I present report No. 26 of the Selection Committee relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and private members' business on Monday 22 February 2021. The report will be printed in the Hansard for today, and the committee's deliberations will appear on tomorrow's Notice Paper. Copies of the report have been placed on the table.
The report read as follows—
Report relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and of private Members' business
1. The committee met in private session on Tuesday, 16 February 2021.
2. The Committee deliberated on items of private Members' business items listed on the Notice Paper and notices lodged on Tuesday, 16 February 2021, and determined the order of precedence and times on Monday, 22 February 2021, as follows:
Items for House of Representatives Chamber (10.10 am to 12 noon)
PRIVATE MEMBERS ' BUSINESS
Notices
1 DR HAINES: To present a Bill for an Act to establish the Australian Local Power Agency, and for related purposes. (Australian Local Power Agency Bill 2021)
(Notice given 15 February 2021.)
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.
2 DR HAINES: To present a Bill for an Act to deal with consequential matters in connection with the Australian Local Power Agency Act 2021, and for related purposes. (Australian Local Power Agency (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021)
(Notice given 16 February 2021.)
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.
3 MR WILKIE: To present a Bill for an Act to end the indefinite and arbitrary detention of people seeking asylum in Australia, and for related purposes. (Ending Indefinite and Arbitrary Immigration Detention Bill 2021)
(Notice given 16 February 2021.)
Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.
4 MR LEESER: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that 27 January 2021 marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day where we remember the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime and its collaborators, and reaffirm our promise to 'never forget' the 6 million Jews and 11 million others including Roma, homosexuals, people with intellectual disabilities, political prisoners, Poles, Serbs and Soviet citizens who were exterminated during the Holocaust;
(2) acknowledges the importance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day in honouring the memory of all Holocaust victims, and the ongoing efforts of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance to advance and promote Holocaust education to ensure the history and stories of its victims are passed on to successive generations; and
(3) further notes that:
(a) during the 1940s, tens of thousands of European Jews emigrated to Australia, and Australia has the largest per-capita Holocaust survivor population outside Israel; and
(b) the Government is committed to supporting Holocaust Museums in each state and territory in Australia, with the most recent museum announced in the ACT on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January 2021.
(Notice given 2 February 2021.)
Time allotted—40 minutes . Speech time limits—
Mr Leeser 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
5 MS PLIBERSEK: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that 8 March 2021 is International Women's Day and acknowledges the immense contribution Australian women have made during the COVID-19 pandemic, as frontline workers, as parents, and as community members;
(2) expresses concern that the decisions the Government has taken are making things worse for hardworking Australian women and have set too many women on a path to poverty by:
(a) using the pandemic as cover to give businesses more power to cut the pay of Australian workers;
(b) abandoning women in insecure and casual work; and
(c) robbing women of a comfortable retirement by making people eat into their superannuation savings to get by;
(3) further notes that this is no way to thank the women whose commitment at home, in the community, and at work has got us through the pandemic; and
(4) calls on the Government to deliver a COVID-19 response and economic plan that benefits all Australians.
(Notice given 2 February 2021.)
Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 12 noon
Speech time limits—
Ms Plibersek—5 minutes .
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Items for Federation Chamber (11 am to 1.30 pm)
PRIVATE MEMBERS ' BUSINESS
Notices
1 MR J. H. WILSON: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Perth Freight Link, announced by then Treasurer the Hon Joe Hockey in 2014, was comprehensively rejected by the people of Western Australia at the state election in March 2017, when it was the most prominent point of difference in terms of transport infrastructure policy between Liberal and Labor;
(b) in addition to a lack of any credible evidence to suggest it would improve road connectivity, the project which included the road reserves for Roe Highway Stage 8 and 9, did not actually reach the port of Fremantle, had no detailed planning or cost benefit analysis, was to be operated as a private toll road, and was designed to facilitate the privatisation of Fremantle Port;
(c) encouraged by federal Liberals, the Western Australian Government of the then Premier Barnett, ignored the advice of Main Roads Western Australia and in the shadow of an election wasted $20 million of taxpayers' funds in the pointless and bloody-minded smashing down of more than 100 hectares of fragile habitat, including hundred year-old heritage trees, in the Beeliar Wetlands;
(d) after the election, at the behest of the current Western Australian Government of Premier McGowan, $1.2 billion in federal funding that had been put aside for the so-called Perth Freight Link was redirected to a number of sensible and well-designed road, rail, and public transport projects in the south-metro region, including the widening of the Kwinana Freeway and other freeway works, the new Armadale Road-North Lake Road bridge, the High Street Upgrade, and the Thomlie-Cockburn Metronet rail link; and
(e) the Commonwealth Government has since 2017 allocated a further $1.2 billion to fund what it describes as Roe 8/9, a project that no longer exists, while denying the people of Western Australia the much-needed funds to deliver properly planned transport infrastructure; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) respect the wishes of the Western Australian public and the mandate of the Western Australian Government as clearly expressed at the election in March 2017; and
(b) stop holding the people of Western Australia to ransom for a dead and discredited project, and work with the Western Australian Government to support jobs, business activity, transport infrastructure, and economic recovery as Western Australia seeks to emerge from the pandemic.
(Notice given 15 February 2021.)
Time allotted—25 minutes . Speech time limits—
Mr J. H. Wilson 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 5 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
2 DR ALLEN: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) lead's the world's efforts to end polio, bringing together Rotary International, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and many others including in the private sector with a common objective to eradicate polio once and for all;
(b) when GPEI commenced, more than 350,000 cases of polio paralysed and killed children in 125 countries annually;
(c) in 2020 polio was 99 per cent eradicated and wild polio remains in only two countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the entire African continent certified as polio-free on 25 August 2020;
(d) since the onset of COVID-19, the GPEl's extensive resources and infrastructure used to fight polio has been adapted to ensure that COVID-19 does not spread out of control in the developing world;
(e) the work of the Australian Polio Advocacy and Communications Team group provides important support for eradication efforts by bringing together Australian advocates including Rotary International Australia, UNICEF Australia, Global Citizen and RESULTS Australia; and
(f) polio eradication efforts have slowed, and the progress made so far is now at risk; and
(2) acknowledges that:
(a) investment in completing polio eradication will benefit future generations of children who will be free of this devastating disease, and other health programs and initiatives will benefit from the knowledge and experience gained through polio eradication;
(b) efforts to eradicate polio have been extremely successful and demonstrate the effectiveness of widely available vaccination programs;
(c) the GPEl's COVID-19 response has been instrumental in ensuring that COVID-19 does not spread out of control in much of the developing world, including in the Pacific;
(d) Australia is a long-term champion of polio eradication along with many other Commonwealth nations including the United Kingdom and Canada; and
(e) the current parliaments of Australia and other countries have the opportunity to be recognised as the elected representatives who ensured that polio was completely eradicated.
(Notice given 16 February 2021.)
Time allotted—40 minutes . Speech time limits—
Dr Allen 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Orders of the day
1 TOURISM INDUSTRY: Resumption of debate (from 15 February 2021) on the motion of Mr Georganas—That this House:
(1) acknowledges the dire financial situation facing travel agents and the tourism industry in general as a result of Australia's current health and economic crisis;
(2) notes that:
(a) travel agents play a significant role in our tourism industry, sustaining businesses and employing thousands of people across Australia;
(b) tourism was one of the first industries to be hit and will likely be one of the last to recover;
(c) for many of our approximately 40,000 travel agents, the cost of staying open in order to reimburse customers who were forced to cancel holidays is contributing to significant losses; and
(d) with international travel restrictions likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future, travel agents need urgent assistance; and
(3) calls on the Government to:
(a) develop a comprehensive industry-specific support package for the tourism industry, which acknowledges the important contribution this sector makes to the economy; and
(b) provide an urgent lifeline for travel agents on the brink of collapse, instead of the inadequate loss carry-back scheme, for which the vast majority of travel agents appear to be ineligible.
Time allotted—25 minutes . Speech time limits—
All Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 5 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Notices — continued
3 MR LAMING: To move:
That this House:
(1) extends its condolences to the Field and Leadbetter families for their tragic loss in Alexandra Hills on 26 January 2021;
(2) supports the trial of earlier detection, drug-testing and intervention in crystal methamphetamine addiction for new recipients of Youth Allowance and Jobseeker who are not meeting their activity requirements by identifying those with substance abuse issues and supporting them to gain employment;
(3) places on record its support for Income Management for Youth Allowance (Other) recipients who fail to adhere to activity requirements or face court for drug and related offences, and supports ear-marked and fully funded rehabilitation for anyone who fails a drug test;
(4) supports deferral of payments where drug tests are refused, to ensure service providers are engaged; and
(5) explores enhanced information sharing between Services Australia, employment services providers and authorised officers in respective police, corrections, social services and child protection agencies, in dealing with these high addiction-risk cohorts who evade mandatory activity requirements.
(Notice given 16 February 2021.)
Time allotted—40 minutes . Speech time limits—
Mr Laming 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
4 MR KATTER: To move:
That this House:
(1) calls on the Government to:
(a) immediately terminate all contracts with foreign owned external data storage centres, in particular, the Chinese owned facility, Global Switch; and
(b) immediately and securely transfer all externally stored government data to Australian owned data centres;
(2) acknowledges that:
(a) the recent contract extension between the Department of Defence and the Chinese-owned data centre, Global Switch, threatens our national security; and
(b) this continued relationship was formed without due process or public tender;
(3) condemns the Government and the Department of Defence for seemingly placing cost savings above national security; and
(4) further acknowledges that having any government data stored by Global Switch is a national security risk.
(Notice given 15 February 2021.)
Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 1.30 pm
Speech time limits—
Mr Katter—5 minutes .
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 4 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Items for Federation Chamber (4.45 pm to 7.30 pm)
PRIVATE MEMBERS ' BUSINESS
Notices — continued
5 MS L. M. CHESTERS: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes:
(a) the actions of the Myanmar military is a direct assault on Myanmar's transition to democracy and the rule of law; and
(b) Australia is a great friend of Myanmar and is deeply concerned for the welfare and wellbeing of the people of Myanmar;
(2) condemns the Myanmar military for:
(a) seizing control of Myanmar; and
(b) the detention of numerous political and civil society leaders in Myanmar; and
(3) calls on the:
(a) Myanmar military to immediately relinquish the power they have seized and release the activists and officials they have detained; and
(b) Government to review Australia's defence cooperation program with Myanmar in light of the Myanmar military's seizure of power and consider additional targeted sanctions as appropriate.
(Notice given 4 February 2021.)
Time allotted—30 minutes . Speech time limits—
Ms L. M. Chesters 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
6 MR LAMING: To move:
That this House:
(1) recognises the economic and personal impact of state government international arrival caps, including;
(a) economic costs of skilled visa workers and international students; and
(b) personal and mental health costs for stranded Australian citizens: and
(2) urges state governments to review their caps on a weekly basis and initiate training of quarantine staff, so that industry-led, large-scale quarantine arrangements can be in place before the next calendar year.
(Notice given 1 December 2020.)
Time allotted—50 minutes . Speech time limits—
Mr Laming 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 10 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Orders of the day — continued
2 CLOSING THE GAP: Resumption of debate (from 15 February 2021) on the motion of Mr Albanese—That this House:
(1) acknowledges:
(a) that on 13 February 2008 the then Prime Minister made a national apology to the Stolen Generations on behalf of the Parliament and the nation; and
(b) the importance of Closing the Gap; and
(2) reaffirms its commitment to Closing the Gap.
Time allotted—20 minutes . Speech time limits—
All Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 4 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
3 AUSTRALIAN MADE PRODUCTS: Resumption of debate (from 26 October 2020) on the motion of Ms Hammond—That this House:
(1) notes the longevity of the 'Australian Made, Australian Grown' logo since its creation more than 30 years ago as Australia's most trusted, recognised and widely used country of origin symbol to promote authentic Australian brands all around the world;
(2) commends the Government for providing the Australian Made Campaign Ltd, the not-for-profit public company which administers the logo, with $5 million to promote the logo in key export markets as well as establishing trademark registration in the United Kingdom, the European Union and Canada;
(3) further commends the Government for its $5 million investment in the 'Go Local First' campaign, which is run by the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia and is encouraging all Australians to promote and support our local small and family businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic; and
(4) encourages all Australians to recognise the importance of local industry, manufacturers, producers, and businesses to our economy, and the quality of Australian made products and Australian grown produce.
Time allotted—30 minutes . Speech time limits—
All Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Notices — continued
7 MR NEUMANN: To move:
That this House:
(1) notes that:
(a) it is now more than a year since the Prime Minister announced a National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention;
(b) many veterans and families believe the Prime Minister's national commissioner will not be 'better than a Royal Commission' and risks making things worse; and
(c) the Government was forced to withdraw the enabling legislation for the national commissioner at the end of 2020 after failing to get the necessary support in the Senate;
(2) recognises that suicide by current and former defence personnel continues to claim at least one life a week, and nothing less than an independent, open and transparent investigation is required to address this crisis; and
(3) calls on the Government to establish a Royal Commission into defence and veteran suicides as a matter of urgency.
(Notice given 16 February 2021.)
Time allotted—25 minutes . Speech time limits—
Mr Neumann 5 minutes.
Other Members—5 minutes each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 5 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
Orders of the day — continued
4 FAMILY LAW AMENDMENT (A STEP TOWARDS A SAFER FAMILY LAW SYSTEM) BILL 2020 (Mr Perrett): Second reading—Resumption of debate (from 30 November 2020).
Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 7.30 pm
Speech time limits—
All Members—5 minutes. each.
[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 2 x 5 mins]
The Committee determined that consideration of this matter should continue on a future day.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Australia's superannuation system manages $3 trillion in retirement savings on behalf of 16 million people.
Given the superannuation system's size and compulsory nature, every Australian should demand the highest level of accountability and performance from their superannuation fund.
This is why, on budget night, the government announced the Your Future, Your Super package to ensure that the superannuation system is operating as efficiently as possible, to maximise the retirement savings of all members. The package implements a number of recommendations from the Productivity Commission's 2018 final report Superannuation: assessing efficiency and competitiveness.
Too many Australians are paying too much in superannuation fees. At $30 billion a year, the superannuation fees Australians pay exceed the cost of household gas and electricity bills combined.
The measures I introduce today will lower fees, increase transparency and improve accountability and, in doing so, are estimated to save Australians $17.9 billion over the next decade. This includes tackling the $450 million a year Australians are paying in unnecessary fees as a result of six million multiple accounts.
The bill will reform the operation of our superannuation system in three key ways.
Single default account
The government believes new super accounts should no longer be automatically created every time a worker changes jobs when they do not decide on a superannuation fund. Holding multiple accounts is costly for members. Multiple superannuation accounts held with different funds results in members paying multiple sets of fees and insurance premiums and unnecessarily erodes their retirement savings.
Through schedule 1 to the bill, the government will ensure that a superannuation member's account will be 'stapled' to them as they change jobs from 1 July 2021. At the time of starting a new job, unless a member decides otherwise, their employer will pay superannuation contributions into their existing fund.
Employers will no longer automatically create a new superannuation account in their chosen default fund for new employees when they do not decide on a superannuation fund. Instead, employers will obtain information about the employee's existing superannuation fund from the Australian Taxation Office, if it is not provided by the employee. This reform will ensure that members are no longer accumulating multiple superannuation accounts every time they change jobs.
The introduction of stapled accounts will implement recommendation 3.5 of the financial services royal commission and recommendation 1 of the Productivity Commission superannuation inquiry.
These reforms are estimated to boost balances in super by about $2.8 billion over the decade by avoiding duplicate fees and lost returns.
Underperformance
The Productivity Commission's superannuation inquiry emphasised the need to address underperformance.
Schedule 2 to the bill will require the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to conduct an annual, objective performance test for MySuper products and other products to be specified in regulations.
All products that fail the test will be required to notify beneficiaries in writing. Where a product has failed the performance test in two consecutive years, the trustee will be prohibited from accepting new beneficiaries into that product. The amendments also provide APRA with a resolution planning prudential standard making power.
The introduction of this new test is expected to deliver $10.7 billion in benefits for members over the decade as members leave underperforming products, some underperforming products improve their performance and others merge with higher-performing funds.
Schedule 2 to the bill will also facilitate the creation of the government's new interactive YourSuper comparison tool. The tool will provide members with simple, clear and trusted information on MySuper products. The tool is expected to boost retirement savings by $3.3 billion over the decade through empowering more members to engage with their superannuation.
Best financial interests duty
Schedule 3 to the bill implements recommendation 22 of the Productivity Commission superannuation inquiry by amending the existing best-interests duty to clarify that this duty requires the trustee to act in the best financial interests of the member.
In addition, enforcement of this obligation is strengthened by:
Importantly, there is no 'mental' element required to be established by either a regulator pursuing civil penalties or an individual pursuing recovery of losses or damages against a trustee or individual director for a breach of the best-financial-interests duty.
Schedule 3 to the bill will also remove the exemption that allows trustees not to disclose up to five per cent of holdings as part of their portfolio holdings disclosure, empowering members to make fully informed decisions about their retirement—how their retirement savings are invested.
In conclusion, through the Your Future, Your Super package the Morrison government is taking the next step in modernising and renovating the architecture of the superannuation system to ensure it is working harder for the people of Australia.
Full details of the measures are contained in the explanatory memorandum. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Early Childhood Education and Care Coronavirus Response and Other Measures) Bill 2021 (the bill) supports and strengthens existing measures implemented as part of the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to child care. Access to quality, affordable child care continues to be critical in supporting our nation's economic recovery.
The Early Childhood Education and Care Relief Package was implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to support children of essential workers, and vulnerable and disadvantaged families, to access child care. The relief package also provided financial support to childcare providers to ensure their viability.
The government allocated nearly $3 billion to support early childhood education and care services during the COVID-19 pandemic. This kept the sector viable and ensured care was available for essential workers and families with vulnerable children. In December 2020, only 19 services out of more than 13,000 services had temporarily closed—this is 0.1 per cent of the sector.
The government is confident that the childcare sector is doing well, with childcare usage for centre based day care having increased by 12.9 per cent in December 2020 compared to the same time in 2019. Further, 93 per cent of nearly 7,000 parents surveyed in November 2020 reported that they could access all the child care they needed.
The bill addresses a number of issues with the Family Assistance Law that arise as a consequence of measures the government introduced during the relief package period to assist families and providers during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The bill establishes the flexibility to enable business continuity payments to be paid, on a discretionary basis, to approved childcare providers in circumstances where they are adversely affected by any future large scale disasters and emergencies.
These measures mean that families and providers are not adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring that business continuity payments paid during the relief package period will not be offset against future CCS payments.
The bill also includes measures to better assist families who are unable to meet 2018-19 tax return lodgement requirements on time, given the COVID-19 pandemic. An amendment will allow the extension of the first and second reconciliation deadlines. These deadlines are important in the context of an individual's entitlement to CCS. Extending the deadlines will assist Australian families affected by COVID-19 to meet their tax obligations at the end of the financial year.
The bill also guarantees additional support for families, with the relief package period not being counted towards the 14 weeks of non-attendance after which a child's enrolment usually ceases. This means that debts will not arise due to a child not attending care. This gives surety for Australian families using care, especially those in Victoria.
Further amendments will address several technical issues with and ensure consistency in the administration of Family Assistance Law.
This will include ensuring debts are raised against providers whose approvals are cancelled and who are subsequently paid amounts of CCS by fee reduction during the external review of cancellation decisions that are ultimately unsuccessful.
The secretary of the department will be able to delegate powers to administer child-care grant arrangements to the departments administering the Australian government's grant hubs and, in exceptional circumstances, to backdate the start of child-care provider approvals to a date before the provider made a valid application for approval.
The bill also addresses minor drafting issues in amendments made by the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Improving Assistance for Vulnerable and Disadvantaged Families) Act 2020 that will commence on 1 July 2021.
In conclusion, the bill demonstrates the government's commitment to support child-care providers during disasters or emergencies and ensure families have access to quality, affordable child care. I commend the bill.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
This bill makes two suites of changes to the Corporations Act:
In relation to the temporary relief in Schedule 1, the government originally introduced this relief on 5 May 2020 using a temporary instrument-making power which was inserted into the Corporations Act as part of the government's response to the coronavirus crisis and subsequently extended it.
While this relief expires on 21 March 2021, the rationale for its introduction remains. COVID-19 continues to cause uncertainty and associated public health orders are introduced from time to time. It's necessary for the continuation of business that companies be able to host meetings and execute documents without having to physically meet. This relief ensures that companies can get on with business, while cooperating with public health orders made to deal with COVID-19 outbreaks as and when they occur.
At the same time, the government continues to progress its Digital Business Plan, in which the government is investing almost $800 million to enable businesses to take advantage of digital technologies to grow their businesses and create jobs as part of our economic recovery plan. As part of this plan, the government's committed to consulting on making permanent this temporary relief—consistent with its agenda to modernise business communications and improve the technology neutrality of legislation, which it had made a priority of its Deregulation Taskforce.
Schedule 1 contains enhancements to the temporary relief previously introduced, in response to feedback that we received during consultation. These enhancements ensure that companies are required to meet the same substantive regulatory standards regardless of whether a physical, virtual or hybrid meeting is held. They allow shareholders to opt in to receive hard copies of meeting related materials. They also ensure that, whether company officers physically or electronically execute documents, including deeds, via signature or witnessing the application of the company seal, such execution will be valid. This means that rights and obligations contained in those documents will be enforceable. They also improve the technology neutrality of other regulatory requirements related to meetings and document execution. These improvements are consistent with the recommendations of the interim report of the Senate select committee inquiry on financial technology and regulatory technology.
In response to the positive feedback from consultation, the government proposes permanent reforms that will continue to allow companies to electronically sign documents and send meeting related materials electronically, to be in place when this temporary extension ends.
The government also proposes to conduct an opt-in pilot for hybrid annual general meetings in which shareholders can choose whether to attend meetings in person or virtually. This pilot will commence when the extension to the temporary relief ends. The aim of the pilot will be to encourage companies and shareholders to engage with technology with a view to considering whether future permanent reforms are needed to further support companies to effectively use technology to positively engage with their shareholders.
The government will continue to work to ensure that regulatory settings are fit-for-purpose as we continue to deal with, and emerge from, the COVID-19 pandemic as part of Australia's Economic Recovery Plan to create jobs, rebuild our economy and secure Australia's future.
Schedule 2 to the bill will amend our continuous disclosure laws so that companies and their officers will only be liable for civil penalty proceedings where they have acted with knowledge, recklessness or negligence with respect to updates on price-sensitive information to the market.
Schedule 2 makes permanent the temporary relief introduced by the government in response to the coronavirus crisis on 25 May 2020 and extended until 22 March 2021.
These reforms also respond to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services report entitled Litigation funding and the regulation of the class action industry handed down on 21 December 2020 and are part of the government's commitment to provide regulatory relief for businesses and will safeguard the capacity of business to drive Australia's economic recovery without the prospect of opportunistic class actions.
The threat of these actions makes it considerably more difficult for companies to release reliable forward-looking guidance to the market. Without a higher level of protection, companies may choose to withhold forecasts of future earnings or other forward-looking estimates, thereby limiting the amount of information available to investors.
Raising the liability standard so that companies only face civil penalty actions where they have acted with knowledge, recklessness or negligence allows companies and their officers to more confidently provide guidance to the market without exposing themselves to the risk of opportunistic class actions.
Reforming continuous disclosure obligations will allow business to reallocate resources towards improving efficiency and output. This will make it easier for businesses to invest, create jobs and ultimately grow the economy.
Schedule 2 also introduces the same standard of liability for misleading and deceptive conduct where an entity or officer has allegedly failed to provide an update with price-sensitive information to the market. This ensures that those who bring class actions for an alleged failure to update the market must prove the company or officer has acted with knowledge, recklessness or negligence, whether they bring the action under continuous disclosure or misleading and deceptive conduct.
Schedule 2 retains the existing standard for administrative penalties issued by ASIC so that they can continue to issue infringement notices without proving knowledge, recklessness or negligence. Infringement notices are used for less-serious breaches as a fast and effective regulatory response that is proportionate and proximate in time to the alleged breach. It also retains this standard for ASIC's other non-pecuniary enforcement tools such as requiring the disclosure of information to the market by obtaining a court order. This ensures that the regulator can continue to enforce compliance with the law but without entities facing the threat of class actions where they have acted honestly and without negligence.
The introduction of the fault element for private actions also more closely aligns Australia's continuous disclosure regime with the approach already taken in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
These reforms are part of the government's broader deregulation policy objectives. The government is always seeking to remove regulatory barriers and spur economic growth. Businesses should be able to pursue commercial growth without being impeded by legal actions that undermine their capacity to focus on their core operations.
The Legislative and Governance Forum on Corporations was consulted on the legislative amendments in this bill and has approved them as required under the Corporations Agreement.
Full details of the measures are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I'm pleased to introduce the Health Insurance Amendment (Prescribed Fees) Bill 2021.
The bill amends the Health Insurance Act 1973 to remove the requirement for new specialists and consultant physicians to pay a prescribed fee when applying for recognition for higher Medicare rebates.
The current pathway to recognise a specialist or a consultant physician in the act requires a medical practitioner who has gained fellowship with a specialist medical college to apply to Services Australia for access to higher Medicare rebates. As part of this process the medical practitioner is required to pay a prescribed fee of $30 via cheque or money order to have their application processed.
During the COVID-19 crisis it became evident that this method of payment was impacting specialist and consultant physician recognition for the purpose of Medicare, as neither method of payment was efficient or practical during movement restrictions and in-person service closures. As a result, patients of new specialists or consultant physicians may not have been able to receive higher Medicare rebates when they were entitled to.
Implementation of the bill means a prescribed fee will no longer be required to accompany an application form for higher Medicare rebates for new specialists and consultant physicians. This removes the cost to specialists and consultant physicians and the administrative burden to Services Australia of processing the fee.
The cost of upgrading the method of accepting payment was assessed by the government as being far in excess of the revenue generated by the application fee, and therefore the government is removing the requirement to pay the fee at all.
Streamlining the process for new specialists and consultant physicians to gain access to higher Medicare rebates removes red tape for medical practitioners and allows for a simpler, more efficient administrative process for Services Australia.
Debate adjourned.
I have received the following message from the Senate:
The Senate transmits to the House of Representatives the following resolution which was agreed to by the Senate this day:
That the Senate—
(1) notes that:
(a) 15 October is International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, on which parents, families and friends memorialise babies lost through miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death; and
(b) in Australia:
(i) approximately one in four pregnancies result in miscarriage—103,000 every year;
(ii) in 2018, 2,789 lives were lost due to stillbirth or newborn death;
(iii) stillbirth rates have not changed in two decades; and
(iv) the rate of stillbirth and newborn death is higher in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
(2) congratulates the Government for implementing the Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth's recommendation for a national stillbirth action plan which sets an achievable goal of a 20 per cent reduction in rates of stillbirth over five years;
(3) extends condolences and sympathies to families who have suffered a miscarriage, stillbirth or infant death;
(4) recognises previous generations who experienced such a loss during a time when the subject was taboo, and families were given even less of an opportunity to commemorate and remember their children; and
(5) officially and eternally recognises 15 October as International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
The Senate requests the concurrence of the House of Representatives in this resolution.
Ordered that the message be considered immediately.
I move:
That the House concur with the resolution of the Senate.
I'm pleased to support this motion from the other place. We should and we will officially and eternally recognise 15 October as International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. It is our task, as elected representatives of the people of Australia, to address issues that are sensitive and difficult, and pregnancy and infant loss are certainly two of those issues. For generations, miscarriage and still birth have been considered a taboo topic. The incredible tragedy of losing a baby was compounded by society-wide silence that saw mothers and fathers and extended families forced to quietly cope with their grief. Not only were parents suffering the unimaginable pain of having a baby born still not supported after the loss; research into the reasons why and policy action to prevent others suffering this terrible tragedy was not forthcoming. Today, I again extend my deep sympathy and condolences to anyone who has experienced such loss.
I first learnt about the issue of stillbirth thanks to the work of Claire Ford and her organisation Still Aware, which she founded after her first child, her daughter Alfie, was born still. Claire made it her life's work to ensure that other women, families and medical professionals know all about the risk factors involved in stillbirth and the simple steps that can be taken to keep an unborn baby safe. I was truly shocked to learn that women didn't know about these things and that many medical professionals were not communicating the simple things that women can do to keep their babies safe. Further, I was more shocked to learn that about 2,200 babies are born still each year in Australia and that rate has not changed for several decades. This number of babies lost, of babies born still, is about double the number of road fatalities in our nation, and, while we all know about what to do to stay safe on the roads, too many women and medical professionals still don't know what to do to keep unborn babies safe. There are very simple things that have greatly reduced the rate of stillbirth in other countries, such as encouraging women to sleep on their side after 28 weeks and also to monitor their baby's movements and to urgently seek medical advice if anything changes. These are the sorts of simple things women can do to keep themselves and their babies safe. I think probably one of the most important messages to all pregnant women and their partners is: if you are concerned about your unborn baby, do not wait to seek medical assistance; seek assistance immediately.
I'm really proud to have worked with colleagues, in this place and the other, to make sure that we communicate these messages to as many women, medical professionals and families as possible and that we have started the education awareness and policy and research processes that should have started decades ago. It was back in December 2018 that we announced our initial $7.2 million of funding to support stillbirth measures, including $3 million of funding for stillbirth education and awareness programs; $1.2 million for a research project to minimise preventable stillbirth through the use of biomarkers and ultrasound in late pregnancy; $3 million in research funding to expand the Safer Baby Bundle project, making it a national program; and $1.3 million for Sands Australia to deliver an intensive support service for families following a stillbirth. We have also provided $43.9 million over seven years for perinatal mental health and wellbeing, which also helps to support families who have experienced the grief of losing a child.
Late last year, on 10 December, I was immensely proud to be present when we released the National Stillbirth Action and Implementation Plan. This is the document that will guide us as decision-makers and help all of our policymakers, departments and medical advocacy groups around the nation to make sure we stay on track to take all the steps we need to reduce the number of stillbirths that occur each year in this nation. Our aim is outlined in the plan, and our aim is to reduce stillbirths by 20 per cent or more over the next five years, which would be a very important and remarkable achievement given that the rate has not changed in two decades. The plan also aims to make sure that every single family affected by stillbirth receives respectful and supportive bereavement care. Again, I do want to record my sincere thanks to Minister Greg Hunt for everything that he has done to make this happen, and also to the former shadow minister for health, Chris Bowen, who I know worked very closely with us all to get this plan up and running. Minister Hunt announced a further $11 million of funding when we launched the National Stillbirth Action and Implementation Plan, which will do things like support further stillbirth education and awareness initiatives and further extend and adapt the Safer Baby Bundle program. We'll develop new clinical care standards, and we're going to improve data and activities to enable long-term research on stillbirths, which is absolutely critical. We have committed money to develop a monitoring and evaluation framework for the plan and will provide funding for state and territory governments to take immediate steps to increase the uptake of stillbirth autopsies and investigations, which is again a really critical factor in trying to get to the bottom of why we lose these babies when they, for all intents and purposes, look healthy and yet are born still. We have also provided $1 million, through a National Health and Medical Research Council grant, to Monash University to conduct a trial of wearable low-cost devices to monitor fetal movements and prevent stillbirth. So I commend this motion. I thank our colleagues in the other place for presenting it and passing it, and I am delighted that the House is doing so as well.
I strongly support the move to recognise International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in this building and, like the member for Boothby, thank the Senate for their consideration and for proposing it. I thank those senators who worked so hard on bringing this to fruition. Stillbirth has been in the dark for too long. It has been a silent tragedy for too long. It has been ignored for too long, and a proper and appropriate recognition in this building of the loss that so many Australian families have suffered and continue to suffer would be a very important moment in this building and in this country. We've all participated in the various ceremonies that occur around the building, recognising tragedies, apologising in the appropriate circumstances and commemorating, with the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition of the day coming together with all members to share in the loss that so many Australians have suffered. A day to mark stillbirth and pregnancy loss should be one of those days, and I believe it will be.
Many Australian families have for many years been dealing with the grief and with that grief not being recognised as true grief. Many people don't understand the grief of stillbirth and pregnancy loss. Still today, it is not commonly understood. With six stillbirths occurring in Australia each day, still today, and with the rate not falling over the last 20 years, we have much work to do. The member for Boothby referred to much of the good work that is occurring, with the National Stillbirth Action and Implementation Plan to bring those rates down—and I have some confidence that it will. But symbolism is important, particularly in this building. The symbolism of recognising the real grief of stillbirth is important. I was struck last year when I talked about my own family's experience—with my two brothers, of whom one died in infancy and one in stillbirth, and my mother, who went to hospital four times to give birth and came home with a child twice, and how her grief wasn't recognised and understood by doctors, by the medical profession and by society, which made her grief so much harder to deal with—by the number of people who contacted me, even though that happened a long time ago, and said, 'It's still the same today.' So we have a long, long way to go.
I want to thank those members and senators who have shared their own personal stories. Senator Keneally and Senator Bilyk have shared the stories of Caroline and Timothy respectively, and Senator Molan has shared the story of his grandchild who was lost to stillbirth. I know there are other members in the House who have suffered similar grief and haven't been able to talk about it publicly, and their grief should be acknowledged and respected as well. They know who they are, and I know who they are, and they grieve every day. They, I'm sure, will participate in the recognition of International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in their quiet way and they'll make their own contribution, remembering their loss as well. They, I know, have reached out to people in their own way and shared the grief and the bipartisan—more than bipartisan: unanimous—commitment of both houses to ensuring that we shine a light on this problem, on this tragedy, and that we contribute to making those tragedies much rarer, much less common, so that mothers and fathers can go to hospital to give birth and come home with those babies and share the babies with their grandparents and their brothers and sisters much more than happens today.
The Senate inquiry has been a very good process. It's shone a light on many issues that need addressing in our First Nations communities where stillbirth is more prevalent and where there are very complicated issues around birthing in country and other issues which arise from that. We already know that expertise, education, knowledge and awareness is capable of reducing stillbirth. We know we can do it as a country. As a country we've achieved so much when we put effort into it. We've reduced the road toll. We're working on the suicide toll. Our public health campaigns have reduced death rates across the board and cancers. We can do it.
It's about time we did it with stillbirth and pregnancy loss. Holding an appropriate day where the House will come together with our Senate colleagues and share in memorialising those Australians who never had the chance to even leave the hospital they were born in will be an important step in ensuring that we make the same progress with the terrible loss of stillbirth and infant loss. Thank you.
I would like to acknowledge the contributions of the members for Boothby and McMahon, and thank those in the other place who have kept this issue alive. As the mother of two children who did not come home, the most important thing for us is to have our children remembered by our families and the wider community. It is really important because, if you don't talk about it, we don't fix these things, and doctors can't do research and make sure that it doesn't happen again.
I was lucky as I got to be with my children for some time before they passed. To have never been able to say that is awful. To have a baby that is still and know that in the last 40 years the same number of families every year are still going to have that loss is just awful.
I commend the Senate for acknowledging that in this place and I also acknowledge everybody here who every day in their own way, for parents who have people missing, puts an arm around us and makes sure that we are always thought about. Thank you all, because it makes so much difference to us.
Both the member for Boothby and member for McMahon have gone through the statistics. I don't think it's necessary for me to do that as well. However, I congratulate the Senate on this motion and I congratulate Senator Keneally for having the courage to be able to get up and speak. It's obvious that I can't speak about this without getting emotional and I am amazed at her strength and the strengths of others here. Thank you to all my colleagues for your support, and I commend the motion to the House.
I thank the member for Werriwa and I'm sure the House joins me in thanking you for your courage this morning in sharing that with all of us.
Question agreed to.
I rise to speak to the Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals and Other Measures) Bill 2020. I do so by also moving an amendment:
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) acknowledges the bill provides for reduced rates of customs duty for goods required to combat the COVID-19 pandemic; and
(2) notes that the Government has failed to outline a plan to address the economic impacts of COVID-19."
Labor supports the aims and objectives of this bill which, in essence, is to provide a free rate of customs duty for specific medical products used in Australia's response to COVID-19, to make a series of changes to align the operation of the Customs Tariff Act 1985 with international practice and, finally, to allow for better identification and monitoring of products as they cross the Australian border. However, even though Labor does support this bill and acknowledges the bill provides for reduced rates of customs duty for goods required to combat the pandemic, we believe it's important to note that the government has failed to outline a plan to address the economic impacts of COVID-19.
Last year, while in the midst of the pandemic, Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1) 2020 and Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 2) 2020 created temporary concessional items in schedule 4 of the Customs Tariff Act to provide a free rate of customs duty for medical supplies, such as face masks, gloves and COVID-19 test kits, urgently required to combat this virulent pandemic. This bill now confirms the application of those temporary concessions. So it's important, I think, to permanently put in place those measures that are required to make easier the importation of such essential goods to deal with this major challenge.
The bill now confirms the application of those temporary concessions, as I say, and while these were very important measures the government has failed in its response to the economic impacts of the pandemic, which has led to the deepest and most damaging recession in almost a century. All of us know, in this place, as members, as we speak to workers who have lost their jobs, to businesses who have gone under, to many in the community who are struggling to make ends meet, this has been a very big economic blow to constituencies, to communities, right across the country. While parts of the economy are recovering, there are many sectors and Australian workers that are very much still struggling to make ends meet. More than 200,000 jobs have been lost since the start of the pandemic, and there are almost 2.1 million Australians who are unemployed or underemployed—therefore, looking for more work—and that, in itself, is a major challenge that the government needs to respond to.
While too many Australians and communities are hurting, the Liberals and Nationals are reverting to form and using the pandemic as an excuse to cut workers' pay, cut super and strip protections from borrowers. Yesterday the government attempted to say that they're not looking to find an excuse to cut conditions of employment for workers across the country, and yesterday we saw the government tactically decide to remove a boot test provision of the new bill before the House. But there are many other provisions of that bill, we know, which still make it possible for conditions of employment, for rates of pay, to be undermined and, ultimately, cut as a result of the efforts by the government. We always know that's what the government's intentions are. If ever they get a chance, they'll do anything they can to destroy universal super. They did that—in fact, they've never voted for the increase to super. They've never voted for support for workers' wages. They find every reason to undermine them.
Do you have a point of order, member for La Trobe?
On a matter of relevance. It's regarding the customs amendment.
I'm talking to the amendment—
The member for Gorton is being relevant.
which does say there is a failure to economically respond to the needs of the Australian people, in relation to this pandemic. It's fair to say that, whilst we support this bill, in speaking to the amendment it's absolutely critical we articulate the real concerns of the Australian public. I understand the defensiveness of the government. I'm not surprised the minister would rise and seek to stop me from talking about these matters. They're embarrassed and don't want to debate the fact that they're seeking to undermine workers' conditions and other such entitlements, including universal super. For this to be the kind of recovery we need to make, we need to make sure that there's job security and wages growth for ordinary working families. It's not a good enough recovery if it leaves people stranded in joblessness, in unemployment, in underemployment or with weak wages, meaning they can't provide for their families. Labor does think that's really important. The government shouldn't be so nervous in having these debates. If they're confident of their position, they should explain it. Otherwise they should withdraw the other bill in this place.
As I say, this bill is an important measure. What it's looking to do, really, is to codify or to make permanent those decisions that ensure the quick passage of goods into the country by removing duties on those goods. That's something that the opposition does support. In fact, as a former customs minister, I understand entirely why this government would seek to do that, and that's why the government has our support with respect to this measure. But I don't think it should go without saying that there are other concerns that we have. If the government were truly concerned about some of the issues and consequences of the effects of the pandemic then they wouldn't be looking to make it harder for ordinary workers to make ends meet.
With respect to the bill, measure 1 introduces new tariff subheadings for supplementary sports food and highly concentrated caffeine products. This will allow the identification and monitoring of these products as they cross the Australian border, ensuring the goods meet Australian standards and are safe for consumption by the public, which is another intention of this bill that we do support. This is particularly important because last year Food Standards Australia New Zealand found highly concentrated caffeine products posed a potential medium-to-high risk to public health and safety. Again, this is a measure that the government is introducing that Labor does support.
Measures 2, 3 and 4 rely on the Customs Tariff Act with the international tariff classification practices of the World Customs Organization's Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System. These measures allow Australia to adopt the World Customs Organization's rulings on the classification of goods. This is important when we have domestic tribunal and court decisions on classification of goods that do not align with WCO rulings. For example, measure 2 clarifies that wheelie bins are not unmotorised vehicles, which doesn't sound particularly important but is a very important regulation. Consistent with that—
Mr Wood interjecting—
There's nothing too small in this place to be discussed, as the minister, I'm sure, would concede. This is consistent with international practice, after a decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal held that wheelie bins be classified as unmotorised vehicles—did you know that?
Measure 3 clarifies the difference between vitamin products and other supplements with proven therapeutic and prophylactic benefits and those products intended to supplement a person's diet. These amendments are required following a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and subsequently the High Court on a range of vitamin and mineral products in the form of weight-loss gummies that caused Australia's classification of vitamins to become misaligned with international practice.
Measure 4 introduces a series of additional notes that clarify the distinction between goods which should be classified as specialised parts of other goods and goods that should be classified as pieces of metal of various shapes. This change is required because the AAT has determined that various goods that are metal profiles, and which require further modification before being used as parts in furniture or other goods, should be classified as parts of that final good.
Measure 5 removes the $12,000 special customs duty on used and second-hand motor vehicles applied under the Peru-Australia Free Trade Agreement and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Finally, measure 6 makes a number of technical amendments which remove redundant provisions, covering Australia's numerous free trade agreements, that have been fully implemented and are no longer required in the text of the act.
As I said, while Labor supports this bill, we have moved an amendment because of the concerns we have about other matters. As you can see, the bill makes permanent some of the decisions that were made, using the powers of the Customs Act, to make the importation of essential goods to deal with the pandemic easier, and we support the government in their endeavours in that regard. The bill also removes some irregularities and makes sure that the public are safer as a result of the measures it contains. We do support the substantive provisions of the bill but are still concerned that the government, in many respects, has failed to fully comprehend the consequences of this pandemic, economically and socially. For that reason, we will divide on that second reading amendment. We will be imploring the government to do better when it comes to looking after businesses, working people and their families, and communities across Australia.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
First of all, I thank the member for Gorton and the opposition for their support of the bill. The Customs Tariff Amendment (Incorporation of Proposals and Other Measures) Bill 2020 makes amendments to the Customs Tariff Act 1995 to strengthen Australia's customs practice. The bill will incorporate Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1) 2020 and Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 2) 2020, tabled in parliament in May and August of last year. These proposals provide a temporary concession for medical supplies such as face masks, soaps and eyewear, which were urgently required to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
This bill makes a series of amendments to improve the functionality of the act and ensure it remains in line with international practice. The bill will create new tariff classifications separately, identify certain foods and beverages and insert new additional notes to align Australia's tariff practice with international practice for goods, including wheelie bins, metal pipes and metal profiles. The bill will remove the $12,000 special duty on used and second-hand motor vehicles from two free trade agreements to align the duty rates applied on these goods across all schedules of the act. The bill also removes the several redundant provisions, including the removal of a free trade agreement, due to phasing rates agreements that have expired. I thank all those who participated in the debate, 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 Gorton has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question before the House is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
Australia's world-class biosecurity framework has ensured that our $60 billion agricultural industry, local communities and natural environment are protected from the incursion of pests and diseases.
The Agriculture Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Administration) Bill 2019 will assist the efficiency and effectiveness of our biosecurity system, by authorising automated decision-making for decisions made by biosecurity officers under the Biosecurity Act 2015 and authorised officers under the Imported Food Control Act 1992. This approach will support deregulation and improve the effectiveness of the biosecurity framework and imported food system.
Australia's biosecurity framework plays a critical role in reducing risk of incursions by pests and diseases. The Department of Agriculture currently processes on average 45,000 commercial cargo referrals and an increasing value of imported foods each month. Australia is currently operating in the peak season for the brown marmorated stink bug, or BMSB, which entails considerable administrative and manual effort by biosecurity staff and stakeholders to prevent an incursion of this potentially devastating pest.
The department is also dedicating intensive resources to prevent African swine fever virus, or ASFV, from entering Australian borders. ASFV poses a significant biosecurity threat to Australia as it is a highly contagious disease that spreads rapidly through domestic and wild pigs, killing up to 80 per cent of the pigs it infects. As of September 2019, ASFV had reached the shores of our near neighbour East Timor. Other high-risk pests include the khapra beetle and the continued threat posed by foot-and-mouth disease.
If we do not provide Australia's biosecurity framework with all possible tools to prevent the entry of such high-risk pests and diseases, Australia's agricultural industry and world-leading reputation for biosecurity may be irreparably damaged.
This bill clarifies the legislative basis for the government to issue directions to importers and brokers arranging the entry of goods and imported food into Australia, through the use of computerised decision-making. Such automated decision-making will enable the government to maximise resources addressing critical risks, and ensure current and planned decision tools can be implemented as efficiently as possible, with minimal impacts on importers.
The bill will provide the secretary the power to determine, by legislative instrument, the types of decisions a computer program may make on behalf of a biosecurity officer or an authorised officer. This will allow the government to adapt to developments in technology and account for future iterations of automated decision-making systems. In this, the bill will provide a platform for immediate and ongoing improvement in regulatory decision-making.
To take into account technical difficulties that may be experienced by computer systems, the bill also enables a biosecurity officer or an authorised officer to substitute automated decisions where appropriate.
As the government enters the peak pre-Christmas season for cargo referred for inspection, including the increased inspection for ASFV and BMSB, optimising our operational efficiencies is critical. The operational environment of high volumes of goods and people entering Australia, and the potential for negative impact on Australia's agriculture, environment and economy if biosecurity risk or food safety is not effectively identified and managed, mean that it is necessary to provide automated decision-making. The bill is therefore critical for Australia's biosecurity framework to operate efficiently and effectively for the health and safety of all Australians. I commend the bill to the House.
The Agriculture Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Administration) Bill 2019, as we heard from the minister, does seek to amend Australia's biosecurity laws in relation to imported food and imported goods to provide for streamlined administration through automated, computerised decision-making. The current bill is intended to amend the Biosecurity Act 2015 and the Imported Food Control Act 1992. The explanatory memorandum states that the bill will allow risk identification and management across a large number of goods and conveyances. It will also reduce the burden on importers by enabling fast, accurate clearance and providing flexibility in responding to existing and emerging risks. It also states in the EM that it's intended that the principles set out in the Administrative Review Council will be taken into account during implementation of the automated decision-making scheme, 'to the extent consistent with maintaining biosecurity and food health and safety standards'.
The proposed bill provides discretion for authorised officers under the respective bills to override an electronic decision where satisfied that the electronic decision is inconsistent with the objects of the relevant act or where another decision is more appropriate in the circumstances. It goes on to say that decisions made by a computer program will be subject to merits and judicial review in the same way as a decision made by an officer under the relevant provision. In the case of the Biosecurity Act, a decision will be taken to have been made by the director of biosecurity but not in a personal capacity, and, as such, the decision will still be subject to an internal initial review in that first instance.
This is all very important because we know what has happened with this government, particularly in relation to automated computer systems, in the past. They don't exactly have a great record when it comes to this. All you need to do is talk about things like the ABS. Who remembers the census of 2016, when everything crashed? What a debacle, it really was. The census website crashed and then the blame game started, but, instead of us accepting responsibility, the government blamed everybody else—as usual. The ATO website, as we know, crashes several times every year, usually around 1 or 2 July, when it gets high traffic coinciding with the end-of-financial-year activities. This continues to happen. We've seen the myGov website crash several times. We saw it crash spectacularly during the beginning of COVID, the pandemic, with distressed people trying to get access to critical government services at that time. At the time, I and many members on this side, I'm sure, received many contacts from people desperately trying to get into government services and get access to the system. We had the responsible minister apologise for claiming hackers had targeted the website. Later we of course found out that it wasn't hackers, and his response was just, 'My bad.' That's the response that you give when you don't have anything else to say, when you know that you were just making up excuses.
We also have seen many older Australians who had sadly passed away receive letters from the My Aged Care government website and system. We know that people are getting letters for deceased relatives more than a year after their relatives have deceased, and this continues to go on. Then there is the tech debacle to end all tech debacles, the robodebt disaster, where we saw innocent Australians believe they had occurred a Centrelink debt when indeed they had not, all because they were sent incorrect information by a computer—
Is the minister standing on a point of order?
I am, Madam Deputy Speaker, on relevance. The word 'agriculture' is yet to be mentioned. I would have thought, on a bill dealing with agriculture, that that word would probably have some prominence somewhere at some time.
Relevance stands. I believe there's a second reading amendment on its way.
There is indeed a second reading amendment in relation to the government's systems. It's about streamlining and automated computer systems, and that is exactly what the government is going to do with our biosecurity system. Whilst we're saying that we want to see the government succeed in this, we are cautious that the government may not succeed, as they have not in the past when it comes to other automated government systems. The government needs to get this right.
As we heard from the minister, some pests getting into Australia will have a massive impact on our producers if the government doesn't get this right. We cannot afford for the government to fail in this as it did with robodebt, as it did with the census and as it did with the other government websites and systems that we know continue to fail Australians. We cannot have the khapra beetle come in and destroy our grain growers and cost the sector an estimated $900 million. We cannot have the stink bug that the minister talked about getting into Australia. We cannot have our producers put at risk if this government doesn't get this right. So we are being very cautious and putting on record our concerns that the government may not get this right.
Indeed, I will be moving a second reading amendment at the end of my speech in relation to our concerns around this because we are very concerned that the government hasn't got it right in the past. This is a risk that the government says it's willing to take, but we know from the past that the government doesn't do things like this well. We also know from past history that the government takes a very long time to do these things. Indeed, this bill was first introduced into the parliament in 2019, so they are clearly in no hurry to do this. It was introduced in late 2019 and debated in the Senate in early 2020.
When it was introduced, the minister at the time said that the system would also introduce a biosecurity levy. We might all remember about the biosecurity levy. The government was going to charge importers a levy that was going to raise over $300 million, apparently, in four years. This biosecurity levy was actually going to fund a whole range of programs that the government outlined. Interestingly, what happened to this biosecurity levy? After a very long delay, government said this would be introduced and it would be operating by 1 September last year. Of course that didn't happen, because they dumped it. They decided, after heavy lobbying from importers, I assume, that this perhaps wasn't a good idea, because they might not be able to get this levy right. They dumped it. I don't know where the $300 million that was going to be raised by this biosecurity levy over four years is going to come from now and whether the programs it was going to fund are actually going to happen. This backflip was not announced by the government; it was just announced by the department and popped up on the website. No government minister fronted the decision to backflip on the biosecurity levy. None—nowhere to be seen.
But this is typical of the government, as I said, because they do seem to take forever to do anything, or they don't do it well, or they don't do it at all. So I think it is fair and reasonable for me to be talking about the government's past failures when it comes to technology and IT systems. It's interesting that the minister who was trying to object to me talking about that is in fact the minister responsible for Services Australia and robodebt, where we've seen the government now have to settle $1.2 billion of taxpayers' money, borrowed money, to deal with their debacle. This has impacted hundreds of thousands of Australians. What I don't want to see is the government fail on another technology issue—with biosecurity.
As I said, producers in Australia are doing a great job in what has been a very difficult time for them. We do not want to see them or their crops put at risk or, indeed, Australia's reputation as a high-quality producer put at risk because this government doesn't do its job well. I am putting them on notice that we expect this to be done incredibly well. We expect the government to make sure that its technology systems, its artificial intelligence, gets this right. And, if it doesn't, we expect the government to make sure that its biosecurity officers and the department have the resources to ensure this doesn't delay imported goods coming into Australia. As we heard from the minister, 45,000 tonnes of imports are coming into the country and being assessed by biosecurity officers. It is a mammoth task to be dealt with, and this will only increase over time as our producers start to get more stuff going overseas and, as we've seen with the trade agreements, more imports coming into our country. So we need to make sure that all of our systems are right.
After talking to grain growers, I know it's easy for these things to come in, and I'm going to tell you a story about how easy it is. I was talking to a grain grower who told me that the last khapra beetle inception was actually in Canberra, in the ACT. A person who unpacked their fridge noticed a small beetle in it. Now, most Australians would probably crush the beetle and not think anything of it, but this person called somebody and got it checked, and it was one of these khapra beetles that had come into Australia. It's that easy. The government needs to make sure that the systems are robust, with checks and balances in place. It needs to make sure that the systems are audited well and that they are doing the job the government intends them to do. We are really very concerned that this government isn't up to this very significant task.
As I said, the government introduced the bill in 2019, and here we are in 2021. They said it was urgent at the time—it had a levy with it—but here we are all this time later. This is typical of the government when it comes to a whole range of portfolios. Our producers have had bumper crops because we've had such a great growing season, here in Australia, for a whole range of crops. But what we've seen during the global pandemic is our producers not having access to enough workers to get their produce off farms. That has been a very significant issue, and I've been critical of the government's response. We heard from the agriculture minister that the government had 22,000 vetted seasonal workers to come to Australia, but what we've seen instead are states and territories having to do their own thing, with no national leadership on this issue.
We're supposed to have a national workforce strategy come from the government. The government went out to consultation on it, and it's been sitting on Minister Littleproud's desk since October last year. We know this is an urgent issue: $45 million worth of produce, to date, has rotted or been tossed by farmers because they haven't been able to pick it. That is the reality of what's happening in Australia today. This government is not doing its job when it comes to agriculture. This government is not doing its job in terms of making sure that our farmers and our producers are being supported. That is not happening, so we are concerned, in relation to the streamlining of importations, that this government will not be doing its job there also.
We have seen the government obfuscate. We've seen the minister say that states and territories are responsible for seasonal workers and for getting fruit off farms—particularly fruit, but a whole range of other produce too. Quite frankly, I am amazed that we continue to see from the government more obfuscation, more blame on states and territories and less action. I keep hearing that the national workforce strategy will be released soon. I've only been the shadow minister for this portfolio for two weeks, and I'm absolutely loving it! I want to thank the farmers and the producers for their generosity and for showing me around in the last few weeks. But what I have learnt in those last few weeks is that they are incredibly disappointed in the government for not releasing this national workforce strategy. I have been told it has been imminent from the first time that I took up this role, and we still haven't seen it. That speaks again to the government's delays and the government's lack of action when it comes to supporting our primary producers across the country.
We want to support this bill and we want it to work, but I do want to move an amendment to this bill because we really are incredibly worried that what the government says and does are not the same thing. We have seen and heard before, in so many portfolios, including in agriculture, that the government says one thing and then fails to deliver as it intended or as it claimed it would. This system that the government's talking to—we cannot afford for this to be another one of those. We absolutely cannot. We cannot afford for the government to fail when it comes to biosecurity.
The minister talked about a whole range of possible incursions and how we have to keep Australia's primary producers and our country clear of some of these pests that are coming in. Clearly not everything that comes into Australia can be inspected. But the artificial intelligence systems that the government is going to use when it comes to biosecurity streamlining needs to do risk assessments about what is most likely to have some sort of pest in it, it needs to be able to know immediately about changes in systems and where the high-risk origins for some of these things may be, and it needs to be able to respond quickly. I'm not confident that the government is going to be able to do that.
I know that primary producers around Australia are very keen for the government to streamline this system. They are very keen and very pleased that the government is looking at this, but there is also some caution, given what has happened in other IT systems that the government has been responsible for, that this might not work. What I'm saying to the government is: when you introduce this, when this is happening, make sure we have backup systems ready if we make an assessment or an evaluation that it's not working as intended. We cannot afford for this to fail. We absolutely need to make sure that no pests come into Australia through our imported goods. We need to make sure that this AI system does what the government says it's going to do. We need to make sure that we don't have incursions like we saw with the Queensland prawn farmers, with white spot. We need to make sure that the African swine flu doesn't come into our pork industry. We need to make sure that these industries and sectors are protected as much as they possibly can be.
The government keeps saying this will all work—'We've been working on this and it it's going to be great'—but we have seen before that it absolutely has not been. We have seen before that, when the government says it is all great, that is not the case. And this is one area that is incredibly critical, as are the other areas I've named where the government's IT failures have let Australian citizens down. We cannot afford another one of these. The Australian public are really over government IT systems failing them. They totally are. We have seen the court case on robodebt. It shouldn't have had to go to court. The government should have admitted that there was an issue early on and resolved that. What I'm saying to the government is: if there is an issue here early on, fix it and fix it quickly. Do not let it go on. Do not let this system go unchecked. Make sure that all the checks and balances are built into this system. Make sure that all of the high-risk stuff coming into this country has a backup system while we're relying on the artificial intelligence in the first place. We've seen far too many failures of our technology systems and we cannot have another one. We absolutely cannot.
The government said the biosecurity levy it was going to introduce, which it scrapped, was going to raise the $320 million. I am concerned about what is going to happen to some of those programs they said they would fund with that levy. One that piqued my interest was funding to deal with fruit fly in Tasmania, which Tasmania dealt with in the last couple of years when we that did come into Tasmania.
I'm not sure what the government is going to do in relation to funding the programs that the $300-odd million was going to fund and I would ask the government to be honest and upfront about why it scrapped the biosecurity levy and what is going to happen to the programs that the biosecurity levy was going to fund. As I said, we had no minister actually front the government's decision on this and we assume it's because (a) people weren't consulted properly in the first place; (b) they worked out this levy was going to be very hard to implement because they were lobbied by a whole range of importers who said, 'This is going to be a problem for us.'
The biosecurity levy that was supposed to come with this legislation that the government said it would have implemented has not been implemented. As I said, the government has backflipped and dumped this levy. A bit of an explanation from the government or a government minister on what happened with that levy and why it was dumped would be really useful, I'm sure.
I'm sure, Deputy Speaker Wallace, that you too are interested in why the government has dumped this levy and what is going to happen to the programs that the $300-odd million over that four years was going to fund. Nothing has been said from the government about the programs it was going to fund, so it would be interesting to hear from the government.
It's a shame that the minister responsible is not in the chamber at the moment to answer some questions around his own legislation. But, as we've seen, it seems to be a trend from the government these days for whoever the minister on duty is to read out a speech with regard to legislation but not turn up and show an interest in their own legislation. I've noticed this pattern in the last two years or so, and it's not something I've seen before in this chamber under other governments. It happens very occasionally when ministers are not available, but it is not a regular occurrence and was not a regular occurrence in the government in which I was a minister. I always made an effort to be in the chamber whenever I could when my legislation was on, but that's not what we've seen from this government. We've seen many ministers on duty just read out the speech. They can't answer any questions and don't really know the detail. In fact we've even had two ministers read the same speech. I've already asked you why you dumped the biosecurity levy, Minister at the table, and how you are going to fund the programs that it was going to fund—over $300 million over four years. If you have an answer, I'd appreciate it.
Mr Robert interjecting—
Deputy Speaker, the minister is showing, I think, contempt for the whole process of a minister being here and being responsible for the government's legislation. Frankly, the fact that this legislation has sat around for a year, that the minister's not here to talk about legislation nor to answer questions, I think, speaks volumes and I hope it doesn't mean that the minister's not interested in making this work. I sincerely hope the minister is interested in making this work. I hope this streamlining works. I sincerely hope that it works and that the government implements it as everybody relying on the system wishes the same.
To that end, I want to be clear that we want to support this reform and for it to succeed. We are going to support the bill, but I want to move a second reading amendment. 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 notes:
(1) the importance of ensuring computerised systems are only used in simple and uniform cases to guarantee consistency and accuracy; and
(2) that the Coalition Government has backflipped on its plan to introduce the biosecurity imports levy."
Perhaps the government might like to explain why. I conclude my second reading speech and contribution in this place in moving that amendment. I say to the House and to the members on the other side: please ensure your government gets this tech system right. Please make sure that, if you don't get it right, you admit it early and you fix it. Thank you.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
The Agriculture Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Administration) Bill 2019 will make amendments to the Biosecurity Act 2015 and the Imported Food Control Act 1992 to provide for automated decision-making. The bill will ensure there is a clear statutory basis for applications of automated decision-making under the Biosecurity Act; enable wider use of automated decision-making to issue biosecurity directions and notices for imported food control certification; enable the Director of Biosecurity to determine by a legislative instrument which biosecurity officer decisions under the act may be made by the operation of a computer program; and authorise the secretary to arrange for automated decision-making for certain sections of the Imported Food Control Act.
These changes will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Biosecurity Act and the Imported Food Control Act and ensure that Australia's biosecurity system continues to keep pace with the changing biosecurity environment. This is particularly important in an environment where there are high volumes of goods and vessels entering Australia, with 45,000 commercial cargo referrals a month, and where intensive resources are necessary to prevent incursions of high-risk pests and diseases such as the African swine fever virus and the khapra beetle. I commend the bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be read a second time. To this the honourable member for Franklin has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. So the question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
We set a really simple test for this legislation: it had to deliver secure jobs with decent pay. This bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020, fails in its current form. The government have said that they will amend the bill. After the amendment, it will still fail that test.
Secure jobs with decent pay is not an unreasonable test, and there was a process which would have delivered this. We had a process that the government set up, with all the talk about the PM being the new Bob Hawke, where they would get unions and industry to sit down at the table. When Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Bill Kelty established the Accord, they did get people to the table, but the government brought something to the table: they brought the social wage to the table, they brought Medicare to the table and they brought superannuation to the table. They brought something to the table to help broker the agreement. This government brought the table, and that was it. They just said, 'Oh, you lot sort it out,' and that was it. It's no surprise that not a lot was agreed at those working groups. I repeatedly made it clear that, if those working groups delivered a consensus, you could reasonably presume it would find its way easily through both houses of the parliament, but they didn't, and that is not the fault of the participants; it's the fault of the government in bringing nothing to the table to help broker an outcome.
What then happened was that effectively the minister had to make his own calls on what he would put in this bill and what he wouldn't. What he did, by all accounts when you look at this, was that he picked some legislation on wage theft that was already drafted and then added a whole lot of things that employers had sought—some things that unions had sought, but not many; employers got the better half of the deal. Then, either deliberately as a bit of ambit to then drop—as they did yesterday—or because he actually intended to make changes to the better off overall test, he threw that one in as well.
I would remind every member of this House that the government didn't take the invitation that we offered to them at the end of last year, when we made it clear that the legislation in its current form is a pay cut that covers every single award in Australia and we said they should withdraw it. They didn't. There will be an amendment that we're told the government's going to move later on. But, at the second reading, everyone in this House is going to have to vote for or against the bill in its current form, and you'll be voting on the bill with the pay cut in it.
But that pay cut wasn't the only reason that this bill fails the test that we set. It does not deliver secure jobs and it does not deliver decent pay. In some cases, it directly delivers pay cuts, and across the board it takes away a whole lot of the bargaining rules and other protections that are there for workers. In turn, when you take away the power to negotiate and drive change and to drive better enterprise agreements, you end up with a situation, by definition, where workers earn less.
I want to go through each provision because, even though we have said the whole way through that the suspension of the better off overall test was the most egregious part of this legislation but it wasn't the only problem, the government have now said: 'Oh, we've got rid of that one, so why aren't you on team? Why aren't you backing the whole thing?' Well, I'll tell you why: because we're not going to see workers worse off. We're not going to be in a situation where people lose job security.
Let's go through each section of the bill and see, aside from the government's spin, why this was never a Bob Hawke moment and why what's happening right now, for what is in front of us, is a bad outcome for job security. If it's a bad outcome for job security it's a bad outcome for wages, and it doesn't take much to work out that's a bad outcome for the economy. Right now, the economy's not going to have a whole lot of overseas tourists coming in spending money. We need local consumer demand, and if people don't think their income's secure they don't spend. This is the opposite of what the economy needs. After the sacrifices that workers have made over the last 12 months, it's the opposite of what they deserve. There is a level of respect that should have been shown to the Australian workforce and has not been.
Let me get down to the detail of what's in front of us here. First of all is the provisions on casuals. This has been written up and promoted by the government as though it's a big win for casuals. Let me go through what this section of the bill actually does. This has come from a minister who told us at the beginning of the pandemic that casuals would be okay, if they had to isolate with no income for two weeks, because they get a loading and, therefore, they've been saving for the pandemic and they'll all be fine. That's the level of understanding of insecure work by the person responsible for this bill, who might not realise—take a Griffith University study. Half of Australia's casuals receive no loading. In many industries, you have situations where the permanent workforce are on above-award rates and casuals working side by side with them are earning less. That is common; that is how it works. But what we have here is something that entrenches casualisation.
I know why they've done it. They've done it because they've been desperately fighting a case through the courts, a principle that's known as the Rossato and Skene cases. Let me give the example of casualisation from that case. Here we have somebody who was employed by a labour hire company and the labour hire company told them they were a casual. But the labour hire company was paying less than what the legal rate was at that site. So even with the casual loading, this worker was earning less than the permanent workforce he was working beside. And the labour hire company gave him a 12-month roster in advance.
Does anyone seriously believe that's casual work? You get paid less and you've got a fixed 12-month roster. That is a rort. That is appalling behaviour. It is simply endorsing the casualisation and insecurity of the workforce. There's someone with a 12-month permanent roster being paid less than those they're working beside, and we've said, 'Oh, that's casual.' It's a complete rort, and what this bill does is entrench that rort. The courts so far have said, 'No, that is not casual employment; that is permanent employment and a worker in that situation should be entitled to the leave payments, because this was appalling behaviour by that particular employer.'
What's in front of us now is a unilateral decision to cancel the rights of workers in that situation. This legislation says, where a completely outrageous rort has been committed by an employer—there are very few employers that do it on this sort of scale—'We're going to cancel all the money that worker was owed and put it back in the bank account of the company.' That's what's in front of us. The rort of a business being able to pay a casual less than the people they're working beside, having them on a permanent 12-month roster, getting all the benefits of a permanent workforce, but not having to take on any of the responsibility that goes with permanent work—that's the behaviour we're endorsing if we support this bill.
I don't believe for one minute the figures that come from the Minister for Industrial Relations. He's made up figures about me and he's made up figures about the courts. He's made up—which is a pretty extraordinary claim—an interesting costing. I reckon if your costing says, 'Somewhere between $18 billion and $39 billion', that's not a costing. If you want to give up that you're just inventing figures, give a range from 18 to 39. It's pretty clear there's no science to what the government is doing here.
Whatever the figure is, what they're doing is just transferring it from the worker to the employer in situations where casual employment's been rorted. That is an appalling act of entitlement from those opposite. They take the most vulnerable members of the workforce and, in situations where their employment has been rorted, they say: 'Oh, that would be terrible, that would be double dipping. We can't let that happen. Let's take their legal entitlements and transfer it back to the employer.' That's what this does.
But they do this in the name of giving casuals the right to be permanent. Let's look at how they've done that. What they've done with the transferring of casual to permanent employment is they've said, 'Well, however the employer defines you on day one, that's what you are for the rest of the year.' So if the employer signs you off as a casual on day one and says, 'Yes, there's no firm advance commitment,' but on day two gives you a roster for the rest of the year, that rort survives the full 12 months and there's nothing the worker can do about it.
But then the government says, 'Oh, but after 12 months the employer has to offer the worker permanent employment if that's what is happening.' No, not quite. That's not what the bill says. The employer can refuse to provide security by saying there are reasonable grounds and the worker doesn't get compulsory arbitration. If the worker wants to complain about it, their only answer is to lawyer up and go to the Federal Court of Australia. I don't know what understanding of casual workers those opposite have, but I can give you a hint: there are not a lot of casual workers who are in a position to say to their employer, 'If you won't make me permanent—I know I'm a casual—I'm going to take you to the Federal Court of Australia, and I'll pay for the lawyers, and that'll teach you.' Those casuals know what happens if they put pressure back, they know how quickly their shifts start to change, they know how quickly they stop getting the hours, they know how vulnerable their circumstances are.
In terms of arbitration, this week we're debating the media code and the big media companies, including the multinational companies, get compulsory arbitration if they have to deal with an online platform. Why? Because the power imbalance between a big media company and the platforms is viewed as needing to have compulsory arbitration because otherwise the platforms might not participate. But, somehow, a casual worker is not vulnerable? The big media companies need compulsory arbitration, but a casual can just go off to the Federal Court?
This bill is an attack on job security. It takes rights that casuals have now and it unilaterally obliterates them. It takes wages that a limited number of casuals would be owed right now and obliterates their right to that pay. It then makes changes to awards. It makes changes to a number of awards. On some awards it doesn't have a demonstrable impact, but in some where part timers are currently paid overtime, it removes their right to overtime payments. The minister will say, 'No, no, no, it's only if they agree to it,' but if they don't agree to taking their extra hours at the ordinary time rate, those hours will just go to someone else who does agree. So a part timer in the real world is faced with either giving up their overtime payment or giving up the hours in full. How is that doing the right thing by the heroes who carried us through the pandemic?
The other one they've got on the award changes is the flexibility extension. Can I just say something briefly about the extent to which this government has used the pandemic as cover to attack workers' rights? When JobKeeper was established, we were told we needed to provide an extra layer of flexibility for directions by employers, otherwise JobKeeper wouldn't work. It was a concession, but we said: 'Yes, we'll be constructive. We will do that with you to make sure JobKeeper works.' Then we were back here a few months later, as JobKeeper was ending for companies, and they said, 'As companies come off JobKeeper, if they used to be on it, we want to keep those flexible work directions for them as well.' Now they're saying, 'Let's now apply those flexible work directions to every company, even those who never qualified for JobKeeper.' They have had cooperation from workers, workers' representatives and those on this side of the House, but now we see how they want to get rid of protections that workers have, piece by piece.
The enterprise bargaining changes are extraordinary. It's just extraordinary what the government's got in store there. The changes to the better off overall test, that has been so much a part of the debate in this House, were only going to last two years, but the changes to enterprise bargaining that are still in the act are permanent. They're permanent cuts to rights. All of them seem to go the same way. Employers can now be going through the bargaining process for a full 28 days without telling their workers that the bargaining has commenced and that they've got a right to representation. Employers used to have to take all reasonable steps to make workers fully aware of what the agreement was. 'All reasonable steps' now becomes 'reasonable steps'. The concept about a fair and reasonable opportunity to decide whether or not to approve an enterprise agreement is there, which is weaker than the guarantees that used to be there for a proper explanation.
Unions can no longer assist the Fair Work Commission in scrutinising non-union agreements if they fall short of the standards. There are limits on what the Fair Work Commission can consider in order to inform themselves, in order to assess whether workers are better off or not. There are time limits on the commission having to approve agreements now in 21 days. In making their decision, even though the workforce has lost the opportunity for there to be an obligation that they fully knew what they were voting on, including whether they get a full copy of the proposed agreement, we now have a situation where, if workers didn't fully know what they were voting on, the fact that they voted for it—even if they didn't realise the full consequences of what they were voting for—the primacy of the vote has to win out. We know how this will be used. We know what this is there to drive.
With the enterprise bargaining changes, there's a particular change to the National Employment Standards. At the moment, agreements have to reflect them, but there's a change now that you have a standard clause in every agreement that just says, 'We're complying with the National Employment Standards.' If you have other clauses of the agreement that do not apply, they only get set aside if a worker realises that their agreement doesn't comply with the act and starts legal action to get it fixed. It means an agreement could contain a clause, for example, that says 'workers can cash out their full annual leave'. That clause would be unlawful and unenforceable, but it's going to be allowed to be in the agreement. An illegal clause will be in the agreement. When workers ask what their rights are, an employer will be able to present them with a document that would not stand up in court but will have been registered because of the changes in front of us now. And people don't think that will be an attack on wages? With part-timers losing their overtime, people don't think that will be an attack on wages?
It's pretty simple. If your take-home pay is cut, that's an attack on your wages. If your take-home pay is cut, that's an attack on your capacity to pay your bills. Please don't pretend that casuals are being given rights, if the only way they can ever assert them is to lawyer up and go to the Federal Court of Australia.
There are also greenfield agreement provisions here which don't allow for any minimum pay rise. Under this, an agreement can be locked in for eight years for projects worth as little as $250 million. In real life that's a huge amount of money, but, in terms of the dollars involved when you're driving infrastructure projects, $250 million is not a massive infrastructure project. So we've ended up with a situation where someone can work more than seven years at a workplace and receive pay increases over that period that end up way out of kilter with what other workers are receiving, and they have no recourse. There could be a wage rise of $1 a year, and that would be enough. The greenfield agreement would be locked in, and there would be nothing workers could do about their rights.
This is real, particularly for projects that involve a fly-in fly-out workforce. Some of those opposite will be familiar with some of these projects. We've had projects where aspects of an agreement have been problematic and there have been significant rates of suicide at some of these workplaces, over a period of time, because of clauses that had not been well enough thought out and aspects that hadn't been fully foreseen. I'm not going to name the project. I'm not going to target them. But this is real, and this is one of the things that gets fixed when you have a process and a window to be able to reopen negotiations. If you shut that off for eight years, the impacts are real. The impacts on wages are real, the impacts on conditions are real and the impacts on the workforce are real. It takes away the capacity to fix these issues.
On a number of occasions now, the government have wanted to talk about the wage theft provisions in this bill, saying that what they put in front of us, in its current form, is something that we would automatically support, based on everything that we've said. That depends on where in the country you are. If you're a Victorian member of parliament or a Queensland member of parliament, the protections against wage theft are actually weakened by what's in front of us now. When we've been calling for tough action on wage theft, it never occurred to us that the government would produce a bill that covered the field and weakened protection, making it easier for those committing wage theft in some parts of the country. The evidentiary threshold for the offence is high. I don't know how many prosecutions would actually be successful as it is anyway. But, for example, both Victoria and Queensland currently have a 10-year maximum sentence. That would be reduced to four years under this bill.
We've had lot of occasions where we've passed legislation to change sentencing times. This might not be right; I haven't done the full check, so I will give that caveat, but I don't remember any instance where it's been a debate about lowering sentences. I don't recall any instance of this government coming in here and saying they were going to lower the sentences for people who had broken the law. It's interesting that they've chosen to do so with wage theft. If this goes through in its current form, it will be easier for people to commit wage theft in Victoria and Queensland. If that's what the government's intending to do, be upfront about it, but don't pretend that it's such a shock that Labor isn't fully embracing that section of the bill.
It also completely gets rid of one of the crimes in Queensland, which concerns the fraudulent falsification of records. If an employer is fraudulently lying about its wage records, that should be a standalone crime, but this bill, according to the Queensland submission, would knock that out. It's a longstanding offence in the Queensland Criminal Code and, if it's going to be overridden, there should be a matching offence in the Fair Work Act. None of this would be a surprise to the government. They know what the state codes do, they know what the state laws are, and they have deliberately come in here and said, 'Oh, well, if we have to do something that looks tough on the bosses, at least in Victoria and Queensland we can make the penalties less severe and get rid of one of the offences.' Don't be surprised that we're opposed to the light touch. This is the first time I can remember that sentences are being lowered, and it just happens to be about wage theft.
Effectively, what we have here is legislation that fails the test that we put in every way. Secure jobs, decent pay—it's not complicated. But if you say to a casual, 'You used to have rights and now you don't,' that's an attack on job security. If you say to a casual, 'Whatever the employer does on day one is all we're going to look at for the first 12 months,' that's an attack on job security. If you say to a casual, 'The media companies get compulsory arbitration and a whole lot of people get compulsory arbitration, but you as a casual don't,' that's an attack on job security. If you say to a casual, 'The only way to get this fixed if your employer says, "Oh, it would be unreasonable to make you permanent," is to get lawyers and go to the Federal Court of Australia,' that's an attack on job security. If you say to every industrial organisation throughout the country, 'We're going to weaken the protections that your members have when you negotiate on their behalf for enterprise bargaining,' that's an attack on wages. If you say, 'Across awards, if you're earning overtime as a part-timer at the moment, we're going to change that overtime to ordinary pay,' that's an attack on wages. If there are parts of the bill that, as you work through them, are either an attack on job security or an attack on wages, is it any surprise that it fails the test that we put that it had to deliver secure work with decent pay?
I move the second reading amendment that's been circulated in my name:
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 for this legislation to pass it should meet the test of providing secure jobs and better pay; and
(2) further notes that the bill will make jobs less secure and result in pay cuts."
In doing that, I say there are ways of acting in favour of job security. We can get an objective definition of a casual which reflects in legislative terms the common-law definition. If we do that, we will then have a situation where it is clear whether someone is a casual or they're not. If an employer is rorting that, we shouldn't have the 'get out of jail free' card that this bill is, saying, 'We'll just forgive the rorts of the past and legitimise them into the future.' That's what this bill does.
We have a huge problem with insecure work and, if people didn't believe that, the pandemic should have shown them, because the people with insecure work were the first people with nothing. The people with insecure work were the people who, even if they kept their job, had to lose their pay if they had to isolate for two weeks. They weren't using their loading to save for the pandemic, as the Minister for Industrial Relations seems to think. These are vulnerable Australians. They're not industrially strong. But, by and large, they're the people who carried us through the pandemic. They're the people who turned up to work when a whole lot of us were safely doing Zoom calls and working from home. Right at the beginning of the pandemic, they were facing the public, doing their work and dealing with incredibly distressed people. We've made speeches in this place calling them heroes. It's not much of a thank you—to attack their security and attack their pay. No-one should be surprised that Labor are opposed to this bill and, if a bill has measure after measure that weakens workers, attacks job security and attacks pay, no-one should be surprised when Labor say, 'We're voting against it'—and we are.
Is the amendment seconded?
The amendment is indeed seconded and I reserve my right to speak.
By breaking down the barriers to job growth we can help get businesses the confidence and tools to work with employees in order to create the best possible post-COVID outcome for Australia and safeguard workplaces for future generations. The reforms in the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 are designed to support business and protect workers. All Australians should embrace this sensible, pragmatic set of reforms which will get the balance right for workplaces and to make sure that we have enough jobs for our future and that people are supported.
For a long time we have been led to believe that industrial relations is a zero-sum game, but this pandemic has taught us that we can achieve far more if we work together. This bill is centred around five pillars: casual employees, award flexibilities, enterprise bargaining, greenfields agreements, and compliance and enforcement. With regard, firstly, to casual employees, casual work is integral to our industrial relations system, making Labor's failure to define 'casual employee' when they first passed the Fair Work Act even more mystifying. As part of this package, a statutory definition of 'casual employee' that draws on common law principles in key court cases will be legislated. This will provide certainty about when a person is a casual employee and about both parties' rights and obligations. The government is also introducing a new statutory obligation for employers to offer regular casual employees the right to convert to full- or part-time employment unless there are reasonable grounds not to do so after 12 months of employment. These are the strongest casual conversion rights Australian workers have ever seen and significantly strengthen the unsatisfactory framework the former Labor government introduced.
Further, this bill seeks to address the unfairness of some employees' ability to double dip on entitlements through being paid both a casual loading and having a court award compensation for leave entitlements, a quirk that significantly undermines employers' confidence to employ others. This package will fix the double-dipping issue and prevent unfair outcomes in situations where employers could have had to effectively pay an employee twice for the same entitlement, which is estimated to be up to a $39 billion liability for employers across the economy. That is a significant amount of money. Overall, these reforms will provide greater certainty to employers to invest through employment and stronger rights for employees to convert to permanent employment if they wish to do so.
The key difference between us and Labor is we believe in giving workers choice. Labor and the union movement want to decide for workers. They don't want workers to choose whether to stay casual and hold onto the 25 per cent loading or to go permanent. I know many constituents in my seat of Higgins like the choice that casual work provides, if it has 25 per cent loading. What does Labor want instead? Under Labor's plan, regarding sick leave, annual leave and long service leave, the ACTU has confirmed that casual workers would face a massive upfront pay cut. In fact, Sally McManus told ABC TV's Insiders that casual workers would lose their 25 per cent casual loading in return for portable sick, annual and long service leave. That's going to be a direct hit to a casual employee's take-home pay. In fact, for an average casual worker, that would be $153 per week or $7,953 per year. That doesn't sound much like a way to support this part of the workforce.
Secondly, with regard to award flexibility: in our hardest-hit industries, the journey to grow jobs will be most difficult, and the inflexibility in the award system remains a barrier to getting Australians back to work. Rigid and complex rules disadvantage small businesses, in particular; they often lack the time and in fact the resources to work through in detail how all these myriad awards operate and how to navigate them. I've heard, over and over again, particularly from small businesses in my seat of Higgins, about how complex this award system is and how difficult it is to make sure they can do the right thing. And that's what employers, for the most part, want to do—they want to look after their workers; they want to make sure they have workers who have a good environment to work in, because happy workers make for productive workers, and every employer I've met in Higgins is doing their very best to make sure that that happens.
This has never been seen more than during the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has successfully introduced flexibilities to keep businesses afloat and employees in a job. It's that balance that we need to make sure that the ship of Australia is going forward in the right direction with the wind in our sails. Businesses in Higgins have told me that these changes have helped keep them in business.
This reform package will adapt the existing JobKeeper flexibilities in the Fair Work Act for two years so they're available for employers and employees across 12 modern awards in the retail and hospitality sectors. These new flexibilities will mean employers can offer additional hours of work to part-time employees at ordinary rates of pay, subject to important safeguards. This is a welcome development for businesses and employees alike.
Currently, ad hoc arrangements to work additional hours at overtime rates operate as a disincentive for employers to add additional work to part-time employees and contribute to underemployment. This is particularly if the employee themselves want to do this extra work. When businesses are on their knees, they are risk averse and not willing to take on more staff or provide more hours. The change proposed in this bill removes barriers to part-time work for recovering businesses, facilitates additional hours of work for employees who want them and increases the attractiveness of permanent secure roles with benefits.
By opposing these changes, Labor has decided it is against greater opportunity for more hours of work for the almost 30 per cent of part-time employees in the retail sector and around 40 per cent of part-time employees in the accommodation and food services industry. We want these people to have work available for them with more hours, but currently they're not getting them. Labor often decries the number of Australians who are underemployed. Well, here is the chance to help them.
Thirdly, on enterprise bargaining: the enterprise bargaining system has strayed a long way from its original purpose—enhancing productivity and sharing the benefits at the enterprise level—because of red tape and significant costs. Ultimately, this results in employers and employees losing faith in the bargaining framework that is meant to work for them. It also means employees miss out on the significant benefits of enterprise bargaining, including around 40 per cent higher levels of pay compared with the relevant award. Back in May last year, the opposition industrial relations spokesman, the member for Watson, said:
Bargaining is much harder at the moment and taking much longer than it should. Policies that get bargaining moving again are going to be really important …
It is not just the member for Watson who recognises this. This is something that is recognised across Australia. Well, now it's Labor saying: 'Let's block everything and change nothing.'
We have an opportunity to make modest, sensible, reasonable and practical changes to our industrial relations, to have reforms that work for people. Our reforms aim to reduce the level of prescription imposed by the Fair Work Act by building in flexibility and tailoring to account for the workplace challenges revealed by the pandemic and requiring timely approval by the Fair Work Commission within 21 working days. This will be welcomed by workers and businesses alike. Additionally, the enterprise bargaining reforms in the bill will seek to end zombie agreements made prior to the commencement of the modern award, putting an end to employees receiving lower rates than the modern award on these outdated agreements. Importantly, the government is investing $4.6 million to enable the Fair Work Commission to implement an online guidance and application tool for parties involved in bargaining. This online tool will provide more tailored support, educational material and guidance to parties navigating what can be a complex process. This helps equip everyone with the knowledge to negotiate fairly and it reduces the room for error. In total, this group of changes will speed up the approval process so that employees receive pay rises faster. It will reduce complexity and focus on cooperation between the parties.
Fourthly, greenfield agreements: the construction of major projects, particularly in the resources and mining sector, has the capacity to generate thousands of high-paying jobs over the life of the projects, in some cases lasting almost a decade. However, these projects can be susceptible to Australia's combative industrial relations framework, which drives international investment from our shores and jobs from our economy. The risk of greenfield agreements nominally expiring during the construction of a major project creates uncertainty for investors. This has a negative impact on the economic viability of a project, and it is something that needs to be built in when any investor looks to a project here in Australia. It works against growth and opportunity at a time when we need to embrace growth and opportunity for Australia.
Currently, the maximum nominal expiry date for greenfield agreements is four years. That is in the context of large projects that can last five to 10 years—projects that are likely to be nation building and projects that are likely to lead to strength in our post-COVID economy in recovery. In addition, there is currently no requirement for greenfield agreements to provide annual pay increases to employees. We plan to ensure that these are built into reforms, guaranteeing an annual pay increase and allowing agreements for major projects over $500 million to go for eight years—not four years, as they do currently—to ensure that there are built-in guaranteed annual pay increases. I repeat: any longer-term greenfield agreement must be able to guarantee annual pay increases for the life of the agreement. This is a very important safeguard for those workers who are receptive to these greenfield agreements.
Fifthly, compliance and enforcement: as a government, we understand that navigating Australia's industrial relations system can be complicated and confronting, especially for new and small businesses. As we continue to deal with the uncertain operating environment resulting from COVID-19 and the associated intermittent lockdowns that are occurring state by state, we need to work to recover from the economic downturn. It's vital we give employers the opportunity to grow and create jobs. We need to ensure non-compliant businesses do not gain any unfair competitive advantage or undermine confidence. This bill will require the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner to disclose any litigation proceedings. Confidence that doing the right thing is the norm in Australian workplaces and that improper behaviour will be detected and dealt with quickly is a key pillar of Australia's industrial relations system. It's important for the workers. It's important for business.
The government will invest an additional $47.3 million over four years in new funding for the Fair Work Ombudsman: $11.3 million to improve awareness through education; $12.9 million to establish an advisory service for free advice to small businesses; and $22.3 million to establish a team to identify and respond to noncompliance by large corporations. This investment will help businesses comply with their workplace obligations by ensuring employee entitlements and the role of the Fair Work Ombudsman are better understood. Importantly, the reforms will introduce stronger protections for employee entitlements by instituting a suite of tougher penalties: new criminal offences for dishonest and systemic underpayments, with automatic direct disqualification for five years or a $1.1 million fine; increased civil penalties for underpayments, sham contracting and failure to comply; a new benefit-obtained maximum penalty for medium and large businesses, where the maximum penalty would be two to three times the benefit obtained through underpayment; and, finally, a $13.2 million investment to support the enforcement role of the Fair Work Commission and the Federal Circuit Court.
The pandemic has exposed many challenges facing the industrial relations system in our modern economy and uncertain climate, but it also presents the perfect opportunity to press the reset button and position our country for recovery, growth and the future. This bill provides a reasonable, sensible and practical set of reforms that will help employers build their businesses and will help improve the rights of workers. I commend this bill to the House.
We debate the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 at an important crossroads in Australia's history. We are coming out of Australia's first recession in almost three decades. Preceding that recession, Australia had experienced a period of seven years in which wages growth was at its most anaemic in Australia's recorded history. Of course, during the last year, we have seen many Australians bear the brunt of this COVID pandemic. Many Australians in our lowest-paid jobs, many Australians in our most insecure jobs, were at the front line. They got us through the COVID pandemic.
It is at this juncture in Australia's history that Australians look to this parliament to see what is the vision for the future. This bill represents this government's vision for how we should emerge from the COVID pandemic and the recession that we have just endured, and it is a bleak, ideological and backward-looking vision. It is a vision in which the burden on those least able to bear it is increased.
What we argue is that we should have a positive vision, a vision that deals with the long-term economic and social challenges that our country faces, a vision in which wages growth is boosted, a vision in which the changing nature of our labour force is reflected by more appropriate and fair regulation of insecure work.
So this bill fails. It fails because it is going to result in workplaces in which there is less secure work. It is going to result in lower wages growth. It is going to result, for many of our least secure and many of our most vulnerable, in worse pay and worse conditions.
It is also important to point out this bill is not a consensus-driven approach to this complex set of issues. The government entered into this process claiming that it was going to seek consensus. It set up a process that looked as though it was going to try to deal in good faith with stakeholders from across varying perspectives, but that is not where we have ended up. It is absolutely critical that that be established right from the start.
In its response to the introduction of this legislation, the ACTU said:
The Bill fails the Government's own test: workers will be worse off … The Government's changes will make jobs less secure; they will make it easier for employers to casualise permanent jobs and allow employers to pay workers less than the award safety net. This is the opposite of what the country needs.
Nothing could be clearer: what we have here is very, very far from a consensus approach, when that is precisely what we need in this policy area. Labor has stated right from the start that it would have supported a set of policies that reflected a consensus outcome. We cannot support this bill, because this bill does not reflect a consensus and because this bill contains any number of measures that are going to make our most vulnerable worse off.
I want to briefly set out, before looking at some of the specific provisions of the bill, the labour market context in which we are examining this bill. Firstly, even before COVID, this economy had experienced an extended period of extremely low wages growth. Indeed, the first seven years of this government was the worst period of wages growth on record. I can quote Mathias Cormann, who was the Minister for Finance during much of this period, that this was in fact 'a deliberate design feature' of much of their economic policy architecture.
In April 2019 the RBA held a major conference, which was titled 'Low Wages Growth'. It really says it all—that the RBA sees that as one of the major policy conundrums society has to face at the moment. And, as I'll lay out, this bill makes that persistent problem worse. It's not just that wages growth has been low; there's been a decoupling between wages growth and productivity. There has been productivity growth over the seven years of this government but it hasn't been shared with most workers. This decoupling, this wedge, between productivity growth and wages growth is something the government should be concerned about. It is one of the core economic policy challenges that our nation faces. But this government is silent on that issue. In fact, it is moving in the reverse direction: it is actually reducing the bargaining power of the most vulnerable. It is going to set up an architecture, a regulatory structure, that will make their outcomes worse. So whatever we've seen over the last seven years in terms of an unfair distribution of the productivity growth that our economy has produced is going to become worse should this bill pass.
At the same time, many workers can't get enough work to get by. Underemployment has gotten worse over the last seven years. Underemployment has increased by over a percentage point—and that was before COVID. Many of the areas where underemployment has gotten the worst over that seven-year period are in regional Australia. The burden of low wages growth is falling on what might be described as non-standard types of employment. I quote from that RBA conference: 'The share of non-standard employees in total employment is markedly higher today than at the start of the millennium, and all this increase occurred since the GFC. Further, we have established that both casual and permanent part-time employment are associated with significant lower rates of growth in real hourly wages.' This is what the government faces—an economy where wages growth is the worst ever and it's our most vulnerable workers, in non-standard employment, who are experiencing the worst wages growth—yet they have introduced to this parliament a bill which reduces their bargaining power.
Finally, I want to say that this issue of non-standard employment, of people in casual and part-time employment, is becoming even more urgent than it has been over the last seven years. Over the last year, as we have come out of this recession, so much of the employment growth has been in casual employment. Between May and November 2020, casual employment grew by 400,000, by far the biggest expansion of casual employment in Australia's history. What is this government's response? Their first response—fortunately it was short lived—was to weaken the better off overall test. This government has already gone through a humiliating backdown on that, but you could not have a clearer indication of a regulatory test which is designed to worsen the conditions of workers and in practice would have been a change that would have most directly impacted on our most vulnerable.
It is crystal clear that weakening the better off overall test would have made some people worse-off overall. That is the whole purpose of it. In question time and in other forums, we put to the government, time and time again, very specific case studies of people who would have been made worse off were that protection weakened. But we never got specific rebuttals, we never got anything in detail. All we got was hollow, blanket responses saying, 'Don't worry. Trust us, that won't happen.' Fortunately, it looks like the government has backed down on that. But, at the very least, their attempts to weaken the better off overall test is a clear indication of where they're coming from ideologically and their intentions in the future.
Let's look at casuals and casual conversion. As the shadow minister pointed out in detail, and so clearly, in his contribution earlier, casual conversion is a clear instance of where those opposite are trying to enshrine in legislation provisions that will put incredible burdens, unrealistic burdens, on those least able to protect themselves in our workplaces—for example, the burden of having to take an employer to the Federal Court in order to take advantage of the ability to convert to full-time work. It is utterly ridiculous and, clearly, doesn't reflect any kind of understanding of people's resources or capacity to take advantage of provisions in this bill. It is absolutely clear that that legal provision is something that will not be able to be taken advantage of in reality. So this provision that provides for casual conversion is, like so many other things in this bill, a hollow provision. It's a hollow provision that doesn't reflect the power imbalances in the real workplace.
There are also a range of provisions around retrospective application of workplace conditions which, under the government's own figures, would involve cancelling an estimated $18-plus billion in entitlements. These provisions, as the minister outlined, obliterate rights that are currently in common law arrangements and are an entirely imbalanced approach to the conditions of many vulnerable people in the workplace.
Award simplification and the negotiation of awards is a set of conditions that reduces the bargaining power of unions and workers. Part-time employees might agree to situations in which there is a potential risk of this provision normalising a standard 16 hours commitment, with simplified additional hours being used to top up on an as-needed basis. This would, potentially, reduce job security and casualise part-time work.
There will also be a significant extension of flexible work directions, both in time and in who those flexible work directions apply to. The flexible work directions might apply to a considerably broader set of employees, and, as is so often the case in these arrangements, we know precisely what 'increased flexibility' means. Increased flexibility so often means that those least able to bear it will have to work under conditions where they have to take on demand-side risk of the firm, where they have less security when it comes to the number of hours they work or when they work. So when it comes to award simplification and the reduction in union bargaining power, when it comes to the extension of flexible work directions, we clearly see that there will be a change in bargaining power relativities and that many of our most vulnerable will be at risk of their conditions being worse off.
In relation to greenfield sites, we will see a significant extension of conditions that lock in arrangements, potentially to the detriment of workers. Labor has indicated that it is not necessarily opposed to arrangements for greenfield sites. Firstly, what we see in this bill is a significant extension in duration of those arrangements to eight years; secondly, we see a significant expansion of the projects to which they apply, to many smaller projects than originally envisaged. So we see that many workers may be locked into conditions for far longer than was originally envisaged—in many situations, potentially, to their detriment.
Time and again, when we look at the provisions of this bill, we see that the balance of bargaining power is changing. It is the workers who are being expected to bear the burden of less security or lower wages. This flows from the fact that those opposite fundamentally believe that an economic recovery has to rely upon lower wages or worse conditions in order to be sustained. That is a fundamental economic policy prescription that we do not agree with. What we are faced with here is that we are coming out of a period during which we have had our first major recession for 30 years. Even before that recession we had a decade of absolutely anaemic wages growth, and during that period of anaemic wages growth we had productivity growth which wasn't being shared with workers.
This government's response is to weaken bargaining power to reduce workers' rights so as to boost the economy through reducing their pay and reducing their conditions. We see that not as the economy of the future but as harking back to the worst of the past. After this year of so much sacrifice, we believe that what workers need is a fairer deal in which they get a better share of the productivity that this economy generates.
Casual mineworkers in my electorate in North Queensland would already have the ability to convert to full-time work after 12 months of employment were it not for those on the other side. The Labor Party refused to support a bill that the government was going to bring to the parliament in 2019, and subsequently that bill never saw the light of day. So here we are again with a unique chance to fix the problem of casualisation by ensuring that people have the right to convert. Once again, the Labor Party are not supporting it.
I begin today by saying: back the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020—back the bill for all those people who are in casual employment who want the right and the ability to convert to permanent work. Let me be clear about my stance on this issue. If a casual worker is doing the same work as a permanent worker for a period of time greater than 12 months, they are not casual; they are permanent and they should have the option to formally convert to a permanent role. That is an issue that I've campaigned on for many years.
What am I campaigning against? This is a very interesting situation. I get galoots like Labor's Murray Watt, the bloke from the Gold Coast who apparently is a spokesperson for northern Australia.
Order!
Senator Watt, I'll say—Watt by name, 'who' by nature, because no-one knows him up in North Queensland. He breezes in and out like a puff of wind from a certain part of the body and leaves about as much stench as well and just spreads misinformation wherever he goes. He is always raising this issue.
But you know who caused the problem? The Labor Party caused the problem because its Labor's fair work laws that have led to this situation of all these casuals being employed in sectors like the mining industry who are effectively doing de facto permanent work. This is happening not because of the Liberal-National coalition; this is happening because Labor's fair work laws were deficient in sorting that problem out. They cannot deny that whatsoever. It was the Labor Party that brought in the fair work laws, the industrial relations system, we are now operating under that have allowed this situation to go on. I've spoken to blokes who've been working on these mine sites for seven years or so in casual employment who want to go to permanent employment. It's taken persistence from people like me, the member for Capricornia, the member for Flynn, Senator Canavan and others, particularly in the National Party, to get this issue on the agenda and to the point where today we're debating it in a government bill. That's been no small achievement, I can tell you.
As I said before, in 2019, at my insistence and that of and many others, particularly in the Nationals, we had these draft laws that were going to be put to parliament. Sadly, they didn't get through parliament because, as I said, Labor opposed the draft law that would allow casual miners the right to convert to permanent work. It essentially meant that the law was going to be blocked in the Senate, so it was abandoned. It's not the first time we've had the Labor Party letting down miners. I look at significant projects such as the Carmichael mine, up near my part of the world; and the New Acland mine. There's also ongoing opposition to new coal-fired power generation in the North Queensland region emanating from the Labor Party and their mates in the Greens. It's a bit bizarre that we can dig it up—they're all happy with that; well, some of them aren't. We've got disputes going on between Labor's energy spokesman, Labor's climate change spokesman and people like the member for Hunter—and more power to the member for Hunter in that internal fight! We can apparently dig it up, we can ship it overseas and it can be burnt in coal-fired power stations that are being built at a rapid rate of knots in places like India, China and even Germany, but guess what? We can't do it ourselves. Apparently, if Australia does it, Australia is bad. But, if we send it overseas, that's good; it's okay for the other countries. I do not understand that; for the life of me I don't know how the logic works on the other side around that issue.
Further to this, we've got Queensland Labor—and federal Labor was in on this as well before the last election—pursuing and funding what can only be described as an extreme green policy called Just Transition, aimed at shutting down the coal industry and implementing pooled redundancies across the coal sector. That means mass sackings overseen by governments—overseen by Labor governments. It seems that Labor love the Greens more than they do coalminers.
I want to talk about the history on this issue about the right to convert from casual to permanent work. I've mentioned the member for Capricornia, the member for Flynn and Senator Canavan: we've been talking about this for ages, dealing with ministers that have come, with ministers that have gone and with ministers that are here today. I've got to say thanks to the Attorney-General, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker Owens, for bringing this issue on. Back in 2016, the member for Capricornia and I actually wrote to the Fair Work Ombudsman requesting an investigation into a number of claims in relation to unfair work practices in the mining sector and the mining services sector. Both of us had been contacted by many workers in relation to these workplace practices in relation to job losses, and that included job losses at the Hay Point Terminal on tugboats.
As far as I can tell, from an ethical point of view, an employer should not have de facto employees engaged as contractors. They shouldn't be able to simply dismiss workers using a downturn as an excuse and then have another worker come in and fill their position. That is illegal under the framework that we've got. Yet, there are loopholes that exist in that fair work law that allow those practices to go on. I think it's just plain wrong that we right now have full-time mining company employees working side by side casual labour employees doing the same work, the same hours, the same rosters. One is permanent and one is casual: that is wrong. Some of the labour hire company employees on mine sites have been working there, as I said, for seven years—I've spoken to blokes—and they're still considered a casual. So we went off to the Fair Work Ombudsman asking for an investigation into claims around the erosion of certain rights for workers out there.
In 2016, the member for Capricornia went out to Moranbah, in her electorate, to meet with workers and hear their concerns directly. I actually attempted to hold several meetings with the CFMEU on this, because I had great sympathies for these arguments at a point in time when my own party and the coalition probably did not. I tried on four separate occasions, and each time right at the death knell the union cancelled the meeting. I don't know what that was about. They're happy to play the blame game out in the public arena, but, when it comes to a government member wanting to sit down with the union and actually have a constructive behind-the-scenes conversation about solutions, they've been absent. The truth is that casualisation of the mining sector has been going on for years under the fair work laws that were introduced under the Rudd government and which the Gillard government oversaw. This is how the problem has occurred. This, right in front of us today, is the fix to the problem.
I could talk at length about the history that I have had in this fight that has led to these particular provisions in this legislation today, but what I will say is that I am very glad the government has acknowledged the situation where people are continuing on for years in employment that is de facto permanent. They have rostered hours and they're working alongside other permanent workers doing the same job, the same shifts and the same hours and yet they're on casual rates and casual employment, without the security that permanent employment actually brings. It's wrong. It's unethical. And so, before even the government brought this bill to a head, we had BHP moving from their model, which was increasingly to more casualisation, to set up BHP operational services and put these people on permanent work. Hooray! I give them a lot of bricks back, actually. People might think that I don't, but, I'll tell you what, I give BHP a few swipes and a big tick for putting people onto permanent employment.
I have also given a few swipes to WorkPac in the past. There are a lot of employees in my electorate with WorkPac. A lot of them like working for WorkPac. They, without being forced, change their enterprise agreement to say that workers, after six months of continuous work, have the right to convert to permanent work inside WorkPac. Again, I applaud the industry for doing this—for correcting what, quite frankly, is a bit of an injustice that's been done to these workers by keeping them on casual employment when they didn't want to be. A lot of people want the security of having sick leave and of being able to attend the funeral of a loved one and not lose pay for it—of being able to enjoy all of the benefits that comes with secure employment. That's why I think that this legislation is very, very important. The actions that have happened in the industry, thankfully, happened before this has been put in place. This will ensure that it is an absolute right for those workers.
I've heard all these stories that come up. They say, 'It's not going to be workable. It's unenforceable.' That's nonsense, nonsense and more nonsense. The situation is, if this law is passed and workers get that right to convert from casual work to permanent work after 12 months of employment, the boss will have to write to the worker and say: 'It's been 12 months. Do you want to convert to permanent?' The worker will say, 'Yes, I do', if they decide to do that, and it will happen. If the boss says, 'We can't actually let you go to permanent work, because of issue X', issue X needs to be validated or you will have the union movement in there, I hope—if they're doing their job—breathing down the neck of the bosses saying, 'This is incorrect.' And you will also have the backing of the Fair Work Commission, which oversee employment standards in this country. If a dodgy reason is given, a dodgy reason will be exposed and that boss will have to offer permanent employment to that person. This puts the onus on businesses to do the right thing. It puts all of the benefits onto the worker who, as some said, might want the choice of continuing on in casual work because of the extra loadings that they get. At least it's going to be the worker's right to decide. I think that is fair enough. That's why I say let's back the bill. Let's back this bill that gives workers the right to convert from casual to permanent employment. This is a problem that has gone on far, far too long, under Labor's fair work laws, in the Bowen Basin and elsewhere, perhaps in the member for Hunter's electorate, too. I gave him a bit of a plaudit before for his ongoing fight within the Labor Party for common sense. More power to you, Member for Hunter.
I hope that we can support this bill in this place and in the other place because, without it, we are going to be stuck with this injustice continuing to occur and people remaining in these casual roles when they're actually doing permanent work. I want to see it fixed. The government now wants to see it fixed. Maybe the Labor party want to see it fixed. Can you at least support us on this measure? That would be good. Back the bill.
[by video link] It's interesting to follow the member for Dawson and his magical mystery tour of the mining sector and industrial relations. It appears the member for Dawson likes to have it three ways. He backs the workers, he backs the industry, he backs everyone. What he fails to understand, quite literally, is that this legislation would still allow you, as an employee—if, on day one, you were employed as a casual—to remain a casual for 12 months. Then, to assert your right to become permanent, if the employer wasn't willing, you'd have to lawyer up and go to the Federal Court. I think the miners that the member for Dawson has been talking to, if they are still casual, may find this a bit of an impediment on a journey to permanent work.
I don't question the member for Dawson when he talks about having spoken to workers who've been impacted by the scourge of casualisation in this country over the last eight years; I don't for a moment underestimate his sincerity in that. I do question his understanding of the legislation that's before him now—the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020. I, too, speak as someone who speaks to workers in my electorate. In the outer suburbs, it has been clear over the last eight years that the scourge of casualisation and underemployment has overtaken many people's aspirations. I've spoken many times in the House about the many young workers in my community who have worked in the labour hire space for years. They have left school and got themselves a job through labour hire and have stayed in that system for years. I understand perfectly what that means for those young people. But I often wonder if members in the House understand—if they understand what it's like to spend every day of your life waiting for a text message that might come through at six o'clock, at dinnertime, when you've just got home from a shift, or might come through at 11 o'clock at night, or at one o'clock in the morning to tell you where and when you're required for work tomorrow. That goes on for years for young people in my electorate.
This was a chance for this government to do the right thing by those young workers and set them on a course for permanent employment—set them on a course where they could bank on an income and where their hard work was appreciated; a course where they could live the life that most of us lived decades ago, where a day's pay came with the permanency of the role and the capacity to plan around when you're going to be working and how much you're going to be paid. I don't think members of the House, particularly those opposite, quite understand how this all translates on the ground in the outer suburbs.
So I'm pleased to speak on this legislation and on the amendments presented by the member for Watson because, as I said, this is critically important to my community, and this is critically important across the nation. This is a once-in-a-hundred-years moment, brought on by the pandemic that has helpfully—it hasn't been helpful in many ways—shone a light on exactly these issues of casualisation and of underemployment. It has shown us that, as a community, we know now what is essential. It is clear that people in the caring industries, in the retail industries and in transport and logistics are absolutely essential to the rest of us being able to live our lives the way we like to, and it has shown that, in those sectors, this scourge runs rampant. We've seen aged-care workers and healthcare workers working across more than one site under different contracts. They have more than one job to get themselves what's equivalent to full-time work, with more than one employer, possibly in the same industry. This is an opportunity for this government to put forward legislation that would see these things change and that would see an industrial relations system that supports workers across this country and supports employers across this country. But, no, they've baulked. They've put before us the old ideology again and again. Yes, there are some clean-up things in here where members opposite can stand up and say, 'This bill addresses all of these issues.' The words may be in the bill, but the issues are far from addressed. I don't think we can afford to miss this opportunity to swing the pendulum back in our workplaces so that young people, people who are changing jobs, and people who have perhaps become unemployed and are now returning to the workforce go into the workforce under better conditions and, certainly, with the prospect of permanent jobs.
I want to go to what was a really important point that I heard the member for Fraser mention around the number of people who are currently coming into the workforce. On the one hand, the government claims that, in economic terms, the pandemic is over. The government claims that everything is back on track. We can cut JobKeeper; it won't matter to anyone. It will all be fine because the economy has recovered. Yet, when we look at the actual rate of people being employed, we find more people employed part time and more people employed casually since May 2020 than ever before in Australia's history. So it isn't creating a better future; it's actually locking in what was already happening. This legislation fails dreadfully to reduce that scenario. In fact, the figures tell us it's doing exactly the opposite. This legislation won't abate that. This legislation, although paying lip-service by using terms that seem familiar, doesn't cut it in terms of making sure that this changes. I think that's the crux of the matter for people in my community.
I've heard members opposite talk about small business. I have a lot of small-business owners in my electorate. Most of them begin small businesses to create something to support themselves and to create an income for their families. They create a business that they hope to employ others in, and most small-business owners do that in good faith. So attempts to make things simpler for small-business owners is something that Labor would always support, as employers in our communities and in communities that we represent. But, again, the government talks about that as a piece in this legislation, when the overall parts of this legislation that Labor disagrees with are clear. They are being twisted and obfuscated by members opposite. On several occasions, we've seen the Attorney-General claim in the House that Labor is not supporting penalties for wage theft, when this legislation—as the member for Watson has pointed out and as the member for Fraser has pointed out today—undermines the Victorian and Queensland state legislation in this space. So, yes, you can go out and say that this legislation brings in federal laws to punish people who are caught for wage theft, but it undermines the current Victorian and Queensland legislation that already applies. So, in two states, it undermines current legislation and, as the member for Watson so clearly pointed out, it actually reduces the penalties for wage theft.
Across the last eight years in this House, we have all seen the wage theft cases that have been highlighted in our national papers. We've seen committed journalists go out and find these stories. We were relying on the press to highlight something that should have been obvious to everyone, that should have been part of a system where it couldn't have happened in the first place but if it did happen there was a system that saw it undone as soon as possible. But, instead, we were relying on journalists to bring us that information. That in itself is an industrial relations system that has major flaws.
To put that in perspective, the Fair Work Ombudsman has been quoted time and time again saying that they don't have the workforce, they don't have the resources, to pursue these cases. This legislation doesn't change that structure fundamentally. It doesn't make it easier for prosecutions. It doesn't create a system where those things can get addressed. I have said this before in the House as well. Generally, Australians see the name 'Fair Work Commission' and assume that this body was set up to support workers, that it's there to ensure that there's an umpire and that the laws are being applied appropriately and equally. This legislation doesn't give me confidence that it will live up to that title under this legislation. In fact, workers may find themselves having to go to go to the Federal Court. So the legislation doesn't meet what Labor set out in the first place and said that we would support. It won't create secure jobs and decent pay.
The answer in December from Labor, when the legislation was first introduced, was no. The government thinks that will change because it adjusted one measure. Yes, it was the worst measure: the change to the BOOT. But it still doesn't meet the standards of creating secure jobs with decent pay in this country. This is an opportunity this government has missed. One could argue it's deliberately missed it because, when you go through the detail of the legislation, it seems to make it harder for workers, not easier for workers. It makes it harder for workers to seek to be part of negotiations. It makes it harder for workers to get representation in negotiations with business. Workers, according to the legislation, will be notified bargaining has started and they have a right to be represented a month after bargaining starts, putting workers behind the eight ball from the very, very beginning. They're stripped of the right to a comprehensive explanation of an agreement they are asked to vote on. The list goes on and on in the ways this legislation lets down workers.
It comes to the simplest of things. During COVID, what we saw from the Australian workforce was quite amazing. What we saw in terms of cooperation and flexibility was absolutely astounding. I think Australian workers in their absolute commitment to making sure that we all got through COVID deserve better than this legislation. I think the Australian workforce deserve some acknowledgement about what they understand flexibility to mean. They're prepared to be flexible when circumstances demand it. This legislation uses the notion of flexibility, but it's a one-way street. It doesn't create more flexibility for the workforce. It doesn't create more flexibility for casual workers. It doesn't create more flexibility for part-time workers. The government's spin on this legislation really is a slap in the face to all of the people that we've been calling heroes throughout this pandemic, to the people in communities like mine across this country who have shown up for work and put themselves and their families at risk to keep the rest of us safe. That's the bottom line for me here. This is an opportunity for this government to put forward legislation in good faith; to listen and to understand what's happening in the suburbs across our nation and the regions across our nation; and to understand that when it comes to industrial relations in its current form, the pendulum has swung too far away from workers and too far towards large corporations, and to fix that. Instead what we have before us is more of the same. Instead what we have before us is an attempt to quell concerns about casualisation and insecure work. It is an attempt to suggest that these things will be fixed in this legislation when, in fact, on paper they may be, but you'll need a lawyer to defend yourself. You'll need a lawyer to ensure that your rights are met.
So I stand with my Labor colleagues, opposed to this legislation until this government sees its way to being honest with the Australian public, to being honest with businesses and workers about what this legislation entails and what it suggests and what it seeks to make law today. I want to thank all of those people in my community who have spoken to me about their situations in casual work and part-time work. I say to them that Labor will continue to oppose this legislation until the government sees reason.
I rise to speak in support of the Morrison government's Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020. This bill will provide greater flexibility for employers seeking to retain and bring on new staff during COVID-19. It will mean businesses, especially small and medium-sized businesses, can keep their doors open and give opportunities for existing employees to take on more hours. This bill will also provide greater certainty to employees by clearly defining what a casual employee is. It will also introduce a statutory pathway through which casual employees can become permanent part-time or full-time employees, giving them the opportunity to make their relationship with their employer permanent.
I'm supporting this bill for the opportunities and the jobs these reforms will open up for young people in my electorate of Robertson. I'm also supporting this bill because of its potential to increase productivity and to grow business on the Central Coast, especially for those small- and medium-sized businesses who have had to change the way they operate during COVID-19. By contrast, Labor is seeking to delay the introduction of these balanced and pragmatic reforms which are the result of the industrial relations reform working groups put together by the Attorney-General. These working groups included representatives from business groups and workers unions and more than 120 hours of formal discussions to seek to bring about changes to industrial relations that will help support Australia's economic recovery, improve job growth and improve workers' rights.
This bill contains five schedules covering five different subject matters dealt with by the industrial relations working groups. I'll be discussing three of these matters, including the definition of a casual employee in the Fair Work Act, the continuity of workplace flexibility measures for specific awards for a further two years, and new measures to improve compliance and enforcement of industrial relations policy.
The Morrison government recognises the need for greater certainty for businesses and stronger protections for casual employees, which is why we are introducing a definition of 'casual employees' in the Fair Work Act. This definition will make it clear from the outset whether a new employee is a casual or an ongoing employee of the business. It will also mean that employees will not have to depend on intermittent assessments of the relationship over time to know their rights and obligations. This definition of 'casual employment' will provide greater certainty for the more than 32,000 casual employees on the Central Coast and the more than 2.3 million casuals across Australia.
The bill will also provide eligible casual employees with a statutory mechanism to become permanent full-time or part-time employees if they wish. Employers will be required to offer to convert an employee from casual to permanent employment if they've worked casually for the employer for 12 months and have worked a regular pattern of hours on an ongoing basis for at least the last six months of that period. This will allow employees to be classified according to the work they perform and be paid related entitlements.
The bill will also look to address additional challenges and costs incurred by small businesses, including in my electorate of Robertson. There was a cafe in Avoca that I used to walk by every morning—a fantastic cafe with wonderful coffee and great food—and one morning last year, I received a text message from a constituent who was a regular at that cafe, and he informed me that the owner had let him know that she was going to have to close. De, a local business owner, operated this popular cafe called Sul Rondo in Avoca Beach. She said to me she was devastated when she had to close her cafe in September last year because she couldn't retain or attract staff to keep her business going. While De began the pandemic with 14 staff, she only had six employees working for her when she had to shut the cafe permanently. De's experience highlights just one of the many challenges that small business owners have faced and are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The government has introduced this bill to help support businesses, especially in the retail and the hospitality sectors.
Another issue addressed by this bill is the inflexible and complex employment award system. The system can be particularly challenging for small businesses to navigate. During the pandemic, the current system hasn't allowed for the flexibility that businesses and employees need to continue to operate. Part of the challenge faced by small business is the amount of time required to understand this award system. This is time that small-business owners could spend growing their business and creating new jobs, two things which I think all of us in this chamber should agree are key priorities for Australia's economic recovery. The Morrison government wants to support businesses and employees covered by awards with greater temporary flexibility to help them recover from COVID-19. Importantly, this flexibility will be given to industries hardest hit by the pandemic, such as the retail and the hospitality sectors. These flexibilities will allow employers covered by 12 industry awards to ask employees to undertake in-demand tasks or work from different locations. It will also mean that part-time employees in these industries can agree to work additional hours if they wish which helps to support those that are currently underemployed. This reform will provide greater opportunities for around 30 per cent of part-time employees in the retail industry and roughly 40 per cent of part-time employees in the accommodation and food services industry who wish to work more hours.
However, despite the industrial relations reform working groups holding 33 meetings, Labor refuses to support these temporary measures. By not supporting this bill, Labor is saying to people on the Central Coast that they don't support flexible working conditions for businesses and employees in distressed industries. The Morrison government is also improving compliance and enforcement of the Fair Work Act, protecting employees from wage theft and deterring non-compliant conduct from employers. These reforms include a new criminal offence for dishonest and systematic underpayments of one or more employees. We're also increasing the value and scope of civil penalties for non-complying employers. These measures provide significant and stronger protections for workers across Australia and allow employees to recover unpaid wages sooner. Unlike those opposite, the Morrison government also recognises the challenges that businesses face in complying with their obligations under the Fair Work Act. This is why, in addition to this bill, we are committing $12.9 million to establish an employer advisory service within the Fair Work Ombudsman. This service will assist employers in understanding their obligations by providing written advice specific to their situation. In speaking with local businesses in my electorate of Robertson, I know the introduction of this service will actually be quite welcomed and help provide them with greater clarity in understanding their obligations.
In closing, I'm really proud to be part of a government who is improving Australia's industrial relations framework for employees and employers alike. For around 16½ small and medium-sized businesses in my electorate of Robertson on the Central Coast, these measures will support them through Australia's economic recovery and help them to continue operating as the pandemic progresses. These reforms are important yet modest and address known issues within the Fair Work Act which are impeding job creation and wage growth. I commend the bill to the House.
A few months ago I met with a group of aged-care workers who worked in aged-care facilities across the country. Their story was a common one. These are a group of workers who told me that they were overworked and underpaid. Despite doing shiftwork and working on weekends, they still struggled to make ends meet and earn enough money to feed and clothe their families. As a result, many of them had a second part-time or casual job just to pay the bills. These are the hardworking Australians who our nation relied upon during the difficult period of the pandemic to get us through and to care for some of the most vulnerable Australians. I take my hat off to all of those working in our emergency services and care occupations, like aged care, nursing, teaching and child care, who helped us get through the pandemic. Most of these workers are working for award wages only. When I asked this group of workers why more of their colleagues don't join the union in their workplace, and why they don't get together and bargain collectively so that they can improve their wages and conditions, the response was common. Many of them felt scared that, if they did join the union, they might be dismissed by their boss and have to find another job. That's the reality of many workplaces throughout this country: low-paid, vulnerable workers are scared to join a union and are unable to make ends meet.
I want to read to you an email that I received last week from an IT worker that lives in the community that I represent. Helen wrote to me: 'I'm an IT worker stuck in an endless series of three- to 12-month contracts that don't provide the income security brokers want to see when shopping for home loans and have me constantly worrying. My current contract carries immediate notice terms, meaning I could earn zero dollars next week if the employer decides to terminate me that Friday. If that happens, I won't be able to make the rent and other bills, let alone save anything towards a home.' That is the reality for many workers in Australia at the moment—those without bargaining power, working in these vulnerable industries. They're in low-paid jobs. They're struggling to get by, living off award wages, with little or no job security, and they're unable to save for a deposit, much less get a home loan and begin to own their home.
I have to laugh at the campaign that's being run by the member for Goldstein and others opposite, saying, 'Home first, super second.' Australian workers should not have to raid their superannuation accounts to be able to afford to save for a home. We should have liveable wages in this country so that Australian workers have the necessary income to buy and live in their own home. It's not unreasonable! They shouldn't have to raid their superannuation. Yet, because wages growth has been so low under this government and because the government has cut penalty rates and is attempting to reduce workers' pay even further by reforms such as this one, you've got people like the member for Goldstein running around with campaigns saying, 'Just raid your superannuation.' Not only do these workers live in poverty during their working life, but the member for Goldstein and others opposite want them to live in poverty in their retirement as well. That is what this government is about: cutting wages and working conditions for Australian workers and making sure they don't have adequate incomes to enjoy their retirement after all of their hard work. That is why Labor is opposing this reform. It allows employers to cut the wages and working conditions of Australian workers, particularly those in jobs where they've served others and helped us get through this pandemic.
Currently there are two million Australians—that's not an insignificant number—who are unemployed or underemployed in this country. They're the hardworking Australians that we should have in mind when we debate this sort of reform in our parliament. We should be asking ourselves: 'Are we helping these workers with this reform? Are we providing more job security? Are we providing a liveable wage so that they can save for their own home and pay their bills?
Are we treating them fairly?' That's at the heart of it. Are we treating Australian workers fairly if this reform is implemented? On any objective analysis of this bill, the answer to that is no. We are not treating Australian workers fairly. We will not be providing them with more job security. We will not be providing them with the means to earn a living wage and therefore save for a home and the like.
This bill allows employers to cut wages and conditions, to ensure that vulnerable workers become more vulnerable and susceptible to losing hours in their workplace and therefore reducing their incomes. That is not on. Everything that this government has done when it comes to workplace relations makes it more difficult for Australian workers to get by. We saw that they supported cuts to penalty rates, so that now means that low-paid workers on award wages, who don't have any bargaining power, can't go to the boss and say, 'I want a wage rise this week.' For the lowest paid workers in the country, it means that their incomes have been cut and they take home less to their families each week. How is that a good thing? How is that fair?
Recently we've had Qantas, which received $880 billion worth of subsidies from this government in the form of JobKeeper and other subsidies relating to the airline industry, sack 2,500 of their workers and, in the ultimate insult to those workers, many of whom had worked loyally for that company for 20 or 30 years, they bring in a foreign corporation to take their jobs and employ people on lower wages and conditions. And what does this government say? 'Good on you, Qantas. Well done. That's the sort of thing that we want to see in a Morrison-government Australian workplace: cutting workers, causing them to lose their jobs, bringing in a foreign corporation and paying them lower wages and conditions.'
That's the reality of Australian workplaces under the Morrison government, even for people working in our mining industry. Those opposite like to pretend that they support people working in the mining industry. They prattle around in coalmines in Queensland, in high-vis vests, telling them how good they all are and how they support their workers. But if you have two coalminers working in the same jobs, in the exact same shift pattern, yet one is employed permanently full time by the company and the other is working on a casual basis, employed by a labour hire mob, then that's okay. How is that supporting coalminers or standing up for coalminers? When the union, on behalf of those coal workers, challenges a work arrangement like that in the courts, where do those opposite go? Are they up there, standing up for those coal workers? Of course not. They slink back to their electorates and hide and say nothing about supporting those workers in a case that's before the High Court.
This bill that we're debating here today will make things even worse and bring about further insecurity and lower wages, and that's why I'm voting against it. It brings in a change to the better off overall test for workplace agreement-making in this country and introduces a two-year suspension of that very important test. Now, for those that aren't au fait with this test, it's there to ensure—as the name suggests—that, when an enterprise agreement is made between an employer and a group of workers, the workers aren't worse off compared to the award and the National Employment Standards. This is the safety net below which no-one can fall in this country, and it's provided, and ensured that we have, livable wages and conditions in workplaces.
Well, this government want to suspend that test for the next two years. You can bet your life—you can't put enough money on it; it's odds on—on this: if they did get away it, after two years, guess what the employers would say? 'Oh, gee, Prime Minister, that test works so well. We think you should extend it.' You can bet your life that we'll be debating this again in two years time because the government wants to make it permanent. That's what this government does. It's never temporary when you're reducing wages and conditions for workers; it becomes permanent all the time under a Liberal government.
They want to suspend that test for enterprise agreements so that the parties no longer have to demonstrate that workers won't be worse off compared to the National Employment Standards and the award. They want to make workers worse off. They want to allow employers to cut wages and conditions for workers and make them worse off compared to the award. How is that fair? You'd have to have rocks in your head to think the Labor Party would support something like that. Of course we're going to oppose that! We're the party founded on the basis of defending and advancing the rights of workers. We're not going to support a reform that allows employers to cut wages and conditions of working Australians and make it legal.
And what does that say about this government's approach to, and credit for, those who helped us get through the difficult period of the pandemic? Many aged-care workers, nurses, childcare workers, public transport workers and teachers will be worse off if this reform goes through the parliament. What's the thanks they get from this government for working through this difficult period of time? I'll tell you what the thanks they get is—this fair work amendment law which allows those workers to be worse off in their employment. That's the thanks they get from this government. They sacrifice so much. They risked their own health and safety during the pandemic. And the thanks they get from the Morrison government? A cut to their wages and working conditions. Well, that's not on. Labor will not support that. We will not allow employers to use their power to cut wages and working conditions and leave workers worse off, all sponsored by the Morrison government. All Labor members stand for supporting Australian workers and will not support a reform that leaves some of our most vulnerable worse off.
Leading labour law experts have said this is a bad reform. They've said it will tear a hole in the safety net, increase casualisation and worsen wages growth at a time when pay rises are necessary for an economic recovery. It's a bad reform for our economy because it delays the recovery by ensuring that the lowest paid—a majority of workers in this country, unfortunately—receive less and have less spending power and capacity in our economy.
There are other elements of this bill that I want to mention, including the definition of 'casual'. If a worker agrees to be employed as a casual at the start of their job, they remain a casual despite their work pattern. They could be working full-time hours on a work pattern the same as a full-time worker, yet not getting the same entitlements as a full-time worker because they're classified as a casual and they agreed to that at the beginning of their employment contract. When you come into an employment contract, when you start a job, you have no bargaining power at all, particularly if you're a casual. You can't afford to say to the boss, 'I'll agree to be a casual now but, if the work pattern changes later on, I want to become permanent.' It doesn't work that way. But this government wants to ensure that, if you agree at the start, then that's it: you're a casual for the rest of your employment pattern.
And then there is casual conversion. On its face, it looks good: you can convert to permanent after 12 months. But, under this law, the employer can say no; if they have reasonable grounds not to agree to permanent conversion, they won't have to. The permanent addition of flexible work directions is proof that, under this government's changes to the Fair Work Act, they're never temporary. They want to make those changes about flexible work directions permanent. It goes to what I said earlier about the two-year change to the better off overall test. Of course it won't be two years. That's permanent. If this is passed by the parliament, that's permanent and workers are permanently worse off. That's why we won't agree to it.
In conclusion, I'm opposed to this reform because the thanks that this group of vulnerable Australian workers, many of whom worked hard in the pandemic, get from this government is a law that leaves them worse off and that allows employers to cut their wages and working conditions. I and my Labor colleagues will not stand for that. Labor stands for protecting Australian workers and their jobs and bettering them in the workplace. We announced last week a secure employment package. We should be supporting workers to ensure they have more job security and have better incomes and can spend in our economy. I and my Labor colleague will also oppose a reform such as this to the hilt.
I rise to speak in favour of the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020. This is one of the most important bills before this parliament. Reform of our industrial relations system is really long overdue, and there are so many common sense provisions in this bill that I'm surprised people on the other side are objecting to it across the board. They say that they're protecting workers' rights, but we have just been through, and are starting to recover from, the worst economic recession, brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it accentuates the importance of us reforming things that have really clogged up the works in terms of employing Australians.
Before I came into this parliament, as many of you know, I was a medical practitioner, but I was also a major employer in my region in the health space. Because of the lack of development in certain areas of the medical spectrum, we actually built from scratch and ran for 13 years a day hospital. We treated over 20,000 people in that time. It ended up being taken over by a major healthcare organisation. But I learnt the hard way how complicated our industrial relations system is. It is absolutely bamboozling, and you need full-time consultants if you're a small employer to guide you through the maze of the Fair Work Act. It's all good in intention, but, if you're living the life of being an employer, you need a lot of specialist support.
Fortunately, there are employer organisations that can help you, but when I read the explanatory memorandum for this I thought: 'Yes! Finally, common sense is coming into the equation.' Any time any reform is made in the industrial relations space, it's like clockwork: the members of the opposition go off on their robotic-like objection to everything, twisting it to make out that it's the worst thing ever and that these evil people like entrepreneurs and employers, who create opportunities for employment, are the big bad bogeymen or big bad bogeywomen. It's an absolute disappointment to hear members of the other side object to common sense reforms.
This bill is all the more important because we have to make our economy as efficient as possible, make it as easy as possible for people to get back to paid employment and allow small and large businesses to flourish. We want to give casual employees, any employees, a fair go under systems that mean they get a fair deal and the employer gets a fair deal. I know, in my time, many of my colleagues in the business chamber and around town were afraid to put people on because they were worried about all the consequences if full-time or part-time permanent employees didn't work out. You're all probably familiar with the sayings 'go away money' and 'unfair dismissal claims'. It was a nightmare for people. While that's not specifically addressed in this bill, this bill addresses quite a few very sensible things, and I'll just go through some of them.
First of all, the public interest exception, which is temporarily in place because of COVID-19, which allows for exceptions to section 189 of the Fair Work Act, would become permanent. It also, as I mentioned, addresses a lot of the concerns about casual employees and their status. These include whether there will be a long-term hindrance on employment from the current system and the judgements that indicate that long-term casual employees, even though they've been paid extra loadings on an hourly rate because they don't get holiday pay and all those other entitlements, would then be entitled to double-dip once they become permanent employees.
Flexibility is also a very important principle. We need to make it simpler. We need to get flexibility within our Fair Work Act, and we're addressing that and also the timing related to making agreements. A lot has been said about the better off overall test. Sure, that is a good principle, but how can you define that if someone hasn't got a job but you can get them into a job with an enterprise agreement with a lot more flexibility and much more productivity? On average, most enterprise agreements, in my experience and in the data I've read, are far better than award wages. We want to make it so that employees get a better deal, with a defined pathway to go from long-term casual into either permanent part-time or full-time employment.
Some of the stories I've heard from employers about the so-called double dipping provisions that were enabled by arbitration decisions put a shiver up the spine of many employers in my area. A lot of people who are long-term casuals prefer that, funnily enough. Many of them would prefer to have permanent part-time or full-time employment because it's a lot easier to get a loan or a mortgage on a house. When you go to a bank or other financial institution and they ask about your employment and it's regarded as casual, it does make borrowing a lot harder. As I said, we're not trying to harm employees; we're trying to give them a pathway whereby they can get a better deal so that, if they're in a permanent casual situation and they want to change, that will be possible.
There is another really good initiative I can see in this legislation. Many people are casual or part time, and, if you give them more work, you end up having to pay them overtime rather than paying them the same rate that they're already on for their part-time work. Sure, if you're doing more than a full day's work, you should get overtime. But, if you're only doing, say, 12 hours a week and the business gets busy and there is a requirement for another day's work or another half shift, all of a sudden this person is getting penalty rates when it's really less than 37½ hours work a week or less than seven or eight hours a day. So that's a brake on employing that person, and this bill is going to make it possible for those conversations to be had. It is such common sense.
The other thing is that these changes are based on the genuine principles of sending a letter of offer to a potential employee, outlining what they will get and having them accept the offer. So it would all be transparent, but it means there would be a pathway so that long-term casuals could, through the system, be put onto a more permanent basis, either permanent part time or full time.
The other thing about these enterprise agreements that has slowed down the growth of employment is, as I said, the complexity and the length of time it takes to get an enterprise agreement or changes to conditions through the Fair Work Commission. When a business wants to grow and wants to give an offer of employment and it knows that it might be looking at three months before it can put the person on, often the opportunity for the business to grow is held up because of that. People have to have a fair and reasonable appreciation of what it's like on the other side.
Employers, particularly small businesses, put their house up as collateral for their business, in many cases. They are the last person to get paid. They sometimes have to take second mortgages on businesses to make sure, in downturns of cash flows in a business, their employees get paid on time. If you make it too hard for them, many employers think: 'I'm out of here. We'll shut the business down and go find an employee position somewhere.' That's really disappointing, because small businesses are great businesses. Small businesses are adept. They usually know their product better than big businesses. We want Australian small businesses and big businesses to flourish.
One of the things I've observed in the last couple of years is huge organisations, with all sorts of human resources people and specialist lawyers with all the requisite skills to make sure that people are paid the right amount—big employers like these and the supermarket chains—are being found, under the Fair Work Act, to have underpaid people. So what chance does a small business have to cope with all the complexity and time it takes to get an enterprise agreement or even just the right pay and conditions? The Fair Work Commission, in this transition of people from casual to part-time work, will be able to assess the better off overall test. Even though it may not be what the person thought, if it's better off as a general principle and if you take into regard all the non-monetary benefits for it and whether the other option of not going forward with the new arrangement is that the position vanishes, that is definitely better off overall. These businesses that have lost their income stream and customers because of the COVID-19 situation are really keen to get up and going, but they need that flexibility. They need a bit of leeway. It will mean that these decisions have to be reached within 21 days, and people will get some certainty. They'll know if they can take that person on, and that person will know what they will get.
I was reading some of the data; most enterprise agreements are better off by about 46 per cent. So what's the reluctance to have more enterprise agreements? It's all well and good to have an award as a baseline, but, if a business can make it work for both the employee and the business and there are huge productivity gains as a result, why not? I'm really encouraged by this.
The other thing we have learnt from the current situation is that our supply chains, for so many parts of the Australian economy, rely on overseas manufacturing and supply lines. Greenfield sites are sometimes a feeding frenzy for our members' masters in the union movement. They see a big greenfield project coming down the line and they try to ramp up the terms and conditions to get a short-term agreement and then they come back in the middle of construction down the track. This is a great impediment to taking on big projects. I'll tell you what, I see the pressure that our oil refineries are under. If we don't get some investment in a new megarefinery that is really hyperefficient, on the scale that we need to make and refine petroleum products—because our economy still runs on it—we will be in a very sad position.
With changes to the approval process for greenfield agreements, to specify a nominal expiry date to give them some certainty for up to eight years, a lot of these big companies will take on these megaprojects and there'll be employment for so many more people in Australia. Like I said, this is a really good bill. There are a lot of commonsense provisions in it. It's nothing evil or sinister. We just want our economy to grow. We want casual workers to have a pathway to permanent part-time or full-time work, if they want it. It means big business will be able to do great stuff for the country. (Time expired)
The Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020 comes down to this: under the cover of COVID, this government wants to bring back Work Choices. You can dress it up or knock it down as much as you like—that is the bottom line for this government.
We know that the government aspire to be the party of workers, because they've realised that it's the working families of Australia that will determine the next election. The reality is that the Prime Minister has worked out that if he says the word 'workers' enough he will appear to appeal to them. The reality is the Liberal Party and the coalition don't really care for workers. I think we've heard that from the member for Lyne as he wandered and meandered through industrial relations for the last 15 minutes. The PM's strategy is to mention the word 'workers' as many time he can, but is not putting anything behind that. It is a facade. This party, these Liberals, doesn't change. It is Work Choices, and we need to tell the Australian people that it is alive and well.
We know that the government's proposed changes to Australia's industrial relations laws will leave working people worse off. That is the bottom line. If you are a worker, you are going to be worse off under this government. We know that. Even with the government's removal of the proposed two-year suspension of the better off overall test—they've backflipped on that a bit—this bill still well and truly fails the pub test. Under this government, as a worker, you will be worse off.
For most workers, an enterprise bargaining agreement is a David versus Goliath battle. People know at work that you don't wander into the boss's office and sit down and have a coffee or a cup of tea and they'll say: 'Look, how are you going with it all? Would you like a bit more money?' It doesn't happen like that. People who are working absolutely know that that is not how enterprise bargaining happens. This legislation will make it even harder for employees—regular people who just want to work, earn their money, pay their mortgage and send their kids to good schools. They don't want the hassle of having to go in and try to bargain for an extra dollar an hour when they know that they're more than likely not going to get it. Employers have significantly more bargaining power. This government can't even sort out a reasonable award for its own staff. That's right—the pay agreement for members of parliament staff is a year overdue. This government can't even negotiate an enterprise bargain with the people who run Parliament House, so how do we trust them with the rest of Australia? This government wants to do over its own employees without whom this place wouldn't run.
The bill will cut bargaining rights and protection for workers whose pay and conditions are covered by agreements. It is as simple as that. It will undermine the critical function of the independent umpire, the Fair Work Commission. In Australia, we may not always agree with the umpire's decision, but, by golly, we respect it, and we know the umpire is important. The Fair Work Commission is the workers' umpire, and this government want to pull the whistle out of the mouth of the umpire for Australian workers. They need to be protected too.
The bill allows for the making of agreements that are below the safety net, cutting wages and creating unfair competition. In my electorate of Paterson, hospitality and retail are sizeable industries. We have over 2,000 people working as casual employees in grocery stores and 1,800 or thereabouts working as casuals in the fast food industry. The bill will result in fewer permanent jobs with rights, increasing the casualisation of the workforce and adding to those numbers. The casual conversion provisions of the bill are essentially meaningless as employers are not bound to offer a regular casual more work or a permanent job if they do not think it would be reasonable to do so. The same employer can veto a worker's right to have the Fair Work Commission—the umpire—consider if the decision was fair. It is totally unfair, and this bill is not good for Australian workers.
The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.
[by video link] There are many things this government has done that they have handled appallingly, but none worse than what they have done to people with disability. We see this at the moment, whether we look at Indue cards or anything the government has done. Through the NDIS, they have fundamentally made life a lot harder for people with disability. Recently, I met with Citizen Advocacy Sunbury & Districts. This is a federally funded not-for-profit organisation that supports advocacy for independent relationships for people with intellectual disability. Some of these people are the most vulnerable in our community, yet these wonderful people go out there day in day out to help them get through the basics of dealing with telecommunications, power companies, rent et cetera. And they work on the smell of an oily rag.
Under the cover of COVID, this government has decided to make a decision that's going to impact these people badly, by saying to them that unspent funds you've had while the state has been in lockdown will be returned to the government. The government says that it doesn't play the politics of envy, but it will allow boards, big businesses and multimillionaires to keep JobKeeper, while it is going to rip money out of the hands of the people who are out there supporting the most vulnerable people in our community, including people with intellectual disability. It's an absolute disgrace, but you should not be surprised when you check it out and find out that it's Minister Robert once again doing over people with disability. It's an outrage and a disgrace.
Ovarian cancer is a traumatic disease. Only 46 per cent of women survive longer than five years after diagnosis. The treatment is often major abdominal surgery, which can be devastating to younger women who have not had a family as it often leads to infertility and menopause. As a result, 40 per cent can experience clinical anxiety and depression. Every day, four women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and three women die.
This month is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, and my thoughts are with all those who are suffering from ovarian cancer and their families. I pay tribute to my mother-in-law, who is currently battling the disease. It's so important to learn the symptoms and ensure the women in your life are familiar with them. The most common symptoms for ovarian cancer are increased tummy size, bloating, lower tummy pain, feeling full after eating small amounts and needing to urinate often or urgently.
The Morrison government has funded a $1 million grant to Ovarian Cancer Australia's Teal Support Program. This means that women who are coping with the devastating psychological impact of this illness can get specialist support and counselling over the phone. This investment in counselling services is welcome, but it's clear much more needs to be done to give women with ovarian cancer a better fighting chance.
I wish to pay tribute to a local elector of mine, Mr Paul Murray, who unfortunately passed away recently. He was a long-serving coach with the Hub Gymnastics Club in my electorate. For 23 years, Paul displayed a deep commitment to young people in our community to ensure that they were given every opportunity to grow their gymnastic skills. Paul had the ability to forge and nurture relations with leaders in his community, including myself, for the betterment of gymnastics in the south. I personally had the privilege of working with Paul and seeing firsthand his drive and passion. Together we fought long and hard to secure a home for the Hub Gymnastics Club. He never gave up. I was always struck by Paul's high level of professionalism, his endless enthusiasm and his determination to get the job done. Paul has generously mentored the gymnastics community and young people in our area, as well as other coaches. This was recognised in 2013 by Gymnastics SA, who awarded him Coach of the Year.
I will miss working with Paul, and I know he will be sadly missed not only by the sporting community in the south but by the wider community. My thoughts are with his wife, Amanda, and his daughters, Emma, Lauren and Sarah. May he rest in peace. His contribution will not be forgotten.
We're familiar with the great movie and movie series The Fast and the Furious, but in Queensland, when we talk about roads and the Palaszczuk Labor government, we move from 'fast and furious' to 'slow and spurious'. Here are two examples, both in the Whitsundays, in my electorate, even though the bulk of the funding is coming from the Morrison Liberal-National government. Both problem areas suffer flooding issues. There's money on the table, or in the bank account, and still we wait. There are serious flooding issues at Hamilton Plains, between Airlie Beach and Proserpine. Although it's a state road, in April 2019 I secured funding of $29.6 million under the federal government's Roads of Strategic Importance program. Now I find out that the Palaszczuk Labor government has picked the eyes out of that funding for another project on Shute Harbour Road, and we have no word on what they're doing, or when, to rectify the flooding issues at the Hamilton Plains.
There's another flood-prone stretch on the Bruce Highway at Goorganga Plains, south of Proserpine, which needs to be addressed. We've had $12 million available for a $15 million study to investigate planning and options. Just last week I learnt that the Queensland Labor government won't have a business case for this flood-prone area until 2022. It's definitely slow and spurious, not fast and furious, when it comes to Labor building roads in Queensland. How sad, how slow and how spurious.
I rise to acknowledge the passing of Michael Coffey OAM on 11 January 2021. Mr Coffey was President of Liverpool Catholic Club for more than four years and had been on the board for over 17 years. The Liverpool Catholic Club has provided support for the community for over 50 years and currently supports over 13 sporting and community groups, with significant funding and facilities and other logistics support.
Mr Coffey was awarded an OAM in 2015 for services to business and commerce and to the community at large. Michael also served on the board of Karitane. Michael's experience with his fellow Liverpool Catholic Club directors has seen the club's facilities grow. It now boasts new family-friendly entertainment facilities, indoor play equipment and a four-star motel. He was instrumental in bringing the New South Wales Senior Open golf championships to Thurgoona Country Club Resort, which is amalgamated with Liverpool Catholic Club. On a personal level, Michael always made me welcome at events I attended at the club. He was willing to discuss issues and solutions for our community. I know he will be sorely missed by board members of the Catholic club and the wider community, but his loss is most keenly felt by his family. I send my deepest condolences to his wife, Trudy, and his children and grandchildren.
Almost all of us have been touched by the terrible tragedy of suicide. In my family, my sister Michelle lost her husband, all-round great bloke and legend Paul, to suicide. Suicide leaves so many of us hurting, struggling and questioning, and there are almost never any answers. Surely the deepest tragedy of all is when our youth, custodians of the future, take their own lives. It is of deep concern to all of us in this place and around the country that the biggest killer of Australians aged 15 to 24 is suicide. As a father of three teenage children, I've been staggered by some of the stories my kids bring home from school about classmates who are struggling with mental health, some of them self-harming and experiencing suicidal ideation.
Today I congratulate those who are fighting to save these young lives. This includes Youth Insearch, with their End Youth Suicide campaign. These guys have online content covering how to prevent youth suicide and raising awareness. I encourage us all to share that content.
Our Morrison government is also steadfastly committed to shifting the dial on mental health and suicide prevention. I'm grateful to be a founding member of the Select Committee on Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. We will meet for the first time next week. It's time to end youth suicide, and we all have a role to play.
How many times are Tasmanians going to have to come into this place and remind the government that our state is part of this country? The decision by Australia Post to end the freight of perishable goods from Tasmania could cripple Tasmanian producers who rely on 24-hour freight express services. Since COVID, producers like Ashgrove Cheese, in my electorate, rely more than ever on getting their dairy products to the mainland. The reason Australia Post gives for ending its StarTrack service is 'significant regulatory requirements differing across states and territories'. What a joke! The service has been operating for decades, but now, apparently, it's all too hard.
This is the latest in a long list of failures from Australia Post under this government and its hopeless minister. Costs have soared, delivery times have blown out and service has plummeted. Now Australia Post wants to cut Tasmanian freight off at the knees. A panicked reprieve is keeping the service going until 30 June, but that's not good enough. We need a permanent solution and a massive cultural change which stops relegating Tasmania to an afterthought. If the Prime Minister can get mad about Cartier watches, he can get mad about this. We don't need more photo ops of him in Tassie; we need him turning up to work. Australia Post does not have an asterisk on it saying 'except Tasmania'. Tasmania is not an optional extra. The government needs to fix this mess and fix it now.
Earlier this month, my family and I spent a few hours playing lawn bowls with veterans and their families at the Port City Bowling Club. The day was organised by Rachel Kerrigan, the veteran engagement specialist with Veteran Sport Australia. VSA works as a peak body to develop a strong and connected system of sporting opportunities for veterans and their families. As part of this important work, VSA partners with sporting bodies to open up opportunities, break down barriers and roll out initiatives to veterans and their families, whilst at the same time advocating for, and creating a greater awareness among the veteran community about, the benefits of sport and activity to physical and mental wellbeing. I would like to acknowledge the work that Rachel Kerrigan does and also the fact that she has lived experience. Rachel is an Afghanistan veteran who has been through her own mental health journey and has told me how powerful sport is for the road to recovery, healing and finding purpose. She, like many, has a remarkable story.
Thank you to the Port City Bowling Club for hosting the day. I have to acknowledge 12-year-old Wauchope Public School student Brayden for putting me to shame on the bowling green. Finally, I would like to say thank you to all our veterans across our nation for their service.
The Agricultural Town of the Year Award is a South Australian government initiative that highlights the pivotal role of agriculture in regional communities. The award received 70 nominations and, after 5,000 votes, five finalists were determined. I'm pleased to advise that two of the finalists, Parndana and Woodside, are in the electorate of Mayo, and both are very worthy contenders.
Aside from dairy, horticulture and viticulture, Woodside is a service town for the region and the epicentre of its agricultural industry. It is the home of several northern hills businesses that are critical to the sector, including DJ's Growers Services, Creekwood Projects, Woodside Irrigation, Vitiworks, Aldgate, Emmetts SA and Elite Netting, just to name a few.
Parndana, like Woodside, provides a central pivot for the surrounding industries and is home to many iconic businesses. We have Richard and Zach Trethewey's marron farm and also Andrew and Tracie Heinrich's merino stud, known as Merino Ram Stud Farm. The local high school campus is providing education and training for the next generation of agricultural leaders, which is so important. Both townships have emerged from the Black Summer fires with renewed strength. Good luck in the Agricultural Town of the Year Award to both Parndana and Woodside.
Today is Blue Heart day. It's the launch of Youth Insearch's annual End Youth Suicide campaign. Youth Insearch is an amazing organisation, having helped 32,000 young people across the country since its commencement in 1985. I acknowledge the presence of Stephen Lewin, their CEO, in the gallery at the moment.
Suicide is the largest cause of death of young people under the age of 24, and there's a particular tragedy when a young person takes their own life. It's the loss of potential, the loss of hope and the effect that it has on the community. Like so many organisations, Youth Insearch has adapted to the particular difficulties of COVID-19, moving many of its peer-to-peer support programs online. Since March 2020, Youth Insearch has provided 6,283 support calls, or over 32,000 minutes on the phone, and facilitated 1,279 attendances at 467 weekly virtual support sessions. This is quite extraordinary, but the really amazing thing about the work that they do is the outcomes. Last year, after attending Youth Insearch programs, 91 per cent of participants no longer felt suicidal and 89 per cent have not attempted suicide since. That is a remarkable turnaround.
Youth Insearch's End Youth Suicide campaign aims to create awareness and equip young people and those around them with the tools to talk about how they're feeling. I want young people to know they can reach out for help, and together we can all work to end youth suicide.
We've have seen more reports this week about veteran suicides but, instead of a royal commission, the Morrison government has come up with a political fix, a national commissioner, which is just another in-house review of Defence and DVA. The Morrison government, those opposite, refuse to heed the voices of veterans and their families when they say over and over that the system is broken.
Unfortunately, the former Defence members of the Liberal Party are not standing up and pushing for a royal commission. Senator Jim Molan says nothing else can be done. The member for Canning, Andrew Hastie, has got a leadership role to play here. He's a minister now. The member for Stirling, Vince Connelly, just spoke of youth suicide. Veteran suicide is a big issue and, from his experience in the military, he should see that the system is broken. In Tasmania, the member for Braddon, Gavin Pearce, has had suicides in his unit. You would think he'd be calling loudest of all. In Townsville, the member for Herbert, Phillip Thompson, actually did support a royal commission and he's now fallen back into line. Why aren't their voices ringing out in support of a royal commission?
The system is broken. The system needs a systematic review, and it behoves those opposite, particularly those with military experience, to support our veterans.
I rise this afternoon to acknowledge those in my community who were recently recognised at the Douglas Shire Council Australia Day awards. It's always a special day where we acknowledge the work of those who strive to make our community a better place for everybody. This year the award for Douglas Shire Council Citizen of the Year went to a very worthy recipient, Maria Atkinson. Ms Atkinson is one of the founders of breast cancer support group Pink in the Tropics, which was formed in 2008 by four local women, all diagnosed with breast cancer, who banded together to support one another. Over the years, Maria has supported many families in the community and has become a vital part of the healing process for women with breast cancer.
Other recipients this year include the Young Citizen of the Year, Angela Brischetto; the Volunteer of the Year, Craig Mitchell; and Noel Weare, who received the Civic Recognition Award. Alyssa Jackson and Caitlin O'Neal received the Environmental Achievement Award. The Arts and Culture Award was presented to Rose Watts. Couper Smith received the Junior Sports Award and the Senior Sports Award was presented to Jack Murday.
Finally, I'd like to take the opportunity to congratulate all finalists across the eight categories for their contribution to the Douglas Shire. I'd also like to give a big shout-out to the Douglas Shire mayor, Michael Kerr, and his team, who put on an outstanding event. I thank them very much for the opportunity to participate.
Ipswich is the fastest-growing city in Queensland. It's got a population of 230,000 and it'll double in the next 20 years. It doesn't have the infrastructure to match this growth, with 70 per cent of that growth being in the southern corridor linking Springfield to Ipswich CBD. It's the oldest provincial city in Queensland, but demographically it's the youngest, with an average age of five years younger than the whole of Queensland.
Currently, there are two rail passenger lines: one at Ipswich CBD and one at Springfield. The state government and the Ipswich City Council have progressed the idea of a rail link between the two railway stations to service the growth corridor, including Springfield; Redbank Plains, which happens to be the biggest suburb in Ipswich; the growing Ripley Valley development; Deebing Heights, which will have 25,000 people in the next decade or so; and Yamanto. This corridor is secure. A rail link between the University of Southern Queensland Ipswich and Springfield campuses will be so important for so many students who are first in family at university, and it will also service the Ipswich Showgrounds, home to the exhibition and convention centre and an evacuation centre. The Ipswich City Council put $500,000 towards the business case, and the state government has put a million dollars. I call on the Deputy Prime Minister and infrastructure minister, who came to Blair last week, to fund this in the budget. I've spoken to him personally and I ask him to do the right thing by the City of Ipswich.
For the past year, nurses have been on the frontline of the coronavirus, tirelessly working as society fights an invisible foe. They ask for no thanks and no favours, all the while doing so with smiles on their faces and generous attitudes. In fact, it was Mother Teresa who said, 'It is not how much we do, it is how much love we put in the doing'. They love their work, yes they do. As Pam Sessions, a Mona Vale nurse recently said in a Australian College of Nursing article, 'I always feel proud to be a nurse and am proud to be working at a COVID clinic.' When the northern beaches faced our own wave of infection and subsequent lockdown, many frontline medical staff gave up their Christmas and worked around the clock to help others. Jasmine Couvret, who worked at the Mona Vale and Brookvale testing clinics has said:
During the lead up to Christmas, staff were virtually going home just to sleep, wake up and continue as though the day had not ended.
Tom Fitzsimmons, who managed the Brookvale testing clinic said staff were showing up on their days off, just to deliver food and coffee to the nursing staff. I'm proud of the women and men on the frontline of this crisis, and on behalf of my community, I thank you.
Brenda rang my Bega office recently with a story the Morrison government has, so far, failed to hear. Brenda has always been a hard worker but, due to COVID-19 and a recent injury, she has been in and out of work. She's currently looking for her next job. Brenda told me: 'Under no circumstances do I not want to work. I have a mortgage and two children that need looking after and I enjoy being out in my community. I know I'm capable of performing most jobs and have two interviews this week. I now feel I will be overlooked due to my age.' Brenda is just 47 years old but is increasingly feeling disadvantaged and isolated by her own government and its JobMaker hiring credit.
Incentives for any regional business to take on extra staff are welcome, especially at this time, but restricting it to employees under 35 just isn't fair and leaves people like Brenda and her kids wondering whose side the Morrison government is on. As Brenda told me: 'It just seems like another challenge I will have to overcome. I hope the Liberal government can see that there are some of us that are trying hard to gain employment. But in a big pool of people, to start discriminating is totally unjust.' I am on Brenda's side and the Morrison government should be too. She's a hardworking mum, wanting to provide for her kids, earn an honest wage and contribute to her community. Who are we here to serve if it's not people like Brenda? Good luck with the job interviews, Brenda. We all live in hope that this government will one day work as hard as you to provide for your family.
I am so tired of having to report to this place the ongoing intimidation and harassment that my staff, electorate office and I continue to be subjected to by the Left. Last election, it was GetUp, the unions and Labor. Last Monday, not for the first time, not for the second time but for the third time, it was Extinction Rebellion. At around 4 pm, their protesters started chanting, banging drums and yelling outside my electorate office. They then proceeded to vandalise my electorate office. They completely covered nine windows, my door and the footpath with graffiti which could only be removed with a pressure sprayer. In doing so, they willingly stopped the community from accessing my office, which we had to close for the safety of my staff and the community. They also disrupted nearby businesses. Once again, they wasted SA Police resources and they left the taxpayer with the clean-up bill.
Everyone has a right to have their views heard in Australia. However, vandalising property, intimidation and harassment are not the hallmarks of peaceful protest and should never be acceptable. I cannot believe an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson told The Advertiser that me feeling intimidated and harassed is something they're willing to risk for the sake of the planet. This is an unacceptable view. Nobody deserves to feel unsafe or in danger in their workplace and that's exactly what happened to me and my office once again. This is a continuation of the appalling behaviour by GetUp, Labor and the unions last election and it has to stop.
This week I was contacted by local business owner Peter Rubin. I've known Peter for many years, going back to our time on the Wyong Regional Chamber of Commerce over a decade ago, and he doesn't get in touch unless it's important. Peter is the managing director of Prestige Wedding and Event Hire, a mid-size events company he's successfully operated on the Central Coast for 25 years. As a business owner, Peter has asked that I raise his serious concerns about cuts to JobKeeper with the government.
Regional communities like ours on the coast have been hit hard by the economic downturn. At the height of the pandemic, there were 36 jobseekers for every job vacancy on the coast. In my electorate, 4,902 businesses like Peter's have been supported through the JobKeeper wages subsidy, which kept 18,734 employees, including those working at Prestige Wedding and Event Hire, in work. Peter tells me that most events are still being cancelled or postponed and a return to normal is many months away. He believes that, without an extension of JobKeeper, businesses in the events industry may struggle to keep employees on.
The government should be supporting businesses like Peter's and the thousands of workers on the coast whose jobs will be at risk when JobKeeper is cut in March. Some parts of the Australian economy are recovering, but some communities, industries and businesses are still struggling, and they shouldn't be left behind when the government cuts off JobKeeper in March. The government should be considering options to provide targeted support beyond March for workers, small businesses, industries and communities of Australia which are still doing it tough.
I rise to inform the House that former Great Lakes Council mayor Councillor Jan McWilliams has today announced her resignation from MidCoast Council, ending an impressive 26 years of service to our region. Councillor McWilliams was first elected to Great Lakes Council in 1995 and was elected deputy mayor in 2002 and mayor in 2008. She continued in that role for eight years, until the formation of MidCoast Council.
Jan lists many highlights through her years, which are really impressive: the Tuncurry skate park development; the Tuncurry Hawks football ground grandstand and lighting; the oyster festival; the 2000 Olympic relay; her work on police and crime prevention committees; and the planning for future improvements at Main Beach and Memorial Drive boardwalk along Wallis Lake. During her service, Councillor McWilliams has been honoured three times: she received the Women in Local Government award and the Emeritus Mayor award and was recognised by the New South Wales Premier and the local government association for 25 years service.
I've spoken this morning to Jan and personally thanked her for her service. I know she will continue her work with many of the clubs and organisations she has worked with in the last 26 years. Councillor Jan McWilliams loves her community, and her impressive election record demonstrates that her community love her and appreciate her work. She has been ably supported by Dennis, her husband, throughout her political career.
Independent cinemas are a vital part of our nation. They employ locals and tell Australian stories. In Randwick, the Ritz Cinema has been an artistic and cultural hub of our community since 1937, and I've been going to the movies there since I was a young kid. But the impact of COVID on the Ritz and other local cinemas is larger than we've seen in anyone's lifetime. Yet the Morrison government has forgotten the plight of Australia's independent cinema sector. The Ritz and many other cinemas are struggling and are wondering how they're going to make ends meet after JobKeeper ends next March. Independent Cinemas Australia is warning that much-loved local businesses could go under when JobKeeper is cut.
The Prime Minister and this government can't keep ignoring the independent cinema sector, the importance it has for local communities and its pleas for help when it needs it the most. It's time the Morrison government acted to support our independent cinemas. The recent success of films like The Dry and Penguin Bloom shows the enduring popularity of Australian stories in cinemas, and going to the movies is as well liked as ever. I would like to thank Eddie and Lindy and all the workers at the Ritz, who showed me and Tony Burke around recently, and other local cinemas for the work they do in our community. Get down to the Ritz or your local cinema and support this vitally important industry.
I call the honourable member for Groom for his first 90-second statement.
The system is broken in Queensland, and it is broken because the Queensland Labor government wrecked it. After more than 14 years we saw the High Court say so with their decision to send the New Acland expansion back to the Land and Environment Court in Queensland. While the decision is a legal win for the New Hope Group, putting aside the original decision—a decision that was hijacked by Green-Left activists—it is no win for the Oakey community, the workers, their families and the local economy. It is the Queensland Labor government's approvals process that is delivering dither and delay for resources projects in Queensland, hurting jobs, the economy and investment.
The Queensland Labor government must fix their farce, a farce that not only has cost jobs but is threatening to cost more jobs. Workers are anxious, business is uncertain and the Queensland economy lags behind, under the Queensland Labor government.
What is at risk under a future Queensland Labor government? $37.8 billion in direct spending to the Queensland economy is at risk, as are 38,592 direct full-time resident and contract employees. In addition, there were 14,084 full-time-equivalent contract workers employed in the resources sector in Queensland in 2019 and 2020, $27 billion in purchased goods and services from almost 15,000 local businesses and, most importantly, $4.4 billion in royalties to the state Labor government, improving their dismal budget— (Time expired)
Mr Dreyfus interjecting—
Member for Isaacs, if you could just leave your closing argument till later!
I have to report that the order of the day relating to the Prime Minister's motion of condolence in connection with the death of the Rt Hon. John Douglas Anthony has been debated in the Federation Chamber and is returned to the House. I present a certified copy of the motion. I understand it's the wish of the House to consider the matter immediately. The question is that the motion moved by the honourable Prime Minister be agreed to, and if members could rise in their places to show their support.
Question agreed to, honourable members standing in their places.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the former Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, right to say it is, to quote him, 'inconceivable' that a Prime Minister's office would not be told about a reported rape 50 metres from his office?
Mr Turnbull, of course, is entitled to his opinion on these matters, and I at all times seek to show great respect to former prime ministers and I'll do so again here today. But former prime ministers would know that prime ministers are aware of certain facts of these matters. The facts in these matters demonstrate, as they have been reported to me, that Brittany had made a decision that she did not wish to make a statement and register a complaint with the police, and that Minister Reynolds and others respected that decision, and, as a result of respecting that decision and her agency in this matter, then, as a result, that matter progressed no further—and, clearly, did not progress further for quite a considerable period of time, until most recently, when Brittany made the statements that she has made. And we have responded to those statements now. As we've said in this place on many occasions in these last few days, it is shattering, and we need to address it, and we indeed shall.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister explain to the House how the Morrison government's economic recovery plan and the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines will work to assist our recovery from the pandemic and support Australians and businesses, including in my electorate of Groom, to create more opportunities for themselves?
I thank the member for Groom for his first question in this place. I commend him on his maiden speech in this place, so eloquently articulating the great principles and values of the LNP and the Liberal Party. We look forward to his great contributions in this place. He's off to a cracking start.
Australia's economic recovery, our economic comeback, is underway, and it continues to gather momentum. We are emerging from the COVID-19 recession in a way that, frankly, few countries—particularly advanced economies—are, around the world. When you consider that the United Kingdom last year saw the size of their economy fall by 10 per cent, large industrial nations like France, Canada and others are up in the seven to nine per cent and even the United States is up by three per cent, it is not just the case that Australia has had an impressive response to the pandemic from a health perspective in responding to that crisis, it has also been true of the economic response that has ensured Australians have been able to have greater confidence about their job security and their economic future as we have worked to deliver the response. Some 520,000 businesses are no longer on JobKeeper requiring taxpayer funded support, more than two million Australians are no longer needing that taxpayer funded income support that was there when they needed it to get through the worst part of the crisis and 90 per cent of the jobs that have been lost through the course of the COVID-19 recession have returned. There is record workforce participation, rising above pre-pandemic levels, and confidence is being restored.
And that confidence will be further reinforced by the rollout of the vaccination program. The vaccination strategy has been prepared by the medical experts in this country and is rolling out from Monday, following that expert advice. It is in its final touches, the final strokes of that preparation now, as it prepares to be commenced on Monday. It is ready to go. And I know that we all join together in this place to encourage Australians to listen to that expert advice, to gather the information that has been provided by those official sources so they can confidently go about receiving that vaccine in accordance with the strategy, which begins with those on the front line and those most vulnerable first.
But the economic recovery continues also with the rollout of the many programs and plans—whether it's the HomeBuilder program and the jobs it's creating, the $250 billion that has been put into balance sheets which has been unlocked by the confidence that is returning to the Australian economy or infrastructure like the Second Range Crossing up in Toowoomba— (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. Brittany Higgins said that the Prime Minister's principal private secretary checked in on her, including after the Four Corners episode at the end of last year, reportedly with a WhatsApp call. Does the Prime Minister accept Brittany Higgins' account?
I refer to the answer I gave on this matter yesterday, and the advice I have is that yesterday was the first time I indicated that my office became aware of those issues. I have engaged with the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to verify that advice.
My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister please outline to the House how the Morrison government will help ensure access to COVID-19 vaccine for all Australians across urban, rural and remote areas?
I thank the member for Braddon—in particular, for his help at a time of critical need in north-west Tasmania last year when there was a significant outbreak. AUSMAT and the ADF were on the ground. He played an important role in providing public information, coordination and confidence to the community.
Australia has done very well by comparison with the great work and scenes of the pandemic around the world over the last year. In the last 24 hours, we have seen over 340,000 cases and almost 10,000 lives lost. By comparison, we are at zero cases of community transmission again nationwide today. At the same time, there are zero Australians in ICU with COVID-19. So our containment measures, whilst always being challenged, are strong and holding up. There will be days when there will be other cases. But, against that pandemic background, the critical thing now is to move to the next phase of ensuring that we roll out the vaccine. That vaccine begins on Monday. What that means is that we begin with the first of the 150 million vaccines that are available to Australians. We now have the Pfizer and AstraZeneca approvals and we begin with the rollout of the Pfizer vaccines as part of phase 1(a). That means that the first group of people across Australia to receive the vaccines will include the elderly, the aged-care and disability residents and our aged-care and disability carers. We will be taking the vaccine to them through our outreach workforce.
We are also supporting, through our hubs, the quarantine workers and the border protection workers as a priority identified by the states. In addition to that, we are providing outreach to ensure that through our hubs there will be support for our frontline health workers, who have played such a heroic role. This phase will take six weeks. The aged-care workers, for example, will be in rural and regional Australia, they will be in urban Australia; our aged-care residents in rural, regional and urban Australia. We will work through all of them, beginning, in every state and territory, in country and city areas.
As we move to phase 1(b), we will move to our over-80s and our over-70s and will have the immunocompromised and Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal and community controlled health organisations, general practices around the country, the support of pharmacies subsequently around the country and, in addition to that, vaccination clinics. All of these are about providing access to Australians everywhere.
My question is to the Prime Minister. The defence minister's former acting chief of staff was the primary point of contact regarding the reported rape of Brittany Higgins. That staff member worked in the Prime Minister's office before and after the reported incident and she's now back in the Prime Minister's office. Does the Prime Minister stand by his statement yesterday that his office only became aware of the rape on Friday?
I do. That's my advice. If someone has worked in another office they have been bound by the issues in that office—
Opposition members interjecting—
Members on my left!
particularly when they are working in an office of a sensitive nature in the Defence portfolio. It is not common practice, in my understanding, that when staff move between offices they disclose matters of other offices. It is my advice that our office became aware of this issue on 12 February of this year.
Before I call the next question, just to those interjecting, I'm trying to listen very carefully to the question and the answer, to check that both are in order. I'll deal very swiftly with those interjecting. I really want to make that clear now. The member for Mayo has the call.
Prime Minister, Brittany Higgins is not the first employee in the parliament to make serious allegations of sexual assault or inappropriate behaviour in the workplace. Today the crossbench wrote to you, the Leader of the Opposition and the presiding officers calling for an urgent external review of current procedures and practice and the formation of an independent body to oversee future complaints. Prime Minister, will you restore confidence in the parliament and support an independent external review and an external independent body?
The short answer to that question is: yes. And that's what I indicated yesterday. I thank the members of the crossbench for their letter, as I do the suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition. I met with the member for Indi earlier today and, amongst many other important matters that we discussed today—those especially relating to her electorate, in Indi—we discussed this matter as well. The matters that have been raised in the letter from the crossbench are matters that the independent inquiry should, indeed, address, and there is some overlap between the issues raised in your suggestions as has been raised by the Leader of the Opposition.
I would stress that I don't think we should presume to the conclusions of what that review should be and what it may recommend and what is the best way—because this is, ultimately, what this is about—that we can ensure that people who work in this place can get the supports that they need in the most extreme of circumstances, as has been the subject of the matters we've been addressing here over the course of this week or, frankly, in the more routine of matters, in relation to their own employment. So I think it is a useful process to do that.
These terrible events that we've been talking about this week—as we know, these are events that can occur; are not peculiar to any one employer in this place or any one party in this place, and it is about changing the environment. I would think that all members are committed to that and I would assume that in the spirit of good faith. And, as a result, this inquiry should reflect that good intent, and I will ensure that it does. I've written, as I mentioned coming into the chamber, to you today and to the other members of the crossbench and indeed to the Senate as well as to the Leader of the Opposition—he'll have that correspondence—and I look forward to that being finalised as soon as possible.
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development. Will the Deputy Prime Minister please inform the House how the Morrison-McCormack government is driving Australia's economic recovery and creating jobs through the rollout of our $2 billion Road Safety Program?
I thank the member for Mallee for her question and acknowledge her role in advocating for road safety in her electorate in regional Victoria. Peter Brewer in The Canberra Times wrote this today:
Drivers were drug-affected, alcohol-affected and speeding right through last year's pandemic in the ACT, despite more police out patrolling Canberra's roads.
That's awful. There was a dreadful accident 15 kilometres north of Wagga Wagga yesterday morning just before five on the Coolamon Road. New South Wales Ambulance inspector Eamonn Purcell, a local, had this to say: 'It is a testament to technology and the design of cars these days that the injuries we're seeing in these types of incidents are quite less severe than we're used to.' This was a tragedy. A gentleman died. Two others were severely injured, but at least with the modern vehicle they were in they were protected.
We have more police on our roads. We have better vehicles, and we are certainly investing in better roads. Investing in better roads saves lives. Improving road safety is a key priority of our government, our parliament. Our $110 billion investment in infrastructure is creating 100,000 jobs, and I was certainly very pleased that today, with the assistant minister for road safety, the member for Wright, the first Victorian project under tranche 1 of the Commonwealth's $2 billion Road Safety Program was announced: $183 million dollars of Australian government funding has been approved for road safety improvements, such as road shoulder sealing, rumble strips, safety barriers and intersection upgrades, across Victoria.
I spoke to the shadow minister, the member for Ballarat, about the funding in her electorate last night. There will be work undertaken to improve the safety for vulnerable road users—the member for Melbourne will be very interested to know—such as separating cyclists and pedestrians from vehicle traffic. In the member's electorate of Mallee, we're starting work on shoulder sealing and rumble strips for the Ballarat-Maryborough Road, the Wimmera Highway and the Sunraysia Highway, roads that are important linkage points for so much of the activity in Mallee. Brian Barry, the Manangatang Victorian Farmers Federation president, said: 'One of the roads being upgraded in Mallee, the road between Sea Lake and Manangatang, has received minimal work since being constructed in 1967. This road is vital for local communities, providing a major freight link during harvest. The federal government providing funding to improve safety for all users, with the sealing of shoulders, means safer trips for residents who rely on this road.' Our funding is under a use-it-or-lose-it basis, meaning these projects need to start and finish before 30 June this year. If that doesn't happen, it will be allocated to another state. It's about getting on with the job, saving lives and creating jobs.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, the maximum sentence in the Australian Capital Territory for rape is more than 10 years. What are the existing protocols and procedures in your office when someone becomes aware a serious crime may have been committed by a ministerial staffer? Were these followed in relation to the reported rape of Brittany Higgins?
I also refer to the statements made by Senator Reynolds in the Senate yesterday where she said she sought and followed advice from ministerial and parliamentary services regarding the support available and she said she was at pains to ensure that Brittany felt empowered to determine how she was to handle the matter. That remains the case. The issue here in this terrible incident is that at the time this occurred there was a security breach involved and that was the matter that was addressed at the time. Indeed, there was a staff member whose employment was terminated as a result of that security breach. At that time there was no advice certainly to our office that this incident involved any alleged sexual assault. Whether an alleged sexual assault is taken to the next stage and is advised to the police as a matter for investigation is the decision of that person—in this case, Brittany, and, in any other case, whoever that may be. So it is up to them to have the power of the decision as to how that should proceed.
In that case, I'm advised that the minister encouraged her to take that matter to the police. She was encouraged to do that. She chose at that point not to do that, and that is why the matter sat for as long as it did. I accept, as I listened to Brittany the other night, that her views about that have changed over a period of time. That is also totally understandable and totally okay. But to suggest that the government or a minister or anyone here should have acted against the wishes as expressed to them at the time and subsequently about this matter would be against the advice that we have received as to how such matters should be handled.
I would like to inform the House we have present in the gallery this afternoon His Excellency Mr Wolfgang Lukas Strohmayer, Ambassador of Austria. On behalf of the House, a very warm welcome to you.
Honourable members: Hear, hear!
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer please inform the House how the Morrison government's strong stewardship of our economy is making Australia one of the best positioned countries in the world to recover from the global COVID-19 recession?
I thank the member for Stirling for his service in the Australian Defence Force and for his work in the corporate sector and for supporting policies in this place that have delivered tax cuts to more than 70,000 members of his electorate. He, like others on this side of the House, understands that the Australian economy is recovering strongly from the biggest hit to it since the Great Depression, with the first pandemic in a century.
Today I can inform the House that job ads were up for a ninth consecutive month. Job ads have doubled since April. Yesterday I informed the House that payroll jobs data for the fortnight was up by 1.3 per cent and across all states and territories it was up and back to the level it was a year ago. On Monday I informed the House that the JobKeeper data for the December quarter was in from the ATO which showed that 2.1 million Australians had graduated from JobKeeper and 520,000 Australian businesses had come off JobKeeper in the December quarter compared to the period prior. In the great state of Western Australia, that fall was 70 per cent. In South Australia, it was 67 per cent. In Tasmania, it was 65 per cent. In Queensland, it was 64 per cent. In New South Wales, it was 60 per cent. In Victoria, it was 44 per cent. That was the number of people coming off JobKeeper in the December quarter.
We have also seen consumer and business confidence recover to its pre-pandemic levels. We have seen a strong take-up of the HomeBuilder program, with more than 80,000 applications. We saw more than 80,000 motor vehicle sales in January alone, up 10 per cent year on year, helping to be driven by the instant asset write-off. This is what's happening on our worksites, in our car yards and on the building sites. Jobs are coming back and economic activity is increasing. I know that the member for Stirling's electorate has lots of graduates of JobKeeper, including Wayne Bowen, who's got three surf shops in Scarborough. He had 14 on JobKeeper at three surf shops, and all have graduated. If you want to ride a wave or get a board, go down to see Wayne at Scarborough. Yesterday we were speaking about JAX Tyres Mitchelton, in the electorate of Ryan. If you want to go and get a new set of wheels, go down and see Dean and he will look after you. (Time expired)
My question is to the Treasurer. How many of the 1.3 million Australians still on JobKeeper will lose their jobs when the payment is cut?
What I can inform the honourable member of is that, based on the numbers that Treasury put out in MYEFO, when JobKeeper ends the unemployment rate will continue to come down. So we will see job creation in this country even after the end of JobKeeper. If the honourable member had managed to read the Reserve Bank governor's speech—
The Treasurer will resume his seat. The member for Rankin on a point of order?
My point of order is on relevance. It was a very specific question: how many of the 1.3 million will lose their job when he cuts JobKeeper?
I'll say to the Treasurer that it was a very specific question and he needs to confine himself to the question. I'll also say that the reason I hadn't intervened is that the Treasurer had been on his feet for 28 seconds.
In the December quarter, there were just over 1.5 million on JobKeeper. It's an assertion by the member for Rankin that there will be 1.3 million people on JobKeeper in the March quarter. We don't yet have that data. So the member for Rankin can't assert that number. What I can tell the member for Rankin is that it is Treasury's expectation and the RBA's expectation that the unemployment rate—
Opposition members interjecting—
Members on my left, it's impossible to hear the Treasurer when you're interjecting. It seems an irony that I get points of order on relevance and then I'm prevented from hearing the answer.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government's support for small businesses is restoring confidence and helping them to create jobs for our recovery from COVID-19 and for a stronger Australia?
I thank the member for his question and note that he, like many of us, has run a successful small business and knows the challenges that they face on a day-to-day basis. Of course, the pandemic has thrown up so many more challenges for our small and family businesses. Our government has always been determined to support small and family businesses, to back 3½ million small and family businesses right across this country, because it's many of those who have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. It's them that have really borne the brunt of the economic challenges that we have all faced over the last 12 months. Small businesses are the lifeblood of our communities. They support many of our local community groups and they support our sporting organisations, and very often they're the places that our young people get their first jobs.
These can be businesses like one of the businesses in the member for Longman's electorate, RGS at Narangba. They're a manufacturing business. They were established by the Gripske family more than 30 years ago, and they manufacture and distribute a range of outdoor power equipment, including after-market spares for things such as lawnmowers, chainsaws, brush cutters, trimmers and small engines. They are a 100 per cent Australian-owned family business and they have gone from 120 employees to 138 in the last six months. I met with Paul Gripske and his team, along with the member for Longman, at two of their factories late last year. They have some really big plans to grow their business into the future, and that includes onshoring more manufacturing and building Aussie-made lawnmowers. They have, literally, powered through the pandemic. And they're one of many businesses right around this country that are planning for the future with confidence.
In fact, the NAB survey of SMEs found that business confidence in the last quarter of 2020 reached its highest level since the survey began in 2006. Confidence about profitability, trading and employment were all back in positive territory, which is absolutely extraordinary given the year that we have just had. Over 90 per cent of small business loan deferrals from the peak of the pandemic are now being repaid again. Importantly, businesses are graduating off JobKeeper. They have adapted and they have adjusted to the challenges of the last 12 months. They are looking at how they are going to grow their businesses, and every small business across Australia knows that the coalition government has their back.
Ms Burney interjecting—
The member for Barton shouldn't say that about the member for Rankin. The member for Rankin has the call.
My question is to the Treasurer, and I refer to his earlier answer. How will the government's cuts to JobKeeper, cuts to wages, cuts to super and a budget riddled with rorts help the 100,000 people that the Treasury expects to lose their jobs after JobKeeper is cut?
Unfortunately for the member for Rankin, he doesn't listen closely enough to the Secretary of the Treasury's testimony nor to the RBA governor, because this is what the Secretary of the Treasury said with respect to the end of JobKeeper. He asked specifically about the Secretary of the Treasury. He said: 'I don't expect it to disturb the trajectory of the unemployment rate coming down and more employment being generated over the year.' That's a pretty clear statement.
The Governor of the Reserve Bank was asked the question at his speech at the National Press Club the other day. He was asked about the end of JobKeeper, and he says 'Am I disappointed the government is stopping the JobKeeper program?' His answer: 'No'. In fact, the Governor of the Reserve Bank has said:
Job vacancies, job ads and business hiring intentions have all rebounded sharply, which suggests continuing solid employment growth over the …
months ahead.
I also want to explain to the member for Rankin that the Treasury did a review of JobKeeper last year, and originally this program was for six months. The Morrison government extended it for another six months. The Treasury did a review in which it said about the JobKeeper program:
… JobKeeper has a number of features that create adverse incentives which may become more pronounced over time as the economy recovers. … it dampens incentives to work, it hampers labour mobility and the reallocation of workers to more productive roles, and it keeps businesses afloat that would not be viable without ongoing support.
That's a key quote from the Treasury in their advice to government, because we know that the economy is strengthening. We know that we have avoided 15 per cent unemployment, and unemployment today is at 6.6 per cent. We know that the participation rate is at a record high. We know business and consumer confidence is coming back to its pre-pandemic levels. We know in the housing market and motor vehicle sales it's strong. I've talked this week about the number of people who have come off JobKeeper, the payroll jobs data. Today, job ads are up for a ninth consecutive month. This all points to an economic recovery. That goes to the heart of what Treasury's advice to this government has been about JobKeeper ending. It's a temporary program.
The honourable member for Rankin has never seen a tax he doesn't want to impose and he's never seen a spending policy that he doesn't like. We, on the other hand, have very considered policies based on the medical advice.
Dr Chalmers interjecting—
He's shouting again. No-one's listening. We're getting on with the job of creating jobs.
My question is to the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is ensuring that families and businesses, including in my electorate of Lindsay, have access to the affordable, reliable power they rely on, as we continue our recovery from the COVID-19 recession?
I thank the member for Lindsay for her question, and I pay tribute in particular to her outstanding work, in this place and in her electorate, on local manufacturing. She's a great champion of manufacturing in this country, and, like all of us on this side of the House, she knows that a strong Australia means having secure, affordable, reliable power in this country. As we recover from the coronavirus pandemic, that's more important than ever.
We heard that last week when we were together at the Australian Arms Hotel in Penrith, where we announced a $10 million program to support energy efficiency in small hotels, right across Australia—to invest in critical initiatives like energy efficiency through improved refrigeration, air conditioning and so on. This is part of our plan for affordable, reliable energy for Western Sydney and for all of Australia, and our plan is working. Our plan is working: 17 consecutive months of wholesale price reductions in electricity in this country, which started to fall well before COVID-19. It began when we introduced the big stick legislation, which those opposite finally agreed to. There was a nine per cent reduction last year alone, in the CPI, for electricity prices. Eight consecutive quarters of CPI reductions, year-on-year, in electricity prices—that's completely unprecedented in the records we have.
Today, we've announced the latest reduction in default market offers. The default market offer is the price cap which families and small businesses get access to if they don't negotiate a market price, and the latest reductions will see a reduction in standing offers by up to 7.9 per cent for families and 8.5 per cent for small businesses. That means, for a family in St Marys, a reduction in their bill of, typically, $800 a year. A cafe in Penrith is $6,000 a year better off since we introduced the default market offer, and a hairdresser in Emu Plains is $4,000 a year better off. Lower electricity prices mean more money in the pockets of Australian households and businesses at a critical time. We on this side of the House are getting on with affordable, reliable power for all Australians.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister guarantee that his industrial relations legislation will leave no worker worse off?
Our industrial relations legislation is designed to get Australians back into jobs, which will leave them better off, and to be in a growing economy where people will be better off. The Leader of the Labor Party does not have a policy to create one job, but he's got plenty of interest in keeping his own. Our policies are designed to create jobs, whether it's in industrial relations, whether it's supporting the manufacturing industry, whether it's building safer roads, whether it's getting HomeBuilder on the ground and seeing people getting into their first home, or whether it's getting lower energy prices and investing in the science and the technology to deliver the energy resources that we need for heavy industry in the regions. Our recovery plan is working.
Mr Speaker—
The Prime Minister will resume his seat.
Mr Morrison interjecting—
The Prime Minister has indicated he has concluded the answer.
My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government is providing Australia's policing and security agencies the resources they need to keep Australians safe?
I thank the honourable member for her question and for the great interest she takes in making sure that we can keep our country safe. This government has managed the budget well, which means that we can afford to make a more significant investment into our agencies—not just ASIO, but the AFP, the ABF, AUSTRAC and others.
Since August 2014, the government have boosted funding for our law enforcement, intelligence and security agencies by more than $2.3 billion. The resourcing that we've put into ASIO and into the Australian Federal Police's capacity to support the states and territories in preventing and responding to terrorism through multi-agency joint counterterrorism teams across the country has resulted in, to date, 128 people having been charged as a result of 59 counterterrorism related operations around the country.
We know that the threat from terrorism is with us and will remain with us for a very long period of time. We also know that espionage in our country is now at greater levels than we saw in the peak of the Cold War. We are taking decisive action again to protect our sovereignty, as we must, and we've boosted ASIO's budget to the highest level in its 70-year history.
I'm also very proud of the fact that we've been able to put almost $70 million into the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. Our highest priority is to make sure that we protect Australian children. Since the formation of the ACCCE, the centre has received over 40,000 reports of child abuse material, resulting in just over 1,150 referrals to Australian law enforcement agencies. Most importantly, 113 Australian children have now been removed from harm through the work of that centre.
Through the pandemic, as Australians have spent more time online, so too have the Australian Federal Police. We want to send a clear message to those who are operating on the dark web, those who are operating on encrypted messaging apps, such as those operated by Facebook and others, who are regularly trading videos and images of children being sexually exploited and abused, that the Australian Federal Police now have a much greater presence as a result of our investment online to make sure that they can protect those children. People who think that they are operating on the dark web and that they won't be detected need to recognise that the technology being deployed now by the Australian Federal Police, our agencies and our law enforcement partners—both here and internationally—is at a record high. We are not hesitating in adopting new technologies so that we can expose those people online that would seek to do significant harm and destroy the lives of those young children.
My question is again addressed to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister take the second chance that he's been given during this question time to guarantee that his industrial relations legislation will leave no worker worse off?
I'll ask the Minister for Industrial Relations to add further to the answer, but I say again: our industrial relations changes are designed to help more Australians get into work and to ensure that Australians are better off. The Leader of the Opposition seems to be living in a fantasy land when he speaks of these matters, as if we aren't coming out of the COVID-19 recession. He seems to misunderstand that job security today is about having a stronger economy that's supported by businesses creating jobs, and that is what our plans are designed to achieve.
The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order.
It goes to relevance. The Prime Minister has now had a number of minutes to think of an answer to, 'Will he guarantee his industrial relations will leave no worker worse off?' It's a simple guarantee if he believes he can give it.
As I said yesterday, the difficulty is with questions that ask for yes/no answers, essentially. The Prime Minister's being relevant to the policy. The Prime Minister.
I'll pass over to the Minister for Industrial Relations, but I will say again to the Leader of the Opposition: Australians are seeking the job security of an economy that is recovering from the COVID-19 recession. The Leader of the Opposition seems to not understand what job security means when you're coming out of a COVID-19 recession. Australian workers know that, under the economic policies of our government, they have greater confidence about their job, they have greater confidence about being better off and they have greater confidence about their future because of the economic policies of our government that are giving them that job security—and that includes the changes that we are making to industrial relations arrangements. I will ask the minister to add further.
I thank the Prime Minister. Members of the opposition and their claims that anyone will be worse off under the government's bill are absolutely 100 per cent wrong. In fact, I think it was fascinating to read the characterisation of that written by Phillip Coorey yesterday in The Australian Financial Review. He said:
Mr Burke said other measures in the bill would also enable wages and conditions to be cut but he offered no detail to back his claim.
That's because there is no detail. There is only one side of politics in Australia that has policy plans that will make workers worse off, and that is the Labor Party, and they are on clear display in both versions of the Leader of the Opposition's speech. In version No. 1 that he provided to the media, the Leader of the Opposition said—
No, the Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat; he has taken a point of order on relevance already. The Minister for Industrial Relations was not asked about alternative policies. He was only asked about his policy, and he needs to confine himself to that.
And, as that has been answered more than sufficiently, I think, I completely understand why they don't want their policy spoken about.
My question is to the Attorney-General. Will the Attorney-General inform the House how the Morrison government's foreign interference laws are working to keep Australians safe?
I thank the member for his question and his great interest in this area. Since coming to government in 2013, we have passed more than 20 tranches of national security legislation. Of those, none have been more important and more complicated than the laws passed to deal with foreign adversaries and any foreign entity that would act in a way that was adverse to Australian interests to benefit their own interests. It's quite clear—and we see it very often—that we continue to face unprecedented levels of foreign activity in Australia, and, indeed, that has been described at various times as exceeding the level of activity that Australia experienced even at the height of the Cold War. The director-general of ASIO rightly observed in his annual report last year:
While terrorism is a threat to life, espionage and foreign interference represent threats to our way of life.
… … …
Foreign governments are seeking information about Australia's capabilities, research and technology, and domestic and foreign policy.
That is why, under this government, we completely rewrote the antiquated espionage and secrecy offence laws in Australia. We introduced Australia's first ever offences for foreign interference, we established the first Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme and, last year, we passed amendments to the ASIO Act which extended their critical compulsory questioning framework to apply to espionage and foreign interference. These reforms have been absolutely critical; they've been very necessary.
My task today is to inform the House that they are working. As members are aware, on 5 November last year, an individual from Melbourne was formally charged with the offence of preparing for a foreign interference offence, contrary to section 92.4 of the Criminal Code. That is the first time someone has been charged in Australia with a foreign interference offence. These, of course, are the same laws that the director-general of ASIO has previously noted have 'caused discomfort and possibly pain for foreign intelligence services' and have 'made it more difficult for them to operate' in Australia.
With respect to our Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, we've continued to see a very steady number of registrations. As at 10 February 2021, there were 199 activities registered on behalf of 33 jurisdictions. Of course, there is no problem with being registered; that's what we expect. Registrations represent entities as diverse as those from the United States, China and Japan. What we do not expect and will not tolerate is failing to register those types of activities that should be registered.
I can also inform the House that the enforcement powers that exist under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme register are now on the steady increase in terms of their use. Those information-gathering powers that can be activated by the secretary of my department have experienced a fivefold increase in their use from the last time I updated the House, and these are positive developments.
My question is to the Prime Minister, and I refer to the conflicting answers given to my last question. Now that the Minister for Industrial Relations has been prepared to guarantee that the industrial relations legislation will leave no worker worse off, will the Prime Minister give the same guarantee that his legislation will leave no worker worse off?
I completely reject the assertion that has just been made by the Leader of the Opposition. Those on that side may be used to him verballing people on that side, but on this side we don't put up with that sort of thing. They might put up with it in the Labor Party and the union movement, but those who believe in individual liberties on this side of the House—
Honourable members interjecting—
The Prime Minister will resume his seat. Members will cease interjecting. The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order?
Yes, Mr Speaker. There is a thing called Hansard, and I refer the Prime Minister to that.
There's no point of order on that.
He needs to be relevant to the question, which is very specific. We're after the same answer that the industrial relations minister gave, or not. It's a decision for him, but abuse of me is not relevant to the answer.
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.
Government members interjecting—
Members on my right! The Prime Minister obviously, yes, was asked a very specific question, and he rejected the assertion in the question. So I'm listening to the Prime Minister, but he does have to be relevant to the question that was asked.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'll leave the criticism of the Leader of the Opposition to those who sit behind him. They're very good at it and they're very enthusiastic about it and not too shy or subtle.
No, the Prime Minister needs to—
But I reject the assertion of the question. I reject the assertion made by the Leader of the Opposition. The statements made by the minister and me are entirely consistent.
My question is to the Minister for Education and Youth. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government is safeguarding Australians from foreign interference in our universities and protecting government-funded research from being compromised?
I thank the member for Curtin for her question. As members might know, she's a former law professor and was a university vice-chancellor herself before coming to this place, so she brings enormous experience to this parliament.
As the Attorney-General just noted a moment ago, we are seeing foreign interference levels in this country today which are higher than at any time during the Cold War. That interference goes across all aspects of our community and, unfortunately, universities and the research sector are also part of that. Universities are targeted because they're often working on the development of key technologies, medicines and practices that are fundamental to the future of Australia's economy, our military capabilities and, indeed, our security. Of course, when this is compromised it can cause significant and long-term damage to Australia.
As ASIO has noted to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, there are many examples already where we have seen foreign actors interfering or attempting to interfere with the university sector. For example, they noted that researchers and their families have been threatened, coerced or intimidated by actors seeking to have their sensitive research provided to a foreign state. Some universities have been threatened through financial coercion should critical research continue. There were instances where academics have self-censored their course materials in order to avoid cuts to foreign funding, and there have been attempts to steal sensitive material as part of cybersecurity compromises.
This is completely unacceptable, and the government is taking very strong action to combat these threats. We've already invested $145 million in combating foreign interference, including $1.6 million to strengthen cybersecurity in universities. Since 2020, we've put more requirements on research grants at the Australian Research Council. As you may have seen on the front page of The Australian today, five such grants were knocked back on national security grounds at the end of last year. We're requiring universities to be subject to more of our foreign interference and other national security laws.
We have also convened the world's first universities foreign interference task force and, through this, have developed guidelines for all of the higher education providers to follow, to mitigate foreign interference risks, but this is an ongoing effort. Our universities have often very strong relationships with universities overseas or with governments overseas, and we want those to continue, but one thing we will never do is compromise our national security. We will continue to work with universities to deal with foreign interference to ensure that our research has integrity. (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that schedule 1, part 1, section 66M of his industrial relations bill means that, when casuals are refused the right to convert to permanent employment, their only remedy to fix the problem is to go to the Federal Court?
The remedy for dispute is precisely the same as the remedy for dispute now under the Fair Work Act that the opposition designed. It's exactly the same. They would have people believe that somehow the very strong, consistent, now broadly applicable right to convert from casual to permanent employment, which is enshrined in this bill, is not real or is not enforceable or is somehow not a significant improvement on the situation that presently exists at the moment. It is a very significant improvement to the benefit of workers on the position that exists at the moment. Its enforceability mechanism is precisely the same as it is for dispute resolutions that exist at moment. More importantly, it is a stronger right to convert.
What happens at the moment, for the benefits of all of the members of the House, is that some awards have in them a basis upon which conversion to permanency from casual can occur and that is based on a request from the employee to the employer. This legislation makes it a responsibility of the employer to offer that right to the employee. If they don't, then it is subject to the same dispute resolutions that exist in the present system for all comparative matters. But also this now applies across the board. Places where there is no right to convert at the moment, no process, no enforceability, such as in the coalmining industry, for the first time ever will have a strong, consistent, soundly enforceable pathway for conversion to permanency.
Members opposite ask us whether or not people will be better off or worse off. If you have a strong, consistent pathway to conversion to permanency, you will be better off. If the Labor Party votes against that, you will be worse off. If you have strong penalties for sham contracting, which are in this bill, you will be better off. If the Labor opposition votes against that, you will be worse off. If you have, for the first time ever, proper civil penalties that mean that there will be less underpayment, you will be better off. If Labor votes against that, you will be worse off. If, for the first time ever, you have a criminal penalty for wage theft, you will be better off. If the Labor Party vote against that, you will be worse off. If we reinvigorate the enterprise agreement system so there are more deals where people, on average, get paid 69 per cent more than on the awards, you will be better off. If the Labor Party votes against that, you will be worse off. What they have to do is explain to the Australian people why they would vote against measure after measure that improves peoples' lives.
My question is to the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government is working to keep Australians safe online, particularly as we spend more time on the internet whilst working and studying from home through the COVID-19 pandemic?
I thank the member for Boothby, who is a very strong champion for Australians being safe online and having an entitlement to the same protections as are available offline. As the member for Boothby has rightly said, over the last year we've seen Australians doing more and more online. With people in the millions moving to working and studying from home, the volumes of traffic over the internet have increased very dramatically. So the internet has been enormously important to our prosperity and our welfare over the past year, but, as we know, both online and offline there will be a percentage of human interactions that go wrong, and it's very important that there are safeguards in place. Our government has been at the forefront of world efforts to keep people safe online.
We established the world's first Children's eSafety Commissioner, as it was then known, in 2015. In 2017 we expanded the remit of that office to include all Australians and we introduced a strong scheme to support victims of image based abuse. In 2019 we swiftly responded to the appalling spectacle of the live streaming of mass murder in the Christchurch mosque attack by swiftly passing the abhorrent violent material legislation. Our government is working to make sure the eSafety Commissioner has the resources to keep Australians safe online. Our 2021 budget provided an extra $39.4 million over three years. In fact, in total, we are investing over $100 million over the next three years in online safety. Shortly, we will introduce into the parliament a bill to establish a new online safety act—following extensive consultation, a discussion paper and, of course, a promise at the 2019 election—to establish the world's first cyberabuse take-down scheme for Australian adults, building on the proven effectiveness of our cyberbullying scheme for children. We will expand the cyberbullying scheme for children to enable the removal of material from a full range of online services where children spend time, such as games, websites, messaging and hosting services, reducing the time frame within which the providers must respond from 48 hours to 24 hours.
The internet is an essential and central part of the lives of just about every Australian. It delivering enormous economic and social benefits, but people must be safe online. They have a right to the protections of the law, and our government has provided substantial resources to achieve that outcome.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister seriously expect casual workers to lawyer up and head off to the Federal Court to fight their employer for the right to permanent employment? How many casual workers does the Prime Minister seriously think have the resources to take their employer to Federal Court or the confidence that they'll keep their shifts afterwards?
The proposition which appears in that question, that the casual conversion rights in this bill are somehow not enforceable, is just absolutely wrong. The casual conversion rights in this bill are spread right across the field, they are much stronger than those that exist at the moment and they are enforceable in precisely the same way as every other safety net entitlement Labor put into the Fair Work Act when it introduced that act in 2009. Let me be clear: employers who do not comply with their obligations under the new casual conversion provisions will face precisely the same civil penalties as employers who do not comply with other safety net rights, like annual leave, paid personal and carers' leave, paid parental leave and paid public holidays.
I can tell the member that after 150 hours of consultation, employers were not necessarily overjoyed at the fact that they would face all those penalties based on a strong casual conversion system that requires the employer to offer that right to the employee. It was something, in fact, that many of them would have preferred not to have, because it is such a stronger system than exists at the moment. So the premise of your question is absolutely wrong. The process for resolving disputes about casual conversion under the bill are completely, 100 per cent, consistent with how disputes in resolution and safety night rights have been dealt with under the laws that Labor introduced in 2009—absolutely consistent! They're completely consistent enforcement mechanisms to those that exist and are attached to a much stronger, much broader applied right for casual conversion. The real question is: why would members opposite call for precisely this over many years, including unions during the consultations, and then, when it's on the table, vote against it?
My question is to the Assistant Treasurer and the Minister for Housing. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government's HomeBuilder program is supporting employment in the residential construction sector, including in my electorate of Ryan, and how it is helping us ensure we build a stronger Australia in 2021?
I thank the member for Ryan for his question. It was a great pleasure for me to be able to visit his electorate last week and see firsthand some of the outstanding work that is happening in his electorate, and it was also good to see a local member so highly regarded by the tradies on sites. He wasn't highly regarded for his skills as a bricklayer, I hate to say—he makes a much better member of parliament than a bricklayer—but at least he had a go.
The HomeBuilder program, as members in this House should know, has ticked over 83½ thousand applications, supporting a million employees but also, and importantly, supporting 390,000 small and family businesses. We on this side of the House care for small and family businesses—390,000 of them have been supported by HomeBuilder. One of them, Fresh Homes, we were able to visit, the member for Ryan and I, and he took us around three projects that he had in this particular development and introduced us to all the tradies they had on site. He told us that before HomeBuilder Fresh Homes was building 20 homes a year. Prior to HomeBuilder, they were building 20 a year. A pretty substantial effort. After HomeBuilder, they are now building 100 homes a year—so from 20 homes to 100 homes.
What does that mean? Members on this side of the House know that just means jobs. Whether it's the bricklayer onsite who was trying to teach the member for Ryan how to work, whether it's the carpenters that are onsite, these are people that have been supported by the program. Sadly, for those opposite, all those tradies onsite knew that the Labor Party opposed the HomeBuilder program. Every single one of those tradies knew that the Labor Party stood in the way of them and the HomeBuilder program.
In addition to standing in the way of those jobs, in addition to standing in the way of the residential construction industry, the Labor Party stood in the way of first home buyers, because one of the largest cohorts of recipients of the HomeBuilder grant has been first home buyers. We are a government that is dedicated to helping people get into their first home. We know the Labor Party's vacated the space on helping first home buyers. That's why first home ownership is at its highest level in over 10 years. We're also supporting, as I keep saying, the million Australians who work in the residential construction industry. And it's because of the members on this side of the House, including the member for Ryan, supporting those tradies in their electorate, that this will help fuel our recovery throughout this year and into the next year.
The minister's time has concluded.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that, under his news media code legislation, media companies have the right to compulsory arbitration but casual employees will have to get the agreement of their employer before they have access to arbitration?
The access to arbitration—I'm very happy to explain it again—under the much stronger casual conversion—
Mr Falinski interjecting—
Ms Claydon interjecting—
The minister can just pause for a second. The members for Warringah and Newcastle can leave under standing order 94(a) and continue their conversation outside—Mackellar! Sorry, Zali, you didn't say anything. I thank the member for Mackellar for owning up. The minister has the call.
The members for Warringah and Newcastle then left the chamber.
The access to arbitration, which would apply to the much stronger, much broader rights for conversion from casual to permanent that are contained in our bill are precisely the same access to arbitration that exists in all comparable NES matters in the Fair Work Act, which the Labor Party brought into being in 2009. What you have, at the moment, is that in some awards you have a current ability for an employee to request conversion to permanent of an employer—in some awards—but that does not apply to all awards. For instance, as I noted, one award it doesn't apply to is coalmining awards. The government's bill extends the casual conversion provision to the National Employment Standards. That means it covers the entire workforce. It's also a stronger provision because the onus is on the employer to make the offer to the employee, not the employee to request. So a stronger right of conversion applies across the entire workforce in the NES and, being in the NES, it is subject to the same arbitration and enforceability provisions that exist and that members opposite created to all other NES matters and they are enforceable in exactly the same way.
So the question is: why would you be looking at a bill that provides a consistent, strong, enforceable pathway for casuals who've worked regular shifts over the last six months to convert to permanency and vote against it? That is putting politics above the benefits that can accrue to ordinary working Australians if they want to choose to move from regular casual shifts to permanent employment.
My question is to the Minister for the Environment. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government is focusing on caring for our country through measures such as tackling waste and protecting, preserving and enhancing our natural environment?
I thank the member for Fairfax for his question and commend him on his leadership on the Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment. One of the strong focuses of the Morrison government is to care for our country, reflecting the deep connection Australians have for our natural environment. We're doing this in multiple ways, from recycling to revitalising our national parks and looking after our incredible wildlife.
Australians want to be confident in their recycling that everything collected is remanufactured, turned into something new, something with value and not buried in landfill or shipped overseas to become another country's problem. That's why this government is leading a billion-dollar transformation of the waste and recycling industry that will protect our environment, devote over 10 million tonnes from landfill and create more than 10,000 jobs.
We said we were going to ban the export of waste plastic, glass, paper and tyres, and we have. Shortly, I hope to be visiting my neighbour in the electorate of Mallee to see a Recycling Modernisation Fund project, which supports the construction of glass processing and sorting and, again, adds to regional jobs.
We said we were going to help industry minimise waste and give new life to old products such as school uniforms and tradie uniforms, and we are. Last week I stood in a warehouse in Macquarie Park with the member for Bennelong, with old and discarded school uniforms all around us, listening to new ways that we're turning those textiles, pulling apart the polymers and fibres, into new products such as desks, pet swags, outdoor furniture or new material. We announced funding to support Circular Threads, a new scheme to deal with the over 31 tonnes per person of discarded textiles per year.
Caring for our country is also caring for our Commonwealth national parks, and the release of the Kakadu master plan a few days ago starts an exciting chapter for Kakadu. We will see new experiences and greater access to these sites, visitor services hubs, new accommodation for rangers and tourists, upgrades to roads, boardwalks, viewing platforms and amenities, bringing this World Heritage site to the world and to our domestic tourists. We are deeply committed to not just preserving the natural environment for all Australians but enhancing it for future generations.
Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper and, in adding to an answer yesterday in relation to the member for Kennedy, I table a statement from the Secretary of the Department of Defence concerning the matters raised in that question.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Chifley proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The Government's failure to be on the side of Australian manufacturing and the jobs it creates.
I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.
More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
It's been 75 years since our 16th Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, took office. He was a great prime minister who was responsible for so many nation-building projects. He was a great prime minister; he was responsible for the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme, he helped set up the Australian National University, he set up the precursor to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, he pushed for public housing and he reorganised and enlarged the CSIRO. But the best vision of Ben Chifley was of him standing next to the Holden FX, the first Holden car, the first mass-produced vehicle in this country, which came out of Fishermans Bend in Melbourne. It's a point of pride to us because manufacturing is in the DNA of the Australian Labor Party. It means something deeply to us. It reflects a faith in Australian know-how, the capability of our workforce and the value of manufacturing to Australian wealth, jobs and supporting small business. It's why we fight so strongly for it.
The value of manufacturing in this nation has been particularly underscored over the course of last 12 months. The pandemic exercised so much pressure on the economy, but at its height we were worried about what was happening with facial masks, gowns and hand sanitiser. Where were those things getting made? They were all in short supply. There were concerns about the manufacture of potential vaccines.
Over the last few weeks I've been visiting manufacturers to hear about what they're doing. I'm proud, as the members who represent them are proud, to see what they're able to do: delivering for customers, creating work and generating jobs. But they still struggle with finding the skills, getting the support for R&D and getting financial support from banks. I spoke with one manufacturer who said: 'I've been a loyal customer of the bank for 10 years. It's easier to get a million dollars for a home than $500,000 to expand my business.' They want to see support for them to expand their businesses and generate jobs. That's what they want to see.
Confidence in manufacturing has been hammered in this country. We need strong action, urgent action. We've sent strong signals of support for manufacturing. Labor, when in government in 2013, released the plan for Australian jobs, the industry innovation statement, a detailed plan to boost manufacturing in areas of competitive advantage, such as advanced manufacturing, food manufacturing, mining equipment, energy and resources, digital, defence, space and medtech. That was released in 2013. What was the first thing the coalition did in 2014? They got rid of it. They got rid of the plan as their first action. I'll come back to that.
The Leader of the Opposition, in his budget reply speech, re-ignited our commitment in terms of manufacturing with plans to advance a future made in Australia, rebuilding national manufacturing, with a comprehensive plan for jobs. In terms of advancing things like, for example, a national rail manufacturing plan, a defence industry development strategy and an Australian skills guarantee, all these things are designed to boost and support manufacturing in this country.
Then you look at the other side. As I said, in 2014, the very first thing they did when they got into manufacturing was to kill the plan that would have set us up to see manufacturing and jobs grow in the longer term. That's the first thing they did. They dumped the instant asset write-off, and then they brought it back. They abolished the loss carry-back, and then they brought it back. They threatened to cut $2 billion out of R&D support in this country, and then they relented. At that dispatch box, their then Treasurer, Joe Hockey, dared auto manufacturers to leave the country. What did they do?
They left—and all those jobs went with them.
They've failed on energy policy, so important to manufacturing. Twenty plans—gone; nowhere. They've depleted skills, with 150,000 apprenticeships cut. And we have a manufacturing deficit in this country: Australians use $365 billion of manufactured goods each year but we produce $380 billion. That shows you what's happened: attack after attack after attack.
We've looked at what's gone on. What's the result of all this? The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work says Australia ranks last in a list of OECD countries in terms of manufacturing self-sufficiency. Less than one million people work in the manufacturing sector, accounting for 6.4 per cent of jobs, which has declined from 16.5 per cent in the late 1980s—a huge contraction in manufacturing jobs. Ninety thousand jobs have gone during this term of government. The Harvard University's Economic Complexity Index assesses the complexity of economies based on the diversity and complexity of their exports. Australia ranked 50 on that index in 1995 but had dropped to 93 in 2017. That is the legacy of this government.
Now—and I note that the minister is in the House—they have brought forward a 'modern manufacturing' fund, which, funnily enough—
Guess what!
guess what!—focuses on all the things we focused on in 2014! We are very grateful.
A government member interjecting—
But you abolished it. You abolished it, and we lost seven years—seven important years where we could have had our manufacturing capacity built, after we saw everything that I referred to a few moments ago about the impact on jobs and the impact on the economy, and all because, in 2014, they were cheering that they were tearing everything up, just to differentiate themselves from our side. But someone paid the cost, and it was average Australian workers who did, and they didn't deserve that.
Also, as to that fund, the minister herself indicated, soon after it was announced, that less than three per cent of the funding will be available for manufacturers this financial year. Now, the minister may have an update, but there's no point announcing a big plan and not being able to deliver; there's no point raising expectations about what this thing will do and then release only three per cent of funding this year—this year! We're at a time where we need urgency and energy and drive on all this. We need them to deliver.
But, when it comes to manufacturing, the thing they are good at is: manufacturing a slogan. There's always a label. There's always a photo opportunity. There's always something out there to just say, 'We're doing something,' but, when it comes to delivering something—nothing; nothing at all. So they are good at slogans.
What's the other thing they're good at? Rorts! Ooh, they're so good at rorts! Look at this, for example. There was a Sydney Morning Herald account of the first round of funding under the SME Export Hubs grants. The bulk of the grants, eight of the nine projects—where were they? Have a guess where those projects were.
Their seats? Don't tell me!
They just happened to be in coalition seats. And one was shared between the coalition and also Labor.
Honourable members interjecting—
Let me make this point. There is no—
Opposition members interjecting—
Members on my left will stop interjecting.
There is absolutely no political party that actually believed in manufacturing that would think—
The minister will pause for a moment—
Thanks for the promotion!
Members on my left will stop interjecting. I'm finding it difficult to hear the member's contribution. The member will continue.
No political party that actually believes in manufacturing would think that their first order of business was to hammer manufacturing—to cut support to manufacturing. But that is exactly what they did. When they goaded manufacturers from our shores and presided over the depletion of skills, they destroyed the viability of small manufacturers. That's exactly what they did. That betrays their utter lack of belief in Australian know-how and in manufacturing jobs.
But this side gets manufacturing. This side, and the people who sit on this side, get it. They've got families in manufacturing and friends who've worked in manufacturing, or they are MPs proud to show off what's happening in their electorates—like Humes pipes, in the seat of Makin, a concrete pipe manufacturer; or, in the seat of Oxley, PFi manufacturing, with a space industry focus; or Keech 3D Advanced Manufacturing in the seat of Bendigo; or State Asphalt in New South Wales in the seat of Werriwa. All these players are doing great things, but what they need is support and faith. They need faith in manufacturing. When it comes to Australian manufacturing, we want to send this signal to industry and its workers: Australian Labor is on the side of Australian manufacturing and the workers who have a livelihood from it.
I am absolutely thrilled that Labor has discovered manufacturing! They have been slow to grasp the concept, but I'm thrilled that they're here. I understand that it's going to take them a little bit of time to get up to speed. So I'm very happy to spend my time in this MPI talking to them about all of the work this government has done, is doing and will do.
I'm very proud of the commitments that have been made to support manufacturing. Many of the things that have just been said about manufacturing and this government's view of manufacturing are patently untrue. We have demonstrated time and time again that we support manufacturers small, medium and large. It's true that we want to support small manufacturers to become medium-sized manufacturers and our medium-sized manufacturers to be our large. In fact, that is what our plan is all about.
I want to correct the record a bit on some of the comments the previous speaker made. When Labor talks about the automotive sector, they are very selective with what they choose to talk about. They never mention that both Mitsubishi and Ford announced that they would stop manufacturing cars under a Labor government and Holden announced that they would cease manufacturing just months after the 2013 election.
As far as I'm concerned, we need to be focusing on manufacturing now and for the future. We know that manufacturing, along with many other industries, was hit hard during the pandemic. There's many ways that you can talk about the number of jobs. But it's important to note that, if you look at the jobs figures in manufacturing from February of last year, which was just before the pandemic really hit us here, we had about 5½ thousand more manufacturing jobs in this country than when Labor left office. Job numbers will continue to fluctuate over time, and it's fair to say that about 70,000 jobs were lost in the first couple of months of the COVID pandemic.
But long before COVID was even talked about, this government was looking at how we could rebuild manufacturing in this country. We started with setting up industry task forces. What I can say is that the manufacturing plan, the Make it Happen plan, that we have put in place has been designed by industry, for industry. So when those opposite stand up and criticise the work that's being done, basically what they're saying to industry is that industry doesn't understand its own businesses, doesn't understand the sector in which it works and doesn't understand manufacturing. Nothing could be further from the reality. We have some fantastic manufacturing businesses here in this country and we are supporting them.
The manufacturing strategy was about 18 months to two years in the making. During COVID we reassessed that plan to look at our critical needs to make sure that, in times of crisis, we could manufacture as much as we possibly could here. This needs to be seen in the context of the fact that Australia is a trading nation, we probably always will be, and there will be some things that we are unlikely to ever manufacture in Australia. What we need to do, though, strategically, is look at what we need to do in times of a crisis. Many people pooh-pooh what was done with the surgical masks here but it's an outstanding story. Yes, there was only one manufacturer of surgical masks in this country, and it was producing about two million masks. By the end of last year, we had produced over 400 million masks. That demonstrates what capacity we can build here in manufacturing.
When we announced the strategy, we made it very clear that there would be a number of components to it. One was to look at our supply chain resilience. That work is underway. The second thing that is part of that strategy is the second round of the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund. That grant funding has opened, and it closed on 21 January. Assessment is now being undertaken, so we will have an announcement of where that funding will go. It will be to support businesses in our six named national manufacturing priority areas. So that's immediate support that we are providing to Australian manufacturers in our key priority areas.
As part of our strategy, we said we would get the economic conditions right, and we are doing that. About $7 billion has been injected into the skills sector to make sure that we can develop the skills that are needed for the future. Everyone in this chamber understands the significant damage that Labor inflicted on the vocational education and training sector when they were in government, when they made 12 successive cuts to the support that is given to employers to employ apprentices. It was just appalling, what they did. Quite frankly, they brought that sector to its knees. But now they're making, or trying to make, a story out of the fact that they're going to rebuild a sector that they decimated. Well, that's Labor for you.
Mr Dick interjecting—
The member for Oxley!
Yes, we have been in government—and thank goodness the opposition are not in government, because not only do they not understand manufacturing; they don't understand vocational education and training either.
So we are getting the economic conditions right. We're making sure that we do have the skilled workforces that all of our businesses need for the future. We are working on energy costs, because we know what a significant input that is for our manufacturers. We're looking at tax settings. We're looking at what we can do to support our businesses. We've made changes to the R&D tax incentive.
I think probably at this point what I might do is actually talk about the value-add and how important that is to Australian manufacturing. For quite some time, the focus in Australia on manufacturing was just the production part that was in the middle. The manufacturing smile curve demonstrates how big the manufacturing sector is here in Australia, and it demonstrates where the value-add actually is. The value-add is in things such as research and development; it's in design; it's in logistics; and, yes, there's value-add in the production part in the middle. But there's greater value-add as you start to come out on the other side of the production process on the smile curve and you're starting to look at what can happen with sales, marketing and after-sales services.
What we as a government are doing is focusing on three things. We are focusing on competitiveness; clearly, resilience; and building scale. We're making sure that we are looking at the value-added component of it. So there are three streams that we are focusing on. The big stream is the collaboration stream. That's where we are going to be bringing businesses together, along with researchers, building the supply chains both here within Australia and externally. Work is well underway to develop the road maps that will input into that and the guidelines that will input into that.
There are also two other streams that are very important to us. One is making sure that there is support for those businesses that are looking to commercialise their good ideas. We know that commercialisation is where there are real opportunities for us in this country, and hence we've made that a focus of our manufacturing strategy. We also know—and this is the third stream—how important it is for our businesses, for our manufacturers, to be able to access international supply chains so that we can get their products injected into our supply chains overseas. Perhaps the best example of that is the commitment that we have made to Australian businesses in the space sector for $150 million in funding for our businesses to be able to support the NASA Moon to Mars program, the Artemis program. NASA has stated very, very clearly that we will be supporting our businesses, we will get them into the supply chain and NASA is going to get us back to the moon by 2024—
Honourable members interjecting—
Members will stop arguing across the chamber.
I understand that the members opposite do have a lot to learn in manufacturing, and I do encourage that. I do encourage them to make contact and bring themselves up to speed.
In the post-World War II years of the 1960s and 1970s—
Mrs Andrews interjecting—
The member for Makin will pause for a moment. The minister will leave the chamber quietly. Thanks.
In the post-World War II years of the 1960s and 1970s, manufacturing accounted for nearly 30 per cent of Australian GDP and 30 per cent of Australian jobs. Today, the figure is less than seven per cent. The decline is not just because of the rise of China or other developing nations where cheap labour is plentiful. It is as much because successive conservative governments have failed to invest in the manufacturing sector and failed to invest in research and development. Indeed, since 2013, under the Abbott, Turnbull and now Morrison governments, total spending on science, research and innovation has declined by more than a billion dollars.
The Morrison government has also failed to ensure there is a stable energy policy and failed to invest in skills training, with nearly 150,000 fewer apprentices today. They've cut billions of dollars from TAFE, so much so that industry leaders have flagged that the Australian naval fleet build is at risk because of shortages of skilled workers. If there were any good to come out of the COVID crisis, it's that it exposed Australia's vulnerabilities in not having a strong manufacturing sector. It was a badly needed wake-up call that 90 per cent of our medicines are imported, that there was a shortage of personal protective equipment, that retail store shelves were, and still are, empty of household goods because they were all imported.
In South Australia, once a booming manufacturing state driven by the vision and drive of a conservative premier, Tom Playford, I have seen the demise of manufacturing for myself. Only last week, I was driving along Philip Highway in Elizabeth in the electorate of Spence, through what was once a thriving manufacturing hub centred around GMH. I saw empty abandoned buildings where previously thousands of people worked every day. All because this government turned its back on GMH. Can I say to the minister that no Labor government ever turned their back on Mitsubishi or Ford. The decision to turn their back on GMH was the most short-sighted decision of any government that I can think of. The economic and security returns of backing GMH far outweighed the relatively little government assistance that they were asking for at the time. In South Australia, business confidence was rocked by their closure and, quite frankly, it has never fully recovered. We then had the government boast about the replacement submarine investment where it seems that most of the work is going to go offshore. Again, we have no confidence in this government's ability to deliver those jobs to South Australia or indeed any other workplace in Australia.
We in Labor value the role of manufacturing. That is why Anthony Albanese announced Labor's plan for a future made in Australia by investing in manufacturing and skills training and encouraging research, development and innovation. In advanced countries like Japan and Germany, manufacturing still accounts for about 20 per cent of their economy. It hasn't fallen that much at all. Those are countries that also have a high standard of living but they have shown that if the government gets behind the manufacturing centre they can remain competitive worldwide. In my own electorate I have a manufacturer, Lanfranco Furniture, who still makes furniture, employs 70 to 80 people and competes every day with imported furniture. They are able do so because of innovation and productivity gains they have been able to make there. Australia could and should do the same.
Manufacturing is critical not just because it creates so many different jobs but because it's critical to our security at times when we are left vulnerable, as we were with COVID-19. We were dependent on every other nation around the world for the essential needs of the people of this country due to the short-sightedness of this government and of conservative governments around Australia. In time, they will wake up to their foolishness and do exactly what some other advanced manufacturing countries, like Japan and Germany, are doing. (Time expired)
Australian manufacturing, and the jobs it creates, is just so important, and we support it here in the Morrison government. I give thanks to all Australians in this recovery. Together, we are resilient and confident to play to our strengths. The Morrison government's $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy is led by the industry, for the industry. We understand manufacturing is key to almost every supply chain and adds value across all sectors. By getting the conditions right for manufacturers and making science and technology work for the industry, we can trade on Australia's areas of advantage.
As the Assistant Minister for Youth and Employment Services, with a background in small and family business, I understand that collaborating with industry is vital. It offers a road map to the recovery and beyond. Businesses like Big Dog Pet Foods have a strong domestic growth. They pivoted quickly to meet changing buyer habits during COVID-19 and innovated on their supply chain, and they've have seen a 60 per cent growth during this crisis. Big Dog is just out at Brendale, not far from my area, in the member for Dixon's electorate. The Morrison government backs Australian manufacturing by supporting businesses to create jobs, be more resilient and boost their competitiveness around the world. Even Labor has said that the types of jobs created by manufacturers and engineering companies are 'a remarkable Australian success story'. That's what the shadow Treasurer said last week when he was out at Tritium, in the member for Griffith's electorate, talking about the 250 jobs that that company creates charging EVs. All this has happened under a coalition government. I agree with the shadow Treasurer—it is a remarkable success story. I congratulate Tritium for their innovative car chargers for electric vehicles and thank Jane Hunter and her team, who work there in Brisbane.
The government's HomeBuilder package is one example where record levels of approval help build a resilient Australia. Australians are taking that step into the housing market, and they're doing so to support manufacturers. I think of Kingswood Cabinets in my own electorate, who said that HomeBuilder has helped them enormously. They increased their staff during COVID by six permanent jobs and employed two local apprentices. They now have 52 permanent staff. Kingswood Cabinets said, 'We were confident enough to put on two young guys for a four-year apprenticeship.' If the current conditions continue along the same track, they will expand that operation to put on another 25 staff and double the size of the facility. Australian tradies building Australian homes with Australian-manufactured products, like products from Kingswood Cabinets, are making a real difference. Products like Wattyl paints are Australian made. ActronAir ducted air conditioning is Australian made; Ram Tapware for kitchens and bathrooms, which I've just put into my place, and Tindo Solar panels are Australian made. The member for Makin should have mentioned that one down in South Australia. Everyone likes a barbie. I've just bought a Heatlie barbecue, also Australian made and manufactured, and I recommend the shadow minister get one.
Australia's economy is fighting back, with 784,000 jobs created in the last seven months, and this is making a real impact not just in our electorate of Petrie but in all of the members' electorates, right around Australia. The women in my office tell me that NAK Hair, which sells Australian-owned and made hair products, said JobKeeper was a game changer. Their productivity has increased in excess of 20 per cent, and they could have achieved great growth if they had not faced supply challenges related to COVID-19. That's why the Morrison government is delivering the $107 million Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, positioning Australia to respond to future disruptions in supply chains. That's what Australian voters want. I know they want that in my electorate of Petrie. As Australian manufacturers know, the Morrison government has a solid track record of over 1½ million new jobs created since 2013, more than half of which were full-time. We have legislation in this place right now to make more jobs permanent, at the same time as those opposite are whingeing about casualisation in the workforce.
I also think of great manufacturers that do insulation. Bradford Gold insulation has just been installed recently at the place of someone I know. It's Australian made. Thor Building Products in Northgate—what a great company that is, making Australian manufacturing! This will continue through investments like the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund, which offers grants of up to $1 million for businesses to invest, because of the Morrison government—real manufacturing, real jobs and real Australian success. (Time expired)
After seven years of this Liberal government and listening to the minister, we can guarantee one thing: manufacturing in this country is now a wasteland thanks to this government. Let's look at the facts. Since this government came to power—and the minister would like us to think, 'Thank heavens she was in power!'—she has delivered the vanishing of 90,000 jobs. One hundred and forty thousand apprenticeships and traineeships have vanished under this government. In my electorate, from 2013 to 2018, apprenticeships dropped by 43 per cent.
Eight hundred and sixty thousand Australians rely on the manufacturing sector for their livelihood, and what's the government's plan to keep them afloat? Well, there isn't one. The government's plan is to take away work and make it easier to move manufacturing jobs offshore so that we have to import all of our goods. We've had a debate today about car manufacturing. I'm with the shadow industry and innovation minister. Why can't we build electric cars here in Australia? Why can't we merge blue- and white-collar jobs? Why can't we support the 86,000 small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses that are still alive in this country? It's all very well for the member for Petrie to talk about the barbecues that he's buying and about his home improvements and all that's happening, but he won't stand in this chamber and talk about the jobs that he has slashed and the lack of a plan to deliver real reform in this country.
While we're talking about cars and the manufacturing industry, let's look at what the sector says about this minister, the so-called minister who wants a pat on the back for driving industry overseas. The headline of the article I refer to is 'Karen Andrews "sidelined"', and it refers to a meeting held in Canberra with the Australian Automotive Dealer Association, where it was revealed that, because of the minister's incompetence, Minister Cash has been made responsible for dealing with the issue of automotive dealerships. Fancy putting Senator Cash in charge of everything! If that's not a clear message that you're not on top of your game, I don't know what is.
The article says:
The move follows outrage from dealers—
car dealers in all of our electorates across Australia—
when in the lead-up to Christmas, Minister Andrews released an "Automotive Principles" policy for an industry code that was voluntary and was to be trialled for two years before the government revisited the issue.
She was putting it into the 'too hard' basket. The article continues:
The AADA issued a note saying that Minister Andrews' actions were a "kick in the guts" for car dealers and their 60,000 employees and it was a major setback for dealers who were seeking to be protected from OEMs—
the large multinational companies—
which abused their uneven power over dealers.
"Just when dealers thought this year could not possibly get worse, Minister Karen Andrews has sided with multinational car manufacturers, some of which have treated Australian dealers and their customers with absolute disdain in 2020" AADA CEO James Voortman said in the note.
"It is clear that car dealers in Australia desperately need a strong set of mandatory protections which protect dealers against the abuses from car manufacturers. What we have today is a do-nothing policy cynically released on a Friday afternoon," he said.
That sets it up in one sector in this country. We all have car dealerships in our electorates. They are the lifeblood of rural and regional communities. They provide support to the local footy clubs and the local cricket clubs. They sponsor our teams, and this government and this minister have treated them with utter contempt. So I don't want any lectures from the other side today, talking about small business and talking about manufacturing. Here you have dealers in this country crying out for help. It is bad enough that this government goaded and demanded that manufacturing leave our shores. Now you are seeing the icing on the cake.
In my home state of Queensland the state Labor government is delivering a manufacturing plan, a multibillion-dollar train-building plan. Who can forget Campbell Newman's trains? They were built in India, wouldn't fit on the tracks and didn't have disability access. Time and time again, it has been shown that this government cannot be trusted when it comes to manufacturing and manufacturing jobs in this country.
In my own community I have had the privilege of meeting a whole range of industries in manufacturing. They all say the same thing: they want help and they want support. They don't want announcements and photo opportunities by this government and this Prime Minister. It's time this government took manufacturing seriously in Australia.
It's absolutely fantastic that the member for Chifley has given me, as his neighbour, the opportunity to outdo him on manufacturing. The evidence is in the numbers. On the page I have here, the member for Chifley has been working so hard for manufacturers in his community that he is at the bottom of the list of the number of manufacturers that he's been fighting for in his community for all the time he has been the member for Chifley. I'm very proud to say that Lindsay, next door, has over three times more manufacturers. We are fighting hard for local manufacturers in Western Sydney. So again I thank the member for Chifley for giving me the opportunity to make him feel a bit silly.
We do have wonderful manufacturers in Western Sydney. Baker & Provan are in St Marys, just on the border of Chifley, not too far away. We are working hard for them. They have some great Defence contracts. We have Custom Denning also in St Marys, a fantastic local manufacturer who are working on Australia's first electric bus. That's a great Lindsay manufacturer. SpanSet in Emu Plains manufacture safety harnesses for the construction industry. Grant Engineered in Penrith are another great manufacturer who manufacture truck body parts, and they are doing a wonderful job. Also we have J Sinclair Engineering and one of my favourite manufacturers in the community because they work really hard. They are headed up by a woman who manufactures windows.
We have so many local manufacturers across Western Sydney, and the message I am hearing from them is that they are getting backed by the Morrison government and they feel really positive about the policies that we have in place. During the coronavirus pandemic I was one of the first off the blocks to say we need to really back our local manufacturers. I truly believe Western Sydney can be at the heart of a new era in manufacturing. We have so much investment coming in, particularly with the establishment of Western Sydney airport and the development of advanced manufacturing. That's what I'm working really hard for.
But it's not just me saying that our community in Western Sydney can be the heart of a new era in manufacturing. We have a survey that I established that went out across Western Sydney. This survey showed that our local people in Western Sydney are really behind Australian manufacturing and backing Aussie made. So our community feel it too. Absolutely when I speak out and about in the community they tell me that they truly do back Australian made. That means that what we in the Morrison government are doing is working.
One of the top priority areas for respondents in my survey was resources technology and critical minerals processing. That's a really important manufacturing component for people in Western Sydney, because our community knows how important our resources and critical minerals sector is and will continue to be, particularly after the coronavirus pandemic. This is a sector that has a strong track record in creating Australian jobs. For me, creating local jobs is absolutely important as we get through the coronavirus pandemic, with a huge focus on training our kids in the jobs of the future. So when we are talking about delivering, Member for Chifley, I'm delivering for my community of Lindsay by establishing a jobs of the future forum, bringing together our educators, our industry and our school teachers to work out how our kids can get those opportunities and the jobs that are coming with our focus on modern manufacturing. I've also established—the member for Chifley might be interested, because he might like to do this too in his own community—an Advancing Manufacturing Taskforce, again bringing the university, TAFE, industry and teachers together to work out how we can get the best opportunities when it comes to manufacturing.
So we're doing it in Lindsay. We're fighting for our local manufacturers but, most importantly, we're backing our local manufacturers to make sure that we get all the opportunities that are coming with the Morrison government's focus on modern manufacturing and our six priority areas. When I go out and about and speak to our local manufacturers, they're telling me that never before have they felt as backed as they do now.
In my opening remarks, I just want to respond to a couple of things that members on the government side have said, particularly in relation to the minister. How defensive was the minister? In my opinion, she was a little bit rude towards our shadow minister: 'Come and meet for a briefing. I'll tell you what's going on. I will lecture the Labor Party about what we're doing.' The whole point of this MPI is the lack of action of the government. We don't need another lecture from the government about how important manufacturing is. We know how important manufacturing is, and we're frustrated that it is taking this government so long to actually deliver anything.
What the minister announced last year was a reannouncement of more announcements. It was: 'We're announcing a plan to get a plan. We're going to consult with industry again. We're going to consult with manufacturing again.' They've struggled to deliver the money or the support that manufacturers want. They raised expectations, including in many regional electorates, by talking about their billions of dollars, but, when local manufacturers in my electorate tried to find out what was actually available to them, they found out very little. They found out nothing. They heard, 'Oh, we're consulting with industry and we'll get back to you.'
I did ask for a meeting with the minister. I've asked on several occasions. To this date, I've still not met with the minister. Maybe she has a bit of a ranking of who's important and who's not important to meet with. But I'm sure that, if I did get that opportunity, I'd share with her the experiences and what the manufacturers in my part of the world want.
The government also seem convinced that the only important form of manufacturing—this is what they always talk about—is defence manufacturing. Now, defence manufacturing is important. We do manufacture quite a few products in the defence industry in my electorate. We manufacture the Hawkei and the Bushmaster, and we manufacture Defence uniforms. However, it's only a small percentage of our overall manufacturing industry in Australia, and manufacturers like our food manufacturers, our advanced metal manufacturers and our 3D manufacturers are continually frustrated that all this government seems to have is the defence manufacturing plan. There's no plan for food manufacturing; they just talk about getting a plan. There's no support for food manufacturers, who have helped deliver us through this economic crisis and the pandemic that we're going through.
What we should be proud of is the way in which our manufacturing in this country has survived against all odds. Our manufacturing in this country is patchwork, and the businesses and industries that we still have have survived against everything. They've survived against tough overseas economic climates and this government's failed free trade agreements, which have seen China impose new tariffs on our manufactured goods. They've survived skyrocketing energy prices; this government has done very little to deliver relief on energy prices. They've survived skills shortages and worker shortages. They've survived supply chain issues.
This is all an opportunity for us if we could just work with our manufacturing to deliver. There are thousands upon thousands of Australians employed in manufacturing, and the missed opportunity is that it could be so much more. This government is not interested in addressing the gaps that we have in our supply chain and ensuring that those products are manufactured here. One of the government speakers bragged about how great HomeBuilder was for manufacturing. Well, we have a steel shortage in this country. The problem with HomeBuilder is that a whole bunch of projects won't get started, because we have a pipeline supply issue, because we don't have enough steel being manufactured in this country to supply those builds. We don't make bricks in many places in this country anymore, yet there's no support to underpin that program. It's a patchwork problem that we have.
If this government were serious, they'd back Labor's plan about a future made in Australia and the policy that Labor released. We have a proud history of supporting manufacturing in this country, whether it be through our rail manufacturing, our food manufacturing or our advanced 3D manufacturing. This side of the House understands that it needs to be a tripartisan, three-way conversation. You need to involve the workers and their unions; you need to involve the manufacturers, the business owners and the heads of industry; and government needs to be there. We've seen it happen at a state level in Queensland, WA and Victoria. If only we could get the federal government to partner with industry and workers to deliver the same at a federal level!
Today I have the great delight of speaking on the Morrison government's ongoing commitment to the manufacturing industry in Australia. Our country has always been revered for our economic power. While our population is only 25 million strong, we still boast an impressive economy spanning many sectors. The Morrison government is committed to ensuring that our manufacturing sector holds its own as an industry in the modern Australian economy. The Morrison government's economic strategy includes a $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy that will drive Australian manufacturing far into the future.
When we talk about investing in manufacturing, we're talking about investing in jobs. We're talking about investing in Australia. In my electorate of Chisholm, manufacturing employs over 4,000 people across 439 businesses. The $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy will help those people and businesses. It will also create opportunity for many of my constituents in Chisholm if they want to hone their skills in this sector.
As a key feature of this government's JobMaker plan, the Modern Manufacturing Strategy will ensure that Australia's economy and people remain resilient in the face of global uncertainty. Unlike the Labor Party, when the Liberals spend taxpayers' money, we get it right. The Liberal Party understands that, to ensure success, you need to get the best bang for your buck. This is in our party's DNA, and it has been built into our Modern Manufacturing Strategy.
This strategy recognises that we must play to our strengths. It understands that we have to target sectors that allow us to achieve scale and generate future growth. This is why we have focused our efforts on the six new National Manufacturing Priorities. In case members on the other side still don't know, let me remind you what these priorities are: resources technology and critical mineral processing; food and beverages; medical products, recycling and clean energy; defence; and space. As I said earlier, Liberals understand how to spend taxpayers' money, which is why these priorities represent sectors where we have a comparative advantage, the capacity to harness emerging opportunities or a strategic interest. It's important to remember that modern manufacturing is more than just production on the factory floor. R&D, innovation, design and services are all part of what we produce. To grow and succeed we must compete on value, quality and products that are different or customised. We recognise that, while we are not able to compete with mass-producing nations on low-value production, we can improve our production in the future by adopting and developing new technologies. The Morrison government will always be a government that values and understands the need for science and technology and how it benefits our manufacturing sector.
Those sitting opposite me may criticise this government's plan, but it's the Morrison government that has been creating jobs, both for our COVID-19 recovery and for generations to come. It's this government that is driving our economic recovery and our future, it's this government that is making Australia more secure and it's this government that is giving the Australian manufacturing sector the tools and support to survive and thrive for decades to come.
COVID-19 has exposed many underlying issues in Australia. In one way or another, the pandemic has hit everyone. Each of us has had to face small inconveniences, at a minimum, or, at worst, tragedies. Though some of the problems faced by Australians during this pandemic were unavoidable, some would have been prevented if this government had been on their side and had done anything in the last seven years. Whether it's the disproportionate effect COVID-19 has had on multicultural and Indigenous Australians, the small and family businesses that have seen their businesses fold or the fact that Australia does not create medicines onshore, we have been exposed. Many sectors in Australia were either barely keeping their head above water or were being pulled under by the inaction of this government. Manufacturing in Australia is one such industry.
Seven years of damage by this government has left the manufacturing industry reeling. Over 90,000 jobs have been lost in Australia since the coalition has been in government, and there are 140,000 fewer people doing apprenticeships and traineeships than when the coalition took power. No doubt these numbers will grow, especially in my state, where they seem determined to sell all the TAFE campuses. The coalition effectively dared manufacturers out of the country, and they went, leaving Australians in a void. Labor went to the last election with an electric vehicle policy that would have reinvigorated the industry and pushed Australia into becoming the manufacturing powerhouse we can and should be, but the government slammed the idea. Now, three years later, it talks about hybrid cars and transitioning to EVs as if it were a world first. Wouldn't it have been great if Australia had manufactured the vehicles that the entire planet needs? The demand is here now and it continues to grow, as does the demand for good, secure jobs for Australian families, but again and again the government has left workers behind, especially those in the manufacturing industry. Labor's goal was to make Australia self-sufficient. However, those on the other side pursue what seems to be the opposite, outsourcing and offshoring deals that provide nothing for Australian workers or manufacturing. Workers, and the companies that employ them, are ready to wait for incentives from this government to kickstart our manufacturing revival, yet all this government seems to be interested in is rorts and looking after its mates.
The coalition is guilty of neglecting Australian manufacturing not only at a federal level but also at a state level. The Berejiklian government, in my home state of New South Wales, purchased its new inner-city train fleet from South Korea, its metros from India and its light-rail carriages from France and Spain. It bought buses from Germany and Malaysia, and the transport minister managed to purchase from Indonesia ferries that don't fit under the bridges on the river they're made to service. If you're on the top deck, you have to duck when you go under a bridge. The approach of the coalition at state and federal levels is to trash local manufacturing and to trash TAFE. TAFE courses have been cut, and now we have a skills shortage. Why does the coalition think Australians are not innovative or cannot manufacture world-leading goods here at home? Take it from the Premier of New South Wales, apparently the leader of our state. She herself has stated publicly that Australia, including New South Wales, is not good enough to build trains, but the Premier is wrong. There are manufacturing innovators in Australia. There are plenty in my part of the world in south-west Sydney. In my electorate of Werriwa manufacturing is in the top five industries of employment. Eleven per cent of the entire workforce is spread through the industrial precincts of Hoxton Park, Prestons and Ingleburn, and in the near future the Western Sydney airport.
State Asphalts NSW, whose head office is in Prestons, was recently successful in round 10 of the Cooperative Research Centres Projects, receiving almost $3 million in grant funds leading a process into recycling plastic and paperboard waste into value-added asphalt additives. Another business in the south-west, Tacca, pivoted from their packaging origins to make material for protective face masks and shields needed for the brave workers on the front line of the pandemic.
Where there are incentives, there's Australian ingenuity and jobs. Labor is on the side of manufacturing and the Australia that jobs create. Australians need a government that invests in them and one that believes in Australian ingenuity and manufacturing capacity. Australia needs a government on its side.
On 5 and 6 March in the town of Wagin there's a field day called the Wagin Woolorama. It's a livestock show, and the best livestock in Western Australia will be on display. As a regional member, I extend the invitation to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the member for Paterson as another regional member. Please come to the Woolorama and you'll see the best that Western Australia has to offer.
The important thing about the Wagin Woolorama is that it's also a trade show. You'd also get to see some of the outstanding manufactured products that are produced in my electorate of O'Connor for consumption within my electorate of O'Connor but also, in some instances, exported around the word.
I want to start at the small end: Bird's Silos in Popanyinning. Popanyinning is a small town 30 or 40 kilometres north of Narrogin, which is a regional centre. Popo's got a population of about 20. The engineering business Bird's of Popanyinning would employ at least 20, so there are people who travel from the surrounding districts. They produce grain-handling equipment and livestock feeding equipment. They've been doing that for many, many years and they do it very, very well. The thing I love about those sorts of businesses is the very flat management structure. The owners generally are working in the workshop, working on the floor, and they produce a fantastic product. That's a great example of one of those small-end manufacturing businesses in my seat of O'Connor.
Moving up to the mid-sized range business is Himac, based in Albany, my home town. It employs 60 or 70 people, and the interesting thing about this business is that it produces attachments for bobcats, diggers, sweepers—those sorts of pieces of equipment. They do it so well that they are now exporting that product to the eastern states. They've just set up a branch in Sydney, but they're taking advantage of the very cheap backload rates to send their product straight into the heart of the eastern states into Sydney and are selling products widely in that area.
Duraquip and Commander Ag-Quip are businesses that produce well-manufactured products that are specifically suited for agriculture and they're competing against cheap imported products from China. The only way they can do that is to make a good-quality product and back it up with good service, and they do that extremely well.
So, that's the Wagin Woolorama. As I say, on 5 and 6 March, I extend an invitation to all members to visit Wagin and see the best of what Western Australia has to offer.
Moving further north to Kalgoorlie, which is the heart and soul of the Western Australian mining industry, we have some fantastic innovative manufacturers. Newland Precision Engineering produce underground mining equipment, whether it be drills or other underground equipment, and they're exporting it to the rest of the world. It's a fantastic product—Australian ingenuity, quality manufacturing processes. It's competing on the world stage and competing effectively.
Hahn Electrical Contracting, another business set up in Kalgoorlie by Allan and Daphne Hahn, produces underground electrical equipment and installs it. This business has grown to a couple of hundred people who work there. The thing I love about Hahns is their attitude towards apprentices. Craig, the manager, is always keen to take on apprentices. They take on high-school students doing their work placement to try and encourage them into the industry, and that is fantastic. That is one of the major challenges our manufacturing businesses have across O'Connor, and I hear it everywhere I go—accessing skilled labour. Getting people to live and work in our regional towns is getting harder and harder, Deputy Speaker, as you would know, so attracting skilled tradespeople to these businesses is getting more and more challenging. In Kalgoorlie, the government has instituted a designated area migration agreement, where boilermakers and other high skilled businesses are on the list. But, with COVID, unfortunately, that hasn't been as effective as we would have liked, because we can't get anyone in.
Of course, the government is also looking to stimulate the apprenticeship sector, with 350,000 new apprenticeships. I sincerely hope that many of them end up in my electorate of O'Connor to support those fantastic small businesses and the people who work in them and drive the Australian economy.
The discussion has concluded.
Getting back to where we were earlier, under the cover of COVID this coalition government—that is, these Liberals and Nationals, aided and abetted by their friends One Nation—wants to cut your wages. That is as simple as it gets. That is what is happening here. Again, this government can't even sort out a reasonable award for its own staff. The members of parliament pay agreement is now a year overdue. That's right: this government that wants to overturn the IR system in this country wants to do over our own employees without whom this place wouldn't be able to run. The bill will cut bargaining rights and protections for workers whose pay and conditions are covered by agreements. So let's get it straight: this government can't even get the staffing agreements right here in Parliament House and yet it's saying: 'Nothing to see here; it will all be fine. Just trust us with your wages and conditions. Just trust us with the Fair Work Commission, the umpire. Everything's fine. There's nothing to see here. We don't want to cause any problems for you.' It is bunkum! It will undermine the critical function of the independent umpire, the Fair Work Commission, to ensure agreements are fair and leave workers better off. That is what we're talking about here. All this talk of a BOOT, it stands for the better off overall test. It means that, if people are earning wages in Australia, they shouldn't be cut. The bill retrospectively strips misclassified casuals of their right to leave entitlements as well. It is ridiculous that under this bill an employer can classify an employee as casual even if the job is not casual, stripping them of their entitlements, such as sick leave and maternity leave.
One of the most sinister intentions within this bill is to allow for unreasonable, flexible—and therein lies the difficulty—work directives. This bill would provide a two-year extension of JobKeeper-style flexible work directions. Remember, what I said about the cover of COVID, well, my goodness, this is right under the deep doona of corona. They want to continue to be able to give directives to people for duties and locations of work without JobKeeper payments and without the key protections that came with JobKeeper, which the parliament supported in 2020. They want you to still be able to do this work under these 'flexible' work directions. Be very wary of these flexible work directions. Unlike JobKeeper, the employer will not need to satisfy a turnover test; the employer simply needs to believe it's necessary to give a directive to assist in the revival of an enterprise. I think that that's called giving an inch and literally stretching it well and truly over the mile marker.
We on this side do understand that Australians deserve a government that's on their side, and we know businesses want a government that's on their side, but it needs to be fair. The workers of Australia deserve the backing of their government. It's core to the ideal of the Liberal government that a worker should be stripped of rights to stop employers issuing unreasonable directions. This bill works to strip the powers of the Fair Work Commission when it comes to arbitrating disputes, and therein lies the problem—again, ripping the whistle out of the umpire's mouth. Why is the government using its time in this place to declare war on workers, rather than putting its energy into issues that really affect them? For goodness sake! Why don't we see this government move legislation to stop wage theft or maybe pursue the multinational corporations that are offshoring profits for their fair share of tax? There are a couple of ideas for free, Treasurer! Get on with those things. These are the things that people in Australia really want to see you pursuing. They don't want you putting your hand in their pay packet; they can't afford it. Instead, this bill will work to override the strong wage theft laws of the Andrews government in Victoria and the Palaszczuk government in Queensland. The vested interests of this government clearly take issue with Labor states protecting workers against exploitation.
The government ended 2020 standing firm in its blatant denialism that this bill would hurt workers. Today, we again hear the Attorney-General flatly denying that it's going to harm workers when we know it will. It's not a trust issue. It's not: 'Just trust us.' We need only look into very recent history to Work Choices to know that trust is not there; they don't deserve our trust. Then suddenly, as if he has been scared into reality by whispers of backbench colleagues revolting, the Attorney-General removed the most extreme part of the bill. Good on him! It would seem that the good minister's vision has become clearer, thankfully. But, even with the removal of the better off overall test, this bill represents a fundamental attack on the rights of workers.
This is the Prime Minister's very own attempt at a Howard-style assault on workers. The bill will not generate jobs, it will not make them more secure and it will lead to more pay cuts. Business will already be on shaky ground if this government does not sort out tailored solutions for key industries before the end of JobKeeper. We will see insolvency rates absolutely skyrocket and continue to put more and more people out of work. This bill makes it easier for employers to casualise jobs that would have otherwise been permanent. It works to undermine the bargaining process at a time when better pay and conditions are more difficult than ever to negotiate. It weakens wage theft punishments in jurisdictions where wage theft was already deemed a criminal act. Overall, it wants to make our workforce less secure, and that is the take-home message. We need a good, secure workforce, people who feel secure in their job and who want to go and give of their best every day for a fair day's pay.
Together, Australians survived a pandemic, and our broad congratulations to the Australian people that that happened. The impact of that is still being felt. Why now, when people are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and livelihoods, does this government wants to undermine them? Is it because the Australian people are vulnerable? Is it because they're distracted? What happened to Team Australia? In its briefing note, prepared following the introduction of the legislation, the ACTU said:
The Bill fails the Government's own test: workers will be worse off.
… … …
The Government's changes will make jobs less secure; they will make it easier for employers to casualise permanent jobs and allow employers to pay workers less than the award safety net. This is the opposite of what the country needs.
As indicated in these comments from the ACTU, it is clear that the bill does not represent a consensus outcome from the working group process. Many people may not fully understand the consequences of the BOOT and how it would affect them directly. So I want to clarify: the Morrison government confirmed it wants to cut workers' take-home pay. This has been made clear by the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General, who acknowledged they are only ditching their plan to scrap the better off overall test because they cannot get it through the parliament, not because they think it's unfair. They know that MPs in some of the Liberals' most marginal seats are concerned and have called for a retreat for the sake of political expediency. It remains clear that the frontbench of this government wants to cut workers' take-home pay—and if they get another chance they'll try it again. In his statement, the Attorney-General said he still believes the change, which would remove the safety net for workers and give employers vastly expanded powers to cut pay and entitlements, is 'sensible and proportionate'. Those are the words of the Attorney-General. You can take that to the bank, can't you! This government thinks aspirational workers across Australia should be cut down, hardworking families pushed aside. A typical worker in my region is paying 40 per cent of their weekly wage on rent. Land is expensive, and working families across my area are working tirelessly just to try and stay ahead. It isn't fair.
Yesterday we saw a very cynical ploy from a cynical government. They removed a key element of their own legislation prior to this debate commencing. Having spent days, weeks and months saying there was 'nothing to see here' when it came to getting rid of the better off overall test—nothing to see; they wouldn't make changes at all—they came in here and said, 'Well, actually, we were trying to cut wages through getting rid of the better off overall test.' But it's not the only element of this bill that's about cutting wages and conditions, it's not the only element of this bill that's about fairness, it's not the only element of this bill that's about contradicting the process this government established of having employer organisations and unions sit down in good faith. And then, all of a sudden, the legislation that appeared didn't reflect those good-faith discussions.
The fact is that the only reason they backed off on the issue of the better off overall test was pressure from the Labor Party and the trade union movement. That is the only reason they backed off. It was not because they changed their mind on not wanting workers to be better off overall. Today in question time I gave the Prime Minister multiple opportunities to guarantee that no worker would be worse off. His industrial relations minister for the moment didn't worry about the facts; he was happy to give any guarantee, to say anything. But the Prime Minister was more cautious because, in his DNA, he knows that what the Liberal Party has always been about is changing the ratio of money in our economy that goes to wages and to profits—changing the balance from workers to capital. That's what they do. That's what the Liberal Party are all about. That's their core value.
This bill can't be disguised by the spin that the chief marketing officer who sits in the Lodge is the expert at. We know that there's a range of permanent changes in this bill that will have a negative impact on workers. It still allows for wage cuts and makes it easier for employers to casualise jobs that would have otherwise been permanent. It makes it almost impossible for casual workers to be made permanent if the circumstances would justify that, because you can't arbitrate on those decisions. The Fair Work Commission doesn't haven't the power; an individual worker has to lawyer up and go to the Federal Court in order to change those circumstances. It makes bargaining for better pay and conditions far more difficult. It takes rights off blue-collar workers on big projects. It weakens wage theft punishments in jurisdictions where wage theft was already deemed a criminal act—something that they don't talk about. Put it all together and what is clear is that this bill fails the most crucial test: whether it leaves workers better off or worse off. The fact is that this bill makes work less secure.
I made some initial statements last week in a speech in Queensland about the principles that Labor brings to these issues: more secure work, higher pay and fairer conditions—three key principles that we have. I outlined eight different initiatives that would go towards that end, none of which have been picked up by the government. Instead what we saw was a desperate government that went out there and made up a policy, then made up a costing for it, and then produced a critique of it before the speech was given! It's not bad to have a costing before a speech is given and before a policy is released, but they managed to do that. Who said productivity growth was dead in this country under this government, hey? That's productivity for you!
The truth is that it didn't represent Labor's view. I've always had a view, as has the labour movement, that there are common interests between employers and employees. Good employers have an interest in their employees being properly remunerated for their work and an interest in good relationships between the employer and management and the workforce, because that's how you get more out of them. That's how you boost productivity: by sitting down and having a proper enterprise bargaining system. And workers have an interest in the business that they work for being profitable and being successful. That's what the enterprise bargaining model essentially is about. That's what the best of Labor, when it comes to industrial relations, is about. I sometimes have drawn not-unanimous support from my own labour movement for expressing those commonsense views, but they're ones that I've held consistently. They're ones that I say consistently. I don't say one thing here and then do what this mob do, which is to go to the employers and say: 'Don't you worry about that. We're setting up this process of negotiation with the unions, but in the end, when it comes to the legislation, when it comes, you know which side we're on.'
For the workers of Australia, at the next election, I will have a very clear message: we are on your side. We're also on the side of good employers. We're on the side of productivity growth. We're on the side of wages growth. We're on the side of economic growth. We're on the side of job creation. Those opposite don't have a plan. They didn't have a plan before the pandemic, and they don't have one now. What they have is an ideological obsession with driving down wages and conditions.
The changes that are provided for in this legislation, when you examine the detail, are another example of a Prime Minister who is all smirk and mirrors when it comes to the detail. The arrogance we see from him—getting questions about whether he will guarantee that workers will not be worse off, and he just talks about Labor and provides the usual rhetoric. When you look at the detail of this legislation, the weaknesses are there.
Take enterprise bargaining. Under this legislation, employers don't have to tell workers they have started bargaining for a month. It's pretty hard to work out how you bargain without telling people. It's a bit like what the current Prime Minister said to the bloke he replaced. He didn't tell him there was bargaining going on during that week and that someone was going to lose their job. Remember that? He just got all his mates, who are now sitting in the cabinet like the Minister for Government Services and others, to vote against Malcolm Turnbull. He didn't tell him there was bargaining going on during that month, so perhaps he's adopted that principle for enterprise bargaining. Under the legislation, employers will not have to give employees a comprehensive explanation of the agreement they will be voting on. Employers will no longer have to explain an agreement to employees who are young or unrepresented by unions or those from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Unions will not be allowed to assist the Fair Work Commission in assessing non-union agreements. Think about that. The Fair Work Commission will be under extreme, severe time pressure to tick and flick these agreements. This morning the ACTU president, Michele O'Neil, called out the government on the bill's greenfield agreements provision, delivering this warning to the tradies of Australia: 'You will have fewer rights than any other worker in Australia.' We know the issues that are there with casual conversion are quite extraordinary and that casual workers will have to lawyer up.
The bottom line of the provisions in this bill is that it shows a government that wants to cut workers' pay, did cut penalty rates, wants to cut conditions, wants to cut super, is cutting JobKeeper and is cutting JobSeeker. There are cuts to JobKeeper, cuts to JobSeeker, cuts to super and cuts to wages. Do you sense a theme from this government when it comes to its approach to wages and conditions? Just as those opposite did under John Howard's Work Choices, so rightly rejected by the Australian people, they want to squeeze workers, because for them that's easier than promoting fairness. At the same time, there's nothing in this bill about the creeping expansion of insecure work.
I spoke about the launch that we did in Queensland, with eight principles, and I invite the minister opposite, or the assistant minister, to say what's wrong with any of this. The first principle is explicitly inserting job security as an object into the Fair Work Act. One would have thought: if you support job security, why wouldn't you think that the Fair Work Commission should give consideration to that? The next principle is rights for gig economy workers through the Fair Work Commission. Those opposite talk about costs. How about costing this: five lives lost in three months at the end of last year for people riding under conditions with no minimum wage rates, with no sick leave, with no proper conditions, trying to get from A to B to deliver food or other products? They're under these circumstances because there are no minimum wage rates being paid. Employers say: 'Well, you need to go from A to B, which is 20 kilometres. It might take you 40 minutes if you're really quick, but I'll tell you what: we'll pay you for 30.' It's piecework. They say, 'If you won't do it, I've got someone else who will do it in 25 minutes.' Does that sound familiar? It is like Work Choices: individual contracts, treating people without respect and without dignity. That's what we have with the growth in gig work, with no response from this government.
As to consulting, all we've said is that we're going to consult and talk to industry, unions and state and territory governments about entitlements for workers in insecure industries. We know that portable entitlements exist for some workers in a range of jurisdictions, including here in the ACT, in Queensland and in Victoria for sick leave. We know that one of the issues during the pandemic was that people were working in multiple jobs because they had to and they didn't have any sick leave. They were continuing to go to work, and infection was spreading. We know that this is an issue. What's wrong with properly defining 'casual work' in law? It's not a radical proposition. What's wrong with a crackdown on cowboy labour hire firms to guarantee the same pay for the same job? Two people working next to each other, doing the same job with the same conditions and the same roster, should be paid the same. What's wrong with a cap on back-to-back short-term contracts for the same role, for people who are put on contracts and told, 'Here's another three months,' ad infinitum? They're not being treated with respect. What's wrong with using the public sector to show what should happen with more secure public-sector jobs by ending inappropriate temporary contracts? As for some of the contracts going to their mates in the private sector, the work could have been done for far less if they'd actually employed public servants to do their job, using that principle for government contracts to companies and organisations offering services. All of those are sensible provisions. None of them are radical. They're about treating people with respect, giving people dignity and helping our economy by increasing the circulation of money through the economy to create jobs. We'll offer working people a better deal, because we are on their side.
Debate adjourned.
The Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020 establishes a mandatory code of conduct to help support the sustainability of the Australian news media sector by addressing bargaining power imbalances between digital platforms and Australian news businesses. The proposed code has been over three years in the making, spearheaded by the ACCC through its Digital Platforms Inquiry. It represents Australia's attempt to address the decline in public interest journalism by capturing news media revenue from dominant digital platforms, as other jurisdictions have attempted to do with varying degrees of success.
From the outset, Labor has indicated in-principle support for a workable code to address the bargaining imbalance between dominant digital platforms and the news media. When the government first announced it would move to legislate a mandatory code in April last year, Labor said, 'Australian media companies must get a decent return for their investment in public interest journalism from digital platforms such as Google and Facebook.' Indeed, before the government announced it would legislate a mandatory code, Labor called for it to be fast-tracked. In an opinion piece in TheNew Daily on 18 April 2020, I said:
The government must recalibrate and deliver its responses to the recommendations of the ACCC's Digital Platforms Inquiry in a timely manner in a world changed by COVID-19.
This means being ready to intervene with a mandatory code to support news media companies being paid for their content on digital platforms, in the event progress on a voluntary code is inadequate.
… … …
The media … will not sustain the inaction of this government much longer.
With the prospect of regional areas becoming news deserts, it's well past time this government just did its job.
I would like to turn to the issue of overall delay in this matter. Labor has long recognised the profound impact that digital platforms have had on the Australian media. For years Labor has been calling on the government to overhaul the outdated policy and regulatory framework to address digitisation and convergence. It is a matter of public record that it was Labor who first called for an inquiry to examine the contemporary media landscape. In 2016 I called for a thorough examination of the state of the Australian media landscape, noting there had not been a comprehensive inquiry into ownership, concentration and competition in the Australian media market since the late 1990s. I said that the government should ask an independent body, such as the ACCC or the Productivity Commission, to assess the state of play so parliamentary decisions could be evidence based. But the then minister for communications rejected this suggestion, saying, 'All the relevant facts are known.' Over one year later, in December 2017, the government finally did direct the ACCC to conduct an inquiry into the impact of digital platforms on the state of competition in the media and advertising markets, the Digital Platforms Inquiry. So, contrary to the then minister's assertion, clearly all the facts were not known. The ACCC was given 18 months to inquire and report, and its issues paper contained around 48 questions for consultation. Ultimately, the final report of the Digital Platforms Inquiry contains 23 recommendations and highlights a number of ongoing investigations by the ACCC.
Labor is pleased Australia now has the benefit of the ACCC Digital Platforms Inquiry. We acknowledge the power imbalance identified by the ACCC between news media companies and digital platforms. We support a workable code to address this imbalance. But we are frustrated by the government's lack of urgency in acting to address the challenges facing Australian media and public interest news gathering in particular.
Over three years ago, in 2017, I was in this place debating the government's changes to media law. At the time, the government heralded its changes as 'a new era for Australia's media', claiming:
The government is strengthening Australia's media industry, enhancing media diversity and securing local journalism jobs, particularly in regional areas.
Flash forward to today, however, and the reality reports a very different story. Around 200 newspapers have closed and hundreds of journalism jobs have been lost. There are around 21 local government areas without coverage from a single local newspaper, either print or online, including 16 in regional Australia. Media diversity in regional and remote areas is already at or below the minimum number of voices in 68 per cent of licence areas.
The government recently admitted signs of market failure in regional commercial television broadcasting. Regional media organisations launched a campaign, Save Our Voices, voices forgotten by years of government inaction and neglect. In fact, the government's media law changes failed to address the true reform agenda. It left media exposed to external shocks and repealed the two-out-of-three cross-media control rule, which permitted Australia's already highly concentrated media sector to become even more concentrated. At the time, Labor warned the changes were inadequate and urged the government to undertake genuine holistic reform. When the final report of the ACCC's Digital Platforms Inquiry was delivered to government in June 2019, it devoted an entire appendix to the many reviews of media industry laws and regulations that have been conducted.
Underlining Labor's repeated calls for the need for genuine reform, the ACCC's recommendation 6 is that a new platform-neutral regulatory framework be developed and implemented to ensure effective and consistent regulatory oversight of all entities involved in content production or delivery in Australia, including media businesses, publishers, broadcasters and digital platforms. While the government ultimately accepted this recommendation in its December 2019 response to the ACCC's final report, we are yet to see such a framework materialise. The years-long delay under this government simply drags on and on.
Unfortunately the process to implement a mandatory news media bargaining code is also running late. This government said it would get the code in place last year, in 2020, but it was late introducing the bill to the parliament and didn't introduce it until the final sitting week of parliament last year. As late as mid-February 2021, as late as yesterday, Labor was still waiting for the government to reveal potential government amendments to its own legislation. Even at this late stage there has been great uncertainty as to what the government's final code will be. Labor—and many others, no doubt—has been waiting to find out. Labor welcomes news that Australian publishers are signing on to Google News Showcase, but we query whether the process needed to be dragged out in this way.
It is now over 18 months since the ACCC found that the major digital platforms are unavoidable trading partners for Australian news businesses and, therefore, possess substantial bargaining power over these businesses. And it is over 18 months since the ACCC recommended that designated digital platforms provide codes of conduct governing relationships between digital platforms and media businesses to address the imbalance in the bargaining relationship. Yet we've only just had the government confirm the final shape of this bill that's before us.
Labor supports the bill as amended. We note, however, that there remains a great deal of uncertainty about the future designation of platforms and services, which remains a matter of ministerial discretion. We note that not all Australian news media businesses have struck commercial deals with the digital platforms and that the passage of this bill may impact their relative negotiation position with those platforms. It is not clear how the government will achieve the intention of levelling the bargaining position between the news media and digital platforms if the negotiate-arbitrate provisions of this bill do not apply. For this reason, Labor recommends that the government use precise language in public statements regarding what designations it intends to make under the code. This is in order to save any misunderstanding or unnecessary uncertainty for the media, the digital platforms, small businesses and citizens and consumers who may be impacted.
It was over a year ago, in December 2019, that the government tasked the ACCC with facilitating the development of a voluntary code of conduct to address bargaining power concerns between the digital platforms and media businesses. At that time, Labor warned that the government's record of going slow meant there could be little confidence that the regulatory asymmetry, uncertainty and delay would end any time soon. In April 2020, in response to COVID-19 pressures as well as ACCC advice that a voluntary agreement on the issue of remuneration was unlikely, the government directed the ACCC to develop a mandatory code of conduct. Labor welcomed this step. In July 2020 the ACCC released a draft code for consultation, stating the code would be finalised shortly after. Labor welcomed this process. But the fact is the code was not finalised shortly after. It wasn't until December 2020 that the government introduced legislation for a mandatory code into this parliament. The Senate referred the bill to the Senate Economics Committee for inquiry and report by 12 February 2021. Labor welcomed the introduction of the bill into parliament, particularly welcoming the inclusion of the public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, which Labor had called for, but criticised the delay and the government's failure to deliver last year for a media industry in crisis.
The Senate inquiry was an opportunity for public scrutiny of the bill. But it wasn't until after the conclusion of public hearings for the inquiry that there were further developments and negotiations between the government and Google. As late as 4 February, the government signalled that it may be contemplating key amendments to its bill. On 4 February, it was reported:
Google has not backed down on its threat to withdraw from Australia in a call between Scott Morrison and the tech giant's parent company chief Sundar Pichai on Thursday, but tensions appear to be easing.
The Prime Minister said … "I have been able to send them the best possible signals that should give them great encouragement to engage with the process and conclude the arrangements we'd like to see with the news media organisations," …
On 5 February 2021, it was reported of Google News Showcase:
… the Treasurer urged the search giant to launch the product and get deals with publishers done.
There was an understanding that the government may then consider amendments to the proposed mandatory bargaining code which the Silicon Valley-based company has requested, industry sources said.
Labor further notes that there were also developments and negotiations between Google and the news media which are ongoing. On 4 February 2021 Google announced that Google News Showcase had launched in Australia, and a number of Australian publishers, representing even more titles, have signed on to it. Labor is pleased that this list grows by the day. It demonstrates that commercial deals are capable of being executed in the absence of regulation, as has been demonstrated overseas in recent months as well as in Australia more recently.
It is widely accepted that the spectre of the proposed code has assisted in making the digital platforms more responsive to the needs of the Australian news media, and this is welcome. While it is the case that the process has resulted in commercial deals being struck, it is also the case that the delay to this process has stifled innovation and investment in Australia. I note that while the government has made quite a spectacle of not responding to so-called threats made by digital platforms, it would appear that the resolution of the issues required only a few technical amendments. There have been varying reports as to whether the government has caved or backed down or whether they are simply making some minor clarifications.
At all times, however, Labor has been outcomes focused. We know that this code is about ensuring the sustainability of public interest journalism in Australia and the importance of the fourth estate in light of the ongoing disruption to news media, which it has experienced for decades, to its traditional business models and also in response to the impact of the market power of the digital platforms. Ultimately, this is about the healthy functioning of our democracy. Given the potential impact of this legislation on news media businesses, digital platforms, small businesses, citizens and consumers, the government should've had its ducks in a row. The government should have circulated its amendments much earlier than it did to end the uncertainty and level the playing field between the news media and the digital platforms.
I want to highlight some of the stakeholder concerns with the bill. Labor supports the intention of the bill, which, as I said, is to address the dominance of digital platforms such as Google and Facebook for the benefit of the Australian news media. Labor notes, however, that the corollary of addressing the dominance of digital platforms may involve potential impacts beyond the news media, the outcomes of which are unknown. The government's indication by media release on 8 December 2020 that the code will initially apply to Google Search, combined with the minister's subsequent enthusiastic promotion of alternative search engines Microsoft's Bing and DuckDuckGo, has caused many Australians and small businesses to experience uncertainty and worry as well as to express concerns about the impact of the potential withdrawal of the Google search engine from Australia.
In addition to the submissions to the inquiry, this has been brought to the attention of Labor MPs and senators by many individual constituents and small businesses directly. A broad range of stakeholders, including peak business groups, acknowledge the potential disruption for millions of consumers and small businesses during the economic recovery in the event Google were to withdraw search and Facebook withdraw news from Australia in response to the passage of the bill. This is despite the availability of alternative search engines and social media platforms.
It is very concerning that a number of questions about designation under the code asked by the Senate scrutiny of bills committee have not been answered by the Treasurer and some remain outstanding. It is also concerning that Treasury and departmental officials were unable to provide satisfactory answers to key questions on the impact and risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis on the bill at the public hearing. For this reason, Labor submitted further questions on notice in writing and we remain concerned that no further analysis or information appears to have been forthcoming in the response. It would appear that the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the minister caused a great deal of uncertainty and anxiety for small business when all that was needed were some 'clarifications and technical amendments'.
Some of these concerns were held by smaller media players. Evidence to the inquiry indicates that, in the event that Google and Facebook withdraw services from Australia, the fact is revenue will not flow from these digital platforms to the news media in that scenario. Some mainstream media businesses may benefit from increased direct traffic to and/or advertising on their own news products and services, but small and independent media businesses risk losing search and social traffic referrals and, as a consequence, undermining media diversity.
Labor's of the view that a strong, high-quality and diverse news media sector is essential to a healthy democracy. Equally, we are of the view that a strong, high-quality and diverse tech sector is necessary for a healthy network society and digital economy. We are mindful of the fact that Australia has one of the most concentrated media markets in the world and that search engines and social media are instrumental in facilitating access for many Australians to a more diverse range of news media, both domestic and international. Australians deserve the best in terms of choice and quality, and we are concerned that any reduction in that choice or quality would be to the detriment of Australian citizens and consumers. We also recognise that Australian small businesses and consumers deserve choice and the best quality when it comes to digital services and products. They also deserve choice and quality when it comes to public interest journalism.
Labor notes there is broad in-principle support for a code and the regulation of digital platforms; however, as I have mentioned, many stakeholders have concerns with the bill as drafted. There is a divergence of views, including between established mainstream media and, as I mentioned, new and emerging media, in accordance with their respective reliance on search and social media for audiences and revenue. A range of stakeholders sought amendments to the bill, including peak media industry bodies. We note concerns around unintended consequences—such as those relating to the professional standards test, as well as the potential to incentivise clickbait—and regard these as matters of consideration up to, including and after the 12-month review of the code. The Bills Digest summarises these concerns, and I won't restate them all here. Suffice to say there will be plenty of issues to canvass in the 12-month review of the code.
On ABC Radio National this week, the Treasurer said that the deals being struck, even before the passage of the legislation, 'will transform the domestic media landscape' and are 'something that can ensure a sustainable media landscape'. There is no doubt that an additional revenue stream is a welcome thing, and we hope the deals under this code are transformative. What we want to avoid is the government dusting off its hands and saying, 'job done', as it did in 2017 when it proclaimed its changes to media law heralded a so-called new era for Australia's media.
We hope this measure makes a significant contribution to the news media. Labor is pleased at evidence that work on the code to date has improved the responsiveness of digital platforms to the news media, but we note it does not of itself ensure a sustainable media landscape. We are mindful of evidence that the code does not guarantee any particular outcomes for the media, journalists, citizens or consumers. At public hearings to the inquiry, media stakeholders were not yet clear on how much additional revenue derived as a result of an improved bargaining position under the code will actually be invested in additional journalists or journalism. This underscores the fact that the code is not a silver bullet and that this government must do more to support public interest journalism in Australia. In the time since the ACCC released the final report of the Digital Platforms Inquiry in July 2019, the government has failed to address a number of these recommendations, including genuine media reform, stable and adequate funding for public broadcasters, adequate direct funding, tax incentives and philanthropy measures. After such a significant investment of time and resources by government and industry, this government has proved incapable of implementing reform to address issues that, years ago, they said warranted reform.
Next month marks one year since COVID-19 related closures and suspensions of news titles began to be announced, compounding the closures that had already occurred over the decade prior as a result of many factors, including digital disruption. This code is only one of a suite of measures recommended by the ACCC to support public interest journalism. The evidence before the Senate inquiry into the bill was clear: this government has a lot more to do to support public interest journalism in Australia. This includes support to ensure the ongoing viability of the Australian Associated Press as the key wholesale provider of news in Australia and a critical pillar of media diversity. The code does nothing to help AAP Newswire, and any notion of trickle-down economics under the code is naive. Labor drew the plight of AAP to the government's attention in March 2020, including through Senate estimates, and called on the government to provide COVID-19 relief to the media in April 2020. The government's April 2020 announcement of the $50 million Public Interest News Gathering Fund was inadequate. It was a re-announced fund, mainly comprised of funds they had previously failed to get out the door, and an admission of failure. The government's September 2020 announcement of $5 million for AAP was late and inadequate. The benefits to democracy of an independent wholesale Newswire business are many, and we urge the government to make appropriate provision for AAP as a matter of priority.
Last year Labor also led calls decrying the exclusion of the public broadcasters, the ABC and SBS, as a missed opportunity, particularly for news in regional areas. Labor said that excluding the ABC and SBS was a missed opportunity to derive value for money from taxpayer investment in news media production. It was also a missed opportunity to address another finding of the ACCC in the Digital Platforms Inquiry:
… the public broadcasters are not currently resourced to fully compensate for the decline in local reporting previously produced by traditional commercial publishers.
It was counterintuitive to exclude the ABC and SBS from a framework designed to support public interest journalism, just as this government's deep ABC cuts ran counter to the ACCC's recommendation that the ABC have stable and adequate funding. We're pleased that this government has come to its senses on this point and at least not excluded the public broadcasters in this bill.
Meanwhile, it remains to be seen what impact this code will have to support small and independent publishers in outer metro and regional areas. Country Press Australia is a strong voice for its members and holds valid concerns that the deals now being struck under Google's News Showcase, for example, will benefit mainstream media players while smaller regional outlets are set to wait for the crumbs yet again. It is imperative that the government ensure direct taxpayer funded grants for public interest journalism be well targeted and supplied to public interest journalism outlets. They are the lifeblood of regional communities, yet they do not derive significant benefit under the code, whether via a standard offer or collective negotiation or arbitration.
In conclusion, Labor supports this bill amended by the government. We join with other stakeholders in commending the work of the ACCC and Rod Sims in progressing this work. We thank the ACCC's global counterparts for their input and collaboration. Labor acknowledges the many industry stakeholders that have participated in multiple meetings and consultations and made many submissions at considerable time and cost, and the public servants who have been working to settle the code. I acknowledge the Senate's scrutiny of this package in the public interest. Labor supports this bill and emphasises that support for public interest journalism is not a set-and-forget task. It is imperative that this government act on the balance of the recommendations of the final report of the Digital Platforms Inquiry as a matter of urgency. To that end, I move the second reading amendment circulated in my name:
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 notes:
(1) Australia has one of the most concentrated media markets in the world;
(2) since the Government's changes to media law in 2017 there have been alarming contractions and warning signs of market failure in Australia's media landscape;
(3) the bill was introduced 18 months after the ACCC delivered the Final Report of the Digital Platforms Inquiry in June 2019 and does not address all of the ACCC's recommendations to support public interest journalism;
(4) the Government must do more to support public interest journalism in Australia as a matter of urgency; and
(5) the Government should make appropriate provision to ensure the viability of AAP newswire as a matter of priority."
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the motion.
An informed public is a public that can participate meaningfully in democracy. Over recent years we have seen digital platforms such as Google and Facebook make a killing from advertising and news content. They have provided, however, a fantastic service to the public. At the same time, new media providers are struggling to find a workable business model for public interest journalism. We've seen many smaller, though equally important, media providers sadly leave the market. Something doesn't stack up. As a consequence, democracy is suffering.
It was no surprise when the ACCC released its finding that there is a significant imbalance of bargaining power between digital platforms and news media providers. Essentially, this means that news media providers are not being fairly remunerated for their content. The Morrison government, having worked closely with the ACCC and other stakeholders, is introducing this bill to establish a mandatory code of conduct to address this problem in a fair, flexible way. Make no mistake, this bill is being widely watched around the world.
In summary, this important bill will establish a mandatory code of conduct to ensure major digital platforms pay Australian media companies for use of news content. This is achieved through six principal elements which underpin the code. The first element is bargaining. Digital platforms and news media providers are bound to bargain in good faith.
The second element is compulsory arbitration. When parties cannot come to agreement about remuneration after three months of negotiations, the code sets up a mechanism for the dispute to be referred to an arbitration panel. They will consider the facts at hand and select between the two final offers made by the bargaining parties. In so doing, they must consider the reasonable costs of both the news media business and the digital platform. This reflects Google's request, following the ACCC draft version of the code, that it needed to take account of the value that both sides bring to the table—a necessary adjustment and amendment. Further, the code also clarifies that payments must be made in lump sum rather than digital platforms having to pay per click. This was an important feature of the code for digital platforms in this review process.
The third element is notice of algorithm changes. Digital platforms must notify news businesses of algorithm changes with respect to listing items on a search. However, as per Google and Facebook's request, there are important digital-platform-friendly limits on this requirement which ensure this requirement is streamlined and workable.
The fourth is nondifferentiation. This mandates that digital platforms must not differentiate between news media providers participating in the code and those that are not. This is an important protection for news media providers which safeguards their commercial autonomy.
The fifth element is contracting out. The bill allows digital platforms to reach a commercial bargain with news media providers outside the code about remuneration and other matters. In fact, it openly encourages parties to undertake commercial negotiations outside the code. In this way, the code does not represent a regulatory behemoth, as some may have argued, but merely a minimum standard which protects parties in instances where there is a substantial bargaining imbalance.
The sixth element is standard offers. In the interest of commerciality, digital platform corporations may make standard offers to news businesses to reduce the time and cost associated with negotiations. If parties agree to a standard offer and notify the ACCC, they do not need to comply with bargaining and compulsory arbitration as per the code. This may prove particularly beneficial for digital platforms when dealing with smaller news businesses.
As a further protection for digital platforms, the code clarifies that they will not have to share data with news media providers. After the ACCC released its initial draft version, Google expressed concerns that they would have to give data to news media providers about how customers use Google services. The government took these concerns on board, and this bill clarifies that digital platforms will not have to share actual data on news interactions.
The purpose of this bill is really quite simple. It's to address the power imbalances between digital platforms and news media providers and to support the sustainability of the Australian news media sector. The bill comes off the back of the ACCC Digital Platforms Inquiry's final report, which found that digital platforms possess substantial bargaining power over news providers. With consumers—including everyone in this place, I'm sure—increasingly obtaining their news online, news media providers have struggled to develop viable alternative business models. At the same time, digital platforms have made billions through advertising and piggybacking off the hardworking news media providers seeking to deliver public interest journalism. What's more, according to Professor Tama Leaver of Curtin University, digital platforms such as Google and Facebook do not just link news content; they reframe it. They find, sort, create and present news content in a way that adds value for their users. What is at stake, if this unbridled trend continues, is democracy. A free and independent media is crucial to the functioning of a strong democracy. This should always be remembered and prioritised, just as this bill seeks to do.
We are already witnessing the pre-eminence of this bill in action before it is even passed. Google and Seven struck a deal on Monday, while Google and Nine signed a letter of intent today. Today, the chief executive of youth publisher Junkee Media, Neil Ackland, announced that they have signed a deal with Google, noting that his team are extremely pleased with the outcome. There are also media reports that the ABC and The Guardian Australia could finalise deals with Google sometime in the near future, although nothing is yet concrete.
If this mandatory code is adopted, Australia has the chance to be a world leader in addressing the bargaining power imbalances between digital platforms and news media providers. In so doing, we will become a beacon for democracies elsewhere who truly value a free and independent media. Despite the suggestions from digital platforms to the contrary, this code addresses this serious problem in a fair, flexible and commercially minded way. At its core, it is simply asking digital platforms to pay news media providers for using their content. That hardly seems controversial. I commend this bill to the House.
I acknowledge the member for Higgins and before her the member for Greenway. I especially acknowledge all of the work that the member for Greenway has done on behalf of the Labor opposition not just over the last few days or the last few weeks but for the full 18 months or so that this saga has dragged on. I acknowledge the member for Greenway's experience and judgement, as well as the consultation and all of the work that she has put into landing a position for us to support the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020 which is before us in the House. I also acknowledge the members of the Labor Party on the Senate inquiry—Senator Gallacher and Senator McAllister—for the work that they did in examining the details in that short inquiry that the Senate undertook in order to hold up to the light what the government was proposing before this most recent set of amendments. I acknowledge them, too.
The ACCC and Rod Sims, in particular, made themselves available too so that we could educate ourselves and satisfy ourselves that some of the recommendations that the ACCC was making were consistent with what we saw as the relevant and appropriate objectives of the bill. I acknowledge as well, in the same way that the member for Greenway did, that there's been a lot of work from officials in the Treasury, the communications department, the ACCC and elsewhere, who would have also spent a lot of their time over the last 18 months working on this code and this legislation. And, finally, there are the stakeholders. The member for Greenway, in particular, but also I and my office have met with many, if not all, of the relevant stakeholders over the last little while, and we convey our thanks to the stakeholders for the way that they have engaged with the Labor opposition to help us come to a view. Our view is that we support the bill as amended by the government and before us today.
We have, since the very beginning, as you know, Deputy Speaker Georganas, offered our in-principle support for the objective that journalists should be paid for the content that they generate or create. That has been more or less our in-principle position for the duration of the long road that has led to this legislation. We've been quite responsible about it, and we've been constructive about it. Let's take, for example, what was a glaring omission in one of the original versions of what the government was proposing—that it wasn't proposing to pay the ABC or SBS for their content. That was a glaring omission, but the member for Greenway, the Leader of the Opposition and others fought very hard in the public discussion of these matters to ensure that the ABC and SBS were included. We were pleased when the government had a change of heart and included them. We didn't rub the government's nose in it that they'd got it wrong. They had got it wrong, and it's good to see those public broadcasters included. That, I think, is an illustration of the constructive role that we've played in the conversation about this bill. The code is an outcome from, really, a key recommendation of the ACCC, following their 18-months-long Digital Platforms Inquiry.
I think it also needs to be said that this was one of those instances where we had a yawning gap between what was being announced—what we were reading about the government on the front pages of our papers—and what was actually being delivered. I think it does need to be remembered that the Treasurer, in particular, was doing a lot of overpromising and underdelivering when it came to this legislation and this outcome. Many of us here have read, time and time again, the Treasurer say, over and over again, that this would all be done and dusted in 2020—that it would all be fixed, last year. Clearly, the fact that we are here in the middle of February and still debating this legislation shows, once again, what has been a serial problem with the government of those opposite, which is that there's a lot of announcement but not quite enough delivery. I think the delay in getting to this point is another illustration of that.
The issue around the delay is not just a point about the politics of this bill, but I know, from talking to stakeholders—and the member for Greenway knows, from speaking with stakeholders—that that delay created a heap of uncertainty in the business community and the wider community about where this was all headed. We all saw the various threats made and other things in more recent times. But the truth is: for some months now, the fact that this had not been landed didn't just create uncertainty for the big players here, though it did do that; it also created uncertainty for small business, who weren't quite sure what the landscape that they would be operating in was going to look like.
Also, of course, the delay has meant a delay in revenue to some of these media organisations. That's in addition to the concerns raised by small businesses, small media outlets, citizens and consumers about the impact of the bill. The Senate inquiry went to some of those, but there's been a public discussion of them as well. I think that one of the reasons why there's that 12 month review built into the legislation we're talking about today is that, in many cases, there are still questions to be answered about the operation of this—about what's happening here. There are still legitimate concerns that people have. There's a review there in 12 months, but I think it's also incumbent on the government not just to think that, when this bill goes through the House of Representatives—as it will this week, I'm assuming—that's the end of it. There are still concerns that need to be addressed. There are still questions that need to be answered. That will be a role for the review in 12 months time but before then as well, because we want people to have confidence in the operation of the code and the legislation that sits behind it as a backstop to all of these deals that are being struck between media organisations and the platforms.
More broadly, if we take a step back from the detail of this legislation, what we're really trying to do here is to make sure that Australians get the best kind of media that's possible. The media and the digital economy are obviously absolutely crucial components of a modern, functioning economy but also of a modern functioning society. We want to get it as right as we can, and we want that to mean a strong and diverse media sector. We want a really diverse, forward-looking and innovative digital technology sector. Clearly, those two things are linked in obvious ways in this area, but, more broadly, if you think about the future of this economy, and you think about digitisation and the digital economy, the news media and all of the ways that those have been changing at such a rapid rate, then we need to get this bang-on. We need to get this as right as we can.
Part of that is recognising that, even with the passage of this legislation, there is still a lot of work to be done when it comes to improving the media landscape. It's still not diverse enough; we've got issues there. We've still got issues around empowering and resourcing smaller outlets. We still have issues around the ABC and its funding. All of these sorts of things are not necessarily entirely fixed by what the government is proposing here with the code and the legislation. We do need to recognise that. That's one of the reasons why the second reading amendment moved by the member for Greenway and seconded by the member for Chifley is so important, because another thing which is not addressed here, but is a real issue in our media landscape, is the resourcing of the AAP Newswire, for example. So the amendment goes to some of those issues, and that's an example of the sort of thing that is unaddressed by what we're doing here. If we care about diversity and care about giving people access to quality, impartial journalism, we need to care about things like the AAP Newswire.
The decline of public interest journalism in recent years is of great concern to us on this side of the House and also, I believe, to the community more broadly. There are worrying stats about what is happening in our media environment, and that's why we want to be sure that, when the government passes this legislation and when the media organisations and the tech platforms are doing their deals, we recognise that there is more that needs to be done. There are still questions to be answered. But, in the interim, our vote in this place will give effect to the in-principle position we've had since the beginning, which is that journalists should be paid for their content. Ideally, there will be arrangements between the platforms and the media organisations, and there is a role for legislation sitting behind that, in the event that those deals prove unsatisfactory or unworkable.
I will just talk to the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020. This is obviously a bill that is dealing with an industry that is very dynamic, with a lot of issues to deal with and a lot of things to talk about and keep up with, in some cases. The world often moves a lot more quickly than we can keep up with in this place with legislation.
The bill is obviously establishing a mandatory code of conduct to address the bargaining power imbalances between digital platform services and Australian news businesses. However, it does not preclude parties from undertaking commercial negotiations or reaching deals outside the code. The bill establishes a framework to empower the minister to designate certain digital platforms and services with significant bargaining power and to empower the ACMA to register certain news media businesses with annual revenue of over $150,000 which have the primary purpose of creating and publishing core news and which operate predominantly in and for Australia.
It also brings the parties within a negotiate-arbitrate model that allows parties to bargain in good faith and reach binding agreements or access an independent arbiter to determine remuneration under final offer arbitration, should the parties be unable to reach agreement. It also enables digital platforms to publish standard offers which provide smaller news media businesses with a pathway to finalise agreements and set minimum standards for digital platforms, including requiring 14 days advance notice of algorithm changes that impact news media businesses. Digital platforms can be brought into the code if there is sufficient evidence to establish that they give rise to a bargaining power imbalance, and the code will be reviewed within one year of commencement of the bill.
As I said, there is certainly a lot to talk about in this industry. This is an important bill that we discuss here, and I commend the bill.
Labor has offered in-principle support for a workable code in this industry from the outset, and we're supporting this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020, as amended. Yet there remains a great deal of uncertainty about the future designation of platforms and services, which remains a matter of ministerial discretion. Not all Australian news media businesses have struck commercial deals with digital platforms, and the passage of the bill may impact on their relative negotiation position with digital platforms. It's not clear how the Morrison government will achieve the intention of levelling the bargaining position between news media and digital platforms if the negotiation or arbitration provisions of this bill do not apply. For this reason, Labor recommends that the government use precise language in public statements regarding what designations it intends to make under the code. This is in order to save any misunderstanding or unnecessary uncertainty for the media, digital platforms, small businesses, citizens and consumers who may be impacted. Labor welcomes progress to address the imbalance in bargaining power between the news media and digital platforms. We've always ensured that the focus remains on maintaining extensive public interest journalism in Australia.
There is broad in-principle support for a code and regulation of digital platforms. We note that stakeholders such as the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance have welcomed the reported deals between Google and Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media. But the MEAA says the parliament must proceed with the bargaining code legislation to ensure all regional operators, including AAP, regional and local organisations and others, regardless of their size, are compensated by digital platforms for the use of their content.
Prior to that latest development, many stakeholders had expressed serious and specific concerns with the bill, as drafted. Google and other platforms, such as Facebook, have said they're willing to pay for news content, but the question, of course, has always been about the mechanism. And it wasn't just Google and Facebook voicing their concerns. A range of other stakeholders had issues with this bill, including peak business bodies such as the Business Council of Australia, Ai Group, peak media bodies, Free TV, the Press Council and many others.
It has been Labor's clear view that it's the government's job to get this right—to make sure that there is a workable code—and to find a way to support Australian media without undermining Australia's digital economy and, importantly, without undermining many of the businesses that rely on the digital economy to trade and promote their businesses using platforms such as Google and Facebook. And it has been Labor's view that the government should give credible responses to the concerns and the issues that have been raised by stakeholders about that. We've extended constructive in-principle support while the government has been signalling and considering amendments to its own bill in consultation with the digital platforms and media. We've been of the view that it's for the government to ensure that a bill of such consequence, in a negotiation context, be ready to be debated in parliament. Labor has been waiting for the government to reveal its amendments to the legislation for weeks now. The Morrison government describes these amendments as 'a number of clarifications and technical amendments'. Since the bill was introduced, the government has made quite a spectacle of the so-called threats made by digital platforms. Yet, at the end of the day, it would appear that the resolution of the issues required just 'a number of technical amendments'. There have been varying reports as to whether the government have caved in or backed down or whether they are simply making some minor changes.
At all times Labor has been outcomes focused. The code is about ensuring the sustainability of public interest journalism and the importance of the fourth estate in shining a light on the ongoing disruption the news media has experienced, over decades, to its traditional business models and also in response to the impact of the market power of the digital platforms. Ultimately, this has to be about the healthy functioning of our democracy. Given the impact of this legislation on media businesses, digital platforms, small businesses and consumers, the government should have had its ducks all in a row. The government should have circulated its amendments much earlier than it did to end the uncertainty around levelling the playing field between news media and digital platforms.
Of course, the code is only one suite of measures recommended by the ACCC to support public interest journalism in Australia. In the time since the ACCC released the final report of the Digital Platforms Inquiry in July 2019, the Morrison government has failed to address a number of those important recommendations, including genuine media reform, stable and adequate funding of public broadcasters, adequate direct funding, tax incentives, and philanthropy measures. The government must do more to support public interest journalism in Australia, and that is why I think there is scepticism about whether this code will work.
Many are saying they don't believe that the code is going to result in more diversity in our media, in more journalists being employed or in a strengthening of our democracy through the notion of freedom of speech and through the media highlighting the importance of what goes on in government and the decisions that are made by government. It's important that the government understand that that scepticism is born out of the fact that this government's approach to regulation of the media in Australia has resulted in a contraction of the diversity that we've had in our media organisations. That is not good for Australian democracy. The changes that the Turnbull government made to cross-media ownership laws have resulted in a number of big media players buying up smaller players and reducing the diversity of voices that is crucially important to a healthy democracy and to the strength of media diversity. There is nothing in this code or in the government's response to the ACCC recommendations that provides any support for growing media diversity in Australia.
The second point I'd like to make is that many have used this code as a means of promoting the notion of public interest journalism and media businesses being able to afford to do their jobs and, ultimately, to hire more journalists to report on the news cycle and the happenings particularly of government at all levels in this country. It's my hope that that will be the outcome of this particular code—that it will result in more journalists being employed by media organisations—but I see no mechanism in this code for that to occur. I think there should be some mechanism to ensure transparency around the funds that go from these digital platforms in paying the bigger news outlets in Australia. There needs to be some reporting by those news outlets of what that money is being spent on and whether or not it's resulting in more journalists being employed in Australia, which is crucially important to diversity and to increasing the views and strengthening Australian democracy.
Another point I'd like to make in respect of the code, one that has been raised in the Senate inquiry on a number of occasions, is the notion of the risk to the Commonwealth from court proceedings, following the introduction of this legislation. Treasury has raised concerns that the legislation, as drafted, contains some critical weaknesses, enough to expose the Commonwealth to the risk of litigation and failure in what may be protracted legal proceedings. These concerns relate to the minister's ability to designate and to make a determination that there is a bargaining power imbalance between Australian news businesses and a group comprised of the corporation and all its related bodies corporate. In making that determination under this code, the minister must consider any reports or advice of the ACCC. In paragraph 2.10 of the explanatory memorandum to the bill, Treasury notes:
The Code has been constructed to minimise the potential for successful legal challenge under the Australian law. Nevertheless, it is possible that, for example, decisions by the Treasurer to designate digital platforms could be subject to legal challenge.
That's from the explanatory notes to the code, and it's a pretty damning indictment of the possibility that the Commonwealth is opening itself up to legal challenge through the minister's ability to designate those media organisations under the code. That remains a risk to the Commonwealth, and I don't think it has been adequately dealt with by this government.
So, whilst we welcome the passage of this bill, whilst we are certainly keen to see a rebalancing of the power between digital platforms and news outlets, we want to make sure that this code works and that it doesn't result in the Commonwealth being prosecuted because of those issues associated with the Treasurer being able to designate a particular body and a bargaining imbalance under the code. We want to see that there is a greater diversity in the Australian media and that more public interest journalism is promoted in this country. But there is scepticism, and rightfully so, about whether that will be the outcome from this particular bill.
That is why the shadow minister has moved that second reading amendment—to make sure that in the future the government keeps an eye on these things and we don't end up, as we have in the past under this Liberal government, with further concentration of our media, a lack of diversity and an undermining of the importance of the fourth estate and journalism critical to our democracy.
This is an important piece of legislation. Indeed, it is an historic piece of legislation and it's one that much of the world is watching quite closely. The issues that we're seeking to grapple with here in this parliament are issues that the whole world is grappling with, and these are really about the ubiquity, dominance and indispensability of big tech in our lives these days and how government must respond to regulate elements of big tech's behaviour to ensure that they continue to provide public benefit but also protect the public from harm. This is just one element of the public policy challenge we all face, but it's quite an important one.
The Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020 responds to the key findings of the Digital Platforms Inquiry. As members here would know, the main thrust of the conclusions of that inquiry was that a bargaining power imbalance exists between digital platforms and Australian news media businesses. That's a commonsense conclusion that I think any ordinary person in the street would quite readily recognise to be the case.
It's an interesting story, because these digital platforms have almost emerged from nowhere. Fifteen years ago, or less even, companies such as Facebook, Google and, indeed, Amazon were scrappy start-ups. They were the disrupters of traditional industries and businesses. But these days such companies, not only in size, market capitalisation and corporate power but in terms of their dominance in our lives, are the behemoths of today.
It wouldn't surprise you to know that, as a Liberal, I believe, generally speaking, in the principle of noninterference in functioning marketplaces and particularly that commercial organisations should be left to compete on fair terms and reach commercial deals at arm's length and without government interference. Provided they are not violating any laws or causing any harm to consumers, the private sector and the commercial world should, by and large, be left to their own devices. But there are certain situations well recognised in competition law where markets do not function perfectly, particularly because of a monopolistic market structure, an oligopolistic market structure, where there is an asymmetry of information, where the barriers to entry are high, where competition might be limited because of the dominance of a few key sectoral players. It's well recognised on both sides of politics that in that sort of case, in the case of a demonstrated market failure or suboptimal market functioning, there is a role for government intervention. I think that's very much the point we've reached today.
Digital platform entities such as Google, Facebook and Amazon are really the railroads and utilities of our day. What railroads and utilities were to the early 20th century, these platforms are to the early 21st century. They are the medium not only through which we communicate but through which we conduct commerce, consume entertainment and consume news and journalism. In many senses, they're an indispensable part of our everyday lives. That's particularly true in advanced economies, such as Australia, but I think it's also true in much of the Western world and, increasingly, in the developing world as well.
The traditional news media has come under a number of competitive pressures in recent years. News media traditionally relied upon classified advertising to form the backbone of its revenue and the backbone of its business model, and classified advertising really underwrote newsrooms, journalism, printing costs and everything else. In many instances, for print journalism, as much as 90 per cent of their revenue came from classifieds, and classified advertising has been disrupted. It's been disrupted in a number of ways. If you look for a job in Australia these days, you might go to Seek. If you're looking to buy a car, you might go to carsales. If you're looking to trade something second hand, you might go to Gumtree. All of these verticals have been taken from traditional print media. And they haven't necessarily all gone to Google or Facebook or Amazon, the big tech companies; they've gone to many other well-established and successful technology companies that have taken a chunk of this business and found a way to make money from it.
The news media here is not unique, in any respect. If you think of the music industry, this was disrupted from the late 1990s onwards first by Napster and then by entities like iTunes, where the consumption of songs was unbundled from albums and record producers so that people could purchase or listen to individual songs and it became disaggregated. So people now, by and large, listen to music on demand through platforms like Spotify and iTunes. Music has been through this sort of disruption.
At the moment, credit cards are going through a disruption with the buy-now pay-later industry. We see a generational divide here in Australia and elsewhere, where younger consumers tend to steer clear of traditional credit products, particularly for daily and discretionary consumption. They're increasingly using products like Afterpay and Zip, which are buy-now pay-later products. These are disrupting the credit card model, which has been a huge profit source for the big four banks in Australia over a number of years.
Today we've got broadcast and cable TV being disrupted by on-demand and streaming services, be it Netflix, be it Stan, be it Disney—any number of things. I have, at least, three or four going in my home, as I'm sure many of you do. There are any number of sectors being transformed by the digital disruption that these platforms allow to happen, and, in many respects, I think this disruption is a good thing. It's improving value for consumers. It's giving consumers greater choice. In many respects, it's allowing people who would otherwise not be able to reach a marketplace to find a marketplace for whatever it is they're producing. It's lowering barriers to entry to many businesses. We need to recognise, as in the history of much of our modern economy, that things change, and when things change it can be threatening and disruptive to people. But, generally speaking, over the course of our modern history, it's been for the betterment of consumers and citizens.
In this new world there is a place for quality print journalism and, increasingly, consumers are prepared to pay for quality print journalism. Generally speaking, that hasn't been the model throughout the world because classifieds and advertising revenue underwrote it and consumers didn't really need to pay much for the product. But we've seen around the world that traditional print businesses have been able to adapt and pivot and innovate and find a new way to monetise what they're producing. You see it with The New York Times, for instance, which has now built a very successful subscription model in which users pay for the content and quite happily do so. The New York Times continues to employ journalists and continues to produce good-quality journalism. The Financial Times and The Economist are the same. The challenge here is that you do need to change your business model and you do need to find a way to change consumers' behaviours and monetise the product that you're producing. But I do still believe, fundamentally, that there is a demand amongst the Australian public for quality print journalism.
Through all this legislation it's important to note that we are not seeking to protect print journalism from competition. I don't think that would be the right thing to do. We're not seeking to restrain innovation. Again, I don't think that would be the right thing to do. We're not seeking to prevent disruption, disruptive as it might be. As I said, overwhelmingly, that's been a force for good for consumers and for citizens. But what we are seeking to do with this legislation is level the playing field—I think that's the best way to describe it—for commercial deals to be reached between the digital tech platforms and news media organisations.
It's clear, and I think people know this, that there is a two-way value exchange that goes between digital platforms and the news media. Digital platforms get value from being able to host news media content, so if people want to find some news they'll use the digital platform to search for whatever it might be. It might be traffic congestion on a road near their home. It might be a local development. It might be opening hours or a new restaurant that's opened. Often the digital platforms gain value from their ubiquity that this allows them to provide that they become a one-stop shop, if you like, for people searching for information. But the news organisations also extract value from this, because it's a lead generation service—and businesses find this as well. People who might find an article, for instance, in TheSydney Morning Herald through Google will click through to that link. The Sydney Morning Herald has their eyeballs, so to speak, and is able to show them advertising. It's able to put the article behind a paywall, if it wants to. It's able to encourage consumers to subscribe to the SMH and any number of things, so there is a benefit that the digital platforms give to the news media. I think the experience so far of the imbalance of bargaining power that exists between news media outlets, particularly the smaller ones in Australia—small by global standards—and the digital platforms means that this value is not being realised, that people are not able to reach commercial deals to allow them to extract or exploit this inherent value.
I don't think this is an easy area of public policy, but I believe in this instance we've struck the right balance. What we're seeking to do through this legislation is to establish a code of conduct for news media businesses and for digital platforms. What the legislation will allow is for the Treasurer to determine that a digital platform is subject to the code, which means it will be bound by the code, on advice from the ACCC and Treasury that a significant bargaining power imbalance exists. The Australian Communications and Media Authority, or ACMA, will be able to assess the eligibility of Australian news media businesses to participate in this code, and then the legislation puts in place a framework that encourages commercial agreements to be reached between these entities—between the digital platforms and the news media businesses. Not only does the framework allow commercial agreements to be reached between these entities outside the legislation; it in fact encourages entities to do so because of some of the consequences if an agreement is not reached. If an agreement is reached on commercial terms by these organisations and consenting parties and not corrupted by a bargaining power imbalance, those agreements can stand. I've been encouraged in recent days to see that, according to media reports, deals have been reached between Google and Seven West and I believe with Nine and Fairfax as well, which is exactly what we'd like to see happen—commercial deals reached between entities on the basis of fair market principles.
The legislation also puts in place a series of safeguards that if no agreement is reached—and it's our view that if no agreement can be reached it's probably due to the imbalance of bargaining power between the sides—then a party can seek to trigger the code and that will trigger a number of things. It will trigger minimum standard obligations about how a digital platform must treat the news media business. It triggers a requirement for the parties to engage in good faith bargaining to reach an agreement and it also contains a provision for final offer arbitration, which would allow an independent party to force the parties to accept certain terms on the basis of final offer arbitration or baseball arbitration.
It will be the ACCC, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, that will be responsible for enforcing the code, and the operation will be reviewed by Treasury after one year. Recent changes announced just yesterday by the Treasurer and the minister for communications go some way to alleviating some of the concerns that digital platforms have about their own business model, particularly a lessened requirement for advance notice of algorithm changes which I accept is a legitimate interest they have.
As I said, I think this is quite a difficult area of public policy, or certainly not an easy area of public policy. Jurisdictions around the world are grappling with these questions about digital platforms, which, in many respects, have transformed people's lives for the better by allowing them to be better connected; by allowing them to share information more readily; by allowing them to access markets, if they're producers, more readily; and by allowing them to know what's going on around the world more readily. How do we ensure that those sorts of benefits are maintained but that some of the harm that we've seen that's come from the ubiquity and dominance of these platforms is mitigated or constrained?
This is one element, of course: the commercial harm that's being caused to a particular sector of the economy—but one that has an outsized importance in our democracy because, as the previous speaker, the member for Kingsford Smith, said, the fourth estate has a critical role in holding power to account and scrutinising the actions of the executive and the legislature too, which improves the quality of our decision-making and our democracy. But another element is making sure that platforms are not doing things like hosting content that causes deeply divisive social harm, be it incitement, be it violent or abhorrent material, or be it propagating falsehoods and misinformation or being used as a vector for foreign interference by big state actors.
With all that in mind, I commend this legislation to the House.
It is with some anticipation that I have been waiting to speak on this bill, the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020. Indeed, it is with some anticipation that I have been waiting to see the government's amendments to this bill, which have been hotly sought by stakeholders throughout both the media and the technology sectors.
The bill before the House today establishes a mandatory code of conduct to address bargaining power imbalances between digital platform services and Australian news businesses. It's a significant bill that grapples with big issues. It's a high-stakes bill.
A strong, high-quality and diverse news media sector is essential to a healthy democracy in Australia, and we are all familiar with the challenges that, with the rise of the internet, have arisen for existing media entities and organisations. We've seen a disintermediation caused by the emergence of the internet in print journalism and broadcast journalism. What this has done is it has unbundled the journalistic model that we've relied on for our democracy, really since the mid-19th century. An independent mass media in Western democracies has only been possible because it has been supported by classified advertising and broadsheet advertising in these media outlets. That has been the model. Before that, there was a mass media—in the United Kingdom, interestingly enough—but it was a partisan mass media. It was a mass media that was directly funded by partisan interests: by capital interests on one side and largely by the trade union movement on the other side. That was the dominant model through the 19th century, until we got to this emergence of advertising-funded media. It was the advertising that gave the editorial independence that created the media that we rely on as a trusted part of our democracy.
Now, I am a geek. I love my technology. There's not a new gadget that comes on the market that I'm not at the front of the queue to purchase. But unfortunately what has happened when the internet has hit the media sector is that it has unbundled those revenue sources from the journalism. In the past, when you were trying to buy a second-hand car, you might pick up the classifieds of The Age; now you go to carsales.com. If you're looking for a new property, you don't so much go to the broadsheet advertising or the property insert of the newspaper; you might go to realestate.com.
So there are these disintermediated, unbundled services that have been providing advertising in the past. Increasingly, you see social media platforms providing these advertising services as well—direct advertising through Google Search, for example, or on Facebook. It has totally disrupted the business model that the media we rely on in our democracy has used to produce the independent media that we need. This bill attempts to redress that. Some of the solutions that it proposes, I concede, are not elegant; they're heavily contested, but the upshot is that this code is intended to direct revenue from these new media platforms to the independent journalism, the public interest journalism, that we rely on in a democratic country.
I've seen some people in the technology sector object to this. There's a bit of a trope going around that this bill reflects something along the lines of horse carriage manufacturers seeking to tax automobile manufacturers in order to protect their business. I just really want to emphasise, as one geek to another, that that's not what this bill is about. This is not about one product of the past trying to hold back the onset of a new product replacing it. Unfortunately, while the internet and while these social media platforms have obliterated the historic business models of an independent media, they haven't replaced the public interest journalism that we desperately need in our democracy, and it is entirely appropriate for government to intervene in order to ensure that public interest journalism, independent editorial journalism, remains. Similarly, it is entirely appropriate that government intervenes when we have services that have emerged that have a dominant market power. I used to be a trade practice lawyer; I used to be a competition lawyer. It's entirely normal for government to intervene in these situations.
This bill, similarly, raised a very significant point that we've seen in the discussion leading up to this bill about democratic sovereignty. As the member for Wentworth was discussing earlier in his contribution, these social media platforms—Facebook, Google—are so dominant that they are reshaping our society, not just business models, not just the way things are bought and sold in our world but really the way we engage with each other. They're reshaping our society, and it's crucial, given the influence of these platforms, that the rules on these platforms are set by democratic governments, not by unaccountable corporations, which, sadly, from our position in Australia, are generally based in other jurisdictions. We've seen the kinds of harms that these platforms enabled. I want to emphasise that these are not neutral platforms; these are not platforms that simply exist to convey information neutrally. These platforms exist to make money for their founders. Good luck to them, but democratic countries, democratic societies, are going to have a say in that process. If the algorithms on these platforms are destructive to democracy, governments are going to have a say. If they facilitate foreign interference, governments are going to have a say. If they facilitate violent extremism and hate speech, governments are going to have a say. And, if they destabilise an incredibly important institution of our democracy and independent media, governments are going to have a say.
We've seen some standoffs between social media platforms and the government during the process of this debate, and I don't want to go into the details of the differences there, but I do want to say that, as a fundamental principle, the Australian democratically elected governments will govern and make rules for the way social media platforms operate in Australia regardless of where they are based. Social media platforms are not bigger than democratic governments. That is an important principle for all of us. This being said, I certainly have no desire for these standoffs to reach the point where we have technology platforms exiting Australia. That is not a good outcome—it's not a good outcome for the Australian technology sector and it's not a good outcome for Australians that use and enjoy these services. So, my view, Labor's view, throughout this process is that it's on the government to strike a balance between these interests and to deliver a workable code, a code that ensures revenue recompense is provided by social media platforms to news media in exchange for the value that they provide, while also ensuring the continued operation of those platforms in Australia.
That's why Labor has always been clear to say that we would support a workable code. Indeed, we've recognised the need for government to intervene to address a bargaining power imbalance between news media businesses and the platforms for, frankly, longer than the government has. We called for the ACCC review and the reform to the media landscape that led to this code well before they were initiated by the government and established. We've offered our in-principle support to the government throughout this process.
The code before the House now is a key recommendation of the ACCC, following the 18-month-long Digital Platforms Inquiry. Labor has offered not just in-principle support but constructive support for a workable code since the government announced its intention to introduce a mandatory code in April 2020. Let's be frank here: I think the government overestimated its abilities somewhat and underestimated the complexity of balancing the various equities being dealt with in this bill. The government said that it would have the mandatory code implemented shortly after the draft code was released in July 2020. Well, it's only now before the parliament for debate, eight months later.
Labor is disappointed with this delay, and with the uncertainty that has accompanied it—for media operators, for the social media platforms and for all Australians who rely on those services. This delay, not to put too fine a point on it, has delayed the delivery of much-needed revenue to public interest journalism in Australia, and that's not good for anyone. That's not a welcome outcome for anyone.
Labor broadly supports the provisions of this bill, although we will have some questions in the consideration-in-detail process. We want to get some answers. I just want to make one point here. The bill establishes a framework, the mandatory code, that empowers a minister to designate certain digital platforms or services, the ones with significant bargaining power, and empower regulators to register certain news media businesses in order to bring those parties within a negotiate-arbitrate model. This model allows the parties to bargain in good faith, reach binding agreements or, if this fails, access an independent arbitrator to determine remuneration under final-offer arbitration should the parties be unable to reach an agreement. Tragically, for my sins, I was a telecommunications lawyer in a previous life and I have very significant experience with access-arbitrate models and access regulation. It's not fun and it's not efficient. It is notable that this bill enables parties to reach commercial deals outside the code and that these will be respected by the code. The shadow of the code encourages parties to do that to avoid the pain and suffering of that negotiate-arbitrate model, which, frankly, I don't think any party enjoys being a part of.
It's been encouraging this week to see deals start to be struck between Google and its Showcase product and Seven and Nine. This is a good thing. This is the intended operation of the code. When Labor said that we would support a workable code, these are the kinds of outcomes that we wanted to see—parties getting together and agreeing commercial agreements. The terms of these agreements aren't public, but no doubt the things that they emphasise will differ from party to party. They'll put a different weighting on different benefits and certain non-price terms, and that's the way we want things to work.
We have seen these agreements between the commercial broadcasters and Google. Hopefully we'll start seeing some deals with Facebook as well. But I am particularly waiting to see deals with the ABC. Through this process, Labor has made it clear that if the objective of this code is to support public interest journalism and the crucial role that it plays in our society then this should be something that the ABC is a part of as well. As these arrangements are being negotiated, I do want to see the ABC getting value—and when we say the ABC, that is the taxpayer—for the public interest journalism that it distributes on these platforms. I'm sure that it's coming, that it's in the mail, that they are negotiating, but Labor put down markers very early on in the process. I recognise that the government has agreed with those suggestions and incorporated the potential for the public broadcaster's involvement—and not just the ABC but SBS as well. I am looking forward to those commercial negotiations being made because frankly that's what this bill is about; it's about the future of our democracy, and it's something that I'm really concerned about at the moment.
Australia's information system, the system that we use to distribute information that informs our democracy, is really sick at the moment. Every MP in this chamber will have the personal experience of engaging on social media platforms as a public figure. It is not Habermas's public sphere. It is not an Austrian coffee shop where people are debating matters of high principle. It's not serving our democracy well, the status quo, and any solution for improving the quality of our information system relies on a healthy independent media; they're foundational. They drive us mad in this chamber, and I could spend the whole of my speech at this dispatch box picking nits and criticising journalists for the way they do their job, but jeez we need them not just as politicians but as citizens. Recent events in the United States have reminded all of us that we need to treat our democracy better because there are always consequences when we neglect it and when we undermine it. Eventually a bill comes due. Bills like this make a positive contribution, and I welcome it.
I'm pleased to rise this evening to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020. This is a most interesting piece of legislation which reflects the change in the media environment that we are facing. Fundamentally, the argument that some of these large social media companies should pay other media organisations for content has to be based on standard intellectual property law and it simply has to be based on a copyright provision. I know that many times when things have been posted, whether it's a cartoon or a picture or a news article, I've thought that there is, in some way, an infringement of that creator's copyright by that being posted upon one of these digital platforms. The principle that we have for this legislation is sound. It is based upon the recognition that an original creator of content should be compensated for their work and have their work, that would otherwise be protected by copyright legislation, protected.
However, having said that, one of the great issues that we have goes to freedom of speech when it comes to these large social media companies, and about what they should allow on their platform and where they should draw the line about what should be blocked. This is where I have some significant concerns—
An opposition member interjecting—
I take the interjection from the helpful member across the chamber. It is correct, that as I stand here, I am—I think—the first person in this federal parliament that has actually been banned from posting things to Facebook. Some people may disagree with what I've been posting; I'm sure some people do. The fact is, we would hope that those on the other side of the chamber may agree with the concept that I may disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to my death your right to say it. It is the importance of freedom of speech that we should protect here and not be so flippant about it. It was one of Australia's greatest ever Prime Ministers, Sir Robert Menzies, who said:
… today's truth is frequently tomorrow's error. There is nothing absolute about the truth … if truth is to emerge and in the long run be triumphant, the process of free debate—the untrammelled clash of opinion—must go on.
In terms of these social media platforms, I've heard it said that anything posted contrary to World Health Organization advice should be taken down. But the problem with that is that we've had advice from the World Health Organization during this pandemic that has changed 180 degrees. Originally, we had the World Health Organization saying that masks were not necessary. That was the original advice. If someone had posted that the World Health Organization is incorrect and you can protect yourself from coronavirus by wearing a mask, at the start of the pandemic, that would have been ruled by these social media giants as misinformation and taken down. Yet now it's commonly accepted wisdom. Similarly, when we in Australia first decided that we would ban flights from China, the World Health Organization at that stage said there was no need to ban flights from China, from Wuhan Province. They said that was not needed. If someone had gone to a social media platform to argue the case that, because of the scale of the infections in China, especially in Wuhan Province, we should stop flights, that would have been contrary to World Health Organization advice. It would have been taken down, and that debate wouldn't have gone on. Now we see, to use Menzies's words, that what was today's truth was tomorrow's error. The truth that the World Health Organization once said we know now was error. That's why we are on a very slippery slope when we have people from these social media giants being the arbiters of truth and of what can and cannot be posted.
In my case, I have been banned because of four posts out of over 1,000 posts I posted in recent months. One of those posts was nothing more than an article that I had copied and pasted from The Spectator magazine—a credible magazine that is available online and is available in every newsagent in this country, that you can go and buy—written by a highly credentialed and credible journalist about Australia's Professor Tom Borody. In that speech, Professor Borody recommended ivermectin as a treatment for COVID. Facebook have ruled that as dangerous misinformation and had to remove that post and give it as the reason I should be banned. Yet what Professor Borody wrote is accepted by health authorities in many countries around the world. If I were in India in the state of West Bengal, in their official recommendations about how they should treat COVID is what Professor Borody recommends, yet here we have Facebook deciding that this was dangerous misinformation. What is dangerous about this is someone from one of these social media giants deciding that that issue should not be debated or should not be publicly discussed. If Professor Borody is wrong, the way to do that is not to censor him and to cancel his views, but to do it with an opposing point of view. Argue the facts. That is the way we get the best result in a society.
The second post that they decided must be 'taken down' was again a direct quote from a professor of immunology out of Ireland, Professor Dolores Cahill, talking about vitamin D, hydroxychloroquine and zinc. Recent studies show that Professor Cahill is most likely 100 per cent correct. So, again, the real danger is not the views themselves but the censoring of these views. The third one was again a direct cut and paste from a Dr Hodkinson in Canada. Yes, he did express views that were contrary to the current accepted wisdom of the World Health Organization, but who is to say that he is wrong and the World Health Organization is right when we have seen example after example of the World Health Organization changing their position 180 degrees.
The fourth example is that I put on my Facebook page a German study on mask wearing by children. That study found—beyond all reasonable doubt—that forcing young children to wear masks caused them significant psychological and physical harm. Causing children psychological and physical harm is, in itself, a definition of child abuse. The World Health Organization themselves say that when you make a recommendation or a government makes a decision on whether masks should be compulsory for children between six and 12 years of age, you have to consider those sociological and psychological facts. That is exactly what this study does.
I don't know if the conclusions of that study are 100 per cent right, but we must be free to debate these issues. If we're not, this is a very dark day for freedom of speech. I may be banned today—and it may be my colleagues next week or next month or next year or next decade who are banned because they may have a point of view that is contrary, at that time, to accepted common wisdom—but we have to remember that every single bit of progress we have made in our society, over the last several hundred ideas, has come about because someone has said the accepted wisdom of doing something is wrong and there's a better way of doing it.
That is why we must protect freedom of speech. We know from our history how important it is. I would hope that as we develop the legislation—and there'll be more legislation required to govern the impact of these large social media organisations that are developing almost a monopoly position in the marketplace—we do so in a way that, if they are going to have that position in our society, guarantees and protects freedom of speech. We must protect the clash of ideas. We must protect open and free debate, because, at the moment, the social media companies are failing to do so. And that may well require further government intervention down the track. I thank the House.
If we need an example of why public interest journalism in this country is so important, that contribution from the member of Hughes illustrates the point. The member for Hughes thinks his Facebook posts are equal to journalism. They're not. The fact is, he is selective. He is selective in what he chooses to post, and Facebook and the other social media giants are not journalism. This is why it is so important that we protect and nurture public interest journalism. Journalism is curated information. It's written by experts who know how to gather and put together facts, and do research and present that to the public. That is what is so important.
That goes to the shadow minister's amendments as part of this bill. Labor is supporting this bill. We do have some questions about it. The key reason we're supporting this bill is the incredible contribution that journalism makes to this country. As we've seen with the internet, over the past 30 years it has absolutely demolished the business case for journalism in this country. What we've seen is that the old advertising models have been smashed. Journalism previously survived and thrived, in fact, from private media organisations selling advertisements to companies that then paid the wages of journalists. The journalists provided the service of news which readers wanted to access, and advertisers bought the eyeballs of all the readers who wanted to read that news. The internet's come along and now advertisers don't need news media; they go on seek.com to look for jobs or realestate.com to look for real estate. Those so-called rivers of gold, the classifieds, in the newspapers have just dried up.
The model for funding journalism in Australia has pretty much been demolished. The internet giants have benefited and they continue to benefit. A lot of the searches people make are looking for information. That information is still provided by the traditional news media organisations, but they are getting less and less revenue and less and less profit, while the profits of the internet giants have increased. That's the reason we have this bill before us, which is essentially to give journalists and media companies their fair share.
It's not without limitations. We've made the point, for example, about AAP. There's not quite enough being done there. The government has a lot more to do to support public interest journalism in Australia. This includes support to ensure the ongoing viability of the Australian Associated Press, which of course is the key wholesale provider of news in Australia and has been a critical pillar of media diversity—and I'll get to media diversity a bit later.
Labor emphasises the evidence that the code does nothing to help AAP Newswire and that any notion of trickle-down economics under the code is naive. Labor drew the plight of AAP to the government's attention in March last year, including through Senate estimates. We called on the government to provide COVID relief funding in April last year. In September last year, the announcement of $5 million for AAP was late and inadequate. The benefits to democracy of an independent wholesale newswire business are many. What AAP does is: journalists go around, they get the news and that journalism is then bought by various news companies to go into their papers. It's an effective and efficient way to get news out. We think AAP needs much more support. It used to be funded by the news media companies themselves. That hopefully will continue, but I would make the argument—and I must stress I'm speaking for myself—that AAP needs some pretty direct support.
Data collected by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission shows that, between 2008 and 2018, 106 local and regional newspaper title around Australia closed. That represents a net 15 per cent decrease in the number of these publications. It's left 21 local government areas previously covered by these titles with no coverage at all from any single local newspaper in either print or online formats. So people in those communities, hungry for news, hungry for local news, have no option but to go to social media where perhaps little local sites spring up or, heaven forbid, they might come across the member for Hughes's site and think that's news. That's dangerous for democracy in this country.
The number of contractions in Australia's public interest news landscape has now grown to more than 200. The business case for print journalism has been absolutely smashed. Despite having decades of TV journalism in Australia—and I should declare an interest here: I'm a former print journalist—it is still print journalism that drives the news agenda. It's the print journos who go out there, get the scoops, get the news and come out with the morning paper. The TV news directors for the 6 pm bulletin that evening generally still look at what the major dailies have on the front page, and that will generally lead the news agenda for their evening news. So print journalism, despite the incredible pressures on it, still leads the news agenda in this country.
When we see so many titles closing around the country and some communities having no coverage at all, that's quite dangerous, particularly for democracy, in those local communities. If a local community has no local newspaper, neither online nor in print, that means the local council news is not getting covered. I see my good friend the member for Fremantle sitting over there, the former deputy mayor of the fine Fremantle City Council. If the Fremantle Herald, a fine independent local newspaper, didn't exist, who knows what the Fremantle council would get up to without the oversight of newspapers like the Fremantle Herald?
Local newspapers are incredibly important to democracy and local communities. They cover local sports. They talk about local heroes. When that doesn't happen, councils can get away with things and local people don't learn what's going on in their communities. That leads to a deterioration in local quality of life. I'm hopeful that this code will ameliorate some of that. I am hopeful that the requirement of arbitration for companies generating revenues of more than $150,000 will be useful for local papers, in particular, and, of course, smaller stations. The jury is out on that, but I am hopeful.
One thing that does concern me already, in speaking to local publishers, is how they're fairly unaware of the detail of this. I know we've been waiting for some time to see the detail come before the House, but local publishers don't really know what's available to them under this, so I would exhort the government to—after this passes the parliament, and I'm confident that it will with our support in the Senate—go on an information drive. They can really let the smaller publishers and stations in particular—we know the big guys are looking after themselves and striking the deals—out there in country and regional Australia know more about the detail of the code. They need to know what it means for them and how they can derive revenue from it. I would certainly suggest the government get that information campaign out there, because there's a lot of uncertainty in regional Australia about what this code and the opportunities could be for local media.
I want to briefly come to the submission from Country Press Australia. They put a submission in, in June last year. Quite rightly, it said:
The outcome of this Code is one of the most important media policy decisions affecting democracy in this country ever. The results will likely determine the future of the independent regional and local publishing industry in Australia.
They said:
CPA believes that the mandatory code must consider that balance of power, the economies of scale, the diversity of voice and most importantly the significance of hyper local news and what that means to communities.
… … …
If this policy results in large, ongoing financial support to a tiny handful of the biggest, most powerful media companies and does not support independently-owned news/public interest journalism on a scale that ensures its viability it will dramatically increase the concentration of ownership of Australia's news ecosystem into the hands of two or three large companies.
Diverse ownership of news publishing is crucial to our democracy.
I could not agree more. I would hate to think that any code or any further media reform of any sort in this country would allow even more media concentration. The last thing we want is more and more titles and stations ending up in fewer and fewer hands.
The key to a healthy democracy is a diversity of views and a diversity of ownership. It used to be, 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, that local TV stations and local newspapers were owned by a well-known local businessman—maybe the used car salesman or caryard owner or a local mayor. It was somebody who lived in the community and was relatively wealthy. The news reflected those sorts of values. Of course, as those titles got gobbled up by larger and larger corporations, owners of media corporations and companies became millionaires—that is, you had to be a millionaire to own these things. The news reflected their values. And now, of course, to be a significant media owner in this country, you've got to be a billionaire or be part of a consortium of billionaires. More and more, we're seeing the values in journalism reflecting the values and agendas of the owners. It used to be that local journalism once reflected the values of the local owners, so it would reflect the values of the local communities in which they were embedded. Now there is so much media in the hands of a few corporations—they might own supposedly local titles, but they are part of a bigger corporation—that they no longer reflect the values of their local communities. They reflect something other—that is, a bigger agenda. It might be a corporate agenda or a political agenda, but it's not the agenda of the local community.
Diversity is so important. I think we're going to be much better off, as a result of these codes and some of the shakeouts going on. If we can somehow get to more and more local media being owned by more and more local people, whether it's local businesspeople or coalitions of local community associations or well-meaning individuals or philanthropists or whatever, I think that'll be really healthy for our democracy. Some of them will be Liberal-leaning, some will be Labor-leaning and some will be Green-leaning. It doesn't matter which, but if we can get that diversity across our media landscape that is really what is most important, because that's what's important for democracy.
To wrap up, we are backing this code. It's imperfect and it's a very complex area. As I said, if this were just a matter of destructive capitalism—the minister might know what the term is better than me—and if this was just a matter of widgets, new technology replacing the old technology, we wouldn't be here debating this. We would just let technology have its turn. But involved in media is journalism. We're not just talking about advertising, we're not just talking about the making of wheels or something else; we're talking about the role of journalism. Because the old model has been smashed, and journalism has been smashed with it, we need to find a new way to make sure that journalism thrives and continues because it is so important to our democracy.
The code has some critics. Amanda Lotz is a professor of media studies at QUT and just a couple of weeks ago she wrote that she believes:
…the code is unlikely to do much to fix the crisis faced by journalism in the internet age. It isn't even a band-aid on the problem.
The traditional commercial news business model is broken beyond repair. If the government wants to save the social benefit of public-interest journalism, it must look elsewhere.
She goes on to give some statistics about how much revenue has been lost.
There's a lot of work to be done. The code is a beginning. It's certainly not an end. It's one of the recommendations of the ACCC, but there were a whole bunch of other recommendations that the government has failed, so far, to incorporate. Some of those include reviewing privacy laws to give Australians the right to understand and control the way their information is being used, requiring social networks to take more responsibility for misinformation and disinformation. I'll repeat that: one of the ACCC recommendations—and I know the member for Hughes is listening—is to require social networks to take more responsibility for misinformation and disinformation, and to build greater understanding of how big tech is using algorithmic advertising to generate billions in annual revenue. The ACCC has also called for a bunch of other things, which we exhort the government to look into.
We've heard repeated references to the value of diversity of opinion in this debate in terms of democracy and the role of media in facilitating diversity of views. I have to say there hasn't been too much diversity of views in this debate. For me to express them, I have to confess to you, Deputy Speaker, I am either crazy-brave, or I am just the dumbest politician in Canberra to want to put a number of views that run contrary to the overwhelming commentary that we have had in the media about this. I think it is important to have some things—
An honourable member interjecting—
I do not want to be associated for the member for Hughes in doing so, I might add! I would like to make this point: in saying these things, the easiest thing for me to do as a member of parliament is just to back the media on these reforms. That is easy. I'll get heaps of coverage. It will all be good for me and will be pretty much like I have seen a lot of Liberal backbenchers—some of whom profess to be major supporters of tech—do through the course of this debate. It would be just the sweetest ride. It would be so good.
But I'm sorry, I'm not built that way and I've never approached politics in that way. Because from my point of view, I think we need to call out everything in this. Before I do, I just want to acknowledge this: when it comes to technology, I absolutely get that there are a number of major issues that need to be dealt with. Tech has, in large part, impacted on the media. I get that too. Google, specifically, revolutionised the way that people could advertise on their platform—cheap, widespread access for people to see those ads. There has been a lot of work to recognise that the platform and the advertiser, being one and the same company, have a competitive advantage over others. I totally get it. I absolutely understand that, and that's had to be a reform from a competition perspective. There is a serious market power that has been accrued because of the way in which those platforms lever off the network effect. They bring a lot of consumers and producers together at once, and they just keep growing and growing and growing. This has generated massive amounts of data that, in this day and age, as people have described elsewhere, is the 'new oil' that is making businesses function. That data has fuelled a lot of growth in those companies, it has fuelled a concentration of market power, and it has made these big firms continue to grow bigger and bigger and bigger. With that data come massive privacy issues too. It's not just going to be on the tech side; there are a lot of businesses now that gather up data and use it in ways that, if the general public knew exactly how it was being used, they would be deeply concerned about. So privacy reform is another big issue.
In terms of competition law, from the point of view of big tech players swallowing up smaller firms that might be potential rivals, that's a big issue as well. The ACCC identified it in this landmark report, and there's a lot in that report. I said it was a landmark report when it was first released, and I still believe it is. There's also a challenge to competition law in an environment where tech actually has a deflationary impact, because a lot of the things that are provided by tech are provided for free. So there's a deflationary impact, and those firms don't necessarily immediately benefit from that, whereas competition law is about the impact: if there is a detrimental impact on a consumer, that's when competition law kicks in. So there's a longer-term reform of competition law that has to happen as well. There are the health impacts of tech addiction, too.
So there are a lot of things that we need to be able to deal with in the technology space. I get all that. But do you think for one minute that a conservative government would seriously tackle all those issues? No way. They would never reform competition law or undertake any of the things necessary. I challenge them, actually, if they're serious about privacy, to challenge the way in which the general public's data—in having a benefit for the general citizenry, not as a consumer but as a citizen—is used. I will wait a long time, and I suspect many members in this place will wait a long time, for that to happen, right? That's that, too.
The platforms themselves have opened up new ways to express yourself, and I certainly do value, as a parliamentarian, the ability to use social media to reach new audiences. But I've got genuine concerns about our ability to have diverse views heard in one of the most concentrated media markets on the planet. We have one of the most concentrated media markets on the planet, and that does impact on the diversity of views, massively. If we are told in this debate that these reforms are important and that the tech players have an impact on democracy, on the diversity of views and on the ability of the media to operate in that environment, then I want a fair dinkum assessment, too, about the concentration of media in this country that prevents a diversity of views. That's never going to happen from that side of politics. Never, ever, is it going to happen from that side of politics. And not for one minute do I think that side of politics has got a new-found commitment to transparency and openness. FOI laws, freedom of information laws, have been run into the ground. Parliamentary question time has been run into a joke. The PM flicks more questions to other ministers than he answers himself, and he won't be accountable. At estimates processes, we have more questions taken on notice than answered, I reckon. Estimates, and the transparency that is provided by estimates, has been thwarted by this government. We still don't have a national integrity commission, two years after it was promised. So don't tell me for a minute that that side of politics has suddenly dressed itself up as the champion of democracy, wanting to see diverse views flourish in an open environment. Give me a break.
The biggest thing, and the thing I'm most deeply uncomfortable about, in this entire debate is the way in which big interests can use competition law in their own interests. It is the big interests that have driven competition law on this. The ACCC has never stepped in to deal with the concentration of media in this country. I don't see it. Have they forced any divestment? No. Any time there is a potential merger, the view is largely that it's going to be in the public interests because those media outlets might fall apart. This government certainly hasn't presided over media diversity—quite the contrary. Two hundred newspapers have closed, as the shadow minister for communications pointed out; hundreds of journalists' jobs have been lost; 21 local government areas are without coverage from a single local newspaper, print or online; and media diversity in regional or remote areas is already at or below the minimum number of voices in 68 per cent of licence areas. The government recently admitted signs of market failure in regional commercial television broadcasting and we've had regional media organisations launching campaigns, begotten by years of government inaction and neglect, as indicated by the shadow minister for communications. The ACCC hasn't stepped in to deal with concentration.
They've certainly never stepped in to help small business get a better deal out of the big media players on advertising. We've talked a lot about advertising in this debate and the impact on media. When has the ACCC ever stood in for the small players? In regional markets, they absolutely can get onto regional TV networks and in regional papers, but not in the cities, because they're squeezed out. They're either squeezed out through a combination of sweetheart deals or the pricing is driven so high that a small business can't get in. I've never seen the ACCC deal with that—never—and we've never seen the government do it.
Does anyone really believe that the government did this for anything other than big interests in the media? As much as we talk about big tech, let's talk about big media. This conservative government did not do this process on behalf of The Guardian or The New Daily or Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. They never did it for them. Let's say it: they did it for the bigger interests in media. They did it for News Corp, they did it for Fairfax, they did it for the big commercial free-to-airs. That's what they did it for.
So I absolutely support that journalists should get paid for their content. I totally do. But in many instances, these jokers—sorry, the government—wouldn't know what they're talking about. If this content is on a subscription basis, you'll either get a limited number of free views, in some cases, or you'll hit a paywall. I remember pleading with News Corp when they operated local newspapers in my area, 'Please do not put local papers behind a paywall.' The local community never paid for those papers. The papers were delivered to homes less, but they didn't pay for them. If it's behind a paywall, you're never going to see local information. But they put everything behind a paywall, so you paid for content or you had a limited number of views and then you had to get a subscription.
What we are talking about here is the two-way value proposition. Google, as a big search engine, does absolutely get commercial benefit when they lob up a reputable newspaper in response to one of your search queries. They absolutely get commercial value, but so does the newspaper. So does the media outlet if they are prioritised because of their reputation. So the two-way value proposition is what it's all about. Unfortunately, in terms of Google News Showcase—many people may be unaware of what it looks like; Google will hate me saying this, but it looks like Apple News—it's the curation. The news outlets will get paid the licensing fees and the curation costs. It's a good deal for the news outlets and a good deal for Google. It's also a good deal for all of them to sidestep the complex horror of this code that would have been a legal nightmare. It is in their interests, from the media perspective, to sidestep all of those costs, and it is also in the interests of Google not to have to go through that.
My good friend the member for Lyons raised this. I've known him for many years and I respect a lot of the things he has raised, but I think it's important to say this. Richard Holden, who's the professor of economics at UNSW Business School—and don't think he's a Labor-friendly person; he's stuck it to us and them, so he's pretty impartial—said in the Fin Review:
Consulting firm AlphaBeta showed that between 2002 and 2018, newspaper revenue fell from $4.4 billion per year to $3.0 billion. That is indeed a very substantial decline. But the overwhelming majority of this came from the loss of classified advertising, which fell from $1.5 billion in 2002 to just $0.2 billion in 2018.
Did the revenue go to the tech companies? No, it went to the online players. Bear in mind that there's not much acknowledgement by the media companies that they shunted off a lot of their classified advertising into realestate.com or domain.com.au. They made those decisions. They make the decisions as to which audiences they chase, how big that audience will be and whether or not it will sustain them. They make them. As Holden says:
The bottom line is that newspapers used to have their own monopoly—on classified advertising. And a technological innovation—the internet—destroyed that monopoly.
But the big tech companies were not the winners, because it didn't all flow to the Googles and Facebooks; it went elsewhere. That's the big thing that needs to be recognised.
So there's a lot in there. But here's the thing: out of all this effort and all this money that's being sloshed around right now, we're told that in one year's time it's going to be review. Yeah, right! I'm sure that the government, going into an election year, is going to do a review on this that's contrary to the media. I'm sure that's going to happen! It's not, by the way. What I want to be absolutely certain about is this: Does this code lead to more journalists? Does this code lead to better-paid journalists, meaning we're getting quality coming in and we're holding onto the quality that's there? Will it just mean that there is a transfer of wealth, out of the tech firms and into the shareholders, and we never seen the benefit out of it? Because if that's what happens then this whole process is a joke. If we do not see more journalism, more independent outlets, more avenues, more diversity and more strengthening of the role of media in this democracy, if it all goes to shareholders, this process will have been an utter joke. If that happens it should be called out. I don't think we're going to find that out in a year's time, because judging by the government's performance on this—they were so slow to bring this to the table—I doubt very much they're going to bring that in. But I tell you what: there are some of us that are watching, and we will see if this genuinely leads to more and better journalism. I am all in favour of those revenues going towards that, but I'm not in favour of a transfer of wealth. (Time expired)
Like proud grandparents, Centre Alliance welcomes the arrival of this piece of legislation. I say 'grandparents' because it's back to a previous parliament, a previous generation, under a different name—the Nick Xenophon Team—that the genesis of this bill can be traced. Back in 2017, when the then Turnbull government was negotiating its historic media reform package, my colleagues and I recognised that we needed to go further than media ownership to safeguard the longevity of public interest journalism. We negotiated a range of measures, including a community television licence extension, a review of Asia-Pacific broadcasting services, and the Regional and Small Publishers Jobs and Innovation Package, which, thanks to government tinkering, has been a bit of a challenge.
However, of import for this bill, we negotiated for the ACCC to conduct an inquiry into the impact of the new digital environment on media. My colleague Senator Stirling Griff undertook extensive work on the terms of reference for this inquiry, which examined the effect that digital service engines, social media platforms and other digital content platforms have on competition in media and advertising services markets. You could say that, basically, Google and other platforms have cannibalised local content. At the time, my colleague said that the government needed to rein in the uncompetitive advantages that global internet giants such as Facebook and Google were exploiting. They were exploiting Australian made content and profiting while others were doing the lion's share of the work. We believed that Google and Facebook needed to pay a fair price for unique content that was not their own.
The inquiry's final report made a number of recommendations but, in effect, found there were serious issues relating to the market power of the digital platforms that were affecting Australian businesses, the media advertisers and consumers. The government response was a mandatory code of conduct to address bargaining power imbalances between Australian news media businesses and digital platforms.
This bill creates the framework for that mandatory bargaining code, and Centre Alliance supports this framework. I note that the final version of this bill includes amendments addressing feedback from stakeholders on including the ABC and SBS, an inclusion that's very much supported by Centre Alliance and by my electorate. I note that, in the past week, Google has come to the bargaining table to negotiate content deals with big media players such as Nine Entertainment, The Guardian Australia and the ABC. I'm yet to see any reports about Facebook coming to the table, which is disappointing.
Centre Alliance remain concerned about the small media players. We hope they will benefit and not be short-changed by this new bargaining framework in the way they have been short-changed by previous attempts in this parliament to maintain quality public interest journalism, particularly in regional Australia. Back in 2017, during the media reform debate, in addition to the ACCC inquiry into digital platforms, NXT also negotiated the Regional and Small Publishers Jobs and Innovation package worth just over $60 million. Sadly this package has fallen short of our intention to help regional and small publishers. Centre Alliance share the concerns expressed by Country Press Australia that the cadetship program component only spent $1.8 million in the first round; the remaining $6.2 million sat in limbo at a critical time of need. Then there was the $38 million Regional Small Publishers Jobs and Innovation Fund, which morphed into the $50 million Public Interest News Gathering program, or PING. Country Press Australia raised serious concerns to the government that their expanded eligibility criteria for the PING would water down the intent of the Regional Small Publishers Jobs and Innovation Fund, and that proved well and truly to be the case. The small regional and remote publishers, which NXT and indeed the ACCC wanted to assist, ended up receiving only around 15 per cent of the funding. The bigger media companies, which this funding was not designed to assist, received the bulk of the funding. This is deeply troubling and, I believe, short-sighted.
Public interest journalism is important to our democracy and it's important to society, but it shouldn't just be supporting our cities. Regional Australians need to hear their own stories and they shouldn't have just the ABC providing that important service. The Public Interest News Gathering program needs to do what Centre Alliance negotiated this fund to do—that is, assist true regional and small publishers. More also needs to be done to include small and regional publishers in the apprenticeship program. This is a good bill. I'm pleased this bill is here, and I commend it to the House.
It is no secret that our media landscape has been changing in recent years and, in many respects, not for the better—be it the small local newspapers going bust or the big media conglomerates buying up outlets across the country and consolidating them. There are a number of reasons for this but a lot of them come down to that old chestnut of money. In the golden days of television and meticulously thumbing through the newspaper, advertising bolstered the coffers of the media giants. Traditional media has been fighting for survival for years—ever since news hit the web and people realised they didn't have to buy the paper to read the news. All the while, the daily classifieds in local rags disappeared. Small businesses discovered online advertising and online news.
The classifieds were rivers of gold. Now they are Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace and Perth Beer Economy. It was a perfect storm that can only be blamed on progress and the advancement of technology, where policy has simply not kept up. This doesn't dismiss the fact that, sadly, this has unfortunately resulted in many local news outlets shutting up shop. Between 2008 and 2018—that's 10 years—106 local and regional newspaper titles closed across Australia, decreasing our media landscape by 15 per cent. Since just 2019, that number has nearly doubled to 200. The COVID-19 pandemic hasn't helped with that either. We expect that the number has only continued to climb.
Amongst all of this, the two most ubiquitous platforms on the planet—Facebook and Google—have grown their rivers of gold in online advertising, driving users to their sites and therefore to their ads in part by displaying news content. But none of these 21st century rivers of gold benefit these same news providers. The platforms do not share any of that revenue, revenue partly generated by eyeballs looking for and interested in these news articles from the advertisers who used to advertise with those news publications. So it's only right that we find ways, such as through this code, to ensure that there is a mechanism to enable those news publishers to share in the revenues that the platforms partly derive from the output of such news publishers.
We need a code that regulates digital platforms and ensures that people get paid for the work they do. We must support journalists and the fearless work that they do and the newsrooms that they work in to enable them to do what they do in the public interest. We must ensure that they're paid properly for their work, because, as much as a journalist is 'only as good as their last story', even if that yarn was a cracker that got lots of clicks, it's not currency to put food on the table or pay the rent or keep a suburban newspaper alive.
Labor support the bill before us today as amended by the government. We have offered in-principle support for a workable code from the outset. This code, after all, is a key recommendation of the ACCC, following the 18-month long digital platforms inquiry. We're disappointed at the delay and the uncertainty that has come with this process. The government did say that it would get it done last year. The delay has delayed potential revenue for these media outlets. We must, of course, also be careful in how we implement this legislation and the code with it. That's why it's important that there will be a review of this code in a year's time.
It is important also that we have some awareness of potential unintended consequences that can arise if this code and the agreements that are made under it or arbitrational awards made pursuant to it are wrong. The code requires the sharing of information, for example, and of algorithms used by those platforms, which the news publishers that make agreements with them will be allowed to assess, allowing them to ensure their content is more likely to be displayed in searches or in feeds. Not only may this result in important advertising by small local businesses being deprioritised or not viewed at all; it may also mean that larger media organisations and their IT teams that are much bigger than our local suburban and regional news outlets are able to employ are better able to leverage such algorithms at the further expense of those smaller suburban and regional outlets, making it harder for users to find local news and harder for local businesses to get in front of their local customers through these platforms. The capacity of smaller media players to collectively bargain with the platforms is a very important part of the code in this regard, but it may still not be enough. For this reason, vigilance of the practical effects of the code and the agreements made pursuant to it and the consequences of that will be vitally important.
In conclusion, it shouldn't go unnoted that this government seems perfectly happy for businesses to collectively bargain under this code and yet continually tries to undermine a worker's capacity to collectively bargain, such as with its newly proposed greenfield agreement provisions in its Fair Work Act amendments and it's continual attempts to undermine Australia's union movement.
Let me start by thanking those members who've contributed to this debate. The Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020 establishes a world-first mandatory code to address the bargaining power imbalances that exist between digital platforms and Australian news media businesses. With consumers now turning more and more to news online, news media businesses are grappling with the challenge of finding a viable and sustainable business model for the provision of public interest journalism. Public interest journalism plays an important role in our society. This role can only be fulfilled by a strong, diverse and sustainable Australian news media sector.
This bill responds to the key findings of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's digital platforms inquiry. The ACCC conducted a detailed inquiry over almost 18 months and set out a series of recommendations in response to the substantial market power that has arisen through the growth of digital platforms, their impact on competition in media and advertising markets, and implications for news media businesses, advertisers and consumers. The ACCC found that digital platforms had become unavoidable trading partners of news media businesses, providing them with substantial bargaining power. This problem is not unique to Australia, and we recognise that similar findings are emerging overseas.
This code addresses this problem in a fair and flexible way. It is a key part of the government's strategy to ensure that Australians continue to enjoy the benefits of digital technology while, at the same time, protecting key elements of Australian society such as a strong, sustainable and Australian independent news media. The code will be reviewed by the Treasury one year after its operation to ensure it is delivering outcomes that are consistent with the government's policy intent.
I thank the Senate Economics Legislation Committee for its consideration of this bill and welcome the finding that it will help safeguard public interest journalism in Australia. I thank all who have spoken and I commend this bill to the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Greenway 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 words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
I seek leave to present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and to move government amendments (1) to (19) as circulated together.
Leave granted.
I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill and I move government amendments (1) to (19) as circulated together
(1) Schedule 1, item 1, page 18 (line 1), omit "or practice".
(2) Schedule 1, item 1, page 18 (lines 5 and 6), omit "or internal practice".
(3) Schedule 1, item 1, page 19 (line 1) to page 21 (line 3), omit sections 52T and 52U.
(4) Schedule 1, item 1, page 21 (line 4), omit "Sections52S, 52T and 52U", substitute "Section52S".
(5) Schedule 1, item 1, page 21 (lines 5 and 6), omit "paragraphs 52S(1) (b), 52T(1) (b) and 52U(1) (b)", substitute "paragraph 52S(1) (b)".
(6) Schedule 1, item 1, page 21 (line 14), omit "Sections52S and 52T", substitute "Section52S".
(7) Schedule 1, item 1, page 21 (line 15), omit "paragraphs 52S(1) (c) and 52T(1) (c)", substitute "paragraph 52S(1) (c)".
(8) Schedule 1, item 1, page 21 (line 27), omit "paragraphs 52S(1) (c) and 52T(1) (c)", substitute "paragraph 52S(1) (c)".
(9) Schedule 1, item 1, page 24 (before line 22), before subparagraph 52ZC(2) (a) (i), insert:
(ia) a corporation being registered under section 52G, or being endorsed under that section as the registered news business corporation for a news business;
(10) Schedule 1, item 1, page 25 (line 13), omit "subparagraph (a) (i),", substitute "subparagraph (a) (ia), (i),".
(11) Schedule 1, item 1, page 25 (line 25), at the end of subsection 52ZC(2), add:
; or (c) differentiate between news businesses that are not registered news businesses, because of any of the following matters:
(i) a corporation being eligible to be registered under section 52G, or being eligible to be endorsed under that section as the registered news business corporation for a news business;
(ii) a corporation applying under section 52F for registration of itself, or of a news business, or for endorsement of itself as the registered news business corporation for a news business.
(12) Schedule 1, item 1, page 33 (line 7), omit "issues", substitute "services".
(13) Schedule 1, item 1, page 37 (line 20), omit "an amount", substitute "a lump sum amount".
(14) Schedule 1, item 1, page 37 (line 23), at the end of subsection 52ZX(1), add:
; and (c) is consistent with rights under contracts that are in force between:
(i) the responsible digital platform corporation or a related body corporate of the responsible digital platform corporation; and
(ii) the registered news business corporation for the represented registered news business or a related body corporate of that registered news business corporation.
(15) Schedule 1, item 1, page 37 (line 26), omit "amount should be", substitute "amount should be (expressed as a lump sum)".
(16) Schedule 1, item 1, page 39 (after line 3), after section 52ZX, insert:
52ZXA Final offer to be accompanied by information about contracts
(1) If a bargaining party submits to the panel a final offer in accordance with subsection 52ZX(4), it must, on the same day that it submits the final offer to the panel, give the panel information that:
(a) is relevant to the arbitration; and
(b) relates to all contracts that are in force between:
(i) the responsible digital platform corporation or a related body corporate of the responsible digital platform corporation; and
(ii) the registered news business corporation for the represented registered news business or a related body corporate of that registered news business corporation.
(2) Nothing in subsection (1) requires the giving of information if doing so would disclose information that is protected against disclosure by a duty of confidence.
(3) To avoid doubt, subsection (2) does not prevent a bargaining party from giving information under subsection (1) if the other bargaining party agrees to the bargaining party doing so.
(17) Schedule 1, item 1, page 39 (lines 21 and 22), omit paragraph 52ZZ(1) (c), substitute:
(c) the reasonable cost to the registered news business of producing covered news content;
(ca) the reasonable cost to the designated digital platform service of making available covered news content in Australia;
(18) Schedule 1, item 1, page 41 (lines 6 and 7), omit "about both final offers", substitute "in relation to the arbitration".
(19) Schedule 1, item 1, page 41 (after line 10), after subsection 52ZZC(1), insert:
(1A) The information contained in the submission must be:
(a) impartial factual information that relates to the relevant market; and
(b) impartial information that relates to relevant economic principles.
These are a set of technical amendments which go to further the effective operation of this code, and they are designed to give effect to the government's policy intention and take account of a number of technical matters which have emerged during the process of the bill being considered. For example, the amendments include measures that would provide for the simplification of the requirement in the code for the advanced notice of algorithm changes. There's clarification that arbitration will be balanced—that is, the arbitrators should consider the reasonable cost of both the news media business and digital platform. The code will stipulate, for the avoidance of doubt, that remuneration that is arbitrated is to be made in the form of a lump sum. That is the effect of one of the other significant amendments before the House, and the amendments clarify the information that the ACCC can provide in the arbitration process. There's an amendment to give effect to the government's policy intent that the code should not interfere with existing contractual rights. There's an amendment to ensure that the anti-avoidance provisions can take effect from the commencement of the code.
These amendments are very much about enforcing the overall policy intention of the code and the legislation which embodies it and make a series of technical and clarifying amendments, and so I commend the amendments to the House.
The question is that government amendments (1) to (19), as circulated, be agreed to.
I refer to the designation process under the code and the requirement for designation in order to enliven the provisions of the code. I ask the minister: What digital platforms and services does the government intend to designate? When is it intended that this will be effected? And, in line with that, on what basis will the government decide what platforms and services it will so designate? I refer to the number of commercial deals that have been struck in recent days between Australian news media and the platforms—in particular, Google, in this case. Will the designation—including the timing and the actual services and platforms that will be designated—be done on the basis of how many commercial deals are secured under Google News Showcase? Is it another measure that the government seeks to employ in identifying when and what services will be designated? So I ask the minister those questions.
I thank the shadow minister for those questions. As we've consistently made clear—and, indeed, as the legislation provides—designation will be a decision of the Treasurer on the basis of advice given to him by the ACCC. As the Treasurer has previously indicated and as the government has indicated, our thinking is that the services to be designated would be the search product of Google and then the Facebook News Feed; those are comments that the Treasurer has made previously. As the shadow minister rightly notes, there's been an announcement to the market by Seven West Media that it has concluded an agreement with Google, and there have been reports of a number of other deals presently being negotiated, and that's certainly consistent with the government's understanding.
Of course, the policy intention of the code is to encourage commercial negotiation. It is an example of a negotiate-arbitrate model, as the shadow minister would be very familiar with from her previous professional experience. Negotiate-arbitrate is widely used in telecommunications, and there are similar structures in other industries that the ACCC regulates.
So in response to the specific question 'What is the government's intention as to what will be designated?' I make the point that the Treasurer has made previous comments about that—about the scope—but that ultimately it will be a decision for the Treasurer, based upon advice provided to him by the ACCC, and that advice will be given against the backdrop of the overall market conditions, including and of course informed by what has been the extent to which deals have been done and who the parties are to those deals. So those are all factors to be considered. But the government's position in relation to how the designation process will work has been consistent. The framework is clearly set out in the bill, and ultimately it will be a decision of the Treasurer, based upon the advice he receives from the ACCC at the time.
I ask the minister: what confidence does the government have that Google will remain in Australia in the event that the government designates Google Search under the code?
I thank the shadow minister for the question. The government have been very clear, all the way along, that we will legislate this code, as we have said—and we acknowledge the support of the opposition and of the minor parties, as manifested in the report of the Senate committee. We acknowledge the concern expressed for the objective of a vigorous news media sector by the opposition and by the minor parties.
In relation to whether Google is likely to stay in Australia or exit Australia, I think what we can conclude is that the behaviour that Google has shown in concluding the deal with Seven West Media, as disclosed by that company, and in the behaviour that we understand it's presently exhibiting in being in advanced negotiations with other Australian news media businesses, is I think, in any view, the behaviour of a company that intends to stay in this market. After all, certainly under the deal that's been announced to date, there is obviously significant value passing from Google to Seven West Media. So that is the behaviour of a company which intends to stay in this market. The government welcome the behaviour that has been demonstrated, and we have been consistent from the outset: we wish to see Google and Facebook remain in this market. That's our preference. As the Digital Platforms Inquiry itself reported, over 19 million Australians use Google every month and over 17 million Australians use Facebook. Of course, what we also expect them to do—as we expect any company to do that is doing business in Australia—is to comply with the laws passed by the duly elected parliament of Australia.
As I noted, if the government refrains from designating digital platform services under the code, the provisions of the bill will not be enlivened. If the government thus elects not to designate Google Search or Google News Showcase under the code, how will news media publishers avail themselves of the negotiate-arbitrate provisions under the code? How will smaller publishers avail themselves of collective bargaining under the code? And how will the imbalance in the bargaining power between the news media and the digital platforms be addressed if the government elects not to designate any platforms or services?
I will make a couple of points. The intention of the code, from the outset, has been to encourage commercial negotiation reflecting the underlying policy position, as advised to the government by the ACCC, that there is an imbalance of bargaining power between the news media businesses, on the one hand, and the digital platforms, on the other. The consequence of that has been that commercial deals which would ordinarily occur in a market which did not have these serious market power issues have not been occurring.
Our first preference is that there be commercial deals. That of course is why it's known as a 'negotiate-arbitrate model', because if you can negotiate a commercial outcome then you never need to go to arbitration. But, of course, what the government clearly recognises is that you need to be in a position to impose the arbitration process if a commercial deal is not done.
I know the shadow minister is asking about various possibilities, but I want to be very clear: the code provides a process under which the Treasurer can designate services of digital platforms, and that will be considered by the Treasurer when he receives advice from the ACCC. So no conclusion should be drawn as to how the Treasurer's going to deal with that issue; he will deal with that issue on the merits, based upon advice from the ACCC and having regard to factors such as the number of news media businesses which have advised the government that they've entered into commercial deals. So that will be a very live consideration.
I ask the minister: what will the government do if the public broadcasters or regional and small publishers are unable to conclude satisfactory deals with Google after the passage of the bill through the parliament?
Well, again, I make the point that we could work through a number of possible outcomes. Our focus is on getting this bill passed into law so that the code comes into force, so we are then in a position to designate and, of course, to register news media businesses, which is the requirement on the other side. Our whole intention is to establish this so that deals are done, either commercially or through arbitration. We're focused on getting outcomes for news media businesses of all sizes, and passing this bill is a key step toward achieving that outcome.
The bill empowers the minister to make designation determinations. Does the bill give the minister the flexibility to carve out or mix and match certain services with different elements of the code? To put it another way, would it be possible for the minister to designate Google Search for the purposes of the minimum standards under the code and designate Google's News Showcase for the purposes of remuneration and arbitration under the code?
The provisions don't allow for that kind of mix and match. So it's a designation, a decision made in respect of the service on the advice from the ACCC.
If the government elects not to designate any platforms or services under the code, will the ACMA still register news businesses under the code? To put it another way, will the ACMA still register news media businesses in order to assist digital platforms like Google when it comes to providing standard offers?
The point is that there are two separate processes under the bill. One is the registration of news media businesses. The other is the designation of digital platforms. Each of those processes occurs in accordance with the criteria set out in the bill. The ACMA will go through its processes in relation to registration, and that will happen in relation to any news media business that puts in an application to be registered.
News media businesses are subject to significant legal risks regarding user generated content, which means the ability to manage these features is increasingly important. News media businesses submit that the provision of moderation tools for managing user comments on digital platform services should be included in the code. This was provided for in the exposure draft of the bill but was removed from the bill that is now before the parliament. Why were these provisions removed?
I thank the shadow minister for the question. She's right to say that there were provisions dealing with this in the initial draft of the code that was released by the ACCC for public comment. The government took the view that ultimately this code was not the appropriate place to include such provisions. The government recognises that this is an issue that presents complexities for news media businesses. That's particularly as a consequence of a decision in, I think, the New South Wales Supreme Court—certainly a decision some time in the last year or two in one of our courts. There is a process presently underway, being led by the attorneys-general collectively—and I believe it's the New South Wales Attorney-General who is leading that process—recognising that defamation matters are state responsibilities. That is a process that offers an opportunity to consider the issue the shadow minister raised.
On the same point, I note that the SBS, in its submission, said:
The absence of these safeguards places audience at risks of harm through exposure to illegal or inappropriate online content or harmful conduct on social media sites. The introduction of these safeguards would complement the work of the eSafety Commissioner, the purpose of which is to 'help safeguard Australians at risk from online harms and to promote safer, more positive online experiences'.
I note that the eSafety Commissioner also works with social media services to remove abusive or illegal online content material. The inability to moderate or switch off comments also has a chilling effect on the distribution of news, as media organisations will avoid posting stories that will require higher levels of moderation.
So, as I note from SBS's previous submissions, the safeguards should include the ability to remove or filter comments, to switch to premoderation and to pause live video comments. In light of all this, does the minister stand by his answer that he's just given that it is appropriate that these provisions that were in the exposure draft have been removed from the bill now before us?
Yes, I do stand by those comments.
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.
It seems that, in the 16 years I've been in this House, there have been many opportunities for me to speak on matters affecting industrial relations, employee security and the welfare of working families. There's been some history to this particular piece of legislation, the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020, being introduced in the House. The most egregious aspect of this legislation was addressed yesterday by the government—the removal of what is known as the BOOT test, the better off overall test. The significance of that, which has been there since the inception of this bill, is that if it was allowed to remain it would have meant it was legitimate to be able to vary terms of conditions of employees to the point they were no longer better off. I would have thought for most people in this House that would be an anathema, because most of us have the privilege of representing working families.
Far too often, as I say, over these 16 years I've seen legislation brought before this House by the conservative side with a view to doing just that—attacking workers' rights. As I said, removing the BOOT test was the most egregious aspect that was contained in the bill. It was also the most symbolic aspect of the bill that likened it very much to Work Choices. Back in 2008, Work Choices was a delicate piece of legislation which saw the removal of a Liberal government and the removal of a Liberal Prime Minister, because they went too far. They decided to not only make it legal to pay people below award rates—
Debate interrupted.
[by video link] Our local Australia Day citizenship ceremonies have always been massive events in my electorate of Calwell. In fact we've had years where up to 200 people have taken up citizenship on Australia Day. Of course the ceremony always concludes with a big morning tea for family and friends. In addition to welcoming our new citizens on Australia Day, which were only 50 in total this year, because of COVID restrictions, we also proudly honour locals who have made an outstanding contribution to our community.
The Hume City Council confers the awards of Hume Citizen of the Year, Hume Young Citizen of the Year, Hume Senior Citizen of the Year and the Hume Community Event of the Year. This is a proud tradition, which publicly recognises outstanding contributions made to the Hume community through the presentation of the Australia Day Awards. As the Hume City Council notes:
These are the incredible people who work behind the scenes who help make our schools, clubs, fundraisers, community activities and events great. They don't do the work they do for the thanks—but as a community it is important we take the time to recognise and acknowledge their dedication to our community.
This year we had joint winners for the Hume Citizen of the Year. I want to congratulate Mr Joseph Youhana and Ms Emel Huseyin for jointly sharing this award.
Joseph Youhana has been a champion in our community, passionate about mentoring and leading our youth by encouraging them to volunteer and assist in the integration of our diverse communities. His work has largely been around assisting former refugee communities, helping with settlement and social connections, including education and employment pathways. Joseph has been an active member of the Hume Multicultural Action Plan and is an important contributor to connecting culturally and linguistically diverse communities with all levels of government. He is a justice of the peace and is also a community ambassador for the AFL and for Melbourne Victory. He also helped found the Australian Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Advocacy Network.
Joseph came to Australia as a refugee from Iraq, and this experience has shaped his commitment. He has said on many occasions: 'I was given a chance and an opportunity for a new life in Australia. I value that opportunity, and I want to share my experience by helping others in similar situations. I'm very proud to advocate on behalf of refugees. I am lucky enough to be in a leadership position to raise a voice for people who don't have a voice.' Joseph is a board member of the Refugee Council of Australia and travels to Geneva every year to attend UNHCR meetings where his experience in Australia makes a valuable and informed contribution to international refugee policy.
I've known Ms Emel Huseyin for many years, and I'm so pleased that she has been recognised this year for her efforts and her contributions. Emel loves her community and has been a resident in Hume for 27 years. She is driven by her passion to create a better life for everyone around her. She is unbelievably generous with her time. She volunteers for more than 10 community groups, which is a phenomenal commitment. Included is the Northern Hospital, the Homestead centre in Roxburgh Park and the Broadmeadows Turkish Senior Citizens Club, where I have often attended iftar dinners with Emel and a fantastic group of women who prepare a great iftar feast throughout the period of Ramadan. She is also active in the Broadmeadows Turkish Islamic and Cultural Centre and many other women's groups.
Emel has managed to balance her enormous volunteer work with her family responsibilities. She has raised wonderful children, and she is now a proud grandmother. True to form, this affable, compassionate and multitasking woman has succeeded in being there for family, friends and community.
The Hume Young Citizen of the Year, Mr Berat Kaya, has dedicated a lot of his young life to developing programs and initiatives, through the Brotherhood of St Laurence, which are aimed at bettering the lives of young people in Hume. When Berat came to Australia, he had a difficult time adjusting. His disconnection from the community around him left him feeling isolated and lacking in confidence, but, through his community involvement, he has discovered a passion for working with young people. He has since been appointed to manage a youth leadership group and is working to complete a diploma in criminology and youth work. He hopes to pursue a career in youth justice.
Finally, the Hume Community Event of the Year recognises events that provide positive social and economic benefits and capture the spirit of community participation. This year that award went to the Sunbury Blue Light Disco, which was established in 1979 and has become a fixture of Sunbury's calendar of events. It provides the locals, especially primary school children, with opportunities to participate in recreational activities while fostering positive relationships with local police. (Time expired)
I rise today to talk about mental health, noting that today is the launch of the third annual End Youth Suicide campaign of Youth Insearch. The goal of this charity is to raise awareness of youth suicide and help prevent it. Suicide is the leading cause of death in young Australians aged from 15 to 24 years of age, and this is a fact which should alarm every single person. It is true that, as a society, we are getting better at having conversations about our own mental health, and many of us in this place get to see the vital work that mental health charities and organisations do in our own electorates on a daily basis, like the work in my electorate by Million Minds or the research being done by UWA researchers involved with the Young Minds Matter project. It's also true that, over the last couple of years, the Commonwealth government has prioritised and invested record amounts in services to support the mental health of Australians.
In 2020 alone, the government's total commitment to mental health support was $5.7 billion, and we are currently driving the largest expansion of the youth mental health service headspace, investing $630.4 million over the next four years. Yet the challenge mental health presents does not abate, and what was already a crisis will simply be magnified by the long-term mental health implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year we saw an increase in demand for mental health services. To put this in perspective, between 7 September and 4 October, there was a 15 per cent increase in Medicare subsidised mental health services and, in the four weeks to 4 October 2020, there was an 18 per cent increase in individuals accessing Lifeline. While those numbers are promising in some respects because they do mean that people are aware of their mental health and are seeking help, we can't always say with certainty that they are getting the treatment that is responsive to their needs.
As the Productivity Commission's report into mental health which was released last year made very clear, Australia's current mental health system is not comprehensive and fails to provide the treatment and support that people who need it legitimately expect. To be clear, this report lays out some stark facts which do not make for easy reading, but, rather than respond negatively or try to just reject, we should look at some of the positives that are outlined and then use the rest as an opportunity to improve the system. The government should be commended for the work it has done to support the mental health of Australians—particularly telehealth, which has been extremely effective and which I hope will be continued and built upon, as it is a flexible and accessible way to deliver mental health services. But we also must give due consideration to the comprehensive set of recommended reforms in the commission's report which are intended to set the mental health system on a path towards a person centred model. As the commission's report makes clear, reforms of the mental health system would produce large benefits, with improvements in quality of life valued at up to $18 billion per year. In particular, the commission identified two key gaps in Australia's clinical mental health care—a low-intensity gap and a missing-middle gap, and I recognise that people like Professor McGorry have already spoken at length on the missing-middle gap.
Currently, if you are worried about your mental health, you will most likely see your GP, as they are still the primary pathway for a lot of mental health matters. Around five million Australians go to their GP for assistance with their mental health each year. Six out of 10 of these appointments result in a prescription for medication and two in 10 result in a referral to a psychologist or psychiatrist. The commission report notes that there is still a large underrepresentation of people accessing low-intensity services which may better suit an individual's needs. This can include services like Beyond Blue's NewAccess program. The commission's report highlights that there's a clear information barrier about low-intensity services that affects patients and professionals alike, and it notes that 2.5 million people could benefit from these types of services. It also identifies that service underprovision is the chief cause of the 'missing middle' gap, and I know this to be true from constituents communicating with me about the waitlists that they face to see certain specialists.
There is never going to be some grand panacea to resolve every issue in the mental health system, and the scale of reforms recommended will take time, but I think the commission's report makes very clear the direction governments, both state and federal, need to be heading to improve our mental health system and outcomes for individuals.
In its ACSC annual cyber threat report July 2019 to June 2020, the Australian Cyber Security Centre warned that ransomware is now the highest cyberthreat facing Australian businesses and government. Ransomware is malicious software deployed by criminal groups to deny access to an organisation's IT systems and data until a ransom is paid. It's not just Australia battling this threat; ransomware is a global scourge that the world is currently trying to address. Chris Krebs, the former director of the US Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, recently told the US House Committee on Homeland Security, 'We are on the verge of a global ransomware emergency.' He said that the scale of the problem had become 'truly frightening'.
While the Australian government does not currently collect statistics about this crime, analysis by security firm Emsisoft in 2020 estimated its total annual cost to the nation at a minimum of US$270 million, with a best estimate of US$1.1 billion. According to the ACSC, the volume of ransomware attacks against Australian targets has significantly increased in the last 12 to 18 months as criminal gangs employ increasingly sophisticated organisational models. Australia has recently seen high-impact ransomware campaigns against high-profile targets like Toll Group, BlueScope Steel, Lion, Spotless, Regis Healthcare, law and order agencies and regional Victorian hospitals. The rapidly growing costs of successful attacks on targeted entities in downtime, remediation, ransoms and supply chain interruptions, combined with the growing costs to all organisations of defending themselves against these attacks, are an unsustainable burden on the nation. Ransomware is a jobs and investment destroyer at a time when the nation can least afford it.
The costs of ransomware aren't just financial. Globally, we saw the National Health Service in the UK brought to a halt as a result of the WannaCry ransomware software, resulting in the cancellation of nearly 20,000 medical procedures, and in 2020 we saw what is believed to be the first death as a result of ransomware, in Germany following an attack on a university hospital in Dusseldorf.
Despite this, the Minister for Home Affairs, the responsible policy minister in the government, has not mentioned the word 'ransomware' once in this parliament. All too often, the government's approach has been to play the blame game. The government does some threat sharing and some ad hoc incident response depending on the nature of the target of ransomware attacks, but on the whole the government's position is that organisations need to look after themselves. While individual organisations will always have the primary responsibility for taking the necessary steps to protect their IT systems from cyberthreats, the Australian government does have an important role to play in shaping the broader environment in which ransomware operators identify targets. We need a new approach. It's past time the Morrison government developed a comprehensive national ransomware strategy.
The evolution of ransomware gangs into sophisticated, well-resourced organised crime groups presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge of the emergence of so-called big-game-hunting ransomware gangs is that they carefully research and select their targets to maximise their returns from attacks, and that has increased the potential costs of these attacks, but it has also created a potential opportunity for new strategies aimed at deterring these attacks. Australia needs a national ransomware strategy designed to reduce the attractiveness of Australian targets in the eyes of cybercriminals—a strategy that increases the costs and reduces the returns of campaigns against Australian organisations and sends a message to ransomware gangs that Australian targets are not worth the effort.
Labor has tonight released a discussion paper on such a strategy, outlining a number of potential policies that could be used by government to actively try to stem the growth of ransomware attacks on Australian targets. It includes policy options like a clear framework on offensive cyberoperations against ransomware groups; closing the cyberenforcement gap by increasing the number of international law enforcement actions against ransomware groups; sanctions targeting ransomware groups where enforcement isn't an option; regulation targeting the payment of ransoms and the cryptocurrencies that give these groups anonymity; and strategies to help organisations lift their cyberdefences. In particular, as recommended by the former directors of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security agency and the UK National Cyber Security Centre, we need to have a serious conversation about regulating the payment of ransoms by Australian targets.
None of the interventions identified in Labor's discussion paper are silver bullets, but the threat of ransomware isn't going anywhere soon and the government can't just leave it up to Australian organisations to confront this challenge alone. The costs are unsustainable, and the trajectory is unacceptable. It's time the Morrison government actively tackled this threat and developed a national ransomware strategy. When it does, it's time for the government to send a signal to these ransomware gangs, to communicate their strategy to them. The Minister for Home Affairs should lead the way in this regard by coming into this chamber and giving a ministerial statement on the government's approach to tackling the biggest cyberthreat in his portfolio. It's time he addressed the cybersecurity aspects of his portfolio.
I rise tonight to place on the record my deep concern and even regret at the Queensland Labor government's idea of placing a regional quarantine camp in Toowoomba, in my electorate of Groom. The Premier floated this idea at a press conference on 22 January 2021, in what now seems a desperate attempt to find a solution to her regional quarantine plans. She originally proposed to use remote mining camps. That plan came undone and has been unravelling ever since. The Premier proposed two sites, Gladstone and Toowoomba, with no detail. This caused significant community anxiety, fear and concern.
As we know, the Gladstone proposal was quickly rejected by the community and local leaders, particularly the Labor mayor of Gladstone. I'm pointing out that this is not a political rejection; this is one based on health and safety grounds—a Labor mayor rejecting a Labor premier. In Toowoomba we kept an open mind. Of course, without details, community concern rose. That was reflected through the calls to my office, the many emails we received and the people who came up to me on the street to express their concerns, all talking about the quarantine camp. This was on 22 January, and, every day since, anxiety, fear and concern have risen in our community. But it's not only from the residents. We're now hearing from business leaders, and, most importantly, health leaders in our region have raised their concerns about this proposal and the lack of consultation from the state government.
Don't get me wrong. If you want to build this facility—to do it well and to do it quickly—the Wagners will get you there. But it was the Premier who asked for the Wagners to provide the government with construction detail, and they've done that. As John Wagner himself said yesterday, the detail was still lacking from the state, four weeks on. He says in The Chronicle:
Other details were yet to be worked out, including how Queensland Health would treat and transport people—
That's a reasonably important detail for a quarantine facility—
We will build it and maintain it, do the food and beverage, Queensland will be involved in how the health side of things works.
So the state government will be responsible for the delivery and management of the day-to-day operations of the facility, and the state Labor government will be responsible for the security and policing facility. But four weeks on we have no details of any of that. I was alarmed at media reports today. The headline in The CourierMail reads, 'Queensland's quarantine camp plan lacks crucial detail'. This sends shivers down my spine, as I'm sure it does for many people in the Toowoomba region. I'll get to that later on. The report goes on to state, 'The Queensland plan was not a formal proposal but mostly a series of dot points that failed to provide or develop critical health, security and safety information.' Four weeks on and we have dot points. As I said, there's a lack of detail on how Queensland Health would treat and transport people. Perhaps it's just the engineer in me that likes to see detail on these things, but I find it extraordinary that we are this far along in the process and we have no detail on these issues.
I've had no response to letters I sent to the Premier on 25 January and 9 February, requesting more detail. Premier Palaszczuk's dot-point plan lacks detail and is insufficient. The community does not support it, and that's been demonstrated through a series of online polls. The Chronicle poll, particularly, showed 1,500 people against it and 100 people for it. I think that's a fair demonstration of the community's feelings. I again call on her to provide an operational plan and details on health and policing. I urge her, as I urged in each of my letters, to come to Toowoomba, speak to the people there and explain her quarantine camp concept in detail.
I have a very small selection of the correspondence I've received during this process. I have an email from Glen and Maxine on 7 February. They write to express the great deal of concern that this proposal has raised with them, and they wonder what would happen if an outbreak occurred at this facility. They ask me: 'Would you please voice our concerns at a federal level?' Glen and Maxine, I happily will voice your concerns. Rod—I'm saving their last names—wrote on 8 February. He's 77 years old and points out that Toowoomba has a significant elderly population. We have a university. We have schools. A lot of western Queensland depends upon it. James writes on 16 February that he would like to register his opposition to the plan and points out that he feels it's only a matter of time before a mistake is made and COVID is out in our community. James, I hope that's not the case. I could go on, but time will stop me.
I say again: Premier Palaszczuk, come to Toowoomba, talk to us and explain your plan. Talk to the people of Toowoomba and explain what it is you want to do. (Time expired)
Everyone wants our democracy to work better, and we all have an interest in that outcome. It's a simple idea, but it's a complex task, involving culture as much as structure. And democratic culture includes some of the conventions that we observe in our parliamentary system. It requires good faith, participation and respect for well-designed processes and their outcomes. For us to expect or hope that structure will do most of the work is understandable, but really it's the culture and the spirit of a democracy that animates a healthy body politic in which the institutional bones can be skeletally fragile. In the last few months we've had that X-ray glimpse of American democracy under pressure, and we are kidding ourselves if we think similar pressures don't exist and can't build in Australia.
Strengthening democracy is complex because the features of democratic culture exist in fine balance. We must value plurality and decisiveness, the contestability of ideas and consensus, and mutability and constraint—a list of qualities that we can rattle off easily enough, but they're not easy to blend and balance. I note that the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, chaired by Senator Carr, last night tabled the report of its inquiry into nationhood, national identity and democracy. The chair, about that report, has said:
The report calls for a strengthening of civics education, scientific advice to Parliament, parliamentary accountability and parliamentary committee scrutiny because, through the committee system, Australians are able to participate in the work of the Parliament.
That sounds like a very sensible prescription to me.
I note that the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties will soon conclude its inquiry into Australia's process for making trade agreements and that this quiet, downstage work has the potential to improve the mechanics of how trade agreements are shaped and settled. Of course, if we improve the process, we get better and fairer trade outcomes. That's critical at a time of regional instability, a time when the multilateral trade system has grown weaker and at a time when we are seeing so-called geoeconomic pressures being brought to bear through trade. Some of those developments are forcing us to recognise that the superficial cheerleading that has occasionally accompanied bilateral trade agreements inevitably drowned out what should have been more searching examinations of the realities and limitations of BTAs. On that point, it was great to have Gordon Flake and Jeff Wilson from the Perth USAsia Centre in parliament this week to share their expertise about geoeconomics in general.
Like every aspect of a healthy democracy, parliamentary committees rely on good structures and good culture themselves. Structurally, the government will, in most cases, have a majority of members on any given committee. Structurally, therefore, it's conceivable that no inquiry would ever result in a recommendation at odds with the government's view. Obviously, that would defeat the democratic purpose. That's why it's vital that parliamentary committees maintain a culture in which recourse to brute partisan majoritarianism is limited and the possibility of reaching a consensus based on the evidence is supported by all. The JSCOT's review of international agreements is a critical matter of parliamentary process and accountability, not a rubber stamp.
Like most members, I suspect, I've been involved in committee work that has sometimes been at the more rigorous and substantial end of the spectrum and sometimes closer to that less desirable rubber-stamp end of the spectrum. I've certainly seen instances where the government would itself have benefited from heeding a committee's deliberations more closely. There's no doubt the Turnbull government missed a trick at the end of 2016 in relation to the proposed extradition treaty with China. Closer attendance to the arguments Labor members made in our dissenting JSCOT report, and perhaps louder voices from some clearly uncomfortable government committee members, might at least have prevented the awkward necessity of making the right decision so clumsily and so late.
The current JSCOT trade-making inquiry built on the work detailed in the 2015 report Blind agreement: reforming Australian's treaty-making process, which identified ways in which our trade agreements could be more far-sighted, better informed and more transparent. A trading nation like Australia should have the highest-quality agreement-making process and, while the government makes a virtue of signing these deals, we should ask whether they're really as good as they could be.
As public submissions to the inquiry make clear, there's every reason to ensure that in future we have regard to independent economic analysis and longitudinal tracking of expected and actual trade agreement outcomes. That's an argument the Productivity Commission has consistently made. Groups like the National Farmers Federation and the Export Council also argue for improved midstream stakeholder involvement in the course of negotiations as occurs in the EU and US. The bottom line is our parliamentary committees are not ornamental niceties; they're an essential part of our democracy. We should guard their good culture and extend their structural value wherever we can, especially as we're privileged to work as part of them.
If you break your arm, you can see it. You can explain how it happened. If you've got a heart condition, you can feel it. You can get it treated. Get a stent, get a bypass. But, if you have a mental health condition, you hide it. You become self-conscious about it. There is a stigma attached to it. But there's one thing worse, and that is if you are unaware of it.
Today we all have to wear these badges, and generally I don't bother because there seems to be one a day, but this is incredibly important with regard to youth suicide. I want to deal with the stigma to start off with. If you feel that it is a stigma, then it's the same stigma that Gandhi had, that John F Kennedy had, that Abraham Lincoln had, that General Grant had and that Winston Churchill had. It's a stigma that can be channelled in the right direction; as they said about General Grant, he was vastly better in war than he ever was as a president.
There is a downside, though, and that is suicide. The most dangerous person that you are likely to see in your life between the ages of 15 and 44 is in the mirror. If you live in regional areas, it's twice as bad again. If you're in an Aboriginal community, it's horrendous. What has to be noted, obviously, is the people left behind. The tragic occurrence devastates families and stays like a pall over the rest of the lives of everybody who is associated with that family member who died.
I always think about this and I think about the alternate energy that comes from it. One of my favourite readings from the Bible is Corinthians 15:10:
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace, which was bestowed on me, was not in vain, but I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
I listen to that and I think of the positive energy that can go in such a good direction, but it's the same energy that can become the poison—the poison that destroys people, the poison that goes on to try and self-medicate, the poison that becomes the chaotic energy heading in thousands of different directions at the same time, tearing apart all those who are somehow associated with it.
Today is the launch of the End Youth Suicide campaign. It is a day when we must reflect on the work done by Lifeline, Beyond Blue, headspace, the Black Dog Institute and the Butterfly Foundation in the area of mental health that also encompasses such things as anorexia, which unfortunately I've also had to deal with—not me, but those very close to me.
But today, most pertinently—and I will not mention their name—I have a very good mate and a wonderful family who've had to deal in the last week with this kind of tragedy. I'll write a letter when I can work out what to say to this family. When you think about it, it is so pertinent that we should be acknowledging this day and trying to do something about this scourge. It's twice as likely as having a car accident. In Australia, suicide is three times as likely as dying from COVID.
I want to acknowledge all those, like Professor Parker, whose diligent efforts in this area have done so much for the psychologists and the psychiatrists. But, on a day like today, I want to wish and offer my deepest condolences, sympathies, prayers and hope to all those families who are dealing day after day, every night and every moment, with the tragedy of suicide within their family.
House adjourned at 20:00
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending, with the Vietnamese members in my community, the VCA cultural centre to welcome in the Lunar New Year. While these festivals are certainly a little different from our annual Tet celebration, due to the pandemic, I would nevertheless still like to congratulate VCA president Paul Nguyen and his executive team, and all the volunteers who work so hard to make this event possible.
Earlier in the day I joined many from the Chinese community at the Mingyue Lay temple for their Lunar New Year celebration. The Chinese community is certainly very big and very vibrant in my community. I would particularly like to acknowledge James Chan and Vincent Kong of the Australian Chinese Buddhist Society for their continued service not only to the Chinese community, but to our wider community as well.
Lunar new year is one of the most important cultural events celebrated in my electorate. It's a time to spend with family and friends, a time for personal reflection and a time to share their proud heritage and culture with our broader community. Lunar new year this year is the Year of the Ox, which represents hard work, commitment, loyalty and honesty. They are very fitting qualities as we seek to emerge and rebuild from the challenging times faced by many people throughout our communities and, indeed, around the globe.
Lunar new year is also the time for all Australians to reflect on the success of our multicultural society and the exceptional contributions that our Asian communities have made to our great nation. I'm always proud of their kindness and their generous spirit, particularly in directing a helping hand to fellow Australians in need. And in that, I certainly reference our recent bushfires of last year. It is through their passionate belief in freedom and democracy, their propensity for hard work, and their proud and vibrant culture that the spirit of our nation has been enriched. It has made us a better country, creating a brighter future for all. Once again, it is a privilege to be a part of this colourful, vibrant and diverse community, and I wish all our Vietnamese and Chinese Australians a harmonious and prosperous new year. I say to my Vietnamese constituents 'chuc mung nam moi' and to my Chinese constituents 'gung hei fat choy'.
I thank the honourable member, particularly for getting through the speech without interruption.
And in the short time I have available I do thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Freelander, for your urgent medical assistance the last time I appeared in your chamber.
There is no more important moral duty that we have as parents, as a community and as a nation than the need to keep our children safe. Protecting them from online abuse is critical, especially when you consider that by the time children are four years old about 94 per cent of them will have a device that is connected to the internet.
Recently I attended the launch of the Parliamentary Friends of Combatting Child Exploitation in Australia and the ACCCE, which was a wonderful and insightful event. At the launch we heard directly from senior Australian Federal Police officers about the work that they do 24 hours a day to keep our kids safe. The AFP do a truly amazing job. Between July 2019 and June 2020 they rescued 134 children from harm. In the past 12 months alone, the AFP also intercepted more than 250,000 child abuse files. Think of the scale of that figure: 250,000 files. This work inflicts an enormous human toll, but the resilience and strength demonstrated by the AFP while they do this confronting work is something I have always admired. In attending this launch, I have to say how special it was to see many MPs from all sides of politics join together to show how much this parliament values the AFP's work in investigating and tracking the disgusting perpetrators of child abuse.
However, the AFP can't tackle this problem alone. Every parent has a responsibility to equip themselves with the basic awareness. They need to ensure that their kids are safe wherever they go online. Thankfully, there's a huge array of resources out there to help. The AFP's ThinkUKnow program is brilliant. I can't recommend it highly enough. It consists of three central pillars: firstly, what young people see online. This is about how to address online grooming, sexting and inappropriate content. Secondly is what young people say online. This involves what parents can do to help young people understand their interactions online. And, finally, it's what young people do online. This includes how they can manage their digital shadow, including having strong privacy settings. The Office of the eSafety Commissioner also has a terrific range of really helpful advice and material.
On a final note, I just want to commend the ongoing work of the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, which was opened in October last year by the Minister for Home Affairs. Our government provided the AFP with more than $68 million to establish this centre and it has already been successful in working closely with the public and private sectors in our communities to bring all Australians together to eliminate the horror of child abuse. After all, keeping our kids safe is a responsibility of every one of us. Thank you.
Affordable and accessible health care has always been one of my most important missions here as a member of parliament. But it's also one of the most important issues to people in my electorate. Whether it's hospital care, specialist care or GPs, residents in the southern suburbs of Adelaide want and deserve better access to these services in a timely manner. At the moment there's a GP shortage in our community that's preventing many residents from accessing local doctors. The reason for this is the ridiculous decisions made by the Department of Health.
The Department of Health has recognised multiple suburbs in my electorate in the south as areas of workforce shortage. It has classified them as priority areas. However, they are denying clinics the ability to access government programs which they need to hire GPs. These clinics are desperate to access the Practice Experience Program, but due to an arbitrarily and bureaucratically decided line on a map they're not able to. To be specific: these clinics have been classified under Modified Monash Model 1, despite being priority areas. They need the GPs but they can't get the GPs because of the decisions made by this government.
It is absolutely ridiculous that clinics which sit an area which has been recognised by the department as having a workforce shortage cannot access the programs which are designed to help them. The flow-on effects of these decisions have consequences. Of course it's created local doctor shortages and huge waiting times. One GP clinic is forced to close at 12:30 each day because they can't recruit enough GPs to justify a full day of practice. This clinic has a wait time of seven to 10 days for new patients, and in January it had a waitlist of over 20 people. Another GP clinic told me that they have to cap their cancellation list at 15 people per day and tell anyone else to try another clinic. This puts extreme pressure on nearby clinics as they try to meet the health demands of our local community. One clinic has 11 doctors available each day and still has 10-day waitlists for new clients.
Support needs to be given to these places. If the Department of Health recognises an area of workforce shortage—if they recognise there's a problem—then they should provide these clinics and GP practices with the resources that they need. Waiting to see a GP can often make health problems become worse. When people are waiting so long it does not allow for GPs to look at early intervention or prevention. It's time that this ridiculous situation, this bureaucratic nightmare, was addressed so that people in the southern suburbs of Adelaide can get the primary health care they deserve.
This morning, Mr Deputy Speaker Freelander, I rise to talk about the Belmont Business Park Transport Infrastructure Upgrade, but I'll also take this opportunity to thank you for your medical assistance. I'm wondering if it's the age cohort of the members who are thanking you which is relevant to all your medical duties in this place!
That may have something to do with it!
The Belmont Business Park Transport Infrastructure Upgrade is now complete, thanks to a grant from the federal Liberal government under the National Stronger Regions Fund. The National Stronger Regions Fund focuses on strengthening Australia's regions by improving the productivity, employment and workforce skills of Australians. Projects that are funded deliver an economic benefit to the region beyond the period of construction and address areas of disadvantage. I managed to secure over $6 million towards the cost of this $12 million project for the City of Belmont. The City of Belmont provided the remaining $6 million towards the project plus an additional $3.3 million in kind towards the wages, salaries, fleet and plant required in order to deliver the construction of the street parking program and the Belmont Avenue upgrade.
The project works for the Belmont Business Park upgrade officially commenced in May2015 and finally ended in August 2020. The project was planned for years. Planning first commenced back in 2004, and it wasn't until the funding from the Australian government was committed that the City of Belmont was able to bring this vision to life. Back in 2015 I stood on the corner of Belmont Avenue in my electorate of Swan with the former senator Mathias Cormann and the mayor, Councillor Phil Marks—who is still the mayor today, so he had the privilege of opening that facility—to view the project plans for this particular upgrade. Only a few weeks ago I attended the official launch and visited the same corner on Belmont Avenue. The upgrades to that part of Belmont Business Park included placement of electricity underground, introduction of street lighting, new on-street parking bays and soft landscaping.
It was a pleasure to see these upgrades complete—and what a difference it makes to the local area. What was tired industrial roadway that restrained growth in the area is now a contemporary business park, creating a positive investment environment that will achieve significant social and economic benefits to the City of Belmont. The motto of the City of Belmont is 'the city of opportunity', and I can tell, you, the council there works very hard to entice businesses to the local area. The project has upgraded the parking, signage, streetscape and transport infrastructure at the Belmont Business Park to improve access and connect Belmont city to its gateway location of the greater Perth area. The project has specifically addressed issues with transport and the movement into the business park and established critical links with the Belmont Centre, surrounding suburbs and other metropolitan activity centres via existing infrastructure to become a true gateway to the Perth regional area. (Time expired)
I rise to speak on the petition by the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children that was recently tabled by the Petitions Committee. This petition calls on the Australian government to permanently increase JobSeeker payments by $550 per fortnight and to extend eligibility to carers payment and the disability support payment as well as to temporary visa applicants. To help the House better understand the lived experience of the current rate of Centrelink payments on Australian families, I would like to share a couple of stories from single mums.
One said: 'I just received a warning from Origin Energy that my electricity may be disconnected. I don't have $700 to pay it, and I can't even afford to pay it off on top of rent, food, medications et cetera. I sold my car because I couldn't afford petrol or genuine maintenance of it. My youngest daughter will go without therapy, and I don't even know how I'm going to pay for school uniforms or exorbitant TAFE fees for my 16-year-old. After rent there is barely anything left. I had to ask a neighbour for sunscreen last week, and there will be no school camps or laptops.' Another said: 'The extra money helped get car repairs, new tyres and dental appointments as well as healthier food. As the money has wound down, I'm having constant panic attacks and sleepless nights again about how I will pay for these. I hate not feeling safe, and having a safe car should be affordable for everyone, especially when you have children to drive around.'
These stories, as well as the 56 others that I will seek to table shortly, clearly convey the difficult choices families are forced to make as this government continues with its system of poverty by design. Surely it's self-evident that people are having to choose between medication and eating every day, and that is appalling. I've said this countless times already in this place, but obviously I need to say it again: we are a rich and fortunate country and there is simply no excuse for the government to make Australian families struggle to pay for their basic needs. We can afford to pay every eligible Australian a base rate that would cover people's reasonable expenses and enable them to live a dignified life. That should be an absolute priority for this parliament.
Deputy Speaker, I now seek leave to table these 58 personal accounts collated by the National Council for Single Mothers and their Children. Hopefully the government and all members will learn something from them, and the government will change its policy and finally end the cruelty for good.
Leave granted.
I present the following document: 'The Coronavirus Supplement—58 Statements'.
On Australia Day this year when many of us were reflecting on the year ahead, I turned left at 5.00 pm on my way home from the city and about two minutes later at the subsequent red light, an allegedly ice-addicted 17-year-old in control of a stolen vehicle collided with two people walking their dogs. Matt Field and Kate Leadbetter and their unborn baby Miles made national headlines, but this wasn't the first time that something like this has happened. We know that only a year ago in Oatlands there was a similar disaster, with, I believe, an alcohol-affected driver coming off the road and killing four young children walking down the footpath on their way to buy an ice-cream.
This reminds us that youth justice, however complicated it is, can't be left as it is or we will simply get more of the same. While it's done at a state level, there are a few options where the Commonwealth can reach out and try to assist. I want to reflect on the words of the first responder, a policewoman who lives in my street, who said, 'Let something good come of this.'
My city has, through the numbness, been involved in discussions on this, and we have taken every suggestion possible. We had a forum involving 150 people and the 22 agencies that work in this space and asked these really hard questions: What more can we do? What can we all agree on—forget the politics—that could make the system better? We had a sequenced, thematic and expert informed conversation that took us through the early intervention, the community policing, the employment and diversion, the judicial system and how we deal with hardened offenders. What came out of this is that the Youth Justice Act was drafted long before we knew the aggressive impact of ice as a drug. I refer to it as the pre-ice age legislation. We need to recognise that identifying addiction early is absolutely key.
I really want to thank the organisations that supported my community in that discussion, led by the Redlands Local Drug Action Team, ambassadors from local schools, Love and Hope Redlands, Youth YOU, the police, Traction youth program, the Australian Drug Foundation, the Police and Citizens Youth Club, the Queensland Injectors Health Network, The Cage Youth Foundation, Sarina Russo, the Chamber of Commerce, the disability employers, the Australian Industry Trade College, AITC, Alcolizer Technology, Redlands psychologists, headspace, Metro South Primary Health Network, Queensland Network of Alcohol and Drug Agencies and legal practitioners in my area.
This has just begun, but I'm encouraging my colleagues to get involved. While you might not have had this horrific atrocity in your electorate, I know that you are also determined to work with state authorities to potentially look at more data sharing. The Commonwealth funds the system but the state is left to carry the burden of the system. Three levels of government can work together. We need to be absolutely certain welfare payments, such as Youth Allowance, that are made to 10,000 young Australian are not funding addiction. We need to help the state and the judicial system where we can.
The New South Wales South Coast has long been experiencing difficulty with social and affordable housing access. It is no secret and should be no surprise. But what is happening now, thanks to COVID and the bushfires and a range of other factors, is absolutely alarming. What was a social and affordable housing crisis is now spilling into the private rental market, making it almost impossible to find a home anywhere for any reason. In January, the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales released figures which showed that the South Coast has the lowest rental vacancy rate in New South Wales, at just 0.3 per cent in December 2020. That is down from 4.8 per cent in March 2020. This escalation deserves immediate and urgent attention from government at all levels.
I was pleased to welcome Labor's shadow minister for housing and homelessness to my electorate last week to talk about what we can do to address this. I would like to thank the shadow minister for giving this issue his time and attention, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with him on this issue. Jason Clare and I sat down with community housing provider Southern Cross Housing in Nowra in what was an informative and interesting discussion, if not alarming. They too are worried about what they can see unfolding. They are dealing with an old housing stock given to them by the New South Wales government. They have seen a trend of rents going up in their leasehold properties. It is getting harder and harder to find temporary accommodation for those experiencing a housing crisis. They want to build and invest in more social and affordable housing, but they need support and investment by government to get it going. We know there are projects ready to get off the ground and even more that could get there if this funding was available.
Southern Cross Housing has been lucky enough to receive some land from Shoalhaven City Council to build a new housing project in Bomaderry but more investment from the federal and state governments is needed to get this project started. Without urgent and serious investment in this type of project we are all genuinely terrified about what the next 12 to 24 months will look like for those people in our community looking for housing. And it isn't just those in housing stress, it can be anyone looking for a place to rent because there just isn't anything available. Things will only get worse without urgent action. I am willing to work with anyone to address this—local, state or federal. I am asking for governments at all levels to come together now to start working towards a solution. A 10-year plan sounds great but if it isn't translating into housing projects starting now it will just be more dust on the bookshelf. What we need is a stimulus package and we need it now. I have too many cases of people desperately looking for homes. It simply breaks my heart to get to the end of what I can do as their representative. That is what we are dealing with and it needs addressing now.
The Inland Rail project was a proposal to connect the port of Melbourne to the port of Brisbane through a 1,700-kilometre rail project. Under the coalition, look what's happened. The website says:
... better connecting producers to markets and creating new opportunities for businesses, industries and regional communities.
That sounds wonderful, except the plan has not been fully formed. As it currently stands, it's a railway to nowhere. Well, not really to nowhere. I know it doesn't go to the Melbourne port, but in Queensland it ends at Acacia Ridge, in my electorate, 36 kilometres from the port. It does not go to the port where Australian grown produce actually needs to go. So we're going to have 1.8-kilometre double-stacked trains, 24 a day, terminating at Acacia Ridge in my electorate, in Moreton. How will their loads get to the port? Double-stacked trains are too tall and too long to use the existing rail. There is a rail connection to the port. The load will need to be double-handled and transferred to trucks, and they're big trucks—A-double trucks—which will be using the roads through the southern suburbs of Brisbane to reach the port of Brisbane. An extra 3,000 of these A-double trucks a day will be driving through the suburbs of Moreton. Currently, there are four million truck movements per year around Acacia Ridge, but this will more than double, to 11 million truck movements a year by 2040. A quarter of these trains will be carrying coal from New South Wales through my streets. The suburbs of Moreton will be busier, noisier and more polluted.
The member for Bonner, last weekend in the Sunday Mail, announced loudly that all of the Queensland LNP members would be supporting getting trains from Acacia Ridge to the port of Brisbane via tunnels and above-ground trains going through the suburbs of Runcorn and Eight Mile Plains. As we saw on the news as well regarding tunnels in Liberal electorates, there would be trains above ground—one-mile long trains in my electorate. We know there will be eight kilometres of tunnels. They're the ones mentioned in the member for Bonner's 'tunnel vision'. They won't be big enough to take double-stacked trains if we use the borers from the Cross River Rail. The rail boring machines are not big enough. Let's look at the cost. There is no costing by the member for Bonner—not even an estimate of the cost for digging 16-kilometre tunnels. Remember, the costs are already going through the roof when it comes to Cross River Rail. So, we'll have 1.8-kilometre double-stacked trains going through my suburbs before they go underground through the supposed giant tunnels. The father of inland rail, Everald Compton, said:
I can say that I have never in 65 years seen a more incompetently managed and wasteful project than this one. It's a disgrace.
Last Saturday, 13 February, I attended the Lunar New Year celebrations at the headquarters of VCA, the Vietnamese Community in Australia, New South Wales, in Bonnyrigg, not far from your own electorate, Deputy Speaker Freelander. It was a great celebration of Lunar New Year. VCA does tremendous work in the local community, working with Australians of Vietnamese background on so many different issues. I want to acknowledge the president, Paul Nguyen, the vice-president, Kate Hoang, and all of the other members of the executive. VCA is very effective in standing up for the interests of the local Vietnamese community in New South Wales. They are passionate advocates for the community and they so often articulate the concerns of that community. I would also like to congratulate all the HSC students we saw at the event on Saturday, who had all received a university entrance rank of 99 or above. They were all acknowledged by the community on Saturday. It was a long list of people, so it was an incredibly impressive achievement.
A division having been called in the House of Representatives—
Sitting suspended from 10:29 to 10:39
On 8 February I attended a meeting of the East Hills VIEW Club at Revesby Workers' Club in Sydney. The club was formed back in 1961 and does a lot of great work in our community. VIEW of course stands for 'voice, interests and education of women'. For many decades, the VIEW club has been doing great work, with a particularly strong emphasis on education and helping kids get the education they need. It currently sponsors two financially disadvantaged students through the Smith Family's Learning for Life Program. Last year it ran its successful stationery drive to provide stationery and resources for disadvantaged students. To Jan McKenzie and everyone from East Hills VIEW Club, thank you for what you do for your community.
On 12 February I attended St Charbel's Maronite parish in Punchbowl. St Charbel's is one of the largest church congregations anywhere in Australia and has a tremendously positive impact in our community. In particular, I congratulated Salim Diab, who received the Canterbury Bankstown Volunteer of the Year award for his terrific work at the church. It was great to catch up with Father Abboud and Father Maroun Youssef, who is the Principal of St Charbel's College, which has more than a thousand students. So much great work was acknowledged by the Premier, who also visited St Charbel's on the day I visited. It is a tremendous group in our local community.
Integrity in government and post-government life matters for the people of Bean and people across the country. It has been a guiding principle for many of my constituents in the conduct of their careers. Trust in government is essential to a functioning, healthy democracy. To ensure this, it's vital that the public trusts the process and trusts those who handle the levers of power. This requires not only a national integrity commission with teeth but a ministerial code of conduct with serious consequence, along with a code of conduct that properly binds ex-ministers and senior public servants from misusing their knowledge and access for pecuniary advantage.
The Corruption Perceptions Index, reported by Transparency International, has seen Australia slide down the ranking order over the past seven years. Since 2010, there has been a 13 per cent drop in Australian satisfaction with democracy. When this trust crumbles, institutions suffer and government becomes less stable. What we are now seeing is our current institutions being tested like never before. At present, there is no institution with the ability to properly investigate allegations of misconduct that are levelled against parliamentarians or those in the public service. At the state level, we see strong anticorruption bodies, yet, at the federal level, the highest and most important officers lack credible oversight.
Two years ago, this government claimed that there was no persuasive evidence for such a body, yet every week another story emerges that leads to a further loss of faith in government, whether it be one of secrecy, nepotism, corruption or sleaze. We are seeing community safety rorts, sports rorts, the dodgy Sydney Airport deal, the Great Barrier Reef fund sham, the stacking of boards and the politicisation and erosion of the public services, and we are seeing a 22 per cent cut to the Auditor-General's budget. After all of this, the government have brought forward a proposed anticorruption model that is a toothless watchdog—unable to look retrospectively at the litany of scandals that have plagued this government. They have wheeled out a chihuahua, a dog that, much like this government, is all noise and no bite.
Just this week, the revelation that a recently departed agency head had resurfaced in a role as a consultant with PM&C and, at the same time, in a role with a lobbying firm re-enforced how ineffectual existing codes of conduct are in relation to post-political and senior public service life. We must and can do better. But we know that this government have no interest in cleaning out their fetid stables.
I would like to acknowledge and congratulate members of my community who received OAMs and Australia Day awards in the Coffs Harbour City Council area. The late Dr More received an OAM for service to medicine and to the local community in Woolgoolga. It was a very sad day when he passed. Dr Naidoo, from Sapphire Beach, received an OAM for service to paediatric medicine and the great work that he does.
Citizen of the Year went to John Lardner from Nana Glen for his contribution during the fires. John has a dedicated team in the Rural Fire Service, which he has been involved with for 38 years. The Young Citizen of the Year went to Taryn McCarthy, a Woolgoolga High School graduate who has been tireless in her efforts in representing the school and helping her peers. Thank you and congratulations to all those winners.
I'd like to congratulate and acknowledge members of my community who received Australia Day awards in the Ballina Shire Council area. Citizen of the Year was awarded to Barbara Swain, a very deserving recipient. Sadly, 25, Barry, the son of Barbara and her husband, Peter, lost his battle with depression. As part of their grieving and healing process they set up the Mental Health Support Group. They now provide housing, clothing, furniture and other necessities to vulnerable people in our community. Senior Citizen of the Year went to Geoff Harris. Geoff has been the president of the Lennox Head Alstonville Surf Life Saving Club for many years. He is present at all events and works tirelessly as a volunteer to keep the club running.
Community Event of the Year went to the 2020 Anzac Day live broadcast with Paradise FM. It was a very different Anzac Day last year, as we all remember, and Paradise FM's live broadcast encouraged residents to come out of their homes and commemorate in their streets with their neighbours. Paradise is a wonderful community radio station in our community. Congratulations to Jenny, Rod and the team. The Young Citizen of the Year Award went to Ryan Webb. Ryan donates to many charities and volunteers his time with the Five Loaves and the Mental Health Support Group. Thank you and congratulations to all the winners.
I'd like to acknowledge and congratulate members of my community who were recognised at the West of the Range Australia Day Awards in Bonalbo this year. The Citizen of the Year was given posthumously to Uncle Kevin Torrens. He was a wonderful man who, sadly, passed away. The Sportsperson of the Year went to Alex Gibbon. Alex has put in a great effort to re-establish the Richmond Range Rugby Club. This club had died and hadn't played for 10 years, but it was one of the great community stories of last year. They had over 40 players and were getting 300 to 400 people to a game. Congratulations to all of them. The Young Citizen of the Year went to Haylee White. Haylee attends Bonalbo High School. She is in year 11 and is a very talented soccer player. Congratulations. Hayley. And the event of the year went to CWA's Tabulam branch for a very well-organised Women's Community Forum day. Certificates of appreciation were given to the Richmond Range Rugby Club, Bill Mills and to Lawrence McCarthy for their contributions to the community.
I congratulate and thank all the deserving winners.
I find it hard to believe that yet again I am having to stand up in this chamber and urge the government to come to the rescue of travel agents in my electorate and around the country. Travel agents are part of our really important tourism industry and they're not all big corporations. Many of them, including the ones I'm going to speak about from my electorate, are sole traders and family businesses—and they are struggling. So if the Treasurer and the Prime Minister won't listen to me and my colleagues then maybe they'll listen to my constituents.
Linda, who lives in Langwarrin, wrote to me and said, 'The rebuttal from the federal government to the extension of JobKeeper, most recently in Scott Morrison's Press Club address, is yet another insult to the work travel agents do and the help we need.' Trish wrote to me again—she's written to me a number of times—a couple of days ago because her business in Mount Eliza is struggling and she wants to reiterate the urgency that the government continue JobKeeper for travel agents. Trish says, 'We are in dire straits and we need help.'
Katie, also from Mount Eliza, wrote to me and said: 'While the JobKeeper payment has not covered my wage or costs over the last nine months, it has enabled my business to survive. It's allowed me to help get refunds for my clients and it has been important. The purpose of my letter to you,' Katie wrote, 'is to employ you to lobby the Treasurer and Prime Minister to extend JobKeeper for the travel agent sector. Travel agents will be one of the last industries to return to pre-COVID-19 levels, and if JobKeeper is not extended for us, including sole traders, then I will be left with no alternative but to close my business.' Josh, from Carrum Downs, echoes Katie's sentiment. He wrote to me, saying, 'If JobKeeper ends for the tourism industry as of 31 March 2021, we won't survive.' And Peter, from Langwarrin, who I've spoken about in this place before, runs tours for people with disability. He says that cutting JobKeeper will mean that he won't be able to retain staff and that he may not be able to continue.
The reality of the COVID-19 Consumer Travel Support Program is that many businesses, including small businesses—especially small businesses—either didn't qualify or were only entitled to a small amount. Katie qualified for $4,000, which went nowhere near covering the hundreds of unpaid hours that she spent looking after clients' interests over the last 10 months, to secure refunds and ensure the business could survive. On behalf of all my constituents and people around the country, I implore the Treasurer and the Prime Minister: please step up and do something real and concrete to make sure these hardworking Australians can keep their businesses afloat.
Earlier this week I spoke of the tragic death of 22-year-old Jennifer Board. Jennifer was killed when her motorbike was hit by a car which was chasing a stolen car. Lawlessness in Townsville has been rife for years, and we have now lost five lives in these circumstances in 12 months just in Townsville. Three more lives were lost only a couple of weeks before in Brisbane in similar circumstances. The last thing anyone wants to do is politicise these tragic deaths. This should be about people and have nothing to do with politics.
What I am about to say comes from a genuine place of concern and a gut-wrenching sense of responsibility to the community that has elected me. We've had the revolving door of the juvenile youth justice system continue spinning for far too long. Young people on bail have been allowed to break conditions with zero consequences. They have been sent off to endless programs that they don't finish, don't work in or don't show up to.
In the last week there have been some announcements around the youth justice laws. My community have spoken out and said they are weak at best and that they certainly don't meet the community expectations of Townsville. Yes, the presumption of bail will be reversed but that will only apply for serious indictable offences, and we don't know which offences will be serious. The examples provided on the day of the announcement didn't include unlawful use of a motor vehicle, which is the offence most rife in my community. How can we be sure these changes will make our streets any safer?
A trial of GPS trackers for offenders aged 16 and 17 who are on bail was also announced. That sounds good, but what we haven't mentioned is that there is a shortage of GPS trackers in Townsville and that there are crimes being committed by juveniles as young as 10, 11 and 12 years old. The announcement failed to mention how a court orders the GPS trackers to be placed on offenders but that they have to be shipped up from Brisbane, which takes days, so they ask the offenders to promise to return to have them fitted. What happens in the meantime? What happens the offender doesn't turn up? Will they be charged with a breach of bail? They won't, because breach of bail has not been made an offence. This means a young offender can breach their bail conditions and won't get any extra punishment for it.
The community of Townsville expect different. They expect breach of bail to be an offence. If you breach bail, you should go to jail. They no longer want detention to be a last resort, as defined in the Youth Justice Act. They want these young offenders off the streets so that they can sleep soundly in their beds at night. I urge the Premier to listen to our community, recall parliament now and make the changes that the people of Townsville expect and deserve.
I rise in this place to talk about a group of 30 outstanding individuals and four local organisations we honoured on Australia Day at the Tooradin and District Sports Club as part of the 17th annual Holt Australia Day Awards. I want to thank the Holt Australia Day Awards committee, who helped select these outstanding individuals and organisations—Vanessa Gerdes, Jodie Hollis, Chris Drysdale and Rahimi Baryalai. Australia Day is a day where we can come together and recognise those that make a significant difference to our community, that make Australia a better place to be—what I call the 'social glue' that keeps our community together.
I would like to, if I can, read a large number of people's names and organisations into the record to again acknowledge them here in terms of their outstanding achievements and efforts to make our community a better place. They are Alexander Stroud, Barbara Pain, Dr Bol Juol-Thor, Brian Lasky OAM, David Forscutt, David Gomm, Debra Keogh OAM, Elizabeth Barton, Erin Wallace, Gam Tran, Glenn Weir, Hemanth Kumar, Ian Ronald Symons, Judy Clarkson AM, Karen Janssen, Lauren La'Brooy, Machid Ali, Marie Garcia, Dr Mary Cole, Mathew Keene OAM, Neil Haesler, Nigel Bertram, Robert John Best, Rosemary Mynard, Ross Wilkie, Senthil Senthilnathan, Steve Miller, Swaran Singh, Xiu Mei Li, Zarghuna Aatifi, Cannons Creek Foreshore Committee of Management, Monash Health COVID-19 Pandemic Response, and South East Climate Action Network.
They are names and organisations, but they are people. They are people that through their efforts have made Australia a better place. I think Australians do this in terms of their community contribution in a very Australian way. They don't seek recognition. They don't seek the awards, the honour, the fame. They just get out there and do it. We saw that time and time again through the COVID response. I mentioned the Monash Health COVID pandemic response team; but also the community organisations that worked in the most challenging set of circumstances as we overcame lockdown 1 and 2 in Melbourne in particular.
It says a lot also about the Australian spirit. There is a great resilience in the Australian spirit, a great character, a great spirit of self-sacrifice. We see that time and time again. We don't just see it on the international sports field and with our men and women who serve in the armed forces. We see it day in and day out from these people who serve our community and who do it in a quiet, unassuming Australian way. It was an honour to honour them for their Australian contributions on Australia Day.
A few weeks ago I stopped into a business in North Lakes that just had been awarded a Morrison government Defence Global Competitiveness Grant. This is a federal initiative that allows for existing businesses to expand into export markets, creating more jobs for Australians. Safe Defence trading as Poseidon is winning praise from the world's defence forces because of its revolutionary designs engineered by CEO David Manzi. I have an endorsement letter here from the United States Department of Defense following its evaluations of the Poseidon carbon fibre evacuation stretcher. They write: 'The light weight and foldable design are a great advancement over what is currently used, with what looks like a 40 pound reduction in system weight.' That's almost 20 kilos lighter, which makes a difference when you're carrying these products on rescue choppers and so forth used in the military. 'The light weight and foldable design are a great advancement.' David explained to me that the current stretchers that the Black Hawk choppers use are brilliant but heavy. For every pound carried they have got to carry a pound of fuel. So this design, made and manufactured in my electorate of Petrie, is going to save militaries around the world a lot on fuel. This is an awesome advance. The letter signs off that this stretcher 'is something that your company can be proud to distribute' and recommends that the Air Force should investigate bulk purchases of this stretcher. That is a stunning success for Safe Defence and Poseidon. That is just their lightweight stretcher. They also have other products that I'll talk about later.
With 2020 being the year of the nurse, the Australian College of Nursing wants to give back to its members across Australia to thank them for their efforts through the height of the pandemic. Nurses have never been more important. Last week, as well, I visited Redcliffe Hospital as I looked at the new MRI machine that the state government has installed with federal funding via the federally funded MRI licence. I met some of the nurses up there. To support nurses and to give back ACN announced it would award $1 million of scholarships in leader's mindset masterclass series to support the development of nursing leaders across Australia and give them the tools and knowledge to empower them personally and professionally. I met Claire Cox from Clontarf, who works at Redcliffe Hospital, and Michelle Crawford of Metro North Hospital and Health Service, who lives at Margate. They are both great women who have been nurses a long time, and they have a valued perspective about this global pandemic. They mentioned that for the first time nurses are a little bit worried about their families and contracting COVID, but they have done a great job through the last year. I congratulate them all and want to thank them for their service.
As we look to the pandemic recovery, jobs for my community of Darwin and Palmerston are at the forefront of my mind. People are doing it tough, particularly those who have lost their jobs. Having a secure, long-term job is key to keeping Territorians in the Territory. If I can show my bias, I will say that it's the best place in the country to call home, and Territorians know that our lifestyle can't be beaten. But no matter how much you love that lifestyle and the great opportunities we have in the north, if you can't pay your rent or you can't pay the mortgage, it's very difficult to get by.
Labor has a plan for secure work for Australians, for reconstruction and rejuvenation of our economy post-COVID, and the focus is on jobs: good, secure jobs with fair pay and conditions for the work Territorians do. Defence and its related industries is a very important employer in the Northern Territory. It's more important than ever to keep those jobs in the North, and that's what I've been concentrating on doing, and to grow our capability to support the defence community.
I recently visited Northtrack Machinery, who provide first-class services to support defence and other industries. An example is maintaining the patrol boats and their smaller RIBs—rigid inflatable boats—that are so important. We have been out on those RIBs. They provide the border protection that is so important for our nation. They're doing a great job, and Northtrack Machinery will be key to the northern regional maintenance centre that will provide services to Navy and to Defence into the future. The government has committed to purchasing 29 Apache helicopters within four years, but I'm calling on the government to be honest with Territorians about where those Apaches are going to be based. They should be replacing the Tigers in Darwin. So, I'm asking the defence minister to confirm that that will be the case. Our local industry is ready to start that transition process from the Tiger helicopter through to the Apache, but they deserve that certainty.
We've got the Marines up in Darwin, and I welcome them at this time every year to do the joint training they do with us. We're going to have a $400 million ship lift facility as well, which will enable us to, whilst working with our US allies, to support the US First Fleet operations in the Indo-Pacific as well as our own Navy and border protection assets. Darwin is the capital of the North, and we serve the nation from there.
Today I pay tribute to the members of the Palmers Oaky Rural Fire Service brigade that faced the catastrophic bushfire season of 2019-20. Australia's Black Summer is seared in the memory of all of us, from those communities in our region and around Australia who faced the infernos to the many millions around the country and around the world who watched the fires rage on their television screens. The blazes that tore through the central west devastated so much, not just lives but families, businesses and communities.
So, today I'd like to acknowledge and thank the members of the Palmers Oaky Rural Fire Service brigade, including Captain Nino Di Falco, Deputy Captain Phillip Morcombe, Adam Basanovic, Andrew Shumack, Chris Schofield, Colin Ferguson, Duncan Ferguson, Geoff Shumack, Glenn Sundstrom, Glen Fuller, James (Stuart) Ferguson, Louis De Silva, Scott Fuller, Shane O'Leary and Vanessa Oloffson
On 4 December 2019 the Palmers Oaky Upper Turon Road fire broke out in the central west and went on to burn more than 17,400 hectares of private property, state forest and national park. By midday that day, members of the Palmers Oaky brigade answered the call and had well and truly swung into action, with members of the brigade having to face some of the most savage conditions ever witnessed during a bushfire season.
Over the next 20 days the brigade, both on the front line and back at the fire shed, worked day and night fighting the fires in and around Palmers Oaky. Much of the dangerous work undertaken by the brigade was in hilly and mountainous terrain. Brigade captain Nino Di Falco has said that the brigade's firefighting response was a massive group effort which included essential behind-the-scenes work which stood them in good stead in the face of these Black Summer infernos.
In recalling the efforts of the entire brigade, Nino makes special mention of Chris Schofield and Duncan Ferguson, who worked their bulldozers day and night at their own expense, constructing fire control lines before the official RFS equipment was on site. But the efforts of the brigade were not just confined to this area, with so many also making an enormous contribution to the megablaze at Gospers Mountain. This fire destroyed an area seven times the size of Singapore.
The fire at Palmers Oaky ultimately jumped Gulf Road and the Turon River into the midwestern region and the Cudgegong Rural Fire Service district, which was also managing major incidents. In Palmers Oaky the brigade lost 14 square kilometres, mostly bushland. However, brigade captain Nino Di Falco recalls that three times that amount was lost to the fires on the other side of the Turon River. The hardworking, dedicated crews were able to gain control in early January and finally declared the fire out in February 2020. I'm pleased to say that the efforts of the Palmers Oaky brigade have not been forgotten by all of us—or any of us—in the community, especially as communities continue to rebuild their lives following the devastation that the bushfires brought during that long, hot, dangerous summer.
Fourteen members of the Palmers Oaky Rural Fire Service Brigade have received Premier' Citations thanking them for their efforts in fighting against the massive fire front. On behalf of our communities in the central west, I'd like to thank all the men and women of the Palmers Oaky brigade, who did so much during those terrifying days when everything was on a knife edge. We are very grateful for your commitment and your sacrifice in keeping our community safe, and this parliament recognises you and thanks you for this extraordinary service today. (Time expired)
A division having been called in the House of Representatives
Sitting suspended from 11:06 to 11:17
In the area of Parramatta we have a woman who has to be called a hero and her name is Rosemary Kariuki. On Australia Day she was named Australia's Local Hero for 2021, which is much deserved. She is an extraordinary woman. The awarding of Rosemary in this way gives me an opportunity to focus not just on Rosemary herself but on the people that Rosemary cares about that led her to this recognition. By day Rosemary is a multicultural community liaison officer for the Parramatta Police, but for the rest of the time she works with people who are lonely and isolated by domestic violence, by poverty, by trauma, by language difficulties and finds a place for them. She helps them find comfort in Australia. She works with our newest migrants, people who come here from all over the world, sometimes with terrible stories, sometimes with lost family members, sometimes separated from children—all sorts of stories. She seeks them out and makes them stronger.
When I first met Rosemary she came to me because she was going to start an African women's dinner dance because she thought African women—of which she is one; she came from Kenya in 1999 and suffered loneliness for a few years—needed to be brought together. She came to me for help. I went to that first dinner dance and there was a little group of Somali women over there very quietly and a group of women from Kenya there. The only ones who were loud were the Nigerians. Those of us who have Nigerian communities will know exactly what I mean. They are totally fabulous and not just the colour of their clothing. They're just amazing people. But they were quite separate. Now 14 years later 400 people turn up to that dinner dance every year. Men aren't allowed. Laurie Ferguson gets invited every year but other than Laurie no-one else. Now the confidence of these women—they have changed so much. They proudly stand there with their full history on display, recognising absolutely who they are, where they come from, where they are now. They're an extraordinary bunch of people and Rosemary has done that. She also organised the African village market for four years and now she organises women travelling to country areas to stay on farms with local families to get to know other Australians and get to know the Australian landscape. She is an extraordinary woman.
There are two places where you can go to really find out about what Rosemary does, and I'm going to suggest to people they do this. I will put a link on my Facebook. Go to the Australia Day site and have a look at her acceptance speech, because that tells you who she is. She will tell you, 'Next week, go and introduce yourself to someone from a different culture. Make a difference.' The other thing is a film called Rosemary's Way, which documents Rosemary's day and what she does and how she helps people. Rosemary's Way is an amazing film and it will introduce you to the lives of people that are hidden in our community—people who are isolated, stay home, aren't game to come out, aren't comfortable, and don't know how to be in Australia yet and need our help to do that. They're the people that Rosemary works with. Her award gives me an opportunity to tell people how to find out about Rosemary and what she does. She is amazing.
My story is not as colourful or as uplifting as the member for Parramatta's was. My story is about the tragedy that happens across Australia every day where people make mistakes on our roads—and they have tragic consequences. This particular tragedy was on my patch. A couple and their daughter, leaving a major theme park that is actually in country Victoria, out of the metropolitan area, crossing across the highway were struck by a truck doing 80 kilometres an hour. The gentleman died at the scene, the mum was critically injured and the baby was taken to hospital.
I have just come from a meeting with the roads minister, Scott Buchholz, who is now looking at ways we can alleviate this particular problem at this intersection at Gumbuya World. The worst part about this is that these people were Melbourne residents coming into country Victoria, on country highways without the supports that you have in urban areas. Gumbuya World has a permit to put 8,000 cars through that intersection every day. The traffic coming down the highway travels at 100 kilometres an hour on that part of the highway. The intersection is at the top of a hill, so the visibility to your right and to your left is very difficult.
The ways around it cost a lot of money. We can't put an overpass on every intersection right across the whole of Victoria everywhere there's a place. We also can't help that people will come out of a happy day at a theme park with their wife and daughter—'Gee, we've had a great day'—and mum is in the back of the car with the daughter and, bang, they're gone. And the trauma is not just a trauma for that family, who were Australians who came here to make a new life; around that accident were a whole lot of my constituents who saw what happened. One young girl who dragged the young girl out of the back of the car and took her away from the scene is, of course, traumatised.
The departments have been terrific with me today, and so has Michael McCormack's office and their staff and Scott Buchholz, in understanding the trauma conveyed to me from my constituents about this tragic event. I actually don't know the outcome for the family. I hope the mother has survived. I hope she will be back with the daughter as soon as possible. But it's up to me, as the local member, to do all I can on behalf of my constituents and the community and all the people that come to Gumbuya World to get an outcome on their behalf that will make this place safer.
In accordance withstanding order 193, the time for members' constituency statements has concluded.
I'm really pleased today to have the opportunity to talk about the most recent report of the House Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy which we titled Tackling the feral cat pandemic: a plan to save Australian wildlife. I commend the report to the House and, indeed, to the broader community.
This report is arguably one of the most important reports that has been prepared by the environment and energy committee because it addresses what is one of the most significant environmental threats to Australia's environment and to our wildlife—that is, the impact of feral cats, and cats more broadly as well. It cannot be underestimated how grave this threat to our wildlife actually is. Just think about these statistics. Cats have been the major cause for the extinction of 25 of the 34 Australian mammals that have been lost completely since the European settlement of our continent. A single feral cat in the bush kills 370 invertebrates, 44 frogs, 225 reptiles, 130 birds and 390 mammals per year. Each and every year that is the kill tally for a single feral cat. In fact, when you total it up, it means that predation by cats is responsible for the loss of 1.6 billion native animals every year.
I just want to put that in context. Last year, at the end of the Black Summer bushfires, there was a lot of work done to analyse the impact of those bushfires on native wildlife. It's hard to predict, but the loss ranged from one billion to three billion native animals. So somewhere in the middle of that, each and every year, is the impact of cats on Australian wildlife. It's worth reflecting on the fact that whilst it's hard to predict precisely, and the numbers vary according to things like weather conditions and the abundance of food and so on, there is something like 2.8 million feral cats in the wild across Australia.
This is a substantial problem. We know that feral species in the broader sense have a huge impact on our environment. Cats are not alone in the damage that they do. We can talk about the impact of hunting by foxes. We can talk about the damage to landscape by goats and deer and feral horses. We know the damage that has been done by cane toads across northern Australia. But if you want to identify the one feral species that poses the greatest threat to our environment, unfortunately feral cats win that dubious prize.
In addition to the toll that they take on native wildlife through their hunting, we also know that feral cats are a conduit for the spread of pathogens. Many farmers around Australia know about the damage caused by toxoplasmosis in particular, a disease that cats are the vector for. This disease is entering our livestock, particularly sheep, and also impacting on native animals through the consumption of faeces and other interactions with those feral cats. This is a major problem facing our environment—sadly, one that arrived on the very first ship that came to our shores in 1788 and has exploded year by year as feral cat numbers have grown.
It is a major challenge, because feral cats are now found across 99 per cent or more of the Australian landscape. So 99 per cent of our continent and all of our landmass provides a home for feral cats. In fact, they are now not found on only a few islands, either by accident or by the deliberate actions of those trying to eradicate feral cats on some of those islands. These islands have become sanctuaries in themselves. The problem is of a vast scale, but, equally importantly, it's a problem to which there is no silver bullet. There is no magic answer that allows us to address the problem of feral cats.
Of course there are a number of mechanisms that those trying to address the feral animal problem use. Cage trapping is occasionally used, particularly in the urban environment, but unfortunately cage trapping is no answer for the landscape-wide problem of feral cats because of the expense and the limited nature of the capacity of cages to catch cats. Baiting is used, and we have seen some important developments occurring in relation to baiting. It's fair to say that baiting is probably the most effective and the only effective landscape-wide mechanism we have to try to reduce feral cat numbers, but it's not without issues. There are concerns, obviously, about the humaneness of baiting programs. There is concern about whether it can impact on native species. But it is a very effective way of reducing feral cat numbers in some circumstances. We are seeing new developments in relation to baiting. For example, the committee heard about a new product, Felixer, which actually uses lasers to inject poison on the fur of feral cats. Uniquely, it can identify that the subject that has come into its range is actually a cat and not another species. So, it provides some further potential.
But we know, in relation to the continent-wide reduction of feral cats, that in the future we are going to have to look at other ways to reduce cat numbers. For example, there is work being done on gene drive technology, which can potentially alter the genetics of feral cat populations so that they can't breed and reproduce. But, again, that technology itself is not without risk, and there is a lot more work that needs to be done on its potential applicability to cats in the Australian landscape, firstly and obviously, to ensure that it's not also affecting domestic cat populations and, secondly, to ensure it doesn't cross over to other feline species either in Australia or globally.
Perhaps most importantly of all we have seen efforts being undertaken by a range of governments and private organisations to try and protect our native wildlife through predator-free zones. These effectively take the form of sanctuaries that allow feral animals to be removed. Where that happens native wildlife flourishes. The committee had the benefit of visiting one not far from Parliament House, Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary, where we saw the impact of predator-free fencing. It was just extraordinary, seeing the bettongs and the eastern quoll that, once absent, now live there. My view is that expanding those sanctuaries, which in the report we call a 'Project Noah' national effort, is probably the most important thing that governments can do. I encourage the government to look at a massive expansion of those sanctuaries to protect more of our wildlife.
I also want to touch on the impact of domestic cats. I know this can be a sensitive issue, because cat owners understandably love their little moggies, but often it's underestimated how much damage the domestic cats themselves are doing. Sadly, we know that pet cats kill over one million animals per day. That means that basically one in four domestic cats is undertaking a kill of some form or other each day. That translates into over 390 million animals that are killed by our pet cats, unfortunately, over the course of a year. One of the problems we have is that most people don't believe that their pet cat could perpetrate such heinous crimes. Every other person's cat is so frequently the problem and not our own. But the reality is that cats do have a hunting instinct, which means that even domestic cats are a major cause of concern. This report looks at that, and it recommends a range of things that we can do, the most important of which, perhaps, is increasing our education about how to responsibly own and manage pet cats.
But it also came as a surprise to me that we don't have mandatory desexing of cats in every jurisdiction across Australia. I strongly believe that state governments and local governments, with the support of the federal government, need to be considering whether night-time curfews should be more broadly instituted for domestic cats to protect native wildlife. This is particularly critical at the interface of urban areas and bushland. Even in an electorate like mine, where we have pockets of remnant bushland, it is so important. I would urge all cat owners themselves to think about whether they should be placing night-time curfews on their own cats, keeping them indoors so that they're not roaming and killing native animals at night.
The committee also heard about the impact of imported new species of cats. This is a grave threat, and the committee strongly supported ensuring that we're not adding to the species of cats present in the Australian environment by allowing the importation of things like Bengal cats, which are bigger, larger and more ferocious hunters.
This is an important report from the committee. I want to thank all of those who gave evidence. I want to thank my fellow committee members for producing what was a bipartisan, unanimous report. I want to thank the committee staff for the excellent job that they did in supporting this inquiry, as they always do. We do have the opportunity to make a difference to what seems to be an unsurmountable problem. The stakes are so high that I would urge all governments, including the federal government, to regard reducing feral cat numbers and better managing domestic cats as a key priority for protecting our unique and beautiful wildlife on this continent of ours.
This is an important report. As a member of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy, I commend this report on our inquiry into the problem of feral and domestic cats in Australia. I thank my fellow committee members and the committee secretariat for their work on this important inquiry. The inquiry sought to examine the prevalence and impact of feral, stray and domestic cats and the effectiveness of various legislative, regulatory and collaborative responses across Australian jurisdictions. The committee received 218 submissions, held six public hearings in Canberra and conducted a very memorable site inspection under just a bit of rain at Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary in Canberra's north, where we were able to inspect the sanctuary's feral-predator-free fence and had the pleasure of seeing great diversity, including the eastern quoll. It really was exciting to see good policy and a really fantastic program.
The report makes six specific recommendations which I fully support. We know feral cats are a significant problem. It's astounding. Feral cats are found on 99 per cent of the Australian continent. It's clear there is no magic solution and there needs to be a cohesive response, and these six specific recommendations seek to do that. In particular, regarding recommendation 1, the prioritisation of the problem of feral cats is a matter of national environmental significance. We need to do better. We have seen a really dramatic loss of native species as a result of the problem of feral cats. We need to better educate ourselves and understand the problem. We need to promote responsible cat ownership. Pet cats are part of the problem. The statistics are astounding: one million animals per day in Australia are, in fact, killed by pet cats. I think that is quite telling. In the recommendations, there is a call for a clear strategy to inform resourcing and a response to the problem. It is a significant problem. It is of a vast scale. Unfortunately, there is no simple solution. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but we must be focused on it and make sure we're making gains across so many areas.
Discussions in relation to loss of biodiversity and the extinction of native species brings on debate about what we're doing in terms of environmental protections at large. Of course, we've seen the EPBC Act amendment come through the parliament. The important issue of feral cat abatement is an example of why the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is so essential in protecting our native flora and fauna. I have grave concerns around the government's move to divest the powers to the states in relation to the recent legislation that was put to the House of Representatives. I believe it is a very dangerous move. The EPBC Act provides for the identification and listing of key threatening processes. A key threatening process is when it threatens or may threaten the survival, abundance or evolutionary development of a native species or ecological community. It's no surprise that the predation by feral cats is listed as a key threatening process.
Feral cats, as I said, roam over 90 per cent of our continent and are decimating populations of birds, amphibians and small mammals. Some witnesses suggested that over 1.5 billion animals are killed by cats each year. The statistics were really scary. Our biodiversity, already under threat by so many factors, including climate change, deforestation and pollution, is being squeezed unsustainably. Once listed as a key threatening process, threat abatement plans and strategies can be developed. Regrettably, existing plans and strategies are insufficient to halt the extinction crisis driven in part by feral cats. There are concerns that, with the current legislation, there is a push for the divestment of powers of environmental approvals and assessments to the states, without critical safeguards in place. We've seen the final report of the Samuel review of the EPBC Act, and I would suggest that the government's response is inadequate. We need a firm commitment that the government will implement the national standards envisioned by the Samuel review in full. There must be an adequately resourced and independent assurance and compliance regulator. Only then can we be assured that we can reverse the extinction and biodiversity crisis that we have in Australia.
The attitude towards the EPBC Act and what it seeks to protect was on display, I would say, when we had a really inadequate debate—it was rushed through the House of Representatives late last year without proper debate. I call on colleagues in this place and in the Senate to really consider the impact on our environment and what legislation is in fact needed to make sure we do protect our biodiversity, our flora and fauna that is so unique around the world.
This report is a very important report when it comes to one of the worst predators on our native species. I thank all the witnesses and all those who participated, and also the secretariat and my fellow committee members. I commend the recommendations to the House.
I agree with the member for Warringah and also with the member for North Sydney, who spoke earlier. This is an important report. The committee has taken on a piece of critical work here because cats represent an enormous threat to Australia's environment. They are the cause of some of the most acute and widespread damage that has already occurred. They are, in the words of one of the experts who appeared before the committee, often the final nail in the coffin as Australian species continue to go extinct.
I'll start by just pointing out that we have to see this report in that larger context; the starting point of the picture is the extraordinary environmental damage which has occurred in Australia, particularly over the last couple of hundred years. Cats have been a big part of that and they continue to be a massive part of it. Then the next part of the picture, sadly, is that our environmental protection framework and the measures which we have been taking to try, on the one hand, to arrest harm, and on the other hand, perhaps in some cases, to restore the environments or see populations come back to their former health, aren't working. Above all, we must stop kidding ourselves about that fact; it is undeniable.
On that point: we can't get a better statement than what the government appointed EPBC reviewer himself, Graeme Samuel, said in his review of the EPBC Act:
The evidence received by the Review is compelling. Australia's natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat. The pressures on the environment are significant—including land-use change, habitat loss and degradation, and feral animal and invasive plant species. The impact of climate change on the environment is building, and will exacerbate pressures, contributing to further decline. Given its current state, the environment is not sufficiently resilient to withstand these threats. The current environmental trajectory is unsustainable.
That's the reality as it is now. We've done enormous harm to our environment. We've seen some 30-plus species go extinct already. Sadly, we are a world leader when it comes to mammal extinctions. If we compare Australia with North America as a comparator, we've had 30-plus mammal species go extinct and North America has seen one.
Cats, unfortunately, are a big part of that. They are unparalleled slaughter machines when it comes to Australian mammals, birds, lizards and amphibians. Each year, of 1.6 billion animals, a single feral cat kills 1,200 Australian animals on average. Even pet cats across Australia, collectively, are responsible for killing a million Australian native animals a day. So the largest impact is that of feral cats but, unfortunately, pet cats make a contribution as well. They are, in many cases, the greatest immediate threat to Australia's most endangered species. We have a number of species which are on the brink—they're down to the last few hundred of their number—and it will be the combination of climate change and bushfires, coupled with cat predation, which will see the end of some of those species if we don't do something. And we must do something different, because what we're doing right now isn't working.
I give the government credit: a few years ago they created the Office of the Threatened Species Commissioner. That was a new initiative which was intended to have some beneficial effect on behalf of the most threatened species in Australia, of which, sadly, there are many. But we have to acknowledge now, three years on, that it's not working. It's not working on its own terms. It set some very clear targets. Those targets are not being met. It chose, for example, 20 particularly threatened mammal species, with a target to see an improvement in population numbers for 10 of those 20 species by the end of the first three-year period. That has not occurred. So far, over three years, we've seen a population increase for only four of those 20 mammal species, while for another four an improvement is claimed to the extent that the rate of decline has slowed. That cannot be good enough. If we set these targets, if we create these bodies, we must expect that they deliver the outcomes they have been set up to deliver. Along the way, when that doesn't occur we need to ask why and we need to be prepared to add programs and resources to get what we need. If we don't, then, of those 20 mammal species and the threatened bird species and the amphibian species, we will simply see more extinctions.
You cannot take what is happening in terms of the impact of cats outside of the broader environmental picture. As the member for Warringah just pointed out, the government's actions in this space, in protecting the environment, are nothing to be proud of. You cannot cut 40 per cent of funding from the department of the environment when the environment has been smashed and the trajectory is one of decline. If you take away 40 per cent of funding from the department responsible for that, and you expect things to get better, you are operating according to a different logic than the one I understand should be applied in this space.
You can't have a situation where 79 per cent of decisions made under the EPBC Act involve failures of compliance and failures to meet basic conditions, as the Auditor-General's report found. You can't have, as Graeme Samuel has found, an environmental protection framework at the Commonwealth level that doesn't have effective national standards, that is allowing the net loss of habitat for critically endangered species, that is allowing—as we have seen reported today by The Guardiandouble-dipping when it comes to the use of offsets. The destruction of habitat is supposed to be balanced out by the acquisition of some offset territory that includes equivalent habitat; that is being used multiple times to allow destruction of habitat for multiple projects. That simply cannot be the case.
This report, on a collegiate bipartisan basis, looks very clearly at what the reality will be if we don't act. The reality will be further environmental degradation and the loss of more species, and, therefore, the irreversible loss of biodiversity in Australia. We just cannot accept that. I hope that the government pays close attention to the report and the recommendations, which are the basis of a lot of expert testimony and wide engagement with stakeholders around Australia.
We have urged the government to prioritise the problem of feral cat control, in proper balance with other programs. There are issues like wild dogs, for instance, in rural and regional Australia; we know that that is a problem particularly for primary producers. But it's hard to understand why the funding that goes to wild dog control is so far in excess of the funding that goes to feral cat control. That kind of question has to answered.
The Threatened Species Strategy needs to be seriously revised. The government has so far responded to the failure of the strategy by doing what governments often do and what makes people in the community extremely cynical; it has said: 'Rather than operating over five years, why don't you operate over 10 years? We will kick the can down the road and expand out the scope of your work, and we won't give you any additional resources.' Clearly, there needs to be better collaboration with the states and territories. There needs to be greater investment in scientific research and technology.
We don't have a broadscale method for handling cats, as other speakers have mentioned. At the moment we don't have a way of eliminating cats in the way that we have been able to do to some degree with other invasive species. Until we do, we have to ensure that feral cats in particular don't push the most threatened animals, birds, lizards and amphibians over the edge. The best way we can do that, as the member for North Sydney pointed out, is by significantly expanding the network of exclosures and offshore islands. It is very, very sad that Australia is in a position where the best that we can do is put fences around species, eradicate cats within those species, as a sort of life raft to get them through the next decade or so while we search for something like gene drive technology. But if we don't do that to a greater degree than we are doing now more mammals will go extinct and other animal species as well.
I was part of the committee's trip to Mulligans Flat and that was a real eye-opener. Scientists in this space talk about not just actual extinction but the extinction of experience. Unfortunately, many Australians will go for a walk in the bush and see virtually no animals and think, 'This is Australia. It is a harsh landscape. There are just not that many animals around or perhaps they are hiding.' That isn't true. Our country used to be full of animals. They used to be everywhere until we destroyed it. We have an opportunity to stop that destruction, but the government needs to get the report, pay attention to it and respond with the kinds of measures that it calls for.
I want to add a couple of minutes of comment. Every now and again you are sitting in the Federation Chamber and you really do learn something, so I commend the committee on this report. I have been flicking through it. I have to admit when I heard the first government speaker, the chair of the committee, get up I thought, 'Oh my goodness, we're going to be talking about cats. What's next? Dogs? This is all a bit silly.' But I have learnt a lot. I think the previous speaker in particular made some very good points.
The numbers are striking. I was thinking back to 12 months ago when the country was ravaged by bushfires and one of the things which really tore at the heartstrings of Australians was the extent of loss of native animals. We heard these statistics: a billion native animals lost, two billion native animals lost. This report makes clear that the estimates are that 1.6 billion native animals are lost every year through cats—1.4 billion of those from feral cats. I think it's an incredibly important bit of work, more so than perhaps the initial giggles that some of us might have had would convey.
The other point that I want to echo is the importance of resourcing this work. It is all very well for all government members and opposition members to sign up to noble, worthy recommendations, but when we have seen under this government, in its eighth year, cuts of 40 per cent from the environment department how on earth—what is the point of these reports when they just go to an under-resourced department that can't even do its basic work now, let alone anything new? Perhaps the government thinks that casual hire workers would be the answer. Get some backpackers in to do this kind of work. The importance of this work and this knowledge goes to the very core of why you need a skilled, permanent public service and not a casualised labour hire public service, with 10 to 20 per cent of staff now sitting in government departments sitting on labour hire contracts while the company makes a whole lot of money and they just bugger off. It is really important stuff.
The final thing I will say is I want to make a public declaration as the proud owner of two six-month-old kittens. I declare to the House that my kittens hence force will remain inside animals, that they will never fulfil their innate potential as slaughter machines in the neighbourhood, murderers. They are lovely Burmese pussies. I'm not going to read their names into Hansard. I'm going to protect their privacy. Inside animals rather than outside animals. That's where they will remain.
The recommendations around councils, metropolitan and particularly interface councils, maintaining cat curfews and other things are also very well made. There is something for everyone in the report. Who knew?
It's always entertaining to hear from the member for Bruce. With that, I move:
That the debate be adjourned and the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for the next sitting.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That the Federation Chamber do now adjourn.
Question agreed to.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 11:53