are currently scheduled to commence on 10 September 2019; however, more time is needed to give stakeholders an opportunity to understand their obligations and to allow industry to maximise benefits available under the road vehicle standards legislation. More time is also needed to allow the government to continue to work with stakeholders to ensure readiness, to ensure the timing for commencement of the legislation is right and to make the transition as smooth as possible.
The Australian government is committed to improving road safety. This was demonstrated recently by the establishment of the Office of Road Safety, which will provide leadership and coordinate efforts across governments to address the terrible problem of people dying on our roads. That commitment is demonstrated again by this bill. The passage of the Road Vehicle Standards Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 will give the government, industry and other stakeholders the additional time needed to implement these important reforms effectively and achieve the objective of providing consumers with vehicles that meet safety and environmental expectations of the community. The amendment is opposed, and I commend the bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Ballarat has moved as an amendment that certain words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question before the House is that the amendment moved by the member for Ballarat be agreed to.
I note that during the second reading debate there was a series of questions I specifically asked for the minister, in summation, to provide the House with answers to so that we could actually consider this bill properly. I note this is ostensibly a bill about road safety and the government's decision to delay for two years the implementation of regulations that will improve vehicle—including trucks, cars and caravans—safety on our roads across the country. In particular I asked the Minister representing the Deputy Prime Minister to provide some answers to the following things. The first is that one of the reasons for the government's decision to delay is that the department is not ready to implement its IT structure. What I would like to know is: what resources will government provide to the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development to implement the IT system needed to put in place these new regulations? So, a simple question: how much money is the government providing to the department to actually implement these new regulations?
Second, what are the outstanding issues that the government thinks it's going to be able to resolve in the next two years prior to the implementation in 2021? What are those outstanding issues, and what is the consultation process that the government intends to undertake to resolve these issues? The government has said there is a need for a delay to this legislation. It's said it needs two years for this legislation to be implemented. What's it going to do in that two-year period? What consultation is it going to undertake, and what money is going to be provided to the department to actually advise industry of these changes? What is it actually going to do? They are pretty simple questions. We've said we think this is a failure of both implementation and leadership on behalf of the government, particularly when it comes to the very important issue of road safety and improving the safety of our vehicles on Australian roads. It's a really simple series of questions: What is it that you're going to do in the next two years to actually be ready by July 2021 to implement this legislation? How much money are you going to be giving to the department to implement the IT system? What's the process for that? What are the outstanding issues you think you need to resolve over the course of the next 18 months, and how are you going to resolve those? What are you going to do for those industries which have already spent substantial resources to actually implement this? What are you going to do?
All of those questions are things that I asked the minister so he would be able to come back into this place and actually tell this parliament. You've asked for the delay; this is delay on your own legislation. This is not legislation that we introduced when we were back in government. This is your own legislation, and you've asked for a delay. The very least you can do is to provide this parliament with some simple answers—some simple answers as to what assurances you are going to be able to give this place so that we're not, in two years time or even a year from now, going to have the government say: 'We haven't done anything. The IT system's still not in place. We haven't actually managed to sort out some of the industry issues, which have been pretty hard to sort out anyway. We haven't really put any resources into the IT system. We haven't undertaken a mass education campaign to educate industry of the changes that are needed. We haven't done any of that.' What assurances have we got that you're not going to come back into this place in 12 or 18 months time or in two years time and say, 'We're still not ready'? Until you can give us answers to those, it remains a serious question as to what assurances we've got that in fact the government—which has asked for a further two-year delay because of its failure to implement its own legislation—is going to actually do anything. At the moment we've got absolutely none. Again, I remind the House that this is a question of road safety. A piece of legislation that the government's own second reading amendments on the original legislation say will improve vehicle safety in this country—therefore, you would imagine it would save lives in this country if we had better, safer vehicles on our roads—and in fact say will save industry millions of dollars is being delayed for two years. That is what we've been debating here, and I think that it is incumbent on the government to— (Time expired)
It being 1.30 the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.
After weeks back in the electorates for the members of the House of Representatives we returned today to find that nothing in this place has changed. We still have a government without a plan. We have a government without an agenda; unless of course we count their plan to continue to claw back money through their dubious robo-debt system from those who have ever relied on our safety net, or a plan to do yet another review of the NDIS. I believe that's the 21st review, with no action pending. Or unless we count the fact that they've got no idea about how to write a plan.
We can see that; there is no economic plan, there is no energy plan and there is no plan to address global warming and pollution. There is no plan to increase the number of home care packages or to ensure that our elderly are treated responsibly. What we get instead are Australians waiting—waiting for their congestion-busting infrastructure out into the forward estimates; waiting for home care packages; elderly Australians waiting for pension applications to be processed; and waiting for youth allowance support for up to a semester.
What we have here is a government without an agenda and without a plan, but Australians still waiting. Nothing has changed since we last sat in this chamber.
It will come as no surprise to people in this place that I have been concerned about the issue of rural doctors for some time, and have been advocating for a long time for postcode-specific Medicare provider numbers. I continue that argument.
But I was very pleased last week to have Greg Hunt, the Minister for Health, in my electorate. He visited Kimba, my home town, and he also visited Kadina. In Kimba we met with the Northern Eyre Peninsula Health Alliance, a group that has been formed from communities that either have no doctors or are severely 'under doctored', if you wish, to try to bring about a working model which will more suit modern doctors than perhaps it did the more vocationally focused members of the profession who preceded them. The minister was good enough to offer $300,000 funding for this group to employ a project officer over the next two years to deliver this outcome to the community; it is severely needed.
In Kadina we met with a group of practitioners. In some places and in some of these towns medical practices have withdrawn their services from local hospitals. That is now forcing the state government to employ very expensive locum services to backfill services in those hospitals. We have a crisis in lack of commitment by the medical profession to rural Australia. I'm hoping for a big change in the near future.
Today trade and investment opportunities in the Northern Territory are in the spotlight in our federal parliament, with a massive delegation of Territorians, business people and industry leaders here in the nation's capital to speak with ministers and shadow ministers. We are having forums today on a range of issues that are important to the Territory and important to the nation.
It's great to have around 250 Territory leaders down here. We're talking about creating jobs. We're also talking about strengthening the national security of our nation and the trade opportunities for our nation. Forum discussions today are focusing on the Darwin ship lift project; the Darwin Cities Deal; defence and national security infrastructure; Aboriginal education; natural gas; and Kakadu tourism development.
In many of these areas, those opposite—the federal government—have made commitments. In some areas we have seen some slippage. So the Northern Territory government, along with industry, are here today just to engage with government and shadow ministers in a very positive way on how we can optimise the Northern Territory's role in our nation. National security is a big part of that, and it was great to see you up in Darwin recently, Deputy Speaker Hogan. Thank you for coming to Darwin.
I thank you for your invitation.
I rise to commend Ms Suzanne Wargo of Rushcutters Bay for her ongoing work with the United Nations World Food Program in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Last month, women aid workers across the world were honoured for their dedication to humanitarian efforts as part of World Humanitarian Day. These people are the unsung heroes of the United Nations, risking and devoting their lives to support people who live in trying circumstances with limited resources.
Suzanne's work involves assisting the 850,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees whose mass exodus from Myanmar began in August 2017 and who are now housed within the world's largest refugee settlement. A large component of her role is providing food assistance whilst helping to transition the camp from a food distribution system to a voucher purchasing system. Suzanne believes that a voucher system gives people greater ownership over their daily resources, which helps to better identify and prioritise each family's individual needs. Currently 400,000 refugees in Cox's Bazar are using the voucher system, and Suzanne is working towards reaching 650,000 people by the end of the year.
Suzanne is not only an asset to our community but also a fantastic representative of Australian values, with her care for others, compassion and resilience. I thank her for her leadership and wish her the best in her future endeavours.
Last Saturday I attended the Forum on Western Sydney Airport meeting held in my electorate of Macarthur, in the Campbelltown RSL Club. It was a very well-attended meeting. Every person at that meeting said to me, 'We must have a rail link from Macarthur to the new Western Sydney Airport.' There is an existing line preserved from Leppington towards Western Sydney Airport, yet state and federal governments have refused to fund it. This is a heavy rail line which would take many trucks bringing freight to the new Western Sydney Airport off the road, particularly from the Moorebank intermodal, close to Liverpool. It would take many trucks off the road, would reduce pollution and would make access to the freight hub from Moorebank to Western Sydney Airport easier. Every person at that meeting said that we must have the rail link, yet state and federal governments have refused to fund it.
There is rapid development in my electorate of Macarthur. The Sydney Morning Herald published an article this morning that showed that my electorate has the fastest growing areas in the state and close to the fastest growing areas in the country. Heading to 2030, the local government area of Camden will have a growth rate of 129 per cent. Surrounding areas will have a growth rate of 40 or 50 per cent. It's a disgrace that state and federal governments will not fund the rail link from Leppington—
With our ageing population it is important that we have strong community institutions which support our older Australians. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank members of Kenmore National Seniors, in my electorate of Ryan, for their service to the community as part of this giving and selfless group. In my maiden speech I spoke at length about the importance of supporting volunteerism and building strong communities. That's why I was pleased that their annual general meeting was so well attended on 6 August. I want to acknowledge the dedicated and longstanding volunteers like John, Brian, Janet and Gudrun, who I congratulate on their election to the 2019-20 committee.
Kenmore National Seniors ensures local older Australians stay connected and don't slip into loneliness and isolation, which are still far too common. The efforts dovetail with the Morrison government's own efforts, including the Community Visitor Scheme, which provides companionship through volunteer visits, and the new $10 million commitment over four years to develop the Seniors Connected Program. Additionally, I am a strong supporter of my local Meals on Wheels and a regular delivery driver. Their catchphrase 'more than just a meal' speaks to their service of checking on and chatting with elderly Australians who might not otherwise have a lot of interaction with the wider community. On National Meals on Wheels Day, 28 August, I visited Ashgrove Meals on Wheels and spoke with chef Jason, who produces more than 300 quality meals a day. Seniors in my electorate of Ryan can be assured of my strong support and that of the Morrison government going forward.
In the upper Blue Mountains, locals are showing us the role business can have in reducing food waste. They're not waiting for governments to solve their problem. Leura Garage is one of those local businesses—a fabulous restaurant with a focus on sustainability. I was honoured to speak at their latest 'mingle', where they introduced the newest member of their team. Her name is Chloe, and she's a huge leap forward in Leura Garage's bid to close the loop on waste by cutting out pretty much all of their landfill food waste. However, Chloe is not a new staff member. Chloe is a rapid food decomposing unit that has been recruited to turn organic food waste into nutrient-rich soil conditioner. Chloe works six days a week, getting one day's rest—I'm not sure I'm mad on those conditions—and goes through a whole day's waste, including meat scraps, in one day. What's more, it's not a smelly process. This machine sits in the restaurant, and you can put your hand in and feel the graininess of the food that's composted. Leura Garage are just incredible in the work they're doing. They're working on the big fix, looking at how they can most effectively use this decomposed material.
Another organisation doing great work is Scenic World. They have managed to save 100 tonnes of organic waste every year after installing their decomposing unit. I'm very proud of these things happening in my community.
It's my privilege to report to the House on my participation last week in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program. It was my great honour to spend the week on HMAS Stuart, an Anzac class frigate, with the member for Petrie. It was nice to get to know him a little better. In fact, we shared a cabin, so I know him very well subsequent to that. It was a great honour to spend the week with Commander Luke Ryan—happily a South Australian—and his entire crew. They do fantastic work. We should all be very proud of our service personnel. For me to spend the week with those members of that crew in the Royal Australian Navy was a great honour and pleasure. Of course, it was just one example of how all of our service personnel serve our nation and our interests.
As someone from Adelaide, I was particularly interested in broadening my understanding of a naval frigate. The Future Frigate program in South Australia, which commences steel cutting next year—the $35 billion build of nine type 26 frigates in Adelaide by British Aerospace—is a massive contributor to the future economic prospects of my home state of South Australia. I thank again the crew of HMAS Stuart for their time, the experience I had and the broadening of my understanding of what that capability means for our nation.
Today I rise in the House to speak about an organisation in lndi that every day embodies its values of prosperity, responsibility, integrity, diversity and excellence. My work in health care has taught me to appreciate and celebrate those who dedicate themselves to improving the lives of others. Merriwa Industries in Wangaratta is one such organisation.
Merriwa Industries began operating as a social enterprise in the mid-1990s. They had one dream: to help people of all abilities confidently reach their potential. Merriwa has grown into a commercial operation, employing over 300 people across the packaging, timber and garden nursery sectors and delivering child, youth and family support services.
I had the great pleasure of attending Merriwa's annual employee awards night recently, with its very proud CEO, Bart Crawley. I would now like to take this opportunity to congratulate the winners: Gianna Kalc, winner of the Ray Byrne Award for Quality; Vanessa Brambley, winner of the Hugh Elford Award for Excellence; Kylie Hughes, winner of the Jack Lyle Award for Achievement; Toby Butler, winner of the Mary Sanders Award for Enterprise; Rebecca Sefton, winner of the Graham Gales Endeavour Award; and Murray Kingston, winner of the Safety Award. Indi is so proud of the wonderful people at Merriwa Industries, and I congratulate them all.
We will have a world record attempt in Townsville on World Mental Health Day, 10 October. I was extremely honoured last week to officially launch Townsville's attempt to set a new Guinness World Record for the most people wearing high-vis vests at a single venue. The world record attempt will be held on Thursday 10 October, to celebrate the day, at Bunnings Warehouse at Fairfield Waters. The aim is to reduce stigma, promote help-seeking and make mental health more visible in North Queensland. Like I said only a few days ago, this isn't an attempt; we will break this record.
Mental health and wellbeing is a big passion of mine. As many of you know, I've fought my own battles. Part of breaking down the stigma is being able to speak out. One in five Australians are affected by mental illness, yet many don't seek help because of stigma. Mental health, mental illness and suicide prevention are not dirty words. My promise to the people of Townsville and around Australia is that I'll continue to raise awareness and speak up about mental illness and suicide prevention because there is nothing more important than life. That's why on Thursday 10 October I'll be at Bunnings Fairfield Waters to be one of more than 2,000 people wearing a high-vis vest and breaking the Guinness world record for most people wearing high-vis vests in a single venue.
Recently, I received a letter from one of my constituents: nine-year-old Violet from Glenfern in the Derwent Valley. Violet writes: 'Dear Prime Minister,'—and I thank her for the promotion!—'I am a nine-year-old from Tasmania. I am writing to you because I want to reverse climate change. I don't like all the pollution in the sea; all the animals need help. The fish are eating plastic, then we're eating those fish. And it is getting warmer, which is melting the ice, which causes it to flood. So can you please help reverse climate change? I'm worried for my future,'—and, I'm pleased to say that Violet says she is worried for her brother too—'Please help for a better future.' It's assigned, 'Violet'.
Young voices like Violet's are calling out desperately for this government to take serious action on climate change and to be part of a global solution to the crisis. On 20 September, students across the country and across the globe will gather together to strike for climate justice. I know this is a controversial topic for some, who don't like seeing kids go out of school to strike for climate change, but direct action has a long and proud history in striking for change.
These kids are striking for their future. They know that as adults we have failed the test so far, and that's why we are seeing more voices like Violet's, from young people saying, 'We need action on climate change and we need it now.'
We all know that house fires can be particularly devastating on the families involved. It's the statistics behind these house fires that are equally so. In the first half of this year alone there were 868 house fire call-outs in Queensland, with 237 of those in South-East Queensland. Seventy-seven of those were in Logan and 51 were on the northern Gold Coast.
While the statistics are shocking, it's important for the community to support those who have been affected by these devastating fires. In this regard, I wish to commend the work of Louie Naumovski and the volunteers from Logan House Fire Support Network. They regularly attend community events to educate and raise awareness of house fires and effective ways to protect your family, such as simply ensuring that matches and lighters are stored out of the reach of children. Louie and the team also strive to provide immediate help to families that are left devastated by house fires. They help families with new furniture, clothes, food supplies and other essentials to help get families back on their feet.
But recently their storage facility was shamelessly broken into and many of the items donated to the group were stolen. I want to commend the community for their willingness to step in and help recover those items, where possible, and to say to those who did this that they are stealing from their neighbours and families in their community who are in need.
As a newly elected member of parliament, I expected that a significant part of my time would be spent helping people with disabilities in my community and their carers to navigate the increasingly frustrating and complex NDIS. Sadly, that expectation was correct. Like many others in this place, I've had to help my constituents who have waited extra-long times for wheelchairs, whose plans have been arbitrarily cut in half and who are at their wits end.
But what I didn't understand deeply enough was the way in which this government's failure to roll out the NDIS properly has affected the dedicated service providers. Recently, I held a round table in my electorate office with the shadow minister, Bill Shorten, and a number of dedicated NDIS disability service providers—people who have spent their entire lives advocating for and helping people with disability. It is no exaggeration to say that these fundamentally decent people were heartbroken because they cannot provide the care that they have been able to provide in the past, and that they want to provide in the future, because of the way in which this government has neglected the rollout of the NDIS. There have been arbitrary cuts, increased costs and waiting times, and a feeling of demonisation. These fundamentally decent and hardworking people want to look after people with disability and their carers, and it's time this government stood up, fixed the NDIS, spent what was needed and helped them to do the job that they have dedicated their lives to.
We have some amazing people in the community of Bonner who go above and beyond, but Wynnum local Kerry Lee Seymour is truly a hero, and her brave actions were recently commended during the Australian Bravery Decorations. Kerry was awarded a Commendation for Brave Conduct by the Governor-General after she rescued a woman from dangerous surf at Alexandra Headland beach. On the day, she and a friend were paddling in shallow water when they both suddenly got swept into the deep, rough waters. Kerry, who was swept out much further, made it back to shore but spotted her friend floating facedown in the water. Despite her exhaustion, Kerry quickly re-entered the surf, reached her friend and managed to swim her back to safety on the beach where she immediately began CPR. Shortly after, Kerry was joined by the surf lifesavers and her friend was taken to hospital by ambulance. For her brave and selfless actions, Kerry is commended for brave conduct. She saved the life of her friend despite her own struggle to make it back to shore and the dangerous conditions. She is our local hero.
I'm going to tell you about the local St Brendan's community. St Brendan's is my local church, the church where my mother and father were married and where my mother was buried, and St Brendan's school is where my children went to school. Recently I celebrated its centenary with Archbishop Mark Coleridge, and a few weeks ago there were 90th-anniversary celebrations of the school, which were opened by Pam Betts, the Executive Director of Brisbane Catholic Education, and Nicole Cox, the school's principal. We had a great time there.
St Brendan of Clonfert was known as 'the navigator' and was renowned for his legendary quest to the Isle of the Blessed. This school does much the same thing. It is a navigator for kids in the education ocean, particularly those kids with disabilities. It always provides a helping hand. It is a safe, warm environment, a school with great heart, great committed educators and switched-on parents. The school motto is 'Live in faith and love'. That is not a bad plan for life generally but that's certainly being lived out at the St Brendan's school and the St Brendan's church.
I know Nicole Cox is leading them on to bigger and brighter things. I thank the teachers and the parents for putting on the fete a few weeks ago and I look forward to helping out wherever I can. I particularly want to say how wonderful the band, Random Access, was. I recommend them. They certainly made for an interesting afternoon, especially when, like a good Catholic school, it had a bar operating.
On Saturday, I had the honour of opening the Maleny Dairies Long Table Spring Showcase—try saying that quickly! It is a creative new concept to show off the fantastic produce of the Sunshine Coast's unmatched local farmers and producers. A group of nine local businesses collaborated to create an authentic five-course feast on a long table set up in the luscious green paddocks of Keith and Sonya Hopper's farm. It was an unforgettable experience. We ate our delicious dinner surrounded by the Hoppers' curious cows. I for one will always remember the image of Sonya driving a tractor in her ball dress.
The local producers involved were: Maleny Dairies, Maleny Black Angus Beef, Maleny Cheese, Maleny Food Company, Strawberry Fields, Clouds Vineyard, Tim Adams Specialty Coffee, Brouhaha Brewery and Spicers Tamarind Retreat. Local chef Matt Yurko of the Canape Project designed the menu to showcase the produce of these tremendous Maleny businesses and to highlight the hardworking people behind the food and drink we enjoy on our supermarket shelves. I thank all the producers involved and the Hopper family for hosting the event. I would also like to mention the Maleny Dairies PR and events manager, Misty Bland, for doing such a great job organising the evening. To any Australians watching this, I say check out these Maleny locals' fantastic produce; you won't regret it.
I recently met with the Boolaroo Action Group regarding ongoing lead contamination issues in the suburbs surrounding the former Pasminco lead smelter, especially in Boolaroo, Speers Point and Argenton. I want to thank the group for providing me with an update on recent developments and for their passionate activism for their area.
Whilst the contamination issues are primarily the responsibility of the New South Wales government and the Lake Macquarie City Council, in my six years in this place I've followed developments on this issue closely as it affects many thousands of my current constituents. I also think there is a possible role for the Commonwealth regarding insolvency laws and in preventing companies winding up and then re-emerging in a new form to continue their highly profitable operations. The actions of Pasminco and Zinifex were a disgrace. They constructed their corporate affairs to escape their legal and moral obligations to remediate land of residents in that area.
I want to take this opportunity to welcome the recent announcement by the New South Wales government that they will compulsorily acquire the site. Hopefully this will lead to much needed development, as several international companies have shown interest. I urge the state government to use any profits generated from this land development to help residents with remediation issues. These residents face remediation costs of up to $100,000. It is completely unfair that the burden should fall on them rather than on the state government or the company that caused the problem in the first place.
Health and wellbeing is not something that should be determined by your postcode. The people in Mallee, justifiably, want reliable access to healthcare services but they continue to find it a challenge. Many travel hours to see doctors as many clinics have none, and many must travel to Melbourne or Adelaide for further investigations. The current regional healthcare system in Mallee is broken and many needs are not being met.
Last Thursday I convened a forum with Mallee hospital providers to discuss the key issues and barriers of healthcare service delivery to our communities. All who participated were passionate about finding solutions to the common problems—lack of GPs, nurses and other allied health workers. These wonderful primary healthcare professionals understand the needs of their communities and know the gaps in service. They told me of their frustration with urban-centric policies, which fail to understand the specific needs of rural and regional communities and do not work in the bush. I was impressed by the knowledge, passion and drive exhibited by all who attended.
We need a responsive and sustainable healthcare delivery which focuses on the unique needs of small populations and large distances. I'm meeting with Mr Hunt this week to discuss the need for structural and systemic change and to advocate for an integrated healthcare model that supports our communities' needs. I will continue later.
Last week, the Morrison government's baddest MP and worst minister announced that Australia will be getting a new cybersecurity policy. The only problem is the Minister for Home Affairs. The major failing of Australia's cybersecurity policy over the life of the current Cyber Security Strategy has been the absence of political leadership and accountability from this tired third-term government.
When those opposite deposed Malcolm Turnbull, they orphaned Australia's cybersecurity policy. In the wash-up from the putsch they abolished the dedicated Assistant Minister for Cyber Security position. Cybersecurity was reduced to a conquest in the minister's campaign for bureaucratic empire building—just another trophy to put on the wall rather than a day-to-day policy focus for the minister. Australia's cybersecurity policy has suffered as a result. The lack of leadership and accountability have seen a series of initiatives announced and simply forgotten. Cybersecurity policy has been adrift in a bureaucratic miasma.
Late last year, a United Kingdom joint committee released a report into cybersecurity governance in the UK and concluded that without a dedicated minister:
…the Government's efforts will likely remain long on aspiration and short on delivery.
So, without a dedicated minister, cybersecurity policy is about as effective as a leadership challenge from the member for Dickson—long on aspiration and short on delivery. Australia deserves better. The next Cyber Security Strategy needs to reinstate a dedicated minister for cybersecurity in order to be effective. Labor has already done so. Those opposite should follow.
I've spoken many times in this place about a commitment I'm extremely proud of—the Central Coast Medical School and Medical Research Institute. This is something that started in 2013 with a conversation about what it might look like to have a medical education and research institute in Gosford. From the very first conversation, and in the many others that followed, we developed a dream for our region—to have a world-class university in Gosford that reflected the needs, the hopes and the aspirations of our area. I was proud to secure an initial $45 million investment from this government and then to continue that with an additional $18 million commitment for stage 2 earlier this year.
Last week, the dream became a concrete reality with the official start of construction on the site—a really important moment for our region. This has not been an easy road, and every stakeholder in this project has had to give up something in order to contribute to where we are now. I pay special tribute to the University of Newcastle, and particularly Professor John Aitken; and the Central Coast Local Health District. Their collaboration has helped to make this unique project tailored to our region's needs.
I'd also like to officially welcome Professor Nick Goodwin to the Central Coast as the newly appointed Director of the Central Coast Research Institute. We set a goal for the project to be a locally focused but globally connected medical school and research institute, and with Professor Goodwin, a world-class specialist who has moved from Oxford in order to continue his career in Gosford, we are seeing something that not many believed could happen just a few short years ago. But it has happened, and this is another foundation stone laid down for a future of world-class excellence and opportunity for our region.
In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
by leave—I move:
That the order of the day be referred to the Federation Chamber for debate.
Question agreed to.
I also inform the House of the death, on Friday 30 August 2019, of Elaine Elizabeth Darling, a member of this House for the division of Lilley from 1980 until 1993. As a mark of respect to the memory of Elaine Darling, I invite all present to rise in their places.
Honourable members having stood in their places—
I thank the House.
I present a revised ministry list reflecting changed representative arrangements in the other chamber.
The document read as follows—
SECOND MORRISON MINISTRY
29 May 2019
Each box represents a portfolio. Cabinet Ministers are shown in bold type. As a general rule, there is one department in each portfolio. However, there can be two departments in one portfolio. The title of a department does not necessarily reflect the title of a Minister in all cases. Ministers are sworn to administer the portfolio in which they are listed under the 'Minister' column and may also be sworn to administer other portfolios in which they are not listed. Assistant Ministers in italics are designated as Parliamentary Secretaries under the Ministers of State Act 1952.
Updated 9 September 2019
For the information of the House, I present a revised list of the shadow ministry. Senator Louise Pratt is now the shadow assistant minister for employment services in addition to her existing role as shadow assistant minister for manufacturing.
The document read as follows—
FEDERAL SHADOW MINISTRY 9 September 2019
Shadow Cabinet Ministers are shown in bold type.
My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to his weekend boast that he would wedge Labor in this sitting period. But, as any golfer knows, while wedges are handy, drivers are what you need to get going! Given Australia is experiencing the slowest economic growth since the global financial crisis, why is the Prime Minister not concentrating on economic drivers that deliver growth, productivity and higher wages?
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I can understand why the Leader of the Opposition is so focused on his own woes at the moment, but what this side of the House is focused on is growing the Australian economy. The Australian economy has been growing year in, year out under the policies of this government, which has seen record growth in employment and which has seen our industries going forward with our support, because we support all industries, not just some. We've backed in our industries, whether it's been in our overseas markets or here at home. We're investing in skills, we're investing in infrastructure, we're investing in lowering the tax burden. And, as we prepared this year's budget, we looked forward and we saw the challenges that the Australian economy would face in an increasingly complex time in the global economy. We put our plan to the Australian people and the Australian people chose our government and chose our plan, and we are delivering that plan.
Yet those opposite thought that the remedy to deal with the complex world that the global economy presents to Australia was to take $387 billion of higher taxes and put that on the economy. Increasing taxes on Australians is no way to prepare them so that they can move through the difficult challenges we face. We understood that. We understood allowing Australians to keep more of their own money was the way to ensure that they could have the resilience to deal with the challenges that are ahead.
Now, we know that the UK economy has gone backwards in the last quarter, and those opposite might say, 'But what about Brexit?' Well, in Singapore they're not affected by Brexit and that went backwards in the last quarter, and the economic powerhouse of Germany went backwards, but the Australian economy grew because, as the Reserve Bank governor himself has said, the fundamentals are strong. And the fundamentals will remain strong under the competent financial management and economic policies of the Liberal and the National parties. The Labor Party left economic wreckage in their wake when they left the Treasury benches, and for the last six years we have been cleaning up their mess and, having cleaned up their fiscal mess, we are now taking Australia forward into the future.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister please update the House on how the government is supporting those Australians affected by bushfires in northern New South Wales, especially towns such as Tenterfield and Drake in my electorate of New England, and across Queensland, in southern Queensland and Central Queensland?
I thank the member for New England for his question on this very important issue that is affecting so many Australians at this particular time. I also thank the member for Wright, whom I had the opportunity to speak to on the weekend about how the fires are affecting there, particularly around Binna Burra, which has been terribly traumatic for those who have been directly involved. I also spoke to the minister for water resources and other matters in his electorate in southern Queensland. I thank them for their interest in this and the work they've been doing with their communities to support them at this very, very difficult time.
Southern Queensland and north-eastern New South Wales have experienced unprecedented fires since Friday. It is only September, and every indication is that a hot, dry summer is ahead. There are over a hundred fires burning across Queensland and New South Wales. However, those fires that were of greatest concern over Friday and Saturday—the fires at Tenterfield in New South Wales and at Stanthorpe, Applethorpe and Sarabah in Queensland—no longer threaten lives and property, I am pleased to report, on the advice I have. However, the forecast of dry and windy conditions until Tuesday means that the fire situation does remain volatile. Fire danger ratings are 'very high' for north-eastern New South Wales and South-East Queensland.
Fortunately, no lives were lost, though a New South Wales Rural Fire Service volunteer firefighter was seriously injured, and is still in recovery, while fighting a fire near Tenterfield. Our thoughts are with him and his family. In terms of property, five houses were destroyed and another five damaged, and 25 non-residential structures have been destroyed in the New South Wales fires. I spoke to the Premier earlier today again about the response and cooperation being provided. I have also been in contact with the Queensland Premier's office; the Premier is currently travelling. In Queensland, 52 houses were damaged, including 15 houses that were completely destroyed. Fire has also destroyed the historic Binna Burra Lodge in the Gold Coast hinterland. It is part of the Australian World Heritage listed Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves.
I can report the Australian Defence Force is providing support to firefighters at Kokoda Barracks in Canungra. In New South Wales and Queensland we're also providing disaster recovery assistance. In New South Wales the assistance is being provided under jointly funded Commonwealth-state disaster recovery funding arrangements and is available for the local government areas of Armidale, Clarence Valley, Glen Innes, Inverell, Tenterfield, Uralla and Walcha. Anyone in need of assistance should contact the New South Wales government Disaster Welfare Assistance Line on 1800018444. Likewise, in Queensland, DRFA assistance is available in the local government areas of Scenic Rim and Southern Downs, and the Queensland government Community Recovery Hotline is 1800173349.
on indulgence—I join with the Prime Minister in expressing concern at what are catastrophic events in Queensland and northern New South Wales. As of 8 am this morning, some 55 fires were still burning in Queensland and 47 across New South Wales. These are the worst fires at this time of the year in some 130 years. Disaster has been declared in Binna Burra, Canungra and Beechmont. More than 3,600 hectares have burnt in Sarabah, approximately 2,000 of those hectares in Greater Stanthorpe. There have been 17 houses destroyed in Queensland and 24 houses damaged. Eighty-five-year-old Binna Burra Lodge has been extensively damaged. Lush tropical rainforest has been burnt. Conditions, we hope, should ease on Wednesday. Hopefully the worst is behind us, but it certainly is not all over.
It is very early in the season, but conditions are dry and there is very little rain forecast over the next four months. Queenslanders are bracing for the most catastrophic fire season in recorded history. I spoke to Premier Palaszczuk on Saturday and certainly offered my support and Labor's support, and I'm sure we are all united in offering support across the parliament to people at this difficult time.
In New South Wales five homes have been destroyed. The Armidale fire covers more than 55,000 hectares and has a perimeter of some 100 kilometres. The Shark Creek fire is running out of control, and the New South Wales Rural Fire Service has given an emergency warning. Volunteer firefighter Neville Smith suffered burns while fighting a fire near Tenterfield, in the member for New England's electorate. It's a reminder of the incredible work that not only emergency services workers but also volunteers do at this critical time. He's in a critical but stable condition in Royal Brisbane Hospital. We send all our best wishes to him and, of course, his family at this difficult time.
The opposition stands ready to offer support to whatever the government, through the Prime Minister or the minister responsible, Minister Littleproud, deems worthy. This is a real challenge and at this time of the year points towards an ominous spring and summer coming up. We just hope that the worst of predictions do not come true.
My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer confirm that on his watch Australia is experiencing the slowest annual economic growth since the global financial crisis?
I can confirm that on our watch the Australian economy continues to grow, that we continue to reduce taxes and that employment growth is 2.6 per cent. Do you know what it was when we came into government? It was 0.7 per cent—less than a third of what it is today. A record number of Australians are now in work. Workforce participation is at a record high. The gender pay gap has closed and the budget is coming back to surplus for the first time in more than a decade. When you look at the national accounts, economic growth was 0.5 per cent for the June quarter and 1.9 per cent in year average terms. The Australian economy has completed 28 consecutive years of economic growth, and on our watch more people are employed than ever before.
I would like to inform the House that we have present on the floor this afternoon His Excellency Mr Milad Raad, Ambassador of Lebanon. On behalf of the House, I extend a very warm welcome to you.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister outline to the House how the government is getting on with the job of providing stability and certainty for Australian people during a time of increased global complexity and challenge?
The member for Lindsay is right: it is a time of increasing complexity and there are challenging times for Australia. That's why, when we sat down and prepared this year's budget, we prepared the budget to address these circumstances. It was a budget that came together to do a series of things but, most importantly, to provide the certainty and stability in economic leadership that Australians needed. Australians agreed. Australians endorsed that plan. They endorsed the re-election of the government and they rejected yet another Labor experiment of tax and spend. Instead, they chose a government that was delivering a budget surplus—a financial management record which will enable this government to pay down debt. Fifty billion dollars in net debt will be paid off over the next four years from its height in 2018-19. That is paying down debt. When we came to government, gross debt was growing at 30 per cent per year under the policies of the Labor Party. We wrangled that in, and we are now paying down debt as a government.
The Australian people voted for lower taxes. They voted for keeping more of what they earned and they backed our plan to do that. The Labor Party wanted to put more taxes and higher taxes on the Australian economy. Chairman Swanny is telling them to stick to their high-taxing, high-spending approach. The only realm of consistency you can find in the Labor Party at the moment is that they want to tax a lot and spend a lot. They are the policies of the Labor Party.
We increased infrastructure spending by around $25 billion in the last budget. That includes the funding that we're putting into the growth of Western Sydney infrastructure—in particular, the development of the Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport, which I know is providing a jobs boom for Western Sydney. The member for Lindsay is very aware of that.
We are investing in skills, expanding our export markets, backing all of our industries, including our resource industries, while the resource industry members of the Labor Party walked away every day from their resource industries in their own seats.
The Australian people voted for sensible emissions reduction policies that can be met by this government and are being met by this government. They voted for the stability of keeping Australians safe and keeping our borders secure, as opposed to the flips and flops, the chaos and uncertainty which Labor continues to present to this day.
As a result of our budget management, bulk-billing is now at a record level under this government. Funding for the PBS, funding for hospitals, funding for schools are all guaranteed by strong economic management and the stability and certainty of my government.
My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer confirm that the Australian economy is growing substantially slower than forecast in his budget just five months ago?
I can confirm to the House that, when it comes to nominal GDP, it is growing above the budget forecast, at 5.3 per cent. The budget forecast was five per cent. The reality is we on this side of the House stand for lower taxes and we have passed through the parliament the most significant tax cuts in more than two decades. And you know who opposed those tax cuts? It was the member for Rankin, because he likes to take taxes up.
Dr Chalmers interjecting—
The Treasurer will resume his seat. The member for Rankin, I want you to be here for the rest of the answer.
Dr Chalmers interjecting—
Well, do you want to walk? The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order?
On direct relevance. While I appreciate you allow—
Ask a direct question.
Members on my right. Manager of Opposition Business.
The question involved no preamble. The question was very specific, and while answers, you've said before, are entitled to a preamble, this one is so far away from the question that was asked, I'd ask you to direct him back.
The Leader of the House on a point of order?
The question went to the rate of economic growth, of which there are a wide variety of measures, and several of them are being addressed by the Treasurer.
Honourable members interjecting—
I don't think any of those interjecting on either side are helping either the Manager of Opposition Business or the Leader of the House. I just say to the Leader of the House: that is a reasonable point that he made except for one thing, and that is the material needs to be related to the question. At this point I'm listening closely to the Treasurer. He's moved onto the topic of tax and, as I've said on many occasions, it needs to be related to the question. The Treasurer has the call.
For the member for Rankin's information, on year average terms, the economy grew 1.9 per cent for 2018-19. The budget forecast was 2.25 per cent. When it comes to nominal GDP, the economy grew by 5.3 per cent and the budget forecast was five per cent.
Ms Butler interjecting—
The member for Griffith is now warned.
As the member for Rankin should know as the understudy to the former member for Lilley, Wayne Swan, the nominal GDP numbers drive the budget outcomes. We will bring the budget back into surplus for the first time in more than a decade. You can strengthen the Australian economy by creating more jobs, by seeing the proportion of working-age Australians who are on welfare at its lowest level in 30 years and by cutting taxes, which we have done against the will of those opposite.
To the Prime Minister: times are serious. Peak medical bodies last week declared a health climate emergency, recognising the severe effect climate change will have on human health, especially children, who are more vulnerable to heat-related illnesses, respiratory disease and allergenic conditions. Today emergency services are describing the conditions of the fires in northern New South Wales and Queensland as unprecedented this early in spring. Scientists have been warning of this for years. With the gathering of these very grave concerns, does the Prime Minister agree that Australia needs a real plan to decarbonise every major polluting sector by 2050, and will such a plan be presented to this parliament?
The government agrees that you need to take action on climate change, and that's why we are.
What a joke!
That's why we set and will meet the targets that were set—
Mr Conroy interjecting—
The member for Shortland is warned.
It was the Labor Party when they were in government who set the 2020 targets. When we came to government we were going to miss those targets by some 700 million tonnes of abatement. What is going to happen now? We are going to exceed meeting those targets by 367 million tonnes. There has been over a billion tonne turnaround—
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
The member for Isaacs is now warned.
as a result of the policies that this government has put in place over the last six years to ensure that we are meeting and we are beating our emissions reduction targets. We have a plan to meet our 2030 targets as well, as we set out at the last election. We set out tonne by tonne responsible targets to ensure that we meet our 2030 commitments. We take these commitments extremely seriously and we will ensure that they are met. On top of that we will have emissions per capita fall by 50 per cent by 2030 under the policies we took to the last election. Emissions per capita are now at the lowest level in 29 years.
We are taking the action that is needed to address climate change. Our renewal investment per capita is currently the highest in the world. We are in the middle of a renewable energy investment boom. That is the reason why we will also be meeting our Renewable Energy Target, which we committed to meet as a government. So whether it's emissions reduction or renewable energy our government has a plan, has committed to targets, is implementing our plan and will meet our targets. Our government are taking action on climate change, as we should, and we will continue to take that action in a responsible way where we don't have to sell out the jobs for the future to also ensure that we have the future of a clean and green environment.
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer update the House on how the Morrison government's commitment to budget surpluses and paying down debt is providing stability and certainty for all Australians?
I thank the member for Moncrieff for her question and acknowledge her deep background in small business. With more than 30,000 small businesses in her electorate, and more than three million through the country, she knows how important small business is to growing jobs and as the backbone to the Australian economy.
In last week's national accounts we saw the Australian economy complete 28 consecutive years of economic growth—a record that is unmatched by any other country. In the June quarter the economy grew by 0.5 per cent and, on year average terms, by 1.9 per cent. This is in the face of significant headwinds, in particular the devastating impacts of flood and drought domestically and the global trade tensions between China and the United States. These numbers show the remarkable resilience of the Australian economy and they are a repudiation of all those who sought to talk down the Australian economy. As other economies have gone backwards—Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Singapore and others—the Australian economy went forwards, growing again.
Our plan is very clear: a record 10-year pipeline of $100 billion on infrastructure spending; 80,000 new apprenticeships; lowering taxes in the most significant way in more than two decades; bringing the budget back into surplus for the first time in more than a decade; and creating more than one million new jobs. Those opposite have a very different approach. If you need any reminder of the Labor Party's tendency to put higher taxes on the Australian people and higher spending you only need to see who came out of the shadows last week—none other than Wayne Swan—to remind the Labor Party that they should not only keep their higher taxes but be proud of their higher taxes.
The Treasurer will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order?
Relevance.
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Treasurer can continue.
Well, they don't like what they heard from Chairman Swanny, because the Labor Party are addicted to higher spending, addicted to higher taxes—and could you imagine if they put $387 billion on the Australian economy at a time it was weathering these challenges, both domestic and international, Mr Speaker? Only the coalition can be trusted to reduce people's taxes and to put more money in their pockets.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Why has the Prime Minister ignored seven calls from the Reserve Bank governor since the election to increase infrastructure spending?
Let me quote from the Reserve Bank governor on 9 August, at the House Standing Committee on Economics:
… if the economy is not doing well and the global economy is not doing well, we need all arms of public policy to support the Australian economy. But that's not a call for the government to do more now.
That's what he said. He went on:
I just want to be clear about that.
He also said:
Can I just clarify something: I have not called on the government to do fiscal expansion.
I am quoting the Governor of the Reserve Bank giving evidence—not some chat to a journalist but evidence—to the House economics committee. He said:
… I have not called on the government to do fiscal expansion.
In fact, on 11 July, he said:
I agree 100 per cent with you that the Australian economy is growing and the fundamentals are strong.
That's what he said. He went on:
But I don't think we should forget that more Australians have jobs today than ever before—
The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order?
Mr Speaker, on relevance: perhaps the Prime Minister missed the weekend's publications, where the Reserve Bank governor called upon you to—
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. That point of order raised matters not raised in the question. The Leader of the Opposition shouldn't raise those.
I think the Reserve Bank, on the evidence before the parliamentary committee, has been very clear. Others might want to verbal what it all means, but what I know is that I've been working with the Reserve Bank governor, as both a Treasurer and a Prime Minister, for four years, and it is as a result of the Reserve Bank governor's suggestions to us many years ago about the need to move on infrastructure that we have the $100 billion infrastructure pipeline that has been in the budget since April of this year and has featured in previous budgets.
I know those opposite, if they had the opportunity—if they had won the election—would be spending, spending, spending, and that's only because they would have been taxing, taxing, taxing. The first whiff of a surplus, and the Labor Party would blow it all in a heartbeat. By contrast, my government is showing sober, cautious, disciplined financial management, to ensure we both achieve the first surplus in 12 years and deliver on the $100 billion infrastructure program and on the tax cuts that we promised to Australians and that we've achieved in this parliament, which those opposite fought tooth and nail to try and stop. We heard a little earlier today that apparently we're not going to find out what the policies of those opposite are until 2022. You'll need a time machine to find out their policies, Mr Speaker, but, whether you go backwards or forwards, they'll all equate to economic irresponsibility.
The member for Ballarat is seeking to table a document?
I seek leave to table a document that shows that the Reserve Bank governor has called seven times since the election, and spoken 17 times since he became governor, for increased infrastructure spending from the government.
Leave not granted.
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development. Will the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is delivering stability and certainty by investing in $100 billion worth of infrastructure across the country, including in my seat of Groom?
The member for Groom is excited and he should be. I know the member for Wright is really excited and he should be, and so am I because yesterday we opened—wait for it—the eighth wonder of the modern world: the Toowoomba bypass. How exciting is that! If you haven't seen it, go onto the internet and have a look at it. It is an ingenious architectural masterpiece—unbelievable. His electorate is benefitting, as are all 151 electorates, from our $100 billion pipeline of infrastructure projects. Just yesterday, the $1.6 billion—that's a big amount—Toowoomba bypass was opened. That's how much it cost. It started under our government and it finished under our government. That's delivering.
Ms Catherine King interjecting—
There are many more, Member for Ballarat. Here are just a few statistics on this: 41 kilometres of new road, 24 bridges, almost 60,000 cubic metres of concrete, more than 10,000 tonnes of steel, 4½ million work hours—that's jobs, Australian jobs. It will cut travel time by up to 40 minutes, and that's improving productivity, improving efficiencies. It will eliminate 18 sets of traffic lights and remove thousands of trucks from the Toowoomba CBD each and every day. It truly is, as I said at the start, an engineering masterpiece. It's a masterpiece in design, it's a masterpiece in architecture, and it's been created through Australian hard work, Australian sweat by Australian ingenuity. I was so proud to be there yesterday.
As the member for Groom said, Toowoomba locals can now take back James Street. James Street will return to being a magnificent thoroughfare through this beautiful regional city. Local roads will be less noisy, less congested and, most importantly, safer for both motorists and pedestrians. The Toowoomba bypass is just one example of a major piece of nation-building infrastructure that this government has started—and now finished—providing ongoing certainty and stability for the Australian people.
On Saturday, I was at the Queensland Trucking Association awards night, and Gary Mahon, the CEO of that organisation, said—listen to this; it's really important—'This project will enable heavy vehicles to travel west of Toowoomba to the Port of Brisbane without having to encounter a single set of traffic lights.' You can imagine that, if you're a truckie trying to get from A to B and you've got about 130 or so kilometres from west of Toowoomba to the Port of Brisbane and you don't have to encounter a set of traffic lights—how good is that! Can you imagine the freight efficiencies that's going provide, the safety aspects and the productivity boost this is going to enhance?
I'm proud to announce that more than 98 per cent of business generated by the Toowoomba bypass construction between 2016 and 2018 was secured by Australian companies. That's certainty; that's delivery; that's the Liberal-Nationals. (Time expired)
Mr Perrett interjecting—
The member for Moreton is warned.
My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. After more than six years of this government, when growth is the slowest it's been in a decade, wages are stagnant, consumption is weak, household debt is at record highs and productivity has actually gone backwards over the last year, why does the Prime Minister spend all of his time talking about Labor and none of his time coming up with a plan to turn the economy around?
One point four million jobs were created under the economic policies of this government, and 75 per cent of those are full-time jobs. A budget that is coming back into surplus this year and real wage growth occurring under this government: that's what's happening now. People are not only earning more; they're getting to keep more of what they earn, and we want them to earn more in the future. But you won't get higher wages with higher taxes. That's what the Labor Party never understands. They never understand that, if they want to tax people more, they will slow the economy, which will thieve them of their economic opportunities.
The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business.
He couldn't even get to 45 seconds before he started talking about Labor. The question's asking him: what's his plan? He's meant to be running an economy.
I'm not quite sure what the point of order is—he didn't state one—but I'll just say that, of the seven or eight topics in the question, one of them was Labor, so he didn't put it there.
Our plan is to bring the budget back into surplus this year. Our plan is to deliver tax relief to Australians. Our plan is to invest $100 billion in infrastructure, which includes just under $10 billion just this year, which is almost 50 per cent higher than the annual spend on infrastructure that occurred under the Labor Party. There will be more investment in infrastructure, more investment in skills and more investment in expanding our markets. The government have taken the share of trade covered by our export agreements from less than 30 per cent to 70 per cent, and we're going to take it to 90 per cent. The agricultural sector is growing. It'll be a $100 billion sector by 2030 under the plan that we're putting in place.
So we have a plan, but what is happening on the side of the Labor Party—and I'm asked about the Labor Party? It's chaos, it's uncertainty and, in New South Wales, there's the big stench of corruption. What are we seeing in New South Wales, the Leader of the Opposition's home division? I mentioned it on the weekend. When I said we have to recycle plastics, I didn't mean Aldi plastic bags stuffed full of cash. That was not my plan, but it is certainly the plan of the New South Wales Labor Party.
The Prime Minister has concluded his answer. The question is over.
I ask the Minister for Population, Cities and Urban Infrastructure: could he update the House on how the government is delivering stability and reliability for motorists, particularly those who use the very significant Monash Freeway in Melbourne?
I thank the member for Menzies for his question and for his commitment to busting congestion right across Melbourne. The Morrison government is providing certainty and stability for all Australians through our $100 billion investment pipeline in infrastructure. One of the more important projects in this pipeline is the Monash Freeway upgrade. For those who don't know the Monash, it goes from the CBD of Melbourne all the way out to Pakenham and beyond in the south-eastern suburbs of the city. This is one of the fastest-growing parts not just of Melbourne but indeed of Australia. When you look at the Monash itself, 470,000 trips are taken on that busy road every single day, and out in the part where the member for La Trobe resides you have something like a 4.4 per cent annual growth in traffic volume. What does that mean? It means that at different times of the day many parts of the Monash are coming all the way to a crawl, bumper to bumper. People are stuck in traffic. All they're seeing are the brake lights of the traffic in front of them, rather than getting home or getting to work early in the morning.
Last week, the Prime Minister, the Victorian Premier, the member for La Trobe and I announced an extra $368 million to get stage 2 of the Monash upgrade going. Stage 2 involves 36 kilometres of new freeway lanes on the Monash. It's in two sections: one between Warrigal Road and EastLink, and the second between Clyde Road and Kardinia Road. In that section we'll be boosting the capacity of the freeway by over 50 per cent. We're getting on with the job. Construction will begin next year and it will be completed by 2022. We're really making a difference and getting cracking on this project.
What does this mean for everyday residents in south-east Melbourne? First up, it means jobs. Six hundred jobs are going to be created during the construction phase alone, and a further 10,000 jobs will be activated by this project being connected to a new innovation precinct.
Equally importantly, it is time-saving. This is an absolute congestion-buster and it will save 22 minutes per day for people who are travelling from Melbourne into the city and back. That means almost two hours a week that people will be saving—real-time savings so that they can spend time at home or playing sport or doing what they want to do rather than being stuck in traffic. This is part of an overall plan that we are rolling out across Melbourne and across Australia to provide certainty and stability for all Australians, and we are busting congestion in the process. (Time expired)
My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer confirm that under this coalition government business investment has fallen 20 per cent to its lowest level since the 1990s recession?
I can confirm that non-mining investment is growing 1.4 per cent through the year compared to negative 8.4 per cent through the year in which Labor left office. The record there is that, when it comes to non-mining investment, we have overseen a better result than the Labor Party did. In terms of the mining sector, we have seen a transition from the investment stage to the production phase. One of the positive points out of the national accounts for the June quarter is that mining investment is actually up. The reality is that under the coalition we are creating more than 1.4 million new jobs, we are lowering taxes and we are bringing the budget back into surplus. The question I have for the member for Hotham and for all those opposite is: why do they continue to talk down the Australian economy?
The Treasurer will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.
The standing orders don't provide for him to ask questions.
No, they don't.
They provide for him to answer the question he was asked.
I've got to correct the Leader of the Opposition—I'm sort of loath to do so. The standing orders don't make provision for members of the opposition to answer them, but there is a long history of rhetorical questions being asked. I know it's frustrating, but I have a different issue with the Treasurer: I think he's straying off the subject matter of the question. I'd like him to confine himself to what was a specific question.
Our record of investment is better than that of the Labor Party when it comes to the non-mining sector. We've created more jobs, we're lowering taxes and we're bringing the budget back into surplus.
My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister update the House on how the stability and certainty of a strong economy helps to deliver essential health services, such as bulk-billing and support for ovarian cancer?
I want to thank the member for Reid, who comes to this place after a distinguished career as a child psychologist and somebody who has been deeply engaged in delivering services to Australian families. As a small business person, one of the things the member also knows is that in order for any business or any enterprise or any government to be successful they have to live within their means. By doing that, we've been able to support a growth in essential services right across the health sector. I was pleased only last week to be able to release new bulk-billing figures showing that more Australians than ever before are visiting the doctor for free. Since we came into government, the bulk-billing rate—the rate at which people are able to access GP services for free—has increased four per cent, from 82.2 per cent to an all-time record bulk-billing rate of 86.2 per cent. This means that over 86 out of every 100 visits to the GP are free. That means an increase in real terms of seven million bulk-billed visits to the doctor across Australia over the last year. That's good news for patients and it's good news for Australians who want to be able to access their health services.
But it's also part of a much broader investment in health. One of the issues which the member for Reid raised is ovarian cancer, and today we see the story of Jill Emberson, a wonderful, passionate Australian who has been battling ovarian cancer. She, along with many other courageous women, has been an advocate for more investment, more research and more clinical trials in this space.
I was delighted to announce earlier today that the Australian government will be investing, through the Medical Research Future Fund, an extra $15 million in rare cancers, rare diseases and clinical trials for ovarian cancer and other reproductive cancers. This means, whether it's in cervical cancer, perinatal cancer or testicular cancer, these investments will lead to real trials that will help Australian patients with treatments that they would otherwise not have been able to have access. It means that we will also be setting a path to new medicines being made available for all Australian patients—new medicines such as Lynparza, or olaparib, which has been made available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. And, for the 1,500 Australian women who face a diagnosis of ovarian cancer every year, for the 1,000 Australian women who tragically lose that battle, Jill's work and the work of patient advocates, the work of our medical researchers, will now be empowered, with additional trials and additional hope for Australian patients and Australians everywhere.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
on indulgence—On behalf of, I'm sure, the chamber and all Australians, can I congratulate Tim Paine and Justin Langer on the tremendous result last night. There are a few bleary eyes around here today. Many of us, I'm sure, were watching the game last night. It has been an absolutely tremendous result. I particularly want to pay tribute to Tim Paine. Tim Paine took over the captaincy of the test team at a very difficult time for cricket in Australia, and I think the leadership he's shown to that team was rewarded last night. Can I also acknowledge the absolutely amazing efforts of Steve Smith. Steve Smith is a proud son of the Sutherland District Cricket Club. He joins other notables like Glenn McGrath from the Sutherland District Cricket Club, and all Australians were cheering him on last night. He has answered his critics in the best way that you can in sport: with bat and ball in hand. Well done for bringing home the Ashes, boys.
on indulgence—I join with the Prime Minister in congratulating the Australian Men's Cricket Team, led most ably by Tim Paine and coached most ably by Justin Langer. With Steve Smith back in the team, scoring a fair percentage of the runs, it must be said that Australia has scored. We did miss him in the last test, to say the least, and we wish them well. We look forward to welcoming them back here on Australian shores. Retaining the Ashes overseas is a great effort, and it was a great win at Old Trafford.
I present the Commonwealth Ombudsman's quarterly report under section 712F(6) of the Fair Work Act for the period 1 October to 31 December 2018. I also present the annual report of the Australian National Audit Office for 2018-19.
Ordered that the reports be made parliamentary papers.
Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present the committee's report Referrals made July 2019.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works I present the committee's second report for 2019. The report considers two proposals re-referred to the committee in July that had lapsed in the 45th Parliament.
The first is the Point Wilson Waterside Infrastructure Remediation Project in Victoria. The Department of Defence sought approval from the committee to proceed with the project in order to remediate the Point Wilson Explosives Area waterside infrastructure, to recommence explosive ordnance importation at the site. The estimated cost of this project is $218.9 million, excluding GST.
The second proposal is the Australian Taxation Office fit-out of leased premises in Moonee Ponds in Victoria. The ATO sought approval from the committee to proceed with the project as the current facilities are ageing and in need of an upgrade to support business requirements. The estimated cost of this project is $35.5 million, excluding GST.
The committee recommended that the House find it expedient that both projects proceed. However, the committee also requested that the Department of Defence provide an annual progress report for the Point Wilson Waterside Infrastructure Remediation project, as well as detailed reports on the final costs of each completed element.
The second report reflects work largely completed by the committee in the 45th Parliament. The committee determined not to repeat the inquiry process for these projects in the 46th Parliament, reflecting the rigorous work of the previous committee and that there had been no significant changes to the proposed projects since the original referral. Accordingly, I thank members of the PWC of the 45th Parliament for their expertise in conducting the inquiry, as well as members of the PWC in the current parliament for concluding this process. I commend the report to the House.
Mr Speaker has received a message from the Senate informing the House that the Senate concurs with the resolution of appointment of the Joint Select Committee on Road Safety.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I pre-empt my comments on this legislation by advising that I will be moving an amendment to the legislation. The amendment has been circulated in my name, and I'm happy to go through it. I move:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
1. notes that:
a. this Coalition Government has spent five years trying to cut the pension and increase the pension age to 70;
b. in every Budget, this Government has tried to cut the pension—including a plan to change indexation, which would have left pensioners $80 a week worse off;
c. the Government did a deal with the Greens political party to change the pension assets test and cut the pension for 370,000 pensioners; and
d. the Government spent years trying to cut the energy supplement to new pensioners; and
2. criticises the Government for its cuts to social security, including the pension, and their ongoing demonisation of social security recipients".
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I rise to speak to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Overseas Welfare Recipients Integrity Program) Bill 2019. Labor supports this bill. It is important that social security is available for people when they need it but also that we ensure the integrity of our payment system, as that integrity is critical for public confidence.
The bill will require Australian social security recipients who are over 80 years old and who have resided overseas for more than two years to provide a proof-of-life certificate. A new certificate will be required every two years. Once contacted by Centrelink, a person will have 13 weeks to provide a proof-of-life certificate certified by an authorised certifier. Details will be finalised in subordinate legislation, but the government has indicated in the explanatory memorandum that authorised certifiers will include judges and magistrates, medical doctors, and staff at an Australian embassy, consulate or high commission. If a proof-of-life certificate is not received by Centrelink within the required 13 weeks a person's payment will be suspended for the following 13 weeks. If a certificate is not provided within the suspension period or the person does not re-enter Australia the payment will be cancelled. However, if at any time after the payment is suspended or cancelled a person provides a proof-of-life certificate to Centrelink their payment will recommence with full back pay. This is a very important principle in the social security payment system. Around 96,000 people who receive an Australian social security payment—usually the age pension—live overseas permanently.
It is important for the House to note that Australia's social security system, particularly the age pension, is one of the few with transportable components. The age pension, disability support pension, widow B pension, wife pension and carer payment can be paid to people who live permanently overseas when either the person's payment has unlimited portability under the Social Security Act or the payment is made under one of Australia's international social security agreements. This sounds complex, but, as I indicated earlier, it is important that parts of the social security payment system—the parts that I've outlined—are transportable. Currently, payments continue until a person's death is reported to Centrelink by family or friends. That is why this bill, whilst it may seem like a small piece of legislation, is quite important.
The death rate of age pensioners living overseas is currently significantly lower than of those in Australia, indicating that Centrelink is not being notified of the death in a timely manner in all cases. That's really important. The social security system relies on a family member or a friend giving notification of the death of someone living overseas who was over 80. As I said, there are 96,000 of these people in receipt of social security payment. So, until that notification from a family friend or a relative is actually received, the Centrelink payment continues to be paid. I won't go into detail, but people can understand the implications of this particular aspect of age pensioners living overseas.
It is, of course, possible that in many cases this happens because friends and family simply do not realise they need to tell Centrelink. That's a very real thing. In the midst of grief, in the midst of a loved one passing away overseas, the mechanics of the bureaucracy is the last thing on people's minds, and perhaps this is the case in a number of these particular instances. Friends and family might assume that payments are stopped automatically. It's important to understand that these payments don't stop until there is a formal notification, which, in my experience, usually includes a death certificate as well. That certificate is not issued for some time after the person's passing, and this is much more complicated, of course, if the person lived overseas. So you can understand how this happens. When a person lived overseas, payments do not necessarily stop automatically. Proof-of-life certificates are required by several European countries with portable social security payments.
Labor is very concerned that the government runs a very high risk of mucking up the implementation of these changes, just as they mucked up robo-debt. I won't go into any explanation there; I think everyone knows exactly what I'm talking about when I say robo-debt. It is a major problem, and there is now, I am advised, a strong focus on students who did some tertiary study. The muck-up of robo debt has run down Centrelink services to the point where pensioners are waiting months to get a pension, and that's a very real thing. I know that in all of our constituencies people who are waiting for the age pension are waiting nine, 10, 11 and even 12 months before their pension is actually processed. This means people are living on savings and they're running down their superannuation—an unacceptable situation.
The last thing you want to see is pensioners having their payments cut off because Centrelink didn't contact them properly or took too long to process their certificate when it was returned. If people have questions, they should not be left waiting on the phone for hours. Unfortunately, this continues to be the case at Centrelink. It is absolutely critical that the government has the right systems and resources in place to make this work, and that local certifying arrangements are not impossibly onerous for older Australians living overseas. That's a very important point. As I said, this legislation applies to people over the age of 80. It requires those individuals to provide a certificate every two years showing that they are still living. That may sound strange to some people, but when you start thinking about the implications you understand why this certifying arrangement is necessary.
We know this government's record when it comes to treatment of pensioners and older Australians. We've heard stories of pensioners waiting hours on the phone just to speak to someone in Centrelink. We've heard stories of pensioners waiting months to have their applications and payments processed. We've all experienced that. The reality is that this government's record on its treatment of pensioners has been absolutely atrocious. Cutting the pension is in the Liberals' DNA. I have said that on many occasions, but let me expand on that point. The Liberal coalition has tried to cut the pension and increase the pension age to 70 in every budget, including its three budgets when the current Prime Minister had the job of Treasurer. In the 2014 budget, the attempt was made to cut pension indexation. The cut would have meant that pensioners would have been forced to live on $80 a week less within 10 years. This unfair cut would have ripped $23 billion from the pockets of every single pensioner in Australia. In the 2014 budget they cut $1 billion from the pensioner concession—support designed to help pensioners with the costs of living. In the 2014 budget they axed the $900 seniors supplement and in the 2014 budget they tried to reset deeming rate thresholds, a cut that could have seen 500,000 part-pensioners made worse off. In the 2015 budget, the Liberals did a deal with the Greens to cut the pension to around 370,000 pensioners by as much as $1,200 a year by changing the pensioner assets test. In the 2016 budget there was an attempt to cut the pension to around 190 pensioners as part of a plan to limit overseas travel for pensioners to six weeks. We've seen the attempt to scrap the energy supplement. As I said, the government's own figures show they would have left over 563,000 pensioners worse off had the supplement been cut. It was only after a concerted campaign by seniors groups and Labor that many of these things were rectified or did not happen.
The Liberals still have cuts to the pension in the budget. The Liberals want to completely take away the pension supplement for pensioners who go overseas for more than six weeks. This will see around $120 million ripped from the pockets of pensioners. And the Liberals still want to make pensioners born overseas wait longer before qualifying for the age pension by increasing the residency requirements.
This week again we glimpsed the Prime Minister's disdain for older Australians. We saw the refusal of the Prime Minister to increase the rate of Newstart and a proposal to drug test Newstart recipients, when we know that one in four Australians on Newstart are aged over the age of 55. Older Australians experience difficulty in re-entering the workforce. Older Australians who are desperately trying to re-enter the workforce are asking themselves: how will a cashless card or a drug test help me get a job?
We see the spectre of the government wanting to move people on social security payments onto the cashless debit card, which I know we will debate in the chamber in the weeks to come. I say to the Prime Minister: what is your plan for jobs? What is the Prime Minister's plan for the economy? The reason why this Prime Minister is reheating old ideas is that he has run out of new ones. Rather than stimulating our stagnating economy and easing the situation for older Australians who have fallen on hard times, the Prime Minister is more interested in subjecting them to a humiliating urine test by way of the drug-testing idea. It is an absolute shame, as my colleague has said. How is it that Scott Morrison spends so much time obsessing over and devising ways to humiliate the proud older Australians who are trying to re-enter the workforce? It is an absolute shame. And the government should be ashamed that they are even blowing the dust off things like expansion of the cashless debit card and drug testing of people who are receiving a Centrelink payment, particularly when we know so many of those people are over the age of 55.
This legislation is important because there are so many Australians who do live overseas—96,000, as I said. And, unlike in many other countries, many social security payments are transportable. I want to reiterate what those transportable payments are, because it's unusual in any social security system. It is the age pension. We know that there are something like 1.2 to two million Australians who are on the age pension and on the disability support pension, which is aimed at people with extreme illnesses or a disability that does not allow them to participate in the workforce or participate in a limited way in the workforce. The widow B pension, the wife pension and the carer payment are also extremely important to underscore. These payments, as I said, are the payments that are applicable in terms of this piece of legislation.
The interesting thing that I've heard in bringing this legislation forward is that it is hard to get your head around how usually the onus is the other way around, but this is to make sure that people who live overseas over the age of 80 and are on any of those benefits—in this case it would be the age pension that this applies to. We hope it won't be onerous and are making sure that there are, as the government has outlined in this bill, a broad sweep of places where you can actually obtain this certificate. We also say very much to the government that, when there has been a death, particularly of a person overseas, quite often people do not understand that they need to advise Centrelink for those payments to stop. Perhaps there needs to be a bit more explanation and education about that.
I cannot reiterate how under siege age pensioners have been in terms of this government. I have outlined clearly what was attempted in the 2014 budget: resetting the deeming rate thresholds, axing the $900 energy supplement and also the $1 billion taken from pensioner concessions. I've also outlined the way in which in the 2016 budget the government attempted to limit overseas travel for pensioners, and that had an impact in a number of electorates that had high numbers of people born overseas. They have gone back to visit ageing relatives, and that is something that I know people in the electorate of Barton often do. Their relatives are in their 90s, and the idea of trying to cut the pension off for people who are going back to do that was just abhorrent. And it was really a very difficult task to make sure that that didn't take place.
I don't believe that the Prime Minister has given up on the idea of the increase of the pension age to 70, but Labor is firmly of a view that the rate set at the moment is absolutely appropriate. If you have worked in construction, if you have worked in manual labour all your life, the idea of a broken body working to the age of 70 is something that just is not tenable and certainly is not acceptable. I also wanted to add that it has been concerted campaigns by seniors groups and Labor that have made sure these abhorrent changes have not taken place.
I think the most important thing to say as well is that it seems to me that if you have to fight tooth and nail to protect pensioners then you've got to say, 'What is this parliament coming to?' Pensioners, particularly people on the age pension, deserve our respect. They deserve our commitment and they deserve our loyalty. They have worked their entire lives. They have paid taxes. They are people that have made sure that in very difficult times the Australian economy has continued.
And the other thing, of course, is to ask clearly and firmly about the agenda of the government: 'What is your plan for getting older people back into the workforce?' If you are 50 or 55 and your industry is closed down or you have been retrenched, it is extremely difficult to get another job, particularly if you've been in that industry for 30 or 40 years, as many of these people have been. And there is no indication, no plan from this government, for retraining. There is certainly no plan for making sure that older people are able to get back into good jobs that afford them their dignity.
The Prime Minister and the government need to understand that drug testing people on Newstart will affect many older Australians. The idea of asking someone who is 55 and has worked solidly for the last 40 years to urinate into a cup to prove to Centrelink that they're not a drug addict is an absolute insult. The real question is: what is the plan to grow the economy? What is the plan to get people in this category back into the workforce? They are not people who should be thrown on the scrap heap. They are people who have for their entire lives worked and contributed to the Australian economy. We owe those people a commitment that they will not spend their ensuing years on Centrelink until they become eligible for the age pension—if you can ever get an application through for the age pension.
Keep in mind that Labor has moved a second reading amendment to this legislation. I believe the government have a start date for this bill, which they are providing to us. The government's complete lack of commitment to pensioners is well documented. It is well documented in the way I have spoken about it here this afternoon. It's also well documented that the Prime Minister was the Treasurer for three budgets and each and every one of those budgets had an attack on pensions, which I have also outlined.
I finish by saying that this legislation relates to people who have for some time lived overseas accessing the social security system. As I said, Australia is fairly unique. It is amongst a small number of nations that have a transportable welfare system, which I think is absolutely appropriate. We should have a transportable social security system but there has to be integrity within that system. There has to be within that system the capacity to make sure people who are in receipt of social security payments are actually meeting a number of obligations.
The amendment Labor moved goes to the cuts to the age pension, the age of people who qualify for the pension and a whole range of other issues that I've outlined in the comments that I have made today. I finish by saying that this legislation in terms of age pensioners living overseas does not address the other ills that I've outlined. The government has tried year in and year out, budget in and budget out, to pursue cutting pensions, increasing the age of qualifying for the age pension, limiting overseas travel for the 190,000 pensioners who have family and relatives living overseas and, most egregiously, cutting the energy supplement to new pensioners. The government talks up bringing energy prices down, but it is not true. I think trying to scrap the energy supplement was an absolute new low.
Labor will always stand up for age pensioners. We will always stand up for the many tens of thousands of people who have spent their entire life making sure that this Australian economy works well and who have worked in industries that, through no fault of their own, have been made non-existent, or they've been retrenched and now find themselves on a Centrelink payment for the first time in their life, not for any other reason than circumstances. It is those people that we will always stand up for. I make these comments and move Labor's amendments.
Just to clarify the procedure, I'll ask for the amendment to be seconded again. Will the member for Greenway second the amendment? The member for Greenway has seconded the amendment.
From 1 October 2019, pensioners aged 80 years and over who permanently live overseas will be required to complete proof-of-life certificates every two years to continue receiving their payment. Currently the Department of Human Services mostly relies on voluntary reporting by family members or friends to report the death of a pension recipient overseas. Payments can continue until this is reported. This government is committed to maintaining a welfare system that is fair and sustainable. The measures introduced in this bill strengthen the integrity of the welfare system by making sure that Australian pensions are only being paid to pensioners who are still alive.
Why are we doing this? Because this government believes in continually striving for a fairer society, one in which the government manages its finances responsibly. From our government you have seen certainty, you have seen stability. You have seen a plan, a plan that we took to the Australian people, a plan that we put in our budget, a plan that foresaw the challenges that Australia was going to face and a government that's steadfastly getting on with implementing that plan.
Australia is a multicultural society, with around one-third of Australians being born overseas. In fact, in my electorate of Stirling nearly half of all people, 46 per cent to be exact, were born overseas, and a language other than English is spoken in one in three homes. The government recognises that many people wish to return to their country of birth to be with family or friends at a later stage in life. Therefore it is not unreasonable to expect a large number of Australian pensioners to retire overseas. In fact, Australia pays a pension to approximately 96,000 Australian pensioners who live overseas. These 96,000 age pension, disability support pension, widow B pension, wife pension and carer payment recipients currently live overseas in about 100 different countries. Of these, approximately 25,000 are aged 80 years and over. It is estimated that this measure will identify approximately 6,000 pensioners over the forward estimates who are deceased and are still receiving payments overseas. This measure is expected to save around $219 million over the forward estimates as a result of identifying deceased pensioners earlier. This measure is one of many which demonstrate the financial responsibility of this government. Our budget is coming back to surplus for the first time in more than a decade as we maintain our record of fiscal discipline and targeted spending.
How will this process work? Pensioners aged 80 and over residing permanently overseas for more than two years will need to complete and return a proof-of-life certificate every two years to continue to receive their pension overseas. To help protect against fraud, the certificates will have to be verified. Pensioners will have a range of options available to have their certificate verified. These may include, but are not limited to, a judge or magistrate of a law court; a medical doctor who is registered or licensed to practise in that country; or a police officer or a notary public or Australian official at an embassy, consulate or high commission. This will provide overseas pension recipients with multiple options for verifying this proof-of-life certificate, making the process as easy and practical as possible.
The measures include safeguards to reinstate a living pensioner's payment if they are suspended or cancelled: if the pensioner makes contact with the Department of Human Services and provides a completed proof-of-life certificate, the Secretary of the Department of Social Services or an appropriate delegate will have the discretion to reinstate the payment. A pensioner who has their payment reinstated will be paid any arrears to which they are entitled. This process will make sure that only people entitled to an Australian pension continue to receive it, whilst minimising the impact on pensioners who do the right thing.
It is important to note that there are safety nets in place. Pensioners will be given 13 weeks to respond to the request. If there is no response, the pension will be suspended for up to 13 weeks. If they still haven't responded after this time—26 weeks in total—their payment will be cancelled. Twenty-six weeks: that's half a year. I'm sure you'd agree that this is a very generous period of time which a pensioner has to respond to a request for communication from their home government. Should they make contact with DHS and provide their completed proof-of-life certificate after this time, their payment will be reinstated without the pensioner needing to re-claim. A pensioner who has their payment reinstated will be paid any arrears to which they are entitled. Provided that a pensioner responds and provides their completed proof-of-life certificate within 39 weeks after the initial request being sent, they will be able to receive full arrears.
Australia is certainly not the first country to implement a similar arrangement to that outlined in the proposed legislative amendments. Life certificates or proof-of-life requests are commonly used for pension eligibility confirmation by European countries—for example: the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy. And in some countries they have been in use for more than a decade. This proposed amendment would bring Australia into line with many other countries who have already adopted similar arrangements. Some countries request these certificates annually or biennially. These countries do not restrict their processes to a particular age group.
This government is committed to maintaining a welfare system that is both fair and sustainable. The measures introduced in this bill strengthen the integrity of the welfare system by making sure that Australian pensions are only being paid to pensioners who are still alive. I commend this bill to the House.
I speak in support of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Overseas Welfare Recipients Integrity Program) Bill 2019.
As the member for Stirling just said, this government is committed to maintaining a welfare system that is fair and sustainable. The measure introduced in this bill strengthens the integrity of the welfare system by making sure that Australian pensions are only being paid to pensioners who are still alive. There are approximately 96,000 age pension, disability support pension, widow B pension, wife pension and carer payment recipients currently living permanently overseas, in about 100 different countries. Of these, approximately 25,000 are aged over 80.
Currently, the Department of Human Services mostly relies on voluntary reporting by family members or friends on the death of a pension recipient overseas. Payments can continue until this is reported. Sometimes these payments continue through the deliberate and intentional fraud of others. Sometimes it happens unintentionally—people not realising that they need to notify the department of the death of another person. Sometimes it arises through misunderstanding, as many overseas pension or national insurance schemes may be bequeathed to or inherited by partners or family members after the recipient dies. This can create some misunderstanding, with pension recipients and their families living overseas believing that they can continue to receive the Australian pension when the pension recipient dies.
The process being introduced in this bill addresses all three scenarios in a balanced way. It will make sure that only people entitled to an Australian pension continue to receive it and it minimises the impact on pensioners who do the right thing. It is estimated that these measures will identify approximately 6,000 pensioners over the forward estimates who are deceased but to whom payments are still being made. The measure is expected to save around $219 million over the forward estimates from 2019-20 to 2022-23 as a result of identifying deceased pensioners earlier.
Pensioners aged 80 years and over and residing permanently overseas for longer than two years will need to complete and return a proof of life certificate every two years to continue to receive the pension while they are overseas. To help protect against fraud, the certificates will have to be verified. Pensioners will have a range of options available to have their certificate verified. These may include but are not limited to a judge or magistrate of a law court, a medical doctor who is registered or licensed to practise in that country, a police officer, a notary public or an Australian official at an embassy, consulate or high commission. This provides overseas pension recipients with multiple options for verifying the proof of life certificate, making the process as easy and practical as possible.
There are a number of safeguards built within this amendment bill. They include the ability to reinstate a living pensioner's payment if it is suspended or cancelled. The process is as follows. Pensioners will be given 13 weeks to respond to the request for proof of life. If they provide no response, their pension will be suspended for a period of up to 13 weeks. If the pensioner still hasn't responded after this time, a period of 26 weeks in total, their payment will be cancelled. Should that pensioner then make contact with the Department of Human Services and provide their completed proof of life certificate after this time, their payment can be reinstated without the pensioner being required to reclaim. A pensioner who has had their payment reinstated will be paid any arrears to which they are entitled. Provided a pensioner responds and provides their completed proof of life certificate within 39 weeks of the initial request being sent, they will be able to receive full arrears.
Requirements for proof of life certificates are not unusual and are commonly used in other countries. Many European countries—for example, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy—insist upon them, and in some countries they have required these for more than a decade. Some countries require them on an annual basis and some on a biannual basis, and some don't restrict it to any particular age group.
As I said at the outset—and I confirm what the member for Stirling said earlier—this government is committed to maintaining a welfare system that is fair and sustainable. The measure introduced in this bill strengthens the integrity of the welfare system by making sure that Australian pensions are only being paid to pensioners who are still alive. It does so in a balanced way without being too onerous on pensioners themselves and it provides sufficient safeguards and avenues for reinstatement of the pension payments to living pensioners whose payments may have been suspended or cancelled. I commend the amendment bill to the House.
The government recognises that, as we are a multicultural country, many Australian pensioners wish to retire overseas to their country of birth or to be with family and friends. As a result, Australia pays approximately 96,000 pensions to people residing overseas. This bill will require that, from 1 October 2019, pensioners who are aged 80 years and over and who reside permanently overseas complete and return a proof-of-life certificate in order to continue receiving the pension. This will confirm that Australian pensions are being paid only to pensioners who are still alive. The introduction of the proof-of-life process will bring Australia into line with current international practice. Many other countries around the world, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy, have processes to verify that a pensioner living overseas is still alive, including a requirement to complete a proof-of-life certificate. This measure will require approximately 25,000 pensioners living overseas who are aged 80 and over to provide a proof-of-life certificate. This process has been targeted at pensioners aged 80 and over so as to minimise the administrative burden on pensioners while still protecting the integrity of Australia's welfare system.
To help protect against fraud, the certificates will have to be verified. Pensioners overseas will have multiple options for verifying their proof-of-life certificate and a reasonable time frame in which to provide their completed and verified certificate. If a pensioner does not return their completed proof-of-life certificate within 13 weeks their pension will be suspended. If they do not return their completed proof-of-life certificate within a further 13 weeks of suspension, making 26 weeks in total, their payment will be cancelled. The measure includes safeguards to reinstate a living pensioner's payment if it is suspended or cancelled. They will have their payment reinstated if they provide a completed proof-of-life certificate and will be paid any arrears to which they are entitled. Full arrears will be paid if they provide a completed proof-of-life certificate within 39 weeks of the initial request being sent. This is a new and more-generous back pay arrangement designed for this measure.
The new proof-of-life arrangements will strengthen the integrity of the welfare system by providing a regular and robust mechanism for ensuring Australian pensions are being paid only to pensioners who are still alive. It is estimated that this measure will identify around 6,000 cases over four years where payments are still being made to people who are deceased. This will save Australian taxpayers around $219 million over the forward estimates. The measure being introduced in this bill reflects the government's ongoing commitment to maintaining a fair and sustainable welfare system for both recipients and taxpayers. I commend the bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Barton has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question before the House is that the amendment moved by the member for Barton be agreed to.
I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and move government amendment (1) as circulated:
(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table items 2 and 3), omit the table items, substitute:
Question agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I rise in support of the Customs Amendment (Immediate Destruction of Illicit Tobacco) Bill 2019 and move:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House is of the opinion that the Government, by failing to bring forward the appropriate legislation in a timely manner, has undermined the bill’s objective of significantly reducing the operational burden on Australian Border Force of implementing the illicit tobacco reforms".
As members of this House will recall, the government announced in the 2018-19 budget that it would tighten tobacco border controls as part of the black economy package. A range of bills relating to the black economy package were passed during the previous parliament. As a result of that package of bills, tobacco importers are now required to pay customs duty on tobacco products upon importing them into Australia. In other words, there is no longer an option to import tobacco products and hold them in a licensed warehouse to defer the payment of duties.
From 1 July 2019, tobacco products became prohibited imports, and tobacco products can only be imported into Australia with a valid import permit. Tobacco products imported without a valid permit will be seized at the border. To ensure that efficient border operations can continue under these arrangements, additional amendments to the Customs Act are proposed in the bill currently before the House. The Customs Act currently requires seized prohibited imports to be stored for a minimum of 30 days before they can be disposed of. Managing tobacco products as a prohibited import will result in a demonstrable increase in work at the border that may impact the government's ability to effectively regulate tobacco permit conditions and other border operations. So this bill seeks to remedy that and allow for the timely destruction of seized tobacco. In fact, in the last parliament, this very same bill's explanatory memorandum stated that this bill:
… would empower the Comptroller-General of Customs to cause tobacco products seized as prohibited imports—
from 1 July 2019—
to be dealt with in a manner he or she considers appropriate, including the immediate destruction of the goods.
The explanatory memorandum also said that the bill would:
… significantly reduce the operational burden of implementing the illicit tobacco reforms.
Labor supports this bill. We support the effective disruption of illicit tobacco supply chains and efforts to deny criminal groups access to illicit profits that fund other criminal and black economy activities. And we support the important work of our border protection personnel. But it should not go unremarked by this House that we are well past 1 July and only now is the parliament dealing with legislation to allow the Comptroller-General of Customs to do their job effectively.
As I've said in the past, this is a government that finds itself completely surprised to be sitting where it is, and with no real idea what it's going to do. It's a government without an agenda and without a vision. And here we are today with another example of the government asleep at the wheel. Instead of ensuring that the necessary legislation was in place to reduce the operational burden on Australian Border Force from changes to illicit tobacco arrangements, the government dropped the ball. Instead of ensuring that this legislation was passed expeditiously by the previous parliament, the government let the bill lapse. Those opposite appear to have forgotten that the fundamentals of government are not about winning elections, not about scare campaigns and not about endless spin; the fundamentals are about actually governing, and that means competent management of basic legislative tasks—basic tasks that seem to be beyond this government.
What confidence can Australians have that this government is looking out for their interests when it seems incapable of managing these most basic tasks? While the government is asleep at the wheel, Australians are facing very real challenges: the cost of essentials is skyrocketing, electricity prices are increasing, child care has become unaffordable, working families are struggling and parts of this great country are living through the worst drought on record. And all of this is happening at a time when our economy is facing significant challenges, yet this government doesn't have a genuine plan to protect jobs, to stimulate the economy and to promote economic growth. It doesn't seem to understand that people are worried about their wages and their job security, and it doesn't even appear capable of effectively managing basic legislation through the parliament.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order—on relevance. The shadow minister is straying way off the topic of the bill here in front of us at the moment. I ask that he return to the bill in front of us.
I take the point of order, and I'll listen more intently to the member for Corio.
Australians deserve better than this, and it's high time this government got on with governing in the national interest and not its own interest.
Notwithstanding the government's tardy handling of this legislation, Labor will always work constructively on issues such as those contemplated in this bill. Disrupting illicit tobacco supply chains is unquestionably in the national interest, and it is critical that our border security officials have the powers they need to do the job we ask of them efficiently and effectively. That is why Labor supports this bill.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Corio has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.
I am pleased to rise this afternoon to speak on the Customs Amendment (Immediate Destruction of Illicit Tobacco) Bill 2019.
We need this bill because we in this nation have decided, correctly, that we want to crack down and reduce the consumption of tobacco. We know of the adverse health effects that it has upon the Australian population and the costs that it puts on our hospital and medical system. What we've done, in a bipartisan policy from both sides of this House, is decide to increase the retail price of cigarettes through increasing the excise and the duty. So the price of cigarettes in Australia is now the dearest in the world.
As an example: a pack of 20 Marlboros in Australia costs $27. For a smoker who has one a day—one packet at a day, that is—that's a cost of close to $10,000. However, that exact same packet that costs $27 in Australia costs the equivalent of $16.67 in the UK and $9.51 in the USA. In Vietnam, the packet of cigarettes that retails for $27 in Australia is available retail for the equivalent of A$1.47.
Going down this track has been good news for the budget. We've had smokers add an extra $12.5 billion a year to our government's bottom line. But in doing so, our history tells us that whenever you put high rates of duty and high rates of tax on something—when the government steps in like that does—you create a dangerous black market. And that's, unfortunately, what has happened. But we knew that.
I have just a few recent examples. Last week, Australian Border Force officers intercepted 670 kilograms of tobacco illegally shipped from China. It was rough-cut tobacco that was found in a shipment of floor tiles in a container that arrived on 30 August. The Australian Border Force says that an examination of the consignment revealed that 672 kilograms of tobacco was 'hidden inside boxes between layers of tiles', representing 'more than $800,000 evaded in duty and GST'. So the more we put the price of cigarettes up with the taxes, the more incentives we give to the black market and we give to criminals to get involved in this illicit trade, so we have to have the response from the policing end, and there is a significant issue with this.
A recent story from the Australian Financial Review reads:
Illegal tobacco sales are flourishing in suburban and rural shopping centres, outraging retailers and frustrating renewed government efforts to crack down on a trade estimated to cost taxpayers up to $3.8 billion a year.
A Weekend AFR investigation reveals well-stocked retail outlets offering a wide range of cheap illegal Asian and Middle Eastern and untaxed popular brands, such as Marlboro, selling for a fraction of the price they would in legal outlets.
I can vouch that in my electorate, I think in almost any suburb, I could go and find a retailer that is selling illegal product, and I'm sure that most of those here in this chamber would be able to do exactly the same thing. That's why this legislation is necessary.
The Customs Act 1901 currently requires seized prohibited imports to be stored for a minimum of 30 days before destruction. This storage requirement, together with the legislative and administrative requirements for prohibited imports, impacts upon border operations and limits the ability of the government to regulate and manage illicit tobacco effectively. This bill will amend the Customs Act to empower the Comptroller-General of Customs to deal with seized tobacco in a manner that she or he considers appropriate, including immediate destruction of the goods. Similar controls already exist for other products, including seized psychoactive substances and prohibited serious drug alternatives. These amendments will improve the handling of seized illicit tobacco, resulting in effective regulation of tobacco permit conditions and enabling greater focus on targeting illicit tobacco. This bill will improve financial outcomes for the government and will enhance the implementation of new tobacco measures.
This simply can't be about revenue raising. The ultimate goal is to drive down the rates of smoking. Thankfully, we have the recent KPMG reports which show that under this government there has been a recent significant decline in smoking rates across the nation. The government is having success. Our policies are working, but we need to continue to look at the law-enforcement side to make sure we give our law-enforcement agencies the ability to crack down on these illegal syndicates that are continuing to exploit our laws, to exploit smokers and to engage in this illegal activity. Therefore I'm pleased to commend this bill to the House.
I rise to make a brief contribution to debate on the Customs Amendment (Immediate Destruction of Illicit Tobacco) Bill 2019, in support of the legislation but more particularly in support of the amendment moved by my colleague the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. The effect of the bill which is before the House would be to amend the Customs Act to enable the immediate destruction of illicit tobacco upon its seizure. I note that the provision is part of wider reforms, which were announced in the 2018-19 budget, to deal with the black economy and to combat illegal tobacco importing through introducing a prohibited report control for tobacco.
So it was intended, and indeed it is the case, that from 1 July this year tobacco products can only be imported with a valid import permit, subject to certain limited exceptions. However, the act presently provides that seized imported goods be stored for 30 days, during which period a claim may be made by the owner or purported owners for the return of these goods. This bill empowers the relevant Border Force officer, the Comptroller-General of Customs—a matter of great interest to the member for Greenway—to deal with such goods as he or she deems appropriate, including by destroying them, a measure and a power which are already in place for certain other prohibited substances.
I note that in the examination of the bill by the Senate Standing Committees on Legal and Constitutional Affairs some process concerns were put forward, in particular by the Queensland Law Society. I note also the committee's confidence that these matters can be addressed through the substantive provisions that are contained in the bill. However, more concerning to me is that these measures were introduced way back, well over a year ago, followed by an original bill that was introduced into this House on 14 February, which lapsed without being brought on for debate by the government. This failure—or delay—is really something that requires attention, and this is part of the issue which is really being put before the House by the second reading amendment moved by the member for Corio. It is more than something that is just disappointing. In this House, regularly, we see the government talk about setting tests for Labor. It is really all the Prime Minister wants to talk about. But here, this bit of legislation demonstrates that the government and this minister have failed a test of their own, and this failure is to all of our cost.
The original bill, of course, was intended to have been operational on 1 July this year. Indeed, the operative date is the only difference between the bill we are debating now and that which was introduced in February of this year. The original bill was intended to have been operational to match the other elements in the black economy package; this is now more than two months ago. In federal Labor we talk about hastening slowly, but this member for La Trobe, the assistant minister, is taking it a bit too far. We have before us the ludicrous proposition where a bill about streamlining a process has not exactly progressed at a pace consistent with its objects—the objects we in this place are fully supportive of. This has also had the effect of exacerbating, potentially, rather than relieving the operational burden on the ABF, which this act is intended in part to address, for no good reason at all, or really for one reason—the lack of attention to the Minister for Home Affairs to managing the demands of his portfolio, a portfolio that is so important to every Australian, to our security, to our wellbeing and to our confidence in the administration of government. Perhaps it shows that there is a big reason members of this government like talking about the Labor Party. It is because they have very little to talk about when it comes to their record in government, and the record of administration—or rather maladministration—in the Department of Home Affairs under this minister is quite shocking. It is overseeing a $300 million ABF budget blowout resulting in the ABF fleet being ordered to stop patrols to save money on fuel and putting the border at risk. My favourite is the $7 million wasted on what was referred to as a strategic review of the Department of Home Affairs that turned out to be one page only. And a series of ANAO reports highlight significant mismanagement and waste across the department.
So, in supporting the substance of this bill, I put again before the House the issues the deputy leader has put before it: why has it taken so long for this regime to be brought into effect? It is way past time for the government to get on with its job, its responsibility of governing. I call on members opposite to recognise this in supporting the second reading amendment by the member for Corio.
I would like to thank members for their contributions to the debate on the Customs Amendment (Immediate Destruction of Illicit Tobacco) Bill 2019. The black economy package combatting illicit tobacco introduced in the 2018-19 budget seeks to disrupt illicit tobacco supply chains and deny criminal groups access to illicit profits that fund criminal and black economy activities. As part of this package, from 1 July 2019 most tobacco products are a prohibited import. These products will only be allowed to enter Australia with a valid permit, with some limited exceptions such as for individual travellers who bring tobacco with them. Tobacco that is detected at the border without a valid permit will be seized.
The Customs Act 1901 currently requires goods that are seized as prohibited imports to be stored for a minimum of 30 days before destruction. This storage requirement, together with legislative and administrative requirements for prohibited imports, impacts upon border operations of the Australian Border Force, which serves as Australia's frontline customs service. While these existing arrangements are appropriate for the moderate volumes of most prohibited goods detected at our borders, they were not designed to manage high-volume commodities such as tobacco. Applying the storage and administrative requirements to seized prohibited tobacco limits the ability of government to regulate and manage illicit tobacco effectively.
The bill will amend the Customs Act to empower the Comptroller-General of Customs, who is the Commissioner of the Australian Border Force, to deal with seized tobacco products in an appropriate manner, including immediate destruction of the goods. Similar controls already exist for other prohibited imports, including psychoactive substances and prohibited serious drug alternatives. The bill will ensure the ABF is able to respond in a dynamic and timely manner to increasing volumes of tobacco and tobacco related seizures. It will improve outcomes for the government and enhance implementation of the new tobacco measures. Full details of the measures are included in the explanatory memorandum. I commend the bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Corio has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment moved by the member for Corio be agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Those on the government benches and those in various places who are considering supporting this bill may not realise it, but, in many respects, this bill is a recipe for more industrial action. In many industries that are going to be hardest hit by the effects of this bill, like the construction industry, it pays to know a little bit about the nature of that industry before charging off with a bill that is politically motivated and is said to achieve one certain end but is in fact going to do something quite different to the industry.
Most people would be aware that in the construction industry, for example, you have not only lots of employers but also lots of subcontractors. When there's a project the head tenderer, the head company, might bid on that project and get the project, but very rarely do they themselves employ all the people who work on that project. They'll employ lots of subcontractors. Those subcontractors will in turn engage employees, or they may even go through further subcontractors themselves. All of the people who are going to work on that project building a hospital or erecting some kind of new government building may not be there from beginning to end. They may do one particular job on that project for one particular subcontractor. That may come to an end and they may then go off and find work somewhere else.
Unlike people who, say, might work in one job with one employer for five years and have some entitlements saved up at the end of it when they leave and move on to something else, someone who works in the construction industry is perennially going from employer to employer to employer, from job to job to job, because that is the nature of the industry. That means that, potentially, you're being made redundant or you're being terminated at the end of every job, and then you go off and find something else. Something that for many of us might happen every five or 10 years, if that is how long you choose to stay with your employer, happens for many workers in the construction industry on a regular basis.
What's happened in the construction industry because of that is that the employees, their representatives the unions, and the employers have come together and said: How can we make this work to ensure that someone who works five years straight through, all the way through, but for multiple employers, can be sure that they're going to get all of their entitlements? How can we make this work, especially in the case where some of the smaller employers might phoenix—be here today, gone tomorrow and then resurrected somewhere else at some later stage? Even if they don't phoenix, even if you don't have an employer who is trying to flout the rules, the nature of the industry means that people will move from job to job.
So what has happened as a result? They've all sat down and, rather than have a big fight at the end of every job about whether someone has been made redundant and is entitled to redundancy pay, and rather than have a fight about whether someone has been unfairly dismissed when their employer lays them off and shifts them over to another employer because that's the way the tender has gone, they have agreed: 'No, let's put the money into a central pool. Let's get employers to contribute to a central pool so that everyone who works in the industry knows that, no matter what the status of their particular employer—whether they're working on a different job tomorrow from the one they worked on yesterday—their entitlements are secure.' That means that not only are the workers looked after but employers get the big benefit of industrial peace, as well. Employers now know that, if they don't get a particular job, people who were working for them could be laid off and perhaps even moved over to a completely different employer in a way that you couldn't do in other industries, because you can't transfer people around like that in other industries. They know that they can do that and that the employees will be okay with that, because all of their entitlements are secure and are being managed by an organisation that is representative of employees and employers and their respective organisations.
These income protection schemes bring the benefit of stability to these industries, and, because they are managing funds together, they are able to use interest rates on those funds for things that benefit the industry as a whole, things such as occupational health and safety training. In my state of Victoria there is actually an agreement between employers and employees to ensure that high standards of OH&S are upheld, and that is funded in part by some of the extra interest that has accrued on these worker-benefits schemes. Because they do it this way they are also able to provide training that suits the industry. Again, I'm stressing that this is done between employers and employees. They are able to use the money, the interest that's raised on top of this. They are able to use some of the results of their investments, which happens when you come and do things collectively at scale, to get training done that suits the needs of the industry. It provides a measure of industrial peace and it also provides services to the industry in a way that suits employers and employees in the industry.
You would think that this government of free marketeers, who tell us about the primacy of contract, would love a situation where people in the industry have sat down and negotiated for themselves arrangements that suit the particular industry. That is what we have got when it comes to looking after people's benefits; when it comes to services like counselling that are provided to people that are specific to a particular industry; when it comes to training; when it comes to occupational health and safety; when it comes to providing insurance to people and being able to negotiate those things in bulk. That is what we've got at the moment, but all of that is under threat from this bill for nothing more than naked ideological reasons.
Things like occupational health and safety, for example, where you've got employers and employees working together with government and coming together to use funds to do that, are directly threatened by clause 329LD of this bill. It is out there trying to interfere in what employers and employees have negotiated to suit their industry, simply because the government doesn't like it. The government want to shift a lot more of this work about looking after people over to their mates in the insurance sector, shift it off to the banks so that perhaps they can make a bit more money, or to the financial sector so they can make some more money out of things like insurance products. If occupational health and safety has to be a victim of that by the wayside then so be it, because this mob care more about money than they do about safety. Why else would you bring in a bill that says that an arrangement that works at the moment, where you have effective co-funding and co-management by employers and employees of something as basic as occupational health and safety and training, now has to be threatened and ripped apart by this government just because the government doesn't like it? That's what clause 329LD of this bill will do.
Clause 329MJ of the bill also threatens the ability to negotiate insurance for people collectively on behalf of a whole workforce by using the clout that comes with working together. We also see with section 329LD of the bill that wellbeing services, which are so essential in an industry like construction, where the rate of suicide is higher than in the general population, are threatened by this bill. Why is this happening? It is happening because the government says: 'What would people have to hide if they went out to contract on everything like industry training, for example, where it now has to be funded at market value and on commercial terms? Why should anyone have any concern about that?' Well, have you seen what has happened to the training system in this country? Have you seen how many dodgy operators stick up their hand and say, 'Yes, we can provide you something cheap,' and it turns out that they're providing you something that's cheap because it's useless. That in turn has blown out both Commonwealth and state budgets, and now the government is having to rein that in. The geniuses behind this bill have said: 'Actually, we want more of it. We want to force industries like construction to hand over money to more of those dodgy training providers because—' Why? Because of what? This bill is a solution in search of a problem. The best that the Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations has been able to come up with is to point to activity that happened not before the government first introduced this bill but after. He points to the fact that after a version of this bill was first introduced in the last parliament some funds took action to deal with the fact that, if the bill passed, they were going to be restricted in the kinds of services that they were going to be able to provide. They knew they weren't going to be able to provide the counselling services, the insurance services and the like. And so, according to submissions that they've made to the Senate committee, what did they do? They gave some of the money back to the people who own the fund for the purpose of providing those services so that the counselling services and the like could continue to be provided.
When we said we were going to introduce the bill some people turned around and modified their actions so that they could continue to provide those services in case the bill came in. The best that the government could do was to say: 'Aha, we've got you! You transferred money out of the fund.' Yes. Well, der, Sherlock, of course they did, because you were about to introduce a piece of legislation that said important services that the employers and the employees wanted to continue were now no longer going to be done, or at least were going to be at threat. So don't use the fact that people did things after you introduced the bill to put themselves in a good position to provide the services that people need as justification for this bill. If the government had a smoking gun of some industries or some funds that had somehow been using money in some unlawful way, you would think they would be shouting that from the rooftops. But, no, they don't have that. The best they can do is to say that people took defensive action in response to a bill that's going to harm their ability to provide services. Well, that just doesn't cut it.
What I can say is that in Melbourne this will jeopardise the stability of the construction industry and the people who work in industries like it, whether in the electrical component of it or in construction. In those industries, where people move from job to job, they are now making it harder for the employers and employees to come together to look after each other and to allow that to continue in an agreed manner. What they are also jeopardising is training. The government has not once come in and said, 'Here's a training centre that is providing substandard training.' No. The training that is being provided and the occupational health and safety services that are being provided under the schemes that this government is attacking are top of the class in the country. They're top of the class because they're done in a way that meets the needs of the employers in the industry. The employers get to sit down and say, 'This is the kind of training and the kind of OHS we want.'
And it is largely self-funded. These aren't some great big slush funds that benefit unions or employer associations. They provide services to the industry. When this bill cuts them out and says, 'No, things like occupational health and safety, or industry training, or wellbeing or assurances are now all at risk,' what that does is start to erode the whole foundation of this scheme that has seen employers and employees come together to bring some level of stability. You are going to see instability in the industry. You're going to see services decline, you're going to see standards decline and you're going to see pushback.
I don't expect the government ever listens to evidence or ever listens to reason, but I say to everyone else who's considering supporting this bill: be careful. Be very, very careful because this is not a bill about improving accountability. This is a bill that's ideologically motivated, and there will be pushback.
It's my great pleasure to rise to speak on the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2019. It's always great to follow the member for Melbourne; it gives me plenty of material to discuss for the next 15 minutes.
For those opposite it's, 'Governance: what is it good for?' Well, according to those opposite, absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing! We're not talking about tiddlywinks here. This is $2 billion of workers' entitlements. It is an incredible amount of money, held for redundancy pay, sick leave and other benefits for workers in many industries.
To follow on from the member for Melbourne, and the calls for the smoking gun and evidence and everything else: there was this thing called the royal commission—not just one but two royal commissions—recommending changes. So I think it is in the best interests of Australian workers for these changes to go through the parliament. It is in the best interests of those individuals who work in the construction industry, which is a transient industry; there is no doubt about that. It could be half a day, a day, a year, three years or six years on a major project. It's the reason why things like portable long service leave were put in place and why these types of funds are available. But I think the fact that there is no governance and management is just quite incredible.
So we have two royal commissions recommending changes, we have the facts and we have $2 billion under management, and, once again, what we have from the opposition—and I'll say it again—is: 'Governance, what is it good for?' Apparently, absolutely nothing. We need to ensure that the money is managed properly and not spent on things which are not the choice of the individual who owns those assets. And they are construction workers—hardworking construction workers. I'm sure you have many of them in your electorate, Madam Deputy Speaker Wicks, and I'm sure you've met many of them. I'm not the only one in this place to have worked in construction and heavy industry; they are genuinely good, hardworking people and we should ensure that their money is protected, looked after, managed and utilised for what is in their interests, and that it doesn't become a slush fund for individuals to spend in any way that they decide.
The bill also amends the Fair Work Act to prohibit terms of a modern award or an enterprise agreement requiring or permitting contributions for the benefit of an employee to be made to any fund other than a superannuation fund, a registered worker entitlement fund or a registered charity, giving effect to recommendation 49 of the royal commission's report. I'll say it again: what is wrong with that? It is their money. Why can't they make those selections? Why can't an individual decide that they will set up their own super fund? Many of them have those, particularly those small businesses, and are able to utilise that system.
Let's look at how this works. You go along to a major construction site and you bid for that work. You are potentially a small subcontractor or a medium-sized organisation. You're working with a prime contractor who, in turn, is working with the CFMMEU and others. But, on arrival, what's determined is that you must meet the enterprise bargaining agreement for that greenfields site—all of those requirements, including the contributions and where they will go—and you have no choice as to how that operation ends up. So this is about fairness, it's about choice and it's about giving an individual an opportunity to make their own decisions about what happens to their money.
It requires any term of a modern award or enterprise agreement that names a worker entitlement fund or insurance product to allow an employee to choose another fund or insurance product. Imagine that! You get to choose your own insurance fund! It may well be the one that you had at the last job site or in fact the one that you've had for some years. Or it could be the one that you know the operators of—who you are confident with and who you believe will act in your best interests—and that you think covers what you want. Why can't you make that choice? Once again, on governance, those opposite say, 'What's it good for?' Absolutely nothing according to them. We want to ensure that every individual has these opportunities.
The amendments also prohibit any term of a modern award, enterprise agreement or contract of employment permitting or requiring employee contributions to an election fund for an industrial association, giving effect to recommendation 43 of the report. Once again, imagine that—governance that prevents an employee's money from being contributed to an election fund! I think that's fair and reasonable. I think the majority of the people who are listening to this broadcast would think it is fair and reasonable. Why is it that you show up at a heavy construction site and you have to make a contribution to an election fund as part of your local agreement, particularly if you're a subcontractor or anything else?
The bill will also prohibit any action with the intent to coerce an employee to pay amounts to a particular worker entitlement fund, superannuation fund, training fund, welfare fund or employer insurance scheme, giving effect to recommendation 50 of the report. So the employers have not got out of this. There were things found in the royal commission which reflected very poorly on large employers in this country. They paid for industrial peace. That is what happened: they paid for industrial peace. This bill will prevent those types of contributions being forced on employers and being forced on the employee. It is their money.
The bill will also amend the RO Act to require registered organisations to have written financial expenditure policies that have been approved by the committee of management. Once again: 'Governance, what is it good for?' According to those opposite, absolutely nothing! Imagine having to have financial expenditure policies? Perhaps that might have prevented the activities of some former members of this House and what they did with the union funds provided by their employees and union members. I think this is a more than fair and reasonable requirement.
The bill will require registered organisations to report certain loans, grants and donations, responding to issues raised by recommendations 10 and 39 of the report. Imagine that: you happen to be a construction worker on a site, but you have to make these contributions, forcibly. It is completely wrong. It is unacceptable. That is the reason we are putting up these changes to the legislation. The bill will also require specific disclosure by registered organisations of the financial benefits obtained by them and persons linked to them in connection with employee insurance products, welfare fund arrangements and training fund arrangements. Once again, I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker: what is wrong with that? This is governance at its best. These things should be in place for $2 billion worth of employees' money. It is their money; they made the contribution. They did the work. It was their hard toil, their sweat, their pain. It was their hands, their tools. They are the ones that made the contribution, and their funds and their money should be looked after in a reasonable way. That is the reason we are making these changes. They are fair; they are recommended. They are put up by the royal commission.
The bill will also introduce a range of new penalties. As we know, there are some organisations, individuals and businesses in this country that do not do the right thing, and unfortunately we do need to put these penalties in place to ensure compliance with financial management disclosure and reporting requirements. Once again, this accords with recommendations 9, 10, 17 and 45 of the report from the royal commission. What is wrong with that? As we've heard from the member for Melbourne, where's the smoking gun? We don't need a smoking gun. We have two royal commission recommendations, made by credible individuals, with so much evidence it has been overwhelming. I say again: it is not just unions; corporate Australia has been caught out on a number of occasions, and this type of monopoly and activity quite simply has to end. So we will make the changes that are necessary. We will put forward the bill. We will ensure it passes this House, and I am hopeful it passes the Senate, because quite simply these are changes that need to be made. We need to ensure we protect the assets of the working individual in this country. That is what this is about and nothing else. I commend the bill to the House.
Well, we have yet another Orwellian misnomer for a bill here today. The government are becoming experts at this. We had the repairing medevac bill, when it was clearly obvious to everybody that there was nothing wrong with that bill; it did not need repairing at all. We had the ensuring integrity bill, when it was doing no such thing, other than destroying workers' rights. I think the government should look to start ensuring their own integrity, perhaps the integrity of their own frontbenchers, or working on banks or on employers who are stealing wages. And now we have the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill. The government are the master of weasel words. The Attorney-General is attacking unions and employers for doing exactly what this misnomer purports to be saying. They are ensuring the proper use of workers' benefits. They are ensuring that workers get what is rightfully theirs when things go wrong, when the work stops, when their benefits are at risk. What is wrong with that? It makes perfect sense, particularly if you are worker in a precarious industry.
The Attorney-General likes to point in particular to a fund called Protect. It is a workers benefits fund for workers in construction and electrical services. If the government bothered to find out what it's like to work in construction and electrical services they would know that this environment is precarious. The contracts are short term; they are project based. The work is tenuous. It is dangerous work. Every time a worker in this industry goes onto a work site they are putting their health at risk and, in many instances, their lives at risk. It is a boom-and-bust industry. We know that. Businesses often, sadly, fail. We had the example in the last decade of the Hastie Group and PSG Elecraft—well-known cases of companies that saw large numbers of workers lose their jobs when they failed, when things went bad. This was because of poor corporate management. I think it is a stroke of genius that the industry has set up workplace benefit funds. They're a godsend for people who work in industries like construction and electrical services. They were a godsend for the workers who worked at Hastie Group and PSG Elecraft because, in both cases, the workers were able to access their hard-earned entitlements thanks to the workers benefit fund.
Workers in construction and the electrical trades often move between contractors, projects and worksites. It's a tough life. You're hoping that there will be another project or that this project will be stretched out just that bit longer. You're hoping that there will be another contract. You're hoping against hope that you can provide another pay packet for your family. In these industries, what workers benefit funds do is ensure that entitlements are actually carried over from job to job. These entitlements are protected in an independent scheme that moves with the worker. It moves with them from project to project, from contract to contract. These funds also, as extra protection, provide income protection insurance, and this is vital because of the nature of these industries. When a worker's project finishes, she or he loses any accrued sick leave, and they have to start all over again. Sadly, many workers in these industries end up working with no sick leave accrued at all. It can leave them in a terribly precarious situation should they fall ill.
It's like when I was a nurse working in the public sector. I could actually move my entitlements with me if I continued to work in the public sector, moving from public hospital to public hospital or to public healthcare providers. It was a godsend to me as a young nurse with a young family knowing that I had the security of bringing those entitlements with me. If I was a nurse in the private sector, it would not have happened. You lost all those hard-won entitlements if you had to change jobs.
Income protection from the workers benefit funds like Protect provide protection of those entitlements, and these protections are negotiated via industrial agreements. They are set up by enterprise bargaining agreements. Now, I don't know if those on the other side know about those, but this means that agreements are negotiated between bosses and workers. The contributions are approved by members and their employers. They negotiate in good faith, and these things are administered, in this instance, by Protect as a third party. Yes, they negotiate in good faith—something this government has no idea about.
The previous speaker, the member for Hinkler, seems to think that EBAs are actually stealing things from bosses, but they are not; they are negotiated, as I said, in good faith. All this government know how to do, it seems, is to point the finger and blame everybody else for their failings and their incompetence. They are pointing the finger at workers and their unions, right through to the Governor of the Reserve Bank. They blame everyone else for their failings—failings for an economy that is not growing properly and that has had sluggish growth since the GFC. They are blaming everybody else for the lack of growth in jobs and skills, for the problems we are seeing in aged care. This government have big problems to deal with, but what are they doing? They are here to bash poor people. They are here to bash workers and their unions. They are basically here to tear up the social compact that has served this country so well for decades. They rip billions of dollars out of social services, only to give little tidbits back here and there, and expect a pat on the back for that.
Here we have an example of employers working together to avoid tragedy and hardship, and, for some reason, this government can't stand it. The workers benefit funds provide a vital safety net for workers who work in industries with a high rate of insolvency. There's phoenixing and there's corporate mismanagement. Decades ago, the Victorian branch of the National Electrical and Communications Association, which is an employer organisation, and the ETU, the workers organisation, or the union, became joint sponsors of the Protect redundancy fund. It was created to ensure that workers and their families are protected in times of hardship. It protected from redundancy. Can you imagine the heartache and pain of workers who lose their job immediately—the absolute chaos that that throws the family or the household into, the worry and the heartache of that? I know what that's like. Through my union career, I've had to work with people and help people who have been through such a personal disaster. Far too many people lose out.
So what on earth is wrong with coming up with a way to make life easier for people when that happens?
It seems to me that, instead of punishing employers and unions who have set up these funds for just that purpose, we should perhaps be looking at legislating protection of entitlements, like the ETU and NECA have done, for all workers instead of trying to do away with those protections under this silly bill.
Benefit funds like Protect are run independently of the employer group and the union. There is a proper approved governance structure around these funds. They have a board. They are regulated through the corporations tax and trust law. ASIC and the ATO regulate them. If the Attorney-General has a problem with them then he should be going to ASIC and the ATO, not destroying the benefits that these workers have from getting these entitlements.
Now, from time to time, these funds make a surplus. That is because of good governance, sensible investment decisions and plain old good management. What is wrong with that? Those on that side should be shouting praise for this. Were it anyone else but unions doing so well, they'd be frothing at their surly mouths with praise. Profits and surpluses are their DNA. The surplus is over and above what belongs to workers. Workers' entitlements are safe as houses. The surpluses are then used by the employers and unions to benefit the workers. It is not profited away or secreted off to the Cayman Islands. It's not doing dodgy deals based on some bloke in a Yass pub or trying to get government departments to change laws for somebody's profit-making scheme. No, this is all done under the auspices of ASIC and the ATO, and it goes back to the workers.
This bill restricts and penalises schemes jointly run by unions but provides no regulation for employer-run schemes. Profits from employer-run schemes can go back to employers. If a business earns interest off workers' entitlement money, it is allowed to pocket that, and the government says: 'No problem. That's fine.' But enter a worker or their union and then suddenly we need a whole pile of new regulations and restrictions or we need to get rid of the fund altogether. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Employers are okay to secret away profits, but unions can't expend any surpluses back to members. Not even Dyson Heydon from the trade union royal commission—a complete political witch-hunt against unions—recommended any of the changes they are talking about for these funds. In fact, by utilising the funds' redundancy schemes, workers are saving the government money by not accessing the more complex and less accessible FEG scheme.
None of this makes any sense whatsoever. These funds have paid out millions of dollars to redundant workers and have provided tens of thousands of workers with countless additional benefits, like the ETU does with the fund surpluses from Protect. I have here a list of some of the services that are provided to the workers from surpluses: free counselling hotline, free domestic violence awareness seminars, free postnatal depression awareness training, free gambling prevention, free anxiety and stress management services, free women's self-defence courses and free autism management behaviour support. It goes on. There's workplace training, first aid training, hazardous wiring training, height awareness training, asbestos awareness training and free preparation for work support. They actually help provide workplace support with tutorials for conflict management and workers comp schemes. There are myriad health services, from free mental health support to suicide prevention, awareness and training; drug and alcohol awareness training; LGBTQI inclusivity training; free health checks; skin checks; and support to quit smoking. It goes on and on. These are benefits, and they are benefits that the unions are proud to provide their members. It just adds insult to injury that the government is trying to take this away from members who are thankful for these services. I have spoken to many ETU members who say it is wonderful to access this for themselves and their families. They love it.
The bill will give more power to the now discredited and politicised Registered Organisations Commission. We remember the appalling scandal that was the AWU raids. The ROC should be abolished, not given more powers. The minister is merely attacking workers and their families. He has, barefaced, misled the public about the surpluses and what they are used for. He is trying to make a case against unions that simply isn't there.
Why on earth would any member of this House want to treat workers with such outright disdain and contempt? Why on earth would a minister risk workers' lives by denying such accessible and vital services? Why on earth would any member of this House want to take such important protections away from tens of thousands of families? Why? Because the minister doesn't care one iota, not one hoot, not one little tiny jot about workers. And he simply hates unions. Why isn't this government screaming to the rafters about a raft of other issues, like older Aussies dying while waiting for aged-care packages? Why aren't they turning this House upside down about the behaviour of the banks and actually implementing the recommendations of the banking royal commission at breakneck speed? Why aren't they sorting out the mess that is the NDIS, with families desperate for support being forced to wait and go without services and literally fall apart with the stress of dealing with the NDIS? What are they doing about employment, low wages and insecure work? Why aren't they closing the gap for our First Nations people? They have no other agenda. We will see 2½ years of nothing other than chasing down a small government approach that will leave us nothing for the community and nothing left of that social compact other than perhaps an army, and a poorly resourced one at that.
According to this government, if you are poor it's your fault. If you're sick, bad luck. If you're unemployed, you can go hungry. If you are employed, you can work for a pittance. If you want an education, you can pay for it. If you are old and need care, good luck with that. If you are young and need a leg-up, go and see a charity. Anything that varies from that path is to be destroyed, including the hard work of unions.
I rise to speak on the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2019. This is the second of the government's vitally important industrial relations bills which have come before the House in recent times. In the debate on the government's ensuring integrity bill I said that reform was about making sure that we no longer tolerate a situation where we have one rule for militant unions and a different rule for everyone else. The bill before us now is about applying that simple precept to another important aspect of union activities. It's a basic principle, fundamental to our system of financial regulation, that if someone is managing a lot of other people's money, then we insist that they follow mandated governance rules to ensure that investors can reasonably expect that their money is being deployed in their best interests. The banks, credit unions and super funds, managers of large amounts of other people's money, are over seen by APRA, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. We mandate that they have independent directors and that they meet strict reporting standards and keep written policies. We mandate that they act prudently to protect the interests of those whose money they manage. The managers of other people's money enjoy a special fiduciary responsibility to manage that money appropriately and in accordance with the law.
However, there is one kind of large organisation that holds and invests billions of dollars of hardworking Australians' money yet does not have to follow any of these sensible rules and regulations. Millions of dollars every year are entrusted by hardworking Australians to what are called worker entitlement funds, controlled by union and employer organisation officials. In total more than $2 billion is now held by these organisations. The money for these funds comes from employers, who are forced to put in as much as $100 per employee per week. As many as 30 per cent of enterprise agreements compel payments into funds like these. In the case of that most unscrupulous of unions, the CFMMEU, the figure is as high as 60 per cent. I wonder why that might be?
These funds are supposed to pay and protect workers' entitlements. Unfortunately, too often they do no such thing. Unscrupulous unions skim at least $25 million every year from these funds. They are able to do this because right now the basic rules of good governance that we rightly apply to banks, credit unions and super funds do not apply to worker entitlement funds. Worker benefit funds do not need to be managed by trained professionals or even by people of good character. They don't need independent directors, they don't need to be transparent or provide even the most basic of reporting and they don't need to state in writing what their policies on investments are. There is no legal requirement for them to act responsibly, to use workers' funds in the best interests of the workers or even to tell them where their money is going. In the absence of this regulation, workers' benefit funds have too often become another murky realm of union secrecy and dodgy practices. When the CFMMEU has accrued more than $16 million worth of fines across hundreds of separate contraventions of the law—and the ACTU's leadership believes that unions are above the law—it is clear that, more than anyone, some unions desperately need strict governance rules and the disinfectant of transparency. Time and again, we have seen that unions need governance rules every bit as strong as those that we apply to the private sector. It cannot be one rule for super funds and another for the unions. It is clear that this legislation is much needed.
Uplus, for example, is a Victorian income protection scheme and is a joint venture between insurer Coverforce and arguably the most lawless union this country has ever seen, the CFMMEU. The scheme sometimes provides free travel, insurance and ambulance benefits to workers whose employers pay into it—as long as they belong to the CFMMEU, of course! Those workers with an interest in obeying the law and who rightly don't want a bar of the CFMMEU get nothing. So where does the scheme's money go? Of it, $810,000 a year goes in undisclosed payments to the CFMMEU.
In another example, there has been more than $245 million of workers' money held in a scheme named Protect, which supposedly exists to provide workers with redundancy and income protection. Employers have been forced to pay into the fund on their employees' behalf by arrangement with the Victorian Electrical Trades Union and the National Electrical Communications Association, or NECA. Despite what the member for Cooper said in her speech just now, the Heydon royal commission discovered that $4.5 million of that fund is funnelled straight into the coffers of ETU Victoria, while another $330,000 goes back to NECA. Without the royal commission, workers would have known nothing of this use of their money, because no regulation exists to force the fund managers to tell them.
Unfortunately, in Queensland we have our own version of these opaque funds in the form of the Building Employees Redundancy Trust, BERT for short. It holds $130 million of workers' money and it is controlled by the CFMMEU, along with the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union and the Queensland Major Contractors Association. This fund, like many others, regularly uses millions of dollars in money, which should be helping vulnerable workers, to prop up its own funds. In this case it has even used these funds to make illegal payments to striking workers.
It is a theme we so often return to when it comes to some unions in this country. But, simply put, enough is enough. These funds need to start acting in the interests of their members just like their counterparts in the corporate sector. They have shown time and again an inability to do this consistently on their own, so now it is time for us to regulate to force their hand. This is what the bill before the House will achieve.
The bill requires funds to be run by people of good character. You wouldn't think that would be a sensational concept. It requires funds to have at least one independent voting director on their boards and it requires the funds to be managed at arm's length. This bill will require workers' money to be responsibly invested and it will require transparency in the form of regular reporting to workers, employers and the Registered Organisations Commission. The bill will require the registered unions and employer organisations that run these funds to have written policies on basic matters like how they make financial decisions, how they use credit cards and how they treat hospitality and gifts. Finally, this bill will put these funds under the proper regulation of the Registered Organisations Commission to ensure they comply with the law and manage workers' money responsibly.
None of the standards set in this bill should be controversial or even problematic unless, of course, you are controlling these funds and you are perhaps not of good character, perhaps not acting in the best interests of those who you purport to be looking after or perhaps not even acting independently. In short, if you are doing the right thing, you have nothing to fear from this bill.
However, no worker should ever be forced to contribute to any specific scheme like this—even if it is properly managed—if they do not feel they need to. So this bill ensures that enterprise agreements and employment contracts cannot include terms that force workers to contribute to a particular union approved fund. It is simply unacceptable that unions put pressure on employers to contribute to specific schemes that are not in the interests of workers; nor is it acceptable to force workers to participate against their will. As we've seen to date, this pressure has too often been needed precisely because those schemes were to the direct financial benefit of the union. It is wage theft, plain and simple, and this bill will stop it.
As I said in our earlier debate on registered organisations, I firmly believe that not all unions are bad. Many—perhaps even most—unions provide important services for their members. I'll go so far as to say we need unions in this country. They undoubtedly have a role to play in preventing unscrupulous employers from taking advantage of their workers. I don't oppose unions and neither does this government. What we do oppose is the illegal conduct of unions who continue to break and flout the law. We oppose unions who flout the law and we oppose unions who believe that they are above the law.
The debate on the bill currently before the House and our earlier debate on the government's ensuring integrity bill have enumerated an overwhelming mass of examples of union illegality and corruption. There is no doubt that some unions in this country are selling out the very workers that they purport to protect. These unions have proven again and again that they cannot be trusted. That's why this bill also requires unions, employer groups and employers to disclose any financial benefit they will receive from promoting or arranging insurance products or payments to workers' entitlements, training or welfare funds. Workers needs to know when a conflict of interest arises. Where they discover that their interests are being sold out for the benefit of their union, its officials or the employer, I hope workers will take action to protect themselves and force reform from the unions that have abandoned them.
For those who may think that these are some kind of victimless crimes, think again. We all pay for the extra costs of this sort of union lawlessness. As much as, if not more than, 30 per cent greater costs are incurred on union building sites than non-union building sites. That figure, in my estimation from 30 years in the industry, is very conservative. We are all paying for those additional costs.
As I've often said in this place, sunlight is the best disinfectant. This government is determined to apply it liberally to the bad unions in this country and to the unscrupulous practices exposed in the Heydon royal commission. The time for one rule for the unions and one for everyone else is over. Members opposite now need to do the right thing: they need to stop accepting tainted donations from lawless unions like the CFMMEU. Those opposite must show some tough love to their mates in the union movement and help us to stop the rot of corruption and self-interest which has infected the CFMMEU and others. This bill is a vital step forward, and I commend it to the House.
The member for Fisher pretty much summed up the import of the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2019. He said quite clearly that workers' rights and entitlements were a cost—not a fair day's pay, not a safe workplace. He sees it purely through the lens of a cost to business. I think that's an important thing to note in discussing this bill.
I said today in the House that nothing had changed in the weeks that we'd been away, and this debate highlights just that. This government has not changed its attitude towards workers, towards unions, towards collectivism. It continues on its anti-union tirade, and this bill is part of that tirade. What we see from the government in this bill is that it is not concerned with protecting workers; it is purely about attacking unions. It is all about putting corporations ahead of workers, seeing workers as costs. It is not ensuring an equal playing field because it sets out one set of rules for workers and another for corporations. The government wants to effectively shut down worker-run funds and, at the same time, allow employers to set up and run their own funds. The measures in this bill, as far as worker entitlement funds and financial management of unions are concerned, far exceed the measures that apply to corporations, despite the rhetoric you might hear from the other side. We heard the member for Fisher twice mention the disinfectant of transparency—and that from a party that voted today against a National Integrity Commission! The disinfectant of transparency, it seems, only applies to some of us.
There is no corporate equivalent for this bill. This bill adds a burden by putting new restrictions around worker entitlement funds and financial management of unions, whilst employers get carte blanche with worker entitlement money. So the question is: why are employers given complete trust when over recent years we've seen many examples of employers ripping off their workers?
The member for Fisher mentioned wage theft. Yes, we've seen a lot of it, an extraordinary amount of it. We saw it with 7-Eleven, which was found by the Federal Circuit Court to have violated workplace law—including failing to pay the minimum hourly rates, failing to pay casual loadings, failing to pay weekend and public holiday penalty rates and providing false and misleading pay records—following legal action brought by the Fair Work Ombudsman. How does this get exposed? This wage theft gets exposed by unions. This wage theft gets exposed by investigative journalists. We saw pizza giant Domino's workers underpaid for almost five years, with franchisees encouraged by management to underpay their staff. Chatime was also caught up in widespread underpayment issues, not just among its franchisees but in the corporate stores owned by its head office. Caltex was found to have failed workers by underpayment of wages and nonpayment of overtime and weekend penalty rates. The list goes on and on, yet this government wants workers to trust employers like this rather than worker entitlement funds, which, I might add, have been operating successfully for many years.
I do note that not all employers are unethical. I also note that not all unions, despite the rhetoric from those opposite, are doing the wrong thing by their workers. There are ethical employers. There are those whose workers' entitlement moneys are dealt with correctly, and there are those that I've highlighted today that help to paint a picture where history clearly shows that not all employers will do the right thing when it comes to their employees. We don't have to look far to check those facts. Worker entitlement funds exist to ensure that workers' entitlements are protected and to provide important services to workers, such as training, counselling support, suicide prevention and funding of OH&S officers. Even Dyson Heydon conceded that these training funds provide a public good, and that could all be put at risk by this bill.
We all remember Mr Heydon, the royal commissioner who was booked to speak at that Liberal Party fundraiser. We cannot forget that this all started with the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, which was set up as a political witch-hunt. Its purpose was to damage unions in Australia, not to implement protection for workers. After all was said and done, did Heydon recommend the onerous restrictions we now see laid out in this bill? No, he did not. This is just another example of this government's obsession with attacking unions, because this bill goes far beyond anything that was put forward in the findings of the royal commission. Instead of giving more power to the Registered Organisations Commission, this government should be abolishing the ROC, especially given it is the body that was thoroughly politicised and discredited over its role in the AWU raids scandal. This government wants to give it more power to interfere in the affairs of workers. Well, I guess we shouldn't be surprised.
On this side of the House, we firmly believe that allegations of serious breaches of registered organisations should be dealt with by ASIC. We also believe that unions or anyone who breaks the law or operates outside the law should face the full force of the law—law that already exists for that explicit purpose. If the government truly believed in corporate equivalence, then the government should ensure that companies and registered organisations are overseen by the same regulator. Let's be honest: this bill would not be in the House if the government truly believed in corporate equivalence. So it is clear that this is just another attack on unions.
When the discredited royal commission was unable to demonise the unions, this government decided to introduce this antiworker bill to tie unions up in red tape, and you have to ask why after years of being in this place and hearing red tape being described in incredibly negative terms and the need for red tape to be removed from all sorts of areas of public life and corporate life. But here we see red tape being placed by a government, so it leaves you to wonder: why should unions be tied up in red tape while this government has spent six years taking what they perceive to be negative red tape out of everywhere else? They talked negatively about the red tape of safety measures in childcare centres, but now unions need red tape?
Why do we, on this side, defend collectivism? Why do we defend trade unions? Because they, as much as an independent media, are a pillar of our democracy. Our trade union movement is important. It does a job that government don't want to do. It makes sure that our workers are safe on their job sites. To the member for Fisher: as someone with three sons who work in the building trade, let me tell you that I can sleep at night if I know they're on a union job because I know they're safe and I know they're decently paid. So what you see as a cost, as a mother and as a member of this parliament I see as a protection for workers. The government want to introduce red tape for unions. They want to wrap them up in complying with this red tape, and they'll have less time to do their jobs—the jobs their members pay them to do, and that is to protect workers, fight for better pay, fight for better conditions and fight for safer workplaces.
I stand in this House today to say to this government: I, along with my colleagues on this side, will defend the rights of workers, and I'll defend the rights of unions to protect workers because, although the government have amended the bill since it was first introduced, those amendments are not substantive and simply do not address Labor's centrist concerns with this antiworker bill.
I rise to speak on the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2019. It is yet another Orwellian nomenclature from the ministry of truth opposite—unbelievable! This isn't legislation; this is 'wedgislation'. I mean, fair dinkum, we've dealt with this before, yet here it is back again. What do we have? We have a government focused on union bashing—that's their favourite pastime—rather than actually looking after the national economy and the best interests of the nation. Those opposite don't care about the terrible conditions that employees have to put up with. No, they're trying to wrap the representatives of working Australians in red tape so that they can't actually do their job.
What do unions actually do? They go out and fight for better pay. They fight for better conditions, they fight for safer work places and they fight so that everyday Australians have a secure job. We see from the government opposite and the legislation that they bring forward—the 'wedgislation' they bring forward—that they don't care whether worksites are safe. This bill is not going to make any worker safer, and it's not going to give workers better pay or any better conditions. This bill is just going to make it harder for unions to do their job by putting new restrictions around worker entitlement funds and the financial management of unions.
This is a political strategy, not a plan to protect workers, and I say this having worked for a union in the past and having been a proud member of two unions. In fact, I will do a call out to the Independent Education Union that I used to work for, which had its 100th birthday on Friday night. It was great to go along and join Terry Burke, Brad Hayes and all those people connected with that union, a union for private schools. I don't think there were any Liberal MPs at that function for some reason. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's their obsession with making things difficult for unions.
This bill will effectively shut down worker-run funds, while allowing employers to set up and run their own funds. It will create an unfair playing field, with one set of rules for workers and another for corporations. The measures in this bill far exceed the rules that apply to corporations, and it's not like we haven't seen unscrupulous corporations ripping off workers. For those opposite, who seem to be asleep at the wheel, I remind them of 7-Eleven—it wasn't back in the dark ages; it was just a few years ago—Domino's pizza and Michael Hill Jewellers; the list goes on. Meanwhile what is happening opposite? We have tumbleweeds blowing in front of us, with a deafening silence coming out of those opposite.
The government's not worried about the employers or the impact their behaviour has on the employee—the lives they can wreck and damage. They are only fixated on unions. If a business earns interest off workers' entitlement money, they pocket that and the government says, 'No problem; that's fine.' But if workers want to have a say in how that money is spent then all of a sudden we get all these new regulations and restrictions. Worker entitlement funds are there to ensure workers' entitlements are protected. They're used to provide important services to workers, such as training, counselling support, suicide prevention and the funding of OH&S officers. Commissioner Dyson Heydon during the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption conceded that training funds provide a public good. Commissioner Heydon made that clear. Even the royal commission, which was just a political witch-hunt, basically, did not recommend restrictions this onerous.
This bill does nothing to protect hardworking Australians, but it gives more power to the Registered Organisations Commission. Remember, the ROC was the body discredited over its role in the AWU raids scandal. It was an absolute joke that such a body could be so politicised and yet still be operating under this Attorney-General's watch. The ROC should be abolished, not made even more powerful. This bill is just a continuation of the Morrison government's obsession with unions, and that obsession knows no bounds. It's a disgrace that this government just does not actually care about workers.
The Australian Labor Party, with its long history of standing up for workers and of working with the union movement with collective groups to make sure we look after workers, took to the election a suite of policies to protect workers and make sure building companies cannot avoid their obligations to employees, to government, to home owners and to honest businesses. I have a particular interest in this, with three brothers working in the building sector. What did those policies include? The tradie pay guarantee: a requirement for large Commonwealth construction projects that would ensure that if tradies do the work on time they get paid on time so they're not carrying that debt; a $7 million tradie litigation fund, to give the Australian Securities and Investments Commission the ability to run more difficult court cases without draining the corporate watchdog's resources; and a director identification number so that all company directors would be required to obtain a unique director identification number with a 100-point identification check, as well as increased penalties associated with phoenix-like activity. And there is name and shame, that would allow the Commissioner of Taxation to name individuals and entities as a penalty for the most serious tax offences.
They are policies that would make a real difference to working Australians, and I would ask the Morrison government to embrace them. Here they are, in their seventh year in office; they've had all that time to turn the economy around, to fight for workers and to ease the cost of living and what have they done? What's their legacy? So far, we've got economic growth at the lowest level since the global financial crisis; we've got household living standards declining under the Liberals, with real household median income lower than it was in 2013 when they came to office; and wages are growing at one-sixth the pace of profits, with the government presiding over the worst wages growth on record. What a legacy! We have 1.8 million Australians looking for work, or looking for more work; household debt has surged to record levels, increasing by $650 billion under the Liberals to 190 per cent of disposable income; business investment is down 20 per cent since the Liberals came to office and is now at its lowest level since the 1990s recession; and consumer confidence is down over the year and consumption growth is weak. Productivity, one of the greatest measures of what the economy is actually doing, is declining. Australia became one of the two fastest-growing economies in the OECD under Labor and the eighth fastest when the government changed hands in 2013. But what's the record now? We've dropped to 20th. Gross debt has risen to over half a trillion dollars, with net debt more than doubling under the Liberals.
This piece of legislation—or 'wedgislation'—is just an attempt to distract from their long list of failures. Labor actually has a positive plan to stop dodgy bosses ripping off subbies, workers and taxpayers—policies that would make a real difference. In contrast, the coalition took tax cuts to the election—and that was it. And now we've seen that since they brought in their tax cuts Australian retail turnover fell by 0.1 per cent in July. And who was the hardest hit? The poor old cafes, restaurants and takeaway services—they fell 0.6 per cent. The tax cuts certainly weren't the panacea that the government expected. Consumer confidence is weak and Australians, who are already worried about their wages and job security, are cutting back on spending. And what's the government's response? They have no response. They have no economic plan. They've just got some political wedge tactics—not anything that will actually increase or boost wages or create jobs and increase consumer confidence.
So rather than creating a positive plan to get the economy going again, the government brings on another attack on the good old whipping boy, the union movement—the mighty union movement that only does good things for working Australians. Shame on this Morrison government! Trade unions have such a proud history in Australia. Workers rely on the union movement, even if they're not a member and paying actual union fees. All Australian workers deserve to earn a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and at the end of the day return home safely to their families. It would be a very different working environment if trade unions did not exist.
Let me give a list of all the things spontaneously provided to workers by employers. That's it; nothing! If it weren't for unions we actually wouldn't have these things: annual leave; industrial awards that underpin pay, terms and conditions of employment for millions of workers; penalty rates, although they're also under threat from this Morrison government; maternity leave; superannuation; equal pay for women; health and safety and workers compensation; sick leave; long service leave; redundancy pay; allowances for things such as uniforms; meal breaks and rest breaks—workers once had to get through the whole day without a break; collective bargaining; and unfair dismissal protection, and that's just the beginning of the list.
If ever there was a time when workers needed fearless union representation it is now, and I say that particularly for the construction industry. There has been significant slowing in the annual rate of growth in average weekly earnings for adult men working full time in the construction industry between November 2013 and November 2018. For all employees in construction during that period, there was annual average growth in average weekly earnings of 0.8 per cent, considerably below the annual average growth of 4.7 per cent achieved between November 2008 and November 2013.
But the growth in average weekly earnings is only one measure to gauge how crook the economy is. As I said, arguably, the best measure of wage growth by industry is the wage price index. Using this measure, the average annual growth in wages in the five years to December 2018 was more subdued in male dominated industries such as mining and construction. The growth in those industries was 1.6 per cent and 1.9 per cent, respectively. The all-industry average growth was 2.2 per cent. What is most telling is that in the previous five years, from December 2007 to December 2013, the average annual growth in mining and construction was four per cent and 3.5 per cent, respectively. So it's absolutely clear that wages in those industries are stagnating.
On top of stagnating wages, on the Morrison government's watch we've got dodgy building firms deliberately avoiding paying workers. We have spoken about phoenixing on many occasions. It is the practice where dodgy directors deliberately burn companies in an attempt to avoid their obligations to the employees, to government, to homeowners and to honest businesses who work with them. Phoenix activity not only hurts hardworking Australians, their families and their communities but costs the economy billions of dollars. One estimate is that it costs the Australian economy in excess of $5 billion per year, more than $200 for every Australian, but the Morrison government is doing nothing to stop these dodgy companies from ripping off hardworking Australians. Instead, it attacks the very organisations that do stand up for workers and their families.
It's clear that the Liberals are driven by a hatred of unions to the point where their blinders impact their ability to see clearly. They only exist to attack unions. Unions make sure work sites are safe for workers. Union officials need to be able to enter work sites to carry out inspections. The very lives of workers depend on union officials being granted access to work sites. I've mentioned many times the lives that have been saved by preventing people from accessing asbestos laden material. Surely no-one would argue that shutting down an unsafe work site until it can be made safe is not a life-saving function of the union movement.
Is the Prime Minister tightening up the laws and penalties against this despicable behaviour by dodgy builders that endangers the lives of working Australians? No. Is the Prime Minister tightening up the laws around corporations who rip off workers' entitlements? No. The only industrial relations laws the Morrison government has brought into parliament are focused on attacking unions, and the government should be attacked for so doing.
I'd also like to make a contribution in the debate on the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2019. At the outset, as you've probably noted already, Deputy Speaker Vasta, Labor will oppose this bill. This bill is just another attack on worker representation in this country. As a matter of fact, it's another attack on the very fundamental role that trade unions play.
I would have thought most people in this place would at least acknowledge the fundamental role that unions have played in Australia not simply in Australian workplaces but also in the Australian economy. I'm not sure about those opposite, but, for those of us here who have been around for some time, we would have heard the member for Kennedy, who is probably not well known as a rabid trade union official, speak on this. I recall when he gave a speech about workers' conditions in this country. What he was saying was that, if anyone thought the conditions that we enjoy in the workplaces in Australia did not come from the trade union movement, they had rocks in their head. As I say, he's not known for being a mad lefty! He's certainly nowhere near that. He's not known for being the champion of the trade union movement, but he was certainly a realist when it came to identifying that the benefits that we enjoy in our workplaces have a lot to do with the successful operation of the Australian trade union movement.
This bill by a government which is determined to attack worker representation is an attack on the whole trade union movement itself. Here is a simple test. Just think about it: when was the last time that any of those opposite said anything beneficial about the trade union movement? When do they say anything about mates in construction that go around building sites? No doubt they have a connection with the CFMMEU and other building unions that look after workers who are particularly prone to suicide and that issue. I have heard them mention the AMA once or twice, which, yes, I have to concede is a very powerful union in this country. But in terms of looking after workers in ordinary workplaces, there are not many times that they say anything beneficial about those unions.
I worked for the Australian Workers Union. At one stage, I was the assistant national secretary of that organisation. I recall having discussions with shearers et cetera on those things—as a matter of fact they were members of the old Country Party, which those sitting opposite were once called. One big difference in those days, I suppose, was that we didn't get caught up in the legalities of having to sign and dot everything in order to effect an agreement. In those days, a handshake was really what consummated agreements that were honoured by those representing pastoral industries, for example, as well as other areas.
I understand many things have changed. I'm not sure whether lawyers have got much to answer for in all of that, but I do know things have changed in that regard. But what hasn't changed is the way that those opposite view trade unions. My brother, as you are aware, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, is the head of the Health Services Union and he was recently involved in a very major dispute in New South Wales about the protection of doctors, nurses and patients in public hospitals. There have been recent instances in public hospitals of nurses and doctors being bashed—in Melbourne, one was killed; in Blacktown, someone was shot; others have been stabbed. Here's a trade union that is going out to look after the community. By the way, I don't think the Liberals in New South Wales seem to take the same view about trade unions as the Liberals that sit opposite us in here. In New South Wales there might be the view that they do need to work with the representatives of Labor in those areas to effect a decent outcome, not only for members of the union but also for the community generally.
I note that the bill before us certainly has been amended since its first iteration. The government did take account of many of the issues that had been raised by this side; nevertheless, the changes are not substantive and they continue to place a pretty onerous burden on unions. This onus goes far beyond the recommendations of that highly controversial royal commission that we 'had to have'—the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption. In that, Justice Dyson Heydon actually noted these funds that existed. He didn't note them in such a way to discredit their operations. As a matter of fact, he had noted some of the beneficial aspects of these funds that existed.
This bill is a clear indication of the government's priorities when it comes to industrial relations. It hasn't decided to do something to address stagnant wage growth, wage theft or issues of unsafe conditions—whether it be in the transport industry, in the construction industry or anywhere else for that matter—or deal with unfair workplaces—and it's not only those workplaces that belong to Liberal donors; there are other unfair workplaces as well. This bill is simply trying to weaken the existing trade unions within the union movement. They are trying to wrap unions up in so much red tape that it makes it harder for unions to look after workers' interests, fight for better pay and conditions, and fight to ensure better workplaces so that people can go to work and come home safely.
This bill will impose an added burden by placing restrictions in predominantly two areas: worker entitlement funds and the financial management of unions themselves. The bill is not about protecting workers, as those opposite seem to want to claim; it is certainly about attacking what they consider to be their political enemies. Worker entitlement funds are in place for a very important reason—to ensure that workers' entitlements are protected. They provide critical services to workers, such as training, counselling support, suicide prevention, and occupational health and safety on worksites. The bill places limits on when worker entitlement funds can become registered or stay registered, on what sorts of organisations can operate the funds and on the actual make-up of the board of the funds. It is a way of making it so prescriptive and regulated to make sure they can control not only the funds but who can be a trustee and who can run and manage the funds. We are talking about funds which are predominantly union assets.
The bill seeks to shut down worker-run funds by allowing employers to set up and run their own funds. As a corporation, under this arrangement they are quite free to do that. It creates a set of rules for workers and allows for corporations to be free of those restrictions. If this government's rhetoric on corporate equivalence were to be truly believed, wouldn't you think the effort would have been made to have some equivalency when it comes to running such funds? But that goes beyond the scope of this particular bill. The bill doesn't exist as a measure to assist in any way with all the matters these funds were originally created to address—to assist workers on site with occupational health and safety training, suicide prevention or any of the other matters these funds are largely responsible for. That just shows that this is gross hypocrisy. Over the past year or so we have all seen and read many examples of employers ripping off workers—high-profile chains such as 7-Eleven, Domino's Pizza, Michael Hill and no doubt others. Shouldn't we be doing a little bit more to protect those who unions are basically in operation to look after—the workers?
I will let those on the other side in on a bit of a secret. Unions don't exist because they are written into the Constitution. Unions don't exist because parliaments decide that they should exist. Unions exist to fulfil a need, and the need is to look after workers, employees, to give them a chance to collectively bargain, to look at health and safety on worksites and to gain better conditions. The code in all that is that the mob opposite just don't like this notion of collectivism. They don't like the idea that people can band together to have a discussion to determine what is in their best interests. As a matter of fact, they don't trust them to be able to do that.
One thing I know about the trade union movement is the degree of democracy that exists within it. As someone who has worked in the union movement, I know the frustration that exists over the degree of democratic processes that you need to go through and how often you need to go through them. Ultimately, the members of the union, the paid-up members who decide they want to join a union, make the decision as to who it is they want to run their organisation.
Once again, it is almost to the point of hypocrisy that this bill also seeks to give more power to the Registered Organisations Commission—a body that quite frankly was thoroughly discredited in its role over its raids on the AWU. Having represented the AWU in the past but also having represented policing organisations, I understand that there will be times when things will occur and powers will need to be brought to bear, whether people have exceeded their charters or not. But here's an instance where it was very political: the minister's office was tipped off about the raids in advance, allowing them to tip-off the media. By the time the police arrived at the AWU offices in Sydney, they had to basically get through a barricade to execute their warrant because the media was there. The media had placarded the place because those opposite, in display of absolute hypocrisy, through the Registered Organisations Commission and the minister's office, decided to tip-off the media before the police could execute their warrant and their role under the law. That shows you what those guys over there think of the legal process. It shows you that they don't want anything to get in the way of their political agenda. And what was their political agenda at that stage? It was to get Bill Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, in the lead-up to a federal election. Let's not try and sugar-coat this. They did everything possible to use their influence, not only their legislative influence but their influence over the media, to ensure that they could get a political scalp. As I understand it, even from my discussions with the head of the AWU at that stage, the information that was sought was already in the hands of the Heydon royal commission, if they cared to look. But that wasn't the point. The point was going out and executing those warrants and putting the union on public display.
I happily oppose this legislation. I oppose it for what it stands for—the very hypocritical approach of trying to turn unions into something which they're not. Unions are designed to look after workers, and that's what unions should and must do. (Time expired)
I'm speaking in support of the amendment moved by the member for Watson to the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2019. Again, this bill completely highlights the government's lack of an agenda when it comes to economic management. This bill is another attempt to wedge the Labor Party and attack the rights of working Australians and their representatives.
We all know that the Australian economy is floundering. Growth is below trend. We're seeing increases in unemployment. We're seeing sluggish wage growth. We're seeing very low rates of inflation. Housing approvals have tanked. We're seeing very low rates of business investment. Consumption is sluggish in the Australian economy. And what does this government want to do? Instead of developing a plan to protect jobs and to grow the economy, all it wants to do is come in here and try and move legislation that wedges the Labor Party. But the government is too smart by half, because all this bill is about—and the Australian public should be well aware of this—is attacking and diminishing and reducing the rights of workers, their conditions at work, the people that represent them and their jobs representing them.
These laws are fundamentally unfair, and Labor will not be supporting them. They make it possible for government ministers and disgruntled employers to shut down certain elements of unions and deny working people their right to organise. Nothing like that applies to business, to the banks or to politicians. Workers should get to choose who they want to represent them, not Scott Morrison and this government. This particular piece of legislation—and other pieces of legislation that have been introduced into the parliament in recent weeks aimed at the rules of unions, their ability to form, their ability to appoint people as organisers, their ability to represent workers and their ability to effectively engage in bargaining for wages and conditions—is effectively the government attacking the average Australian union member.
Those opposite would like you to think that the average Australian union member is a building worker, but that couldn't be further from the truth. At the moment, the average Australian trade union member is female, works in a service sector and is employed in the public service. So we are talking about nurses—the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation is the largest trade union in the country at the moment. We're talking about teachers. We're talking about police officers and law enforcement officers. They are the average trade union members in this country. They are the people that this government wants to attack.
That is what this legislation does: it attacks the rights of nurses, police officers and teachers, who are the typical union members in this country at the moment. It limits their ability to organise, to bargain collectively for wages and conditions and to choose their representatives and the conditions under which they save and plan for the establishment of funds to ensure that they can be protected at work, through occupational health and safety measures, through delegates having appropriate training and through other conditions that make workplaces safer and more effective. They are the types of people that this government wants to attack through this legislation. The government is trying to wrap the notion of the building construction worker in legislation like this, when that couldn't be further from the truth. It is really attacking nurses, teachers, law enforcement officers and others, who make up the bulk of union membership in this country. The government is trying to wrap unions in red tape so that they can't do their jobs—fighting for better pay, better conditions and safer workplaces.
This bill would add to that burden by putting new restrictions around worker entitlement funds and the financial management of unions, restrictions that don't apply, by the way, to corporations and other organisations. You don't see the government applying these sorts of restrictions to the big banks, which have just been through one of the worst rip-off and scandal ridden eras in Australian history, as exposed by the royal commission. This bill will add to the burden by putting new restrictions on those funds, and that's exactly what the government wants. This is not about protecting workers; it's about using wedge issues to attack its political enemies—the union movement and the Australian Labor Party.
This bill will effectively shut down many worker-run funds while allowing employers to set up and run their own funds as alternatives. It's one set of rule for workers and another for corporations. That is exactly the modus operandi of this government, and we're not going to stand for it. We're going to call it out for what it is. If the government truly believed in corporate equivalence then this bill wouldn't exist, because the measures in the bill far exceed what applies to corporations.
We've seen many examples of employers ripping off their workers in recent years through wage theft. There's a litany of cases of mainly unorganised workers, vulnerable workers, who work in itinerant positions, on either casual or part-time bases, who haven't received their fair entitlements and haven't received the right pay, particularly for working shift work and for working on weekends. 7-Eleven, Domino's Pizza, Chatime, Michael Hill jewellers—the list goes on, and this government wants to attack the ability of unions to organise in workplaces and to establish training funds to ensure that they can train more workers to be union delegates, to identify hazards in workplaces when they exist and put in place measures to ask employers to rectify those hazards, and to ensure that people are safe at work. This is an attack on the rights of people to form those unions and to work in a safe manner in their workplaces.
If a business earns interest off worker entitlement money then they can pocket that, and this government says that's no problem; that's fine. But if a worker wants to have a say in how that money is spent then all of a sudden they get new regulations and restrictions. Worker entitlement funds are there to ensure that workers' entitlements are protected and to provide important services for workers, such as training, counselling support, suicide prevention, funding for OH&S officers and training around occupational health and safety. These are all important aspects of workplace life, particularly in the occupations that I mentioned earlier around the delivery of services—people that have to work with members of the public and have that emotional attachment to working with members of the public. I'm particularly talking about people who work in the medical services industry, particularly on the frontline in our hospitals. These are people who need counselling and suicide prevention services, who need help when they have a bad run at work. Yet this bill potentially restricts the ability of unions to raise funds to establish those important services that support workers in workplaces throughout the country. That is despicable. We've all heard of the increasing rates of mental health problems, particularly in some of those industries that I mentioned earlier around law enforcement and in the medical profession. To try and restrict the services that are available to these people, by dint of the fact that you're making the conditions for the establishment of funds to provide these services harder, is not on, in my view. It is not on in this day and age.
Even Dyson Heydon, the royal commissioner who was put in place by the former Abbott government, conceded that training funds provide a public good. This could all be put at risk by this bill. Even that royal commissioner didn't go as far as recommending these restrictions here, which are so onerous. This bill goes far beyond what was put forward by the royal commission. It is another example of this government's obsession with attacking unions, because they think that Australians believe that a union equates with a building and construction worker, when that is not the case. Really what they are doing in this bill is attacking the many workers that work in service industries and other occupations—and, indeed, building workers, who work very hard. It's all to disguise the fact that they don't have a plan to deal with a failing economy. They don't have a plan to arrest the decline in growth that's occurring in the Australian economy: the fact that 1.8 million Australians are now out of work or seeking more hours; the fact that the retail industry has been smashed by low levels of consumption expenditure; the fact that wages growth has been non-existent for many people. Many of those people that I mentioned earlier working in those difficult occupations haven't seen real increases in their incomes for a long period of time and are struggling to make ends meet and to pay the family bills. There is no assistance from the government. There is no focus in this parliament on changes and legislation that would help those people, that would boost infrastructure investment, that would provide tax cuts for people earlier than is scheduled by this government, that would look to changing some of the ridiculous forecasting scenarios that have been present in this government's forecasts, both around the budget and MYEFO. They're not interested in doing any of that, not at all. They just want to come into this place and attack the rights of unions and workers because they see an opportunity to wedge the Labor Party. That's not leadership. That's not running the country in the interests of working Australians and their families.
We maintain that this bill would give more power to some organisations, like the Registered Organisations Commission, which was thoroughly politicised by this government and discredited over its role in the AWU raid scandal. This bill would give sweeping new powers to interfere in the affairs of workers and their representatives. We maintain that allegations of serious breaches by officers of registered organisations should be dealt with by ASIC. If you believe that companies and registered organisations should be treated the same or similarly, then surely you would use the same regulator.
The bill has been amended since it was first introduced in the last parliament, but those changes are not substantive and simply don't address Labor's central concerns with this antiworker, anti-union bill. For that reason and for all the reasons I mentioned, this bill should be opposed.
On the weekend, we had reports coming out of the Liberal convention that was held in New South Wales. We had reports that the coalition weren't coming up with things that they could do to make life easier for people. We didn't get any practical things that would address the things that Australians are concerned about in their day-to-day lives. What we had was game playing—this whole notion that the coalition would basically be setting tests, as it were, on Labor in returning to parliament this week. We're not sitting that much for the rest of this year because the coalition, as has been evidenced for quite some time, have no idea about what they will do now that they're in government and have not set too many weeks for this parliament to sit to get things done that would make life easier for people. But, instead, they've always got time to play games. They've always got time to politic.
We've got this piece of legislation before us, the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2019. This is not about tackling what a lot of people are worried about, which is, for example, why their wages aren't moving. When they've got bills to pay or things that they want to do with their families, why aren't wages moving higher than what they are? Why is it that you can have a government in a budget say that they expect that wages will increase in the next 12 months and it never actually happens? You have, apparently, a Treasury that has the best forecasting capability in the country making predictions that this government take forward and include in their budget, but we never see them actually occur.
Look at the stats. Look at the way the wage price index grew over the five years to December 2018—so the bulk of the time the coalition have been in office. It grew at an average of 2.2 per cent. But if you look at the five years leading to December 2013, when we had a global financial crisis, with all the pressures on businesses and the way that economies were performing, wages grew at 3.3 per cent. So they grew at 2.2 per cent in the five years from 2013 to 2018, but before that they were growing at 3.3 per cent. Where is there a bit of legislation, where is there some sort of action by those opposite, that will actually help people get more in their pocket, not less? I ask that because that's how people feel—that they're not actually keeping pace. They can see all these other people doing very well. Profitability is up, shareholders are doing well, and big CEOs are getting big pay packets and bonus on bonus, yet there's very little to show for people expecting to see some better outcome for their own wages. In fact, wages growth is getting worse under the coalition, and they don't have a plan.
They do have a plan to politic. They do have a plan to game play in this place and bring these bits of legislation forward, instead of actually doing the hard work of making life easier for people. As has already been pointed out, it's not just that people are not getting better wage growth than they expect. Look at the number of people who are unemployed—700,000, roughly. It doesn't really change much. As much as the coalition talk about 1.4 million jobs being created under their watch, there's still this stubborn unemployment rate of 700,000 people. On top of that, when the Australian Bureau of Statistics asks people, 'Are you happy with the type of work you're getting? or 'Are you happy with the hours that you're working?' over a million people are saying no. This is underemployment. Whenever you hear about this, there are people saying that they want to work in a much more secure job and they want to be able to get more hours to pay their bills.
I have people in my part of Western Sydney coming up to me and asking: 'How much longer do I have to work as a casual for? Why can't I get a full-time job that gives me the certainty that I can pay the bills, put the kids through school, put clothes on their back, get a house and pay the mortgage?' In some suburbs, over three-quarters of the people are renting because they can't get the homes that they want. They can't get finance, and if they can't get finance then it's largely because they haven't got the type of job with the type of pay coming in that allows them to do it. We don't see anything that shows this coalition government is determined to fix that. There is nothing to fix insecure work, nothing to fix the fact that there are some people who have been forced to work, particularly in labour hire agencies, for extended periods of time, going from job to job but still with no sense of permanence. In Sydney or in some of the big housing markets across the country, not only are people not getting the wages that they want, the work they think they deserve or the hours that will help them out but the ones who do have homes have seen house prices plummet. That is because the coalition, in their desperate attempt to do anything other than reform negative gearing, badger regulators to pull the handbrake on the housing market. So those workers who thought they had a nest egg in their home worry about prices dropping like a stone in some of the biggest housing markets in the country, because the coalition are playing games and doing things they reckon will make the smart win on the floor of this place. They tell everyone they're not part of the Canberra bubble but are very much at the heart of the bubble themselves.
The coalition come in here with their stunts and this type of legislation, with all the so-called tests they are putting to our side of politics, instead of being able to meet a test themselves. The test for those opposite is: what are you doing to make life easier for people across this country who are doing it tough, who aren't seeing their pay packets increase, who aren't seeing their hours increase, who aren't seeing security in their work and who aren't seeing the value of their homes increase to give them a nest egg? But those opposite come in here and beat their chests and say that they have taken a stand on this.
I referred earlier to wages growth declining in this country. The coalition, over the last 20 years, have made it their big deal to make it harder for working people to bargain. They have made it harder for people to call for things in their wage agreements for better outcomes. It's no surprise that we're seeing a floundering of wages growth under this government, because they have totally watered down the power that exists at the negotiating table for working people to work together to get better outcomes. Why would we be surprised that there's no improvement in wages in this country? It is no surprise that the coalition would stick to the view that they don't want working people to be able to organise against very powerful employers, who have an army of HR experts and an army of lawyers and who can basically skew agreements in the way that they want to deny working people the right to stand up and say, 'No, I deserve better. I deserve more. I can't keep living from pay cheque to pay cheque or holding down more and more jobs.'
The ABS also revealed that the rate of growth in the number of people who are holding down not two jobs, not three jobs but four jobs, just to make ends meet, has doubled over the last 12 months. This is stuff we don't talk about in here, but people have to live it every single day and there's no game plan from those opposite. We keep saying we want to leave a better place for the kids who follow us than the one we inherited, yet when I was growing up people never had to work four jobs at all. It was one job, and maybe mum went out and worked. They didn't hold multiple jobs between them, yet those opposite have no game plan on that. Why? It is because the coalition will never fix this up. The answer is to give working people stronger rights so they can say, 'I deserve better.' In an economy where the businesses are getting more profit, where the shareholders are doing well and where the CEOs are doing well, working people should be able to expect more. I know those opposite will say this is the ranting of a red-flag-waving Labor Party member. Wrong. The economy is strong when we all do well, and if there are a lot of people that are doing well in this economy we should also see working people do well, because it will give them more confidence in the economy working the way it should. But, if you say to those opposite, 'Let's see a better outcome on wages; let's see people do better and be able to argue better at the negotiating table,' you will never, ever see it come out of them—not at all. There's no way in the world they will argue for that. They'll say they want a better wages outcome. They won't have a wages policy. They'll have game-playing like this type of legislation, but they won't come to the parliament and say, 'We've worked out a way that working people will do better in the economy.'
When you look at economic growth, profits are always getting a larger and larger slice of the pie, with very little for wages, and this is undermining people's faith in the way the economy's working. Some businesses get that. They know that stronger businesses come when people have a commitment to those businesses because they've got a share in the growth. That is the thing that people get. If we continue the way we are going at the moment, we will have less and less faith in enterprise bargaining being able to deliver for working people, because they'll say: 'We turn up to the negotiations. We're told what we can't negotiate. We're told we can't do X, Y or Z in terms of taking a stand for ourselves, and then we've got to cop something that's below average or just mirroring the inflation rate, where people feel like they're not getting ahead. We've just got to cop that.' So what happens then with enterprise bargaining, which we're told is supposed to be very good for the economy? It can't constantly be good for one side of the negotiating table as opposed to the other. Otherwise we just go back to the old way we used to do wages, a centralised wage-fixing system that delivered an outcome every single year. That's what business and the coalition have got to think about when they're thinking about the future of the way in which wages get determined in this country.
Again, these are serious, difficult, tough issues to fix, but you're not going to get the answer from that side of politics, because they're quite happy with the arrangements the way they are. As long as they pretend they're doing something, we're all supposed to be okay with that. Wrong. People should be doing better out of this economy. People should be getting a fairer share. We should build confidence in the way that everyone has a slice of that pie, and we're not going to get anywhere debating these types of pieces of legislation that are more make-work for the coalition to make them look tough and give them something to do on the floor of parliament whenever it actually does sit through the course of the year. In the meantime, people are struggling with the number of jobs that they've got, not being paid the wages that they really deserve and being told they have to work the hours that they cop when they know they need to work more. We constantly have this downward spiral. Working Australians deserve better than this government playing games in the way that it is doing with this legislation.
Very seldom do I pay compliments in this place, but that was a very excellent contribution from the previous speaker. The Liberal Party don't understand their own roots. They don't understand where they came from. Bob Menzies's name is synonymous with the existence of the Liberal Party, which he formed. His grandfather was a trade union leader where the Eureka Stockade had taken place, and he was a trade union leader not all that long afterwards. Eureka, contrary to public opinion, were not trade unionists; they were the miners. They were the mine owners that were complaining about government taxation and overregulation. But, all the same, I repeat that Bob Menzies's grandfather, of whom he was very proud, was a trade union boss at the very town where the Eureka Stockade had taken place, which was one of the biggest industrial areas in this country in the days of the goldmining.
To get you thinking right on this, I think one of the great quotes was an altercation between Walter Reuther, head of the motor vehicle builders union in the United States, and Henry Ford. And Henry said: 'Wally, you come here and have a look at this machinery, because this machinery's going to go in here and I don't need your workers. I don't need any workers at all. I'm going to replace them with this machine.' And Walter said, 'Henry, if there are no workers who's going to be there to buy your cars?' There was reportedly a thundering silence from Henry Ford. He hadn't thought about that part of it.
In the Great Depression, the big retail businesses in Australia—the equivalents of Woolworths and Coles in the day and the big general stores in Sydney—were tenaciously fighting for public works and expenditure of government moneys. They were on the side of the worker because the worker had no money in his pocket and the businesses were all going broke. My own grandfather is very famous. He's in the history books. He gave over a million dollars, in terms of today's money, to the strike fund in the 1890s. Those people who didn't like him said he was just giving it to the workers so they would have money to spend in his shops. He claimed, of course, that he believed in the working man and that they were the solid backbone of the nation. They were the ones who dug the gold out of the ground and they were the ones who mustered the cattle and sheared the sheep—that was his reply.
There's a wonderful story told about Les Thiess. He was the first person to import bulldozers to Australia, and when they had desperate coal shortages in New South Wales they brought him in to open-cut mine. At that stage there were still pit ponies working in the mines in New South Wales. There was an enormous reaction against Thiess and the use of bulldozers in open-cut mining, which would do away with their jobs. There were massive strikes. They closed down the whole of the coal industry. New South Wales and Victoria were freezing in the middle of winter. They called a general strike. They were all down at the pub drinking with this new bloke, who was a dozer operator, drinking with them. They said, 'What's your name, mate?' And he said, 'Les Thiess.' 'Are you related to this Tory bastard from Queensland who's taken all our jobs?' And Les said, 'No, I'm not related to him; that's me.' They said, 'What are you doing drinking in the pub with the lot of us? He said: 'Mate, I'm a plant operator. I'm not a rich person. They wouldn't have me in their pub.' They said: 'Hey, fellows, this is Les Thiess. He's not a bad sort of bloke,' and they all went back to work.
I'm afraid that there's a little bit of class connection here with the Liberal initiatives. There are leftovers from a past age when we had working classes. I'm very pleased to see some of the Liberals using the words 'aspirational classes'. I represent the aspirational classes. The vast bulk in my electorate work as miners. If I were representing Cairns, as I do represent the southern part of Cairns, the vast population of the people I represent would be fly-in miners. If I were in Townsville, I'd be representing miners. The farmers I represent—we rang up three people to run for us in the last state election. They were all farmers' sons. They were all working in the mines. I dare say that there would not be a farming family in North Queensland that does not have a relative working in the mines, and I would say that a quarter of the farms are only still owned by the farmers because there is someone working in the mines. So it is vitally important for us to be able to keep up those jobs and our incomes from those jobs.
What's happening to the miners? They have to live two weeks on, two weeks off. They live away from their homes. They don't see their kids play football on the weekend. They don't see their daughters in the eisteddfods on the weekend. They're not at home, so their kids have been brought up, to a large degree, without one of their parents, or, in some cases, both of their parents. We are now working incredible hours and we're working under conditions where we don't live in our home anymore. We were on $200,000—this is very hard and very dangerous work. We have fatalities. There is no way they can be avoided. I worked as a miner myself and I worked my own mines. I own my own mines and I've worked my own mines, so I've walked both sides of the fence. But it is an intrinsically dangerous occupation. It is done in extremely hot, dry, desolate conditions in very remote parts of Australia, and you need that sort of money to be able to justify working in those conditions. We were on $200,000 a year because of active and aggressive trade unionism. We've now been cut back to $100,000 a year and fly-in mining.
I don't want to leave out the ALP here, because it was the ALP who introduced fly-in mining. It was the ALP who took the temporary worker visas from 325,000 under Howard to 640,000 under their government. It was the ALP government in Queensland that privatised the railways and took railway employment from 22,000 down to 7,000. It utterly destroyed the towns from which I come—a series of railway towns in the midwest of North Queensland. Those towns are almost ghost towns today because they stripped us of 1,500 railway jobs. Everything is carried from the coast in trucks now, costing us six times more than when the railways were carrying that freight.
So the railways were privatised by the Labor Party and the Labor Party in Queensland half privatised the electricity industry, which sacked 2,500 workers. I copped a lot amongst my union mates because I was in the government that stood up to them in the electricity dispute—the famous watershed in Australian industrial history. It was a stand-up bloodthirsty battle. I was on the other side of the fence, and I'm proud to say I was because I think the boys had just overreached themselves. They were asking for ridiculous terms, pay and conditions. They wanted a week on and a week off and pay that was superior to the income of a member of parliament. That might have been fair enough, but combined with the fact that they were only going to work one out of every two weeks it was a bit rich—they weren't living away from home or anything. They went too far and we stood up to them, and I'm not going to shy away from being one of the people involved in that dispute.
When the unions go too far, yes, you've got to stand up to them. But at the present moment we're being shredded on all sides. One in two jobs that have been created since 2013 have gone to a temporary visa holder. I will tell you what temporary visa holders work for. I'm not going to name the industry, because I've got a lot of good friends in this industry and I think some of them are doing this. But I'll tell you what it is: they work a 60-hour week, these temporary visa holders from overseas. They get paid about $700 a week and they pay $150 for board and lodging, which consists of a bedroom that I can almost reach across and touch both walls in. It has three beds stacked one on top of the other on one side and three beds stacked one on top of the other on the other side. And they pay $150 for the privilege of having one of those beds and sharing the bathroom facilities with some 20 people. Increasingly, those are the job options in North Queensland.
We have a bloodthirsty battle in Queensland over the coal industry. We have only two industries in Queensland, really. Everything else pales into insignificance beside the sugar industry and the coal industry. Yes, we have hard rock mining but it's nothing like the size of the coal industry. It's negligible. We have an aluminium industry, which is significant, but it's nothing like the sugar industry or the coal industry. And we have a government in Queensland that wants to close down both industries. The ALP government in Queensland would close down both industries! I've never thought that they were particularly characterised by intellectual capacity, the leadership of the Labor Party in Queensland, but it takes a particular type of callous viciousness to destroy the jobs and the livelihoods of the coalminers of Queensland. My union, the CFMMEU, of which I am a proud member, has stood up to this. No-one else in Australia has stood up, but they've stood up and they've had to fight and take on people who they've worked with and been friends with all of their lives, their Labor colleagues. The split is now becoming venomous and bloodthirsty in Queensland, and it will worsen. Whilst the lily pad Left controls the Labor Party in Queensland, the hard Left are going to be left with nothing. There are no jobs in the sugar industry and there will be no jobs because there will be no sugar industry. That's because, 'Oh, the sugar industry is destroying the Barrier Reef.' The sugar industry has been there for 200 years; the Barrier Reef is still there.
They have brought in temporary visas. They were not brought in by the Liberal Party; they were brought in by the Labor Party. There is a strong strain of hypocrisy coming off this side of the House here. Fly-in mining was banned by the Court government in Western Australia and banned by the Bjelke-Petersen government in Queensland. That ban was an enormous benefit to the people who worked in the mines. The minute the Labor Party came in along with their big corporate friends, they abolished the ban on FIFO mining in Western Australia. We know the corruption related to that decision; it is an ugly part of Australian history. In Queensland they abolished the ban on FIFO mining.
A town like Mount Isa—a proud town that was growing and prosperous and one of the richest towns in Australia, with 36,000 people—is now a town of 19,000 people, and half of them are the left-behinds. They're not the sort of people that can get jobs working in the mines. The poor workers have a very limited home life. They're only home one week out of two.
They're bringing in 640,000 people on temporary visas. Of those, 200,000 are migrants; 440,000 temporary visa workers are coming into Australia every year. So we have 640,000 people, almost all adults coming from overseas, almost all eligible for work, chasing 200,000 jobs. When I went to university, it was called supply and demand. Where you've got a massive oversupply of labour, the price for labour is going to go through the floor. Where we were getting 200,000 experienced miners, we're now getting 100,000 and soon we'll be getting 50,000. When you cut the throats of the only people that are fighting back—the CFMMEU, and I think there are not many other unions that are standing up proudly like they are and fighting the good fight. Yes, all right; they may not be perfect people. Let's face it, we as a union had to inherit the building labourers, and there was a famous comment when we complained that they're a bunch of criminals, that they'd kill people and we didn't want them. Bob Hawke said, 'No, you blokes are commos; you can handle them!' So we ended up having to inherit and trying to pull back into a gear a union that was completely out of control. We haven't done a bad job in pulling them back. It may not be perfect at this stage, and I'll be the first to admit that.
I think the government is genuine in what it's trying to do, but there's a very strong element of class struggle, which belongs in the early part of the last century, and there's a very strong element of politics like you're the good guys and this other mob, the unions, are the bad guys. That is not healthy for Australia. It's not the tradition of the Liberal Party, which was started off by Bob Menzies, the very proud grandson of one of the great union leader of this country.
I'm pleased I was in the chamber to listen to the member for Kennedy because, unlike on other occasions, on this occasion I pretty much agreed with most of what he said. After the 18 May election, it was my expectation that a priority of the Morrison government would indeed be to continue its attacks and pursue the ideological destruction of unions and worker organisations in this country. My expectation has proven to be correct. We saw it as one of the first issues on the agenda a couple of weeks ago when we debated some other industrial legislation, and now this legislation goes to the heart of attacking unions in this country.
It's an attack which began under the Howard government in 1996, and I can well recall the waterfront saga in 1998 and then the Work Choices legislation prior to the 2007 election. It was clear to me from both of those events and, in particular, the Work Choices legislation that the Australian people are not fools. They understand fairness and unfairness when they see them, and this legislation is another example of unfairness.
The attack on trade unions continued in 2013 when the coalition was re-elected under former Prime Minister Abbott and we had the Heydon trade union royal commission. That was a deliberate attempt to look for reasons to change the laws relating to the operations of unions in this country. Regrettably for the coalition, that royal commission didn't deliver the findings that the coalition had hoped for. But this government, in order to justify its anti-union agenda, is relying on the Heydon royal commission to bring into parliament legislation which goes well beyond what the Heydon royal commission had recommended. I have to say that whilst the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2019 includes tougher accounting controls and restrictions on worker organisations—the Heydon royal commission might have alluded to some of those matters in their recommendations—it seems to differentiate between the laws that should apply for unions in this country and the laws that apply for industry organisations in this country. Indeed, the laws that will be implemented if this legislation goes through the parliament are much more onerous than the obligations that are placed on industry in this country.
Whilst that doesn't surprise me, it does concern me. It concerns me for this reason: we had a royal commission into the banking sector in this country, which handed down its recommendations. The lack of enthusiasm by this government to implement the recommendations of the banking royal commission, when contrasted to its enthusiasm for implementing recommendations of the Heydon royal commission, where it goes beyond what the commissioner recommended, is very clear to us on this side of the House. While the government puts the blowtorch on unions—and, in doing so, weakens them—the real losers in this legislation become the men and women whose primary protection of their income and their entitlements comes from the worker organisations that represent them. What this government is really doing is not attacking the unions but indirectly attacking the men and women workers of this country, because they are the ones who stand to lose the most.
I will go to some of the detail in this bill. The bill amends the Fair Work Act to make changes to the regulation of worker entitlement funds. Those changes put additional requirements on the governance, financial reporting and financial disclosure requirements of worker entitlement funds. They place limits on when a worker entitlement fund can become or stay registered, including what sort of organisation can operate the fund, the make-up of the board of the fund and the way in which the assets of the fund can be used. The bill also amends the registered organisations act to introduce new rules and penalties around financial records and reporting for all unions.
Worker entitlement funds exist to protect workers' entitlements and provide services to workers, such as training and counselling support. Often, the funds operate in industries where there are high levels of phoenix operators and unfunded entitlements. Whilst the government will make it sound like these changes are to benefit workers, they are in fact burdensome regulations aimed at making it more difficult for unions to achieve better pay and conditions for their workers.
If the Morrison government is so concerned about protecting workers, then why isn't it doing more to stop employers who are underpaying their workers or taking advantage of them in so many other ways? Recent very high-profile examples of underpayment by employers demonstrate that much more needs to be done. Yet, for all the high-profile cases, there are many more which don't make the media. In one example that my office was contacted about, a young worker was employed for a short period of time. She received pay slips which, as expected, detailed the withholding tax and superannuation payments. Her pay arrived in her bank account. However, the first sign of something not being right was when she didn't receive a group certificate. When trying to lodge her tax return online, her pay details from the employer did not automatically download. It seems highly likely that the employer didn't pay the withholding tax to the Australian ATO and didn't pay the superannuation contributions either. My understanding is that, in these cases, it's the employer's responsibility to meet those obligations, not the employee's, and the issue of the tax debt is a matter that the Australian tax office should be pursuing. Nonetheless, the loser in this case is the young employee who works for a short period of time and then, when she attempts to lodge her tax return, is unable to do so. In the process, it's clear that she has lost her super and that she will get no tax refund that she probably would have otherwise been entitled to.
In a different situation that I'm also aware of, a small number of employees stayed on for a short period after the rest of their colleagues were terminated in a particular industry in order to help complete the wind-up of a business that was undergoing liquidation. It was a big business. As a consequence of remaining and the date of their termination being when all other employees had left, the business was then reclassified as a small business because it only had a handful of employees—the ones who stayed on to finalise the liquidation of the business. This meant that, unlike their colleagues, those remaining workers who had stayed on to wind-up the business did not receive the full benefit of the Fair Entitlements Guarantee because the business was reclassified as a small business. They lost thousands of dollars.
I raised this matter with the government. In his response, Minister Porter indicated that there may be an opportunity to consider the application of this rule as part of the government's broader review of industrial relations law. I look forward to the government's consideration of this matter because, as I've pointed out, the workers lost thousands of dollars for doing the right thing and staying back to wind-up the company. I suspect that this might have been an unintended consequence of the current industrial law.
In May this year it was reported that Fair Work inspectors had undertaken an audit in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland of almost 1,400 businesses. The audit found more than one in five of those businesses underpaid their workers. In its submission for the inquiry into wage theft in Queensland, the ACTU argued that wage theft has become a business model, with workers in large businesses being routinely exploited. It is a sad fact that often it is the lowest paid workers, who can least afford it, who are the ones ripped off the most. There are numerous ways that workers are being ripped off. Some of those mentioned in the ACTU's submission include: failing to pay superannuation, failing to pay for breaks, failing to pay overtime, the compulsory use of employer provided staff accommodation to claw back wages, withholding of wages on the basis that it will put visa status at risk, not paying for trial or training periods, misclassifying workers as independent contractors, deliberate employee misclassification, not paying annual or paid leave, not paying appropriately for higher duties, phoenixing-type activity—where a firm goes into liquidation or administration to avoid having to pay employee entitlements and re-emerges under a different legal structure but with the same or related individual control—and failing to deduct or remit taxation amounts.
In the short time left to me, I want to relate another case of how this government is supporting the demise of working entitlements and conditions in this country—that is, its support for outsourcing, subcontracting, the loss of penalty rates and the like. One SA government worker told me only last week how his work within the South Australian government got outsourced. It has subsequently been outsourced from one entity to another on several occasions. He made it very clear that every time a new entity takes over the work that was previously done under direct employment of the South Australian government, this person loses entitlements. He either loses wages or has to work longer in order to get the same wages. It's a clear case of the person's working conditions and income being slowly eroded as a result of the outsourcing that took place. His example is typical of what is happening to workers around the country.
If this government is serious about protecting workers' benefits, these are the issues that it should be focusing on. There are many of them out there. They have been brought to the attention of this House time and time again, and I'm sure that the government is well aware of them. I say to members opposite: if you are serious about improving workers' benefits and you want to treat them the way that you would like to be treated then this legislation isn't the way to do that.
Debate interrupted.
Afterpay, Zip Pay, Openpay, Humm and Newcomer Bundle are all a new form of financial product, so-called digital layby. But they are not actually layby. Layby used to mean that the store put the goods aside, you paid them off in instalments, and only when you had actually paid for them would you pick up the goods. But nowadays you get the goods up-front at the point of sale, whether that is instore or online, and then you pay for them over a set period. Afterpay, which is the most successful of these products, requires four fortnightly payments. Payments are interest free if met on time. But, for a growing number of financially vulnerable Australians, mainly young people, this is seeing them drown in late fees, risking bankruptcy and destruction of their financial future.
These products exist in the shadows. Unbelievably, they are not regulated and are not considered a credit product under the National Credit Code. The providers have no obligation to assess whether the consumer can actually afford to purchase the product. Most of these products do not perform any form of credit check and have no idea how many competitor products the consumer may also hold. So vulnerable young people are getting deeper and deeper into debt with credit from multiple providers, yet this never triggers a credit check.
Buy now pay later—BNPL—is especially popular with young millennial women. It's now being used extensively to fund clothes, shoes, make-up, eyelashes, hair extensions and cosmetic dentistry. Yet retailers, not the end consumer, are actually the real customers of BNPL products. This whole thing is designed to push up retail sales, not to protect a consumer's financial wellbeing. Retailers love this of course. People spontaneously buy stuff that they can't afford, especially young lifestyle- and social-media-focused consumers. A quick look at Afterpay's website reveals exactly who they're targeting. I looked at the front page this afternoon. They have little tiles: 18 pictures are of scantily clad, glamorous women. There is one baby and there are two men.
In the first six months of this year, Afterpay reported that late fees made up 17.6 per cent of their statutory income, yet less than five per cent of their customers paid late fees. What that means is that a tiny proportion, less than five per cent of customers, are paying enormous late fees. For them, BNPL products are downright dangerous.
Growth in unregulated BNPL is exploding. In just two years, 2016 to 2018, the number of customers jumped from 400,000 to over two million. BNPL providers still pretend they're not flogging a credit product, yet the fine print from Afterpay—I'm picking on them although they're probably actually the best of the companies; they're the largest and best because they do agree we need regulation—states that they reserve the right to report any negative activity on your account, including late payments, missed payments, defaults and chargebacks, to credit reporting agencies. But they don't complete credit checks on their customers. This is having a bet each way. They won't check but they will wreck your credit rating.
There is now a strong correlation between the use of high-cost payday lenders and BNPL usage. One payday lender has admitted that 90 per cent of its applicants have used BNPL products in the previous 90 days. Jane is one of these victims. She is in her 20s and works in a supermarket. Recently, when Jane applied for a $1,500 personal loan, the lender discovered that she had 288 BNPL transactions from one company in just 90 days, totalling $5,600. They were all for beauty and fashion purchases. If the BNPL product had assessed Jane's credit history in a cursory way, they would have found that she had opened 11 payday loans in just 90 days, has a credit card and an active file with a debt collector. Jane could not afford to pay her food and rent, and she was totally consumed by late fees.
Once the late fees start they're a killer. The way they work is that you get a loan for $2,000; you can have 10 separate transactions under that loan; you miss one payment, maybe because your car breaks down or you're sick from work for a day, and they can't get the payment as a direct debit; you get 10 late fees and it compounds from there. That debt is sent to a debt collector, and they're not shy about sending you bankrupt for very small amounts of money. It wrecks your life. Young Australians like Jane need to be protected from this form of credit.
Nothing I've said tonight is new. The government knows about this problem and yet they have not done anything. ASIC reviewed the arrangements and concluded in January that they have no jurisdiction to regulate this conduct and to address the lending risk to consumers. There are new products entering the market every month and it is urgent that these products are regulated as credit. If it smells like credit, it feels like credit and it works like credit then we have to accept that it's credit and bring it into the regulatory framework.
These products are of course great for lots of people who use them responsibly, and they should be there with fit-for-purpose regulation. It doesn't need to be onerous like a home loan, but action is needed to rein these products in and make them safe.
Last week I joined my colleague and fellow veteran the member for Canning at the official launch of the Recovery and Restoration Centre in Jarrahdale in the electorate of Canning in Western Australia. The Governor of Western Australia and the patron of the centre, his Excellency, the Hon. Kim Beazley, AC, spoke eloquently and passionately as he officially launched the centre.
Having joined the advisory board of the R and R transition centre a couple of years ago, this was a proud moment for me personally—not for any selfish reason but because this important initiative has now officially moved from being an outstanding idea to being an operating entity which helps veterans in their transition to civilian life. This initiative is one of the most practical ways in which we can meet our responsibility to look after those who have worn the uniform of the Australian Defence Forces on our behalf.
We often say that the first priority of government is to keep our citizens safe. Having served as an infantry officer, and later as a reservist attached to the Special Air Service Regiment, and being married to a veteran, my family and I well understand this priority. The motto of the R and R transition centre is 'Family, Unity, Purpose'. These are the principles which are driving the veterans running the centre to support their mates in transition. The vision of the centre is to be the primary point of contact for WA based military personnel transitioning back into civilian life, to provide a proactive and preventative approach to the wellbeing of ex- and current defence members and to do so by providing a safe environment where we can work with other support organisations to deliver on their essential modes of assistance. Ex-service people have an enormous amount to offer. However, adjusting from a long military career to living and working in civilian life can be challenging for the individuals and their families. The R and R transition centre is a place where veterans and professionals look after veterans and their families, embodying the fine ethos of service for those who have served.
The centre has now begun scheduling short courses, including this month, when The Younger Heroes will conduct a camp for veterans and their children to spend time together in a beautiful bush setting. As well as The Younger Heroes, other partner organisations include the RSL, the SAS Resources Fund, Men's Shed WA, Executive Risk Solutions and others. Open Arms are also in advanced discussions about how their important services can be delivered on site. Future services will include counselling and vocational training. The centre itself is being careful not to reinvent the wheel where there are already other organisations providing services to veterans. Rather, the centre provides an ideal environment to host the services provided by partnering organisations.
Whilst the vast majority of ex-defence personnel transition as fit, healthy and value-adding members of society, it's now well publicised that some do struggle. In the worst circumstances this can lead to conditions including anxiety, depression and even suicide. The centre adopts a preventative approach, supporting veterans in their transition by providing a setting where there are mates and service providers on hand who understand their unique circumstances.
Our government has shown that we are serious about this issue, and I'm personally grateful that my experience in this area has already been utilised by the Prime Minister, along with the growing number of other veterans who have chosen to serve in parliament. In the last sitting period, the Prime Minister convened a group of ministers, the Chief of Defence Force, department leaders and veterans who are now MPs in a workshop that lasted for four hours—a significant block of time for a Prime Minister and senior ministers. Minister Chester and I are also meeting again later this week to continue our discussions on a series of matters, including the future of the R and R transition centre. I also relish my role as secretary for the coalition's Defence and Veterans' Affairs Policy Committee, which is already shaping up to be a place where I can do further good with the experience I've gained over my life before politics.
To conclude, I commend the Prime Minister and the government for their focus on assisting veterans who are transitioning. I welcome the support of the Governor of WA for launching the R and R transition centre. I thank my colleague the member for Canning for his support and I look forward to advocating for veterans and the roles they play in broader society.
Like many of us, I get media releases from Senator Mathias Cormann extolling what government work is being done and what's being financed. I have a few remarkable observations. I still can't believe we have a Minister for Finance who can't do numbers, but that's your choice, not ours. We had a media release issued by Mathias Cormann that listed Mathias Cormann first, then the Prime Minister, then the Deputy Prime Minister and then the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It's pretty good that the finance minister gets top billing on a media release that involves the Prime Minister, talking about the Western Sydney International Airport Experience Centre.
This airport is a $10 billion project. It was announced last week that a centre was being set up that would feature interactive digital videos that talk about the history of the region and the importance of the airport. When this was being talked up in the media, it talked about augmented reality being used in the airport. And that would be handy, because the media release talks about how this centre will provide an opportunity for the people of Western Sydney to see firsthand the transformation underway and what the terminal and the runway will look like. This is all fantastic—on a project that was announced five years ago, that is costing $10 billion, we may, through augmented reality, get the opportunity to see how the terminal looks and how the runway looks, but we've got no idea of a flight plan.
It has been five years since this government announced that it would break its own election commitment—it said it had no plans for this airport and then it found the airport and put it in place—and it won't tell the people of the fastest growing region in the country where the planes will fly. It's an airport with no planes. It is an amazing thing that's being achieved. Yet, in the same week as we got this frivolous announcement about this experience centre and all the digital goodies that will go with it, the government announced a multimillion dollar contract with Lendlease to build a terminal. It's going to take until 2021 to find out where the planes fly, but we're getting front-loaded with all this expenditure—$10 billion of it—and we're seeing things steadily being put on that site, and there's a reason for it. It's going to get to a point where the government has spent so much money on this site, then it will release the flight plans and it will be too late to do anything about it. The way the government has treated the people of Western Sydney in respect of this airport is an absolute disgrace. It keeps telling us about the jobs. This is a big airport when it comes to jobs, yet only 50 per cent will be dedicated to Western Sydney. But it's a small airport when it comes to impact, because we've got no ideas of the flight plans. It goes to show you how cynical the government is in respect of this airport, and the people of Western Sydney will find out.
The other thing that gets me going is that we have all this money being spent in Western Sydney, but ordinary needs are going begging. For example, in our part of Western Sydney people can't access train services at their local train station. By that I mean the disabled and the elderly cannot access train stations provided by the New South Wales government. I had to go to the extent of encouraging people to file complaints with the Australian Human Rights Commission because lifts won't be installed at their local railway station. Disabled people have written and told me it's an extra 90-minute round journey because they can't use their local railway station. Why is it that we have to go to a human rights commission to take action against one level of government because it's not following the laws of the federal government when it comes to disability discrimination? It's not right at all. We had to find out under freedom of information how the government in New South Wales prioritises the installation of equipment like lifts. Doonside, which is much higher on the priority list, does not get its lift installed. Its disabled and elderly can't access public transport, yet stations in other electorates, which just happen to be Liberal electorates, with much lower needs get lifts.
I have had an outstanding response from the community, with people as old as 70 and 80 wanting to put in complaints to the Human Rights Commission. I've had people with a disability saying they want to take part. We're going to do a special day where we get people from the community to, en masse, put in these complaints. In this day and age, they should not have to tolerate long ramps that prevent them accessing public transport. We are told we need use public transport more, yet it's been made harder to actually achieve.
In the current debate on religious freedom it is important that we are respectful and tolerant of the religious beliefs of all Australians. The legislation, which is currently in the draft stages, may well be more accurately described as promoting religious harmony as opposed to religious freedom. Nevertheless, as a lifelong Christian, I am a strong supporter of traditional family values, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, multiculturalism and reconciliation. Government should not restrict Australians from worshipping freely according to their faith, beliefs, values and conscience, except in instances where hate, violence or illegal acts are incited. Simply disagreeing with the religious views of another person or group of persons should not be the grounds for government intervention.
Religious freedom extends into the realm of cultural freedom, which is important in a multicultural society. Individuals must be free to live their lives according to deeply held values and beliefs which are not only religious in nature but cultural in nature without impinging on the rights of others to exercise their rights and freedoms. For example, Christmas is both religious and cultural in nature. The freedom to believe in Christ and the freedom to celebrate with customary carols and festive traditions are religious and cultural freedoms which must be preserved.
There is a distinct difference between the notions of discernment and discrimination. Individuals must be free to discern between what is good and bad. They must have the freedom to choose between what is right and wrong and to determine what is appropriate and inappropriate. These choices are quite distinct from discrimination, which the legislation seeks to curtail. Each day we make discernments in our choices and our behaviour, and about whom we choose to associate, and these choices must not be confused with discrimination. Legislation and regulation should not infringe on our basic human rights to discern. Discernment is often required with activities that are legal, such as moderation in the consumption of alcohol, gambling or smoking tobacco. Individuals, parents and families should be free to express their values and beliefs to their children. The Australian public should be adequately consulted before legislation pertaining to religious freedom is introduced into parliament.
Looking to the future, I believe that all Australians should become more united through reconciliation and multiculturalism. Australians should all be united as one people under one flag, regardless of origins and history. I strongly belief in the principle of flying one national flag of national unity, under the banner of the Australian flag. Indigenous Australians, new migrants and people from different ethnic backgrounds, and persons born in Australia should all be treated equally, with access to opportunity and advancement based on merit.
I was born in Singapore, a nation of many ethnic groups and religions which is very multicultural in nature and which has enjoyed relative harmony in its modern history. From a young age I was exposed to many different cultural practices, religious traditions and festivals in a multicultural society which was diverse and colourful. However, in Singapore's history race and ethnicity were once treated with more formality. Having emigrated from a country which once had a policy of recording a citizen's race on official documents, I can appreciate the benefits of not having one's racial background recorded on Australian official documents.
Our constitution should promote harmony, unity and a single national identity, rather than differentiation based on race or ethnicity. It doesn't matter how long one has been in Australia or from which country we have come from. What matters is what we do in Australia—our accomplishments and achievements. We all share a collective responsibility to build up our nation together as one people. In any debate surrounding a referendum to change the Constitution, the principal of national unity should be promoted—one people united under one flag. We must make constructive steps towards uniting all people as Australians, regardless of their origin, ethnicity or other attributes, advancing our nation into the future.
Nothing gives me more faith in the future of our country than spending time with the next generation of youth leaders. Last week, I held my annual Whitlam Youth Leaders Roundtable. It was attended by 60 students from 11 schools throughout my electorate, and I'm proud to say that this event is now in its ninth year. We bring together students from across the electorate to talk about issues which are important to them. I undertake to raise the issues that they've raised with me here in parliament.
This year, the schools in attendance included Kanahooka High School, Dapto High School, St Joseph's Catholic High School, Albion Park High School, St Paul's International College, Illawarra Sports High School, Chevalier College, Oak Flats High School, Calderwood Christian School, Lake Illawarra High School and Corpus Christi Catholic High School. Over the course of the day, I heard from students from many different backgrounds, and I was refreshed to hear the range of issues the students raised and were eager to see addressed.
These bright, young leaders talked passionately about climate change, mental health, education, employment, health care and age cared, and they had impressive knowledge about youth unemployment, the challenges facing young people and the long-term unemployed throughout regional centres. They were not afraid to confront the tough issues from the schoolyard to the parliament, whether it was body image, online bullying or abortion rights. When they tackled this issue, there was respectful debate. There were differences of opinion but sophisticated solutions. We can learn much from these young leaders. There was civil debate on strongly held issues, including issues of ethical and moral difference. I commend the students for the way they engaged on these issues.
They were convinced of the power of education and knowledge to overcome and solve so many of their problems and did not revert to the simple formula of demanding that government just fix everything. But one thing that they did want to see government act on was climate change to help save the environment that they preciously treasure so much. They want their children to be able to visit Australia's natural wonders, like the Great Barrier Reef. They know how urgent the task of climate action is, and they know that their future and the future of so many in our region relies on urgent action. For them, it isn't politics; it's simply the right thing to do. I was encouraged by their conviction and their need to fight for the things that they believe in. We should join them in this fight.
Our young people, like us, want our hospitals to be better equipped. They want to see more staff to improve health care in regional Australia. Locally, so many have experienced the effect of bed block in regional centres on a loved one, the importance of accessible and affordable diagnostic tests and surgery, and the need for aged care for the people in their family. They believe that more awareness is needed in mental health and that both students and teachers need training when it comes to mental health first aid. They were willing to be part of the solution and eager for government to increase funding in this area.
The students also wanted the government to increase funding to schools. I heard stories of overcrowded schools and textbooks not being available for basic subjects. They wanted to ensure that schools are equipped to handle the growing number of students across the region, and they wanted to see that every child in their community gets the chance to learn and see their potential. I support them in this.
Finally, they want more opportunity for young Australians. Students want to see the introduction of a life-skills course in school where students can learn how the workplace really works, how their taxes work, how superannuation and other rights at work operate, and how to draft a simple resume. They thought that this shouldn't be something that was just an add-on but should be something that was a core part of their curriculum.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the schools, who, on an annual basis, have entrusted their students to my care and for their ability to bring them together to engage in this respectful debate. I thank the teachers who gave up a day to come along and join with me in the discussion. Most of all, I thank the young student leaders. I am always motivated by their enthusiasm, and I'm always surprised by the sophistication they bring to the challenges that they face.
The Whitlam youth leaders roundtable is an initiative that I'm proud of, and I hope that it will continue for a long time into the future. These students weren't afraid to speak truth to power, and we in this place should learn a thing or two from their passion and their perspective. I undertook to report to the parliament; I have done so.
I rise to bring to the attention of the House the inquiry that the House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy has begun into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia. I've been very impressed by the early depositions from ANSTO, which has a long history of providing medical and other isotopes around the world. In fact, when its new medical isotope facility gets up to full speed it will have the potential to provide 20 per cent of the world's medical isotopes. We have over 200 nuclear medical installations around the nation. They are all supplied by isotopes that have been developed and delivered by the Lucas Heights facility that ANSTO runs.
We have our second nuclear reactor in the Lucas Heights facility sitting peacefully only four or five kilometres away from suburbia. The initial reactor, built in the 1950s, has had 50 years of waste recycled through facilities in France and is now stored safely in a giant megacapsule. Low-level waste that has come from nuclear medicine facilities and from the Lucas Heights reactor itself is stored in what we would call industrial or agricultural sheds in the middle of suburbia. It has been kept there safely since the 1950s. We have a long history of involvement in nuclear science and nuclear technology and in the practical applications of it. We have a broad based university system with a huge amount of knowledge in this area. We have abundant supplies of nuclear material in the form of uranium, which occurs quite naturally, and we supply vast amounts of uranium externally to people around the world who use it in their power stations. We have proposed at various times creating enormous wealth for the state of South Australia and for the nation in burying low-, medium- and even high-level waste. The high-level waste was put in the too-hard basket, and it is just the low-level and medium-level waste that is being looked at.
I would like to make the most bleedingly obvious observation. If something has been stored safely in industrial sheds in barrels five kilometres from suburbia in the middle of Sydney, with a nuclear reactor on site and a second operating safely right next door, surely it is not unreasonable to think that putting a waste facility in remote Australia would be inherently very safe.
The other conundrum is that, at the moment, Australia has a prohibition on the use of nuclear technology to deliver electricity. As happens with coal-fired base-load energy generation, burning the fuel, in this case coal, creates the steam that runs the turbines that run the dynamos, the copper and magnets that generate electricity. The same happens if you have diesel generators, which are currently used in South Australia when they don't have enough base-load energy. How many irrigators and farmers are turning to diesel to generate electricity to run their pumps to produce food? Electricity and water are so expensive they've got to save money somewhere, because the cost of those two inputs is greater than the value of the crop, whether it be sugar cane or broader horticulture. The principle is the same for a petrol engine, a diesel engine or a hydroelectricity scheme, where the energy and gravity delivers through the turbines enough power to run the dynamos that then generate electricity. It is all the same principle. Nuclear energy itself doesn't generate the electricity; it heats steam. With molten salt reactors and the new technologies that are emerging with small modular reactors, they generate the heat that spins the turbines of the dynamo which generates electricity. We've seen small module reactors— (Time expired)
House adjourned at 20:00
I recently had the pleasure of visiting Whalan Public School to see firsthand some work being done there by the Sydney Theatre Company with young students, showing them how to express their imagination, ideas and thoughts. It is a terrific program that is being run by the Sydney Theatre Company. I commend them and the school on that. After seeing that, I was approached by two students—Liberty, from class 2D, and Willow, from class 2MH. They wanted to impress on me, through two letters they provided, what they would do if they were Prime Minister of Australia. And I committed to them to read out some of their thoughts in the parliament because they had thought a lot about some of the things they wanted to do. For example, Liberty said that, if she were Prime Minister, she would want to introduce everyone from overseas to Australia. She said: 'It would make me feel like a real Prime Minister. I would show them what lamingtons and Vegemite are and how great Australia is.' She also had very tough words about people leaving rubbish around, and she wanted Australia to look better. Finally, she said she had a 'pro Lego' policy. In her words: 'Kids can build so many amazing things with Lego. It helps our minds to make amazing things. If I were Prime Minister, I'd make sure every school had heaps of Lego, just like Whalan.'
And Willow said that, if she were Prime Minister, she would make sure Australia is the cleanest place on earth. She would clean up Australia and get lots of people to sign up to make Australia even cleaner. She would make an extra day in the week, which she would call 'Funday'. That's pretty good; I think a lot of people would agree with that! On top of that, she would make everyone's birthday twice a year. I suspect that, as we get on, we would have another think about that! But when you are young you are happy to have an extra day of the year where you are celebrating your birthday. So good on her. She had some great ideas as well.
I was very grateful for the time they took to express those ideas to me. Good on them for thinking about how they can improve the country they live in.
I also recently met with residents in Shedworth Street, Marayong about—no guesses here—the terrible state of the rollout of the National Broadband Network in the area. They are relying on ADSL, which is delivering download speeds of one megabit per second. NBN is telling them it knows it is a problem but if they want it fixed they should sign up to a newsletter. 'Sign up to a newsletter' if you have a problem? 'Yeah nah,' is I think the way people would describe that. We need to see the rollout accelerated. In that area, in Shedworth Street, it is clear that there is an overhead feed of HFC. The government said this would be a fix, yet this group of 20 residents who saw me one Saturday arc clearly not happy about it. They need access to a modern broadband network, not access to more excuses by the government.
There are 15 outstanding surf lifesaving clubs across the Central Coast. Today I want to pay tribute to one in particular: Umina Surf Life Saving Club, which was recently named New South Wales club of the year at the Surf Life Saving Awards of Excellence New South Wales. Umina surf club received three prestigious awards in total on the night, including New South Wales patrol of the year and youth lifesaver of the year. These awards recognise the tireless efforts of the club's executive and the work of all members over the past season. Umina is one of the largest surf lifesaving clubs on the Central Coast. It reached the impressive milestone of 1,000 members last season and continues to grow. During the last surf season, over 300,000 visitors to the beach were kept safe by the club's dedicated volunteer lifesavers, who patrolled for a combined total of 10,200 hours.
Umina is a fantastic example of a club that has created a wonderful community—a place where members from the broader community can 'find their fit'—and this was recognised as part of the club of the year award. The club ran a unique marketing campaign—'Does the cap fit?'—encouraging members of the broader community to consider how they could contribute to the surf club, be it through patrolling, competing or simply putting a hand up to help.
The work that Umina surf club has done in connecting with the local community and local sponsors also contributed to their winning that award. I'd like to congratulate President Stephen Scahill and his executive: Director of Lifesaving Paul Sharpe, Director of Education Bob Powell, Director of Administration Jenni Darwin, Director of Facilities Greg Smith, Director of Surf Sports Harold Marshall, Director of Finance Wendy Cook and Junior Activity Coordinator Skye Marshall. I congratulate you on this outstanding achievement.
Umina's patrol No. 12 were also recognised as New South Wales Patrol of the Year. They received this award for their determination in keeping beachgoers safe, as well as their outstanding beach management. Congratulations to Patrol Captain Skye Marshall and all the members of patrol 12.
Seventeen-year-old Kai Darwin from Umina received the New South Wales Youth Lifesaver of the Year award for his incredible contribution to the club. In three years he's patrolled over 270 hours, as well as volunteering 1,500 hours towards surf lifesaving activities at a state and national level.
All of our clubs on the Central Coast make a great contribution, and two more members of our lifesaving community were recognised: Peter Lemmon from Terrigal Surf Life Saving Club, my own surf club, who received the New South Wales Masters of the Year award, and Paul Duignan from Copacabana Surf Life Saving Club, who was awarded Facilitator of the Year. Congratulations to both.
Summer and the next surf season are just around the corner, and our amazing volunteer lifesavers will be out patrolling, giving up their time this year to keep our beaches safe. As a member of the lifesaving community, I know that none of our volunteers do what they do for recognition or praise, but I do place on record my thanks to the thousands of Central Coast locals who will help to keep our community safe this summer.
I rise to speak up for Mrs Clarke of Endeavour Hills, after receiving a cry for help from her daughter and her family. Mrs Clarke is losing her memory and her mobility and she is desperately in need of a level 4 home care package. She applied in October 2017. In April 2018 My Aged Care claimed not to have received the application. They lost it. So her daughter applied again in May 2018 and was told it would be about 12 months. In December 2018 the family were desperate and they applied for a reassessment, but My Aged Care said no and that 'there was no immediate risk of entering residential care because your carers are no longer able to provide care'.
Mrs Clarke is now incontinent. She has a heart condition and severe arthritis. As of last week, she cannot stand without assistance. The only help she gets from My Aged Care is three showers a week from the council. That's it. To the government, Mrs Clarke is just a number on a list. Her life is in limbo. Her family's lives are in limbo and in chaos while they wait and she deteriorates. Her family now provide her with food and transport, and one family member somehow stays overnight with her every night, because they're too scared to leave her alone, because she has no other care except three showers a week. They're neglecting their own families. They work full time. They get no other support from the government, no carers payments. They pay their taxes. They expect some care for their frail mum. They're being punished by My Aged Care now because Mrs Clarke is not a priority—perversely, because her family are helping so much. Maybe if they stopped helping and left her in her nappies by herself, then the government might care. In July Mrs Clarke's daughter Anne called My Aged Care again, desperate because the family can't do it anymore. She told them that her mother had had two falls. Their response was to say: 'It looks like it's going to be at least another 12 months, but we can get you a physio appointment.' So Anne had to take the day off work to take her to the physio appointment.
Mrs Clarke is one of 129,000 Australians waiting at home, and the list just gets longer. Mrs Clarke's daughter told My Aged Care—and she wrote it in a letter to me—that her mum may not be alive by the time she gets help. Sadly, Mrs Clarke's daughter may well be right, because 16,000 older Australians have died waiting for the help that they deserve. The government are failing. They've had six years of cruelty, of failure, of cuts. The Prime Minister, when he was Treasurer, cut $1.2 billion from aged care. This is his legacy. It's all politics with this government. Everything is 'a test for Labor'. If you want to talk about the 'quiet Australians', how about you do something to help Mrs Clarke and the people like her? There's a test for you, Government.
Goldstein's rich social fabric is bound by the bonds that lie at the heart of many of our community organisations—organisations like Probus, which opens its doors to retired men and women to help build friendship, fellowship and new experiences. I'd like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the current leaders of the Probus mission in Goldstein and thank them for their incredible service to our community and for the important role that they play in making sure that retired Australians have every opportunity to live a fulfilled life and to combat the challenges our society faces around social isolation and making sure older Australians remain fit and active and engaged in our community. Of course, we have Beaumaris Probus, particularly their president, Keith Ross, who recently succeeded their past president, Roger Wilson—of no relation but nonetheless a fine gentleman. Thank you to the vice-president, Simon Appel; the secretary, John Smyth; the treasurer, Geoff Carlson; the functions officer, Ken Beadle; the meetings officer, Geoff Wade; the webmaster, Geoff Bransbury; the newsletter officer—always a very important person—Peter McGregor; the memberships officer, Peter Flude; and the welfare officer, Alan Stevens. We have Bayside Probus and their president, Tamara Hellewell; the secretary, Sally Baker; the membership secretary, Jane McLean; the treasurer, Phil Wicks; the almoner, Margaret Purcell; and the committee members, David McKern, John Wilson and David John. We have the Sandy Bay Combined Probus with their president, Julia Boland; the vice-president, Pam Brown; the secretary, Graham Gilpin; the treasurer, Pam Young; and the committee members, Ed Robins, Bob Burnell and Malcolm Baird. We have the Brighton Central Combined Probus Club, with the president, Elinor Monger; the secretary, Margaret Baxter; and the membership officer, Lesley Rigby. We have the Probus Club of Brighton East, with the president, Lynette Venn; the secretary, Lynette Johnston; and the treasurer, Judy Ralph. They all play a critical part in making sure that our community cares and supports each other.
There are other community organisations, like Rotary and Lions clubs. We have had local Lions club leadership changeovers in recent months. We'd like to congratulate and thank them for their service as well. Congratulations to Leigh Hutton, who succeeded Barry Bruce as president of the Beaumaris Lions Club. At our Brighton Lions Club, I would like to acknowledge the president, John Evans, and the vice-president, Mike Hawke. The new board of the Lions Club of Sandringham was installed at the recent changeover dinner in June by past district governor, Pat Mills, alongside district governor-elect, Kumar Swaminathan. Congratulations to the president, Lee Murray; the secretary, Donna Cooper; the treasurer, Rob Anderson; the first vice-president, Anne Holland; the second vice-president, Bob Standalof; the director, Kate Clayton; the membership chair, Bev McLennan; and the lion tamer—that's an interesting job—Kate Rhodes. All the people mentioned today play an outstanding role in our community and its success. We want to thank them for their ongoing contribution and wish them all the best in the year ahead.
I rise to condemn this government's dangerous plans to develop a nuclear power industry in Australia. We're seeing intensifying pressure from the Liberals and Nationals, at all levels of government, pushing this very toxic agenda. The fact is nuclear power is dangerous and expensive and it would consume vast amounts of precious water at a time when Australia faces increased water security threats due to the gross mismanagement by this government and of course the very harsh impacts of climate change.
I stand with my community in firm opposition to nuclear power. Locals were rightly angry when the issue was recently raised in question time when I specifically questioned the Morrison government about their plans to build toxic nuclear power plants. I asked the energy minister if he would rule out a nuclear power station being built in northern New South Wales or on the Gold Coast. In his response the minister said he had 'an open mind' on the issue of nuclear energy. Our community on the New South Wales north coast have major objections to nuclear energy, and I stand with them in opposing nuclear power plants in coastal communities like ours in northern New South Wales.
We've seen so many Liberal and National members strongly advocating this idea, and the Prime Minister has even said that nuclear power is 'not not' on his agenda. We saw the member for New England, a Nationals MP, with his bizarre idea that authorities could get around public concerns about the safety of nuclear energy by giving people free power if they could see a nuclear reactor from their home—quite bizarre.
We also have the New South Wales Nationals leader and Deputy Premier, John Barilaro, calling nuclear power 'the solution' to cheaper energy. In June we had the New South Wales Nationals, at their annual conference, vote to support the use of nuclear power in Australia. That just shows how out of touch the New South Wales Nationals are. In the Tweed Shire on the New South Wales north coast we've alarmingly seen Liberal Councillor James Owen's strong support for nuclear power, which shows how incredibly dangerous he is for our region. It's well-known that the risky and reckless James Owen can't be trusted and doesn't share our values.
In a clear sign the extremists are still dictating the government's energy policy, the minister for energy has recently established a parliamentary inquiry into an Australian nuclear power industry and this is all done with the sole purpose of pushing the nuclear power agenda. My community on the North Coast, and indeed many communities across the country, does have a major issue with nuclear energy, and I stand with them in opposing any nuclear power plants in coastal communities like ours on the New South Wales North Coast. Let me make this very, very clear to the Prime Minister and to the Liberals and Nationals at all levels of government: if you keep pursuing your plans for nuclear energy in our region, our community will fight this every day, every step of the way.
In the month of August I travelled to the Middle East as part of the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program. I'll have much more to say about that trip in the coming days. But, whilst I was in the Middle East, I travelled to Kabul, Afghanistan, to join with the Afghan government to celebrate their 100th anniversary of independence from Great Britain on 19 August 2019. August also marked the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our two countries of Australia and Afghanistan. I was joined on this trip by Senator Kitching who also went on the ADF Parliamentary Program.
On arrival at Kabul we were welcomed by President Ghani at the presidential palace and by ambassadors from the four corners of the world to celebrate our 50 years of diplomatic relations. The presence of so many men and women of the diplomatic corps is testament to the good standing that both our countries enjoy from the international family of nations.
In my speech to the assembly, I spoke of the long history of Afghans in Australia, stemming back to the middle 1800s when Afghan cameleers opened trade routes through some of the most inhospitable parts of the Australian outback.
Australia has sadly lost 41 members of the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan since 2001. Australia, as a nation, has paid a heavy price to secure and protect the freedoms of the Afghan people and President Ghani was at pains to point out to me that the people of Afghanistan will never forget the sacrifices made by the Australian people and, in particular, the families of those soldiers who died there.
Sadly, for many Australians, including the media, the war in Afghanistan has dropped off the radar. Australia has not lost an ADF member in Afghanistan since Lance Corporal Todd Chidgey died from a non-combat related gunshot wound on 1 July 2014. Some 216 members of the ADF were wounded in Afghanistan and they no doubt bear the scars, both emotional and physical, of their tours there.
The ADF is doing very important work in Afghanistan training, advising and assisting the Afghan National Army. Whilst in Afghanistan we visited our troops at the ADF headquarters in Kabul where we received briefings from Brigadier Tim O'Brien.
I also want to highlight the great work that our embassy is doing in Kabul, led by our ambassador, Geoff Tooth, Rowena and all the staff at our mission. They are doing an absolutely sensational job, and we owe a debt of gratitude to them as well.
Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of attending the spring gala dinner at the Nowra golf club. This inaugural event was organised by the Shoalhaven Community Choir and the Greenwell Point Hospital Auxiliary to raise some much-needed funds for Shoalhaven District Memorial Hospital.
One of the things I love about living on the beautiful South Coast is the generosity and selfless nature of our community members. This event was a wonderful reminder of what the community can do when we come together in the name of a good cause and for a bit of fun.
Next year will be the 70th year that the Greenwell Point Hospital Auxiliary has been raising funds for the Shoalhaven hospital, and I was privileged to be able to spend an evening celebrating their hard work and raising money for a great cause.
The availability of health services in regional and rural areas is an important issue to many people. Without the availability of equipment through the generosity of others, such as the Greenwell Point Hospital Auxiliary and the Shoalhaven Community Choir, local residents would be forced to travel long distances to Wollongong, Canberra or Sydney.
I understand that the hospital provides a wish list of equipment to the group, including such things as a bladder scanner which we were raising funds for on Saturday night. We were also raising funds for neonatal monitors, other monitors, iPads for occupational therapy and speech therapy units, sofa beds and a syringe driver for the medical ward. These have helped both staff and patients with the treatment and care both in the hospital and at home—helping relatives to stay overnight, care for patients in palliative care with pain management and comfort, and helping to build on the recovery of patients.
During the evening we were entertained by the wonderful combined choirs of the Shoalhaven Community Choir and Sing Australia Vincentia. We also enjoyed the local talents Catie Halliday, Olivia Corish, Leanne and Anthony, and Peter Bishop. We sang and danced the night away, all in an effort to provide some much needed new equipment for the hospital. It was humbling to see such a strong show of support for this fantastic local cause with around 150 people attending the event to help raise an initial estimate of $10,000.
As patron of Shoalhaven Community Choir I am always proud to support the fantastic work they do in our community. It is an added bonus to be able to experience their wonderful musical talents at local events all in the name of a good cause.
I would like to give a special thanks to the Director of the Shoalhaven Community Choir, Suzanne Hammond-Warne, for organising the evening along with auxiliary vice president, Diana Metcalf and Secretary, Donna Swan. Thank you for inviting me to enjoy this wonderful night with you and for your ongoing selfless efforts to provide for those in our community who are less fortunate.
I rise today to update the House on an issue which impacts thousands of my constituents and has been come to be known colloquially in the media as the 'cash for cruelty scandal'. Just to remind the House—and I have spoken on this issue many times before—this relates to an issue that took place on the Awassi Express in Qatar in August 2017 when tragically 2,800 sheep perished in diabolical conditions. There's no question that that happened.
The Department of Agriculture, the regulator, inspected that incident and reported in March 2018—mortality report No. 69. While acknowledging that the incident was unfortunate and that the animals certainly died, they concluded that the exporter had taken all measures possible in the circumstances.
In April 2018, 60 Minutes aired some footage that had been gathered by a whistleblower, Mr Fazal Ullah, who had been a deckhand on the ship. Subsequent to that footage, the industry was thrown into turmoil. I saw a recent estimate of $100 million worth of economic damage to the live export industry—80 per cent of which are my constituents.
To go to the update that we saw in the media on the weekend, we saw revelations that Animals Australia are out there openly offering to pay deckhands to neglect sheep on these boats. One particular email from Lyn White, from Animals Australia, urged the deckhands to leave ill, sick and injured sheep in the pens rather than moving them to the hospital pen at the end of the deck. For those of you who haven't been on these boats, there is a hospital pen at the end of this deck and the veterinary surgeon on every boat attends to the sheep in that pen. Ms White was actively encouraging deckhands to ignore those animals so that they could get the sort of footage that they were chasing. The sort of money that they were offering for these deckhands was up to a year's salary to inflict this sort of cruelty on these animals.
I want to conclude today by informing the House and my constituents that I have raised this issue about the lack of rigour on behalf of the Department of Agriculture as the regulator in pursuing this inquiry and these issues directly with Minister Bridget McKenzie. It would appear to me that the media are doing a much better job of uncovering this cash-for-cruelty scandal than the regulator tasked with looking after the industry.
I would like to take this opportunity, the first since I delivered my inaugural address in the House last month, to thank the people of Fraser for electing me as their representative in this place. Fraser is a welcoming community, notable for its remarkable diversity. It contains many substantial and established migrant communities—Vietnamese, Italian, Turkish, Maltese and Greek, just to name a few, complemented more recently by residents born in Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. It is a place where families from a multitude of national, ethnic and faith backgrounds live together in harmony and with a shared commitment to Australia and our common values. Fraser is an extraordinary testament to the integration of successive generations of migrants and is a robustly successful exemplar of Australian multiculturalism. Fraser's diversity extends from demography to geography and history.
Fraser has a long and proud tradition of manufacturing. It was home to our earliest large-scale manufacturing and it remains a major industrial region today. In 1907, the Sunshine Harvester Works was established at Braybrook Junction by industrialist HV McKay, producing innovative and affordable machinery that drove productivity growth in the Australian economy, which was then dependent on agriculture. It was Australia's largest manufacturing plant and dominated the area to such an extent that the entire locality was renamed in its honour. This enormous factory also took centre stage in one of the most celebrated events in the storied history of Australia's great labour movement. In 1907, Justice Henry Bournes Higgins, President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, set the first federally arbitrated wages standard in Australia. He used the Sunshine Harvester Works as a test case to determine the level of a fair and reasonable wage. The Harvester judgement had a lasting significance and impact, becoming the basis upon which Australia's minimum wage standard was set for the next 70 years.
Today, Sunshine is at the heart of a national employment and innovation cluster, with an optimistic future as the centrepiece of a transport superhub, a key interchange on the planned Melbourne Airport Rail Link and an economic precinct of national significance. From Sunshine, Ardeer and Cairnlea in the south, Fraser extends north to the important community, activity and economic centres of St Albans, Keilor and Taylors Lakes. This region is marked by the rugged beauty of river valleys and gorges, each proudly cared for by committed groups of passionate local residents. The Maribyrnong River, Jacksons Creek, Taylors Lakes and Kororoit Creek define the landscape of this area and have been home to the Kurung-Jang-Balluk and Marin-Balluk clans of the Wurundjeri people for millennia. Some of Melbourne's largest and most beautiful parklands can still be found there, including Organ Pipes National Park, Brimbank Park and Sydenham Park. Sydenham Park was recently shortlisted as a potential future home for women's football in Australia. I strongly commend this bid. I once again thank the people of Fraser for electing me to represent them in this place.
It's a great pleasure to inform the House about one of our great local institutions in the Ryan electorate, the Glenleighden School. On 30 August, just a little while ago, it was a pleasure to celebrate with staff, past students, local supporters and the community to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Glenleighden School. This is a local school that is unique in the best sense of the word and is one that I am very proud to have been a supporter of for almost 10 years. For 40 years, the Glenleighden School has been a leader in enabling better outcomes for children with speech, language and communication needs. One in 14 children are affected by developmental language disorder in Australian classrooms. It's often called a hidden disability because there may be no outward signs of disability and no obvious physical indicators until a child has problems communicating in everyday life.
This is a unique school. It's the only one of its kind in Australia and, in fact, the only one of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Such is its popularity and the good work that it does that families move from all over the country—Darwin, Perth, Sydney and Townsville—to the western suburbs, to the Ryan electorate, in order to be part of their curriculum. They've modified the Australian curriculum to ensure it is individualised to meet the needs of the unique young people they support, each having a developmental language disorder or a language disorder. The school is the largest employer of language-disorder-specific teachers, school assistance, speech language pathologists and occupational therapists. Among their team, along with the school administration staff, is a physiotherapist, a psychologist, a music therapist, a school counsellor and a chaplain.
What's really unique about this school is its inception. It was built by the local community 40 years ago, in 1979, by members of the local Rotary Club. It still enjoys significant community support. That was on show on 30 August during the 40th anniversary gala dinner. Community members from right across Ryan and people who donate their time and their money to support the school came together to celebrate the achievements of past and present students. In my journey over 10 years with the school I have seen some young people make remarkable transitions. They were shy, reserved and hesitant to communicate because of their disorder, but have come out of their shells.
One student who spoke at the event is in the process of doing an apprenticeship. He is becoming more independent from his family. You hear these kinds of stories more and more. They support over 102 students every year. Every one brings a tear to your eye. They are very brave students and very brave parents. I congratulate Jan Morey and the whole team at Glenleighden School on 40 excellent years. I look forward to supporting them in the future.
In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members constituency statements has expired.
I move:
That this House:
(1) notes:
(a) that western Sydney is home to two million people, which is nearly 10 per cent of Australia's population and Australia's third largest economy;
(b) that western Sydney's population is expected to grow by an additional one million people in the next 20 years while the population in the corridor between Parramatta and Sydney is expected to grow by 420,000;
(c) that more than 300,000 new jobs are expected to be created in the same period and that traffic congestion is expected to cost Sydney nearly $15 billion by 2031;
(d) that Parramatta is western Sydney's Central Business District (CBD) and is Sydney's second CBD;
(e) the benefit of the proposed Sydney Metro West project to connect Parramatta and Sydney via the Bays Precinct and Sydney Olympic Park; and
(f) that the project, when operational, is expected to slash travel times between the two CBDs to just 20 minutes (on trains running every two minutes) and reduce traffic congestion;
(2) recognises the NSW Government's commitment of $6.4 billion in funding to the project and additional commitment to fast-track the project to begin construction in 2020;
(3) further notes that Federal Labor committed to $3 billion funding to the project prior to the 2019 federal election; and
(4) calls on the Federal Government to urgently allocate the funding that will ensure the project can begin construction in the fast-tracked timeframe.
I want to talk about the lost and wasted hours in traffic congestion; lack of parking at train stations that causes people to leave home as much as an hour earlier than they otherwise would in order to park, losing an extra hour with family at the end of each day and putting extra pressure on partners taking care of school drop-off and collection; and reorganising your time around traffic—joining a gym in the city rather than a local one so that you can travel early and avoid the traffic, but losing the opportunity to build local community relationships and spend time with family.
Traffic is expensive. It's estimated to cost Sydney nearly $15 billion by 2031, but the real cost is to families and communities. People spend wasted hours in transit instead of with family and friends, sitting in a car instead of building relationships that sustain family and community. There's a good part of the solution in front of us right now, and that is the proposed Metro West—a new metro line that will connect Parramatta and Sydney via the Bays Precinct and Sydney Olympic Park. When operational, Metro West is expected to slash travel times to just 20 minutes, and trains will run every two minutes, easing travel times for communities and reducing traffic congestion.
This project is urgent. I rise today to urge the federal government to allocate funding to fast-track the Metro West project. Federal Labor made a commitment prior to the election, and I ask the federal government to do the same. People in Parramatta and further west spend far too much time in transit to work. Road tolls, including those on the new WestConnex, are a real burden and are contracted to rise four per cent per year for decades to come. This is a community-changing project for now and the future. The problem is already dire, which is why Infrastructure Australia identified Sydney Metro West as a high-priority initiative with a medium-term timescale of five to 10 years. It was added to the priority list in 2016.
Let's look at what we have now. We have the T1 western line, which is the main rail line from Penrith to Central via Parramatta. The line is more than a century old. It's already crowded well beyond the benchmark at peak hour. The benchmark for overcrowding, strangely, is 135 per cent. That means 100 per cent of seats are filled and no-one is standing. But the latest data from March 2016 shows that when the 8.05 train from Schofields reaches Westmead it's at 150 per cent capacity—well over the 135 per cent target. It drops slightly at Parramatta as people get off for the CBD, but it is at 161 per cent at Strathfield and 172 per cent at Redfern—well above the 135 per cent target. Punctuality is down—from 93.1 per cent in January to 88.5 per cent in June, just over six months. As bad as the overcrowding is now, patronage is increasing in line with growth.
The 2015 Australian Infrastructure Audit projected that passenger demand on the existing T1 line would increase by about 50 per cent between now and 2031, and it's already happening. For the morning rush at Parramatta Station, the population is expected to grow by an additional one million people in the next 20 years, and, in the Metro West corridor, it's expected to grow by 420,000. There'll be more than 300,000 new jobs in that corridor between now and 2036, so it's incredibly important.
The Morrison government has not committed to this extra funding. The New South Wales Treasurer has publicly stated that he'll ask the federal government for additional funding. Our office has written a letter to Minister McCormack asking for the Morrison government's commitment, but we are yet to receive a response. This is one of the most important projects in our region, supported—in fact, conceived—by a Liberal state government. I strongly urge the federal government to get behind it sooner rather than later. As I said, this is not just a matter of public transport; it's a project which allows families and communities to spend more time together doing the things that matter. Every hour that a person spends sitting in a car, when they could be at home, costs families, costs children and costs the community, in the long run, far more than the lost productivity. It costs us in social cohesion and strong families.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
I start by congratulating the member for Parramatta on this very excellent motion. My wife recently had her job relocated to Parramatta. It means that her drive—because that is the only way to get to Parramatta from Collaroy, or the northern beaches—on some days is two hours both ways. What the member for Parramatta said about the disruption to family lives and the impact it has on children and on communities I can only echo, with a factor of 10. It has had an impact on our daughter, on our family and indeed on my wife's psychology and mental health—being stuck in traffic like that. I am often bemused, and not in a good way, when people from other cities of Australia talk about traffic congestion. As a member of parliament, you are shunted around the country to different committee hearings and you note that no-one quite knows what traffic congestion is until they come to Sydney.
Having heaped all that praise upon the member for Parramatta, I should note that the state government of New South Wales have done an enormous amount for the people of Western Sydney and indeed for the entire Sydney basin. They have spent $23½ billion on WestConnex, the M4 and the M5. They are spending $4 billion on two light rail lines in Parramatta. The Metro North West, which recently opened, cost $8 billion. The Parramatta Metro West, to which this motion speaks, will cost somewhere in the vicinity of $22 billion. The Sydney Metro is another $23½ billion. There is the Aerotropolis, of course. I don't need to say very much more about that. There is the first high-rise public school in Australia, at Parramatta, which is $300 million. And I left out NorthConnex, which will relieve a lot of traffic pressure on west Pennant Hills Road and people trying to get into the Parramatta CBD. The reason for all of this, let us not forget, was the $50 billion infrastructure backlog that was left at the end of the Carr-Keneally government, when you had a premier who said, 'Sydney is full; people need to go away,' and then, at that very moment, the Rudd federal government increased immigration to 400,000 people, many of whom settled in Western Sydney.
I would also reflect on a couple of other things. The first is the move the state government has made to move a lot of government services and departments to Parramatta. While I welcome this in theory and in principle, it does have two deleterious effects. The first is, there are many core services—for example, legal services—that have an ecosystem based in the Sydney CBD. Relocating part of those services to Parramatta has a very negative impact on productivity. It also has the impact of diminishing people's access to those services from other parts of Sydney. From the Northern Beaches, on most days, a drive to Parramatta can take up to two hours. That's not the case to the CBD, and it's not the case for many other people in Sydney.
I think the state government needs to be very cautious about the services it relocates to Parramatta and the sorts of access impacts that has on the rest of Sydney, and the rest of New South Wales, and on the ecosystem or supply chain, particularly in legal services where you have lawyers and barristers based in the city. The courts' specialities, like industrial relations, are also based in the CBD. The Fair Work Commission is based in William Street, Woolloomooloo. The other thing is a—
Mr Husic interjecting—
The member for Chifley knows very well, because he and I have many friends in common—they like to deny it, depending on who they're having dinner with, that many of them do live in the western suburbs of Sydney.
Mr Husic interjecting—
Now he denies it too. I hear the cock crowing a third time, Mr Deputy Speaker! The other thing is— (Time expired)
Mr Husic interjecting—
The member for Chifley will come to order. I call the member for Macarthur, who will be thrilled to know I can't interject from the chair.
I'm pleased to hear that. I might be able to get through my speech without interjections. That's good. I congratulate the member for Parramatta for bringing this motion to the parliament. To give credit where it's due, the member for Mackellar has made some very positive points, but, as he suggested, there are some things he certainly should reflect upon, No. 1 being the provision of infrastructure in Western Sydney, and in south-western Sydney, by this federal government.
The Western Sydney region is the city's primary driver of population growth, with a population of over two million set to grow to 3.5 million by around 2035 to 2040. Western Sydney also has Australia's third largest economy. As a doctor, however, I am a great believer in the social determinants of health. That includes things like adequate housing, good jobs and adequate transport so that people can get to and from work and spend time with their families at the end of each working day. Unfortunately, that is not happening in Western and south-western Sydney.
The Parramatta CBD is Western Sydney's CBD and is Sydney's second largest CBD. It's essential that our transport infrastructure doesn't fall behind and that Western Sydney roads and public transport systems are fit for the sustained population growth that's going to occur in the next 30 to 40 years. Addressing mobility and congestion is the key, and putting infrastructure in place before the rapid development is the second key to unlocking the wealth and potential of Western and south-western Sydney.
I want to acknowledge that the government's plans for Sydney's Metro West project are plans. They're not funding it. They haven't guaranteed funding and I believe it will be many years before they do. I'd also point out that the development of Western Sydney Airport is occurring, as we speak, without any concrete plans for transport infrastructure from south-western Sydney—my electorate of Macarthur, in particular—to Western Sydney Airport. This is in spite of the most rapidly growing populations in New South Wales and close to the most rapidly growing population in Australia.
The Sydney Morning Herald has a very good diagram this morning, a very good map, that shows population growth—
An honourable member interjecting—
Yes, in Sydney, in the next 20 years. It shows that the Camden LGA will grow more than three times faster than any other electorate, any other area, in Sydney in the next 20 years—a growth of around 130 per cent; yet there is no public transport infrastructure, particularly rail, planned for that area.
The western corridor has the strongest housing growth in Sydney, and the Sydney Metro West project has the highest potential to provide value-adding to all those areas. Federal funding is needed urgently to ensure construction can begin in a fast-tracked time frame and close any funding gaps. It's obvious to all involved that the project simply cannot wait. It is also obvious to me that the heavy rail line from Leppington to Western Sydney Airport can't wait either. This is urgently needed transport infrastructure that has a high value-added component. It will improve the lives of many people living in Western Sydney and South Western Sydney and provide much support for the families that are rapidly moving into the area.
The electorate of Macarthur and the electorates to the north—Lindsay, Parramatta, Chifley et cetera—urgently need this transport infrastructure to be put in place. They are sick of being told, 'It will come, it will come,' when nothing is being done. We are being delivered platitudes. To give credit where it is due the North West Metro project—and my eldest son was one of the project managers on the project—is providing an excellent service. But the people of Western Sydney and South Western Sydney should not have to put up with congested roads and no public transport while they wait for this vacillating government to finally decide whether they will or won't fund the project and get things moving. It is affecting their lives, it is affecting their families—as the member for Mackellar has pointed out—and it is affecting their quality time with their kids. I think it is far too long to have to wait for more and more bureaucratic decision-making to occur. We know that the project is urgent. We know that it needs to be funded. It must happen.
I thank the member for Macarthur. Of course, if I were able to intervene during the debate, I would have pointed out to him that North Sydney is Sydney's second-largest CBD. I call the member for Lindsay.
The Morrison government is working hard to deliver for the people of Western Sydney by busting congestion and getting on with delivering the jobs of the future and the jobs of today. As the member for Lindsay, I welcome our governments infrastructure investment for Western Sydney ensuring that more people can get to work and home again safer and quicker and that more people can work where they live and not have to do that long commute out of the area for a good job. I did that commute for over 10 years—15 hours a week—and I'm proud to see that investment in our community so that our kids won't have to do that long commute. They will have access to good local jobs.
In New South Wales alone we are investing $39.2 billion in infrastructure. In Western Sydney over $5.3 billion will be invested to deliver congestion-busting infrastructure in roads and rail. The Morrison government, in partnership with the New South Wales government, is delivering the Western Sydney City Deal, and our goal of a 30-minute city, by delivering the first stage of the North South Rail Link, which starts in the electorate of Lindsay and goes to the airport and aerotropolis. The Western Sydney City Deal will bring over 200,000 jobs over the next 20 years. By supercharging the aerotropolis and the agribusiness precinct it will be the advanced manufacturing capital of Australia, upskilling our residents and our children in those jobs of the future and initiating new education opportunities. Airport, road and rail infrastructure will help provide the employment, housing, transport and educational opportunities needed to accommodate population growth.
I have established the Lindsay Jobs of the Future Network working together with local schools, industry and business to ensure that our kids in Lindsay and Western Sydney are being trained and educated in those jobs of the future so that they won't have to commute out of the area like many of us do today. They will be getting the jobs that are coming with the airport and the aerotropolis.
How easy is it going to be for them to get to work on the North South Rail Link from St Marys? This $3.5 billion investment by the Morrison government will provide an important local rail connection to the new airport and create the public transport spine of the new city in Western Sydney. We're working towards this important rail link being open in time for the airport's opening in 2026.
During construction of the Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport, over 11,300 jobs will be created. Within five years of opening it will be 28,000 jobs, and this project is already attracting a number of high-skilled industries into the area around the airport. The local target for these jobs is 30 per cent during construction and 50 per cent once the airport is operational, and I'm told that there are already up to levels of over 50 per cent local people in those jobs. We're working hard to deliver local jobs for the people in Western Sydney, and this is a priority for both the Prime Minister and me, as the member for Lindsay.
Having recently attended the opening of the Western Sydney International Airport Experience Centre with the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, the minister for cities and the Minister for Finance, I can proudly say that the Morrison government is committed to easing congestion on our local roads and building the infrastructure to create more local jobs and investment in Western Sydney. This includes the construction of the M12 motorway and a $200 million Local Roads Package. A total of $170 million has been awarded for local contracts within our local community, and this is great for small and medium-sized businesses. This is great for local families.
The $2.9 billion Western Sydney Infrastructure Plan will ease congestion, provide better roads in Western Sydney and the region, and create 4,000 local jobs. But it's not just about rail; we're investing in road upgrades—these include the Northern Road at Jamison Road in Penrith and the upgrade to Bringelly Road, the Northern Road and Camden Valley Way. We're also investing in the upgrade of Mulgoa Road between Blaikie Road and Jeanette Street—this is all in the electorate of Lindsay—and the upgrade of Dunheved Road, which is a very important road in the electorate of Lindsay. We also have upgrades to Emu Plains Station, Kingswood railway station and, importantly, with the development of the airport, St Marys railway station.
I'm glad the member for Lindsay mentioned the Western Sydney International Airport Experience Centre, which relies heavily on augmented reality. It seems fitting, given this government's approach to infrastructure in Western Sydney. Whenever you hear the member for Lindsay—and I'm going to put this video on my Facebook page—talk about the wonders of this airport, you need to go to that member and ask her where the flight plans are, which communities in the member for Lindsay's area will be affected by a 24/7 airport and what she is doing to stand up for communities in her area. If you get a response on jobs, know this: the Liberal government justified putting in that airport and breaking an election promise that they had on that airport on the basis of jobs, and they can only deliver 50 per cent of all the jobs to Western Sydney residents, which I think is a joke for a $10 billion project. We have all these infrastructure needs in Western Sydney, which are in this resolution about the Sydney Metro West project, that weren't even mentioned by the member for Lindsay—hardly at all. And yet there is congestion occurring from Penrith to Parramatta on the T1 Western Line that the member for Lindsay made no reference to to say that this should be a priority.
Now, I commend the member for Parramatta for raising this. She has to raise this because in her area, in Parramatta, the figures—even in the figures that were released today in the Sydney Morning Heraldshow that the population of Parramatta, which was roughly 240,000 people in 2016, will leap to 380,000 by 2031. So getting improved infrastructure to move people from Parramatta to the Sydney CBD is very important.
From my point of view, I want to see similar sorts of things happen with an extension of the metro or improvements for those long-suffering passengers between Parramatta and Penrith. I stand at those railway stations and I see rows of people five deep crowding into those trains. Be they from Mount Druitt, Rooty Hill, Doonside or Blacktown, they are standing for ages on a rail line that people depend on to get home at the end of the day. Three days out of five, people run late because those trains run late. People who have family responsibilities, who help the kids with homework, who have sporting responsibilities or who just want to get home to spend time with family should not be late home three days out of every five because we have not worked out how to decongest that rail line.
Put in some of the ideas that were initially proposed, like, for example, the western expressway, and find some way to decongest that line. At the point in time when it was proposed at the start of this decade, the expressway cost roughly $500 million. We've seen no investment in it. From my point of view, I do believe there should be federal investment in the Sydney Metro West project or in decongestion. While I understand the member for Parramatta is forcefully advocating for her electorate, and rightly so—there's no more vocal advocate for the Parramatta area than Julie Owens, the member for Parramatta—I am also speaking up for people in my area who are facing transport delays either on public transport or on the roads.
Mount Druitt to Parramatta has been recognised by Infrastructure Australia as one of the hotspots. Nothing is being done to address that. This government has no plans for the M9, which should be built and run in parallel with the M7. While the Sydney Metro project in the north is a great project, I do have residents complaining about delays and breakdowns on that rail line. I think of the people who go to Tallawong railway station and are confronted by what appears to be four football fields of parking. There is no centralised, one-stop parking station. I hate to think of them returning to their cars that are like little pressure cookers at the end of the day in the hot summers. There hasn't been dedicated investment in a parking station at that site. I think of the residents in Doonside. I have had to take action through the Australian Human Rights Commission because of breaches of federal disability law. We can't even get investment to upgrade existing railway stations like the one at Doonside.
There are a lot of things in Western Sydney where we need not words, not platitudes but concrete plans, concrete financing and concrete itself to show that work is happening in one of the fastest-growing regions in the country.
It is my great pleasure to join my colleagues the member for Parramatta, the member for Chifley and the member for Macarthur in raising and responding to this very important motion. It has been my pleasure to listen to their contributions, which have balanced a deep commitment to the communities they respect with an equally clear understanding of what needs to be done to respond to the great challenges of linking people to opportunities and busting congestion across Western Sydney. This is a problem that affects all of us, not just Western Sydney, because Australia has a productivity problem and a government that won't rise to meet this most fundamental economic challenge. It's a challenge with many dimensions, but getting our cities working more effectively is particularly important right now, when all the economic indicators are so concerning and when the government continues to resist the calls of the Reserve Bank governor and a chorus of respected economists to boost investment in productive infrastructure spending.
As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker Zimmerman, Australia is, outside of the city states, the world's most urbanised nation. The vast majority of us live and work in our city and suburbs—more so in Western Sydney than anywhere else. But, over six years, the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have been slow to recognise this and its implications—implications for our prospects of continued economic growth and living standards, and for sustainability of living standards too. Prime Minister Tony Abbott indulged in a fantasy that how our cities function was no concern for our national government, and we are still paying the price for this wilful neglect, particularly the congestion-boosting nonsense of refusing to fund urban public transport projects. He cut the funding from the Parramatta to Epping line as part of the billions taken away from vital rail projects linking the places where so many Australians live—our fast-growing suburbs—to job opportunities.
While the successive governments since then have embraced—or accepted, I should say in reality—that the record under Malcolm Turnbull and now Prime Minister Morrison doesn't withstand scrutiny, Minister Tudge can be given marks for enthusiasm in talking up his achievements. But his is a lone voice in this regard, and for good reason. He is tinkering around the edges rather than grappling with the enormous challenge presented by traffic congestion, particularly, as the member for Chifley reminded us, by not recognising his responsibility to deal with traffic congestion in areas where it most needs to be dealt with, rather than where it seems to be politically palpable. This is at a great cost to Australia's economy. We note that the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics has estimated the annual cost of lost productivity caused by congestion at $16 billion—that figure is now two years old. The figure is increasing.
A government that is serious about meeting our productivity challenge and about the living standards of people in Western Sydney would have done so much more. The motion put forward by the member for Parramatta makes this clear. This is a call to action that must be heeded. On this side of the House we recognise the importance of Western Sydney—Australia's third-largest economy and home to more than two million people, with very significant population growth predicted. We see that recognised in today's The Sydney Morning Herald, which is something that perhaps government speakers could reflect upon. We recognise the challenge that this presents to government at all levels: to find ways to work together, to deliver place based solutions, building on the understanding that is found within local communities. This is why the Leader of the Opposition has spoken of city partnerships instead of deals. It is because enduring partnerships are needed to build a bridge between fragmented governance arrangements and a shared vision for a dynamic Western Sydney.
On this, can I put on record my appreciation of the work of the Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue. A report they've just released, Stuck in the middle, is a critical contribution. I'm sure that's recognised by the member for Parramatta. It is modestly titled but makes an important response, and it deserves a response from this government.
The creation of the Greater Sydney Commission makes possible a genuinely polycentric city, but this requires a commitment to more than two major economic anchors. We need to look beyond the present CBD and the possibility of the airport, as exciting as they are. We need to recognise, as this motion does, that Parramatta is the CBD for Western Sydney and has enormous potential that simply has to be realised, including through Metro West, a project to which the New South Wales government is of course committed, and to which federal Labor committed $3 billion. As the now Leader of the Opposition said, we did so in order to reduce congestion and dependence on cars and to bring jobs closer to where people live, while connecting all of Sydney to the new Western Sydney Airport. Metro West is genuinely a city-shaping project, but Minister Tudge continues to pretend that it is nothing to do with him. This isn't good enough.
I'm delighted to speak on the motion that has been moved by the member for Parramatta in relation to the Sydney Metro West project. It has the potential to be an important project for Sydney, not just for Western Sydney but also for those parts of the route it will service that are closer to the CBD. I wanted to start my remarks today by indicating my support for the expansion of the metro network across Sydney. We've already seen exciting developments happening under the current state government. Recently, after the federal election, my idea of a short break was to try the new Metro North West Line. I have to say that it is such an exciting project for north-west Sydney. It is a revolutionary project because it introduces to our city metro-style, single-deck trains that are driverless. With their capacity to move large volumes of people more quickly, these trains bring enormous benefits to congested and potentially congested parts of the network. That project is being extended through my electorate—I'm thrilled that the federal government is contributing $1.6 billion towards the Sydney Metro project. It is going to be a game-changer for public transport on the North Shore.
As the member for Parramatta highlighted, in other parts of Sydney we are already seeing congestion levels on existing rail networks that are causing serious discomfort and disruptions for commuters. We see that on the North Shore Line of Sydney, particularly as it gets closer to the CBD. The Sydney Metro project, which will involve additional capacity at Chatswood and new stations at Crows Nest and North Sydney, and will provide a two-minute connection to Barangaroo and a three-minute connection to Martin Place, will bring dramatic benefits to residents in my part of Sydney. And, of course, when it is concluded it will extend out to Bankstown. The Sydney Metro West project is an exciting extension of this program of introducing metro rail to Sydney. As Parramatta seeks to rival North Sydney as the second largest CBD in our metropolitan area, I know it will mean a great deal to residents in Parramatta but also to the vibrancy and the future of Parramatta as the great CBD that it is and will continue to become.
I should also mention, which other speakers haven't spoken about, the enormous benefit the Metro West project will bring to other precincts. Sydney Olympic Park, for example, is a growing residential precinct capitalising on the legacy of our 2000 Olympic Games. One of the issues that Sydney Olympic Park has faced is not having a regular, direct connection to the Sydney CBD and other areas. The metro protect will be a huge boon for both the residential and the commercial areas of Sydney Olympic Park.
I also wanted to touch on the Bays Precinct. The Bays Precinct is old industrial land around the bays close to the CBD. It has the potential to be one of the most exciting transformations of old industrial land into commercial and residential that our city will see. One of the great challenges of the Bays Precinct is the lack of easy public transport. Whilst it won't solve every one of its public transport needs, because by its nature the Bays Precinct does not follow a linear pattern, this will provide an opportunity for the type of connectivity which I believe that the Bays Precinct so desperately needs to be the success story that I hope it becomes.
I am proud of the fact that I am part of a party that, in New South Wales, is led by a state government that has done so much to improve transport. We're seeing the missing links in our freeway network being filled. It is also fair to say that, if we look to the future, mass public transport is really going to do the heavy lifting for cities like Sydney. We know that completing those freeway links is important, but at the end of the day they have their limitations. I believe a strong public transport network is the only option to allow those gaps to be filled.
I speak in this chamber as someone who, prior to becoming a member of parliament, was a board member of the International Association of Public Transport for the ANZ branch, and I know just how important getting those public transport links right is going to be for the future of cities like Sydney.
The federal government has been playing its part. I mentioned the contribution that we're contributing to Sydney Metro. The wonderful work that's happening for the Western Sydney Airport is part of our plan for Western Sydney. I'm sure this project is receiving the consideration it deserves by the federal government—because it is an important one.
There being no further speakers on this debate, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that 31 July 2019 is World Ranger Day;
(2) acknowledges the significant contribution that Indigenous rangers make to our national parks, including environmental management, restoration and education;
(3) pays tribute to rangers that have lost their lives while at work;
(4) supports the Government's funding of Indigenous ranger groups with $254.6 million invested through the Indigenous Advancement Strategy over three years from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2021, including $61.8 million in the state of Queensland; and
(5) welcomes the work of 123 ranger groups nationally, which provided 2,160 jobs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in 2016-17.
It gives me great pleasure today to rise and speak about World Ranger Day. World Ranger Day was held on Wednesday, 31 July and is an initiative of the Thin Green Line Foundation. The Thin Green Line Foundation supports park rangers within Australia and overseas, including in conflict zones. World Ranger Day is internationally recognised as a day to support rangers working on environmental restoration and education, and pays tribute to rangers who have lost their lives while at work.
My electorate of Leichhardt is home to numerous land and sea ranger groups. Far North Queensland is home to many dedicated groups, many of whom are Indigenous, who combine traditional knowledge with conservation training to protect and manage land, sea and culture. Rangers across Far North Queensland play a very important role in natural resource management, including fire management, restoring rivers, preserving threatened species and controlling feral animals.
I'd like to, if I could, make special reference to Gavin Singleton. He's one of the lead advocates in this area and is well and truly setting the standards for our regions. He's a leader within the Yirrganydji Land and Sea Ranger Program. I've met with Gavin on many occasions, and the work that they've been doing thus far has just been absolutely fantastic. However, they've now reached a point where they require assistance in meeting their sea governance obligations. They can't patrol the sea if they don't have a vessel, and so the next stage for them is to secure an eight-metre vessel that will allow them to patrol these areas, which are very, very important, as well as managing the land. This vessel will not only enable them to create sustainable jobs and better protect their cultural heritage but also manage the sea in relation to biosecurity and research. They bring local knowledge and insights to their work, allowing them to protect and preserve our unique environment.
The Morrison government supports more than 2,900 Indigenous Australians to work in country through a variety of ranger projects creating employment, training and career pathways. Across Far North Queensland, this program enabled the government to create 210 jobs in the 2016-17 financial year. We have got rangers the length and breadth of my electorate, right up to the mainland of Papua New Guinea, which is on the Saibai, Boigu and Dauan area—and some of that's within four kilometres of the mainland of Papua New Guinea. So we have rangers extended right through those areas and, just focusing on my own electorate, from the Western Cape right down south of Cairns.
An Indigenous Protected Area is an area of land and sea that traditional owners voluntary dedicate to the National Reserve System and Indigenous protected lands make up about 46 per cent of the National Reserve System and cover more than 65 million hectares so it's quite a significant land area. Indigenous Protected Areas allow country to be managed according to the wishes of traditional owners who balance conservation and cultural considerations against opportunities for sustainable land use. There are currently 75 Indigenous Protected Areas dedicated to the National Reserve System and a further 11 projects in the consultation phase with a view to dedication.
The Morrison government's total investment in Indigenous rangers and Indigenous Protected Areas totals more than $830 million over 10 years to 2023. In my home state of Queensland, there's been an investment of $61.8 million in Indigenous rangers and $12.1 million towards Indigenous Protected Areas. This represents record investment compared to any previous government dating back to when the ranger program was first established when I was a member of the Howard government.
Finally, our rangers are passionate about their world and World Ranger Day is our chance to say thank you to all those who dedicate themselves to the care of our environment so that its splendour can be appreciated now and preserved for our future generations. Thank you.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion and I reserve my right to speak.
I'm glad to speak to this motion, and I thank the member for Leichhardt for bringing it forward as a matter for discussion. It should really go without saying that the preservation of Australia's environmental values is critical for our future. I'm pleased to see both sides of this place acknowledging the importance of real conservation work at a time of accelerating environmental damage.
It's also the case that we're not making progress that's nearly good enough when it comes to closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and indeed the gap, when it comes to participation in employment, remains stubbornly wide. For both of those reasons, the government should look to do more to recognise and expand the work of Indigenous rangers at a time when the people undertaking the work say that much more needs to be done, there's not enough funding as it is and no funding certainty.
The land management and conservation work done by Indigenous rangers is invaluable to the preservation and restoration of our environment, especially in Indigenous Protected Areas which make up almost half of Australia's National Reserve System. In 2015, a Commonwealth review found that a $35 million investment in ranger programs provided a return of over $96 million in environmental, economic and social outcomes and the review suggested, understandably, that the further increase in investment would accelerate those returns.
We all know that ranger programs instil pride and purpose in young people as they work on country and stay connected to culture. They provide real jobs where jobs are often hardest to find and they lead to healthier communities in areas where health outcomes are poor. Above all, we know that ranger programs deliver high-quality landcare outcomes at a time when our country is under pressure from new threats and old—from climate change in addition to land clearing and invasive species; from plastic waste in addition to the long-brewing extinction crisis. Let's be clear: while Indigenous Protected Areas make up half of Australia's recognised conservation lands, they only receive a very small proportion of Australia's national conservation budget. Fair and better funding of this work is widely supported in the Australian community. I thank the hundreds of people in my electorate who have contacted me over the past two years to make that case.
Labor has responded to the compelling logic of Indigenous rangers by announcing, in 2017, a plan to double their number to 1,550 full-time equivalent positions by 2021. It would be great if the government would follow that lead. It would be great if the government would reverse the funding cuts that they have inflicted on the Landcare Program as a whole. I want to acknowledge the approach being taken in my home state of Western Australia. The McGowan Labor government has established its own state based Aboriginal ranger program. As a result there are 13 separate ranger groups that operate from as far north as the Dampier Peninsula to Esperance on the south coast.
Last Thursday night, I attended a showing of a documentary called Untrashing Djulpan which looked at the devastating plastic trash contamination of the coast in North-East Arnhem Land. Rangers from the Dhimurru Aboriginal Corporation have been doing their best to deal with the year in and year out deposit of tonnes of bottles, nets, fishing gear, thongs, cigarette lighters, shampoo bottles, oil containers and other plastic trash along this coast. In 2018, a crew of Sea Shepherd volunteers went to support their work and measure the extent of the contamination. Those volunteers, I'm happy to say, included a number of people from my electorate: Mike and Liza Dicks and Marina Hansen.
We all know the awful facts: there's more and more plastic being produced and it is not being recycled. In this country, we barely manage 10 per cent in plastic recycling and now other countries are refusing to take our waste. If we can't do better than that in a country like Australia, how can we expect the producers of plastic to do better in other countries, particularly in developing countries? And how can we expect those less-developed nations to stop their impact on our oceans? It's estimated that, by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish. Microplastic is already rife within the marine food chain. Research on the south coast of WA shows microplastic in 30 to 60 per cent of certain bird species and in 50 per cent of fish. Apart from the terrible impact on the lives of these animals, don't forget that chemicals in plastic, including colourants and fire retardants, are toxic to humans.
Indigenous rangers around Australia are doing essential environmental and landcare work and they are being engaged in training and employment that has deep and wide social, cultural and economic benefits. No-one can dispute the value of the program, but the government can and should support it to a much greater extent, with more funding and greater funding certainty.
There is no doubt the Indigenous rangers project is delivering across Australia a good result on many fronts. It's been around a while now. Last August, I had the opportunity to visit the site of the first Indigenous Protected Area in Australia at Nantawarrina, near Nepabunna, which is in the northern Flinders Ranges and adjacent to the Gammon Ranges National Park. It's a beautiful part of the world. Unfortunately, at this moment, it's just a tad dry, I'd have to say. This project has been running there for 20 years and it was the first. I think it's quite encouraging that we've seen so many other projects around Australia being able to spin off the back of this—on the success of what was done there first in the Flinders Ranges. Now there are so many projects across Australia. In fact, 10 of them are in the electorate of Grey. Five are in the APY Lands—where I was last week. I call it my milk run. It takes me a day to get to the turn-off, which is 1,000 kilometres, and then it takes eight hours to drive to the border, which is another 500 kilometres, and I work my way through all the communities and talk with a number of people who are working on these programs—not just on this trip but on others as well. They work on two levels.
The prime reason we invest in the Indigenous rangers program is that there are vast areas of Australia that are under Indigenous control. My electorate, for instance, covers 908,000 square kilometres, around 12 per cent of which is in Indigenous hands, in full ownership. It stands to reason. In fact, most of that area is in native state: it still has the scrub on it; it's not cleared country. It rests in its natural state and it needs management. We know the damage that invasive weeds and pests do to these areas. In fact, I have torn my hair out looking at some of the weeds that are coming in. Our best weapons against those invasive weeds are feet on the ground—people who know where the problems are and who can go out and address them. That's what the Indigenous ranger projects do right across the range.
In the APY Lands, for instance, a good friend of mine has been involved in one of the projects for some time in the Flinders Ranges—the preservation of the black-footed rock-wallaby, the yellow-footed rock-wallaby and a whole range of other species. Down in the south on Yorke Peninsula—which is in farming country—an island, Wardang Island, leapt to fame in the national consciousness here 15 years ago because it was where the calicivirus escaped the quarantine station. It probably delivered a huge environmental benefit to all Australia, I must say. The local group down there is now working through a new process of putting new facilities out there for the Indigenous rangers to work and stay in when they're working across the island. There have been significant new plantings going on there, for instance, re-establishing native species. So that's the angle of the environment, but I don't think we can undersell the value of the employment as well, particularly in these remote regions where there are very few alternatives to employment. It is one of the things I've spoken about many times in this parliament: that we are maintaining and supporting populations in areas of Australia where there is no natural economy. Consequently, finding jobs, even with the best will in the world, is extremely difficult—there are just not enough of them. Where a task sits in front of us, which is, very importantly, looking after the environment, it is right that we should redirect some of the national resources to do exactly that, which is what the Indigenous rangers project does.
My understanding is that across Australia the project employs around 1,000 FTE, which washes down to about 2½ thousand people that actually have work as Indigenous rangers. For those people who are employed in this program, particularly in remote communities, as I said, it is the heart and pride about them. When they come into work in the morning you can see that they are proud of what they do: they're looking after country. I think it's very important to support the culture of these areas and the structures that have built them, so I support the program strongly.
I stand before the House today to speak on this important motion. I thank the member for Leichhardt for bringing it before the House to, firstly, celebrate World Ranger Day. This is the 12th year in which we have celebrated World Ranger Day, and it is important that the House notes that 12th anniversary now.
At the outset I would also like to pay tribute to those rangers across the globe who have lost their lives while at work. This is, in some countries, very dangerous work. On average, globally, one ranger is killed on duty every three to four days. This can be a dangerous place for those who confront the evils of poaching in many continents. Two-thirds of the rangers who have been killed at work died at the hands of poachers—that's an important acknowledgment up-front.
I want to spend this limited amount of time today focusing on the Australian context and the work of the Indigenous ranger program here. The program, as it is in Australia, is important in that it is a very critical way of enabling First Nations people in Australia to look after country in the sense that it's delivering economic, social, cultural and environmental outcomes.
I had the enormous honour, in the break just gone, to visit the Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa rangers group around the Jigalong community. This is part of the Martu rangers program looking after a huge Indigenous protected area in the Western Desert region of Western Australia. They are doing some very important work in trying to ensure the continuation of a rock wallaby which is now a threatened species in their area. They have been doing a terrific job around breeding those rock wallabies and moving them into areas where they can thrive. They have been doing important work around feral camels, which continue to unleash great destruction at waterholes throughout the desert. These camels are roaming across 3.3 million square kilometres of desert in Australia. It is a vast amount of land and there is a huge job to be undertaken.
The KJ rangers were also instrumental in working on a range of fire management programs. This, of course, is helping to restore diversity in the landscape whilst also reducing the impact of the very broad-scale lightning-driven fires that would otherwise occur in the country. Another project I was really taken by was the helicopter and on-ground mapping of water holes in the Martu desert area. If you got to see a map of that desert area and where these waterholes are located, you would be astonished. The number of water holes is incredible, but it is only known to a culturally trained person.
That brings me to the point that I would like to emphasise in the speech today. Labor has long supported this program. We went into the election saying we wanted to double the number of Indigenous ranger programs because it is one of the few sources—indeed, in many communities it is the only source—of purposeful, meaningful work for people in those remote communities. One criticism I have been made aware of during visits to these communities is that there is now so much emphasis on the land management and conservation aspects of the work for Indigenous rangers that less and less time is being made available for our rangers to concentrate on cultural obligations and cultural practices that must take place in order to maintain a healthy country and healthy people living on that country. The government should really pay some attention to that.
I rise to support many of the comments made by those on this side in relation to World Ranger Day. In particular, I would like to note the outstanding work of the Indigenous rangers program. It is a program that Labor has supported, and we call on the government to make sure there is more investment and funding. It is a vitally important area, and one that we have advocated for a long period of time. I think we need to see more of a focus on that. Having Indigenous rangers is vitally important, particularly in rural and regional Australia. We were committed to it when we were in government and we continue to be committed to it.
It is pertinent on World Ranger Day to remember the role of rangers throughout our community and particularly in regional and rural areas. Often under difficult circumstances, they are doing an incredible job. They should be commended for that on an occasion like this, and we should always be looking to expand those programs at the federal, state and local government level. We certainly want to see increased investment in that area to ensure there's a sufficient regulatory regime for rangers to carry out their very important tasks—protecting much of our habitat, right across the country, and our pristine environments as well. It's an issue that many on my side of the House feel strongly about, so I'd like to commend all the speakers on our side who've contributed too.
In my electorate is the region of Circular Head. It's a unique region, in Tasmania, on our rugged west coasts. It's a region that's been untouched by development ever since Tasmania was settled, and it's an area that we're very proud of. It houses rugged coastlines and sweeping sand-dune type areas, and it's precarious. It's precarious in the fact that if it's not managed correctly, how our Indigenous folk managed that region for many thousands of years, that area will be inundated with weeds and noxious species.
Luckily enough for us our program, which we're all speaking to this morning, stabilises that rugged coastline. It augments and supports it and reinforces our future as an island state. Our rugged coastline of the west coast of Tasmania also takes in many wooded species and houses endangered species, such as Eucalyptus ovata, Eucalyptus brookeriana, Eucalyptus globulus andEucalyptus viminalis. These are nationally renowned species that are becoming less and less frequent in nature.
Our native foresters and our native rangers do a wonderful job in protecting these species, including the wildlife and fauna that live within these wooded areas, including our spotted-tail quoll, our Tasmanian devils and our pademelon wallabies, which are prolific in the region. If you get the chance to go to the west coast of Tasmania, it's absolutely breathtaking. Aside from the majestic coastlines, there are the wooded areas that I talked about, and the coastal dunes and our wildlife that you can see at night. It really is a magnificent place. I take my hat off and pay tribute to those dedicated folk who make up our ranger stations along the west coast of Tasmania and other regions that we've heard about throughout the debate this morning. They are dedicated men and women who do their best day in, day out. They take that extra step to ensure that that land is preserved for our next generation. Credit where credit is due. They do a fantastic job and they should be congratulated.
Finally, I would like to say that I hope our continued support is recognised as we move forward and that these precarious areas of our environment are protected for future generations.
I was involved in the funding, from a federal government, of the initial ranger programs in the early 1990s. It was part of an employment program. Now, across this country, I think we've got over 123 ranger groups employing over 2½ thousand people, part-time, full-time and casual. Importantly, not too long ago—in fact, the former minister responsible for First Nations people in this country decried the jobs that rangers are doing as not real jobs. Clearly, he had no appreciation of what rangers actually do and didn't understand both the cultural imperative of ranger programs or the social and economic benefits they produce.
A federal government report found that Indigenous land and sea management delivers up to $3 worth of environmental, social and economic value for every $1 spent. Between the 2009 and 2015 financial years, an investment of $35.2 million from government and a range of third parties generated social, economic, cultural and environmental outcomes with an adjusted value of over $96 million. That's very important.
I'm very proud to stand here as a member of the Labor Party and say that during the last election we committed to doubling the number of rangers and IPAs across the country, something that has not been backed up by the current government. I call on the current government: if you are so intent on supporting ranger groups, do the right thing and expand the numbers so that there are more of them around the country, providing worthwhile and proper work, proper jobs, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, whether on the sea or the land.
Ranger jobs are at the front line of nature protection Australia-wide, delivering transformative benefits to the people at the same time. Recently I attended a Northern Land Council rangers program, which was sponsored by the Department of Agriculture, where biodiversity was a key theme. The importance of that was that, some years ago, when they were first established, the utility of ranger programs wasn't properly considered or understood by any Commonwealth government agency, whether it was the department of border protection, the department of customs as it then was, the defence department, the police, or, in this case, the Department of Agriculture. Now things have changed quite substantially. We are now seeing these departments working hand in glove with ranger programs right across the country. It's important.
We visited Jigalong very recently and saw evidence of the ranger program right along the Canning Stock Route. The local ranger group is re-establishing a wallaby population in a huge park there. It's very important work. Over 70 per cent of Indigenous ranger groups have carried out threatened species activities. Around 85 per cent are involved in fire management. Over 80 per cent of ranger groups reported involvement in cultural site management. Over 80 per cent of ranger groups reported managing destructive feral animals. Over 85 per cent of ranger groups undertook invasive weed management. Over half the ranger groups carried out one or more biodiversity surveys, while nearly 80 per cent of groups undertook environmental monitoring. Over 60 per cent of groups have managed tourist facilities, like track repair and maintenance, camp ground maintenance and other access related work, while 50 per cent of groups provided information through signs, ranger talks, websites and pamphlets.
Rangers, due to their work, have high levels of wellbeing. Rangers use cultural knowledge and keep it strong. Rangers strengthen their communities. Rangers pass on knowledge to the next generation. Rangers learn and speak Aboriginal languages. Rangers' work is linked to individual rangers feeling healthier. Rangers are better off, their communities are better off, and the income is often shared. It is of national importance that we appreciate the role of these rangers in environmental protection across this nation. Whether it's in the large IPAs in the Central Desert or those on the coast, it's extremely important that the broader Australian community understands the value of First Nations ranger groups to this country. What they're doing is of benefit to all of us, and looks after and improves the national estate, and we should be very proud of them.
There's not much that I can add to what the member for Lingiari has just said. He's been involved with rangers for a lot longer than I have, but I'll just make a couple of points. I think he summed up well, at the end, the importance of rangers to our nation. I want to reiterate that the work the rangers do is very dangerous. It's all relative, but when coupled with the tyranny of distance that we have in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland—wherever rangers work—the very nature of their work means they are far from support. They work in special and unique places where there are limited health services, and when things go wrong, as they invariably do, it can be fatal. During World Ranger Day we pay our respects to the rangers who've lost their lives or been seriously injured while at work. I know that communities near Gan Gan in Arnhem Land, in the member for Lingiari's electorate, are still in mourning over the loss of a ranger who was taken by a crocodile last October. These are the dangers that they face in the invaluable work that they do.
The conservation work done by these rangers is also invaluable in the protection of our precious and ancient environment. Rangers apply traditional knowledge to land and sea management. When that's combined with the latest science, our nation benefits. Whether it be fire management, which is becoming increasingly important, traditional burning, management of weeds and pests, protecting threatened species, or preserving stories and culture and handing them on to future generations and tourists—it all benefits from the work of rangers on country.
I'd like to take a moment to applaud the work done in the NT by the Caring for Country Branch of the NLC, the Northern Land Council. I acknowledge that there's a delegation from the Northern Land Council in the parliament today. Caring for Country hosts and provides administrative support for land and sea ranger groups and supports joint management of national parks and management of Indigenous protected areas, IPAs. The Northern Land Council currently services 12 ranger groups and jointly manages seven parks and reserves, including the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park. The NLC actively supports the work of Aboriginal custodians to maintain their cultural obligations to care for this land and sea country through the Caring for Country Branch, which provides environmental and related support services to traditional owners who actively manage in excess of 200,000 square kilometres of land and sea country.
In my electorate of Solomon and the member for Lingiari's electorate is Larrakia country. I want to acknowledge the work done by the Larrakia rangers. They are a long-running urban-based ranger group. With income coming from both commercial enterprise and grant funding they have 22 rangers working across Larrakia land and sea country. When we talk about Larrakia land we're talking about the greater Darwin region, west across to the Cox Peninsula and east to the Adelaide River. This ranger group differs from other ranger groups as much of their effort is directed to commercial work, employment and training. The Larrakia partnership with a whole range of stakeholders and landholders is vital. I commend the work that they do. We know that improving local decision-makers and putting self-determination back in the hands of Aboriginal owners are key steps towards closing the gap. This is very important in the Northern Territory. Aboriginal owned and/or managed land occupies around half of the Territory's landmass and 85 per cent of the coastline. There are currently 1,000 Aboriginal rangers operating across 46 established Aboriginal ranger groups. They manage 460,000 square kilometres of land. That's huge. It's a huge territory. It's also a huge estate being managed by the rangers. Again, I commend the work that they do.
The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
by leave—At the request of the member for Oxley, I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) it has been more than four years since the Government established the independent Review of Small Amount Credit Contracts (SACC);
(b) the review panel provided the final report to the Government on 3 March 2016, listing 24 recommendations relating to the SACC and consumer leasing laws;
(c) the Government released its response to the report on 28 November 2016, in which it agreed with the vast majority of recommendations in part or in full;
(d) the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services at the time said 'the implementation of these recommendations will ensure that vulnerable consumers are afforded appropriate levels of consumer protection while continuing to access SACCs and leases';
(e) the Government released draft legislation on 23 October 2017, whereby the Minister for Small Business and now Deputy Prime Minister said that the 'Government will introduce legislation this year to implement the SACC and consumer lease reforms';
(f) the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer pledged in May 2018 that SACC and consumer leasing laws would be progressed in 2018;
(g) former Prime Minister Turnbull confirmed the Government supported the vast majority of recommendations from the independent Review of SACC and also pledged to introduce legislation enacting the recommendations in 2018;
(h) the Assistant Treasurer in December 2018 also noted the importance of protecting vulnerable consumers from harmful financial practices, but would wait until the conclusion of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry;
(i) the Royal Commission has now been completed, however there is still no legislation before the house to enact the 24 recommendations from the independent Review of SACC;
(j) on 22 February 2019 the Senate Economics References Committee completed an inquiry into credit and financial services targeted at Australians at risk of financial hardship, which recommended that the National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment (Small Amount Credit Contract and Consumer Lease Reforms) Bill 2017 exposure draft released by Treasury be introduced, and passage facilitated by the Government; and
(k) the Government has continuously broken its promises to legislate these important reforms; and
(2) calls on the Government to introduce legislation without any further delay so that Australians are given the protections they need from harmful pay day lending practices.
It is distressing to rise today to move this incredibly important motion. It's distressing because this is the 16th time that I have risen in the federal parliament to speak on the issue of small amount credit contracts legislation and on this government's failure to bring forward its own recommendation, from its own inquiry, to bring its own draft legislation into this place, despite all of the efforts on this side to get that happening. I have spoken 16 times in this place; the member for Oxley has raised this issue 22 times in this parliament.
A sorry saga has gone on. It is four years since this government called for an inquiry. It is three years since that inquiry handed down its recommendations and, despite changes of ministers responsible, we still have no action. Today, the member for Deakin is the minister responsible in this space. He has had one round at it and has failed to bring this into the parliament. As the minister responsible, he has a second chance now to bring this into the parliament. I rise because this is an issue in my electorate, but I believe it is an issue across the country, including in Deakin, the responsible minister's own electorate, where, in September last year, we set up a round table, spoke to the financial counsellors there and heard the same stories we've heard all around the country. Financial counsellors expressed their distress at having to support people in their negotiations with what can only be described as exploitative payday lending practices. This is something that this government can act on now.
What I want to focus on today are the things that this means. It's a sorry saga. There's a history a mile long. As recently as 30 August, the New Zealand and Australian ministers for consumer affairs met and said:
State and Territory Ministers acknowledged that urgent action is needed, particularly now that Small Amount Credit Contracts are being provided through cash loan machines and online.
This industry is steaming ahead while this government fails to act to curtail the exploitative nature of what some are practising, and we know that this is the case. We know that this is the case in my electorate, as I've raised before, but I have an update from WEstjustice, our local CLC. I've raised before that, when they did a survey at our local mental health facility, 25 per cent of the people there had payday loans. The update is that, in the period of three months from April to the end of June 2019, there was a minimum of five patients who ended up in a psychiatric ward. One of the five had five payday loans ongoing—from Cigno, Cash Converters, Cash Stop, Sunshine Loans and rent4keeps.
The information that we've been given is that this shouldn't be able to happen. You shouldn't be able to have multiple loans. But the practice is ongoing. This shows the lack of oversight of this system. These are people with a mental illness who are being loaned money at incredibly exorbitant interest rates, and we know what they look like. We know that some payday loans can attract an annual interest rate of between 112 and 407 per cent. This is an industry that needs regulation, and this government has draft legislation that would regulate this industry, but it has failed to bring it into this House. It has failed time and time again, regardless of the number of times we've called for it.
It's important in my electorate. In Werribee CBD, in the heart of my electorate, we have four shopfronts within 500 metres of one another where people are coming off the train on the way to do their shopping. We have people hanging out of doorways to catch customers, give them a cup of coffee, sign them up for another loan and send them on their way. We have case study after case study of people like Bill, who has an intellectual disability and is in receipt of the disability support pension. He has numerous small consumer leases for everyday items such as a bed and a vacuum cleaner.
This government needs to act. It is well and truly time, and we will continue to call it out until we see the draft legislation in this parliament.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
I rise to oppose this motion. No-one in this parliament disagrees with ASIC, with the Hayne commission, or indeed with the member for Oxley that small amount credit contract reforms need to be implemented. After all, the coalition government is on the side of all Australians and is committed to restoring trust in our financial industry and to supporting low-income Australians. That we all know. But, unlike the member for Oxley, what this government is not is one that rushes in legislation without diligence, without consideration and without patience.
Credit contract regulation is a complicated issue. It needs consideration and diligence and the legislation brought forward by this government to deal with it needs to be treated with patience if it's to be successful. That is what this government is committed to deliver: a considered response, resulting in a successful outcome. Unintended consequences from poorly considered legislation can have profound implications on the most vulnerable members of our community.
The member for Oxley is concerned about a lack of action. He says, 'Nothing is being done,' and that, like my son would say when he was five, 'He wants it now.' Let me remind the House, and the member for Oxley, what this government has achieved on this issue and what it will continue to achieve in the years to come. This government passed legislation on 3 April this year that provides ASIC with a product intervention power on all products legislated by the ASIC Act. This took effect immediately. The product intervention power enables ASIC to intervene in the distribution of a product, where it perceives a risk of significant consumer detriment. On 9 July, ASIC released a consultation paper setting out a proposal to use this new power to address significant consumer detriment in relation to short-term lending practices. The proposal would limit the total fees that can be charged by credit providers and their associates in relation to short-term credit and collateral services.
The government has also introduced design and distribution obligations for insurers and distributors of the financial products, including credit products, commencing on 5 April 2021, in order to provide the necessary transition time to ASIC and to industry. Design and distribution obligations ensure that financial products are targeted and sold to the right consumers. These measures will improve the accountability of financial product issuers and distributors. They will improve outcomes for consumers and make ASIC a more proactive regulator.
On 20 August, the government released the royal commission's implementation road map. It sets out a time line for implementing each of the government's commitments. In doing so, it provides clarity and certainty to consumers, industry, and regulators. The government is taking action on all 76 recommendations contained within the final report of the Hayne royal commission. By the end of 2020, all recommendations requiring legislation will have been introduced. As part of its commitment, the government will remove the point-of-sale exemption that retail dealers have from the operation of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act. This amendment will require third-party vendors, as well as lenders, to recommend only those loans that are suitable for the borrower. Vulnerable consumers will no longer be subject to unfair loans that they can't pay off and that cost more than they can afford.
The government is currently considering public submissions to consultation on a suite of reforms to small amount credit contracts and to consumer leases—following the review—contained in the National Consumer Credit Protection Amendment (Small Amount Credit Contract and Consumer Lease Reforms) Bill. The member for Oxley says the government is delaying. He has no idea what he's talking about. Small amount credit contracts have a place in our society but they need to be carefully regulated. We should not make rash decisions that are driven by the 'flavour of the month' mentally possessed by the other side of the chamber. The government continues to deliver strong economic reform for all Australians. That is what Australians expect from their government and that is what we are delivering.
I rise to speak in support of this motion before the Chamber today. I say to the member for Higgins, before she leaves the chamber, that she is gravely mistaken to think that this is somehow a concern only of Labor members here. There is not a single advocate working in the sector trying to support people impacted by these dodgy payday lending groups out there who thinks that this government is doing anywhere near enough in this space. We are now more than 1,000 days down the track since the government received the report of the review it commissioned. This coalition government, under various leaders, has said that it accepts the recommendations of the small amount credit contract review, the SACC review. Consumer advocacy organisations from right across the country, including my own area of Newcastle and the Hunter, celebrated that. But they are at their wits' end to understand why this government has perpetually missed its opportunity to do anything meaningful in this space. We have a long record now of this government continually breaking its promise to legislate these important reforms.
It is little wonder that last week—I think it was—the consumer advocates in this area came together to kick off a new campaign and form the Stop the Debt Trap Alliance. A petition has now been circulated by these groups. This isn't some spurious Labor campaign being run out here. These are serious players working in the space of providing financial counselling and assistance to people who are in extreme financial hardship and devastating personal circumstances. We're talking about organisations like Anglicare, CHOICE—can there be a more reputable consumer advocacy group in Australia than CHOICE?—the Consumer Action Legal Centre, the consumer credit legal centres, Good Shepherd, MoneyMob, the NILS people, the Salvation Army, and the list goes on and on. It is every serious player who is deeply committed to seeing some action from this government to pass the findings of the review—which it says it's accepted—to bring them into law. This petition calls on the government:
It's time the government took decisive action to protect hardworking Australians from being gouged by reckless lenders.
These people know. I have visited the Samaritans financial counselling service in my electorate on a number of occasions, and I pay tribute to Mr Graham Smith, who works for the Samaritans in that space. Graham is also one of the leaders of the Financial Counsellors Association of New South Wales. There are social consequences of these dodgy payday lenders out in our community, with their instant cash machines set up in tobacco stores and shopping centres across my electorate, my neighbouring electorates and many others. We have seen the number of short-term loans from these guys absolutely skyrocketing. Newcastle is now in the top 10 hotspot areas across this country for these dodgy payday operators. It is little wonder that I and many of my colleagues here are concerned about what this means, because we see the social impact of that in our communities now. We see people taking out these loans, often to purchase household goods. The people are on fixed low incomes. The goods might be valued at $9,000, and they're paying $17,000. This is not a situation that can be continued. This government needs to bite the bullet. It needs to step up. It's time for action. The time for talk is long, long gone.
As in Newcastle, a whole heap of people in my electorate are being preyed upon by payday lenders; and the federal government, in its sixth year, has done next to nothing. Over on that side, they have the 'parliamentary friends of payday lenders'. Are either of you gentlemen a part of the parliamentary friends of payday lenders? They are helping businesses with a poor ethical basis for conducting their business to prey on the poor—those who are not educated or perhaps not financially literate, those who have not had the benefits of, and aren't as entitled as, some of those opposite. When you hear of Australians who have purchased something for $9,000 but end up paying $17,000, how do you sleep at night? It is unconscionable that you would not enact legislation that would put a spotlight on ,and clamp down on, that kind of behaviour.
Let's recap where we are at. Around 8,000 Australian households currently hold a payday loan. For some of those Australian families, a payday loan from an ethical payday lender is appropriate, reasonable and helping them out. But there are approximately 1.8 million households that are under financial distress. If you put those two things together, you will realise that a whole heap of people are being preyed upon by unethical payday lenders who are basically ripping off our fellow Australians who are in financial distress. How un-Australian is that?
Since the government released the payday lending report, almost $2 billion has been borrowed through payday lending. It has been over 800 days since the government announced it would take action against dodgy payday lenders. Eight hundred days—they have been flat out over on that side of the parliament! There have been times in recent sittings when you have run out of legislation. But you can't bring this one forward—this one that will help Australia's most vulnerable people! No, you are too flat out with other legislation, too flat out with other scare campaigns and other distractions to take Australians' minds away from the fact that there is no real plan over on that side.
Labor announced 800 days ago that it would support your proposals. We even tabled legislation affirming the current government's position. But here we are, 800 days later, and nothing has happened. Nothing! Nada! This is while 1.8 million households are under financial distress and many hundreds of thousands of them have arrangements with unethical payday lenders.
As I said, in my electorate, and in the Northern Territory more broadly, we have had many instances of individuals being ripped off by payday lenders and 'rent to buy' operators. In one instance, a payday loan client who borrowed $100,000 was told by a payday lender to repay over $1,000 within six weeks. We had a Centrelink recipient who had four 'rent to buy' payments deducted from her payment each fortnight, leaving her with only $50 to feed her family. That is wrong. If we need to, we will bring back your legislation so that we can get some action on behalf of these Australians. I urge the government to present its bill to the parliament so we can support it and protect these vulnerable people.
'Just Nimble it and move on' is a simple slogan that fails to capture the long-lasting consequences of payday lending, a practice that this government, the opposition, the crossbench and even the National Credit Providers Association have unanimously stated should be addressed as a matter of urgency. However, it would appear that the government's definition of urgent is a little perplexing. Over a thousand days have gone by since the government accepted almost every single one of the recommendations of the independent review of the Small Amount Credit Contract, and it is nearly two years since the government released its own exposure draft legislation, incorporating the majority of the recommendations. It is shameful; it really is.
Notwithstanding the years of reviews, reports, recommendations and consultations, the government has not yet introduced any legislation into this parliament to address the issue of payday lending. And just last month at the Meeting of Ministers for Consumer Affairs they again agreed that urgent action is needed to address the harms caused by payday lending. But what do we have? Nothing. In response, the Assistant Treasurer has stated that the government continues to review public submissions following the review. There was no mention of the draft legislation or when, if ever, the government might decide to take it off the shelf, dust it off and finally introduce it into this place.
So, in the absence of action by the government, it is my intention to introduce the government's own exposure draft as a bill. The bill will provide critical consumer protections that need to be enshrined in law, including capping the amount payday lenders can take out of a consumer's pay to no more than 10 per cent of income received each fortnight. We know that many people are paying obscene interest rates—from 100 per cent up to 400 per cent. It's hard to know whether we should call them small credit loan businesses or loan sharks—because that's what they are. We need changes to the legislation to ensure people have enough money for food, rent and bills. As the Salvation Army noted during the 2019 Senate inquiry into credit and financial services targeted at vulnerable Australians, behavioural science tells us that people in crisis experience cognitive overload which impacts their decision-making and their focus.
When people are in crisis, they do whatever they need to do just to survive. They need to find a way to pay rent so that they won't be evicted. They need to find a way to pay the car loan so the car doesn't get repossessed. They need to find a way to pay their bigger-than-expected electricity bill to keep the lights on. They will access whatever finance they can, and we know that it is a slippery slope—one loan becomes two—and a constant catch-up.
We should not underestimate the aggressive and targeted marketing by payday lenders. The Senate inquiry heard evidence that payday lenders were concentrated in areas of high unemployment, with a large proportion of single-parent families parents on low gross incomes—the companies targeted areas of social and economic disadvantage. Online campaigns are also targeted at young consumers online through Facebook ads and other digital marketing strategies. Evidence provided to the Senate inquiry showed that the fastest-growing demographic was young people aged 15 to 20 years of age, with rates of lending doubling in the last 10 years and the amount of outstanding debt tripling.
Introducing the government's own legislation is an unusual step but, given the apparent influence of the friends of payday lenders within the government ranks, it would seem we have little option in this place but to take the matter into the hands of members of parliament who have a conscience. I remember the now Deputy Prime Minister, at a function in parliament, bemoaning the fact that people were buying vacuum cleaners valued at a couple of hundred dollars but ended up paying thousands of dollars for these products.
Troubling research commissioned by the Consumer Action Law Centre shows that around 15 per cent of all payday borrowers will find themselves trapped in a debt spiral within five years. Again, people are facing financial ruin for the sake of what was initially a few hundred dollars, and the government is doing nothing about it. The fact is that government members cannot even be bothered speaking on this important motion. I commend the member for Oxley for his work in this area and note that this will actually save taxpayers money if it goes through.
There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
It's good to note that we're in an energy-saving mood here in the Federation Chamber today. It looks like we have about 14 of our lights out. I hope that's some technical problem and not an attempt to cut down on our electricity bill. I move:
That this House:
(1) notes the Council of Australian Governments Disability Reform Council met on 28 June 2019 and resolved a number of long-standing issues, including the interaction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) with the health system;
(2) welcomes the council's agreement to a range of disability-related health supports that will be provided through the NDIS; and
(3) notes the:
(a) NDIS will fund disability-related health supports where the supports are required as a result of the participant's disability and assist the participant to undertake activities of daily living;
(b) types of health supports that will be funded by the NDIS include continence supports, dysphagia and nutrition supports, respiratory supports and supports for wound and pressure care; and
(c) approach agreed to by the council to fund disability related health supports under the NDIS recognises participants need to be placed at the centre of all decisions.
We welcome the progress that we are making on the NDIS. We should acknowledge that this is a $22 billion scheme that is unprecedented in our nation's history. Everyone on both sides of the parliament should be proud of the work that has been done so far but, in doing so, should acknowledge that there are still a lot of problems. There are still teething problems. Any scheme of such a size and involving such enormous transition will have problems. This government is doing everything it possibly can to work through those problems and to make sure that those Australians who are unfortunate enough to be struck down with some type of physical or intellectual disability are given all the support that they can get.
I was pleased to participate in a roundtable discussion with the Prime Minister and the Minister for the NDIS, Minister Robert, a fortnight ago here in Canberra. One thing that came up during those discussions is that it's very important, when our scheme goes forward, that we look not just at supporting the Australian with a disability but at supporting the whole family unit, whatever shape or form that family may take. Because, ultimately, the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be strongest if we make sure that that person is in with a strong family and is given all that family support. From our experiences when we speak with parents of disabled children, we all know the pressures that they are under. We see that separations in families with children with disability are far, far higher than in the rest of society. I know the number of mothers I speak with who take depression medicine because of the strain of bringing up their disabled child. We have to make sure our National Disability Insurance Scheme is focused on the family unit and on supporting the family unit because that is the best way to ensure that Australians with disability get the best possible care.
We've got to take the pressure off the carers. We've got to take the pressure off other family members. We've got to make sure that we're not simply focusing on material supports for the person with a disability but are looking at the family as a whole and concentrating on that family, making sure that we as a government are giving them all the support we can. But, ultimately, we can have all the goodwill that we want here, but we can only deliver this as long as this country continues to have a strong economy. That's why I encourage all members to continue to encourage the support— (Time expired)
Could I have a seconder for the member for Hughes's motion, please?
I second the motion.
For thousands of families across Australia—indeed, there are many in my electorate and, no doubt, in the member for Hughes's electorate and everyone else's electorate as well—the NDIS has become a critical part of everyday life. It's certainly opened many avenues for people who live with disability, helping to improve their way of life and, quite frankly, helping people reach their potential. When the Gillard government established the National Disability Insurance Scheme, as you will recall, it was certainly built on the belief that every person in our community, including those who live with a disability, deserve to know that their country is committed to building a society based on acceptance and inclusion. I know the member for Hughes well understands this, given his personal experience in the area of disability, but I think it's important that the scheme that we have, the NDIS, actually does address and deliver on those qualities. However, I think everyone must acknowledge that the implementation of the NDIS has not been without significant challenges. That's why it's cautiously welcomed that the government is in the process of rolling out a plan to address pressures on families, particularly those trying to access the Early Childhood Early Intervention pathways of the NDIS.
I know that raising a child under six is challenging, but raising a child with a disability places enormous pressure on families. I know that from personal experience. My office—and, no doubt, the offices of many members here—has been inundated with inquiries from parents about their waiting times. Many wait for months to access NDIS plans that would allow their young children to gain access to much needed early childhood support. Many parents have paid hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in out-of-pocket costs while they wait for a review of their plan or wait for a plan itself from the NDIA for services such as speech pathology, other physical therapies et cetera. I hope the interim plans for these families, who are expecting to wait over 50 days, are being implemented without the same kinds of delays and inadequacies that we've seen, regrettably, in many facets of the NDIS. In theory, the plan will assist many young families and will allow them to pay crucial support services whilst waiting for the full NDIS plan to be delivered or, alternatively, waiting for their plan to be reviewed. However, I have to say I fear the same problems that have overwhelmed the NDIA may very well be apparent in terms of accessing early childhood pathways. I trust that these interim plans will not simply be a way of kicking the can further down the road, and I hope the government holds to its commitment to a six-month time frame for the full NDIS plan to be received.
Grace Fava—many around here will personally know her—founder and CEO of the Autism Advisory and Support Service, was certainly encouraged by the $10,000 interim package for families that has been announced. However, Grace herself has raised concerns about the efficiency of implementing this program, particularly when NDIA offices are currently overwhelmed with the number of cases already before them. It is important that we acknowledge that there is a need not just for funds to go into the NDIS plans but for more efficient services to be delivered and more properly trained staff—particularly staff who have an empathy for families who live with someone with a disability. In my electorate, these matters are certainly even more complicated, from the fact that mine is a most multicultural community and that people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds find it very difficult to navigate the NDIA's system.
With the government's underspend on the NDIS last year of $1.6 billion, I would've thought that part of that money should've been put aside to be able to come back into helping those who need it, particularly families who live with disability—as opposed to the money being set aside to help support the government's budget bottom line. I think we can do better. We need to do better for families. And we certainly need to work for meaningful inclusion of people with disabilities in our society.
There's no doubt in my mind that the NDIS is significantly improving the lives of hundreds of constituents in my electorate of Bass, but I certainly recognise that improvements need to be made to address issues within the system as it continues to roll out. Tasmania commenced the full NDIS scheme on 1 July this year, and it is expected that more than 2,200 northern Tasmanians will be part of the service by 2020. I wholeheartedly support the Morrison government's NDIS Participant Service Guarantee and the opportunity it is providing to all participants, including those in northern Tasmania, to have their say.
It is a passion of mine, as the member for Bass, to work at realising the potential for genuine change through the NDIS for those I represent. Just a few weeks after I was sworn in, I hosted the NDIS roundtable in Launceston with the Prime Minister and the Minister for the NDIS, Stuart Robert. This was a great opportunity for a small group of participants and their families to directly address what is and what isn't working for them within the current system. I certainly know that the attendees who were there on that day felt that they were heard by the Prime Minister and Minister Robert, who have both continuously demonstrated that they want to see the NDIS improving the lives of Australians in meaningful ways, and that they are committed to ongoing improvements to the scheme.
There were some excellent examples from individuals and families represented at that event of how their participation in the NDIS has created significant benefits to their lives. One woman shared the incredibly powerful story of her daughter, who had been able to transition from institutional care and return to the family home as a result of the scheme and had had a demonstrated improvement in her health and wellbeing as a result. Another mother of a very young participant spoke of how early intervention services accessed through the scheme had benefited her and their family.
But of course the roundtable also presented an opportunity for participants to identify gaps and challenges that they have experienced, mostly around the interface with transport and health services. It's so important to hear directly from people about these issues so that they are able to be addressed as the scheme moves forward.
I'd like to take the time here today to say a sincere and generous thank you to Minister Robert, who has been a tremendous listener as we've discussed the NDIS challenges facing those in my electorate. More than that, he has been a true force for change in this area and has already solved a number of issues raised with me by my constituents. In one particular case I was recently contacted by a constituent advocating on behalf of one of her students who was having difficulty accessing equipment, resulting in significant inconvenience and loss of dignity for the young man. Minister Robert was very responsive and moved very quickly to rectify the problem. On behalf of that young man and his family, I say: 'Thank you, Minister Robert.'
A short time after that initial NDIS roundtable, I met with a local disability advocate in Bass, Jane Wardlaw, to discuss further opportunities to engage with NDIS participants. Those of us in the northern Tasmanian community who have been fortunate enough to cross paths with Jane will understand what a fierce and passionate advocate she is for so many. From our discussion, I've begun to organise, with Jane's help, a series of further roundtable discussions beginning at the end of this month and focusing on a few key themes that have been raised with me as areas of concern for participants in northern Tasmania. The goal of these forums is to focus on gathering valuable information on what is and what isn't working within the current system.
While it is vital for us as members of parliament to know what isn't working, it is also incredibly important to understand what is working, as lives have been positively impacted by the introduction of the NDIS. The first workshop open to NDIS participants and their families is set for late September, with further workshops planned for later in the year. A separate workshop for NDIS providers to provide their feedback is also planned. It is my intention to continue to engage proactively with participants, service providers, advocates and other stakeholders in the years ahead, as there is an incredible amount of positivity and goodwill amongst all of these groups and it is such a valuable opportunity to gather and provide that vital feedback so we can continue to grow and shape the NDIS to be the very best that it can be.
This motion highlights the ongoing issues with the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme under this Liberal government. The member for Hughes is right to point out that the issues dealt with at COAG in June were longstanding—fundamentals like how the NDIS should interact with the health system. Why is this only being resolved now?
It was Labor that established the NDIS, and this came after many years of campaigning by people with disability and their families and carers. It promised to change people's lives for the better and enable Australians with disabilities to live the lives they wanted to. They have waited so long to escape an inadequate and fragmented system, to have the quality of life that they deserve. Labor listened to people with disability and stood with them on that journey to introduce the NDIS, the greatest social reform since Medicare. That is what is promised by the NDIS and what we in the Labor Party remain committed to seeing delivered.
While it is very important that the NDIS has had bipartisan support—and I acknowledge that—its implementation is not being prioritised as it should be under this Liberal government. There are serious, ongoing issues, the addressing of which I know a Labor minister would have made a top priority. The fact that Scott Morrison and the Liberals are proud of a budget surplus that is based largely on a $1.6 billion underspend on the NDIS tells you everything you need to know. That underspend does not represent good management; it represents people with disability not being able to access the supports they need.
It is devastating to speak with people who thought the NDIS was going to change their lives for the better but have in fact found it has made them worse. At NDIS forums and when talking with constituents, the burden that people with disability and their families carry is palpable. You can feel people's exasperation with systems that are not working, with the lack of transparency and personalised support, with dealing with a government whose underlining attitude to the NDIS, as it is with most social policy, is: What are these people trying to get? How are they trying to game the system? They are trying to get the support they need to live their lives and to participate fully in our community.
One constituent who has contacted me is the mother of a three-year-old girl who is unable to walk or stand. At the beginning of this year she applied to the NDIS to get her daughter a standing frame. Six months later there is still no word on when, or even if, her daughter will be granted this device. When you're three, six months is critical in terms of your development and learning, and this delay is completely unacceptable. I ask the minister and the Prime Minister to put themselves in the shoes of that little girl and her mother—or, indeed, the shoes of the countless other NDIS participants they must be hearing from—and see what it feels like for them. Stories like this are not uncommon and they expose the systemic issues within the NDIS. Many of these stem from the planning process.
The NDIS is a major reform and major adjustments are required, but many of the solutions seem obvious. No. 1, we need to remove the staffing cap on the NDIA. Why you would cap staffing on an agency that is delivering such a major reform is beyond me. To get the NDIS right we need an adequately resourced NDIA.
No. 2, people need to see their draft plans. Again, it is absolutely astonishing that this is not part of the process. This is fundamental to transparency and would reduce the need for further reviews. In my view, participants should also be able to have a contact person that they deal with each time they contact the NDIA, rather than a call centre model. NDIS plans are complex, not one size fits all, and this would make things a lot easier not only for participants but also, surely, for the NDIA. Most importantly, what is absolutely fundamental to getting the NDIS right is listening to what people with disability are saying. The NDIS is fundamentally about two things: choice and control. I urge the government to urgently prioritise fixing the NDIS so that it truly delivers choice and control to people with disability.
I'm very pleased to rise to speak on this motion, which, whilst well intended, really does miss some very fundamental issues that are more than evident now with the NDIS. I say at the outset that, after six years of Liberal governments fumbling the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, we on this side of the Chamber would welcome any improvements, particularly those around the funding of health supports and helping participants avoid getting stranded in hospital while waiting for vacancies to come up in appropriate forms of housing—and I'll go to that issue in a moment.
The very real fact is that the Liberals have ripped $1.6 billion from the NDIS. They are attempting to balance a budget on the backs of some of the most vulnerable people in our nation. This underfunding and imposition of a staffing cap has had very real flowthrough effects for people with disability and those who are caring for them. It has had an effect on the time frames, the quality and the amount of care that is able to be given, and the speed at which goods and services are able to be deployed to those who need them. Arbitrary rejections of participants needing wheelchairs and hoists are rife in the scheme, as are participants waiting for more than a year to get these simple but life-changing assistive technologies. As the NDIS is being rolled out, people are falling through the cracks. I'm in an area that was part of a national trial site, so I am more than three years ahead of many parts of the nation. In Newcastle, we see much of what is about to happen for others in the nation. There has been very consistent feedback from NDIS participants, providers and carers and state and territory governments about the very poor implementation that is happening now.
I would like to raise the case of a young woman, Casey Miller, 29 years old, who came to see me in my electorate office during the parliamentary sitting break. Back in 2013, when she was 23 years of age, she was diagnosed with a brain tumour due to treatment that she required when she acquired a brain injury. Devastatingly, Casey's latest prognosis is that her cancer is terminal and that she only has six to nine months to live. She no longer lives in Newcastle—in fact, she lives in the electorate of Lyne. I am writing to her now local member, Dr Gillespie, the member for Lyne, hoping that he will meet with Casey, because in the very limited amount of time that Casey has to live she is having enormous issues with the NDIS which need speedy resolution.
Casey has also put her mind to developing a proposal for housing that would ensure that people are no longer inappropriately housed in nursing homes. So often young brain-injury sufferers like Casey end up in aged-care facilities. She rightly says that that's not on. She has dedicated her time to developing this proposal around appropriate housing, yet she has entered the private rental system in the electorate of Lyne. She is trying to get some modifications to a bathroom so that she can have some dignity in the personal care that she requires in the remaining six to nine months that she has to live. I can't tell you the trauma that she is going through in order to get what most of us in this chamber would regard as a fairly basic right, to be able to attend to her own personal hygiene, to have a bathroom that is accessible in the remaining days that she has to live, to help improve her quality of life. At the NDIS she has faced obstacle after obstacle. I hope that the member for Lyne will meet with Casey, take up her case and ensure that she gets the bathroom modifications that are required to provide some dignity in her life.
On that note, we on this side of the chamber also note that some important issues around transport plans and respite were not considered at the last Council of Australian Governments Disability Reform Council. These are red-hot issues for people with disability, and I look forward to ensuring that the minister takes them up and follows through on his word to do so.
There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Sitting suspended from 13 : 05 to 16 : 00
Recently the Minister for Agriculture, Senator Bridget McKenzie, and I were hosted by Peter and Marian Vandegoor at their hydroponic tomato operation at Katunga, a small town about 30 kilometres north of Shepparton. Katunga Fresh grows over 10 million kilograms of tomatoes every year under 14 hectares of glass, which they're planning to expand as well. One of the limits to its expansion is the cost of energy. Katunga Fresh has taken a proactive step to partner up with one of the most advanced bioenergy projects in the world.
This will be Australia's first large-scale, fully-integrated renewable energy business. More than $500 million will be injected into the local economy following this announcement that AgBioEn renewable energy facility are going to partner up with Katunga Fresh in Katunga. The total investment in all land, equipment and buildings in Katunga and the surrounding region will be around $2 billion. This multi-million dollar facility from AgBioEn will utilise world-class technology to deliver clean, low-emissions renewable energy and will produce electricity, high-quality renewable diesel and jet fuel, fertiliser and food grade CO2. Using a combination of technologies, the AgBioEn facility will process organic waste materials, biomass, such as cereal straw. It is planned that by 2023 over 7,500 hectares of land will be farmed for this facility and more than 1,000 jobs will be created. I applaud the innovative and entrepreneurial leadership shown by the Vandegoors and their partners.
In every Tasmanian classroom there are, on average, two or three gifted children, but we're letting them down. The result is that thousands of gifted kids are not being identified, not being given the opportunities they need and not being allowed to reach their potential. This country can afford to support all students with special needs, not just those with learning difficulties, so it's deeply troubling that achieving potential is too often the preserve of the rich and vocal, or that so many gifted kids go unrecognised, or that so many parents have to fight to have their child assessed only to then wait a year to see a school psychologist. Frankly, we need system redesign, because teachers must be trained to identify and cater for gifted children. Schools need to be better resourced, and there needs to be a shift in mindset.
This is not about benefiting an elite group of students but, rather, understanding that gifted children have special learning needs and failing to meet them can lead to boredom, disengagement and underachievement. Remember, bright kids don't do well no matter what. In other words, we're letting some of our most brilliant minds go to waste. And that's unfair, counterproductive and sometimes downright cruel.
I stand today to celebrate the remarkable life of Bass constituent the wonderful Patrick Joseph Bottle, who recently passed away at the age of 86. Pat was an absolute stalwart of the George Town community. He was a part of the fabric of the town, which he adored. Anyone who has lived in George Town would have come across Pat over the years, and so many of us were privileged to know this modest, hardworking and goodhearted person.
Pat grew up in George Town and created and managed one of the town's oldest businesses, which is now operated by his son, Ben. Totally committed to the service of his community, Pat held a voluntary role with the Rotary Club of George Town for over 35 years, and I know his legacy will continue to inspire Rotarians and others to do their utmost for our community.
Through Rotary and with his love of vintage cars he created and volunteered at the successful community event Wings and Things. He was heavily involved with the Star of the Sea college and gave much time to volunteering at the college in a variety of roles. It was his dedication to the community which earned him the George Town Council's 2016 Citizen of the Year Award. But perhaps most importantly of all Pat was a loving husband to his dear wife, Judith, an adored father to his children, and an adored grandfather to his grandchildren. Vale Patrick Bottle; you will be very sorely missed.
There are two cities in my electorate of Solomon: of course, Darwin, the northern capital of Australia, and also Palmerston, which I'm very happy and honoured to share with the honourable member for Lingiari. But I am the local member for the majority of Palmerston, and that's why I am very pleased that in recent weeks the Palmerston hospital celebrated its first birthday. A lot of us worked for many years to see that hospital built.
I was very pleased also that, on the first anniversary, the Pete Davies Auditorium was officially named. Pete Davies was famous in the Territory, a well-loved Territorian, who advocated strongly for the Palmerston hospital. He was at 104.9 Mix FM, and it's a great tribute to him. Congratulations to everyone involved in the running of the Palmerston hospital. It's a great facility.
Congratulations also to the NT government for the new Palmerston Police Station, which will mean that police officers in Palmerston can spend more time out in the community, on the beat. Added to this, there's going to be a new fire station for Palmerston because the old one is well past its use-by date. Congratulations to Tony Sievers, the member for Brennan, and to Eva Lawler, the local member for Drysdale, on their fantastic work for the community of Palmerston.
I rise to speak about surf lifesaving clubs, an enormous part of the lifestyle and culture on the Gold Coast and home to many of the beautiful beaches in the world, many of which make up the eastern boundary of Moncrieff electorate.
As a Gold Coaster for 18 years, training for a bronze as a surf lifesaver at Mermaid Beach Surf Club was indeed a highlight. The team, now headed by President Ann Donnelly-Marshall and Deputy President Pete Degnian, does a great job at our club.
I take this opportunity to mention life member Dave Zemek and his family, Judy and Benn, who support him after Dave's heartbreaking accident in the surf at Miami Beach a year ago, which saw him confined to a wheelchair.
I congratulate the contribution that the coast's 22 surf clubs—and the nine in my electorate—made to last year's record of zero deaths on our beaches. I commend North Burleigh, Miami, Nobby's Beach, Mermaid Beach, Kurrawa, Broadbeach, Northcliffe, Surfers Paradise and Southport for their ongoing work to keep our beaches safe.
The coast beach culture means our surf clubs attract people from all walks of life. No matter where you're from, the focus is on doing the work required to ensure the sustainability of the club and to promote a community spirit of inclusiveness and safety. Our club volunteers roll up their sleeves to fundraise, attend to administrative duties and patrol beaches to save lives.
At the end of this month, we'll start to see around 5,000 nippers running around on the sand and into the surf. This is a fundamentally important program run by surf clubs that teaches our next generation how to stay safe in the water. As we come to the peak season for our beaches, I wish to thank our volunteer surf lifesavers and club members who do so much for our city and Moncrieff.
I want to congratulate an organisation called Bounce Back for their great work with South Sudanese Australian youth and give a special shout-out to my friend Yong Deng who's been a driving force behind Bounce Back.
Bounce Back is a basketball and mentoring program run by South Sudanese Australian Youth United, and they welcome young people of all backgrounds—and there are many great young Australians of African heritage—from many communities.
They have a unified goal of helping young people to excel at life and they do this through targeted mentoring, having people along to talk, chat and engage—and I've been a couple of times—and through sport. It happens on Friday nights in Doveton.
There's so much racist rubbish which we read in the media, particularly in Victoria, I might say, driven by the Victorian Liberal Party in the lead-up to the last state election about African crime, that you couldn't go out, misusing crime stats. All of a sudden of course, when the election was over, it just all stopped and it was safe to go out again. But in amongst this rubbish that just makes life harder for young people of African heritage growing up in Australia, we have to try and focus on some positive things. There are no elections in sight for the next few years—
Opposition members interjecting—
so, hopefully, now we can focus on positive things that will give young people some hope and support and inspire them.
I congratulate the Scanlon Foundation on their work in funding this. I've written to the assistant minister—he said he'll come along with me in the next few weeks—to see if, together, we can put the politics aside that we've seen too much of and actually do something positive. I've sat down with these young people and I challenge anyone yelling at me to go and do it. Talk to them: how do they feel hearing the crap from your side?
People in any electorate of Bonner are passionate about the environment and living by the mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle. I would like to take this opportunity to commend some of the local business community for getting behind the push to establish a community garden and food waste recycling space in Wynnum. Kathryn Shepherd of the Coffee Club in Wynnum and David Bateson of Wynnum Business are leading the initiative to convert Wynnum Central Park into a community garden and relocate an unused hot-composting machine to the site. We want to see local food outlets contribute to food waste recycling and help reduce the amount of waste going into landfill. Such a community space would also be great for educating young people about sustainable living and position Wynnum at the forefront of reduce-reuse-recycle initiatives. I'm very much looking forward to supporting this project, and I call on the Brisbane City Council and the state government to also get behind it. I know through government grants and support from local businesses we can get this exciting project off the ground. The more that we can do as a community to reduce our food waste and encourage sustainable living, the better our local environment will be.
Last week the national accounts figures were released, showing that the economy is growing at its slowest rate since 2009. We now have a situation where the population is growing faster than the economy. This is a recipe for everything to go backwards. Indeed, wages have stalled, business investment is down, and even public sector investment, which has traditionally been the saviour of the day in circumstances like this, is down as well. Any government that was serious about managing the economy, and managing the economy in the interests of ordinary Australians, would have a plan to deal with wages, a plan to deal with faltering business investment, and a plan to deal with infrastructure and government investment. But instead of a serious plan being announced last week, what we had was a brain fluff about drug testing people who are on Newstart. The only thing wrong with the proposition is that it is an expensive smoke screen for the real problems that we are confronting in our economy, and the evidence from around the world is that it simply won't work. The biggest, growing group of people who are long-term unemployed—the men and women who worked all their lives but now find themselves out of work—deserve better than this.
Tomorrow, 10 September 2019, is World Suicide Prevention Day. Yesterday, today and tomorrow eight Australians will take their own lives—on average, five men and three women, every single day in Australia. For every one person that takes their life, around 30 will attempt to take their own lives. If you extrapolate those figures out, eight people take their own lives every day; 240 attempt to take their own lives. These figures are an absolute disgrace. They are a blight on our society. Tomorrow, as a country, we come together for World Suicide Prevention Day. I know this is an issue about which concern is shared across the chamber. It's something that we need to work together on. I would encourage all my colleagues, both on this side and the other, to attend the parliamentary friendship group for mental health on 16 September in the House of Representatives alcove to take part in that process, to learn more about suicide prevention, because it is something that touches each and every single one of us.
I want to speak about an event I attended on Saturday afternoon—the Casey District Scout Association annual general meeting. I'd like to pay tribute to the people that were involved in the organisation of this lovely event: Jenny Walden, who is the Casey district commissioner, and Michael Jones, who is the district scout chairman. We also had the honour of being addressed by Frank Moore, the Bays regional commissioner.
The City of Casey is in a growth corridor, so we have lots of young families living there. The Casey district is a very active district. With the programs and encouragement offered by the Casey District Scout Association, it is district that is getting a lot of young people in. This annual general meeting was attended by the Mayor of the City of Casey, Amanda Stapleton, and also the member for La Trobe, Jason Wood, because we wanted to show that we had bipartisan support for scouting in the City of Casey.
I would also like to pay tribute to the young scouts who presented there. A lot is said about what is wrong with young people in our area. But when you see the quality of the presentations made by the young scouts from the Casey district, there should be a lot of credit given to the Casey District Scout Association and the parents—it was a very cold, windy Saturday. Congratulations to the parents who attended that annual general meeting. They should be very proud of their kids, as I was when I watched them.
The Goldstein community is blessed with a wonderful natural environment. But we also have a built environment, and the built environment of Sandringham has come alive as the Sandy Street Art Project sets about rejuvenating tagged and tired walls with vivid works of art. Led by Ian Cochrane, the group has finished two pieces which blend street art motifs with powerful Indigenous stories. Artist Mike Shankster's graphic masterpiece Bundjil and the Creation of the Bay sits proudly above the Limoncello cafe, while Mike Eleven's piece Bundjil's Children, just behind the supermarket, captures an optimistic vision of Australian multiculturalism. As recommended by the Boonwurrung elders, Mike worked with and mentored local Indigenous artist Ben Russell throughout the art project.
I rise to speak about the heartless decision to defund CapTel handsets and provide incredible uncertainty for users of CapTel handsets across Australia. Some 4,000 Australians rely on CapTel handsets to, like so many of us in this place, use a telephone to communicate with the world. People who have hearing challenges, hearing impairments or are simply hard of hearing rely on these CapTel handsets. But to save just $10 million over the life of the contract, this government has thrown those users into complete uncertainty. I received a letter from Peggy, who lives in the suburb of Inglewood in my electorate. Peggy wrote to me with huge concerns that her letters to the minister hadn't been responded to and about what would happen to her if she cannot use CapTel handsets. She says, 'The CapTel handset has provided me with a reliable and effective option for communicating by telephone for many years.' In her words, the decision to stop supporting the CapTel handset is 'unfair and will discriminate against thousands of Australians who rely on CapTel in both their work and personal lives on a daily basis'. This comes on top of a $700,000 cut to Vision Australia Radio, denying access to our newspapers to people who have vision impairment. It is a disgrace and it should be reversed. The government has less than six months before this vital service is closed for good.
There is a range of committee groups across my electorate of Robertson. Recently I had the privilege of going back to the small but very beautiful riverside town of Spencer. It was a fantastic afternoon to celebrate and unveil the new outdoor furniture that we funded as part of round 4 of the Stronger Communities Program. Locals from Gunderman and Wisemans Ferry travelled along the river for the occasion. We gathered under the Spencer tree, which is known to locals as the Dunkirk Hotel, for some great conversation, amazing food and also to enjoy the new furniture. Funding through the Stronger Communities Program meant that the Spencer Community Progress Group and the Wisemans Ferry Men's Shed were able to build and install the new furniture for everyone to be able to enjoy, and it really does look amazing. In fact, some of the original furniture that was there some decades ago has actually remained.
I pay tribute to Robyn Downham for putting on this event and for her tireless advocacy for the Spencer community and to the President of the Spencer Community Progress Group, Brad Maisey. To the Wisemans Ferry Men's Shed, led by President Adrian Acheson, thank you for designing and constructing the new table. A special thank you goes to Adam Dayes who served us incredible food at the Dunkirk Hotel. This is a great reminder of how this program is supporting communities and helping to bring people together. Over the last couple of weeks we've been consulting with the community about round 5 of the program, and there have been a number of wonderful applications. I look forward to another successful round and to updating the House.
I actually want to talk about something relatively serious, which relates to youth mental health—
An honourable member interjecting—
Let's talk about youth mental health and young people killing themselves, which happened in a suicide cluster in my area in 2011 and 2012, if you want to talk about something serious.
I'm addressing this particular subject matter, not having been scheduled to speak but I've been given the opportunity to. I do so on the basis of a discussion that I had with a very impressive young person from the Hazaras community—who would probably prefer that I didn't name her—in a really important meeting that I had with her on Friday.
When the suicide cluster happened in 2011 and 2012, one of the things I resolved was to lobby the then Labor government to ensure that we got headspaces in Dandenong and in Narre Warren—and we did get funding for those two headspaces. One of the concerns that I have—and if it keeps going I'll stand up again and talk about it—is in relation to access to these services for kids of multicultural backgrounds. I must flag here in this place at this time that following the discussion—not only that I've had with that very impressive young lady from the Hazaras community, who I spoke to on Friday, but also others within the migrant youth community in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne—I really am concerned about the fact that I don't believe enough young people of migrant background, or NESBs, are being encouraged to access these services. I will probably get up in the next 90 seconds and talk more about that.
I stand today to let everyone know of the circus that just came to Townsville. It's called the Queensland state parliament. They came to Townsville in force and it was an absolute rabble. I have never seen more rabble than the Queensland state Labor government. They do not care about the north. You could tell by what they did when they came to Townsville. They cancelled meetings. They didn't want to talk to the community. They threw money in the air then blamed everything on the federal government—I didn't expect any different from them.
I attended question time to have Jackie Trad stand up and blame me, the federal member for Herbert, for all her problems. So I reached out to Jackie Trad, and to meet with—
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 16:23 to 16:35
I was a bit excited to see Jackie Trad in Townsville. I was excited because I was hoping she was going to invest in our region, because then the state Labor government might actually do their job and invest in the region. While she may be cleared through the CCC, I can tell you now: corruption is corruption, and, Jackie Trad, you are not welcome in Townsville.
Last month Kerry Robertson became the first Victorian to use the state's Voluntary Assisted Dying Act. After nine years of cancer slowly spreading through her body, she died peacefully, surrounded by a family who described her death as empowered, dignified, perfect. It was the death that Kerry chose, something she had the right to do under Victorian law.
The same cannot be said here in the ACT. In Western Australia politicians this month held the longest sitting in more than 20 years, over the issue of voluntary assisted dying. In the ACT we don't have that opportunity. Our friends at the ACT Legislative Assembly have their hands tied by an outdated federal law that restricts the rights of all territorians. The so-called Andrews bill came into place in 1997, when the ACT Legislative Assembly was just in short pants. It's now 30, and the ACT Legislative Assembly is the intellectual equal of any other parliament around Australia. It should have the right to legislate on voluntary assisted dying.
Earlier this year I moved a private member's bill with my colleague Luke Gosling from the Northern Territory. Luke doesn't support voluntary assisted dying. I do. But we both believe passionately in territory rights, and we are following in the footsteps of people from both sides of the parliament. It's just a shame that Senator Seselja doesn't see things the same way and stands against giving his own constituents a real voice. It's time for territorians to get proper democracy.
I rise in this chamber to speak on an important matter, following disturbing reports in the media last night about the chemical glyphosate. This chemical is the active ingredient found in broad-spectrum herbicides and weedkillers and is often used both commercially and domestically. Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Roundup, a well-known and well-used product in homes around Australia. I worked closely with the US National Academy of Sciences as an expert reviewer on their report on GMO, on this very issue. There are significant concerns about the effects on humans and the long-reaching effects on the environment, including the effects of prolonged use on soil, that remain undetermined. In fact, such are the risks of glyphosate that the IARC, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, has listed the chemical as probably carcinogenic in humans.
Following recent court cases and verdicts in America, it is becoming clearer that glyphosate poses a much larger risk than first realised, although further research is required. It is vitally important that this chemical does not shape our history in devastating ways like tobacco, thalidomide and asbestos have. Therefore we should be alert and remain concerned. When this chemical was first released, the maker of Roundup, Monsanto, was widely using it. We need to be careful.
I would like to congratulate Mr Aaron Young, the Principal of Hillman Primary School, within my electorate of Brand, for being chosen by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority to showcase how the school is developing and implementing career education initiatives with a focus on general capabilities, such as 21st century skills. The program was established at Hillman Primary School to enhance the personal and career development of students, with the aim of showcasing career opportunities to inspire students and broaden their thinking—in particular, their thinking around choices of careers—and encouraging a positive and constructive community engagement so the whole community around the school can work together to maximise student learning outcomes.
The 21st century skills program of Hillman Primary provides strategies that help vulnerable students understand how their current educational and personal choices will affect their future life roles. Activities within the program include workplace visits—companies and other organisations host students to inspire interest—a large career expo where businesses and industry showcase their career opportunities, and family career trees where students interview family members about their career choices and career histories. They also have vision boards where students identify and plan for their future careers. It's very forward looking for primary school students. This year's Hillman Primary School's expo was an extraordinary success. They had 22 activities and exhibits for students. I'd like to congratulate Mr Young and all the teachers at Hillman Primary School for the wonderful work they do in our community.
The people of Mallee continue to exemplify resilience, hard work and innovation. In addition, they are dedicated to their communities and support one another. Grassroots organisations have developed to make sure support is available for all. This week I visited one such group: the Redcliffe Community Resource Centre, capably led by Joe Farrell. I was glad to congratulate the team on their success and a $20,000 grant to support the important work they are doing in the Redcliffe community, specifically for veterans but for others also. The Redcliffe Community Resource Centre is an organisation constantly striving to meet the needs of the community in innovative ways and to partner with other organisations to creatively fill gaps in service delivery. The resource centre will now be able to build a kitchen and all-access toilet facilities to serve their community: I would like to acknowledge the Redcliffe RSL for their continued support for the resource centre. The centre is currently constructing a Men's Shed on their site. We know the positive impact that Men's Sheds have on isolated community members. I once again commend and thank the Redcliffe Community Resource Centre for their contribution to the community.
September is Dementia Awareness Month. On Sunday 22 September, I'll be holding the second annual Grant McBride Memory Walk and Jog at Long Jetty on the Central Coast. Last year, I lost my dad, Grant, to early onset dementia. He was only 68 years old. I made a promise to my mum to do everything I could for those living with dementia, their carers and their loved ones. Across Australia, there are more than 447,115 people living with dementia and almost 1.5 million people are involved in their care. Dementia is, sadly, the leading cause of death among women in Australia and the third-leading cause of death in Australian men. According to Dementia Australia, without a medical breakthrough, the number of people with dementia will grow to over one million by 2058. Every day, almost 250 people have the conversation my dad and I had with his doctor where they learn they have dementia. On the Central Coast, there are over 6,000 people living with dementia. The Memory Walk and Jog is for friends, family, loved ones, carers and the community to come together, raise awareness, reduce stigma and raise vital funds for Dementia Australia.
With two weeks to go, 190 people have already registered to join this year's Memory Walk and Jog. There's still time to register at https://emmamcbride.com.au/ to walk, jog or roll between one and seven kilometres. I'm looking forward to this year's Grant McBride Memory Walk and Jog in memory of my father, my grandmother and everyone touched by dementia in our community.
Way back in April 2014, I was very pleased when our government announced more than $45 million for Bringing Renal Dialysis and Support Services Closer to Home project. There are increasing numbers of people with chronic kidney disease in regional WA and particularly across my electorate of O'Connor. It was important to expand these services to enable those suffering from kidney failure to receive treatment in their community, reducing the stress and expense of having long trips to Perth for lifesaving treatment and continually spending days away from home.
Last week, I toured the newly opened Esperance Health Campus to see the last two renal dialysis chairs that we have installed. Esperance is a beautiful coastal community 700 kilometres from Perth, and travelling this distance to seek treatment is difficult and impacts on quality of life. The chairs have improved access to dialysis and renal support services, providing best-practice services to reduce, stabilise or delay end-stage kidney disease. The chairs were eagerly anticipated by the late Bruce Mihan, who passionately advocated for their installation. Bruce had experienced kidney disease himself and spent 18 months away from home seeking treatment and, ultimately, kidney replacement. On his return to Esperance, Bruce began advocating for the dialysis chairs so that others could stay in their own homes and communities while receiving treatment. It was my absolute delight to see the new renal unit open and chairs made available to that community. Bruce fought very hard for this renal service, and they are partly a legacy of his. I congratulate the Esperance Health Campus on their wonderful facility and honour Bruce's passion for his community.
In accordance with standing order 43, the time for members' statements has concluded.
I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the OECD:
(i) calculates that Australia's expenditure on age pensions is currently 4 per cent of public spending, and is projected to be 4 per cent in 2050, which compares with 9 per cent and 10 per cent respectively for the OECD; and
(ii) has stated that 'the old age income poverty rate in Australia is high at 26 per cent compared to 13 per cent across the OECD in 2015';
(b) the Benevolent Society:
(i) released The Adequacy of the Age Pension in Australia: An assessment of pensioner living standards report in September 2016, concluding from its research that 'the age pension in Australia is inadequate'; and
(ii) also concludes that 'home ownership constitutes the single biggest factor contributing to financial hardship among pensioners' and 'age pensioners who are renting, in particular those who are single, are the worst off';
(c) deeming rates dramatically affect the wellbeing of Australian pensioners; and
(d) whilst the Government has reduced deeming rates for the first time since 2015, it has not been adequately responsive to changes in the cash rate; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) establish an independent tribunal to:
(i) assess the base rate of the pension;
(ii) assess the Commonwealth Assistance Rate;
(iii) assess the deeming rate; and
(iv) determine the best mechanism for regular review; and
(b) reduce the financial gap between age pensioners who are home owners and those who are renters.
Whilst, on average, Australians enjoy a very high quality of life, not all Australians get to experience this prosperity. OECD data has discovered that Australia's pensioners are the second-worst off in the world. The Benevolent Society and their Fix Pension Poverty campaign argue that the age pension in Australia is inadequate—I agree—particularly if you live in regional Australia. Almost all of the 1.5 million Australians who are receiving the full age pension are experiencing income insecurity, with almost one-third in poverty. Single female pensioners who are renting in the private market and have chronic health issues are, on average, the most financially disadvantaged.
The age pension differs from Newstart allowance in that it is not a working age payment, nor is it welfare. I want to underline that. The age pension is not welfare and should not be treated as such. It is a post-working-age entitlement. The role of the age pension is to ensure our elderly have the income they need to cover their day-to-day living costs and medical expenses. Many age pensioners are unlikely to be employed again or receive other sources of income. Furthermore, age pensioners are more vulnerable to government decisions and shifts in the economy, such as rising energy costs. I believe, therefore, that we need to establish an independent tribunal for social security payments to ensure that Australia's elderly are, indeed, properly supported on the pension.
Many of our age pensioners who live on or under the poverty line have to make sacrifices to ensure that they have the necessities. Many are missing meals or not using heating in order to ensure that they can visit the doctor or afford their lifesaving medication. Many also have become heavily reliant on charity organisations to continue to have access to affordable housing, meals and healthcare services. The rapidly declining rate of homeownership in Australia has meant that more age pensioners are renting in the private market.
The Benevolent Society found that those who are renting and living independently have higher rates of expenditure compared to those who own their homes, with single renters spending on average $220 more per fortnight than home owning pensioners. I want to say here that I also know of many age pensioners who own their own home but who, too, are struggling on the pension. While this data is from 2015, rent prices have only increased since then, and the government pension has not caught up. It is important that we relieve renting pensioners from this financial burden and close the gap between renters and homeowners. Home ownership is the biggest source of average Australian household wealth and gives many individuals the financial security to rely on the pension, particularly in those early years post employment.
The Benevolent Society is doing incredibly important work in this area through the Fix Pension Poverty campaign, and I really do encourage everyone in this House to help continue this conversation. I meet too many elderly people who cannot afford a new set of dentures, whose dentures are broken, who are waiting from pension payment to pension payment, and who are terribly worried about their council rates and heating bills. If you live in regional Australia, there are no buses, so you also need to have a reliable car in order to travel, even just to go and do food shopping. The cost, the burden, is greater if you live outside of the metropolitan area. I urge the government to properly look at this issue.
It is my intention with this motion to raise these important issues, because we need to ensure that there is a good quality of life for our elderly Australians, who've contributed so much to our country. Finally, I'd just like to close by thanking ANU intern student Krystal Guo. Krystal has worked on this matter with me. I'm very appreciative of her work here today on her first day in Parliament House. I commend this motion to the House.
Do we have a seconder for the motion?
I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
Can I firstly start by say that there is no-one in parliament who does not believe that it should be a core contract with every member of our community that in the twilight of your life you can live it in relative comfort, security and certainty of income. That is one of the key things that we have believed in, as a democracy and as a Liberal Party, for a very long time. It was the first Liberal Parties of the UK that introduced age pensions to ensure that people, throughout their lifetime, could end their years with dignity, because that was critically important to what we had to do.
To that extent, Australia and both sides of the House can take credit for this. Either through good management or dumb luck, we have created the most successful retirement income system in the world. I notice this motion speaks about the fact that we spend only four per cent of GDP on retirement incomes for Australians, whereas the OECD average is eight per cent, moving to nine per cent. This is, in fact, a good thing. The reason that it's a good thing is that we have created—through our superannuation system and targeted benefits to those people who are living the last few years of their lives, whether it be the PBS, rental assistance or age-care subsidies—a sustainable system. Australia is in the position where our unfunded liabilities are less than five per cent of GDP. Those of the UK are 900 per cent. Those in the United States are 550 per cent of their GDP. Most European countries will not have the capacity in the future to pay down some of the unfunded liabilities that they have accumulated in the post World War II years. They are reaching a critical situation where they will be unable to provide to the generation that comes after us the sort of security and certainty that we take for granted in this country. That's what we have managed to achieve in Australia, and that's why what we've managed to do is so critical. There is no other country in the OECD that is able to provide the sort of sustainability that we've been able to provide to our elderly. The fact that it is sustainable is something to be celebrated, not bemoaned.
The largest civil engineering project in Australia at the moment is the WestConnex project in Western Sydney. It's about $23½ billion over nine years. In the same time that the New South Wales and federal government will have spent $23½ billion on a road that provides relief to millions of people living in New South Wales and improves their lifestyles in a manner and form that cannot be described unless you have actually had to sit in Sydney traffic day in, day out for years on end, we, as a federal government, will have spent close to $2 trillion on welfare and transfer payments in Australia. For people sitting in the bottom 20 per cent of the income quintile, which includes a lot of people on full pensions, for every dollar they pay in tax they receive 900 times the benefit of someone in the top 20 per cent quintile.
Our income tax transfer system is 29 times more redistributive than that of the United States. People say, 'Oh well, that's the United States.' It's 19 times more redistributive than France's, 18 times more redistributive than Canada's and 17 times more redistributive than the average of the Scandinavian countries. We have one of the largest tax transfer systems in the world and it is also one of the best targeted, which is why, compared to other nations in the world, the fastest-growing income group in Australia has been the bottom 20 per cent of income earners; whereas, in the United States, they haven't received a real income increase since the 1970s.
Removing the capacity for any government, whether it be our government or future governments, to set the deeming rate, which is not just about cash but across all assets, and give it to an independent body threatens the sustainability of this system. This is why this government was against removing franking credits for people in retirement. It's why we have always stood up for people in retirement, protecting their incomes so they can enjoy the last remaining years of their lives.
I congratulate the member for Mayo for putting this issue on the agenda of the Federation Chamber and highlighting in the motion the fact that many pensioners in Australia are living just above or below the poverty line and struggling to make ends meet. A combination of the changes that this government has made to pension taper rates has seen up to 200,000 Australians kicked off the pension. The inertia that the government's shown on deeming rates has meant that many are struggling with cash in their bank balances. Of course, the government's lack of an energy policy means that many pensioners who are struggling to make ends meet can't switch on their heaters during the winter months or their air conditioners during the summer.
I congratulate the member for Mayo for raising this issue of pensioners because they're often forgotten by this government. For years the Liberals and Nationals have been short-changing pensioners with inflated deeming rates. It's been these reckless and deliberate policies that have pushed too many pensioners in Australia into poverty.
The Reserve Bank cut interest rates five times between May 2015 and July 2019, with the cash rate now at a record low of just one per cent, but the Liberal-National government didn't announce a single change in the deeming rates during this time, setting them as high as 3.25 per cent. This has meant that thousands of people were pushed onto the part pension or have received a lower rate—
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 16:57 to 17:09
The Liberals and Nationals had to be dragged kicking and screaming to make even a small change to the deeming rates, with pensioner groups and Labor running a campaign to make them fairer. It is no surprise to see once again the failure of the Liberals and Nationals to recognise the pressure on pensioners and their budgets. Despite promising no cuts to the pension in 2013, after cutting the pension in 2014, the government's track record, in doing what they've done, has been the opposite. In 2014, the Liberals and Nationals tried to cut pension indexation, a cut that would've meant that pensioners would have been forced to live on $80 a week less within 10 years. In that same 2014 budget, the government slashed $1 billion from pensioners and as much as $12,000 a year by changing the assets test. In 2016 the Liberals and Nationals tried to cut around $190,000 from pensioners as part of their plan to limit overseas travel for pensioners to six weeks. Labor, of course, opposed all of these reforms.
For two years the LNP government planned to scrap the energy supplement and cut the age pension for 1.5 million pensioners. For four years, this government tried to raise the pension age to 70. The government has cut and outsourced over 2,500 jobs from Centrelink—the people who on a regular basis provide support and advice to pensioners, particularly those pensioners who are unable to access the internet and find using the phone service frustrating. Having that face-to-face service through Centrelink for pensioners is vitally important for their welfare and their living standards, and this has coincided with a blowout in call waiting times to Centrelink and waiting times for the pension. And it's now too hard to access the pension, with many people waiting many months for payments and some, unfortunately, just giving up.
Labor fought each and every one of these changes to the pension that have made life harder for many elderly Australians. They shows that the Morrison government's history of changes to the pension have meant that many pensioners in Australia are struggling. Although they have acted in respect of the deeming rate, it certainly is too little, too late, with the upper rate still as high as three per cent when we know that the cash rate is now down at one per cent. So, once again, the government refuses to listen to those pensioners that are struggling.
And then, on top of that, add the fact that many pensioners tell us that they can't afford to switch on their heaters at night during winter because they can't afford the exorbitant electricity prices that have been forced upon them by this government's inaction and the fact that, after six years, they still don't have an energy policy for Australia. It doesn't matter who leads this LNP government, cuts to the pension are part of their DNA. Labor will continue to stand up for pensioners, hold this government to account on deeming rates and fight to keep more Australian pensioners out of poverty.
As the member for Goldstein, it's a privilege to be able to follow the previous speaker, and that is because he is probably public enemy No. 2 of pensioners and retirees in Australia. He's only followed, of course, by another member, the former shadow Treasurer, who made a deliberate and malicious attack on the retirement savings and income of a million Australians before the last election. To have them come into this chamber and get up to deceive, as far as I'm concerned, the public about their proposition and objective, when, in reality, what they have done at every point is sought to raid the income and retirement savings of a million Australians, is preposterous.
The reality is that Australia, of course, has quite a complex tax and transfer system because we understand the importance of making sure that people have dignity and security in their retirement. We understand that people at all stages, particularly the vulnerable stages of life, need to get the support and assistance to be able to live with a sense of dignity and purpose, but we also encourage people to save and put money away for their future. We recognise that responsibility is the core of what makes this great nation great, and if people take more responsibility they'll be more successful into the future.
This government, at every point, has taken practical and prudent measures to make sure that Australian retirees and pensioners can get the assistance and the support that they need. That's why, when there was a half-a-percent drop across two months of interest rates at the start of this year, we adjusted the deeming rate to make sure that retirees and pensioners would not be left substantially out of pocket. Against the backdrop of making sure we honoured our election commitment to deliver a budget surplus, we've made sure that people have enough money in their wallets to be able to go out and live their lives. We have taken prudent and practical measures to make sure that we adjust the deeming rate to recognise the changing economic circumstances before us.
The best thing that we can do to make sure that pensioners and retirees don't depend on adjustments to deeming rates is to make sure that there's strong economic growth so that they get the money back through dividends from their shares, if they have them, and make sure that the budget is healthy and in surplus so that we can fund a pension for Australia to meet people's expectations so that there's no need for an adjustment of the deeming rate in the first place.
Compare that to the proposition the Labor Party took to the last election, when they turned around to Australian retirees and said, 'We're not going to reward you for your sacrifice and your savings. We're going to raid and take away your overpaid tax and keep it for ourselves, because we don't trust you or that you understand how best to live your lives. We don't believe there should be any reward for that sacrifice.' Before the election they ran a malicious and deceitful campaign that said that people on low incomes wouldn't be impacted. Yet post the election we know the Leader of the Opposition has now accepted and acknowledged that they got it wrong; many low-income Australians were going to lose a third of their incomes.
After 18 May, a great sense of relief was felt in this country by those millions of Australian retirees who woke up the next day and knew that on 1 July they weren't going to have a third of their income stolen from them overnight by a Labor Party government. That's the sense of relief that people had from the election of the coalition government. It was not just relief that we'd be in the best position to support and assist people with adjustments to deeming rates because we're running a healthy budget position against the backdrop of an economy in its 28th year of uninterrupted economic growth but also relief from the constant fear, the elephant in the room, the discussion around all the bowls clubs, Rotary clubs, Probus clubs and everywhere else in this country: the risk of a Shorten Labor government.
What have we heard in the past 48 hours? Their national president has been saying they didn't get it wrong and they've got to go back and hit the retirement savings of a million Australians once again. Some of us won't sit down and take this lightly. Some of us are going to stand up, stare this down and fight every step of the way for the rights of Australians to be able to stand on their own two feet, preserve their dignity, preserve their sacrifice, preserve their lifestyle and make sure they're able to stand up against the malicious attacks of the Australian Labor Party.
I welcome this private member's motion around support for pensioners from the member for Mayo, a most excellent member. I want to talk specifically about deeming rates, because, by keeping the deeming rate so high, this government is effectively stealing from pensioners. A high deeming rate is effectively a cut to the pension. And while the government has reduced deeming rates for the first time since 2015, it has not adequately responded to changes in the cash rate. So part-pensioners who've saved all their lives and have invested their savings to allow them some little bit of comfort in retirement are being robbed by this government.
There is no doubt that older Australians are feeling the pinch—members are hearing about it all over Australia—but it particularly resonates in a seat such as mine, Shortland, where one in five people are aged over 65. They have written to me, phoned me and bailed me up at mobile offices and events out in the community to tell me how they're not managing to keep up with the cost of living. They say, 'You tell me which bank will give me anywhere near the interest rate that the government says I'm getting.' I can't tell them. In fact, I've written to the Treasurer asking to nominate a bank offering deposit rates equivalent to the deeming rate and he's failed to respond. The truth is no bank will.
Of course, those on the other side will say that there are other ways to invest to gain a greater return. We all know that part-pensioners cannot be risky with their savings. They cannot take the chance that they will end up losing it all, so the bank is their option. The bank is not paying anywhere near what the government deems it to be.
It's a cruel joke that is being played on older Australians, but it's not new. For years the Liberals and Nationals have short-changed pensioners with inflated deeming rates. The Reserve Bank cut interest rates five times between May 2015 and July 2019, with the cash rate now at a record low of just one per cent. But the Liberal-National government didn't announce a single change in the deeming rates during this time, setting them as high as 3.25 per cent. This meant many thousands of people were pushed onto a part-pension or received a lower rate of the pension. Although the government recently adjusted the deeming rate, it is still too little, too late. And deeming rates are still as high as three per cent. The Liberals and Nationals had to be dragged kicking and screaming to make even this small change to the deeming rates, with pension groups and Labor running a campaign to make them fairer.
The failure of the Liberals and Nationals to recognise the pressure on pensioners' budgets should not come as a surprise. After all, cutting the pension is in the Liberals DNA. Despite promising no cuts to the pension in 2013, this government's track record is the opposite. In 2014 the Liberals and Nationals tried to cut pension indexation—a cut that would have meant pensioners would have been forced to live on $80 a week less within 10 years. In the same 2014 budget the Liberals slashed $1 billion from pensioner concessions, a support designed to help pensioners with the cost of living. In 2015, as social services minister, Scott Morrison did a deal with the Greens political party to cut the pensions of around 370,000 pensioners by as much as $12,000 a year by changing the pension assets test. And in 2016 the Liberals tried to cut the pensions of around 190,000 pensioners as part of their plan to limit overseas travel for pensioners to six weeks. And for two years now the Liberals and Nationals have planned to scrap the energy supplement, cutting the age pensions of around 1.5 million pensioners. For four years the Liberals have also tried to raise the pension age to 70. And to add insult to injury, this government has cut and outsourced over 2½ thousand jobs from Centrelink. This has coincided with a blowout in waiting times for Centrelink calls and pension applications. It is now too hard to access the pension, with many people waiting many months for payments to come through.
Labor fought tooth and nail each and every one of these Liberal cuts to the pension. History shows that the current Prime Minister will cut the pension the next chance he gets. It doesn't matter who leads the Liberals or Nationals, cuts to the pension are in their DNA. Labor will continue to stand up for pensioners and hold the government to account on deeming rates. By holding the deeming rate so high, they are imposing a cut, by stealth, on part-pensioners. It is unacceptable. It stands in stark contrast to their professed love of pensioners and self-funded retirees at the last election. It is hypocrisy writ large by this Liberal-National government. I have been very active in opposing it. I have been very active on behalf of the one in five people in Shortland aged over 65 in saying that deeming rates must be reduced now.
The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I move:
That this House:
(1) notes the important role Australian small business has in the future of our national and economic security through its integral role in our defence industry;
(2) recognises the defence industry's potential for growth in electoral divisions like Herbert and other regional electoral divisions across Australia;
(3) supports opportunities to maximise the participation of Australian companies in all facets of defence procurement; and
(4) acknowledges the Government's commitment to deliver a robust, resilient and internationally competitive Australian defence industry.
Townsville is a proud garrison city with a long military heritage, and that's why I'm pleased to rise today to move this motion. Our city has been doing it tough, and defence industry opens up valuable opportunities when it comes to small business providing support to our armed forces. Small business is the engine room of our economy, and supporting small business is one of the key ways we can boost our economy. Given the fact that we have Lavarack Barracks and RAAF Base Townsville at our doorstep, there are plenty of ways in which local businesses can make sure they have a slice of the pie.
Only recently in the House I highlighted the fact that in the 2018-19 financial year there were 11,929 active businesses and 620 brand new businesses in my electorate of Herbert. It is a sector that is continuing to grow. Thanks to this, unemployment continues to fall in Townsville. Whether it's building new aircraft hangars at the RAAF base or maintaining armoured vehicles at Lavarack, there is and will continue to be plenty of opportunities for our local businesses to get involved.
The Morrison government's commitment to seeing that number continue to grow is evidenced in the latest budget. The Treasurer announced new funding of $49.9 million for new facilities for the 5th Aviation Regiment, based at RAAF Base Townsville, to support the introduction and sustainment of three new additional CH-47F Chinook medium-lift helicopters and associated integration systems. Expected expenditure on this project in 2019-20 is $33.3 million. Just last week it was confirmed that Lendlease had won this contract. This firm has a track record of employing locals, with 72 per cent of subcontract packages for a similar recent project going to local people.
This also brings me to veterans' employment, something that's very close to my heart and to the hearts of many in this place. I'd like to see the defence industry create meaningful engagement that then creates meaningful employment. Veterans know what is needed on the battlefield; therefore, they're in the right place to be at the forefront in the defence industry. I say to defence industry organisations: look at your veterans and employ within the veteran cohort, because veterans do know. I know it's a little bit off topic, but I want to be very clear: not all veterans are broken. Not all veterans can't work. Not all veterans need to be pigeonholed in the corner. I can tell you now: my colleagues, my friends and I who have been in the Australian Defence Force and are veterans who have served overseas know firsthand the capability that is needed in the defence industry space, and we need to be using our knowledge to make sure that our Australian Defence Force is supported on operations to maintain the safety that is paramount to bringing our troops home.
There are many projects happening in my electorate. Here are some more of them. The Maritime Patrol Aircraft Replacement Project will provide new and upgraded facilities and infrastructure to support the introduction of the P-8A aircraft at various RAAF bases, including RAAF Base Townsville. There is $16.1 million programmed for expenditure during the 2019-20 financial year at RAAF Base Townsville. The Joint Health Command Garrison Facilities Upgrade Project will provide fit-for-purpose, contemporary health facilities to enable a consistent and efficient Joint Health Command garrison health services model of care across the country. There is $11.1 million programmed for expenditure during the 2019-20 financial year at RAAF Base Townsville. Project LAND 121, stage 2, phases 3 and 4, will provide facilities across various bases to sustain the B-vehicle fleet, including at Lavarack Barracks. Works include new maintenance workshops and associated storage, weighbridges and loading ramps. There is $8.8 million programmed for expenditure during the 2019-20 financial year at Lavarack Barracks. Airfield capital works—and as I look up and the time runs down, there are too many to go through! There's a lot of work happening in the electorate of Herbert with the defence industry, but my big call to the defence industry is to employ our veterans.
Is there a seconder for the motion?
I second the motion.
I rise to speak to the motion from the member for Herbert, particularly the two last elements of this motion—that is, that the House supports opportunities to maximise the participation of Australian companies in all facets of defence procurement. And I applaud his valiant call for more employment of veterans.
The last point is that the motion acknowledge the government's commitment to deliver a robust, resilient and internationally competitive defence industry. While I've no doubt that the former is true, the latter is completely wrong. The government is clearly not committed to a robust and resilient defence industry in Australia, and this is demonstrated by its cuts to the defence capital budget, the inadequate levels of transparency around the defence budget and defence investment plans, and the declining effectiveness of Australian industry participation and capability measures.
Defence is currently undertaking a $200 billion investment program acquiring major new platforms across land, sea, air and key enabling capability streams. This investment should provide major opportunities for the Australian defence industry, but the opportunities are being diminished by major capital underspends on this government's watch. Following the release of the 2016 Defence white paper, the government budget papers estimated that Defence would spend $46.4 billion on its capital investment program over the four years from 2016-17. But analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has shown that every year since 2016-17 Defence has revised down these estimates and has ended up spending less than the revised estimates. The total shortfall in capital investment compared to the original estimates has been $5.17 billion over the four years from 2016-17 to 2019-20. This is a cut in anyone's language. Industry was counting on this $5 billion of capital spend that has gone missing.
To make matters worse, the government has not disclosed the reason for the spending cut. The reasons for more than $5 billion in underspending in this defence capital budget should not be a matter of guesswork for the Australian public or defence industry. The government is long on rhetoric when it comes to its defence investment plans but short on transparency. This example is symptomatic of a larger transparency problem with the Integrated Investment Program.
The IIP was released publicly in 2016 to facilitate a whole-of-capability and whole-of-life approach to capability acquisition and sustainment. It provided a guide to Defence's long-term capability acquisition plans, allocating, as I said, nearly $200 billion for investments over the decade to 2025-26. This is an important mechanism to ensure that Defence planners adopt a more integrated approach to investment. It is also a critically important mechanism to give Defence's partners in industry greater visibility of future capability demands, not to mention providing public accountability for the government's defence acquisition strategy. Yet compared to its predecessor, the Defence Capability Plan, the IIP provides minimal detail about its individual projects. In the three years since its release in 2016, there have been no public updates to reflect changes in the profile or time line for these planned investments. This is despite a commitment by the government to conduct annual reviews of the IIP in light of changes in strategic circumstances, capability priorities and developments in technology. It is despite the government's commitment to issue regular online updates to the IIP so that industry has access to current information about how Defence's investment plans are evolving.
We know projects have been cancelled because industry has told us. We know projects have been delayed because older capabilities are still in service. We know that the government has cut billions from planned capital investment in defence because the budget papers demonstrate this. There is now less ability for industry to understand Defence's investment plans than in the years before the adoption of the IIP. This matters for industry planning and it matters for public accountability. While there may be valid probity or commercial reasons for maintaining confidentiality for some changes in defence procurement plans, it is not acceptable for the government to refuse to provide any information at all on how the IIP is changing. This has negative impact on industry, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises. It means they no longer have enough information about Defence's investment plans to tool up and plan for future opportunities, and it is not consistent with the government's stated desire to work in partnership with industry.
This $5 billion of cuts to the defence budget and the lack of transparency around the government's changing strategic priorities for acquisitions demonstrates this government is far from committed to supporting the Australian defence industry.
It is a great pleasure—indeed, an honour—to rise to speak in support of this motion moved by the member for Herbert in relation to the significance of small business and its integral role in the defence industry; defence industry's potential for growth, particularly in regional Australia; and the fact that the government is committed to just that. As a former resident of Townsville I understand the significance, as raised by the member for Herbert, of RAAF Base Townsville and Lavarack Barracks, and it's certainly the case in my regional electorate of Groom as well. I acknowledge the service to our country of the member for Herbert, the member for Solomon and others in this House.
The 2016 Defence white paper secured the future of two significant defence bases in the electorate of Groom on the Darling Downs, with the injection of $450 million across 20 years. Swartz Barracks at Oakey is home to the Army Aviation Training Centre, which primarily accommodates Army pilot and aircrew training activities. The Republic of Singapore Air Force helicopter squadron is also based at Oakey under agreement with the Australian government. Borneo Barracks at Cabarlah, just north of Toowoomba, accommodates the Army's deployable electronic warfare unit, the 7th Signals Regiment, and an electronic warfare operator training unit, the Defence Force School of Signals—Electronic Warfare.
The defence industry's contribution to my electorate is very significant indeed—some $117.546 million in 2018-19 in terms of military and civilian employee expenses, capital and operating expenses, capital investment and supplier expenses. I note that those contributions are exemplified by a whole range of projects underway at present. Airfield capital works of some $35.6 million are programed for expenditure during the 2019-20 financial year at the Army aviation centre at Oakey. There is also $11.7 million for Joint Health Command garrison facilities at Oakey, and support of air traffic management surveillance, command and control systems to the tune of $1.1 million during the same period.
As the federal member for Groom I've had the great honour of inspecting and witnessing ongoing investment in workshops, vehicle wash-down facilities, stores, administrative facilities, training and classroom facilities, mess buildings, accommodation—you name it—at the Borneo Barracks at Cabarlah just north of our city. That is a very significant base that impacts on Defence activities and capabilities right around the country and obviously wherever Australian defence forces are deployed around the world.
I'm also thrilled that Defence Science and Technology has two current agreements with the University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba. Those opposite and all Australians should recognise the practical, on-ground works where Defence engages with our local communities and, particularly as the member for Herbert has suggested, the importance of Defence engaging with small business. I use two examples to exemplify this. FK Gardner Services in Queensland, which is a significant civil construction firm based in Toowoomba, was awarded $15.9 million in 2018-19 to provide infrastructure project management, construction, support services and repair services, particularly at Oakey, and LSM Advanced Composites will produce precision, complex, custom manufactured items using advanced composite materials to the tune of $63,000.
Whether it is the Highfields and District Business Connections, who celebrated what we do at Cabarlah; the Oakey Chamber of Commerce, who celebrated what we do, particularly the 50-year anniversary a few weeks ago of Defence in Oakey at Swartz Barracks; the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce; or the Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise—these private sector representative groups recognise the importance of Defence, particularly from a small business perspective.
I rise to support the motion and thank the honourable member for moving it, and I support the call for proactive plans to facilitate more veteran employment in the defence industry sector. As the member for Herbert is well aware, Defence is a significant stakeholder in the development of northern Australia and, certainly, Defence has a long history in the Northern Territory. We've got a great relationship with the ADF but also with other national security agencies, our international allies—MRF–D, the Marine Rotational Force in Darwin, being a case in point—and our neighbours. I was recently in West Timor. I met with some TNI naval officers who were very much looking forward to a visit from an Australian patrol boat in the coming months. Those sorts of cooperative patrols are essential. It is just one of many cases in point. How the Australian government invests and procures to meet Australia's defence and national security needs can deliver broader socioeconomic outcomes—developing the north is an obvious one—but can also close the gap in Aboriginal disadvantage. The ongoing AACAP has seen significant and important infrastructure in the Northern Territory and, indeed, remote Aboriginal communities over some time.
In my electorate of Solomon, defence and national security agencies are very much part of our community. They're in our footy teams and we see them when we go down to the shops. They're vital. Defence spending in the Northern Territory reached, in 2016-17, $1.9 billion, which is huge for our economy. It was 7.3 per cent of gross state product. I know that the government, in their sixth year, realise the importance, at least in a rhetorical way, of the commitment that they've made to $20 billion in defence infrastructure for the Northern Territory over the next 20 years. However, there is a growing body of evidence that calls into question the strategic objectives and needs of Defence when it comes to the Northern Territory and, indeed, our northern borders. I'll cover them quickly.
To begin, Defence annual reports reveal the number of ADF personnel in the Northern Territory is at an 11-year low. This dwindling defence presence doesn't seem to correlate well with the large capital investment that we understand is going to happen in the future. What we are seeing is that some of the headline figures that Defence was going to spend in the Territory—that is, $7.7 billion in the first 10 years of the plan since 2016—keep being revised down. The figure has currently fallen to around $1 billion since 2016, which is an 80 per cent underspend in what was committed. That's a problem for us. Defence presence is dwindling in the Northern Territory in what could only be described as an unknown investment strategy. It's come at a time of great strategic uncertainty, as all honourable members would be aware.
We know that defending Australia isn't just about troop numbers in the NT or infrastructure development in the north. However, it's very hard to project force into our region if you're not providing the infrastructure spend that is required and has been committed to. So I call on the Prime Minister and those opposite to honour the commitments to defence infrastructure spend that have previously been made. We can do more to make sure that regional businesses see the benefits of defence investment in their areas. Regional businesses are full of highly skilled people—hopefully, increasingly including veterans—eager to help our country be safe through a robust defence industry. The right defence regional procurement policy will make sure that can happen.
To close, I want to thank the shadow defence minister, the member for Corio, who attended a forum on this very subject with Territory industry today. I thank him for coming. I again thank the member for Herbert for the motion.
Congratulations to the member for Herbert for moving this very important motion, recognising the role that Australian small business has to play in our growing defence industry because of the significant investment from the Morrison Liberal-National government. I recently had the opportunity to witness firsthand the contribution that small- and medium-sized businesses can make in servicing our Defence Force in quite a number of ways during a visit to three companies in Townsville in the northern end of my electorate, which is also home to the country's largest Defence base. It's a city that I share representation of with the member for Herbert.
In the member for Herbert's motion, he highlighted the importance of not only supporting those businesses but seeking more opportunities for small- and medium-sized businesses to participate in all aspects of defence procurement and servicing. Defence is a multibillion-dollar industry—it certainly is in the north where there are about 7,000 personnel in the city. It has the maintenance and supply of defence services providing about 11 per cent, or just under $13 billion, of the gross regional product. It shows you the contribution that the Morrison Liberal-National government, through our defence industry policy, is providing to Townsville and the wider North Queensland region.
In mid-July I joined the Minister for Defence Industry and the member for Herbert on various visits. I went to Campbells Kitchen Cabinets, run by Dennis O'Brien and his wife, Michelle. Dennis took us around to have a look at his business there. I think the minister was very impressed by a lot of the kitchen cabinets that he had on display there, which were very professional. The small business got a number of contracts building cabinets with the defence industry to house specific equipment, including equipment that CAE Australia is running—that is, really specialised training systems for aircrew, for land personnel and for maintenance crews in the defence sector. We went along to CAE Australia and had a look at the work that they are doing. It is just phenomenal and state of the art. You sit in one of their training simulators for their flight crews and you actually get a bit motion sick, thinking you're up in the air flying over Afghanistan—it's that realistic. This is stuff that is being done in our region for the Defence Force by the private sector.
We were at the Cubic Defence in Townsville. They are also providing training services to the ADF. We met up with representatives from AON, Nemesis Defence Solutions, Rheinmetall and Thales. The roundtable we had there was important. I want to acknowledge, again, the member for Herbert for his contribution—his firsthand experience as a veteran—and for bringing along other veterans who got to have their input into the whole concept of veteran employment in the defence sector and supporting industries in the defence sector.
Businesses in Townsville are at the forefront of our push, our $200 billion investment, in our defence capabilities. We want to see more veterans involved in the employment in those industries as a result of that major investment. This has all come about through our 2016 Defence white paper. We're investing in new naval vessels, cutting-edge cybertechnology and superior aircraft and, at the same time, maximising the involvement of defence industry businesses and creating extra jobs. It stands in stark contrast to previous governments where, under Labor, they guttered defence spending by about $18 billion. Investment fell to 1.56 per cent of GDP—the lowest level since 1938. In the Defence Force 119 projects were delayed, 43 projects were reduced and eight projects were cancelled. That's the record of the other side of the House. Our record is in investment, in building our defence capabilities, in helping local businesses get a slice of that defence pie and also in ensuring veterans get a part of that as well. We're doing that with so many different things.
Can I mention the Land 400 deal with Rheinmetall to supply combat reconnaissance vehicles for the ADF? That $5 billion project is seeing almost $2 billion spent in Queensland. It's going to be wins for Townsville businesses and for Mackay businesses—for businesses all over the state. That project is going to create about 330 jobs over the life of that project. There is a lot happening in this space and it's principally due to our firm and solid commitment to— (Time expired)
Australia is full of amazing minds and innovative workforces. At the moment, we have a fantastic opportunity ahead of us to create a sustainable, world-leading defence industry to provide jobs for future generations of Australian workers. Small- and medium-sized businesses make an exceptionally significant contribution to the Australian defence industry. They are in a unique position whereby they not only service our growing defence industry but fulfil wider, international contracts with our allies as well. Small businesses in Australia have the scope and capacity to innovatively fix the problems our Defence Force faces on a daily basis. These small businesses are the experts in what they do—whether that be in cybertechnology, engineering or manufacturing. This is not a rigid industry. The nature of these businesses means they have the capacity to evolve to best service our Defence Force and keep them and our nation safe.
These small businesses are developing capability and intellectual property that is uniquely Australian and world leading. While there is great potential for the defence industry to continue to grow and thrive across our nation, it is up to the federal government to ensure the Australian defence industry gets access to the growing defence capability, acquisition and sustainment spend. This means making sure that Australian industry content requirements are not just headlines but are mandated, transparent and, critically, enforced.
I'm very happy to declare that, in my home state of Western Australia, small businesses are certainly making their mark in that space. I recently attended the Indo-Pacific Defence Conference in Perth, where we heard from a mix of defence, business and government figures all working towards the common goal of enhancing and strengthening the Western Australian defence industry. Currently, there are hundreds of Western Australia small and medium businesses engaged in the defence supply chain, with approximately 150 businesses based in the Australian Marine Complex at Henderson. The beachside town of Dunsborough in south-western WA, whilst widely known as the gateway to our wine region, is gaining notoriety for its innovation in marine suspension systems. Nauti-Craft, based in the beachside town, has developed unique patented technology with the capacity to separate a marine vessel from a larger one simply and smoothly—something that has been embraced by Defence as a great step in improving our defence capability, particularly in amphibious and search-and-rescue vehicles.
We are developing some fantastic technology and our world-class businesses are crying out for the next challenge, with many forced to look abroad to sell their products due to difficulty in getting into the defence procurement space locally. VEEM, which is in my electorate, is a specialist engineering company manufacturing propellers, valves and other special purpose castings. They have made their mark in manufacturing and maintaining valves for the Collins class submarine, as well as maintenance and casting for Austal in their warship program and maintenance support for Special Air Service vehicles—and, critically, supplying the US Navy.
WA is not unique. PMB Defence in South Australia provides a continuous supply of the main storage batteries for the Collins class submarine. The Northern Territory's RGM Maintenance provides supply, repair, maintenance and overhaul services. Queensland's TAE is a leading provider of military and commercial turbine engine maintenance. Right here in the ACT, CEA Technologies design, develop and manufacture radar technologies. Milspec Manufacturing in New South Wales is a privately owned company that provides the Nulka decoy system, among other assets, to Defence. In Victoria, Sentient Vision Systems specialises in video analysis and surveillance. Tasmania has some fantastic marine-based offerings through Taylor Brothers and Delta Hydraulics. And we have just heard from the member for Solomon about some of the excellent defence industry offerings in the Northern Territory.
This government says it is focused on building sovereign capability. But the talk doesn't match the action. The talent and technology we have in this country are world class, yet our government continues to purchase many platforms off-the-shelf overseas rather than developing our own sovereign intellectual capability in Australia and using Australian workers. The government should be doing more to maximise the participation of Australian companies in all facets of defence procurement—not just ensuring that manufacturing labour has jobs, but also that our design, architecture, IT and IP development skills are developed and skilled and employed here too.
Finally, the individuals with perhaps the most intricate know-how of the need for and use of defence industry technologies are those who have relied on it in the field—our veterans. It is estimated that 20 per cent of the defence industry workforce are veterans. But there is capacity to do a lot more. We must always do more to assist our transitioning veterans into post-service employment, and much of this can be done through the defence industry sector.
Can I start by acknowledging the member for Herbert for putting up this motion, for his service to our country and, of course, the service of all the personnel at Gallipoli Barracks in Enoggera in the heart of the Ryan electorate who all serve our nation admirably.
There are a lot of defence families in the Ryan electorate, both serving personnel and ex-servicemen and their families, who rely on defence industries. The serving personnel rely on our Australian defence industries to have the right tools for the job and our ex-service personnel rely on defence industries often, as the member for Herbert said, as part of future employment.
Listening to the Labor speakers on this particular motion just emphasised why it was so important for the member for Herbert to put up this particular motion: because Labor members still cannot face up to their record when it comes to defence industry spending, and it is an appalling record. The previous Labor government sat idle for six years and oversaw a depletion in the Australian defence industry which was shameful.
In stark contrast, it's been this Liberal-National government which has implemented a 10-year plan, the Defence Industrial Capability Plan, to build Australia's defence industry and create thousands of Australian jobs while boosting capability. But, if that was not enough for the Chamber, let me give you some numbers. Under Labor, defence funding was gutted by $18 billion and investment fell to just 1.56 per cent of GDP.
Mr Perrett interjecting—
Member for Moreton, this is the lowest level since 1938—inexcusable, if we are going to maintain a strong defence industry in this country. In their last three years in government, from 2010 to 2013, the Labor Party cut defence spending by 17.9 per cent in real terms—extraordinary. That is staggering: 119 defence projects were delayed under the previous Labor government, 43 were reduced and eight projects were cancelled. This risks critical capability gaps.
In contrast, we know where the Morrison government, the Liberal-National Party, stands when it comes to supporting Australian defence industry. We stand on their side. We stand on the side of having the right capabilities for our servicemen and women and we stand on the side of creating jobs for Australians. The defence industry is something that we can do well, and we will do well because of our record investment of more than $200 billion in Australia's defence capability.
As a result of the 2016 Defence white paper, the Liberal-National government is delivering capability where and when it is needed, ensuring that the Defence Force has the capability it needs, including new naval vessels, cutting-edge cybertechnology and superior aircraft. At the same time, we are maximising the involvement of Australian defence industry businesses to deliver this capability and create new jobs for hardworking Australians, because it's this Morrison government that wants to create jobs for Australians.
The member for Herbert is absolutely right: these are some ideal jobs for our veteran community as well. It was only a week ago that I was at the Gaythorne RSL talking to Soldier On, talking to the gentlemen at the RSL who undertake welfare activities. They were giving me the same message that the member for Herbert has given today, which is that these veterans are far from broken but they do have highly specialised skills in some circumstances. What they need is the support to retrain. Defence industry jobs are the perfect example of where they can put their highly specialised knowledge to use and also retrain in skills so that if they want to leave the defence industry they can and they'll have transferable skills out there in the rest of the job market.
Currently, there are over 30,000 Australians employed in our defence industry, and this number continues to grow as industry takes up opportunities. There are an additional 3,500 local Australian businesses that help maintain our border security and keep Australians safe. I'm pleased to say that Queensland is playing a leading role in this record $200 billion investment by the Morrison government. In my own electorate of Ryan, it is playing a cutting-edge role through the University of Queensland. Over $3 million has been provided by the Morrison government for UQ researchers to address some highly complex defence problems which defy conventional solutions and require cross-disciplinary research across institutional and organisational boundaries. In Ryan, we're putting our best minds towards helping solve some of the biggest problems for the defence industry.
I rise to speak on the motion moved by the member for Herbert that acknowledges the important role of small business in the future of Australia's national and economic security and, in particular, the integral role that small business plays in our defence industry. I know of that valuable contribution that the more than 16,000 or so businesses in my electorate of Moreton—the sole traders, the partnerships and the small employers—make to our economy. Some of those businesses in my electorate play a significant role in the defence sector. Great local business like GJR Technologies, trading as Grabba International, at Acacia Ridge export their products around the world. EM solutions at Tennyson, a company I have dealt with over many, many years—and I've toured there recently with the member for Corio—develop mobile satellite communication systems. One of their systems is used on the Australian built Bushmaster 4WD armoured vehicle. Haulmark Trailers at Rocklea are actively involved in the design and manufacture of military trailers for a variety of applications, including the transportation of tanks and other armoured vehicles made right in Rocklea.
In Redbank, just outside my electorate, Rheinmetall Defence Australia has established its Australia-New Zealand headquarters and Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence. Rheinmetall was the successful tenderer for the Australian government's LAND 400 Phase 2 contract, announced at Archerfield Airport in my electorate. The centre of excellence will be the regional hub, with an expected program of continuous design, build and support for up to 5,000 military vehicles throughout Australia and the Asia-Pacific. It's a wonderful opportunity for more local businesses to be involved in this important manufacturing sector.
Cultivating successful small businesses in our regions and in our cities is vitally important for a growing economy. Small businesses are unique and face a variety of challenges. I recently hosted two round tables for small businesses in my electorate of Moreton. Small business owners are very busy people, but some of them took time out from their day to come into my office and tell me about their experiences. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to hear directly from our local small businesses about the challenges they're facing in the current economic climate. Apart from bills being paid too slowly, the other important message I received loud and clear was that the economy is flat and very problematic. It's no surprise to anyone who watches what is going on in the economy. It was good to hear today in question time that it's no longer a surprise to the government. The Prime Minister said in question time today, 'We know the Australian economy has gone backwards in the last quarter.'
We know that small businesses are on the front line when it comes to the economy slowing down. Wages have flatlined. What does that mean? People have less money to spend, especially in our small businesses. The median annual disposable income in 2017 was $542 less than that was back in 2009. For businesses to flourish, especially small businesses, they need people to spend money. But at the moment people don't have the money to spend. Small businesses are not only struggling, they're dying.
Of the small businesses that were operating in June 2014, more than 35 per cent are no longer operating. That's not a healthy survival rate for small businesses, especially when compared with previous years. It's no wonder these are the facts that we're faced with, when economic growth is at the lowest level since the global financial crisis. Wages are growing at one-sixth the pace of profits. That's the worst wages growth on record. Household debt has surged to record levels. It has increased by $650 billion. Business investment is down 20 per cent since the Liberals came to office. It's now at the lowest level since the 1990s recession. Consumer confidence is down. Productivity is declining, flatlining and heading south. Gross debt has risen to over half a trillion dollars. And what is the Treasurer's response—that dude who's asleep in the passenger seat? He says either, 'Labor, Labor, Labor,' or, 'Don't talk down the economy.' This is an appalling legacy for a government that has already started its seventh year. The economy is floundering and the government has no plans to turn it around.
We were told that the tax cuts would be the magic bullet to recharge the economy. In the month following the tax cuts, retail turnover fell by 0.1 per cent. They had one bolt to fire and it fell woefully short. Leading that fall were the cafes, restaurants and takeaway services. They fell 0.6 per cent. This is a government with a political strategy but no economic plan. They only believe in 'wedgeslation', not the national interest. Small businesses are not only an integral part of our defence industry; they're integral to the economic health of our nation. Small businesses are the canaries in the coal mine. When they're not doing well, the economy is not doing well. And, if small business is struggling, it directly impacts the 4.9 million people employed in small businesses. Small businesses have an important role in the future of our national and economic security.
I thank the member for Moreton. The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) as at 30 June 2019 there were 221,415 applications for Australian citizenship by conferral;
(b) under this Government the backlog has risen from 27,037 in 2013-14;
(c) the timeframe for finalisation of 90 per cent of applications is now within 24 months;
(d) some applicants wait longer than two years for their applications to be finalised; and
(e) Australian Citizenship provides a number of important benefits including:
(i) the right to enrol and vote;
(ii) eligibility for a HECS-HELP loan for university;
(iii) access to an Australian passport; and
(iv) sometimes satisfying a requirement for employment; and
(2) calls on the Government to immediately address the backlog and lengthy wait times for citizenship applications so that people who want to fully participate in Australian civic life are able to do so.
Arthur Calwell, in introducing the Nationality and Citizenship Bill in September 1948, said:
It will symbolize not only our own pride in Australia, but also our willingness to offer a share in our future to the new Australians we are seeking in ... vast numbers. These people are sure of a warm welcome to our shores. They will no longer need to strive towards an intangible goal, but can aspire to the honour of Australian citizenship. They will be able to say, just as proudly as any of us, "I am an Australian".
That warmth and generous spirit has been lost under the Morrison government. The key purposes of Australian citizenship were to allow newcomers to claim Australian nationality and not feel discriminated against; to end uncertainty hanging over the heads of newcomers who wanted Australia to be their home; to allow them to work for their future with absolute confidence; to make them equal to all others before the law and, in their participation, in all aspects of Australian life; and to give newcomers the security that enabled them to embrace Australian values and commit to the nation's prosperity and the nation's growth. Importantly, citizenship created a process by which newcomers could publicly pledge their loyalty to Australia. It is something that only new citizens get to do in most cases. People born in this country never get to do it. It was an opportunity for newcomers to say to the Australian people, 'I want to be part of your country and I'm pledging my loyalty to you.'
In the decades that followed, successive Australian governments actively encouraged eligible new migrants to become Australian citizens. That all changed in 2013 when the coalition government took office. Since then, becoming an Australian citizen has been made much more difficult. Indeed, it has almost been discouraged. Processing of applications almost came to a standstill, with some people waiting in excess of two years for their citizenship to be processed. I spoke to one couple that had that happen only a week ago.
In 2013-14, when this government came to office, 27,037 people were in the citizenship queue. As at 30 June 2019, there were 221,415 people waiting to have their application processed. That is an eight-fold increase in the waiting list when this government came to office. That is no coincidence and it simply happened under this government's watch, and I believe deliberately so. These are people who have met the necessary criteria, have lodged their applications and patiently wait to hear from the department as to when they might be able to be granted their citizenship. While they wait, they can't get access to an Australian passport, they can't get access to a university HECS-HELP loan for their children, they're unable to get overseas consular assistance if they happen to travel overseas and some problems arise, and they can't apply for certain jobs which still require Australian citizenship as one of the criteria. Importantly, they can't vote. Even though they are permanent residents and pay taxes, they can't vote. Indeed, in the recent May election, some 200,000 people who would otherwise have been eligible to vote weren't able to do so because their citizenship application had not been processed.
I notice that since that election the numbers have improved a little, and the waiting list, as at the end of July, is I believe 198,477. I suspect that part of it is that people are sick of the processing time and are simply not applying. That's indeed what one person said to me, again, only within the last week. The government should get on with processing those applications and give eligible migrants the opportunity to pledge their commitment to this country, which I'm sure all of us would want to see them do—and give them the security and the confidence they need to get on with their lives.
I attend citizenship ceremonies on a regular basis in my electorate. It is the one thing I have done for years and years. One of the greatest joys I get is seeing the expressions on the faces of those people about to be handed their certificate, because they know that after their long journey to this country—in many cases from countries where citizenship wasn't even available to them—they have finally got the security they want for themselves and their children.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.
One of the proudest moments for every member of parliament—in fact, we're very fortunate to be able to do it on multiple occasions—is attending a citizenship ceremony. I attend citizenship ceremonies regularly in the City of Bayside and the City of Glen Eira, and I get to see the bright, shining, beaming faces and the excitement and enthusiasm of the people who have decided not just to make Australia home, but to make a commitment to our great country. The mayors turn up in their full regalia. They have their mayoral bling, as I call it, which always makes them far more attractive in photographs with new citizens than us lowly members of the House of Representatives! When administering that oath, they share the pride, the hope and the ambition of new Australian citizens and what they will contribute to our great nation.
Part of the joy of being a member of parliament is to go to those ceremonies and be a participant. In fact, it's an honour and a privilege. It goes to the heart of the privilege of citizenship itself. I always give a speech about the history and traditions of our great country and how, over thousands of years, our journey from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders through to European settlement and the ongoing migration waves continue to enhance and strengthen our nation. There are the stories and individual histories that we bring to this country, including my own, with its diversity, and everybody else's. The story of our great country is being written by today's generation and will continue to be written by future generations—about the incredible achievements of our great country as part of an ongoing and enduring story of freedom, responsibility and the pursuit of justice for everybody, and, in our perfect country, towards a more perfect outcome and journey. That's the power and privilege of citizenship. That's what this government understands and why we treat it with such sanctity, such respect, and such hope. It's about the ambitions of the future citizens of our country. That's why citizenship is at the core of how we see ourselves as a government.
It's important that we make sure that there's integrity in the citizenship process and that everybody who wants to become a citizen is able to do so with the full confidence of the Australian people. We need to make sure that it's a fair and appropriate process and that everybody meets the criteria—and that, as part of that process, they make a commitment to our great nation and its future success as part of celebrating the traditions of freedom and responsibility. Of course it's also about recognising the full potential of every person who shares the ambition and values of our great nation and wants to become a citizen. That's why this government has invested $9 million in systems and staff, including establishing a task force to focus on complex cases and remove the barriers and gaps for many people seeking citizenship while maintaining the integrity of the system so that Australians have confidence in it.
The government has put an incredible amount of effort into doing this. There was a coordinated range of improvements to the entire citizenship processing pipeline during the past financial year—the recruitment of more staff to increase application processing times; improvements in staff training and the revision of policy and procedures to assist staff to be able to do so; the establishment of multidisciplinary task forces to address some of the most complex identity cohorts; the introduction of ambitious internal targets to achieve milestones; an increase in the number of citizenship appointments available for applicant interviews and testing; and encouraging online lodgement for easy applications to promote processing efficiencies. These are administrative processes that go to the heart of what we've been able to achieve. We have seen an 80 per cent increase in the number of citizenship by conferral applications approved. We've seen a 62 per cent decrease in invalid outcomes which have been much quicker to process so that those people who are denied a pathway to citizenship can correct if appropriate. We've seen more than 145,000 new Australians have their citizenship by conferral applications approved in the last financial year—up from 81,000 in 2017-18.
At every point this government has done what is appropriate to preserve the integrity of our citizenship application process. This government has done everything it should to make sure that there are pathways for those people who wish to be new Australians to reach their potential as citizens. And we see that on the faces—the smiles, the joy and in the eyes—of new citizens when they're sworn in at those citizenship ceremonies.
I thank the member for Makin for bringing this very important private member's motion to the Chamber for consideration and debate. I want to agree with him in the raising of concerns about the backlog and the length of time to acquire citizenship that the member for Goldstein spoke about in such glowing terms for many people, and for many people in my electorate as well.
Citizenship is the fundamental glue that binds our community and enables our process of integration. Becoming an Australian citizen for each and every person marks the beginning of their journey and building their Australian identity. The sense of belonging to the broader Australian community is marked by the privileges and responsibilities assigned to each and every citizen equally without favour or discrimination. These shared equal rights and responsibilities have contributed to the success of nation building in this country, and it is the reason we are the successful multicultural society that we are today.
Most importantly, citizenship confers the right to vote, having a say in the shaping of our community through the participation in our Australian democracy. I came into this place many years ago under the Howard government. I remember well that that government understood the need to encourage migrant and refugees living in Australia to become citizens as soon as possible. In fact through the establishment of the Australian Citizenship Council and the appointment of citizenship ambassadors, the Howard government sought to encourage everyone, often through very unique citizenship ceremonies, to join what was called the Australian family.
However, the track record of this government is a far cry from that of the Howard government. Because, under this government's watch, the citizenship process has been, and continues to be, mired in backlog and unreasonable delay—and the member for Goldstein did refer to the integrity of Australian citizenship, which we all support. But this government has taken this sense of integrity to the point where people are actually being prevented from becoming Australian citizens. And this is the problem and this is why this motion is being debated here today.
I too attend citizenship ceremonies in my electorate. It's something that I too look forward to doing. I've attended countless citizenship ceremonies in the years that I have been here in this parliament. So, in my electorate in particular, in the federal seat of Calwell—and I thank the member for Makin for actually making reference to Arthur Calwell, who introduced the Australian Nationality and Citizenship Act and had a very strong belief in the power of Australian citizenship being that which brought together the diversity of the migration program that he implemented towards our nation building—over the years, we have had a very big uptake of citizenship. I do also attend and see the sense of pride and the great sense of optimism in the people whose citizenship certificates I present or whose hand I shake. When I do get to congratulate them, I always ask them where they've come from and what their hopes and aspirations are, and almost all of them talk about how important it feels for them to finally belong to the Australian community and have full and equal membership of the Australian community.
In recent times, I too have received many—I won't say complaints—expressions of sheer frustration from people who have been waiting for confirmation of the citizenship process. Some of them have been waiting for as much as 35 months. They're no wiser as to why they have been subjected to this very lengthy period. Many of them have fled war-torn countries. They're grateful to be here in Australia. They're grateful for the safety and the security that settling here in our country offers them. They're grateful for the ability to live in a democratic country and for the opportunities afforded to them. They work hard in their community to make their place and to find their place. They want to be able to share our freedoms and obligations in a way that's equal to the other people in the community. In the time that I have left, I just want to reiterate the member for Makin's point—citizenship under this government is one of almost selective discrimination. It's either incompetence or it's deliberate, but the actual slowing down of the process has marred the citizenship process. (Time expired)
One of the greatest privileges of being a member of parliament is welcoming new citizens to our country and our community. When someone decides to replant their life and the lives of their family on Australian soil, they are making a significant decision. It's one of the most significant decisions a person can make, and it will leave a legacy for the generations that follow. Their story becomes part of the broader Australian story and their own life is then forever shaped by the land and people among whom they make their home.
I think of some of the families in my electorate who've done this—people like Abbas Ali, who came to Australia from Africa and built a business and gives back extraordinarily each day through the people he employs and his charitable work. I think of Mala Mehta, who came to Australia from India and who has received the Medal of the Order of Australia for her services to the community. I think of Nasiba Akram, a leader in the Afghan community who has helped settle hundreds of new families all across Australia over decades. I think of Jenny Lau, who has led the Cherrybrook Chinese Community Association—an organisation that integrates and settles people—here for many years. She is similar to my friend Ashwani Jain, the secretary of the Hindu council. I have been very pleased to go to several citizenship ceremonies over the last few years. One that I particularly remember is that of Steve Hunt, a British migrant to Australia who is now a leader in the Cherrybrook scouting community.
Australia is a unique and incredible country, and this is partly because of the way we have so successfully integrated people from many places and backgrounds into our country. You rarely find a more patriotic Australian than one who has chosen to be here and who has put in the effort to build a new life in this country. Liberal governments have always recognised the immense privilege that citizenship confers. This government is continuing to ensure that migration to Australia is managed efficiently and with the appropriate care, recognising how significant a decision about citizenship is and how important national security remains as these decisions are made. It should be no surprise to us that many people across the world look at Australia and would love to become a part of this nation.
In the eight years between 2010-11 and 2017-18, there was a 177 per cent increase in the demand for Australian citizenship. In 2017-2018, over 80,000 people from at least 180 different countries became Australian citizens. And in 2018-2019 more than 145,000 migrants had their citizenship by conferral applications approved.
As a result of the government's investment in citizenship, there is an 80 per cent increase in the number of citizenship by conferral applications approved. What this means in practical terms is that we have more people who are not just living here indefinitely, with one foot in and one foot out, but taking on the responsibilities and commitments that come with being a citizen.
Despite this increase in demand, there has been significant improvement in the time taken for citizenship applications to be processed. There was a coordinated range of improvements to every stage of the process during 2018-19, including the recruitment of more staff to process this high volume of applications, the procedures and training and ambitious targets to drive efficiency, the multidisciplinary task forces to address some of the most complex identity cohorts, and the creation of more appointments for applicant interviews and testing.
With these and other efforts, the government has halved the time between an applicant attending a citizenship interview and the finalisation of their application. People who were previously waiting over 100 days are now only waiting just 50. This is good news for everyone. It's good news for the taxpayer who's seeing greater efficiency for the dollars spent in this area. It's good news for communities who can be confident that the right people are being welcomed smoothly and that the wrong people are being declined. And it's good news for those waiting to have the privilege of citizenship conferred on them.
Our government knows that the processing time is not the only metric we should be using to assess how effectively migration cases are being handled. Citizenship should only be conferred upon those who are committed to Australia and fully satisfy the provisions of the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. We need to ensure that the integrity of our citizenship program and the safety of the community are always the first consideration in citizenship cases. When somebody becomes a citizen we need to know that their commitment is to this country and that it is a genuine commitment, and that they will participate in community life and they can help build deep and meaningful roots in this land for generations.
Our government scrutiny also means that in 2018-19 there was a 53 per cent increase in refusals of citizenship. These refusal cases take longer to process but they are also an important sign that our citizenship process is working and delivering results. I commend the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs and the Minister for Home Affairs for the outstanding work they are doing in driving a more efficient but robust citizenship processing system that gives Australians confidence that we're welcoming people to make their home with us with due levels of care. With the leadership of those ministers, I'm confident we'll see more efficiencies and the continued preservation of a robust citizenship process.
I certainly won't be holding my breath while this backlog of people waiting for their citizenship is cleared by this government. The figures speak for themselves. In 2013-14 there were 27,000 people waiting for their citizenship ceremonies. Today that figure is out at 221,000. Those figures don't lie. The people we are talking about have met the criteria for citizenship. They have demonstrated that, in the first instance, to become permanent residents. We have made the time lines longer under this government. That is a separate issue. What we are talking about here is the wait between when your application is processed and actually becoming a citizen. This is outrageous.
Like everybody here, I attend citizenship ceremonies. It is the highlight of my fortnight in the seat of Lalor to attend citizenship ceremonies. In my community, there are 3,000 new citizens a year. Next year, it is tipped to be 4,000 for the year. Some of this is about clearing that backlog. I've got people coming to my office to talk to me about the fact that they've been told that, even though they have met all the criteria—the processing is finished and the application has been found to be sound—they will have to wait six to eight months to get to a citizenship ceremony. And my local government couldn't be working harder. They are doing 30 ceremonies a year. In fact, I joke with our local mayor that we pay her to do citizenship ceremonies. We do three a day on a weekend. We can do three on Saturday and go back and do another two on Sunday—120 people at a ceremony. There is no doubt that local government is pulling its weight—with minimal support from the federal government, I might add. Local government has several times raised with me the issue of cost. It requires eight staff on deck per session. There is an events person who works 50 per cent of their time in supporting these processes and ensuring everything runs smoothly.
Citizenship ceremonies are fabulous events. We all go to them. We all see the tears. But the thought that in my community we can lift that from 120 conferrals at one session to 150, to get through a backlog, is outrageous. There has to be some sense of the personal happening on this day. Believe me, when I talk to people who've been through this process, this is the day they remember. In 40 or 50 years, they will remember the day they became an Australian citizen. And why is there a backlog? What could possibly be motivating this lack of efficiency? What could possibly be happening here? It's certainly not the fault of local government that there's this wait time. But there is a problem. And the problem rests, I would argue, with this government's watch and the way they're working through the issues.
We all know how important this is for people who are having citizenship conferred. We know that it is imperative. I had a person in my office last week talking about this delay and the fact that that will mean another semester of HECS payments at international student rates. If they became an Australian citizen, they would be able to access the HECS loan system. I've had people come to me who have had opportunities for employment in the Commonwealth Public Service but have had to wait for their citizenship. Time lines are being put on these people that are limiting the way they can contribute to our country. I think that that is the biggest crime.
I appreciate the words of the member for Calwell today. I know that the member for Calwell has conferral rights. I asked this government if I could be given such rights and was told no. There's a backlog. Wyndham City Council are being pressured to clear the backlog. They've dealt with the department. The department have said that they will send some of the locals into the city to some extra ones that they're going to do. Meanwhile, I'm sitting at home going, 'Hello?' I'd really love to be involved in this as someone who has conferral rights. If this government really wants to get serious, there are a few of us on this side of the House who might help you clear this backlog.
I want you also to think about the cost to local government. I don't think the contribution in FAGs is going anywhere near meeting the $100,000 that this is costing my local council. It is fundamentally Commonwealth business and Commonwealth work.
I am more than pleased to stand in this House today and speak about citizenship and the processing times, but I first want to reflect on the wonderful contribution that migrants have made to my community over many years. I think that has been properly reflected in the comments that have been made across this chamber. My community of Logan, in the northern part of my electorate, represents some 217 cultures. It's one of the most multicultural communities in Queensland, if not in the country.
I look at the contribution migrants have made since prior to World War II—and there was huge European migration after that world conflict—to more recent times. They have brought a variety of skills, ethnicity and talent to our community. It is astounding what they've built over that time since the formation of my community. We recently celebrated Beenleigh's 150th anniversary. That area was settled by German migrants back in the 1860s and 1870s. Look at the contribution that they and their families have made over that time. If you travel around the area, you can see landmarks and roads that are named after those historic families. Equally important—and we don't talk about this often enough—is their interaction with our Indigenous community. If you talk to those German migrants, they say that they survived that first summer and couple of years only with the assistance of our Indigenous community.
Over the past 150 years, from early humble beginnings, we've seen various waves of migrants come and build a society that we should all be very proud of. I'm pleased to say that in our area we have very few, if any, of the problems that we have had in some other communities around Australia at various times. When you look at the community markets that the African community hold every weekend in Woodridge in the member for Rankin's electorate, look at the displays at various community events and, as has been mentioned by others, look at the wonderful and diverse national dress that some of our newer citizens display at citizenship ceremonies, you see the colour and culture that they bring.
I well understand the disappointment or frustration that people have expressed in my office at the time taken to get their citizenship ceremony done so that they can be fully-fledged citizens and feel like they're contributing to the community they so love and that has adopted them. They recognise the immense privilege that it is to become an Australian citizen and obtain that fundamental national identity.
As this motion mentions, there are, and there have been, some backlogs. I can say to this House and to the community more broadly that we are working to ensure that the backlog is minimised. There have been occasions when I've conducted ceremonies in my office where that has been required to deal with an issue that a new citizen was facing. As a government, we're continuing to work on reducing that backlog. I have held a couple of citizenship ceremonies myself, through my office, to assist with that as well. So, if there are people in my electorate of Forde needing assistance, I'm more than happy to assist them deal with those issues so they can move on with their lives.
In closing, I want to say thank you to all of the people for the contribution they have made. We have seen, over the past 150 years, that the contribution has built a society we should all be rightly proud of. Far too often we hear those who talk down the success of Australia as a country that has welcomed migrants from the four corners of the world, but my experience is that those people come here with a genuine heart and a genuine desire to build and grow their families and achieve the success and the outcomes, and they see this country affording them the opportunity to do so. I want to thank them for the contribution they make each and every day to our community.
The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
I move:
That this House:
(1) notes with concern the growing congestion in our major cities, which makes it harder for workers to commute and takes time away from people to enjoy with their families;
(2) recognises that governments at every level need to invest in congestion busting infrastructure to provide the best outcomes for their citizens; and
(3) commends the Government on committing additional funding across urban and regional Australia, in particular the additional $3 billion to the Urban Congestion Fund so that $4 billion is now available through the fund to target pinch points in major cities to further reduce congestion.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion.
This motion is about noting the growing concern of congestion in our major cities, which makes it harder for workers to commute and takes time away from enjoyment with their families. It also seeks to recognise that governments at every level need to invest in congestion-busting infrastructure to provide the best outcomes for their citizens. Finally, it commends the government on committing to additional funding across urban and regional Australia—in particular, the additional $3 billion to the Urban Congestion Fund so that we can target the pinch points in major cities and further reduce congestion.
The Morrison government recognises the challenges of a growing Australia and, for me, the great state of Queensland, particularly the south-east. It's one of the regions across the country experiencing record residential and industrial development—in particular, the northern Gold Coast corridor in my electorate of Forde. In my discussions with local residents and business owners, it is clear that the transition from a largely rural community to, now, a high-density residential community is presenting challenges to infrastructure and services across the northern Gold Coast area. Included in these challenges is the growing congestion on the M1 Pacific Motorway, but also, increasingly, in the western part of my electorate, the area around Park Ridge and the developments at Yarrabilba and Flagstone impact on the Mount Lindesay Highway.
The government is addressing these challenges by continuing to deliver on our record $100 billion investment in infrastructure projects across Australia. The government has committed over $25 billion to fund land transport infrastructure in Queensland from 2013-14 to 2028-29. Of this we've already delivered more than $9 billion of projects in Queensland since coming to government and we'll invest a further $9.8 billion from 2019-20 to 2020-23. Importantly, we're getting on with the job of delivering these projects to the people of south-east Queensland. We are working to ensure that Queensland commuters and businesses benefit from this record investment in key projects across the state, but particularly in the south-east. Whether it is the recently completed Gateway Motorway upgrade and now the additional upgrade from Bracken Ridge to Pine River; the Brisbane Metro; the M1 Motorway upgrades, which I'm most pleased about, having fought hard for those since initially coming to this place in 2010; or the Ipswich Motorway upgrade from Rocklea to Darra.
All these projects are helping to make the Queensland transport network safer, more efficient and reliable. It is supporting thousands of jobs over the life of these upgrades. Importantly, it is not just about doing a single project but a pipeline of projects which, particularly in relation to the M1, I'm very pleased about because that allows the continuity of construction which helps mitigate some of the costs of that construction and means we get more bang for our buck.
As I've just touched on, the M1 Motorway upgrade is one of my key projects and we're actually delivering on that right now. We're working on stage 1, which is the Gateway to Springwood upgrade, southbound—that was $115 million investment. But, once our total package of $1.7 billion of upgrades to the M1 is completed, it will ensure the M1 is eight lanes from Nerang to the Gateway, which it should have been in the first place.
These upgrades include construction of additional lanes, lane widening and new managed motorway technology as well as upgrades to busways and active transport. These commitments will address congestion and improve safety and travel times along the corridor. The government has committed three projects in delivering this in the northern part of the M1 which directly impact my electorate of Forde. Firstly, the $115 million for the Gateway merge, which I've already mentioned; $375 million for the M1 Pacific Motorway Eight Mile Plains to Daisy Hill section; and a further $500 million for Daisy Hill to Logan Motorway. This will complete the stretch of the M1 through Logan which had largely been ignored by successive governments to date.
In addition, we've committed $50 million to upgrading exits 41 and 49 under our Urban Congestion Fund. Those particular exits service the areas of Ormeau, Pimpama and Yatala. In particular for Yatala, it relates to our business communities because these upgrades are essential to improving congestion for businesses in the Yatala enterprise area. We see, frequently, large queues, particularly in the morning, from the exits back onto the M1, which are incredibly dangerous.
It's through these projects and delivering this infrastructure that we're going to ensure that businesses and our community more generally are able to get home sooner and safer. It also means our businesses are more economically efficient—they can get to work quicker, they can get their goods to the port in a more timely manner—and that's incredibly important, particularly when we're looking at just on-time delivery for many goods now across the economy.
But, if we take real-life examples, Emily from Bahrs Scrub says her usual 10-minute commute can take up to an hour in traffic congestion on the M1; Queenslanders living in suburbs such as Ormeau, Pimpama and Upper Coomera are struggling to get their kids to school in the morning because of congestion on the M1 or on those exits I've mentioned; or Queensland businesses like Swagman Motorhomes who rely on the M1 to get their staff to and from work but also their product to market. These traffic improvements will make an enormous difference and remove that extra 10, 20 or 30 minutes sitting in traffic, which means that they can get home sooner or they can get on with doing business.
I make no apologies for the fact that we are focusing on busting this congestion. It is why we are investing some $4 billion to improve congestion in our major cities, through the Urban Congestion Fund, which includes an additional $3 billion in the 2019-20 budget. Of that $3 billion, more than $590 million is going to Queensland alone. These projects will help get commuters home sooner and safer by reducing travelling times, reducing vehicle operating costs and delivering a more reliable road network for commuters and our freight task. Importantly, it will reduce the cost of doing business.
This infrastructure plan continues to deliver for citizens right across my electorate of Forde. I recently visited the intersection of Darlington Drive and Pearsons Road. We've invested $3.3 million to upgrade that intersection to deal with the increased freight task through there as the Yatala Enterprise Area continues to grow. We have already invested some $16 million in safety upgrades on the Mount Lindesay Highway, together with another $30 million of additional funding for further upgrades which we are presently negotiating with the state government.
The government is committed to vital upgrades on local roads, including $1.4 million to upgrade the intersection of Jellicoe Street and Station Road at Loganlea, $5 million to upgrade the Beaudesert-Beenleigh Road, $11.5 million for the Chambers Flat Road upgrade between Park Ridge Road and Derby Road and $2.4 million to upgrade High Road and Easterly Street in Waterford, a major bottleneck around Canterbury College. And there are some exciting announcements to come with that too, which those road upgrades will facilitate. There is $1 million for the Williamson Road-Days Road intersection upgrade at Upper Coomera. Importantly, there is $45 million for additional car parking at Coomera, Loganlea and Beenleigh train stations. All of these upgrades are focused on getting people home sooner and safer and delivering on the much-needed infrastructure that we require.
Is the motion seconded?
Yes.
I call the member for Blair.
If the Howard government's attitude to infrastructure—their failure to invest in infrastructure—could be characterised as ignorance then this government's attitude towards infrastructure can be characterised as inertia. The government has sat on its hands when it comes to important infrastructure projects. The Howard government and this government—one in opposition during the Rudd-Gillard years—campaigned and voted repeatedly against the upgrade of the Ipswich motorway from Dinmore to Darra. Again and again they voted against appropriations that provided funding for that particular road. Even now, in contrast to the comments made by the member for Forde, they've had to be dragged kicking and screaming, and following the Queensland government and the federal Labor opposition, and finally agreeing to upgrade the Darra to Rocklea section of the Ipswich Motorway.
In every budget since 2014 this government has not met its infrastructure spending allocation. In fact, over five budgets, they have spent $5 billion less on state transport projects. In fact, less than 30 per cent of the much-heralded $115 billion in infrastructure programs is budgeted over the next four years. So they will go to election campaigns and tell voters they are going to fund certain projects, and then in the forward estimates, in budget papers 1, 2, 3 and 4, they won't actually allocate any money. It's deceptive, and it's deceiving in relation to voters. It's an insult, to be honest with you. This government, when elected in 2013, cut all spending to new public transport projects like the Cross River Rail in south-east Queensland.
This government has failed monumentally and not listened to the experts. For example, Infrastructure Australia's third national audit confirmed that the cost of road congestion to our major cities will more than double by 2031, while the cost of public transport crowding will increase fivefold. We've seen the Reserve Bank governor call repeatedly for fast-tracking infrastructure investment and the government rejecting that. We've seen the HILDA survey findings that, over the last few years, the average weekly commute rose from 3.7 hours to 4.5 hours for residents in our major cities. So this government's attitude is to say one thing but do another or, in fact, not do anything as best it can and get away with as little spending as it possibly can.
The best example I've seen locally in my electorate of the government's failure to find a real plan to protect jobs, to curb rising congestion in our cities and to stimulate the economy was in their third term and on two roads that cross Ipswich and go out the sides—the Warrego Highway and the Cunningham Highway. For the Cunningham Highway, the road project needs upgrading between Yamanto and Ebenezer Creek, so Labor made a commitment at the last election to put $170 million in there. The government has budgeted money in there but has done nothing about negotiating and discussing it with the Queensland government to get that project done. There have been some discussions between the levels of government.
Commuters might live in Yamanto, Flinders View or Willowbank. I urge the Deputy Prime Minster to go to the Willowbank area group and hear what they say. There'll be 50 to 100 people there, urging him to meet with the Queensland government and urging the Queensland government to sit down with the federal government and sort out the agreed proportion to get that road project done. It's really critical.
This is a government that has ignored the fact that there is road project infrastructure that needs to be done outside the biggest military base in the country. In addition to that, they've put money in the budget for the Warrego Highway, but they've done nothing about the worst intersection on the Warrego Highway, the Mount Crosby interchange. If you live in Corunna Downs or Karalee or Tivoli or any part of northern Ipswich, you need this done. I urge this federal government—who boast and brag and pose and preen about infrastructure expenditure—to sit down with the Queensland government and negotiate better outcomes for the Warrego Highway and for the Cunningham Highway and to not let the people of Ipswich down.
What a disappointing speech from the member for Blair, with the apologies that he was trying to make on behalf of his state Labor colleagues. There were plenty of excuses why his state Labor colleagues in Queensland can't get on with the job, but in each of the examples he gave, or at least in most of them, did you notice how it was the federal government with money on the table for those infrastructure projects and yet here he was calling on us to hurry up negotiations with the state government? The federal government is the one with money on the table. You would think that the state Labor government would be falling over themselves to work with the federal government in order to get these projects done for local residents, but we don't see that as the case. He even managed to blame the delay of the Cross River Rail on the federal government. The last time I checked, it was a state project that Deputy Premier Trad said was fully funded by the state government. The only one delivering Cross River Rail, if that's the issue the member for Blair has, is the Treasurer of Queensland and the state Labor government.
It is important to tackle traffic congestion, and I completely agree with the member for Forde's motion. He gets it. He gets it in his local area, as I do in the Ryan electorate. It is the biggest issue for commuters and residents of the Ryan electorate, to tackle traffic congestion. It's not an end in itself, but it allows families to spend more time together. It allows them to jettison the frustrations of being stuck in traffic. It allows them to move freely around the area that they love living in and the community that they enjoy. Population growth will happen, particularly somewhere like the Ryan electorate, which is such a wonderful place to live. People love to live there. They want to move there. We want them to come. But we need to make sure that we tackle congestion in order to continue our lifestyle and our standard of living, which is why I'm so pleased that the Morrison government is investing over $100 billion in roads, rail and airports to ease congestion. They are investing $25 billion to improve Queensland highways, fix bottlenecks and build commuter carparks. In a city like Brisbane we have committed to a number of large and small projects. This government has contributed and put $300 million on the table for the Brisbane Metro project. This is a project that can revolutionise public transport in Brisbane.
The motion specifically talks about all levels of government contributing funding to tackle traffic congestion. But here we have another example of the Labor state government failing to support an infrastructure project. It doesn't require any funding from the state Labor government. Brisbane Metro is fully funded. It has $300 million on the table from the federal government and $700 million on the table from the Brisbane City Council. There have been over 200 meetings between the Brisbane City Council and the state Labor government, who just have to give it the tick and we will have a separated busway for the majority of the city and revolutionise public transport, and yet they can't even do that. The Treasurer, Treasurer Trad, has the time in her diary to buy houses on the Cross River Rail infrastructure area but doesn't have the time to give a tick-off to a project which is fully funded, by council and the federal government, that would revolutionise public transport usage in her own inner-city electorate.
In Ryan, through the $4 billion Urban Congestion Fund that the Morrison government has in place we're committed to removing some important traffic pinch points. It's as important to tackle the smaller local bottlenecks as well as the big projects. I heard and reflected on the Deputy Prime Minister's remarks in the chamber today about people being able to travel from the west of Toowoomba all the way through to the port without a single set of traffic lights. It is because of projects like the Legacy Way tunnel, which, again, are partly funded by the federal government and were initially committed to by the Howard government.
In Ryan, we have $25 million to tackle the Indooroopilly roundabout, working alongside the Brisbane City Council, who are committed to tackling congestion in our city. It is because of this federal funding that this project has been kickstarted after several years of design and land purchases. The $25 million on the table from the federal government has allowed this project to get moving, and public consultation is now open.
It was only last week that I was up there with Minister Tudge looking at the different design options and talking to local residents about them. I look forward to working with the Brisbane City Council to complete that project.
Right now in Western Australia it's just hit 5 pm. Thousands and thousands of Western Australians are sitting in cars along the Mitchell and Kwinana freeways and those other congestion points across the Perth metropolitan road network. As they sit bumper to bumper in my electorate, the member for Stirling's electorate and far too many other electorates, I would dare say that they would have some very harsh words for some of us in this place about some of the congestion challenges they continue to face.
Unfortunately, the picture that was painted by the Infrastructure Australia report Urban transport:crowding and congestion tells a story that only gets worse and worse. By 2031—that is, in less than 12 years—drivers will spend 60 per cent of their commute stuck in congested conditions. That's up from the current figure of 50 per cent in 2016. That's more time listening to AM radio—720 ABC or 6PR depending on whether you're a Jeff or an Ollie fan—rather than spending time with your family.
The latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey found that over the past decade the average commute rose from 3.7 hours to 4.5 hours—4.5 hours in commute! It's not good enough. We do need to invest more in congestion busting, as some would say, or just lifestyle enhancing, infrastructure.
Transport infrastructure naturally fascinates. My son is almost two. Our dear friends Nadia and Bianca very kindly got him his first set of toy cars, and, unfortunately, also some of his first branded toys, and now I've watched Cars, Cars 2 and Cars 3 more times than I dare to recall! One of our favourite songs is Wheels on the Bus go round and round. But right now, again in the Perth electorate, those wheels on the bus are not going round and round. They are stuck in a congested environment.
It wasn't that long ago—a few leaders back—that the current government was refusing to fund public transport infrastructure in Western Australia. I'm glad that they eventually saw sense and funded the Metronet project. With the Perth-Bayswater-Morley-Ellenbrook line, we will finally see new track laid in Western Australia as that project starts rolling out later this year in my electorate. It will be a serious new line serving the people of the inner north, inner east and all the way up to Ellenbrook.
The more you look into the infrastructure challenges we face, the sadder and sadder the numbers get. One in six Australians spends more than two hours going to and from work every day. That's two hours of lost productivity. Of the $100 billion transport infrastructure program that we are lectured about day in, day out in this place, less than 30 per cent is actually going to be built in the next four years. We've got the Reserve Bank governor crying out for more investment. We've got a plan with shovel-ready projects that can be brought forward, making sure that Western Australians and other Australians stay in work and, at the same time, making sure we leave that great legacy of infrastructure. The other thing I have learnt is that, sadly, the $100 billion program doesn't, in fact, add up to $100 billion. Maybe Senator Mathias Cormann did the counting on that one!
When you look at some of the contrasts between the government's approach and the approach of the Labor Party, it's clear that Labor is the party in Western Australia committed to public transport infrastructure. I grew up in Fremantle. It is well known by everyone who lives in Fremantle that it was the Liberal Party that closed the Fremantle rail line. It sat dormant for years and years. It took a Labor government to reopen it. It's only because of Labor governments that the big congestion-busting projects in Perth have gotten started. Indeed, it was the Leader of the Opposition who got the Gateway project started. I congratulate the current government on opening that project, but it only started because of the work of Anthony Albanese. I mentioned the Metronet project, a project that makes sure that people in my electorate can get to Ellenbrook and people in Morley and Noranda can get into the city, halving, if not cutting to one-third, their commute into the CBD.
There are many more things to do. The member for Stirling and I probably agree that Scarborough Beach Road would be a great place for a light rail down to Scarborough Beach. I'd love to see an inner city light rail. I'd love to see more investment in the National Broadband Network so that it can actually achieve the vision of making sure we have fewer people in cars and more people taking advantage of clever working opportunities.
I would like to commend my friend the member for Forde for calling for this important debate. The first point 'notes with concern the growing congestion in our major cities'. It will surprise very few people to know that I share this concern. My electorate of Bennelong has been at the epicentre of growth in Sydney, and we've been suffering for it. Back in 2015, the state government announced three urban activation precincts across the top of Bennelong—in Epping, Macquarie Park and North Ryde. Together, they would generate 13,000 new dwellings. Additionally, the boom in housing prices up to 2017 incentivised more growth in apartments, with thousands more dwellings going up in Gladesville, in Carlingford and especially in Meadowbank. Melrose Park has just seen manufacturing plants being removed and replaced with plans for another 10,000 homes. If you haven't been to Bennelong since 2012, you wouldn't recognise it.
Some of these developments are better than others. The initial three precincts are all built on train lines which have just been upgraded into Sydney's first metro line. The ability for this train to whisk people from their homes to interchanges at Chatswood and Epping is incredible, and when the full line opens up to the Sydney CBD in coming years we will have a world-class piece of infrastructure that will make a huge difference to our community. The new apartments at Meadowbank are also next to a train station, as well as being served by Sydney's ferries. It would be optimistic to suggest that everybody in these new apartments would catch public transport, no matter how close or frequent the service, so there will always be more to be done here. However, there are other developments that have no public transport at all and are purely a source of traffic congestion.
The new complexes at Gladesville provide no source of transport beyond driving down the heavily congested Victoria Road, already one of the most notorious roads in Sydney and only getting worse with more cars. Even worse, the homes in Melrose Park will be dependent on the new light rail from Parramatta to Homebush Bay, or the ferry wharf if they want to avoid Victoria Road. This would be fine except the wharf is yet to be built and there are reports that the light rail line will not go ahead at the present time. This is the antithesis of the planning we should be doing.
Our development is not just a function of transport infrastructure. Our growing suburbs need infrastructure of all sorts: schools, hospitals, parks, sporting facilities—and tennis courts. When they first announced the developments in Epping, there was no provision for extra schools because everybody knows that people in two-bedroom apartments don't have kids! Sense has prevailed, and the Berejiklian government has been commended for building new schools. They are building in Bennelong, where there is so much catching up to be done.
But back to congestion: Bennelong has five of the busiest roads in New South Wales, and, with many of them travelling through these previously mentioned growth suburbs, they are only getting to be more congested. We urgently need funds to retrofit solutions into our bulging suburbs, and the Urban Congestion Fund is one such mechanism for this. My electorate has been fortunate to get $3 million in this, to remove the bottleneck at Balaclava and Blaxland Road in Eastwood, which I was delighted to be able to announce with the minister for urban infrastructure, Alan Tudge. This is an excellent project, and I hope that we'll be able to get more projects like this approved locally.
That said, while this is a fantastic fund, it is essentially a bandaid. It will have a great effect in fixing some specific small-scale issues and bottlenecks, but what our cities need is planning. Our cities have never been master planned, nor has our settlement at large, and we can see the flaws that this has created every day. We need a plan of settlement, one that prioritises decentralisation facilitated by rapid transport options to our regions. Sydney and Melbourne are going to grow by millions in the next decades. These new residents won't find space in our existing suburbs. We need to incentivise movement to our nearby regions with transport that can initially make the commute easier and eventually be the conduit for business to these new centres gain economic independence of their own. Congestion is a real curse, but fixing this crisis presents us with the opportunity to improve the quality of life and our productivity.
I rise today to speak on one of the biggest burdens to Australia's productivity, economic growth and community wellbeing: road congestion. It's a wicked problem with no easy solution and, despite record investment, shows no sign of lessening.
Congestion is well known in Warringah. The northern beaches community satisfaction survey, 2019, shows that traffic management is an issue in the region. In fact, satisfaction in Warringah is 10 per cent below the New South Wales metro average. People from back home, who will be watching this speech, know the dread of crawling up Spit Hill, edging along Warringah Road on the way to work in Chatswood, or being stuck behind a noisy truck on the weekends, battling your way through the Saturday morning traffic. This is not just a work commute problem; it is a problem seven days a week.
These roads are some of the most congested in Australia. According to the recent Infrastructure Australia audit, Narraweena to Chatswood via Warringa Road is the third most congested road in Australia. The congestion on this road between 7 am and 9 am causes 26 minutes of delay per vehicle and is projected to grow to 30 minutes by 2031. This time and money could be better spent being productive with family, writing proposals or going for a surf on the weekends. The cost to the greater economy is enormous. Just one corridor, the northern beaches to north Sydney corridor, which is 60 per cent based in Warringah and 40 per cent in Mackellar, costs the Australian economy up to $160,000 per day in lost productivity. This is expected to rise to $200,000 by 2031. That would be $73 million of lost productivity per year.
There have been some efforts to improve congestion along these roads. The state government has shown great initiative, responding to the call of the residents by implementing a B-Line from the beaches to the city. This line has been a victim of its own success though. This line has quickly reached capacity and will require further investment.
The state government has also responded to over two decades of calls and committed to building a new tunnel connecting the Northern Beaches to the city, which will reduce pressure on Spit Road and Military Road. I look forward to the release of the project's environmental impact statement and working with the state government to get the best outcome for Warringah. The tunnel must be futureproofed and done right, minimising health impacts on surrounding residents, especially schoolchildren. But the tunnel is at least six to eight years away. We do need investment and solutions today.
That leaves the dreaded Dee Why to Chatswood corridor. A solution is on the table but it should be fast-tracked. I urge the New South Wales government to build on the success of the B-Line and implement a similar bus rapid transit service as soon as possible from Dee Why, Frenchs Forest and Chatswood. The 136 that services that route is insufficient. It is simply too slow and has too many stops. The estimated cost of the Dee Why to Chatswood service would be about $7 million less, plus fares revenue per year.
I call on the federal government to play an active role and help fund this initiative from the Urban Congestion Fund. The bus line would service Warringah, Mackellar, Bradfield and Bennelong and be a huge boon to thousands of constituents in those areas, so I also call on the members for Mackellar, Bradfield and Bennelong, as government members, to make this happen.
Finally, we cannot talk about solutions to transport and congestion without addressing the consequences to our environment and air quality that come from our road congestion. Transport represents 18.8 per cent of our carbon emissions, and this is growing. We need a plan to move to clean transport options, with investment in electric vehicles and raising our fuel quality standards and vehicle emissions standards.
Urban congestion is a major issue in Australian cities. Sydney, where the Berowra electorate is located, is no different. That's why I'm very pleased to be part of a government that has a $100 billion infrastructure plan that will cut commute times and give Australians more time with their families, improve road safety and improve travel times between our cities and regions. My electorate of Berowra is benefiting from these investments, and they are extremely important. The federal government's $412.3 million investment in NorthConnex is a game changer for Australia's worst road—Pennant Hills Road, which runs right through the electorate. Pennant Hills Road carries about 80,000 vehicles each and every day. I listen to the traffic from those vehicles all day at my office. At night I can hear the trucks changing gear as they race down the road. There is never a moment when there is not the sound of a truck braking or a horn beeping. Peak hour lasts from dawn until night-time.
Congestion robs people of time with their families, causing a loss of productivity for people unable to get to work smoothly. Hundreds of thousands of lost hours are wasted on that road every single week. In traffic on a Friday night a 6½ kilometre journey from Pennant Hills to Hornsby can take over an hour. For too long local residents have been coping with this blight on their landscape and the serious inconvenience to their daily lives. NorthConnex is going to transform our community by taking 5,000 trucks off Pennant Hills Road every single day. It will reduce travel times for motorists and return a critical road in my electorate to the local community, allowing us to reclaim it for our shopping trips and school drop-off runs. The project is well on its way to being finished, with 85 per cent of the paving completed and the lining of the tunnel having reached completion. NorthConnex is set to open to motorists by the end of next year.
NorthConnex is just one of the projects that we're undertaking in Berowra to address congestion. With NorthConnex coming online at the end of next year, New Line Road will inherit the mantle of the worst road in my electorate. New Line Road is the main link road between Pennant Hills, Cherrybrook and Dural. It's the main service road for communities even further north and west—from Galston, Arcadia, Glenorie, Kenthurst, Annangrove, Maroota and Wisemans Ferry. Despite the level of traffic it takes, much of New Line Road is only a single-lane road each way, causing major bottlenecks. This is going to get worse as developments outside my electorate put more traffic onto the road. The 18 kilometres from Arcadia to Pennant Hills can take over an hour in the morning. One accident or a slow truck completely blocks the road. It continues to be a massive headache for families in my area. Recent developments in the semirural areas have increased traffic volumes, causing major congestion issues at peak hour, particularly around school drop-off and pick-up times.
New Line Road is a state road, but when I first ran for election in 2016 I pledged to do what I could to ensure that New Line Road would be widened. I have worked with state colleagues and my colleagues here in the federal parliament, particularly Minister Fletcher and Minister Tudge, to see that the problems with this road are addressed. The Morrison government is the first to inject government funds into New Line Road to get it shovel ready for improvements. To plan improvements to the road, $10 million was committed as part of the budget to get it ready for state government investment. With the developments fully scoped, the New South Wales government will be able to get going with making this overdue improvement. I'll keep campaigning for the important widening of this vital road.
The investment the government is making in infrastructure is absolutely vital to keeping our communities moving and improving our productivity as a nation. Those investments are significant in Berowra, but they're also significant for the entire nation. Our neighbours in Western Sydney will see billions invested to enable smooth transport in that growing part of our city. Investments in road and rail will ensure that the region is ready for the 2026 opening of the new Nancy-Bird Walton airport, a major development for all of Sydney and a project that has been discussed but not achieved for far too long. Another $9.3 billion is being invested in Inland Rail between Melbourne and Brisbane to complete the spine of the national freight network. Goods will be able to travel between Melbourne and Brisbane in under 24 hours, meaning greater efficiency for Australia's businesses. We're scoping fast rail for commuter corridors between major cities, like the Sydney to Wollongong corridor and a fast rail from Geelong to Melbourne. They will enable important train journeys for those commuters.
To address major bottlenecks in cities across the country that are robbing people of their time every week, $4 billion is being invested in the Urban Congestion Fund. The responsible and stable economic management of the Morrison government is what makes it possible for us to continue these investments that will benefit our electorates and the whole country for years to come. I commend the government on its proactive approach to infrastructure.
Maitland is at the heart of my electorate—and I'll just take a moment to acknowledge the member for Warringah, who has a long family history in the beautiful city of Maitland. It is undergoing a population boom. My father used to say that the dark, rich alluvial soil of Maitland could grow babies. Well, indeed, I think it is. In fact, I know it is growing babies! You don't need to drive more than a kilometre or two out of the city of Maitland to see brand-new houses and estates or billboards promoting another house-and-land package. At the last count, our fair city of Maitland and its LGA is growing at one family per day. That's an incredible growth rate for a city like Maitland.
With this population growth has come more cars on the road, and the congestion has become unbearable for the people of Maitland and surrounding areas. There are roundabouts that should be traffic lights, and two lanes where there should have been four. There's an overpass that should've been built in two directions that only went one way under a Liberal state government a number of years ago. There are people who feel completely frustrated that our regional city has grown so quickly but the infrastructure spend has not met that growth rate. Once quiet roads have become super busy. Main Road, Heddon Greta—it can now take people ages to get out there, and sometimes it's not safe when they're trying to make a right turn to go to Maitland. It really is a substandard situation. And while members of the government stand here today congratulating themselves on projects they've completed in the city, I urge them to come to regional areas like Maitland in my seat of Paterson. They've failed these regional areas. They haven't appropriately funded projects that are most definitely overdue.
This year's budget had a headline figure of $1.6 billion for the M1 which needs to be built in my seat. It's the bypass of Raymond Terrace, from Black Hill to Raymond Terrace. Planning for that project began 15 years ago, and we've still not seen any meaningful work to get it done. In this case, the New South Wales government has committed to its share of the funding to get the project ready for construction. Forward estimates, however, reveal that just four per cent of federal funding will be made available in the next five years. The majority of the $1.6 billion committed won't be spent until 2023. This was the only election commitment made by the government in Paterson at the last election, and it is absolutely vital that this piece of infrastructure be built.
Another one: Labor announced in 2016, when I stood to be the member for Paterson, that we would raise the road at Testers Hollow. Thankfully, the government at that time matched the commitment. Plans have just been released. The road has been lifted but it hasn't been widened. In this growth region we've seen many developers build housing estates and they have been required to put in dual-lane access on the road, but Testers Hollow is only the same one-lane-each-way road. Seriously, we need to be thinking about making that a dual-lane road. The project is on track, but we do need to consider the congestion in that area.
Main Road, Heddon Greta, is another case in point. It's become a bit of a battleground. Increased demand on the Hunter Expressway has created pressure on this feeder road, and that's put so much pressure on the residence at Heddon Greta. Traffic on this road has increased by at least 5,000 cars per day. Five thousand cars per day in a small regional village is an extraordinary growth rate for anywhere. It has also been averaging between 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles using this road every day. The state and federal governments have ignored Main Road at Heddon Greta. They need to do something about it. In fact, there's a near miss nearly every day.
Also, we desperately need our airport to be upgraded to give us long-range reach into the Asian region. This could deliver over 4,410 jobs and deliver $12.7 billion into our regional economy. There are so many terrific infrastructure and congestion-busting projects in the regions. This government just needs to start funding them.
The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
It is said that a nation can be judged by the way it treats its young and its elderly. By this sentiment, this government should really be ashamed. The latest government report indicates that more than 129,000 older Australians are waiting for their already approved home care packages. I just want to say that figure one more time: in 2019 there are over 129,000 older Australians who have approved home care packages but who have not been provided with those packages. It really is a disgrace. Since 2017, the wait list for home care has grown from 88,000 to more than 129,000.
As lawmakers in this House, we have an absolute obligation to support our ageing population, and we know the bubble is just ahead of us. Our population is ageing, but we know that population bubble is coming down the road. Forget the Canberra bubble; we've got the ageing-population bubble coming, and we can't even cope with the demand on packages right now. This is seriously a policy void that the Morrison government must tackle.
Like so many others across the nation, the number of older Australians in my electorate who are waiting for the care they desperately need and deserve keeps getting higher and higher. My office regularly hears from constituents in absolutely heartbreaking situations, like the woman who had to pay hundreds of dollars for her husband to be in hospital because she couldn't care for him at home and his aged-care package hadn't been delivered despite waiting months. It's not uncommon to hear about people who know they're eligible for a level 3 or 4 package but who apply for a level 2 because they know they'll probably get that quicker than the one they desperately need. If ever there was a requirement for a massive shakeup, it's aged care in Australia.
Older Australians in my community are entering residential aged care, and even more, emergency departments, instead of receiving their approved home care package—so much for growing old in your own home in safety and dignity. When we talk about the number of people who are waiting for care, it's important to take a step back and think about the lives behind those numbers. Earlier this month, I met some extraordinary Australians in our community, and I took part in Meals on Wheels. I hadn't done that for many, many years, but I went along with Beresfield Community Care to deliver the Friday Meals on Wheels. It was an incredible experience and I encourage all elected representatives to do some Meals on Wheels in their community. You get to go into the homes and meet older Australians, some of whom have worked hard and paid their taxes and are now doing it pretty tough. They really look forward to those meals. Not only that, it can be a very lonely existence for many of them. But they get up and they're there waiting for Meals on Wheels. It was truly a terrific opportunity for me to talk to people about their lives and just how they're feeling as they age in their homes. Whilst services like cleaning, making the bed and running the vacuum are great—and they are provided—I believe some of the big maintenance issues for people who are ageing in their own homes also need to be tackled. People are living in their family home but maintaining the home, and not just having it cleaned, is a real issue.
I want to touch briefly on Mary Frances Brennan. Last December I spoke about Mary, who had been waiting 530 days for her home care package. She was in and out of hospital with what her son John described as preventable illnesses, such as infections. In December, Mary was told it would take at least another six months for her to receive her package. When I first mentioned Mary, I said it was heartbreaking. Well, it's even more heartbreaking now because I stand here today to tell you that seven months after that speech Mary Frances Brennan passed away, having never received the aged care package she had applied for two years and 20 days earlier. Mary's son John and her husband, Peter, acknowledged that her home care package may not have prolonged her life, but they know that it would have made her quality of life so much better. Truly, where are we in Australia in 2019 when people are dying for the help they deserve and desperately need?
I rise today to commend the progress that has been made by the government since 2013 to increase the number of home care packages made available to older Australians. There would be few people in this place who have not been personally affected by the challenges of caring for an older family member, whether it be a parent, a grandparent, or a member of the extended family. Indeed, my own mother and her siblings are currently caring for their mother, my 92-year-old grandmother, who chooses to stay in her own home.
Home care packages allow older Australians to make the choice to stay in their homes for longer. This is an important choice. It allows more people to approach their later stages of life with greater dignity and independence. It also eases the workload often shouldered by family members who take up the role of caring for older Australians in addition to working full time and supporting their own children. Since 2012 and 2013, the government has increased the number of home care packages from just over 60,000 to over 124,000 in 2018-19, with more than 157,000 projected by 2022-23. This year, a further 10,000 home care packages will be available across all four levels of care.
The Morrison government has also extended the Commonwealth Home Support Program for a further two years, providing continuity of service for 800,000 consumers. Just last week, a further $150 million over three years was granted and announced by Minister Colbeck for providers of the Commonwealth Home Support Program. It is for entry-level care, to expand the program in areas where demand currently outstrips supply.
This is in stark contrast to Labor who, at the election, went to the polls with no additional funding for home care packages or aged care more broadly. When Labor left office in 2013, funding for aged care was $13.3 billion. Under our government, funding for aged care will continue to grow to $25.4 billion in 2023. With an ageing population, there is significant pressure on the aged-care industry to grow and adapt to meet market demands. More Australians than ever before are seeking support through home care or residential aged care, and I am pleased that the Morrison government is taking steps to secure this support into the future.
I want to acknowledge, briefly, the work of the multicultural organisations in my electorate of Reid in supporting the needs of older Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Firstly, there is the work of the Chinese Australian Services Society, CASS, led by Dr Bo Zhou. CASS provides support to a broad range of people, particularly the East Asian communities in Sydney. Today I'd like to congratulate them on the home care packages and Commonwealth home support programs they deliver with the culturally appropriate services they provide.
CASS also supports older Australians with aged-care centres. I was particularly interested in their integration of the program with early learning and childcare day care centres, which benefits both children and older Australians. The interactions between both ends of the life span—young people in day care but also the aged care—was very interesting to observe, and I understand Griffith University is conducting a research study on this very model.
Last year, Minister Wyatt, who was then the Minister for Aged Care, visited Reid to open the Gallipoli Home aged-care facility in Auburn. It is the first aged-care facility dedicated to providing care for Muslim and culturally diverse seniors. I'm pleased the federal government was able to provide $10 million to bring this project to fruition, in recognition of the growing number of older Australians born overseas. Home care packages are an important part of the support available for older Australians who choose to remain in their homes longer, like my 92-year-old grandmother. The services— (Time expired)
The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:33