On behalf of the Minister for the Public Service, I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority—Transformation of Reef HQ Aquarium.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is proposing works to deliver stage 2 of the redevelopment of the National Education Centre for the Great Barrier Reef's Reef HQ Aquarium. The proposal will deliver upgrades to provide a range of immersive experiences and revitalised exhibits, including educational activities, hands-on experiences, onsite diving programs, scientific demonstrations and the use of interactive technology.
The estimated cost of the stage 2 works is $40 million excluding GST. The project was referred to the Public Works Committee on 26 August. The committee has recommended that the House of Representatives resolve, pursuant to section 18(7) of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, that it is expedient to carry out the project. Subject to parliamentary approval, construction works are expected to commence in March 2022 and to be completed in late 2023.
On behalf of the government, I'd like to thank the committee for undertaking a timely inquiry. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Minister for the Public Service, I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Department of Defence—Facilities to support LAND 19 Phase 7B Short Range Ground Base Air Defence, RAAF Base Edinburgh, South Australia.
The Department of Defence is proposing to provide new facilities and infrastructure works at RAAF Base Edinburgh, South Australia, to enable the Royal Australian Artillery to support new air defence capability as part of the integrated air and missile defence program.
The project will replace the existing portable laser-guided surface-to-air missile system with a significantly larger and more capable vehicle-based air defence system. The total estimated capital delivery cost of the project is $266.1 million excluding GST. The project was referred to the Public Works Committee on 26 August. The committee's recommended that the House of Representatives resolve, pursuant to section 18(7) of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, that it is expedient to carry out the project. Subject to parliamentary approval, the construction works are expected to commence in late 2022 and to be completed in late 2024.
On behalf the government, I would like to thank the committee for undertaking a timely inquiry. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Minister for the Public Service, I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Department of Home Affairs—Proposed fit-out of 808 Bourke Street, Docklands, Victoria.
The Department of Home Affairs is proposing fit-out works for new office space at 808 Bourke Street, Melbourne. Home Affairs currently occupies three buildings in the Melbourne central business district and surrounding areas. The leases are due to expire in 2023 with no options to renew. Under its Melbourne precinct strategy, Home Affairs will consolidate the three sites into one new location, allowing for operational efficiencies and reduced property operating costs. The estimated cost of the works is $34.3 million excluding GST. The works must be referred, considered by and reported on to both houses of the parliament by the Public Works Committee before work may commence. Subject to parliamentary approval, the construction works are expected to commence in May 2022 and to be completed in February 2023. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Minister for the Public Service, I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Services Australia—Fit-out of new leased premises at 205 North Quay, Brisbane, Queensland.
Services Australia is proposing to undertake fit-out works at new leased premises at 205 North Quay in Brisbane. Services Australia currently occupies nine buildings in the Brisbane area, many of which include fit-outs that are approaching the end of economic life. Services Australia is proposing to consolidate these sites into fit-for-purpose office accommodation at North Quay. The consolidation will provide operational efficiencies and flexibility to meet future business requirements and reduce overall property operating costs. The estimated cost of the works is $89.4 million excluding GST. The works must be referred to, considered by and reported on to both houses of parliament by the Public Works Committee before work may commence. Subject to parliamentary approval, fit-out works and relocations to the new building are expected to be completed by December 2024. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Minister for the Public Service, I move:
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, the following proposed work be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works for consideration and report: Services Australia—Fit-out of new leased premises at 120 Bathurst Street, Hobart, Tasmania.
Services Australia is proposing to fit out new leased premises as part of its consolidation of leased office accommodation in Hobart.
Services Australia currently occupies three buildings in Hobart. The leases are due to expire in 2024, and the fit-outs are approaching the end of economic life. The consolidation of three sites into 120 Bathurst Street, Hobart will provide operational efficiencies and flexibility to allow for changing and future business requirements and reduce overall property operating costs. The estimated cost of the works is $32.8 million excluding GST. The works must be referred to, considered by and reported on to both houses of the parliament by the Public Works Committee before work may commence. Subject to parliamentary approval, fit-out works are expected to commence in August 2022 and relocations are scheduled for June 2024. I commend the motion to the House.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Minister for Health and Aged Care, I move:
That, in accordance with section 10B of the Health Insurance Act 1973, the House approve the Health Insurance (Extended Medicare Safety Net) Amendment (Indexation) Determination 2021 made on 21 November 2021, and presented to the House on 25 November 2021.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Assistant Minister for Regional Development and Territories, I move:
That, in accordance with section 5 of the Parliament Act 1974 , the House approve the following proposal for work in the Parliamentary Zone which was presented to the House on 24 November 2021, namely: Dame Enid Lyons and Dame Dorothy T angney commemorative sculpture.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, I move:
(1) a Select Committee on Social Media and Online Safety be established to inquire into:
(a) the range of online harms that may be faced by Australians on social media and other online platforms, including harmful content or harmful conduct;
(b) evidence of:
(i) the potential impacts of online harms on the mental health and wellbeing of Australians;
(ii) the extent to which algorithms used by social media platforms permit, increase or reduce online harms to Australians;
(iii) existing identity verification and age assurance policies and practices and the extent to which they are being enforced;
(c) the effectiveness, take-up and impact of industry measures, including safety features, controls, protections and settings, to keep Australians, particularly children, safe online;
(d) the effectiveness and impact of industry measures to give parents the tools they need to make meaningful decisions to keep their children safe online;
(e) the transparency and accountability required of social media platforms and online technology companies regarding online harms experienced by their Australians users;
(f) the collection and use of relevant data by industry in a safe, private and secure manner;
(g) actions being pursued by the Government to keep Australians safe online; and
(h) any other related matter;
(2) the committee present its final report on or before 15 February 2022;
(3) the committee consist of eight members, five Members to be nominated by the Government Whip, and three Members to be nominated by the Opposition Whip or by any non-aligned Member;
(4) supplementary members may:
(a) be appointed to the committee on the nomination of the Government Whip, the Opposition Whip or any minority party or independent member; and
(b) participate in hearings of evidence and deliberations of the committee, and have all the rights of members of the committee, but may not vote on any question before the committee;
(5) every nomination of a member of the committee be notified in writing to the Speaker of the House of Representatives;
(6) the members of the committee hold office as a select committee until presentation of the committee's final report or until the House of Representatives is dissolved or expires by effluxion of time, whichever is the earlier;
(7) the committee may proceed to the dispatch of business notwithstanding that not all members have been duly nominated and appointed and notwithstanding any vacancy;
(8) the committee elect:
(a) a Government member as its chair; and
(b) a non-Government member as its deputy chair who shall act as chair of the committee at any time when the chair is not present at a meeting of the committee;
(9) at any time when the chair and deputy chair are not present at a meeting of the committee, the members present shall elect another member to act as chair at that meeting;
(10) in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, have a casting vote;
(11) three members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee;
(12) the committee:
(a) have power to appoint subcommittees consisting of three or more of its members, and to refer to any subcommittee any matter which the committee is empowered to examine; and
(b) appoint the chair of each subcommittee who shall have a casting vote only;
(13) at any time when the chair of a subcommittee is not present at a meeting of the subcommittee, the members of the subcommittee present shall elect another member of that subcommittee to act as chair at that meeting;
(14) two members of a subcommittee constitute the quorum of that subcommittee;
(15) members of the committee who are not members of a subcommittee may participate in the proceedings of that subcommittee but shall not vote, move any motion or be counted for the purpose of a quorum;
(16) the committee or any subcommittee have power to:
(a) call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;
(b) conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;
(c) sit in public or in private;
(d) report from time to time; and
(e) adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the House of Representatives;
(17) the committee or any subcommittee have power to consider and make use of the evidence and records of any former committee on related matters; and
(18) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.
In speaking to this inquiry that is being established I note that the safety of all Australians is paramount. Online safety has been an area of strong bipartisanship, and it should continue to be so. That has been acknowledged by both Labor and the government. Labor stands ready to examine whatever this government puts forward or proposes in this space and to work constructively through any issues that may arise. Labor supports the establishment of a Select Committee on Social Media and Online Safety to inquire into online harms, including harmful content. Indeed, over a decade ago, in 2010, it was a Labor government that established the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety as part of its commitment to investigate and improve cybersafety measures, releasing a report with 32 recommendations, each of which was endorsed and responded to by the then Labor government.
I want to say a few words in the context of evolving harms because Australia has long been at the forefront of online regulation, starting with the Australian Broadcasting Authority back in 1999, followed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which had responsibility for online safety well prior to the establishment of the Office of the eSafety Commissioner. For over two decades there has been a constant evolution in everything online, from services and technology to user behaviour and case law, and, of course, in terms of regulation. The scale and pace of change will only continue, but the principle of protecting people from harm remains, whether it's spam, scams, defamation, privacy breaches or exposure to inappropriate content.
When it comes to keeping children, young people and adults safe online against a constantly evolving threat matrix, we need both big tech and governments to do better, to be ever-vigilant in understanding, anticipating and addressing online harms. It is therefore essential to have robust evidence about online harms, and it's imperative that big tech not be conflicted in its research efforts in understanding those online harms on their own platforms. It's important that both digital platforms and governments undertake research to understand the evolving online harms and what can be done in a very practical way to keep citizens and consumers safe online. But this research must not be misused. Governments need to fix the yawning information asymmetry on how platforms and the algorithms that drive them are used and abused. Whether this inquiry will fix this asymmetry remains to be seen. However, given it is a short inquiry that will run over the summer period and report in just over two months, in early February next year, we will soon find out.
As I said, it is the role of government to keep on top of issues in social media in order to keep Australians safe online, particularly children. The online environment is fast moving, so we do need to be ever-vigilant, as I said, but governments need to move swiftly as well. It is most unfortunate, therefore—and it is a fact—that the Morrison government has run late on everything from legislating a new online safety act, to reforming online privacy law, to improving digital media literacy and now to initiating this inquiry into online harms in the last sitting days of this year. It is late, late, late. To clarify, this Prime Minister is never late with the media announcements. The announcements come early, and there are many. But the actual delivery is always late or missing.
Labor was so disappointed, as were so many people in our community, that it took the Morrison government so long to introduce legislation for a new Online Safety Act in 2021, which will commence a good three years after the Briggs review recommended it back in October 2018. From the start of the 46th Parliament, and for a couple of years, the minister for communications repeatedly spruiked his then non-existent Online Safety Act in response to any and all concerns about online harms—everything from online hate speech and racism in Australia following the Christchurch terrorist atrocity, to a self-harm video circulating on social media. Labor was disappointed that the minister was slow to release the exposure draft of legislation for consultation, only to then rush the introduction of the bill into parliament just eight business days after the consultation on the exposure draft had concluded. Labor is also disappointed that the Online Safety Act, now legislated, does not appear to address some of the things the minister had previously indicated it would actually address.
Turning to privacy reform, it's disappointing that this government is running so late in the area of privacy law reform and the introduction of a new online privacy code for digital platforms, which was recommended by the ACCC back in 2019. Long before any Facebook whistleblower warned of conflicts of interest in big tech, the ACCC had undertaken an inquiry and had recommended action, action we are yet to see delivered by this government. In terms of digital media literacy, at Senate estimates earlier this year, the department admitted it had completely dropped the ball on digital media literacy. This was another important piece of work that the ACCC recommended in its final report on the digital platforms in June 2019 after its 18-month inquiry. Yet this government completely dropped the ball on it.
The new Online Safety Act commences early next year, and the government is lining up a $4.4 million ad campaign before the election to tell Australians that it's keeping them safe. Australians should know what their governments are doing. They should be educated in this area. But, clearly, if the inquiry terms of reference—and they are substantial—are anything to go by, there is still a lot more to do.
While the ACCC digital platforms inquiry was comprehensive—it ran for 18 months and was led by a team of experts with powerful information-gathering powers—this inquiry will run for just over two months. This inquiry comes off the back of some related inquiries that Labor has of course supported. We supported the recommendations of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs inquiry into age verification for online wagering and online pornography, which reported in February last year. We also supported the inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence, which reported in March this year. And in June this year, Labor supported, as I said, the passage of the Online Safety Bill with amendments to strengthen transparency and oversight.
Labor also supports this latest inquiry but, as I said, it does come late in terms of this parliament, very late in the day for this eight-year Liberal-National government. As a result, many Australians will now have to take time out of this period to participate in this process. Of course their participation is welcome, but it would not be a good thing if, because this occurs over the Christmas period, some people will not be able to participate.
For three budgets in a row, since 2019, I have asked the minister for communications what he is doing to address racist hate speech online, and for three years running the minister has dodged the question. In 2019 he made a general reference to the work that was being done on the Online Safety Act. In 2020 he just failed to answer it. In 2021 he failed to answer it again, on at least two occasions. Australians have a right to know what steps this government has taken to address the issue of online racism in Australia. What is being done in order to ensure that Australians are being kept safe online in this very important area? How does the Online Safety Act address racist hate speech and incitement to violence that targets groups, as distinct from individuals? If it doesn't do that, why not?
The last thing I will say is that this is a broad-ranging set of terms of reference. There is something that I want this parliament to know and I think many parents out there want to know as well. I supervise my children in their use of the internet. But what bothers me deeply is when I have my nine-year-old and four-year-old say to me: 'Mummy, you go out and tell people to get vaccinated. Why are the people in these ads telling us not to?' Nothing is being done to address the disinformation that is harmful during a pandemic. (Time expired)
I am pleased to rise to speak in support of the establishment of this inquiry and, in doing so, I acknowledge the Speaker's significant interest in this issue in the past. This is an important and substantive issue on which Labor will offer constructive bipartisan support. By now, all Australians are all too familiar with the very serious harms that can be caused to individuals by other individuals' conduct on social media platforms. The world has read in great detail about the great variety of these harms in the recently leaked Facebook Papers and the disclosures by the whistleblowers associated with that. The safety of Australians in the face of these harms is properly a role for government. Labor has shown repeatedly that we are ready to work constructively with the government, on a bipartisan basis, to implement substantive solutions to address these harms.
As the member for Greenway, the shadow communications minister, indicated in her comments, the terms of reference for this inquiry are very broad. And it will be important for this committee to consider the different ways that different online harms manifest themselves, and the different potential remedies for these harms. Those in this chamber know defamation proceedings have long been a common remit of people who believe that their reputation has been harmed by statements made about them, and seeking compensation for the harm done to them by those statements. The law of defamation obviously applies just as much to statements made online as it does anywhere else.
However, it must be said that, to avail yourself of this remedy, you need to engage legal representation. Even receiving legal advice in this respect is beyond the means of most people in our society. It is not an achievable remedy. Following up that legal advice with court proceedings is a privilege available only to those with very significant financial resources available to them. That's why we see this remedy being most commonly availed of by the powerful in our society—people like members of parliament, those of us in this chamber.
In this term of parliament, the media has reported on defamation concern notices being issued by, at least—this was just a very quick scan—the member for Pearce and the member for Dickson, and at least 13 separate concerns notices or defamation threats were sent by the member for Bowman. Solicitor Michael Bradley has pointed out that one of these defamation threats from the member for Bowman was made against the administrators of the Facebook page of the Older Women's Network, a 35-year-old not-for-profit that advocates for older women on issues like income security, homelessness, ageism, elder abuse and domestic violence. The member for Bowman seems to have avoided the very significant costs of engaging solicitors to issue that specific defamation threat because that was sent to the Older Women's Network by one of his electorate officers. No doubt there have been more defamation threats issued by members and senators in this place that haven't been reported in the media. It's a common remedy pursued by the powerful in our society when things they don't like are said about them online.
I note in the media reporting leading up to the establishment of this inquiry discussion about new potential defamation Federal Court orders relating to the unmasking of anonymous social media account holders in relation to defamation proceedings. One media report indicated that the government had said that it would establish a new Federal Court order that:
… requires social media giants to disclose identifying details of trolls to victims, without requiring consent …
It's an interesting proposition because the Federal Court already has the power to order a third party to attend court or to produce documents to identify prospective respondents. Professor David Rolph, a defamation expert at the University of Sydney, has said that there have already been a number of applications in recent years in the Federal Court for preliminary discovery to unmask 'the identity of a person responsible for posting content'. This isn't an arcane rule buried at the bottom of the statute books. It's not dead-letter law. It gets a lot of use. Indeed, there were three such orders made in March 2021 alone, all involving Google and all for the purpose of obtaining information as to the identity of a party against whom the person wished to commence a proceeding.
In 2015 the court ordered HotCopper, Australia's most popular stockmarket internet discussion site, to make discovery of all documents directly relevant to identifying a respondent who made derogatory comments regarding the management of a mining company. In March 2020 the Federal Court ordered Google to reveal the identity of an anonymous user who posted an allegedly defamatory review, and Google provided the user's IP address. The Federal Court ordered Optus to reveal the identity of the owner of that IP address. These orders have also been used by rights holders to unmask the details of persons who have engaged in copyright infringement—most famously, those who were involved in the copyright infringement of the Dallas Buyers Club movie. So it will be interesting to see the way that this inquiry investigates what supplementary discovery processes are created by this proposed new law.
A different manifestation of online harms is the bullying and abuse that has become so common on social media. The victims of this bullying and online abuse are regularly individuals who are not in positions of power. Women, people of colour, people from the LGBTIQ community and young people are often particular targets of this kind of online bullying and abuse. Let's be frank, it is rare to see defamation proceedings from people in these situations. What the targets of this kind of online bullying and abuse most often want is for the abuse to be stopped and for the offending material to be taken down from the internet. The eSafety Commissioner already has significant powers in this regard.
The eSafety Commissioner's already legislated powers in this respect include a cyberbullying scheme that has long been in place for children under which the eSafety Commissioner can require the removal of material from a range of online services—including online gaming platforms, content-sharing sites and messaging services—not just social media platforms.
There is an adult cyberabuse material scheme under which the eSafety Commissioner can require the removal of adult cyberabuse material that targets an Australian, if they're satisfied the material is posted with the likely intention of causing serious harm, and backed up by a civil penalties regime that can be imposed on the people who posted the material and the provider of the service where it appears.
The eSafety Commissioner's work is also backed by information gathering powers to obtain identity information, including basic subscriber information for anonymous accounts. Importantly, this legislative regime is backed by the extensive day-to-day work of the eSafety Commissioner, liaising directly with social media platforms and developing a relationship so that information can be shared and acted on promptly to ensure that action is taken and the regime is not simply dead-letter law. It's a substantive regime addressing a substantive issue, and no-one needs to engage lawyers to take advantage of it.
This issue of online abuse and bullying is too important for fluffy announcements that aren't matched by delivery. But, unfortunately, this inquiry comes very late in the piece—a summer inquiry into a serious issue in the shadow of a federal election. It really does follow a bit of a pattern by the Morrison government of grand announcements followed by much-delayed delivery, if delivered at all, in this space. We've see it on everything from legislating the Online Safety Act, to reforming online privacy law, to improving digital literacy in the community, and now this inquiry.
It was 2½ years after the Briggs review recommended it, back in 2018, before the Morrison government introduced legislation to establish its Online Safety Act. It addresses the same issues of online abuse and bullying that this new inquiry, which will run over the summer holidays, called in the shadow of the federal election, will address. The ACCC recommended a new online privacy code for digital platforms in 2019, and the government is yet to fully implement that. Strangely, though, while it took the Morrison government 2½ years to deliver on its Online Safety Act, and it's now establishing a new inquiry into the issue, suggesting that it believes there might still be more work to do in this space, the Morrison government has, of course, promptly lined up a $4.4 million ad campaign before the election, telling Australians everything that it's doing to keep them safe online—always very quick to act on the marketing campaign but less quick to deliver on the substance.
This inquiry comes very late in the term of this parliament. It's an open question how much time the parliament will have, how many sitting days the parliament will have, to implement the findings of this inquiry. Indeed, there are only, I think, four sitting days in the Senate in the next six months. So I hope that, in relation to the outcomes of this inquiry, planning has been done to make sure they are substantive and to implement them.
I do feel for the Australians who care about this issue and will have to give up some of their summertime, some of their summer holiday, a much-deserved break for Melburnians and Sydneysiders, to make submissions into this inquiry over the summer. This would have been better addressed with a substantive inquiry sometime before the establishment of this inquiry.
I am very pleased to rise to speak to this motion, which the member for Brisbane has introduced on my behalf. I thank the members who have already spoken about the very important select committee which this motion proposes to establish so that members from all parties can come together to examine these issues, which are demonstrably of very substantial concern to Australian families, to Australian parents. I think we all know, from the concerns raised with us in our electorates by our constituents, that parents are very concerned about the impact of social media on children. They're very concerned to know what they need to do to be responsible in keeping their children safe. In particular, they want to be satisfied that, in this environment, where children and adults spend many hours a day and week, the platforms that provide this environment, and that do so in the course of pursuing highly profitable businesses, are making every effort to meet community expectations about people being safe online.
All Australians should be able to engage online confidently—to work, to communicate, to be entertained—without fear of abuse, humiliation or exposure to harmful content.
This has been an area where our Liberal-National government has had a very strong focus since we came to government in 2013. We came to government with a commitment to establish an office then known as the Children's eSafety Commissioner. We delivered on that commitment, established that office and legislated to give the holder of that office the power to administer a scheme to deal with the cyberbullying of Australian children. Since that came into force in 2015—in the face of strong resistance from the tech sector, I might say; in the face of continual advice that it wasn't necessary, that they had it under control; in the face of warnings that, if we took this action, Australia would become a global technology backwater; in the face of all of that—we delivered on what we had committed to, which was to establish a practical scheme to deal with the problem of cyberbullying.
Since that time we've added to the responsibilities of what is now known as the eSafety Commissioner. We established a legislative scheme to deal with the serious problem of the unauthorised sharing of intimate images, something which overwhelmingly affects women and girls and which is devastating to anybody who is a victim of it. We introduced powers to deal with abhorrent violent material following the shocking—the shocking—live streaming of the murder of over 50 people in the Christchurch mosque attack. When we went to the 2019 election, we committed that we would introduce a new and stronger online safety act, and we've done that. I want to acknowledge the bipartisan support we've had from the other side of the chamber, from the Labor Party, on the Online Safety Act. I also want to call out the extraordinarily irresponsible behaviour of the Greens, who voted against the Online Safety Act, notwithstanding the fact that they claim to be concerned about women's safety. It was quite an extraordinary and inexplicable decision on behalf of the Australian Greens party. You could not find better evidence, if any were required, as to how out of touch they are with the concerns of mainstream Australians.
We know that issues of very considerable concern remain. We know that the algorithms used by the platforms have a capacity to attract children, and indeed adults, into going further and further into seeing content, having exposure to content, which may not be in their best interests. We know that there are significant mental health consequences. I want to acknowledge the work of the Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, the member for Banks, who's doing outstanding work. We heard this morning, at headspace, that a significant number of young people who seek mental health assistance from headspace do so as a consequence of their exposure to social media.
We do have a strong and continuing agenda, but we want to hear from Australians. We've seen revelations, globally, thanks to commentary and information provided by the US Facebook whistleblower Ms Haugen, including in her congressional testimony, about aspects of Facebook's operating model. These are issues that we want to hear about from all stakeholders. And we want to hear from big tech. We want to hear them explain to the Australian people what proactive measures they are taking to keep Australians safe online. The eSafety Commissioner has substantial new powers through our Online Safety Act. I am confident that the testimony and the evidence that will be received by this committee, and the findings of the committee, will inform the work of the eSafety Commissioner as she makes regulations under that act, as she finalises the basic online safety expectations, along with all the other steps that will occur to give effect to that very powerful regulatory apparatus that we put in place.
Also, of course, just this week the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General announced the introduction of new legislative powers designed to require that anonymous online trolls be unmasked. We're going to do that by creating an appropriate set of incentives in defamation law so that if the platforms do not provide a complaint scheme allowing people a quick and efficient way to raise concerns about material which they believe is defamatory of them the platforms themselves will be liable in defamation law as publishers. So this is a set of regulations designed to give the appropriate incentives for those businesses to take the steps they need to take to keep their users safe. They've got the expertise in how their businesses operate, but we have stated very clearly what the principles are that we expect them to live up to. The exposure draft will be released today, I am advised, and there will be a significant period of consultation about the details of that. We do look forward to engaging with the tech sector in relation to those details.
I want to be very clear. The internet is, unambiguously, a force for good. The economic, social and educational benefits that it provides are profound. The opportunities it provides for people to stay in touch with friends and family, particularly through the pandemic, is just one example of the great richness of connectivity that the internet provides. But I think there is a very good analogy with the global automotive industry. We know that human beings find it enormously convenient to move around in private motor cars. Ever since they were invented, in the second half of the 19th century, they have been enthusiastically adopted. But what we also know is that there has been a steady improvement in safety standards and the application of regulatory requirements—indeed, global regulatory requirements—applying to global automotive manufacturers.
Here in Australia, under the relevant legislation, we can and do adopt those global standards. But we also reserve the right to impose Australian-specific standards, and that must be the principle for the sovereign government of Australia: that we will reserve the right to legislate and set the standards that those doing business in Australia must meet, including in the provision of online services. Tech platforms and digital platforms are used by millions of Australians: over 19 million Australians use Google every month and over 17 million use Facebook every month, according to the ACCC's Digital platforms inquiry report. The government of Australia, on behalf the people of Australia, expects that those are safe environments. We know that this is an issue of considerable concern. We've had a substantial legislative and regulatory agenda in this space since 2013, but it is a fast-changing space and a space where Australians—in particular, parents—are very concerned about ensuring that everything possible is being done to keep children and young people safe and, indeed, to keep Australians of all ages safe. That is why this select committee will be a very important exercise in reviewing the work that's been done and identifying whether further work needs to be done. I look forward to all stakeholders having the opportunity to fairly put their case before the committee.
This is a do-nothing government. After eight long years in office, they are still scratching around looking for a reason to be there. This government did nothing to prepare for the bushfire onslaught that devastated our nation in the Black Summer of 2019-20, despite multiple warnings from the most senior fire chiefs in the country through 2019. All the PM could manage was a secret holiday in Hawaii, and a disgusting, self-serving excuse that still reverberates almost two years later throughout our nation: 'I don't hold a hose, mate.'
This government did nothing and they continue to do nothing to build the quarantine facilities this nation has needed for almost two years now and which, as omicron and the ever-present spectre of other new variants makes clear, we still need. This government did nothing to ensure that Australians received an urgent supply of vaccines to ensure our population was protected from COVID-19 before the debilitating lockdowns our country has endured.
What have they done to keep on top of the significant harms occurring through social media in order to keep Australians safe online, particularly children? Next to nothing.
There have been endless announcements by the Liberal machine marketing department—a few press releases, a few speeches, a few press conferences and a few breathless headlines on the front page of their tame newspaper, the Australian. Nothing much of real substance to better protect Australians, particularly our children, has actually happened.
We in Labor hold that social media platforms have a responsibility to stop their platforms being misused by anonymous users to incite violence, spread disinformation and abuse, and defame people with impunity. Because we believe that the safety of Australians is paramount, online safety is an area of strong bipartisanship where Labor works constructively with the government on measures that will genuinely improve online safety. But this is not a new problem. Yet Mr Morrison has waited until the eve of an election, eight long years after the Liberals came to government, to announce that this government is proposing a new inquiry—another announcement by this tired, do-nothing government of yet another inquiry. If this government actually ever presents actual legislation to actually do something, Labor will study it closely. But this announcement now, for another inquiry on the eve of an election, sounds like just another bit of grandstanding, because that's what this government most likes to do—grandstand.
We all know what this government do after they complete most of their inquiries—nothing. They ignore them. Understandably, if you do nothing, nothing happens. Nothing changes. That's the story of this government. Perhaps I might not be being entirely fair here. They do have a press conference. They do make some announcements. They do furrow their brows after inquiries report and say things like, 'How could we have known?' or even, 'We are shocked.' They often even say they accept all the recommendations of the inquiries they have set up and then they get on with doing nothing, because that's what this government is—a do-nothing government.
Let's look at what happened with the Sex Discrimination Commissioner's inquiry into workplace sexual harassment—her landmark Respect@Work report. The former Attorney-General, Christian Porter, left the landmark Respect@Work report to gather dust on his desk for over a year, and he refused to even meet with the Sex Discrimination Commissioner to discuss the report's recommendations. When the government was finally forced to act on the report, after months of controversy following the courageous revelations made by Ms Brittany Higgins, the government claimed:
The Australian Government has agreed to (in full, in-principle, or in-part) or noted all 55 recommendations in the Report.
You can hear the weasel words there.
The government didn't even have the courage to say it was rejecting the Sex Discrimination Commissioner's recommendation for legislative changes to establish a clear, positive duty on employers to prevent workplace sex discrimination, harassment and victimisation. But that's exactly what the government actually did when we came to the legislation in this parliament in August. In August the government, differently from what it said when it was announcing its response to the report, claimed it could ignore this key recommendation made by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner because, the government said, such a duty already existed, and, so claimed the government, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner's Respect@Work report was wrong.
What happened with the government's inquiry into their so-called Commonwealth Integrity Commission—that's the Morrison version of a national anticorruption commission. The Prime Minister has announced that, having called a public inquiry into the exposure draft of their catastrophically flawed bill and having received 333 submissions that they claim to have been carefully considering all year—you've got to feel sorry for the new Attorney-General, who took on the job in March; her claim right throughout this year has been that she has been carefully considering the 333 submissions on the government's version of an anticorruption commission. The Prime Minister's announcement, in the last week, was that they have decided to ignore every single one of the 333 submissions—every single one of them.
So their proposal is unchanged. Amazing! It must've been perfect! Except, of course, it's not. Their proposal is only perfect as a means to establish a cover-up commission, a protection racket to allow corruption in government to go unchecked, which is just how this government likes it, and the minister at the dispatch box right now knows all about it. What do we have here? Another inquiry.
Order!
I call on the minister to withdraw his disgusting statement.
Mr Robert interjecting—
Enough! The member for Isaacs will resume his seat. Member for Fadden, you will withdraw that comment you made.
I withdraw, Mr Speaker.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Good. Sit down. Are you calling a point of order? What's your point of order?
The point of order is: the member can't come up here and accuse the government of corruption. I ask him to withdraw. He's impugning motives on a member, and that is against the standing orders.
No, it's not. You're using it in the wrong context.
I'm sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, but it is absolutely against standing orders—imputations on members.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER : No, it's not. You want to have a good read through that.
I'll do that and get back to you.
He didn't say the member was corrupt.
He should be named, Deputy Speaker, for his contempt for this House.
The member for Isaacs will continue.
I'll repeat what I said, because, clearly, the minister was not listening before. The proposal that this government has for an anticorruption commission is in fact a proposal to establish a cover-up commission. It is a protection racket that would allow corruption in government to go unchecked, which is just how this government likes it. I hope the minister was listening this time and will not be making the false accusation that he did before.
What do we have here now? We have yet another inquiry. Unfortunately, the Morrison government has run late on everything, from legislating a new online safety act, to reforming online privacy law, to improving digital media literacy in the community, and now to initiating this inquiry into online harms. This Prime Minister is always late. Labor was disappointed that it took the Morrison government so long to introduce legislation for a new online safety bill in 2021, a good 2½ years after the Briggs review recommended it, back in 2018. It's also disappointing that the government is running so late on privacy law reform and the introduction of a new online privacy code for digital platforms, which was recommended by the ACCC back in 2019.
At Senate estimates earlier this year, the communications department admitted that it had completely dropped the ball on digital media literacy. The minister for communications is also sitting on a report from the ACMA, delivered in June 2021, on the adequacy of the voluntary disinformation code, and he hasn't yet given the ACMA formal regulatory powers or additional funding to tackle misinformation. Sadly, this government and the minister for communications have not acted to deal with domain name system access. I've written twice to this minister for communications, and I'm very sorry that he's left the chamber as we are debating his own inquiry. The minister has not even given me the courtesy of a response to this urgent set of reforms that are needed to the Copyright Act, but that is symptomatic of a do-nothing government that doesn't actually want to do anything and wants to run away from the task of government. They have been found out.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the committee's report entitled Report 198: European Union tariff-rate quotas following withdrawal of the United Kingdom.
Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).
by leave—Today I rise to make a statement on report 198 of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. This report deals with an agreement connected with the UK's withdrawal from the European Union and the allocation of tariff rate quotas vis-a-vis Australia as part of that arrangement. Formally it's known as the Agreement in the Form of an Exchange of Letters Between the European Union and the Commonwealth of Australia Pursuant to Article XXVIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 1994 Relating to the Modification of Concessions on all the Tariff-rate Quotas Included in the EU Schedule CLXXV as a Consequence of the United Kingdom's Withdrawal from the European Union.
This proposed agreement reapportions the EU's WTO tariff rate quotas following the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, or Brexit. The tariff quota reapportionment applies to beef, sheepmeat, sugar and cheese, and the proposed agreement also removes a non-tariff barrier for rice.
The proposed agreement does not expand market access for Australian producers and exporters, but it does preserve market access, provide tariff rate quotas better aligned with industry preferences and provide commercial certainty to industry in advance of the new quota administration.
The Joint Standing Committee on Treaties is satisfied the proposed agreement is in Australia's national interest and recommends binding treaty action be taken. On behalf of the committee, I commend the report to the House.
I rise today to speak on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Annual Disclosure Equality) Bill 2021. I want to advise the House that Labor will be supporting this bill, which will align the donations disclosure obligations of serving parliamentarians with those that apply to candidates and political parties. It will also extend the ban on foreign donations that applies to parties, candidates and political campaigners to senators and to members of the House of Representatives. Currently there is an inconsistency in the way the funding and disclosure framework operates with respect to parliamentarians once they have been elected. Candidates for an election are unable to accept foreign donations and are required to submit a return to the Australian Electoral Commission detailing the donations and electoral expenditure. This obligation ceases 30 days after the return of the writs. This means that anyone in this place who receives donations personally during their term in parliament is not currently required to disclose them. It also means that there is a loophole which would allow serving parliamentarians to accept donations from foreign sources. This bill will close that loophole. Given the prohibition on parties and candidates accepting foreign donations, I wouldn't expect that anyone in this place would take gifts from foreign sources, because that would go against the spirit of the donations reforms that were enacted in 2018.
It was Labor who successfully fought for a ban on foreign donations to be included in the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Act 2018, because we knew, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, and I know you knew, that we had to act to protect our democracy from foreign interference. But this government, the Morrison-Joyce government as it now is, had to be dragged kicking and screaming into banning them. It took two years for the government to act after Labor introduced our own bill to protect our democracy. Because of the reforms Labor achieved in 2018, registered political parties, candidates, Senate groups and political campaigners, those organisations who incur at least $500,000 of electoral expenditure in a year, are unable to accept donations of over $100 from foreign sources, if they are intended to be used for electoral expenditure, or any foreign donations over $1,000 at all.
There are also important anticircumvention measures in place to stop people getting around these bans, and it is right that this ban be extended to elected members of this place. The prohibition on accepting foreign donations shouldn't stop 30 days after a candidate is elected. The ban will apply to gifts received by sitting parliamentarians from the commencement of this legislation. The other change this bill makes in relation to foreign donations is to prohibit candidates from accepting them from six months prior to either the date of their nomination or the date they announce their candidacy—whichever is earlier. This will enhance the integrity of our democratic processes and put candidates on a level playing field with elected representatives.
This bill will further align the obligations of parliamentarians with those of political parties by requiring them to provide an annual return to the Australian Electoral Commission detailing political donations they've personally received which are over the disclosure threshold. Most donations received by parliamentarians who belong to political parties would be received on their behalf by that political party.
The party must then, of course, disclose the detail of the donation each year to the Australian Electoral Commission.
However, there is currently no obligation on parliamentarians to disclose donations personally received. That means donations received by parliamentarians who are not members of political parties are not required to be disclosed. This isn't right, and it will be corrected by this bill. Parliamentarians who do not personally receive donations will not be required to provide a return to the AEC. Annual returns will need to include the total value of all gifts received by the parliamentarian during the year; the total number of persons who made gifts; and, for each gift over the disclosure threshold—which is currently $14,500—the value of each gift, the date on which each gift was made, and the name and address of each donor. A parliamentarian's return must be provided within 20 weeks of the end of the financial year.
The bill requires parliamentarians to provide an annual return in relation to each financial year from 2020-21, where the gifts were made before, on or after the commencement of this bill, once enacted into law—that is, the bill will have retrospective application in relation to gifts received personally by parliamentarians during the 2020-21 financial year. Returns for the 2020-21 financial year will need to be provided within 30 days of the act's commencement. Annual returns will be published on the AEC's website.
Candidates will also be required to disclose donations they personally received during the period of six months prior to the date of their nomination or six months prior to the date of them announcing their candidacy, whichever is earlier. A similar position will apply to Senate groups, who will be taken to have begun being a group in an election six months before the day members apply to be grouped on the Senate ballot paper; this will continue until 30 days after polling day. These changes will substantially improve transparency and, along with the ban on foreign donations, will put candidates and elected representatives on a level playing field.
Donors are already required to provide an annual return setting out donations made to political parties or political campaigners which total more than the disclosure threshold, but under this bill the requirement will extend to gifts made for federal purposes to the same parliamentarian or candidate if the total value of those gifts exceeded the disclosure threshold. Donors will also be required to disclose gifts they receive in excess of the disclosure threshold if the gifts were then used wholly or partly to provide a gift to a member, senator or candidate. This is another important step to improve the transparency of our electoral system, allowing voters to better understand the actions of Australia's biggest electoral donors.
But, of course, there is so much more to be done. If this government really wanted to improve transparency in our politics, it would be supporting Labor proposals of lowering the donations disclosure threshold from the current $14,500 to a fixed $1,000 and also requiring donations to be disclosed within seven days so people really know who is donating to political parties and parliamentarians. This simple change would mean voters have this information when they go to cast their ballot and would not have to wait up to 19 months to find out who is funding political parties, as they do at present. There are other reforms that would enhance our democracy and that the government should be committing to, and accordingly I move:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes that the explanatory memorandum states that the bill's intention is to increase transparency of political donations; and
(2) notes that transparency of donations and the integrity of Australia's electoral system would be further strengthened by:
(a) lowering the disclosure threshold from the current $14,500 to a fixed $1,000 so political donations are transparent for all to see;
(b) requiring real time disclosure of political donations;
(c) reforming electoral expenditure laws;
(d) providing more resources to the AEC to increase enrolment and turnout;
(e) addressing the spread of dangerous misinformation and disinformation;
(f) legislating for a powerful and independent National Anti-Corruption Commission;
(g) making laws to prevent governments from pork-barrelling in marginal held seats; and
(h) requiring parliamentarians to disclose secret donations; and
(3) calls on the Government to implement these electoral integrity measures that would make a real difference to improving public confidence in our democracy".
But, despite Labor's ongoing calls for increased transparency, the government has not taken any action on real-time disclosure or lower donations disclosure thresholds.
Labor is proud to have continuously fought for greater transparency of political donations. I want to acknowledge, in particular, the work in this regard by Senator Farrell, who has been a relentless advocate for the reforms that would deliver the democracy and electoral systems that Australians deserve.
He is building on a very strong legacy—a very strong Labor legacy, I might add. It was Labor, under Prime Minister Bob Hawke, that was first to introduce a donations disclosure regime back in 1983. The disclosure threshold was then set at a fixed $1,000, but in 2006 the Liberal government led by John Howard increased the threshold to $10,000 and linked it to CPI because it wanted to hide donations it was then receiving. This, sadly, has continued and been exacerbated because indexation has caused the threshold to blow out to a staggering $14,500. Any donations received below that amount do not have to be disclosed. This is unacceptable and it is something Labor is committed to changing in government.
On the other hand, instead of addressing this pressing issue, in the dying weeks of the parliamentary term the government has finally decided to pursue some form of electoral reform with this and a number of other bills. We do welcome the reforms contained in this bill, despite it being a late and imperfect attempt at increased transparency. It's better late than never. But this cannot end our collective effort to increase the standards of democracy, transparency and accountability.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I rise to support the second reading of the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Annual Disclosure Equality) Bill 2021 bill but not the amendment. I could have some more sympathy for the amendment if it were genuine in seeking increased transparency, particularly around union movement donations to political parties. I would love to see a higher threshold and standard for union donation revelations. Perhaps when unions donate to political parties they should be required to reveal the details of every member of that union and put that on the record so that we know, with those millions of dollars that are funnelled into the Labor Party from the union movement, who the members of that union who are making these political donations are. Maybe we should also require unions to undertake a vote before they give political donations to anyone in our system. They should say to their members: 'Hey, we want to funnel millions of dollars of your union dues into political campaigns. Do you support that or not?' Maybe that sort of transparency would make a big difference in our system. But the Labor Party do not propose that in their second reading amendment, and we all know why.
Nonetheless, I support the bill. Firstly, I am surprised that what we're bringing in through this bill wasn't already the case. I just assumed that the standards that we in political parties have to meet around political donation disclosure was also the case for Independent MPs. Of course, I am so shocked that Independent MPs, who would know that they did not have the same obligations as the rest of us, have never chosen to raise this before! They've never come into this chamber or the other chamber and said: 'Hey, here is something terrible. I've just realised that, as an independent MP or senator, I do not have the same disclosure requirements as all of you who are members of a major party. How appalling. I am so fanatically supportive of all these other integrity measures that I raise so regularly in the chamber, so the first thing I want is to make sure that my integrity is beyond reproach.' But we have never had this issue raised by Independent members. It makes me reflect on the motives of some of the contributions they give in regard to their purported desire for increased governance and integrity measures in so many other pieces of legislation that they contribute on when they've never pointed out to us that they aren't doing what the rest of us are doing.
I am not impugning anyone with that, and I am not aware of any evidence that the wrong thing is occurring. But the whole reason for the regime that we have around disclosure is to make sure that there is no risk of that.
And we political parties of course have very significant requirements on us insofar as who we can receive donations from and the disclosure requirements of those donations. As the previous speaker mentioned, at the moment, any donation over $14,500 you receive has to be publicly disclosed each year; and that's been an index linked figure, which is why it changes every year from the legislation that he reflected on from the Howard government in 2006.
It is therefore very surprising that Independent members of parliament, before indicating whether they're contesting the next election, haven't had those requirements on them. I haven't indicated my intention publicly that I'm running at the next election, so maybe I'll take the opportunity to stop the presses and say that I do intend to recontest my seat. If I weren't a member from the Liberal Party, having just made that statement now, if I was an Independent, that's the first time that any requirements under current legislation would suddenly be triggered upon me. If I had chosen not to make that statement, if I chose to wait until next year before I made that statement, until I publicly say I'm recontesting the next election, if I'm not captured within the party political structures, then it seems—and again I express my surprise at not having being aware of this until now—there are absolutely no obligations on me until I make that commitment that I will be a future candidate.
There are things that we are required to do to make sure we're not receiving money from foreign sources, from foreign donors. That is prohibited for political parties. When my party, the Liberal Party, receives donations we have a responsibility and we receive a declaration from the person making a donation that they are not a foreign donor under the definitions in the act. Of course, we also have to make sure we're tracking the money we are receiving so that, if or when a particular donor triggers in a financial year that disclosure threshold of around $14,500, we make sure that we fulfil our responsibilities in our annual returns to the Australian Electoral Commission to declare those donors.
We also declare a whole range of other pieces of information about the financial flows of our party in that financial year. This is very important for the integrity of our democracy, but it is absolutely unbelievable that this same requirement isn't in place for Independent members of parliament. At the moment, the very fact that it isn't means it is possible for someone who's a member of parliament but not operating under the rules of a political party to receive money from a foreign source. It is possible for them to receive more than the disclosure amount of $14,500. They could, for all we know, receive millions of dollars and have no requirement whatsoever to publicly disclose that if they haven't yet committed to contesting a future election. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, frankly. It is completely ludicrous that we would allow a component of our political system, a component of our representative democracy, to not have the same responsibilities as the rest of us.
There are obvious reasons why we believe political donors should be disclosed and we shouldn't be allowed to receive donations from foreign sources. We don't want foreign interference in our political system. We know we don't have it with the major parties, because, if they received any financial contribution from an overseas source, we would have to return it. It's illegal to receive political donations from foreign sources, and that's quite right. We live in a heightened environment of foreign interference in elections. We know this full well from experiences overseas and from reports that we on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters have received from the security agencies about cyberinterference et cetera during campaigns. We know that there are bad actors operating from foreign locations who could well seek to disrupt and influence our elections and our politics more generally into the future. We must be very vigilant in making sure that we stand up against that and have systems in place so foreign money cannot come in and influence politics in this country.
That's why we don't allow political parties to receive donations from foreign sources. It's clearly why—and this is what this bill achieves—we need to make sure that foreign sources also can't finance or bankroll Independent members of parliament and that Independent members can't receive any financial consideration from overseas sources, in exactly the same way that political parties can't.
For the very same reason, we should have the same regime when it comes to revealing donors that are legal Australian sources of donations. We have to be able to receive donations in our political system. We have to be able to raise money so that we can run campaigns and communicate to the Australian people what our ideas are, what we stand for and what we will do if they choose to support us and vote us into government. That's the right of the Liberal Party, the National Party, the Labor Party and the Greens, and it's the right of Independent candidates. But it's equally important that it is known, if it is over a significant figure. I believe that $14,500 is on the low side, frankly. I don't think somebody is influenced by a $14,000 donation, but, for a $50,000 donation or a $1 million donation, absolutely. It makes an enormous impact if someone comes along and gives someone a $1 million donation. Under the current law—bearing in mind that we spend tens of millions of dollars on national election campaigns—anything over $14,500 from a single source within a financial year is disclosed by political parties.
That means that, if someone receives hundreds of thousands of dollars, or millions of dollars, from a particular interest group—from a union, for example—in exchange for taking certain policy positions in the parliament, we will know. If the Labor Party come in here and push legislation, we can link it back to the fact that they've received millions and millions of dollars from vested union interests. People might judge, by virtue of the disclosure, that they are influenced by that money that they get from the union movement. Thanks to disclosure laws, it's on the public record that they have received the majority of their funding from those sources, and that is important so that we know what their true motivations are for the sorts of policy positions that they take and the sorts of policy and legislation that they try to bring into this chamber. So we know, and the people of Australia know, what happens with the Labor Party and the connection between union donations and their policy positions. Commensurately, they continue to lose elections in this country, and long may that continue.
That's why it's just as important that Independent members of parliament declare the source of their donations. As I say, it is a great surprise that they have never come clean on this scam and have never been honest, in this chamber or outside of it, about not having the same requirements as the major political parties. Potentially, people have been receiving massive financial contributions and never declaring them, as people in any political party in our system have to do. Why have they never raised it before? I don't know. That's something that they can address if they choose to.
I'm very relieved that we've discovered this massive, gaping hole in the robustness of our donation disclosure laws and that in this bill we are addressing it. I'm sure this will have strong support in this chamber and the other. I'm sure that everyone who will be captured by this, who has been hiding in the shadows until now, is not afraid of the sunlight or of coming clean on an ongoing basis as to where their money comes from and making sure that they have no problem with not accepting donations from foreign sources. I think it is a great oversight that we have captured. I commend the minister for identifying this gaping hole in the integrity measures around our elections. I look forward to this coming into law as soon as possible so that there will no longer be any risk of Independent members receiving funding from offshore sources or taking massive donations from sources here at home that they don't declare. This legislation closes those massive loopholes in our electoral funding disclosure laws. I commend the bill to the House.
It's a little hard to even focus on what I intended to say after having listened to the rubbish that has just come out of the member for Sturt, as he claims that this is the hard work of the government in ensuring transparency and accountability.
Could I just point out for the member for Sturt—and the minister will confirm—this loophole was brought to the attention of the government by the independent member for Indi? This was no sleuth work or great legislative work coming from the government. So could we just pause a little on the inference that the member just made to the House that, somehow, this loophole has been used by independent members to accept donations from foreign donors or in ways that would be contrary to the disclosure requirements of members of the major parties. The irony that the government and the member for Sturt and whatever members speak on this after have the gall to come into this place and talk about transparency and accountability with respect to donations is just breathtaking.
Let's talk about what this is. This is the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Annual Disclosure Equality) Bill 2021. I have no issues with it, because it is a loophole that we have identified and has been brought to the government's attention. It closes a loophole with respect to a sitting member, prior to announcing as a candidate for the next election, receiving a donation of over $1,000. Donations are made to a party, so, for members of parliament that are members of a party, donations are typically made to the party rather than the individual. The party will disclose donations received each year. I'll come to that in a moment, because we know the full disclosure doesn't occur.
Whilst a party member is caught, essentially, by the obligation to lodge a return, in most cases they don't have anything to disclose, because it's simply wrapped up in the party return. But, obviously, in situations of individual MPs, they still have to include all gifts or donations received for federal purposes, regardless of value. This introduces the disclosure of the source of the donation if it is above the $14,500 disclosure threshold. But what this is actually introducing is an additional disclosure requirement on independents that is not imposed on members of a party.
It does go well beyond that requirement of reporting. Part 3 of this bill clarifies that candidates will be subject to obligations under the act, even if they haven't announced their candidacy. So they're deemed to be a candidate for six months before they announce or nominate. In this situation, the government is quite happy to be retrospective. But the irony is how often it is not willing to be retrospective in looking at its own house. The irony is there's just no justification for backdating all obligations to six months before a candidate announces. It's to cover up a time when the candidate potentially has no idea they're even going to be a candidate, particularly when laws applying to a precandidate entity are being tightened in the political campaigner bill that passed this place last week, which require disclosure of donations received and foreign donor bans for that announcement period.
There's no doubt the government and the coalition are scared of the independent movement. All these legislations are little pieces of a puzzle to try and stifle democracy. They are trying to preserve their status quo and limit competition. The irony is that that goes so against liberal principles they're so happy to espouse in any other situation.
What are the practical implications of this bill? It will have very little material impact because independents have been based on integrity. We have been calling, time and time again, for transparency measures, integrity measures, lowering of the donation threshold and real-time donation reporting. On all those measures, this bill is silent. We wouldn't want to be increasing any requirement on ourselves, would we, government members?
Anyway, this is the campaign that they are choosing to make. I see the member for Mackellar is here; obviously, he is here because he knows he will face a concerted campaign from his community, because they are dissatisfied with the transparency and integrity shown in this place.
All states and territories have more transparent donation regimes with lower donation thresholds than the federal government.
Last year both parties worked together to reduce the transparency of political donations further, in avoidance of the High Court ruling. Independents were the only ones in this place to oppose that change, and proposed amendments to increase transparency. This bill and the political campaigner bill debated last year are an obvious assault trying to minimise competition in this place.
It is so hypocritical for members of the coalition to come into this place and talk of transparency and accountability when we have situations of blind trusts and the defence of blind trusts that come forward, when we have a refusal to stop lying in political advertising, when we have an unexplained delay in introducing a federal integrity commission and when every attempt at increasing accountability and transparency in this place is opposed. But, of course, they will come in here and grandstand about their call for equality and transparency.
If the government truly wanted to improve equity and disclosure, it would make the reporting time frames consistent across parties and Independents. After the last election Independents had to disclose their donations by October and they were made public in November, whereas all parties did not have their donations made public until the following February. I don't see any measure to amend those provisions in this legislation.
Also, an Independent only campaigns in their seat, and so it is very clear for their community when they see what moneys have been raised and what has been spent in that campaign. But, for the major parties, there is no breakdown per electorate. No party MP needs to disclose how much they have spent or how much they have raised. They hide under the cloak of the party banner. It's one large malaise dumped in a spreadsheet without any fidelity as to which electorate raised the funds or on which electorate funds were spent. By contrast, the Independents campaign on integrity and are transparent. They represent single seats. They provide fidelity at every election, and it's disclosed in a more timely manner.
Last month I seconded the bill introduced by my colleague the member for Indi which would increase the transparency of political donations. It would reduce the threshold for disclosure of political donations from $14,500 to $1,000. It would increase to quarterly the reporting frequency for $1,000 and to within five days for donations above $14,500. This is the type of donation reform this parliament needs.
For too long, money has been hidden from view and public scrutiny. Our democracy has been for sale. The incumbents are doing all they can to hold onto the status quo as hard as they can. We do not know who is paying for access to politicians and to government and what influence that is having over decisions. The Big Deal documentary recently aired by the ABC last month has shocked so many people around Australia, and it certainly has been noted by constituents. It revealed that over 55 per cent of donations to the ALP and 65 per cent of donations to the coalition were undisclosed. You didn't hear that in the member for Sturt's speech, and I'm pretty confident we won't hear that in any later speeches. The unashamed portrayal of cash for access and influence was horrifying.
Transparency is essential to good governance and public trust in democracy. The gall of the government to increase transparency requirements under the pretence that we must have been trying to hide something, ignoring that we brought it to their attention, especially in circumstances where so many independents voluntarily overreport and espouse transparency! At the same time, we have this unanswered question of a blind trust of significant amounts of money having been donated to the former Attorney-General for his personal use, yet there is no disclosure of who made those donations or where they came from. Were they from foreign donors? There is nothing on the record. The gall of this positioning! I'm quite comfortable because I know the Australian people can see through this.
They've had this time and time again, and they see through it.
The coalition are so busy looking at those challenging them that they completely fail to recognise the challenge and why the challenge has emerged. The Independent movement that the government is so desperate to squash exists because people are fed up with what happens in this place. They're fed up with the lack of integrity and the lack of transparency and accountability of the major parties and their lack of action on key issues when it comes to women, when it comes to integrity and when it comes to climate. At the last election only 25 per cent of Australians said they have trust in the federal government, and I can't imagine that will have risen any for the coming election. I have no doubt that the lack of transparency counts heavily towards that feeling.
I support this legislation—this is great!—but if you really want to come to the Australian people on a platform of wanting equality and accountability, bring forward some measures that clean up your house. Seriously, it is time to improve the transparency and accountability measures. I support consistency and improvements, so let's bring in some reform around political donations. Let's make sure that we actually bring in and support legislation around truth in political advertising. I note the member for Mackellar, who is going to come in, I am sure, and talk about the nerve of the Independent movement, not being held to the same standards of accountability. Yet whilst supporting the idea that there should be truth in political advertising, he has not come in here to talk about that increase in standards I am sure. Then we have transparency of donations. How can we talk about accountability without talking about a federal integrity commission? It is so overdue. The model the government is proposing is a model that creates a double standard. It is trying to hold MPs in this place to a lower standard than anyone else. That cannot be acceptable.
Transparency and integrity are really important issues in Warringah and, I believe, around Australia. People have had enough, and that's why they are turning to alternatives. It's really important for people to understand. This is your democracy. This place is to represent you. The people you put in this place are here only because you put them here. It's absolutely time to engage in your democracy. At the end of the day, if you are a bystander decisions will be made about you that impact your lives, so I call to communities: get engaged; get involved; be onto the issues; demand accountability from your members; from us, from me as an Independent, but from all your members of parliament, demand accountability. Hold them to account on their voting record, on what they say to you and on what they say in this place. The Australian people and I have really had enough.
Thank you for the call, Deputy Speaker Freelander. I'm so glad to be able to make this contribution to the debate on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Annual Disclosure Equality) Bill 2021 with my third-favourite Deputy Speaker in the chair. I'll tell you the full rankings later, but you are definitely in my top five, and I appreciate the opportunity to give this contribution in front of you.
I'm part of the trifecta. That's very good.
I'm sure I'm not in your top five on any list, Deputy Speaker, so I'll keep that in mind.
I'm sure you are.
This is a very important piece of reform that the parliament is undertaking. The member for Warringah said many things that I agree with. This is the people's parliament. This is their democracy, and it is important that they know who has donated to our campaigns. That is absolutely the case. Therefore, I support this piece of reform because it makes it possible for people to know the answer to that question.
The Australian people, as I'm sure the member for Warringah will agree, are no fools. They know—absolutely. They're not going to be conned by political parties or candidates or, indeed, political movements that try to fool them into believing that they are voting for one thing while voting for another. Just overnight in Victoria we saw a whole bunch of crossbench MPs, who were elected on various issues such as ending plastic bags, getting more money for the taxi industry et cetera, vote for Daniel Andrews's 'reforms' that will give the Premier of Victoria, whoever may sit in that seat—not just Daniel Andrews but whoever comes after him—some extraordinary powers to literally put Australians under house arrest.
I think the voters of Victoria, whether they are voting for a federal member of parliament, a state member of parliament or, indeed, their local councillor, deserve to know where that person is getting financial support from. That is for this reason and this reason only: it has the impact of influencing decisions that they may make and who has access to them when they are making those decisions.
There are, however—it saddens me to say this—a number of issues on which I disagree with the member for Warringah. I don't think this is about political parties. I don't think this is about Climate 200 or 'voices of' front groups or Mackellar souffles or whoever happens to put their name on whatever front group wants to stand up and have a go at campaigns. The fact of the matter remains that election campaigns are a contest of ideas. They're about who has the best ideas to improve the lives of the working men and women of Australia, who has the best ideas to assure those Australians who are seeking financial security in retirement and who has the best ideas to offer hope for Australians who are under the age of 40 who want to purchase their first home so that they can start a family and put down roots in their local community. These are the contests of ideas that excite me. If an election is about those things, that's a good thing. No election should be bought, that's for sure. But it's not about us, it's not about the crossbench, it's not about the front groups and it's certainly not about the Labor Party and the Greens. It is, has been and always will be about the Australian people and their right to know who is funding whom.
On that basis, electoral funding laws in Australia are critically important. I am probably one of very few people in this chamber who disagree with public funding of election campaigns. I think it corrupts the political process. How many candidates do we see running in elections just to collect the public funding that comes from that? Far too many. That's not democracy. That's not a contest of ideas. It's just another arbitrage opportunity that certain people have taken benefit from at the expense of the Australian people. I believe that is the view of very few members of this chamber, but it is a view that I hold strongly.
On the question of what these electoral laws do, our electoral funding rules should make apparent who is making large donations and for what purpose and, therefore, what influence that may have on a person down the track. When people say, 'The major political parties don't reveal where 40, 50 or 60 per cent of their funding comes from,' that is because it comes from small donations. The view of this parliament has been that people who are making small donations are unlikely to be able to influence the decisions of elected members and, therefore, in that balance between a right to privacy and a right to know, the right to privacy prevails. This idea of, 'If you've got nothing to hide, what are you afraid of?' has been uttered by some of the greatest tyrants of the 20th century. It always amazes me the people who come into this chamber and happily make that statement and happily repeat it, forgetting it was one of Stalin's favourite slogans—'If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about.'
This parliament has always believed that individuals are born with certain inalienable rights, and among those rights are a right to privacy, a right to freedom and a right to make your own decisions. And so, unless those donations are large amounts, it is not in the public benefit and not for the public good to actually reveal those donations. In fact, I think it is a matter of great sadness that candidates have to reveal where they get donations from because—and I stress this before it is clipped up and misused—we would want campaigns by all political parties and all political candidates actually funded by a large number of people through small donations.
When you have that, no one single person has enough influence over a candidate for them to take that into consideration when they are making decisions in the best interest of all Australia—not just the electorate that they represent, but all Australians. Therefore, having a broad base of donors whose amounts are small is actually critical to our democracy. I think it is a shame that we have been moving away from that and getting larger and larger donors. How many of those donors, for example, are simply protecting—let's be blunt about this—legislation that this parliament has introduced that has accrued benefits to them? How many times have the unions donated to the Labor Party and, equally, have certain big businesses donated to the Liberal Party, historically, looking to maintain their privileged position under law? Dare I say it, there have been other candidates—not just elected members of this House who are members of political parties, but other candidates—who sit on the crossbench who also may be overly influenced by a particular donor or a group of friends of donors. It's important that the Australian public is able to see who those people are, understand where they're getting support from, and then judge some of the decisions that they make within that context.
The member for Warringah and others have mentioned real-time disclosure. I'm utterly opposed to real-time disclosure. The member for Warringah and I participated in a documentary about donation laws in Australia. It was a very worthwhile exercise, and I highly recommend everyone viewing it on iView. But I will throw a dart at the heart of the hypotheses of the documentary, which I found troubling, and that is this idea, which I don't think anyone in this House or anyone in democratic politics anywhere in the world would deny, that the influence money has on US politics is corrosive. It's up to the United States but they need to look at it more clearly and understand the impact it's having. I don't think there is anyone in this chamber who would say that if we had the amount of money that flows through the US electoral system operating in this system it would be a matter of grave concern. But that documentary constantly went back to provisions in US law and said, 'Well, what if we implemented things like real-time disclosures?' What we know from the United States is that real-time disclosures are fantastic if you are trying to hide where you're getting your money from.
What happens in Australia is that when you give someone $100,000, even if you give it to them in $1,000 increments over 100 days, in the end it all has to be bundled up and reported as one amount. Going to the point that the member for Warringah made: the benefit of being in a political party is that every Australian can see that Jason Falinski, the member for Mackellar, is a member of the Liberal Party, which received $100,000 from BHP, not that BHP paid him $1,000 and then someone else $1,000 and someone else $1,000 and so on. It all gets bundled up so that Australians can see how much money the Liberal Party received from a particular donor. Under real-time donation laws, that doesn't happen. The Liberal Party reveals that on day 1 we got $1,000 and on day 3 we got $1,000 from a different entity, so that, by the time you get to day 100, no-one has been able to keep track of where the money has come from. So it actually has the result of hiding the very thing that electoral funding laws are meant to show the Australian public, which is where political candidates are receiving their money from.
I say to those who are opposed to this bill—and I note what they're saying—that this is actually about putting everyone on a level playing field so the disclosures have to happen at the same time. I don't understand why that's a problem. I don't understand why this has become such a cause celebre for the crossbench.
They are constantly in here telling us that they stand for integrity, that they stand for equality. Here's a piece of legislation that is indisputably about exactly that. I say to them, if I may, that this is something they should give full throated support to, that they shouldn't delay in the House and that they should, if I may say it, congratulate, rather than sneer at, the House for actually passing.
The Australian people are not fools. The Australian people know that these Independents are all part of a coordinated group headed by Simon Holmes a Court and funded through different trusts, funds and front groups. No-one knows where the money is coming from. No-one knows where Climate 200 got it's $3.3 million from. There are a lot of people around saying that $200,000 from Simon Holmes a Court, $100,000 from Nick Fairfax and $100,000 from Simon Hackett does not equal the $3.6 million that they say they have in this front group. No-one is fooled when they go on Facebook and see The Voices Of group. The members of that group all used to be members of the Greens who at the last election were on the campaign committee of the Independent, who was funded by GetUp, who then also had the benefit, I might say, of an offshoot, a new front group, so he could maintain this fiction that The Voices Of group is somehow a community group. This is a RICO, or racketeer influenced and corrupt organisations, case in the making. The tentacles run everywhere. Apparently it's all uncoordinated. Watching their behaviour, I'd believe that. It's all uncoordinated, but the major thing about it is that it's always about hiding who they are, what they stand for and where the money is coming from.
Here we have a piece of legislation that, basically, says to Simon Holmes a Court: tell us where the money is coming from, Simon, and, more importantly for the people of Wentworth, North Sydney, Mackellar, Goldstein, Higgins and Kooyong—all of which, I might add, are Liberal seats—tell us where it's going. Don't get me wrong; they're all about democracy. That's why they target just one political party. We all know what's really going on here. The left wing are now using these front groups to attack Liberals because they know they wouldn't get elected as Labor members, as Labor candidates or as Greens candidates.
That's what's going on. That's why all the money is hidden. That's why the front groups keep sprouting up with different names. It's like drinking new Coke and then going back to Coke classic. The thing inside the can is the same. You're still drinking the same drink. The point of this electoral reform is about making all of that obvious. Please spare us the cant about 'community groups'. There's nothing about them that's community. What there is a lot of with them is how coordinated they are and how much they're hiding.
I rise to speak on this bill introduced by the Special Minister of State just last week. The substance of this bill, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Annual Disclosure Equality) Bill 2021, appears to be threefold. First, it will require all parliamentarians to lodge annual returns to the Australian Electoral Commission relating to gifts received during the financial year. These provisions would also require donors who make gifts to parliamentarians above the AEC threshold to report them in their annual returns. Second, this bill would extend foreign donation laws to cover current sitting members of parliament, not just when they are candidates for election. Finally, this bill extends by six months the period during which a person is considered a candidate for the purposes of reporting donations received during an election.
On the face of it, these are positive reforms. I say 'on the face of it' because, unfortunately, the minister did not make the time to brief the crossbench prior to this debate. The soonest I could get an appointment was tomorrow. I will say that these amendments would not change too much about how I already do business.
While the current provisions in the electoral act do not require non-party parliamentarians to lodge annual AEC returns, I am committed, as I have said so many times in this House, to disclosing on a quarterly basis all donations I receive, at any time, above $1,000. That information is on my website right now for all to see. Sadly, in the interests of transparency, the same cannot be said for all major parties. At this stage I do have concerns about the retrospective application of the candidate provisions. While I welcome any reforms to improve the disclosure of political donations in this nation, it's very curious indeed to see that the government has become laser focused on reforms targeted at Independent candidates, all of a sudden.
It's also curious to see that the government do not pay attention to the loopholes in the act which they proactively exploit. For example, it's common practice for candidates from the major parties to lodge individual AEC returns that state that they received $0 during an election—zero dollars. This is obviously untrue. The major parties are clearly exploiting a loophole to ensure that the public is left in the dark about how much money they decide to spend in each electorate. The public has that information about an independent candidate, so why not from the major parties too? Wouldn't that be great transparency? Wouldn't that be a marvellous loophole to fix?
That's why I will soon be moving a detailed amendment to this bill to require political parties to declare in an AEC return exactly how much money they gave to an individual candidate, if that candidate submits a nil return under part 5. If the government is truly committed to disclosure equality when it comes to political donations, then it will support this detailed amendment. I encourage them to do so, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I will also be moving detailed amendments to reduce the AEC political donations declaration threshold from $14,500 to $1,000. These amendments reflect the provisions of the private members' bill I introduced last sitting and the private members' bill the member for Mayo introduced at the start of this parliament, which I was very pleased to support.
The government is keen to say that they are 'committed to increasing transparency when it comes to political donations via this bill'. Well, let's see them 'walk the talk' on these amendments. Under current laws, the major parties only have to disclose donations received above $14,500 to the Australian Electoral Commission each financial year. Australians deserve to know who is holding the purse strings of the major parties before voting for them. Politicians are meant to represent the people, not their donors. The parliaments of New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland have all set disclosure thresholds on donations of $1,000. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia also require near real-time disclosure of donations, but right now there is no equivalent law at a federal level.
In summary, I challenge the government on whether it truly introduced this bill in good faith. This bill has had no consultation and was never contemplated by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. I truly do wonder what the government's ultimate motivation here is. If the government honestly cared about equality in political donations laws, it would also support my amendments to lower the disclosure threshold and prevent political parties from hiding where they spend money during elections.
I'd like to thank all those in this chamber who have contributed to the debate on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Annual Disclosure Equality) Bill 2021. The bill will ensure greater transparency in the disclosure of electoral donations by: extending foreign donation restrictions to parliamentarians for the full length of their term in office, rather than just the period they are a candidate for the election; requiring parliamentarians who directly receive donations for the purpose of incurring electoral expenditure or creating electoral material to lodge an annual return to the AEC each financial year; and extending the period for which a person is taken to be a candidate by an additional six months for the purpose of disclosure period for the candidate and Senate group returns and for restrictions on receiving foreign donations. This will support the continued integrity of the electoral system by ensuring that Australia's world-class electoral funding and disclosure regime is consistent and continues to provide transparency for Australian voters.
I thank my colleagues for their contributions, and I commend this bill.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Scullin has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move amendments (2) and (4) together:
(2) Clause 2, page 2 (at the end of the table), add:
(4) Schedule 1, page 19 (after line 26), at the end of the Schedule, add:
Part 4 — Disclosure of receipt of donations
Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918
53 After Division 4 of Part XX
Insert:
Division 4A — Disclosure of receipt of donations
307AA Interpretation
In this Division:
$1,000-exceeding sum from a person or entity means a sum of gifts received from the person or entity that is equal to or more than $1,000.
disclosure threshold-exceeding sum from a person or entity means a sum of gifts received from the person or entity that is equal to or more than the disclosure threshold.
gift recipient means any of the following:
(a) a registered political party;
(b) a State branch of a registered political party;
(c) a candidate (including a member of a group) in an election or a by-election;
(d) a group;
(e) an associated entity.
quarter means a period of 3 months starting on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October.
307AB Real-time disclosure of disclosure threshold-exceeding gifts
(1) If a gift recipient receives a disclosure threshold-exceeding sum from a person or entity during a financial year, the recipient's agent or financial controller must provide a return in accordance with this section:
(a) within 5 business days after the day the recipient receives the gift (a trigger gift) that makes the sum of gifts received during the financial year a disclosure threshold-exceeding sum; and
(b) within 5 business days after the day of each subsequent gift (a post-trigger gift) after the trigger gift the recipient receives from the person or entity during the financial year.
Note: For the purposes of paragraph (a), it does not matter whether the trigger gift is itself equal to or more than the disclosure threshold.
(2) The return must:
(a) be in the approved form; and
(b) in the case of a return required under paragraph (1)(a) because of a trigger gift:
(i) set out the disclosure threshold-exceeding sum received; and
(ii) set out the amount or value of each gift that makes up the disclosure threshold-exceeding sum; and
(iii) set out the date on which each of those gifts was received;
(c) in the case of a return required under paragraph (1)(b) because of a post-trigger gift:
(i) set out the amount or value of the post-trigger gift that was received; and
(ii) set out the date on which the post-trigger gift was received.
(3) The return must set out:
(a) if the person or entity was an unincorporated association, other than a registered industrial organisation:
(i) the name of the association; and
(ii) the names and addresses of the members of the executive committee (however described) of the association; or
(b) if the gift or gifts from the person or entity was paid out of a trust fund or paid out of the funds of a foundation:
(i) the names and addresses of the trustees of the fund or of the foundation; and
(ii) the title or other description of the trust fund, or the name of the foundation, as the case requires; or
(c) in any other case—the name and address of the person or entity.
(4) An agent or financial controller of a gift recipient must not contravene subsection (1).
Civil penalty:
The higher of the following amounts:
(a) 60 penalty units;
(b) if there is sufficient evidence for the court to determine the amount or value, or an estimate of the amount or value, of gifts not disclosed—3 times that amount or value.
(5) Subsection 93(2) of the Regulatory Powers Act does not apply in relation to a contravention of subsection (4) of this section.
307AC Quarterly disclosure of $1,000-exceeding gifts
(1) If a gift recipient receives a $1,000-exceeding sum from a person or entity during a quarter, the recipient's agent or financial controller must provide a return in accordance with this section within 5 business days after the end of the quarter.
(2) The return must:
(a) be in the approved form; and
(b) set out the sum of the gifts that the gift recipient receives from the person or entity during the quarter; and
(c) for each of those gifts:
(i) set out the amount or value of the gift; and
(ii) set out the date on which the gift was received.
(3) The return must set out:
(a) if the person or entity was an unincorporated association, other than a registered industrial organisation:
(i) the name of the association; and
(ii) the names and addresses of the members of the executive committee (however described) of the association; or
(b) if the gift or gifts from the person or entity was paid out of a trust fund or paid out of the funds of a foundation:
(i) the names and addresses of the trustees of the fund or of the foundation; and
(ii) the title or other description of the trust fund, or the name of the foundation, as the case requires; or
(c) in any other case—the name and address of the person or entity.
(4) Subsection (1) does not apply if the gift recipient receives a disclosure threshold-exceeding sum from the person or entity during the period:
(a) starting at the start of the financial year in which the quarter occurs; and
(b) ending at the end of the quarter.
(5) An agent or financial controller of a gift recipient must not contravene subsection (1).
Civil penalty:
The higher of the following amounts:
(a) 60 penalty units;
(b) if there is sufficient evidence for the court to determine the amount or value, or an estimate of the amount or value, of gifts not disclosed—3 times that amount or value.
(6) Subsection 93(2) of the Regulatory Powers Act does not apply in relation to a contravention of subsection (5) of this section.
54 Subsection 320(1) (after table item 4)
Insert:
I have just given some brief remarks, in my second reading contribution, about the importance of instigating in the federal parliament a law that would include and ensure that we have a $1,000 political donations disclosure threshold. As I said in my second reading contribution, I think it would be extremely important and it would meet community expectations if we were in fact fair dinkum about political donations transparency in the federal parliament, and if we joined with many of our state governments and other jurisdictions around the world in ensuring we truly understand how often donations come through, where donations come through and the amount of donations that come through to our federal parliament, through donations to major parties and, indeed, to Independents as well.
I have moved a private member's bill in this House in regard to these amendments before. The member for Mayo has done the same. There is strong community support to have greater transparency in political donations, and great community support to see the donations threshold lowered from $14,500 to $1,000.
My thoughts on this are very clear. They are contrary, certainly, to what some other members on the other side might have to say about this, but I have great confidence these are amendments that would be supported by the people, and I urge those in this House to support these amendments today.
The question is that the amendments be disagreed to.
by leave—I move amendments (3) and (5) together:
(3) Clause 2, page 2 (at the end of the table), add:
(5) Schedule 1, page 19 (after line 26), at the end of the Schedule, add:
Part 5—Disclosure of local expenses
Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918
55 Section 307(1)
Repeal the subsection, substitute:
(1) If no details are required to be included in a return under this Division in respect of a candidate, the return must nevertheless be lodged and must include:
(a) a statement to the effect that no gifts of a kind required to be disclosed were received; and
(b) if the candidate is:
(i) a candidate in an election of a member of the House of Representatives for a Division; and
(ii) endorsed by a registered political party in that election;
a statement of the amount of electoral expenditure incurred during the period to which the return relates by or with the authority of the registered political party (or by an associated entity connected with the party) specifically in respect of the House of Representatives election for that Division; and
(c) if the candidate is:
(i) a candidate in an election of Senators for a State or Territory; and
(ii) endorsed by a registered political party in that election;
a statement of the amount of electoral expenditure incurred during the period to which the return relates by or with the authority of the registered political party (or by an associated entity connected with the party) specifically in respect of the Senate election for that State or Territory.
As I said just now in my speech in regard to this bill, I applaud the government for endeavouring to improve transparency when it comes to electoral reform. I do wish, though, to help the minister here and help to improve this bill, because I think it can be improved. My first amendment attempted to do that.
As I pointed out to the minister in one of my meetings with him, it is common practice for candidates from major parties to lodge individual AEC returns that state they receive no money whatsoever during an election, and quite obviously this is untrue.
This is a problem because political donations come straight into party headquarters and a combined return is put forward. I think that what's really happening here is that there is a clear exploitation of a loophole to ensure that the public is left in the dark about how much money is actually spent in each electorate, and I think that's a problem. The public have that information about Independent candidates. They know exactly how much was raised and how much was spent. What this amendment seeks to do is improve transparency in our electoral act and to ensure that, for every candidate—every person who runs for election—when they put their AEC return in, it is absolutely clear how much money has been spent, by electorate.
The question is that the amendments be disagreed to.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I move:
That the amendments be agreed to.
As I discussed when the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Economic Empowerment) Bill 2021 first came before this place on 2 September this year, the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976 was a major achievement of both the Whitlam Labor government and its successor, the Liberal government led by Malcolm Fraser. The legislation was introduced by the Whitlam government, lapsed on the dismissal of the government in 1975 and was then reintroduced and passed with Labor support by the Fraser government in 1976. I think it is important to remember the bipartisan support that this legislation has had since its inception.
The Aboriginal land rights act was based on the recommendations of the final report of the Woodward Aboriginal Land Rights Commission in April 1974. In that final report, Commissioner Woodward said that he believed that the first aim of Aboriginal land rights is:
(i) the doing of a simple justice to a people who have been deprived of their land without their consent and without compensation …
Commissioner Woodward went on to state that the aims of land rights could be best achieved by measures which included:
(a) preserving and strengthening all Aboriginal interests in land and rights of the land which exist today, particularly all those having spiritual importance.
(b) ensuring that none of these interests or rights are further whittled away without consent …
Woodward's final report included drafting instructions for the bill that became the land rights act, which was the first legislation passed by any Australian government giving legal recognition to Aboriginal land ownership. This law has been of immense significance in shaping the Northern Territory ever since, with the provisions of the land rights act now governing around half of the land area of the Northern Territory.
This bill makes a number of substantial changes to the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act 1976, which are directed to the objective of economic empowerment, which is in the bill's title. As we've made clear, we in Labor support these changes. However, at the time this bill was brought forward, concerns were raised that the government had not consulted widely enough on the very significant changes that it makes to the existing law. It was partly for this reason that Labor supported the inquiry held into this bill by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. That committee inquiry provided an opportunity for all interested groups and individuals to be heard. I'm pleased to say they have now been heard and their submissions have been carefully considered by that committee. I also note that Labor appreciates that the four Northern Territory land councils were closely involved in the development of this bill and that Labor accepts and welcomes the important role that the Tiwi Land Council, the Central Land Council, the Anindilyakwa Land Council and the Northern Land Council play as the representative bodies for traditional owners in the Northern Territory.
The land councils' joint submission to the Senate inquiry set out in detail the meetings that were held with traditional owners and communities around the Northern Territory to discuss and consult on the content of the bill. Labor supports this bill with the amendments moved in the other place, which would require the minister to request progress reports on the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation's strategic investment plan. We note that this was also a recommendation of the Senate Scrutiny of Bills Committee. It's appropriate and consistent with principles of transparency that these progress reports should be open to parliamentary scrutiny. There are various options available to the minister to allow for the removal or confidentiality of any genuinely sensitive material.
Labor supports this bill as amended.
I thank the House for the support of these amendments, which I understand is going to be across the House. These are amendments that were moved in the Senate by Senator Lidia Thorpe. What they will do is require the minister to provide progress reports on the Northern Territory Aboriginal Investment Corporation and also require the minister to table a copy of any progress reports in each house within 15 days of receiving that report. These important amendments will help ensure accountability and transparency, and the Greens are pleased that they have received the support of the Senate. We look forward to them receiving the support of the House. Senator Thorpe has made extensive contributions in the Senate as to why these amendments are important, and I commend these amendments to the House.
Question agreed to.
I rise today to speak on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Assurance of Senate Counting) Bill 2021. This bill does two main things. Firstly, it requires the AEC to commission an audit and risk management assessment of the counting and scrutiny software used in a Senate election. It also amends the way ties between candidates in Senate elections are to be resolved.
This bill has the very laudable aim of enhancing the transparency and integrity of our election-counting systems, and this is an important objective. We know, and we should be proud of the fact, that we have one of the best electoral systems in the world. The independent Australian Electoral Commission operates with the utmost integrity and rigour to ensure a fair and accurate election result in which all Australians can be confident.
Nevertheless, there will always, unfortunately, be detractors and those who question the results, even when there's not a shred of evidence of anything but an accurate and transparent outcome. We need to recognise this, respond to it, and do all we can to stand up for trust and confidence in our electoral and democratic institutions and processes, in an environment where these have been increasingly under threat around the world, driven in part by the diffusion of misinformation and disinformation. It's the Australian Labor Party's view that electoral reform should always be done in a considered, thoughtful and bipartisan manner and that the end goal of all reform should be the betterment of our democratic system as a whole. We remain concerned about the messaging coming from some in this place that is designed to cast doubts on the integrity of our electoral system and, indeed, undermine our democracy.
Amongst the nine electoral amendment bills introduced or debated in this session of parliament, the government has left the most important, a bill to prepare for elections in times of emergency situations, to the last. That is a bill that is actually needed, as we can see from the circumstances we are confronting right now, and which has bipartisan support. It is a bill which was recommended by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters following a reference from the Minister for Finance well over a year ago. Once again, we see wrong priorities from a tired and increasingly desperate government that can't distinguish between the national interest and its political interests, led by a prime minister who is unfailingly only concerned with himself. On what could still be, potentially, the second-last sitting day of this parliament, the Prime Minister has only just listed the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Contingency Measures) Bill 2021 for debate. Ensuring we can have safe elections during major COVID-19 outbreaks, bushfires and floods, such as we are seeing in New South Wales and Queensland just this week, must be our highest priority, not an afterthought.
Turning to the bill which is before the House, it is important to note that the Australian Electoral Commission already has a robust system for assurance and transparency of its software systems. However, we on this side of the House are satisfied that this bill will assist in providing increased confidence to the voting public and, indeed, to parties and candidates. The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Assurance of Senate Counting) Bill requires the AEC to obtain, prior to the next election, an independent security risk assessment of the computer systems used to scrutinise the Senate count. This includes assessment of the software used to scan, store and count votes. The person or body tasked with this assessment must be accredited by the Australian Signals Directorate and must provide a report to the AEC on their findings. The AEC must then publish this report on its website. This assessment must be conducted prior to each federal election.
In addition, from 1 January 2023, the AEC must arrange an independent assessment of whether the counting software for a Senate election distributes preferences and elects candidates in accordance with the Electoral Act. The AEC must publish a statement on its website stating whether the accuracy of the accounting software is assured to the appropriate standard.
The Electoral Commissioner will then be required to verify, within seven days of an election, that the AEC's using the assured version of the counting software. If there are any variations required of the software, the Electoral Commissioner must advise of these variations and the reason for them within seven days of the return of the writs.
The bill also requires that a ballot-sampling process be undertaken. The AEC must arrange for statistically significant samples of ballot papers to be checked throughout the scrutiny of votes to ensure that the electronic data captured and used in the counting of votes reflects the physical data that is recorded on the ballot papers. At least 5,000 Senate ballot papers must be checked, or 1,000 if it is a standalone Senate election. The ballot process that I'm talking about now may be inspected by scrutineers. The Electoral Commissioner will be required to publish the methodology used for the sampling and the process used for the reconciling of preferences prior to the election. Within 14 days after the return of the writs, the Electoral Commissioner must publish a statement setting out the results of the ballot-sampling process. Should any irregularities be identified, there would be time for an election result to be contested in the Court of Disputed Returns, which, of course, must be done within 40 days of the return of the writs.
We know from the extensive evidence that the Electoral Commissioner has provided to both the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and the Senate during estimates hearings that the AEC already has robust systems in place to ensure the integrity of its systems. The AEC already works with national cybersecurity agencies to ensure the integrity of its systems and, indeed, its compliance with the Commonwealth cybersecurity guidelines. There have been multiple independent audits and testing of the AEC's counting and distribution of preference software, which have found no issues with the integrity of the vote count.
Apart from the assurance of electronic counting systems, we should not forget the important safeguards that scrutineers provide. Scrutineers can view and challenge the count, including the scanning of ballot papers and the processing of all digital ballot paper images. The fact that this process is performed in full view of scrutineers should provide significant assurance to voters, candidates and, indeed, the wider Australian community.
In a further effort for transparency, the seat-by-seat results of our elections are published on the AEC's virtual tally room. This allows anyone to view the results in any seat and to verify the results. To date, this has been at the initiative of the AEC, who have been doing this to provide public assurance and greater transparency of the process. This bill codifies this existing practice by the AEC of publishing preference data, including the distribution of preferences, on the AEC's virtual tally room.
Another transparency initiative that the AEC already uses is to outline on its website the integrity and assurance measures that the AEC has in place with regard to its computer systems. Prior to each election, the Easy Count Senate system, the ballot paper reconciliation system and the Senate scanning solution all go through testing. They are tested individually, and they are also tested in conjunction with each other to ensure that all the systems work together. Product verification testing also occurs after the close of nominations and before polling day to ensure the scanners and templates of each ballot paper are correctly set up. Then, after the election, the systems are tested again to make sure they worked correctly.
We have confidence in the independence of the Australian Electoral Commission and in the integrity of their systems. This bill does not appear to require much more than processes that are already in place. Nevertheless, if this bill will provide greater assurances and put paid to some of the, quite frankly, ridiculous conspiracy theories that float around, we in Labor are very happy to provide our support for the bill and the measures it contains. We hope as we do so that government members now provide consistent support for our independent Australian Electoral Commission and for the integrity of our electoral systems.
The bill also aligns the process for determining ties in a Senate count with the process used for this House. Instead of the Australian electoral officer for the state having a casting vote in the rare circumstance where there is a tie in the distribution of preferences, the electoral officer will have to determine the order of standing by lot. This is a reasonable amendment and provides a greater degree of certainty than the current provisions.
The bill also provides that the scrutineer observing the computerised scrutiny for a Senate election may ask for access to an original ballot paper to dispute formality. This codifies existing practice with scrutiny for the Senate count in South Australia in 2016 and also in 2019. Multiple requests that are deemed to be unreasonable, frivolous or vexatious may be refused if they would unreasonably delay the scrutiny. This is to ensure that the start of the elected senator's term on 1 July—which is, of course, a requirement of our Constitution—is not put at risk.
The measures in this bill will increase public confidence in our democratic systems; however, there is, of course, much more to be done.
To that end, I move:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes that the explanatory memorandum states that the bill's intention is to strengthen the integrity of Australia's electoral system;
(2) notes that Australia's electoral system would be further strengthened by;
(a) lowering the disclosure threshold from the current $14,500 to a fixed $1,000 so political donations are transparent for all to see;
(b) requiring real time disclosure of political donations;
(c) reforming electoral expenditure laws;
(d) providing more resources to the AEC to increase enrolment and turnout;
(e) addressing the spread of dangerous misinformation and disinformation;
(f) legislating for a powerful and independent National Anti-Corruption Commission;
(g) making laws to prevent governments from pork-barrelling in marginal held seats; and
(h) requiring parliamentarians to disclose secret donations; and
(3) calls on the Government to implement these electoral integrity measures that would make a real difference to improving public confidence in our democracy".
An Albanese Labor government would continue the reforms that started with the Hawke government to enhance the integrity of our democratic processes. It was a Labor government that was the first to legislate the transparency of political donations, requiring all donations over $1,000 to be publicly disclosed. We remember that it was John Howard who jacked this up to $10,000 and then also linked it to inflation, causing the threshold to blow out to the current $14,500. We will, in government, reduce the disclosure threshold to $1,000 and remove the link to CPI.
We will also require that all donations be disclosed within seven days so people know who is donating to political parties, how much and when, and will not have to wait up to 19 months to find out, as they do currently. In fact, we have two bills before the Senate right now to do just that. But the government won't vote for them because they don't want people to know who is donating to the Liberal Party or the National Party. Otherwise, people would have found out about the $75,000 donation Clive Palmer made to the National Party before the last election instead of after they had already voted.
This government doesn't care about transparency and accountability. If it did it would have at least agreed to debate the member for Indi's bill for a national integrity commission, and the Prime Minister would not have summoned the member for Bass to his office to reprimand her for wanting action on a 1,000-day-old promise of his government—a promise fundamental to restoring trust in politics—to introduce a real national integrity commission. I note the member the Dawson received no such summons, despite all the damage he has done and continues to do to the state of our democracy, including in this very chamber.
The fact is: the Morrison-Joyce government does not care about the state of our democracy. The government doesn't care about transparency and accountability. Otherwise, it wouldn't be trying to ram through six electoral bills in the final two sitting weeks of the year. This isn't the way to make laws in this country, particularly those that go to how our democratic systems function.
If the government really cared about the integrity of our electoral system, it wouldn't have cut funding to the AEC. Last week Australia achieved a record enrolment level, with 17 million Australians enrolled to vote at the next election. But, despite the more than 500,000 additional voters added to the roll since the last election, the funding this government has provided to the AEC for the next election is actually lower than that for the last one, in 2019. That's before we get to some of the challenges that the global pandemic may impose on the conduct of this election. This diminishes the commission's capacity to perform vital functions, including public education campaigns on political disinformation and driving increases to voter enrolment and turnout.
Just 79.3 per cent of Indigenous Australians are enrolled to vote nationally, compared to an overall enrolment rate of 96.1 per cent. This is a shocking figure. It's a shocking figure for anyone who cares about our democracy. And it gets worse; the situation is even worse in the Northern Territory, with an Indigenous enrolment rate there of 69.6 per cent—less than 70 per cent. So much more needs to be done to address this democratic deficit, including investigating how people living in remote communities can be added to the roll through the Federal Direct Enrolment and Update program. But, without appropriate funding, the AEC is hampered in its mission to ensure every eligible voter has the ability to exercise their right to vote. But all this Prime Minister cares about is winning the next election, and he takes a win-at-all-costs approach.
That's his focus. And, as we see from the legislative agenda—the threadbare legislative agenda—that's before the House today and across this sitting fortnight, it's his sole focus. He knows that Australians have worked him out, that they know he has nothing to say to them about the future and no record worth speaking of, that he only stands for himself and that he is only concerned to do whatever it takes to cling to power. He doesn't care about the truth. He will say anything to win, even telling outright lies, about a holiday to Hawaii while Australia burned, to the French President, about electric vehicles, when he's damned by his own words.
Australia deserves so much better than this. It's only an Albanese Labor government that will provide transparency and accountability in government, and it's only the Labor Party that will always stand up for democracy, for defending and strengthening our democratic institutions, because on this side of the House we trust Australians, and we are prepared to trust their judgement.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I briefly make this comment on the amendment, because it's the same amendment that was moved to the last electoral bill that we addressed. I really do commend the contribution from the member for Mackellar on some of these points, particularly in relation to the perverse outcomes of this concept of proactive ongoing disclosure and the fact that, in many cases, that would actually lead to a lower standard of public disclosure. If we have a regime that calls for disclosing a donation in real time, so within seven days of the donation et cetera, you could see people gaming the system. Clearly there would still be some disclosure threshold. Let's say it was Labor's proposition of $1,000; that kind of regime means someone could donate $500 every day of the year and not get picked up. Whereas, at the moment, if a major corporate, an individual or a union donates to a political party, we have to aggregate the total value of the donations over a financial year, and that is the threshold. Over a financial year, if you donate more than the $14½-odd thousand amount that the threshold, index linked, is at the moment, that's what triggers it. So there are a lot of misleading concepts in the amendment. But, as I say, it is basically the same amendment that was moved to the last electoral bill, and I commend the contributions that were made in addressing the points there.
Coming to the substance of the question on the second reading itself, obviously I am rising to support this bill, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Assurance of Senate Counting) Bill 2021. I think the indication is that we all support this bill to provide some assurance over the Senate voting count process. The previous speaker outlined what those measures are, and I won't reprosecute those points. It does remind me, when we're thinking of looking at voting count machines et cetera, of the very famous 2000 presidential election in the United States. Some in this chamber, probably many in this chamber, have an interest in and follow closely the US political system, the US democracy. There was a particularly famous circumstance in November 2000 which ultimately saw then Governor George Bush become President George Bush, thanks to him winning the electoral college delegates from the state of Florida. But that was disputed for a period of time. There's a fairly entertaining movie made about it, pretty biased in favour of the Democratic angle, but, nonetheless, it's an enjoyable watch if you are interested in the conduct of elections, which I'm not suggesting is a huge proportion of the population, but those of us in this chamber probably are. Of course, the issues that were disputed in that circumstance related to the way in which their counting systems operate in the United States.
Some will be aware that, in the United States, they don't have the equivalent of our AEC. It's up to each state to run the voting process for selecting their delegates to the electoral college, much like they run all their other elections on the same day in the United States. So you go in with a substantial ballot paper and vote for everything from President to dog catcher, at times, and everything in between.
There is not necessarily the same voting process in different jurisdictions. If you vote in, say, the state of Florida, you'll probably be undertaking a different voting process than you might if you are voting in the state of Texas or New York or whatever it might be. But I certainly don't support that; I'm a very strong supporter of us having our own federal Australian Electoral Commission that oversees and conducts our general elections to this chamber, our by-elections and of course the election of senators.
This bill, at its heart, as the previous speaker said, is in some cases just legislating what is already current practice with the AEC, so it is putting a requirement on them that they already voluntarily undertake, essentially. But, to ensure that there's no ambiguity around that into the future, it does make sense to make that very clear and put it into legislation around preference flows and publications et cetera. As I say, it already happens, but we're ensuring in this bill that there wouldn't be a case in the future where, potentially, an electoral commissioner decides that they don't want to continue that practice, because of course they'll be required to do so now under the Electoral Act.
The other is the requirement to have a very clear standard of how we validate and confirm the automatic vote-counting tallying machines that the AEC currently use and ones that they potentially will use as technology develops into the future. I think this is an important area for us to anticipate future risk. I can't think of any example in the history of this parliament or our federation where there have been questions over the fair conduct of elections. As much as we have spirited campaigns and contests and sometimes we might not necessarily think that the conduct of candidates or advertisements or actions by volunteers et cetera was fair, I don't think we've ever heard the allegation that our Electoral Commission itself has ever conducted elections with anything short of the utmost integrity. I can't reflect on any contest I can recall where there was a suggestion that the way in which the votes were counted was either in dispute or, even worse, led to an outcome that wasn't what the people voted for. I can't, to my mind, think of any example where that has happened in the history of any election in this country, particularly federal elections. That's a source of great pride for all of us in this chamber who believe in the upmost supremacy and importance of the democratic process and the people making decisions as to who represent them. We've got that. There is no suggestion whatsoever that we haven't had that in the past, but this is a measure that anticipates future risk and makes sure that we will never have that situation in the future—in this case, specific to Senate voting.
We do live in a world now where there are increasing threats of interference in our democracy, and I made some comments in a previous electoral bill debate around that and, in particular, foreign actors seeking to influence our democracy. In the previous bill, that was related to donations from foreign sources. Of course, in this case, it could be the potential for sabotage of or interference in the way in which the actual count process is conducted and occurs. What this bill puts in place is a legislated framework to have another layer of assurity and confidence for all of us that the way in which the actual count itself is occurring is robust. It requires the Australian Signals Directorate to engage with the AEC, advising them on ways in which they can get an audit process around the accounting systems they currently use or may use into the future to make sure that there's a robustness and an accuracy there, but also, clearly, to make sure there's not an ability for someone to seek to interfere with our democracy by hacking into the system or undertaking some kind of cyberattack on the system, or by doing something to either frustrate the process or engineer an outcome different to that which the people of this country have voted for.
In supporting this legislation, I think it's very worthy that we take this opportunity to put in place a legislated process to assure that that is what will need to happen into the future.
We have to anticipate that technology will continue to provide new opportunities for the AEC to consider to help make the electoral count as efficient as possible. We're going to have to constantly balance the opportunity for efficiency against the higher risk the efficient system might have of being abused or influenced. This is going to be the challenge. Obviously, the voting system we have at federal elections is not availing itself of the absolute best technology that we could choose to use, because we accept that there's very high risk in things like electronic voting and allowing people to participate in the process in a much more digital way. We still require, and no-one's proposing to change the need for, a very physical process in casting our ballots: paper and pencil in a ballot box, then counted by hand by officials from the AEC, with the option for all candidates to scrutinise the counting of ballots in a contest that they are a participant in.
If you brought someone from the first federal election that we held, in 1901, to the 2022 election, it wouldn't be that different for them to vote in 2022 to how it was back then. Whilst perhaps that's a good thing, there will be opportunities as technology develops to further consider whether we can make the experience for people more efficient, without introducing any risk around whether or not that system can be manipulated to achieve an outcome that wasn't what the people voting intended. I've got no doubt that the AEC will continue to look for ways to undertake a more efficient count.
I think we can be honest: the Senate count is enormously complex, particularly for the people it affects the most, those people who are candidates and are waiting for the outcome. We all know that Senate results can take many weeks, and sometimes it is a very uncertain outcome until the keyboard strike of 'enter' spits out who those six people are who have been elected from a state. I'm sure we would be happy to see anything the AEC could do to safely improve the process of counting and get us a more rapid result, as long as we all had confidence that that wasn't risking the outcome becoming distorted.
This bill is going to mean that into the future there's a framework in place for the AEC to assist with the count on the existing machinery that they use, but, just as importantly, it puts them in a position to have a framework for other technological advances they might seek to pursue and use in the interests of getting a more rapid outcome. This is a good thing, as I say, as long as it isn't at the expense of any risk of the assurity, confidence and integrity around people's vote meaning what they want it to mean; people getting the outcome that they vote for rather than the risk of anything different. I think this is very sensible.
I think that it's something the AEC are probably happy to have some clearer legislative direction on. When it comes to running elections, it's very important that we have as little ambiguity as possible. I think that being prescriptive is a virtue. I don't usually say that when it comes to government and legislation, but, when it comes to our elections, I think it's very important that it's very clear in the Electoral Act the way in which we want to have the processes undertaken by our very hardworking and impartial electoral commission. We do not want to have them in a situation where they're having to unnecessarily make decisions because there's something unclear in the act. I'm sure that in the case of this bill before the House it is something that is going to have broad support. As I say, it merely improves and enhances the integrity and assurances around the Senate voting processes. I can't see why any of us wouldn't be happy to see those sorts of measures become that little bit more robust within the act.
On that basis, I support these changes. I think that we should continue to look for other opportunities to strengthen the integrity around our voting system. As a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, I am very encouraging of the AEC looking for, pursuing and bringing forward proposals to be considered within our democracy to improve its efficiency, but never at the expense of its integrity. I'm sure that's something that we would all consider to be a fundamental principle when it comes to the democracy of this nation. With those words, I commend the bill to the House.
I rise to make a few brief comments on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Assurance of Senate Counting) Bill 2021. Labor will be supporting this bill because electoral reform should always be done in a consultative and bipartisan fashion. The ultimate aim of electoral reform should be to enhance our democracy, not undermine it. While this bill will provide increased assurance to candidates regarding the veracity of the AEC's systems, I do just want to make a few points about this bill from a cybersecurity perspective, my own portfolio perspective. The member for Scullin has gone through in quite some detail what this bill does, and I won't go over that again. But, from a portfolio perspective, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Assurance of Senate Counting) Bill 2021 requires an independent audit and risk assessment of the counting and scrutiny software used in a Senate election to be undertaken. So, prior to the next election, the Electoral Commissioner will arrange for an independent body accredited by the Australian Signals Directorate—that is a very common practice for certifying and assessing IT systems in the Commonwealth—to conduct a security risk assessment of the AEC computer systems used to scrutinise the Senate vote. The accredited assessor must provide a report to the AEC as soon as practical. After receipt of this report, the AEC must publish a statement of assurance on the AEC's website.
I know there are some election wonks and tragics who obsess over these issues following this debate on Twitter at the moment, but for a civilian who is following this debate and doesn't live in the weeds of how Australian elections are undertaken and to avoid any conclusion I just want to note that there isn't electronic voting in federal elections in Australia. No-one is going in and pushing buttons on a computer in Australia. But, as anyone who has voted in recent elections knows, the ballot paper and the number of candidates in Senate elections can be enormous. So it has been necessary for the count to be assisted by the scanning of ballots into a computer system that then uses optical character recognition to determine how the elector voted to assign their preferences. This is all done in the full view of human scrutineers. So, to be clear, this is a verifiable human process first. Then there is a subsequent computer process to help capture the preference distribution.
I really want to be absolutely clear here—and this is the only reason that I'm speaking on this bill today—in saying that the integrity and security of the Senate count isn't in question by anyone of any credibility or authority in Australia. We should be absolutely clear on this. The Electoral Commissioner has given evidence that there is thorough testing undertaken of the AEC's distribution-of-preferences software and that the AEC works with our internationally renowned national cybersecurity agencies to ensure the integrity of its systems and its compliance with the Commonwealth cybersecurity guidelines.
The AEC's website outlines the integrity and assurance measures the AEC currently has in place, and they are not particularly different to what we're talking about in this bill, frankly. So why is there a bill to have an independent cybersecurity audit of the AEC's counting system proposing that the AEC does not much more than what the AEC already does? Well, the answer to that lies in the Senate. This bill is a product of another import of US politics into the Australian political system. This time it is of disinformation and conspiracy theories springing from the 2020 US presidential election. The government has introduced this bill in response to a somewhat less constructive proposal by One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts.
Senator Roberts has been seeking to import the disinformation narrative that there were widespread issues with electronic voting machines in the United States at the last presidential election. It's a false claim, propagated by former President Donald Trump and his supporters to advance their equally false narrative that the former president did not lose the last US election. It's a narrative that tries to cast doubt on the democratic process of the United States—our great security ally who we share similar democratic values with—and seeks to undermine public confidence in elections. Senator Roberts, along with some other members of the coalition, frankly, are pandering to conspiracy theorists and autocrats by spreading these messages in Australia, where they have even less basis. And let's just be clear about the credibility of the people spreading this kind of conspiracy theory in the United States. Mike Lindell, the 'MyPillow guy' who's been running this conspiracy, is such a grifter that he's managed to grift himself in the process of doing this and cost himself millions and millions and millions of dollars in a complete fool's errand of trying to prove fraud in the US. He has undertaken a series of quite humiliating live streams involving cybersecurity experts attempting to prove fraud, which have turned up absolutely nothing of the sort.
The idea that someone would seek to import this kind of nonsense into Australia is pretty depressing, frankly, for the health of Australia's democracy. Internet brain worms do not respect international borders, and, unfortunately, we share an information ecosystem with a lot of these never-do-wells in the United States. Those of us who care about the health of our democracy and our democratic institutions in Australia need to stand up to this kind of thing in Australia. We don't need to enable this kind of conspiracy-broking and disinformation. We don't need to play footsies with extremists here. Anyone who is tempted, or thinks that there is short-term political advantage in playing to these kinds of people, needs to understand that, as that great US president John F Kennedy once said, those who seek power by riding on the tiger's back usually end up inside.
Australians can have confidence in the Australian Electoral Commission and its ability to conduct free and fair elections. I know as a member of parliament that the Australian Electoral Commission is not beholden to elected representatives. They act with an extravagant disregard for my submissions to them about what they ought to do in my area of the woods. The latest redistribution of electoral boundaries in Victoria has managed to redistribute my house, my electorate office and my kids' schools out of my electorate. That's not my preferred outcome, but I wouldn't swap it for the alternative, because it is an independent outcome. It's an outcome developed with an utter disregard for partisanship or for political advantage. It's an independent process.
While this bill does seem to have been introduced by the government in response to Senator Roberts's private senator's bill, which was more problematic, it doesn't contain the same deficiencies that his private senator's bill did. Labor will support this bill on the basis that it doesn't cause any harm and will provide some enhancement to transparency and public trust in an already unimpeachable, rigorous system. I do just want to place on the record today that Australians do not have anything to be worried about; this is not a real issue that's being addressed.
I encourage other members of this place to think about their roles as custodians of our democratic system. All of us here are only in this place by virtue of the health of our democratic institutions. We all owe obligations to the system. This place doesn't exist just as a platform for us. It's not a tool for us to exploit for our own interests. It's a system that we all have an obligation to invest in and to sustain. It doesn't sustain itself. It's in moments like this, frankly—when you have people from outside the bounds of reasonable debate casting insinuations, spreading disinformation and seeking to undermine public confidence in our democratic system for their own short-term political gains—that all members of good faith are called on to rise up and really reject that kind of thing. We all need to treat our democracy better in this place, and in that respect I'm happy to join with the government in supporting this bill today.
Confidence in electoral processes is essential to safeguarding the integrity of our democratic institutions. The knowledge that one person gets one vote, that your vote matters and that your vote is counted is a pillar of our democracy. Free and fair elections are the foundation upon which our representative government stands. Australia has the most robust and resilient democracy in the world. This is something that every Australian should be proud of, not just here in the parliament but in every community including in my electorate of Lindsay.
This is because it impacts every Australian. We cannot take this for granted and we cannot be complacent, particularly when attempts to erode trust in and the integrity of our democratic institutions place them under threat. The Morrison government recognises what an important duty it is to consistently improve confidence in our voting process and strengthen its protections. That's why we're taking this proactive approach, embarking on a range of important measures to ensure the security, accuracy and transparency of voting. These are sensible reforms that preserve and enhance our proud democratic system. The Report on the conduct of the 2016 federal election and matters related thereto recommend these important changes.
In Australia, we're proud of our electoral system, which allows our senators to be chosen by the fairest counting system in the world. This bill will ensure that the Electoral Commissioner can ensure the accuracy of counted votes through computer scrutiny. A significant sample of ballot papers will be checked during the course of the scrutiny at each counting centre. This data will be compared with the electronic data captured by the computerised count of physical ballot papers and will be opened to inspection by scrutineers. If a scrutineer requests a physical ballot paper to be recalled during the computerised scrutiny of Senate votes, if a voter's preference cannot be determined using the scanned image of the ballot paper it can be resolved using the physical ballot paper. This bill will legislate the requirement for detailed data on both votes and preferences in Senate elections to be published within seven days after the return of the writs. While the AEC already carries this out on a voluntary basis, this now formally legislates the process.
Our unique system utilises a computerised scrutiny of votes using computers to ensure every preference of every vote is counted. The system is robust and voters deserve the right to know it is secure. That's why this bill will require the Electoral Commissioner to arrange for a security risk assessment of the systems used for the computerised scrutiny of votes in a Senate election. The assessment must be conducted by an independent provider who is accredited by the Australian Signals Directorate before each Senate election. The Australian Signals Directorate is vital member of Australia's national security community and, alongside our other national security agencies, plays a vital role in ensuring the integrity of our democracy.
Lastly, the bill also requires the Electoral Commissioner to arrange for an independent accuracy assessment of the counting software used in the scrutiny of Senate votes to ensure it is accurate and in accordance with the processes set out in the Electoral Act. The AEC will publish the assurance of the accuracy of the software to the appropriate standard in advance of each election.
This bill is one of a range of measures we are taking to safeguard and strengthen the integrity of our elections, including providing the Australian Electoral Commission with additional flexibility to conduct elections during times of emergency and introducing photo identification requirements for in-person voting. In addition, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Contingency Measures) Bill 2021 will introduce powers for the Electoral Commissioner to make limited operational modifications to the Electoral Act where a Commonwealth emergency law is in force. These measured, sensible modifications could add the flexibility to grant an additional week of prepoll in areas specifically affected by an emergency, or expand the reasons a voter can apply for a postal vote.
In addition, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Voter Integrity) Bill 2021 will further strengthen the integrity of elections and the rights of every voter. When voters show identification on polling day we reduce voter impersonation, fraudulent votes and the investigative work required to find them, and we give honest voters confidence their vote counts in the way it should. Voter fraud should not be tolerated to any extent. Even the smallest amount of voter fraud is too much fraud. No-one will be turned away or denied the opportunity to vote under this bill, with there being a wide range of identification acceptable or the ability for a voter to have their identity attested by another enrolled person who has identification or the opportunity to make a declaration vote.
In conclusion, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Assurance of Senate Counting) Bill 2021 complements these important measures to safeguard our democracy through the protection of our free and fair elections. The Morrison government will relentlessly pursue measures that protect and promote Australia's national interests. The integrity of our elections matters greatly to every Australian, and I'm proud to support these important safeguards.
Ensuring the integrity of our election systems is a bipartisan objective. We know that there have been attempts to hack into election systems. The Economist magazine talks about the way in which this particularly affects the United States, in the context in which voting machines are used. Even when those voting machines are air-gapped—that is, not connected to the internet—there is a risk of malicious actors loading malware onto them and then managing to bypass logic and accuracy tests. There is also a risk of attacks which target voter lists, attempting to change voter lists and, therefore, undermine confidence in democracy. We've seen attempts to influence elections electronically in other ways, as well. A Russian news agency with close ties to the Putin government launched a so-called news website called USA Really, which published a stream of articles favourable to former President Trump. Those attempts worked alongside attempts to influence the last three US elections by foreign actors using social media platforms.
The bill before the House, the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Assurance of Senate Counting) Bill 2021, provides some measures that will ensure that Australia's first-rate electoral system is protected. It provides for the Electoral Commissioner to arrange for an independent body accredited by the Australian Signals Directorate to conduct a security risk assessment of the Australian Electoral Commission's computer system and provide a report to the AEC, which the AEC will then publish on its website. This is critical for Australia, given that our electoral system has long been regarded as the best in the world.
Australians see voting not merely as a right but as a responsibility. Since 1924 we've had compulsory voting, which has seen us have one of the highest turnout rates in the advanced world. Compulsory voting also ensures that voting is representative. In voluntary-voting countries it is systematically the case that lower-income and more-disadvantaged voters tend to turn out in smaller numbers, so the result of an election doesn't represent truly the view of those who could potentially have cast their vote. Australia put in place the secret ballot, which other countries call the 'Australian ballot'. Australia has also pioneered robust electoral systems to ensure that the integrity of our voting system is maintained. Indeed, the ballot booth, according to Judith Brett's tremendous book From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage, is a great Australian invention.
But there are other ways in which elections can go wrong as well, and one of those is if voters have to spend too long waiting in line. Analysis by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study looked at how long voters had to wait to vote in the 2016 presidential election. Among nonwhites, 73 per cent said they had to wait in line to cast their votes, compared to 60 per cent of whites. That gap grew even larger the longer people had to wait. Nonwhites were 40 per cent likelier than whites to say they had waited longer than half an hour to vote. So that racial gap naturally affects those who finally get to cast their vote. If you're working a part-time job or caring for multiple children, you may not be able to stand in line and wait your turn.
What could blow out the length of time that people wait in line? The coalition's proposal to require that everyone who casts a ballot first produce identification. That requirement, when first implemented, would be almost certain to gum up the works of Australia's election system. Australia doesn't have a problem with multiple voting. The number of incidents in the last election was a couple of thousand. The number of prosecutions out of that election is zero. Largely, multiple voting arises because of confusion among a small number of vulnerable Australians, rather than through a malicious attempt to subvert the system. But the effect of voter identification requirements is to ensure that the lines are longer and the most disadvantaged don't turn up. Contrary to what members opposite have been arguing, it is going to be an imposition on people if they have to fill out a statutory declaration. Many will simply choose not to bother if that's the obligation. So I would urge the government to back down on their proposal for voter identification laws and to recognise the benefits that come from Australia's electoral system, in which simplicity is prized and we have one of the highest turnout rates in the world.
This bill before the House is a perfectly sensible measure and enjoys bipartisan support. The concern about the hacking of election material is a real one. Inevitably, as electronic voting comes online, we're going to have to become better at managing these systems. Electronic voting has natural advantages in ensuring the integrity of the outcome, but, without very rigorous systems in place, we can't be sure that that will work. This bill will provide increased assurance to voters and to candidates of the veracity of the AEC's systems.
But we need to also recognise there is much more that we could do to improve the integrity of the system. We still have a turnout rate among Indigenous Australians that sits around half, according to one of the AEC's reports. A 50 per cent turnout rate among Australia's First Nations people simply isn't acceptable. I have long believed that voter turnout should be one of the Closing the Gap targets. We should aim to close the voter turnout gap in Australia because having Indigenous Australians contribute to the democratic process should be seen as important for all Australians. We, of course, need a national integrity commission. That too would improve the standing of Australia's politicians. And we need to have real-time disclosure of political donations and the donations disclosure threshold brought down from its currently indexed $14,500 to a fixed $1,000, to ensure that political donations are transparent for all to see. The AEC deserves more resources to increase enrolment and turnout of voters. All of these things would improve the integrity of Australia's voting system and would greatly strengthen an already strong democracy.
On the question of voter identification, we don't need to merely speculate. We have the lived experience of the Queensland 2015 election, where voter turnout was the lowest it had been since 1980 and the lowest turnout in 12 state elections. Many voters were turned away; many were deterred from turning up at all. That's because holding an election in which you require voters to produce identification is a logistical nightmare. In the current context, it would mean that in the first national election after the COVID pandemic hit we would be attempting to train 100,000 or so AEC workers in identifying appropriate identification. This is a massive logistical task.
As the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has noted, voter identification laws might 'reduce public confidence in the electoral system and discourage some voters from voting'. The committee also noted that it has seen:
… no evidence of, or concern about, a lack of public confidence in the integrity of the electoral system or any evidence of voter impersonation.
It also said:
… additional requirements imposed before a voter can cast their vote engages and may limit the right to take part in public affairs and the right to equality and non-discrimination.
Cassandra Goldie, the CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service, said:
Requiring voter IDs would hit hardest those people who already face barriers to voting—people who are homeless, people living in remote communities, First Nations people, recent immigrants, younger people.
In conclusion, I spoke earlier this week on a report handed down by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics. I acknowledged Nicolette Cilia, who drafted that report. It was remiss of me though not to acknowledge the entire splendid secretariat of the House of Reps Standing Committee on Economics, of which I'm privileged to be the deputy chair. Iva Glisic; Danton Leary; Lachlan Wilson; Nicolette Cilia; Jenny Luu; Casey Mazzarella, before she moved on to another role; and Jazmine Rakic have all provided excellent support to the House of Reps Standing Committee on Economics. We are extraordinarily privileged to have them working for the committee, as, in general, we in this place are lucky to be served so well by committee staff and others who work in the building.
Australia's system of voting in elections is among the best in the world. Free, fair and transparent elections are the foundation of our democracy. Without public confidence in our elections, we cannot be confident in our parliament. We've seen recently in the US what can happen when a certain element of the public loses confidence in its electoral process. We cannot allow that situation to occur here in Australia, and that's why we need to get this right from the outset. Australia has adapted and amended its electoral system over the years to better meet the expectations of voters and candidates alike. We've not been afraid to modernise and change the voting system when the need arises. An example of this was in 2016 when we introduced fundamental reforms to voting for the Senate. This included the removal of group tickets, which had been found to lead to gaming of the system, and handing greater control of preferences to voters. Voters were required to allocate six or more preferences above the line or 12 or more preferences below the line. Overall, these reforms were positively regarded by electoral experts, but the job is not yet done. More needs to be done to address the Senate election process to make it as fair as possible while incorporating modern technology to meet this end.
The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters was commissioned to examine the 2016 election, and it has already identified three matters which it considers are in need of urgent attention. These are the authorisation of voter communications, the extent and use of foreign donations and the modernisation of the Australian Electoral Commission. Further to this, the commission looked at other matters relating to the 2016 election, including Senate electoral reform, and made 31 recommendations for consideration. In particular, it identified potential improvements to the counting methodology for the Senate, which were based on expert advice. The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Assurance of Senate Counting) Bill 2021, which is before us today, will provide additional confidence in the election processes for voters and strengthen the legitimacy of election results, which are essential to the integrity of Australia's democracy.
This bill responds to the recommendations from the joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Report on the conduct of the 2016 federal election and matters related thereto and amends the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to ensure the security, accuracy and transparency of the computerised scrutiny of Senate votes. Our Senate counting system is one of a kind. We as Australians can be proud of the innovative design of our electoral system, which allows our senators to be chosen by the fairest counting system in the world. Our unique system utilises a scrutiny of votes using computers to ensure every preference of every vote is counted. The system is robust, and voters have the right to know that it is secure.
In recent years there has been an increase in electronically assisted devices and processes designed to make elections easier for voters, faster to count and more accurate. However, the use of technology by the Australian Electoral Commission has not kept up with public expectations, nor has it totally eliminated integrity and security related problems. That's why this bill we are debating today will require the Electoral Commission to arrange for a security risk assessment of the systems used for the computerised scrutiny of votes in a Senate election. The assessment must be conducted by an independent provider who is accredited by the Australian Signals Directorate before each Senate election.
The bill will also require the Electoral Commission to ensure the accuracy of the computerised scrutiny of Senate votes. This will be achieved by arranging a statistically significant sample of coloured papers to be checked during the course of the scrutiny at every counting centre. This will compare the electronic data captured by the computerised count with physical ballot papers and will be open to inspection by scrutineers. Scrutineers play one of the most important roles in ensuring the transparency and integrity of Australia's electoral system. Under this bill, scrutineers will have the right to request a physical ballot paper be recalled during the computerised scrutiny of Senate votes in cases where a voter's preferences cannot be determined using the scanned computer image of the ballot paper. This will allow the challenge to be resolved on the original physical ballot paper.
The bill also makes technical amendments to how ties between continuing candidates in a Senate election are resolved. This is to address any unintended results that may occur in the rare case of a tie between three or more candidates. It also ensures where two or more candidates are in an unbreakable tie during the count that the exclusions are determined by lot, as occurs in the House of Representatives. The bulk exclusions, which is a process for simplifying the manual counting of Senate ballot papers, will be removed for computerised counts to ensure more transparent results.
The bill also legislates a requirement for detailed data on votes and preferences in a Senate election to be published within seven days after the return of the writs. The AEC already completes this important integrity measure on a voluntary basis. This bill simply legislates this initiative on an ongoing basis.
Finally, this bill will require the Electoral Commission to call for an independent accuracy assessment of the counting software used in the computerised scrutiny of Senate votes. This will ensure that it is accurate and in accordance with the processes set out in the Electoral Act. The AEC will publish the assurance of the accuracy of the software to the appropriate standard in advance of each election.
As I have said, Australia cannot afford for any section of its voter base to lose confidence in the election process. The amendments we are putting forward today provide for the utmost fairness and transparency in Senate elections, using technology in a responsible manner, and I am happy to rise in support of them.
Firstly, I'd like to thank all those in the chamber who have contributed to the debate on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Assurance of Senate Counting) Bill 2021. I'll also take this opportunity to recognise and thank the members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for their continued consideration of matters relating to electoral laws and practices.
The measures in this bill respond to recommendation 3 of the JSCEM Report on the conduct of the 2016 federal election and matters related thereto. These amendments will provide confidence in the security, accuracy and transparency of the computerised scrutiny of Senate votes. This bill will require the Electoral Commission to arrange a security risk assessment of the computerised systems used for the scrutiny of votes and an independent accuracy assessment of the counting software.
These independent assessments will enhance the integrity and the transparency of the electoral system and provide electors with confidence in Senate election results.
To further support transparency and accountability in Senate elections, this bill grants candidate scrutineers the right to request the recall of a physical ballot paper during the computerised scrutiny of Senate votes. This will allow the challenge to be resolved on the original physical ballot paper. The amendments clarify the process for candidate ties and removes the unnecessary requirement for bulk exclusion when computerised scrutiny is undertaken.
The bill also requires the Electoral Commissioner to publish detailed data on votes received by candidates in a Senate election. These changes are necessary for the continued strengthening of Australia's democracy to support voter confidence in the election process and the legitimacy of election results. Once again, I thank my colleagues for their contribution and 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 Scullin has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I rise today to speak on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Contingency Measures) Bill 2021. The bill which is now before the House is thankfully less controversial than some of the other electoral bills we have been debating this fortnight, although it is very difficult to understand why it was only listed for debate last night given its importance and the bipartisan support for the measures that it contains.
The bill has come about as a result of a recommendation by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters from its inquiry into the conduct of elections during times of emergency situations. And, as the minister did in respect of the last bill, I want to acknowledge the very important work done by all members of that critical committee, which has a unique role in safeguarding our democratic institutions. I acknowledge in particular my Labor colleagues—Senator Brown, the deputy chair; Senator Smith; and the members for Jagajaga and Oxley—for the work that they do.
The inquiry which led to this was driven in significant part by the pandemic that we are living through right now. The coronavirus pandemic was the obvious catalyst for that inquiry, but we know it isn't the only issue that we need to address in thinking about how elections can be conducted safely in all circumstances. We know that climate change means we'll be increasingly experiencing catastrophic bushfires and floods. We're thinking about that right now. The commission must be able to conduct elections safely in these times of emergency, and the purpose of this bill is to enable them to do just that. The contingency measures bill will give the Electoral Commissioner additional flexibility in the ways in which an election is conducted.
Deputy Speaker, as you would be aware, in August of this year, the parliament legislated to limit the pre-poll period to 12 days prior to polling day. An extended pre-poll period sees the AEC having to staff pre-poll booths for longer, presenting logistical challenges for the Australian Electoral Commission. It also means that people are voting without necessarily having all the information on candidates' or parties' policies. We no longer have one election day but a series of election days, and I think all of us in this place recognise that. We know too that the number of voters who vote during the pre-poll period is increasing at each election. But the figures also show that the majority of people who vote at a pre-poll booth do so in the week before the election.
At the last election, when the prepoll period ran for nearly three weeks, over 50 per cent of voters who voted during that three-week period did so in the last five days before polling day. As such, it was decided by this parliament to limit the period of prepoll to 12 days. However, Labor agreed to this limitation on the condition that these contingency measures be provided for the Electoral Commission to give it maximum flexibility to conduct an election in times of emergency. This bill will allow the commissioner to extend the prepoll period to up to five days after the declaration of nominations. This is in effect the system we've all become used to—the system that was in place prior to the recent amendment limiting prepoll to 12 days. This will, in the circumstances required to be brought into play, reduce the concentration of people voting on a particular day so that any social distancing that may be required can be managed, and more broadly facilitate access to voting where circumstances otherwise put this at issue for some electors.
The bill also allows the Electoral Commissioner to expand the reasons that a person may exercise a prepoll or postal vote. Currently these reasons include if a person is: outside the electorate where they are enrolled to vote; more than eight kilometres from a polling place; travelling; unable to leave their workplace to vote; seriously ill, infirm or due to give birth shortly, or caring for someone who is; a patient in hospital who can't vote at the hospital; a person with religious beliefs that prevent them from attending a polling place; in prison serving a sentence of less than three years; a silent elector; or someone with a reasonable fear for their safety. This bill will allow the Electoral Commissioner to expand those reasons. The commissioner could, for example, allow anyone to vote by prepoll or postal vote during a time of declared emergency—and this could be very important.
The bill also allows the Electoral Commissioner to adjust the number of scrutineers each candidate is entitled to at a Senate scrutiny to ensure that social distancing measures can be maintained there. The number of scrutineers will not, however, be able to be less than one scrutineer per group of candidates per officer engaged in the scrutiny of the count. Additionally, the Electoral Commissioner will be able to allow persons to travel or be present for activities necessary for the election, such as permitting candidates and agents for candidates to be present at the ballot draw or scrutineers to attend scrutiny. The commissioner may also allow a person to travel or to conduct certain activities within 100 metres of a polling booth or prepoll centre. These activities include canvassing for votes, handing out how-to-vote cards and putting up election posters. Providing the Electoral Commissioner with these contingency powers will ensure that, if there is an emergency situation, the core activities required for an election can still be conducted. It will also ensure the safety of voters, candidates and their volunteers, and the 100,000 AEC staff who will be required at the next election.
The commissioner will be able to make a determination only while there is a Commonwealth emergency declaration in place under one of the following acts: the Biosecurity Act 2015; the National Emergency Declaration Act 2020; the National Health Act 1953' the National Health Security Act 2007; and any other Commonwealth law specified by the minister via legislative instrument. I understand that the only current Commonwealth emergency declarations in place are made under the Biosecurity Act, the principle being the Biosecurity (Human Biosecurity Emergency) (Human Coronavirus with Pandemic Potential) Declaration 2020. This is expressed to expire on 17 December. There are no emergency declarations currently made under the three other acts named in the bill. I think it's pretty clear that events in recent days, upon which the attention of many Australians is focused, with the issue of a new variant, demonstrate the need for powers such as this. Of course, the issue of flooding in parts of Queensland in particular also points to the need for these powers. My thoughts are with those communities that are fighting those disasters right now.
But it should be noted that this bill is only partially implementing a recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. The committee recommended that the commissioner be provided these powers while there is a Commonwealth or state or territory emergency declaration in place. The parliament may consider in the future whether the commissioner's contingency powers should be extended to where there is an emergency declaration in place under a state or a territory law. For example, it is quite possible that a state or a territory could make an emergency declaration in time of bushfire or flood and that there not be an equivalent Commonwealth emergency declaration in place. In that case, the Electoral Commissioner's powers would not be enlivened under this bill.
The commissioner's powers under this bill will be limited to the geographic area covered by the declaration. Before making a determination, the commissioner must notify both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. The commissioner must outline the reasons for making his or her determination, and the determination must be published on the AEC's website. This will provide transparency and assurance to candidates, parties and the voting public that the measures in the determination are necessary for the proper conduct of the election.
The legislative instrument issued by the commissioner will cease to have effect when the writs return or when the Commonwealth emergency declaration is revoked.
The bill also provides that only the Electoral Commissioner will have the power to temporarily suspend or adjourn polling in times of floods, fires, storms, riots or health hazards. It's important to note that this is not a new power; the Electoral Act already allows the suspension or adjournment of polling in these circumstances. However, currently the power is conferred on the presiding officer of a particular polling place. Vesting the power solely in the Electoral Commissioner reflects the significance of the decision to suspend or adjourn polling. I should note also that this particular change is not limited to times of declared emergencies. Where polling has been temporarily suspended or adjourned, the bill provides that the scrutiny of the House of Representatives votes will be delayed and the results for the Senate election of that division will be not be able to be disclosed. This is an important safeguard. It will ensure that Australians who are yet to vote will not be influenced by the state of the count. Penalties are to apply for anyone who does divulge the results of the Senate election.
This bill in its current form also changes the cut-off date that voters have to apply for a postal vote. This change is not limited to times of emergency situations. At the moment, postal vote applications must be received by the AEC by 6 pm on the Wednesday before polling day. The bill currently changes this to 6 pm on the Tuesday before polling day. The bill's intent was to give the AEC longer to distribute a postal vote so that it is received by an elector prior to polling day. However, bringing forward the cut-off day for applications may mean that voters who have no other option than to vote by post miss out on voting altogether.
I note that the government has proposed amendments to the bill to restore the application deadline to the current Wednesday deadline. I'm very pleased to let the House know Labor will be supporting these amendments. They are important amendments because postal voting will be exceptionally important at the next poll. The number of people who voted by post at the Eden-Monaro and Groom by-elections were almost double the usual number of postal votes cast in those seats at an election. At Senate estimates the Electoral Commissioner said that up until COVID there had been a trend where in-person prepoll votes were increasing exponentially, whereas postal votes were remaining relatively static. COVID, however, has seen that trend change. The processing of postal votes creates an increased administrative burden on the Electoral Commission, as they are more time-consuming to process. We must ensure that the commission has significant funding to deal with this increase in postal votes and not take away from the resources that are directed at improving the state of the electoral roll.
Increasing enrolment and encouraging turnout are key functions of the AEC, as my friend the member for Lingiari here knows better than anyone else in this place. It is imperative that the commission has all the resources it requires to fulfil them, which we know has not always been the case. There is still much work to be done to increase participation in our democracy, particularly amongst First Nations peoples, young people and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The rates of enrolment of First Nations people in the Northern Territory and Western Australia do not indicate that we have equal participation in our democracy. I have touched on this in greater length in another contribution today, so I won't go on at length, but the tenets of our democracy around compulsory enrolment and compulsory voting to ensure every Australian has their say are, frankly, undermined by the disproportionate current exclusion of First Nations people from the roll.
To that end, and touching also on the other matters I raised in connection to postal votes, I move:
That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:
"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:
(1) notes:
(a) that the bill makes amendments to the Electoral Act in relation to postal votes;
(b) that Australia's electoral system would be strengthened by measures that would increase enrolment and turnout, and encouraging all eligible Australians to vote, whether that be by voting in person or by postal vote; and
(2) calls on the Government to increase funding to the Australian Electoral Commission to ensure that every eligible Australian has the opportunity to vote".
An Albanese Labor government will ensure that the independent Australian Electoral Commission has the funding and resources it needs to continue its efforts in improving the roll and ensuring all Australians, no matter their background, no matter their circumstances, no matter where they live, can fully participate and equally participate in our democracy. More broadly, this is a bill that has an important purpose. I think we all hope its provisions will not be needed, but I think that would be a dangerous assumption. So I'm very pleased to support this bill and the second reading amendment, but also the amendments which have been foreshadowed by the government.
Is the amendment seconded?
I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.
I rise to support the second reading of the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Contingency Measures) Bill 2021. We live in very interesting times. I certainly couldn't have envisaged at the 2019 election that, at the subsequent election, clearly to be held next year in 2022, we would have the challenges—a once-in-100-years pandemic—that mean we need to pass legislation like that which is before us. We therefore need to look very clearly at the way in which our democracy operates and understand whether or not there are risks to our democratic processes based on potential health challenges that may still befall us come the next election, due by May next year.
I'm a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. This legislation has come from our committee, so I am very interested in this topic and very keen to make a contribution on it today. I note and am thankful for the bipartisan support indicated by the previous speaker for this. I don't like the concept of doing anything to the way in which we conduct elections that isn't in a bipartisan way, wherever possible. We've got an excellent system as it is. It returns the correct results. The people who get elected have been validly elected and voted for, and there has never been a question of the strength and robustness of the way in which the AEC operates our elections.
However, it is very important that we provide for what may be changed circumstances that our existing Commonwealth Electoral Act isn't currently perfectly structured for. We need to give the Electoral Commissioner all the powers that he or she needs to take into account different circumstances. Perhaps this should have been considered earlier, but, to be fair, it wasn't until the coronavirus pandemic came along that some of these questions became a lot more acute rather than abstract. So we're dealing with it now, which means, if this legislation passes through this parliament, which I expect it to do, we will have it in place well and truly in time for the next election.
We're looking at a couple of issues here. We're looking at prepoll and postal votes and giving the commissioner some discretion to vary the current rules under which people can access that type of voting. I think we can all be honest in this chamber that, despite the fact that the rules are prescriptive, all of us stand on prepoll booths and all of us get contacted by people and supporters who want assistance with the postal voting process et cetera. Yes, there are rules in place and a declaration that you make.
The previous speaker outlined the circumstances in which you can access a prepoll vote. I note that, in the Parliamentary Library's work on this bill—and I'm sorry I can't quote the source in their document—they indicated there was some kind of survey conducted after the last election that indicated 22 per cent of people who voted at prepoll confessed that, whilst they might have declared they met one of the characteristics necessary, or the prescriptions necessary, to undertake the prepoll, they frankly didn't completely meet that requirement. For some there's a convenience in voting early. Even though they might be able to vote on the day, they just like the idea of just getting it out of the way. Of course, equally, there are other reasons. People might want to avoid the lines on election day or just wonder whether or not something might come up on a Saturday. For many people, Saturdays are cherished above a weekday, when they can drop into the prepoll and quickly get the vote done. So I think we probably already have a large category of people that participate by way of prepoll or apply to undertake a postal ballot and that probably don't strictly meet the requirements. Not that I would ever encourage anyone to break the law, but it is a matter that we probably just turn a blind eye to because, at the end of the day, it's still people validly, legally participating in the electoral system. If that's the way they are intent on casting their ballot then, frankly, why stand in the way of that?
I support giving the commissioner these powers to expand the criteria.
Perhaps I'm indicating from my contribution that I wonder whether at some point in the future—I accept it's not going to happen now—we will consider removing these prescriptions around prepoll and postal voting and, basically, allow anyone who wants to to do it. I don't know why we have to have that added complexity in place. We did look at this at JSCEM, but we're not recommending that through this legislation. I don't see that it necessarily benefits any particular cause in politics to put that in place. As I said, anecdotally people are already doing it if they want to anyway, even if they don't reach those requirements. There are certainly people who would not be comfortable with doing the wrong thing—good on them; I commend those people—and, through this amendment, they should be given comfort that, through the declaration of the commissioner, other criteria can be added to being able to validly cast a postal or prepoll vote if necessary. It's important that we're enabling that rather than having a system that is structured on giving people a bit of a wink and turning a blind eye.
These powers are very important because there's a much higher likelihood during the 2022 election—I hope this won't be the case, but we have to accept there is a risk—that certain restrictions around the normal course of voting could be required if there are coronavirus related restrictions in place. The previous speaker also obviously mentioned that other natural disasters beyond the health pandemic could be at play. We want to make sure that we've got robustness but also nimbleness in our Electoral Act and that the commissioner can prescribe certain changes to the existing rules around early voting to facilitate the fact that some kind of natural disaster, health challenge et cetera will mean we have to do all we can to enable broader access to voting. Clearly, we all want to make it as easy as possible for people to vote. We don't want to engage in voter suppression or make it difficult for people. That's why we have the alternatives to voting on polling day as it is. If the circumstances meet the tests that are required through this change for the commissioner to so decide that he or she wishes to give broader access to prepoll and postal voting, then I think that's an eminently sensible thing for us to support.
The other major matter addressed in this is ensuring that the proper conduct of the election cannot be interfered with by virtue of certain directives that might be in place that prevent someone from accessing their right to cast a vote on election day. It's important that we at the Commonwealth level maintain our supremacy and our rights over the conduct of our elections, and that there's no ambiguity or ability for any state authority or state legislative directive to restrict or apply itself to the way in which we elect people to this place and to the Senate. Nothing is more important than us being in control of the electoral process for this House and the Senate.
I'm not making any allegation here. I'm not suggesting in any way that we can directly foresee any undue obstruction to future Commonwealth elections. But the reality is and the lessons we've learnt in the last 20-odd months under this coronavirus pandemic are that there could be ways in which certain directives could impinge on the ability to conduct an election. Putting politics to one side—it doesn't matter whether you're the government, the opposition or the crossbench—we as a Commonwealth parliament can't allow anyone to overtly or inadvertently interfere in the way in which we conduct our elections, and potentially influence or interfere with the people who are sent to sit in this chamber and the Senate chamber and represent their electorate or state in the Commonwealth parliament.
So what these changes do is to ensure that we have Commonwealth legislation—which therefore would have constitutional supremacy over any state instruments that might be in force around restricting people's rights to move around the community, congregate together physically et cetera—and that the Electoral Commissioner is given the powers to make sure that he or she can continue to conduct an election on election day, with whatever mechanisms and restrictions the commissioner may feel are important to put in place. So we're not suggesting that, if there is a risk situation, we would go ahead and encourage putting people at risk and demand that the commissioner undertake an election as if nothing were happening. That's not what would happen here at all. What we would be doing is ensuring that the commissioner has the powers that he or she needs to decide how to continue to conduct a Commonwealth election in the safest way possible but not in a way that would disenfranchise people or reduce their ability to participate.
Hence there are the polling day measures, ensuring that people can't obstruct our ability to campaign and to hand out our how-to-vote cards and put up our posters and our messages talking about how great we are. None of us in this chamber want to miss out on that opportunity, and, of course, it's vitally important for the robustness of our democracy that we have the right to do that—to communicate and campaign to our voters. On election day, that is a very important part of that process. We all know that. No-one would sit in this chamber if they didn't have exceptional experience of the way in which we conduct elections and what happens on polling day. It's up to us, as a Commonwealth parliament, to make our decisions about how we conduct those elections and not have them potentially restricted by decisions of another government.
This creates a new principle, the 100-metre rule. At the moment, to my understanding and from my reflection on the Electoral Act, the only rule we have for polling day at the moment is the six-metre rule, which effectively says nothing can happen within six metres. I think this is an excellent outcome for ensuring that we manage the next Commonwealth election in a safe way but also maintain our sovereignty over the way in which we elect people to this House. I commend the bill to the House.
LANDRY (—) (): Firstly, I would like to thank all of those in the chamber who have contributed to the debate on the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Contingency Measures) Bill 2021. I will also take this opportunity to recognise and thank the members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for the report of the inquiry of the future conduct of elections operating during times of emergency situations.
Elections are a fundamental part of Australian life. The reforms in the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Contingency Measures) Bill 2021 allow the Electoral Commission to make limited modifications to ensure Australians are able to participate in the electoral process and exercise their franchise whatever the situation. The modification powers are appropriately limited to expanding the grounds on which a person can apply for a postal or prepoll vote; extending the prepoll voting period in an emergency area; adjusting the number of scrutineers a group of candidates is entitled to be represented by in a Senate scrutiny being undertaken in an emergency area; and allowing persons to travel and be present for campaigning activities within 100 metres of a polling place and actions under the Electoral Act such as a ballot draw or attending scrutiny.
The bill makes additional amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918—the Electoral Act—to uplift the Electoral Commission's power to adjourn or temporarily suspend the polling. Where polling has been adjourned, the commencement of the scrutiny of the House of Representatives votes for that division will be delayed until the close of polls for the adjourned polling place. Further, scrutineers and officers are prohibited from disclosing any information relating to the Senate election in a division until the close of polls for the adjourned polling place. This is to protect the integrity of the election result by ensuring electors can cast their votes free from the influence of any indicative results which may have otherwise been released.
Once again, I thank my colleagues for their contribution and commend this bill to the House.
It being 1.30, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate resumes.
[by video link] This month is the 20th anniversary of the Chermside and Districts Historical Society in my electorate of Lilley. The society was established in the old Chermside State School, in 7th Brigade Park, by former member for Stafford Terry Sullivan and former councillor for Marchant Terry Hampson. It was opened by Mayor Jim Soorley back in 2001. They were three Labor stalwarts.
The society preserves and develops the history of the local area by researching and recording the stories of the people—Indigenous and immigrant—who have lived here, the events that have taken place and when, where, how and especially why they occurred. Today the society is led by its inestimable president Bradley Shilling. Thank you to Bradley and all of the volunteer society members, who work so hard to preserve Lilley's past for future generations to enjoy.
The behaviour of anti-coal activists at Carmichael Mine in North Queensland has reached a dangerous level. They are putting their lives at risk and endangering the lives of mine workers who are just trying to do their job. The level of harassment, abuse and intimidation that workers are subjected to is illegal and disgusting. We recently had an aggressive high-speed off-road vehicle chase, with activists pursuing and swerving towards the vehicles of mineworkers. They circled a mineworker's ute in their own vehicle, accelerated and then slammed on the brakes right in front of that worker's ute.
It's fine to protest. I support the right to free speech and the right to march peacefully in the streets. You all know I support the freedom protests. But it's interesting to juxtapose how an anti-coal activist behaving violently in North Queensland is dealt with by the law with how a freedom protester marching peacefully on the streets of Melbourne is dealt with. As I said, it's fine to protest, but it's not fine to put other people's lives at risk and it's not fine to trespass on private property. We've seen activists chaining themselves to railway lines, abusing railworkers just trying to do their jobs. The latest was this morning, with a serial offender suspending herself from equipment at the Abbot Point coal terminal. The problem is that these serial offenders get a slap on the wrist in court, and then they're back at it again. The law needs to be stronger. North Queensland workers need to be better protected from the illegal and dangerous behaviour of these serial offenders.
This time of year is a special time in my community as we celebrate the achievements of so many wonderful people with the Lalor Heroes awards. 2021 was a tough year for many in our community, but, like always, we came together to help one another in our times of need. The Lalor Heroes for 2021 have cooked, provided meals, run sporting clubs, run social media to keep people connected, helped roll out the vaccine locally, assisted families in their schools and answered the calls to grassroots action in a really tough year. Congratulations and thank you to all of the winners.
It's at this time of year also that we celebrate our student leaders for their commitment to improving their school community. Whether it's in official student leadership roles or it's academic excellence, peer support or a drive to make our community a better place, I want to congratulate the 2021 Julia Gillard Award winners and the school Lalor Heroes award recipients. They're already extraordinary students, but what they've done in the face of the pandemic and the pressures it has placed on them in the last two years just shows what special people their families and our schools have produced.
Finally, as this is more than likely the last time I'll speak in the House before we rise for the year, I want to take the opportunity to wish all members a Merry Christmas and a safe summer. And to everyone whom I represent in the parliament: have a Merry Christmas, enjoy the time with family and friends, stay safe and have a happy New Year.
I rise today to share the news of the completed all-abilities senior playground for students in years 4 to 6 at Wishart State School. This playground has been part of the school's vision over the last 20 years and has been made possible thanks to $350,000 in funding by the Morrison government. It is a playground which will be enjoyed by the school community for years to come.
Since announcing the funding, I have been following the upgrades closely and have made regular visits to the site. The school undertook an extensive consultation process to make sure staff, students and parents could all have a say in the designs. In fact, some of the designs prepared by year 6 students have been incorporated. The consultation process was a fundamental step in ensuring all senior students were considered, including specialty equipment for those with special needs.
This month I visited the school once again to see the completed playground and to catch up with the principal, Yolanda Tognini. Ms Tognini has been overwhelmed by how pleased the students, staff and parents are with the new playground. It's already making an incredible difference to the entire school community, and they are grateful for the government's contribution. Over the past few years, Wishart State School has seen enrolment numbers increase by hundreds, and this new playground will support the students' experience as it continues to grow. Our government continues to back local schools, enabling real improvements, just like those to the Wishart State School.
REELANDER () (): I want to take this opportunity today to wish Macarthur residents a very merry Christmas and a happy, safe and relaxing new year. Here's to all that my community and its residents have achieved this year!
The challenges we saw this year have certainly been tough for many families and local businesses. However, throughout this year I have been inspired by the result of individuals, organisations and businesses from my community to get through and do the right thing by the whole community. We have seen great demonstrations of camaraderie and mateship in Macarthur, with people working harder than ever and working together to support their neighbours and their loved ones.
There are lots of people I could talk about, but I want to single out a few in particular: the Macarthur Arts Centre Cafe, the Lomandra Community Pantry, Life Without Barriers, Tharawal Aboriginal Corporation and Medical Service. And, of course, I want to single out my colleagues in health care who really got us through this pandemic. I thank them so much for all their support and what they've done for our community.
I want to thank our teachers and our schools who've dealt with every challenge they were set. I want to thank all the kids who've done so well to cope with homeschooling, returning to the classroom and then going back to homeschooling.
I want to thank everyone in the community that's done so well. No matter how Macarthur has been stressed during this pandemic, they've done well by working together and working as a community. I'm very, very proud to represent them.
In a world-first, the Liberal-National government will introduce new powers to force global social media giants to unmask anonymous online trolls and make participating online safer for all. Everyone should be safe online, including our children. Anonymous cybertrolls have been able to wreak havoc for too long. Online defamatory behaviour has largely gone unchecked, and trolls have been a law unto themselves. Their time is up.
This government will ensure that online anonymous abusers will be unmasked and victims of this abuse will be assisted to begin defamation proceedings in state and territory courts. Big tech is now on notice that they will be held to account as publishers of defamation if they cannot or will not identify the troll or fail to make a clear pathway for complaints. Through my own traumatic experience with online defamation, I have been determined to see change in safety measures, complaints mechanisms and for platforms to be held to account for the sake of all Australians.
Earlier this year, I tabled a private member's bill to address this issue, seeking to make social media platforms liable for content published on their sites. What concerns me is that the many thousands of people who endure bullying and defamation online will lack the means to clear their name or protect their family. To this government's credit, this bill will complement the existing defamation reform work being developed in partnership with states and territories.
I rise today to talk about some of the reasons that we need to vote the Morrison government out: 'I don't hold a hose, mate'; forced handshakes of fire victims; pledging billions for recovery funds but spending none; a three-year wait for the promised federal ICAC; gagging debate in this place at literally every opportunity; hundreds of questions on notice not answered; FOI refusals; anonymous $1 million donations; 'watergate'; 'grassgate'; sports rorts; 'pork-and-ride'; regional rorts; the member for Fadden's giant internet bills; visas for au pairs; no visas for Afghan interpreters; the Biloela family; electric vehicles will 'end the weekend'; 'birthing lanes' on the Barton Highway; fossil fuel executives deciding government policy on the COVID commission; the prosecution of Bernard Collaery and Witness K; raiding a journalist's home; interference, intimidations and cuts to the ABC; Senator Cash tipping off media to a secret AFP investigation; robodebt; aged care; hotel quarantine; 'front of the vaccine queue'; 'it's not a race'; Senator Rennick, Senator Canavan and the member for Dawson's constant anti-vax social media posting; signing up to international agreements and walking away from them a day later; attempts to block the Great Barrier Reef being placed on a list of World Heritage sites; Brittany Higgins; the Prime Minister attacking journalists in press conferences; telling us we're lucky we weren't being shot at; 'think of it as a father'; 40,000 university jobs lost; the Ruby Princess; paying $30 million for land worth $3 million; spending millions on a COVID app that doesn't work; Christine Holgate; leaking diplomatic— (Time expired)
Diabetes affects almost a million Australians, and an estimated 130,000 have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I recently met with 17-year-old Gemma Lavings, who is an outstanding and passionate advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and she wrote me a short speech about her experience living with type 1 diabetes, a speech I would like to share with the House today.
Gemma says: 'When I was 10 years old, my pancreas stopped working. I was ghostly white, with dark circles framing my eyes, and sickly skinny. From that day, my life changed forever. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. If I was born 100 years ago, I would not have lived to my 11th birthday. I am now happy, healthy and doing well at school, thanks to the technology that helps me manage my diabetes and keeps me alive. That's not to say it's easy. Type 1 diabetes affects every part of your body 24/7. It's a relentless disease I never get a break from, but I love my pump and my constant glucose monitor. It's given me freedom, independence and increased control over a condition that didn't seem controllable.'
'My outlook for the future,' says Gemma, 'is to see type 1 diabetics live healthier lives, regardless of their age or financial status, utilising new technologies for better health outcomes with the help of government support.' I really want to commend Gemma on her courage, and I thank her for being willing to share her story to raise awareness of this disease and its impact on young Australians.
The Set the standard report from the Australian Human Rights Commission, delivered yesterday by Kate Jenkins, details absolutely revolting behaviour. We must remember the catalyst for this inquiry: the shocking revelations that the rape of a young staffer was alleged to have occurred in a minister's office and that, despite a number of people within ministerial offices knowing about the allegation for nearly two years, no appropriate action was taken. The Prime Minister claims he was not aware of the allegations. Like Malcolm Turnbull and many others, I find this improbable. This happened on the PM's watch. It took Brittany Higgins's incredible bravery to pull back the curtain on this sordid episode and the march of thousands of women and men to shame the government into action.
I strongly support the 28 recommendations of the report and stress that the government must implement all the recommendations, especially a professional code of conduct for members of parliament and their staff. This must be made a priority of the government for the first sitting week of February 2022. Kate Jenkins also handed down the Respect@Work report, and we know that the government just cherry-picked some of those recommendations and it took nearly 18 months for those to be passed. We must set a higher standard in this place. We must not allow this kind of behaviour to continue a day longer.
As 2021 draws to a close, I want to say how proud I am to represent the people of O'Connor. They have shown that strong, resilient regional communities are the backbone of our nation. In the face of the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic, O'Connor communities have maintained business as usual. Our farmers have kept on farming and indeed are on track for a record 20-million-tonne grain crop this season. Our miners have kept mining and exporting at record levels. Our transport industries have maintained our supply chains, both here at home and internationally. Our regional tourism industry has continued to flourish, and our O'Connor businesses prosper. At a more grassroots level, our regional communities have continued to support one another, caring for the elderly, protecting our most vulnerable and raising our children to be good global citizens.
I take this opportunity to thank O'Connor's nurses, carers, teachers and mentors, our police and emergency service workers and, of course, our dedicated volunteers. They are our true local heroes, making a difference to our communities every single day. Although the challenges we face right now are far from over, I reflect on how important it is in these times of adversity to continue to support one another. I hope this festive season sees you united with the ones you love, either in person or by technology across the miles, and I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy start to 2022.
Some opposite are trying to pretend that the pandemic is over, trying to say that it's time to celebrate and that we should all get out and have a merry Christmas. Well, it's not over. There are still COVID clusters, particularly in our schools and our primary schools. They say it keeps bubbling along in Victoria. Well, it's more than just a bubble. Thirty-six of the 51 clusters in Victoria are in our schools. The biggest cluster in the state is Holy Rosary School, a school in my electorate, a primary school. We shouldn't be surprised that it's in our primary schools. Primary school children aren't eligible for the vaccine. I know the government is waiting on the science and for the approval, but the frustrated parents and teachers are worried that their children could be infected or that they'll be asked to isolate. So what is this government doing to support them? Where's the support for the schools? Where's the support for the teachers? Where's the support for the parents who are isolating, caring for sick children or children who've been exposed? This pandemic is not over, yet the government wants to pretend it is, close the chapter and move on. We cannot move on, not while we have sick children, not while we have people isolating, not while we have schools closed. We need to be doing more to help those in need.
There are many organisations, charities, groups and businesses in my electorate of Longman that offer great support services and advice to our senior residents on a range of matters from health to retirement. However, we identified that it can be a bit challenging for some older people in our community to access the essential supports and services that are available to them, so my team and I set about organising an event where the senior member of our community could find out, all in one place, just how many services are available to them. And the Longman Seniors Expo was born.
Last month I held the inaugural 2021 Longman Seniors Expo, after two earlier attempts were stymied by COVID, at two different locations, at Morayfield and on Bribie Island. This expo gave local seniors the opportunity to speak with around 80 organisations at one location about health matters, retirement advice and the latest products and services tailored for seniors. We also had some great local community groups people could join, like Lions, Probus, Zonta, Men's Shed, as well as groups like Meals on Wheels, Toastmasters and U3A along with retirement and aged-care options. We had hundreds of local residents turn up to each expo, and I've received a lot of positive feedback, including from people who are already asking when the next one will be held. I want to thank all of the exhibitors and guests as well as our major sponsor, Moreton Bay Region Industry and Tourism, for their support.
Australians shouldn't be surprised that a government that has turned rorting into an Olympic sport is going to turn a blind eye to the scammers that are driving Australians crazy. If it were just the bogus phone calls and SMSs from Clive Palmer and the member for Hughes, it would be bad enough, but it's not. Thirty-three billion dollars a year is being ripped out of Australian households and small businesses while this bloke over here does absolutely nothing.
Labor agrees: we should be going after the anonymous online trolls that are terrorising our kids, but what about the frauds? This week we saw this bloke at it again. The guy who doesn't hold a hose and doesn't have a bill was standing up in this place, saying, 'I've got a big announcement to make about going after frauds and scammers and bullies.' You won't see a bill before the election; it's all announcement with no follow-through. He has turned parliament into a protection palace for the rorters in his cabinet and in this party room, and he's turned Australia into a paradise for scammers. There's something very sinister about this Prime Minister. Something worse than doing nothing: he's giving a green light to the scammers to steal from Australian households and small businesses. (Time expired)
FALINSKI () (): One of the worst experiences any parent could go through is seeing their child in pain, but it is even harder to see your child in pain and not know why they're in pain. This was the experience of the Peacock family, who live on the Northern Beaches in Sydney, and it happened to their daughter Nylah when she was just three years old.
The cause was a painful, incurable autoimmune disease called juvenile arthritis.
It can feel like your entire body is on fire. Juvenile arthritis impacts over 6,000 children across Australia, while, for 30,000 people in Australia whose arthritis started as juvenile arthritis, it extends into adulthood. The discomfort is so bad that it is often difficult to eat or even just get out of bed. But the number of people that we are talking about could be a lot higher, considering the complexities linked with diagnosing such a disease and the people who are getting it being small children. Even then, there is still a shortfall in services such as specialist doctors, nurses and physios to assist with treatment. It is time we raise greater awareness about this horrible disease to create a better future for our families, for families like the Peacocks and especially for people like their daughter Nylah.
I rise today to thank Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins and her staff at the Human Rights Commission for Set the standard, the report she released yesterday into the parliamentary workplace and making sure that everyone who works here is safe at work. I want to thank the Sex Discrimination Commissioner and all of the staff who worked on the report, and I particularly want to thank the more than 1,700 people and organisations who contributed to the report. Of course, Brittany Higgins was very important in establishing the reasons for this report. I want to acknowledge her bravery and her courage in coming forward, but also those 1,700 current and former members of parliament, staff and organisations like the Elizabeth Reid Network.
We now have 28 very important recommendations before us in this parliament. I believe we need to take these recommendations seriously. We need to talk to our staff and make sure that we are able to implement the recommendations that will make this a safer workplace for everyone in it. And we need to go further than that. Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins has released another report into other workplaces. Of course we want parliamentarians and their staff to be safe, but we also want bus drivers, factory workers, people working in retail or hospitality, naval officers and young doctors to be safe. Everyone should be safe in their workplace.
This year, 2021, has been a challenging year, to say the least. This Christmas is sure to be difficult for those doing it tough, which is why it is more important than ever to think of those who are less fortunate than us. There are wonderful and selfless people in every community who are looking out for others at this time, but I would like to highlight just one organisation in Bennelong.
Christian Community Aid, or CCA for short, works in the greater Eastwood area to ensure locals have what they need throughout the year. They offer food services, English services and activities for the isolated and the elderly. Through the pandemic, as local needs have become more pressing, CCA have stepped up and done incredible work to ensure that no-one is left behind. At Christmas time they organise hamper deliveries for locals, and I am delighted to say I will be joining them to assist with the packing in the next few weeks. When I'm there, I will also be congratulating them on a federal grant they received recently of $20,000 to go towards an adventure play space for children from disadvantaged families. Thank you to Heather Pinto and her dedicated team at CCA for making sure nobody is left behind this Christmas, and thank you to everyone out there who may also be looking out for others at Christmas.
Two years ago I was diagnosed with cancer: a malignant melanoma. Melanoma is no joke. It kills one Australian every six hours. It kills more Aussies than anyone else in the world on a per-capita basis. But this year, we've seen a big drop in the number of Australians that have been diagnosed with melanoma. It's dropped by about 20 per cent. It's the lowest number that we've seen in the last 12 years. But I have to tell you that this is not good news.
The only reason that this has happened is that fewer of us have gone to the doctor this year to get a skin check.
This is one of the deadliest, long-term legacies of lockdown; COVID and lockdowns have meant fewer of us have gone to the doctor to get a skin check. That means those melanomas are still out there, growing and spreading. The deeper they grow, and the further they spread, the more chance there is that they will kill you; that's just a fact.
I make this plea: today is the first day of summer—and we all know what that means; it's a time when we get out in the sun—but, before you go to the beach, before you organise that barbecue, before you go out and have a great time at the best time of the year in the best country in the world, please go and get a skin check. It might just save your life. It certainly saved mine.
If there's one thing I hear from small businesses when I'm out and about in Higgins, it's that they're looking forward to a strong Christmas trading season. Businesses in my electorate have had to close their doors for nine of the last 19 months due to COVID lockdowns. It's an unprecedented impact on their ability to do business and prosper. That's why I'm enormously proud of the unprecedented economic support this government has provided. My constituents know this government has their back when they need it most.
In my electorate of Higgins, JobKeeper has supported 10,600 businesses to keep their staff afloat. The instant asset write-off helped 27,000 businesses to have access to cash flow when they most needed it. Just as importantly, our government has helped taxpayers to keep more of what they earn. Around 65,700 constituents have already benefited from tax relief of up to $2,745 this year alone. That's more money in the back pockets of the people of Higgins—money that I hope my constituents will spend in local businesses in the lead-up to Christmas. Working together, we can all help secure Australia's economic future post COVID. This Christmas we should all go local first. It's about our future together.
Today is the first day of summer. It's also National Water Safety Day. Summer is the peak season when most drownings occur in Australia. Summer is a time of fun and enjoying the great outdoors, including the best beaches in the world—like those in the community I represent. Clovelly, Coogee, Maroubra, Malabar, Little Bay, Yarra Bay—these are the beaches worthy of a lifetime of endless summers.
Last year across Australia, 294 people drowned at our beaches and waterways. Over summer, 101 people lost their lives due to drowning, with our hottest season accounting for 34 per cent of all drowning deaths across 2020-21. That is too many summers needlessly cut short. All drowning deaths are preventable, and one drowning is still one too many. Our leading water safety authorities, including Surf Life Saving Australia and Royal Life Saving Society Australia, are today encouraging Australians to wear red and yellow to highlight the importance of staying safe in and around the water.
After a difficult year, when we have all been locked down and we're ready to get out and enjoy our beaches and waterways, please always swim between the red and yellow flags, always obey lifesavers' instructions and never take your eyes off of children around the water. If you're fishing or boating, always wear a lifejacket. And never swim alone. Let's celebrate this summer and enjoy our great outdoors by staying safe around the water.
Today, 1 December, the United Arab Emirates marks its commemoration day, a recognition and celebration of the 50th anniversary of the formation of the UAE in 1971. As chair of the UAE-Australia parliamentary friendship group, I offer my congratulations to the President of the UAE, His Highness Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the people of the UAE.
For the past 50 years we have developed a very warm, friendly and multifaceted relationship between our two nations. It's a relationship based on people-to-people contacts. It's a relationship built on wonderful trade and economic action between the two countries and nations. It's a relationship that goes to security and defence, importantly, in the Middle East. We look forward to another 50 years of the relationship between Australia and the UAE. In the meantime, congratulations to the UAE on achieving its 50th anniversary.
It being almost two o'clock, in accordance with standing order 43 the time for members' statements has concluded.
My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer confirm Australia's economic performance in the September quarter is the worst out of the 28 OECD countries that have reported? If the government had done its job on vaccines and quarantine, wouldn't the economy have grown like the others and not shrunk?
I can confirm to the House that, other than two major advanced economies, Australia has had the strongest recovery across the world—a stronger recovery than we've seen in the United Kingdom, a stronger recovery than we've seen in Canada, a stronger recovery than we've seen in Germany, a stronger recovery than we've seen in Italy and a stronger recovery than we've seen in Japan. Credit is due to the Australian people—the hard work of 26 million Australians who have faced the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression and who have faced the first pandemic in a century.
We all remember those images last March of thousands of our fellow Australians lining up outside Centrelink, having lost their jobs, and businesses fearful of losing not only their business but also their homes. The Morrison government responded with the strongest economic support this country has ever seen: around $300 billion of economic support, more than all the states and territories put together. Programs like JobKeeper saved 700,000 jobs. There was the cash flow boost; support payments to pensioners, carers, veterans and others on income support; business investment incentives that see business investment 9.1 per cent higher through the year in the national accounts; and programs like HomeBuilder, which was ridiculed by those opposite. Together with our other policies, HomeBuilder has seen 320,000 Australians get into a home in the last three years. We saw dwelling investment up in today's national accounts, and dwelling investment is 11.4 per cent higher through the year.
All the time we're providing economic support to Australians, do you know what else we're doing? Something those opposite would never do: providing tax cuts and tax relief. The biggest tax cuts that Australians have ever seen. Tax cuts for families and tax cuts for small business and business investment incentives. While those opposite took $387 billion of higher taxes to the Australian people, we have been supporting them with lower taxes and with income and business support. The net result is that unemployment today is lower than when we came to government.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Protecting the safety of Australians online, particularly of women and children, is a priority of this government. It's critically important for communities across Australia, including families in my Central Coast community of Robertson.
Will the Prime Minister inform the House of the strong and decisive action the Morrison government is taking—
to protect Australians from harmful online behaviour and unmask the trolls who are behind it?
Before the Prime Minister gets the call, I call upon members on my left. It's highly disorderly.
I thank the member for Robertson for her question. As a former telecommunications executive before she came to this place, the member for Robertson understands why it's so important for Australia to be a leading digital economy. Our digital economy strategy will be achieving the goal of being a leading digital economy in the world, creating jobs, investment and economic opportunities for Australia into the future. That has been backed in by the fact that Google has invested a billion dollars in Australia to ensure and back in the digital strategy that we have.
There are great advantages and great opportunities, but I know, as you in particular know, Mr Speaker, that there are great threats and great dangers in the online world, which the member for Robertson knows about as a parent, and as a woman has had to put up with abuse online. She speaks with some authority on this matter.
That's why I was very pleased today to invite the member for Robertson to lead a select committee looking not only into the exposure draft legislation which we have released today in relation to the online world and ensuring that digital companies, big tech companies, are held accountable for what they publish and that we unmask the trolls but also, more broadly, at ensuring that we are keeping up to speed as we have been as a world leader in regulating in the online space so the rules in the physical world are the same as the rules in the digital world to keep Australians safe.
In a recent survey of the top 5 negative experiences of Australian teenagers, they listed a negative online experience. Thirty per cent of women are disproportionately targeted for abuse online. Antitrolling legislation, which we will introduce in this parliament—and I'm happy to table the exposure draft of that legislation—will add to the online privacy act and the many other measures that our government has taken to ensure that we keep Australians safe, particularly women and particularly our kids. We speak about many issues in this place, but I know, as a parent, as a member of parliament and as a Prime Minister, that this is an issue that is discussed in homes, clubs and communities all around the country.
We want to bring those conversations here that Australians and Australian families are having. Through the inquiry that will be led by the member for Robertson, we want to hear what they're doing to help their communities and help their kids to be able to be protected and safe online. This is an incredibly important issue for the future of our country. Social media is tearing at the very fabric of our society, and we need to protect our kids. (Time expired)
My question is to the Treasurer. In the September quarter, the American economy grew, the United Kingdom economy grew, the Canadian economy grew, the German economy grew and the French economy grew, but the Australian economy contracted by 1.9 per cent, the worst in the OECD so far. Isn't this because the government didn't order enough vaccines when it mattered and failed to establish purpose-built quarantine?
No. I can inform the member for Rankin that since this pandemic began, other than the US and the French economies, Australia's economic recovery from the pandemic has been stronger than other major advanced economies: stronger than the Canadian economy, stronger than the UK economy, stronger than the Japanese economy, stronger than the German economy and stronger than the Italian economy. It's an inconvenient and uncomfortable truth for the member for Rankin that, even after the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression, and the first pandemic in a century, unemployment under the coalition is lower than it was under Labor. That's because our economic response to this pandemic has helped—
The member for Rankin on a point of order?
None of this spin and marketing is relevant to the fact that Australia is last in the OECD; 28th out of 28 countries.
The member for Rankin will resume his seat.
I thank the member for Rankin for his question, but it's an inconvenient truth for him that the unemployment rate today is lower than when he was tagging the coat of Wayne Swan. It's lower than it was under the Labor Party. It's an inconvenient truth for the member for Rankin that there are more trade apprentices today than when Labor was in government.
It's an inconvenient truth for the Labor Party that, despite this COVID recession, we have seen business investment up by 9.1 percent off the back of business investment incentives. It's an inconvenient truth for the member for Rankin and the Labor Party that, when they took to the Australian people $387 billion of higher taxes, it was rejected by the Australian people and instead they voted for lower taxes and for the coalition. And, since that time, we have delivered lower taxes. It's an inconvenient truth for the member for Rankin that in the September quarter we saw more than $10 billion in tax relief provided to more than 11 million Australians, which was the largest tax cut in a quarter for more than 20 years. These are the facts: more people are in a home, more people are in a job, more people are getting tax cuts and more people are having a stronger recovery from the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression.
My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. Will the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House how the Morrison-Joyce government continues—
Opposition members interjecting—
The member for Riverina will resume his seat. Members on my left, I cannot hear the question when there's such noise coming from the left side of the chamber. The member for Riverina will recommence his question.
Oh, do I have to? My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. Will the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House how the Morrison-Joyce government continues—and that's the key word—to deliver critical infrastructure, creating jobs and driving growth across the nation? Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware of any alternative policy approaches?
I thank the honourable member for his question and note the great work that he, when he was minister for transport—like previous National Party ministers Tim Fischer and Warren Truss—did in building nation-building infrastructure. Vital work was done, especially within the Nationals, for things such as the duplication of the Pacific Highway and also major projects such as the Western Sydney airport.
I note that the member for Riverina was instrumental in this nation-building infrastructure which is so vital for our nation to have a path into the future, a purpose into the future and infrastructure for the future. Nation-building infrastructure makes a nation strong. Things such as the Inland Rail, all 1,716 kilometres of it, from Melbourne up to Brisbane, and now the business case that we are starting on the process of building it from Toowoomba down to Gladstone, show the side of the House that has a vision for the future.
The member for Riverina asked about alternative policies, but it's incredibly difficult for the Labor Party to have alternative policies, because their coalition colleagues, the Greens, don't believe in building very much at all.
The member for Moreton is warned.
Every time we go down the process of trying to construct dams, like we have at Scottsdale—and I know the member for Riverina is very much across the dams that he was instrumental in building down in Tasmania—and the work we're doing with the construction of Rookwood Weir and other water infrastructure projects such as the Macalister Irrigation District or the Wimmera Mallee pipeline, the biggest problem we always have is the caveats placed on us by green tape and green legislation supported by the Greens. The Labor Party is obviously joined at the hip with the Greens. You can see this permeating right through and even into the left wing of the Labor Party.
I was amazed the other day to read a tweet by the member for Moreton, Graham Perrett. We are now funding driving infrastructure not only for big projects but for small ones, including roads that have not had major upgrades in the last 50 years. But Mr Perrett said:
My grandfather was a grader driver during the Great Depression. If a road hasn't had a grader on it since the Thirties why on earth would a responsible federal government make it a priority now while the population in the bush is decreasing?
That is the attitude of the Labor Party.
The attitude of the Labor Party is that they take the regions as a joke. They sneer and jeer at the regions. They think they're a joke. They don't respect them. They don't respect Central Queensland. They don't respect regional areas. They have never come to the dispatch box with a vision for regional Australia or a major piece of infrastructure for regional Australia. They have never come to the dispatch box to talk about these things because they don't have them.
The member for Moreton! That is my final warning to the member for Moreton.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister take responsibility for the fact that his failure on vaccines and purpose-built quarantine caused the worst downturn in the OECD?
I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. The policies that were put in place by the government as part of the cooperative arrangements we had with the states and territories ensured that back in March 2020 we were able to quickly put in place a system of quarantine that enabled Australia to have one of the lowest fatality rates in the world in relation to COVID. Those quarantine arrangements were of course agreed with all the states and territories and strongly supported back in March. But it wasn't just the state and territory leaders who supported those arrangements on quarantine, because, on 27 March, the Leader of the Opposition tweeted this: 'Australian Labor supports new quarantine laws using hotels for overseas arrivals.' That's what the Leader of the Opposition said. As usual, what we have from the Leader of the Opposition is he said he supports hotel quarantine when we're announcing it, and then he comes into this place and says it's not appropriate—an each-way bet on every single position. If you don't like what the Leader of the Opposition says one day—
The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order?
Yes, Mr Speaker. The point of order goes to relevance. The question was about the worst downturn in the OECD and about the government's values on vaccines and purpose built quarantine. You, of course, have to use temporary stuff till you build purpose-built quarantine, which is what state governments wanted—
Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Prime Minister is entitled to compare and contrast to some extent, but I would ask the Prime Minister to return to the question.
That arrangement ensured that we were able to save more than 30,000 lives in this country. Today Australia has one of the highest vaccine rates in the world, and we indeed have one of the strongest economies coming through this pandemic. Those opposite want to talk down the economy. The September quarter of this year was a very difficult time for Australians. It was an incredibly difficult time for Australians. I am asked why. It may have escaped them that there is a COVID-19 pandemic happening around the world. Those opposite don't seem to be aware that, when there is a pandemic, outbreaks occur.
The member for Macnamara is warned.
Outbreaks occur, and, as a result of those outbreaks—as the member will recall, it was a result of a limousine driver not wearing a mask in Sydney. That's what caused that outbreak, and from there it went to other states. That's what we know. And we know that the national vaccine strategy in place had us reaching the high levels of vaccination rates by the middle of October this year, which was reached. What we see from those opposite is that they want to say they support measures on the pandemic, and then, on the other hand, they oppose measures on the pandemic. They have each-way-bet politics on the pandemic.
What I know about the Australian economy is that we have had one of the strongest economies coming through this pandemic of any advanced nation in the world, and what is happening now is 350,000 jobs came back into that economy in the last five weeks as we've opened up and as the economy springs back— (Time expired)
My question is to the Prime Minister. The allegations of abuse, assault and bullying exposed yesterday in the Set the standard report were revolting and a stain on this place. It took the courage of Brittany Higgins to speak out publicly about an alleged rape in one of your own minister's offices, and the public outcry and condemnation, for you and your government to take action, despite a number of people within ministerial offices knowing about the allegations for nearly two years.
Will you implement in full, and without delay, before the next election, all the recommendations of the report?
I thank the member for her question, and I share her view about the abhorrent nature of the practices that have taken place in this building. The member is fairly new to this building—
Honourable members interjecting—
I was simply saying that she would also be aware, as a result of the Jenkins review—and I commend Commissioner Jenkins for the work that she has done—that she is talking about practices and behaviour that have been taking place in this building for a very long time and that have been abhorrent.
The member for Whitlam is warned.
I welcome the Jenkins review, and I was very pleased to stand yesterday with the Minister for Women and the Minister for Finance and respond to that report and welcome it. I look forward to working through the multiparty process to ensure we can follow through on the report that was provided. I share the view that the Labor Party put forward in their statement by Senator Farrell, the member for Sydney and the shadow minister for finance, where they said:
… Labor will carefully consider its findings and recommendations, and most importantly—we will consult with our staff on our response.
I think that's an appropriate response. It mirrors the response of the government, the Liberal Party and the National Party. I'm assuming the Greens and other parties represented in this place hold a similar view.
This whole parliament has this problem. Everyone in this building has this problem. I think Commissioner Jenkins has done an outstanding job in identifying many of the drivers that have led to this behaviour, not just recently but over a long period of time. Those of us who've been in this building—and I have absolutely no doubt the women who have served in this building, whether as members or senators or staffers, or those who have been in the media gallery or other parts of this building, because the commissioner looked at all of the employees of this building and surveyed all of the employees of this building, and she has laid out, I think, a very good and broad-ranging report which addresses all of the issues that we will need to take forward. I look forward to working as we've done. We've put in place the independent complaints process and we've put in place the counselling services, already acting on the Foster report, which I commissioned immediately at that time.
This is not a matter for partisan politics and it is not being pursued as a partisan political matter by the Leader of the Opposition. I welcome that and I look forward to working with him and all the other members of this place so we can take this report forward for the sake of all who work here now and all who will work here in the future.
My question is to the Treasurer. How is the Morrison government's clear record of strong, decisive economic management maintaining our economy's resilience through the COVID-19 pandemic for the benefit of Australian businesses and families, and is the Treasurer aware of any alternative approaches?
I thank the member for Groom for his question and acknowledge his experience as an engineer, a volunteer firefighter and someone who is a strong advocate for inland rail and the benefits that provides. Australia has had one of the strongest economic recoveries through this pandemic. We've seen a stronger recovery here than in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Japan.
Today we got the September quarter national accounts, and they did show a contraction of 1.9 per cent in the September quarter, as our two largest states, New South Wales and Victoria, were in lockdown. But growth is up 3.9 per cent through the year. We saw that in New South Wales it contracted by 6½ per cent; in the ACT, 1.6 per cent; and, in Victoria, 1.4 per cent. None of this was a surprise, because 13 million of our fellow Australians were in lockdown.
The good news is that those delta lockdowns are now behind us. We've seen an easing of restrictions across New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT. Since the start of September, 350,000 jobs have come back. We saw in the retail trade numbers for October a 4.9 per cent increase. We've heard from retailers that they've started to see their customers come back, and with the Black Friday sales they say that more than $5 billion was spent—a 50 per cent increase on the previous year.
So too it is with investment intentions. The latest ABS CAPEX survey showed that investment intentions for non-mining investment were the strongest on record, with an expectation that more than $100 billion would be spent this year, supported by incentives that we have provided in consecutive budgets.
I am asked about alternative approaches. We know that, this week, the Labor leader will not stand up—
The Treasurer will resume his seat. I would ask the Treasurer just to withdraw that comment. I spoke about that matter yesterday. The Treasurer will return to the dispatch box.
Mr Speaker, I was referring to the—
I have asked the Treasurer to withdraw.
I am referring to the alternative proposed by the Leader of the Opposition, which is to deliver higher taxes to the Australian people. How do we know? Because of his shadow Treasurer. On the front page of the Australian it says: 'Jim Chalmers proposes Bill Shorten era family trusts tax hit'. That is what the Labor Party did at the last election. That's what they'll do at the next election. Only one side of this House can be trusted to deliver a stronger economy.
My question is to the Treasurer. Why does the Treasurer always talk about reducing taxes when, in truth, he is the second-highest-taxing Treasurer of the last 30 years?
We have been cutting taxes for all Australians. That is our policy. At the last election, only one side of this parliament went to the Australian people with a tax-to-GDP cap of 23.9 per cent. If the Labor Party had got their way and introduced their $387 billion of higher taxes, that tax-to-GDP ratio would have been close to 26 per cent. The reality is we have been cutting taxes for families, against the wishes of those opposite, so that somebody on $60,000—a teacher, a tradie or a nurse—is paying $6,480 less tax as a result of policies that we have passed through this parliament. Business investment incentives, with the expanded and extended instant asset write-off, have seen a non-mining investment intention for this year of over $100 billion of investment being planned. Then there are the loss carryback measures, the patent box that I announced at the last budget and the small-business tax cuts that are seeing small businesses pay the lowest tax rate in 50 years, at 25c in the dollar.
We have been opposed every step of the way by those opposite when it comes to taxes. When it comes to taxes, only one side of this House can be trusted to deliver lower taxes, and it is the Liberals and the National Party. It is the coalition that can be trusted to deliver lower taxes. We remember the member for McMahon at the last election, who said, 'If you don't like our tax hike, don't vote for us.' And what did people do? They didn't vote for them! Remember the member for Rankin, who said he was proud of and pleased with Labor's retirees tax and Labor 's housing tax.
And the member for Maribyrnong talked about retirees and small business being the top end of town and sitting at the back of their yachts. Remember the class warfare from those opposite, attacking small businesses, attacking family businesses, attacking retirees, attacking people with superannuation and attacking people when all they wanted to do was keep more of what they earn.
There is one side of this House that has consistently delivered lower taxes. It is this coalition. It is the Liberal Party and the National Party. It is only the Labor Party who are proposing higher taxes. The Australian people rejected them at the last election, and at the next election they will have an opportunity to do just the same.
Before I call the member for Sturt, in one of those interjections did the member for Rankin make an unparliamentary remark?
I withdraw.
My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer remind the House how the Morrison government's economic plan, which includes cutting taxes and supporting investment, has helped Australian families and businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic? Is the Treasurer aware of any alternative approaches?
I thank the member for Sturt for his question and I acknowledge his experience in the wool industry. I acknowledge also his strong advocacy for lower taxes for the people of Sturt. I can inform the House that in the Sturt electorate more than 80,000 people are getting a tax cut as a result of policies supported by those on this side of the House. More than 30,000 businesses are eligible for the expanded instant asset write-off, a policy that's been advocated and supported by this side of the House and a policy that has seen business investment up by 9.1 per cent through this pandemic.
Last March, when thousands of our fellow Australians were lining up outside Centrelink, when fear was running across the community, when the economy was going into lockdown, and when Treasury expected that unemployment could reach as high as 15 per cent—more than two million people unemployed—we responded with a range of measures, including JobKeeper; the cash flow boost; support for veterans, carers and others on income support; and allowing Australians to access their own superannuation because, after all, that is their money. We supported industries like the airline industry to stay up and running despite those lockdowns. We supported small businesses, like zoo operators, who encountered challenges to their businesses as people were in lockdown through the crisis. We cut taxes. We've consistently cut taxes for small businesses. We've consistently cut taxes for families. We've consistently provided incentives to businesses to invest, with the expanded instant asset write-off and the loss carry-back measure. The good news is the economy now is starting to recover and recover strongly, because 350,000 jobs have come back since September. We saw retail sales up by 4.9 per cent in October. We've seen expectations of approximately $100 billion plus of non-mining investment planned for this year.
We have consistently delivered lower taxes while those opposite consistently propose higher taxes. Again it was the member for Rankin: 'Jim Chalmers proposes Bill Shorten-era family trusts tax hit'. It was on the front page of The Australian on 29 September.
The Treasurer will resume his seat. A point of order from the Leader of the Opposition? No? The Treasurer has the call.
These are inconvenient truths. This Leader of the Opposition supports higher taxes. That's their track record. That's what they'll do after the next election.
I would just ask the Leader of the Opposition, if he is going to come to the dispatch box to ask a question, to do it at the appropriate time rather than prematurely.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Australia is the only country in the OECD that doesn't have a dedicated centre for disease control. In my 2020 budget reply I pledged that Labor would establish an Australian centre for disease control. Why won't the Prime Minister?
I understand that the Leader of the Opposition is proposing the American response to the pandemic. We have taken the Australian response throughout the pandemic.
On a point of order, Mr Speaker: is it in order for the minister, at the beginning of his answer, to ask himself a separate question?
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.
That is what he has done.
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. You may not like the answer that the minister for health is giving—
Honourable members interjecting—
No. The minister for health has the call.
The Australian outcome is one of the strongest outcomes in terms of saving lives, protecting lives, and vaccination rates in the world. I understand that the opposition has a different approach. We've seen that pretty much throughout the pandemic. There has been very little support for the measures which this government has taken that have saved lives on a scale that is seen around the world as one of the finest and strongest and most profound outcomes in terms of lives being saved—30,000 lives being saved. They may wish to propose the US response or the European response, because that is what a CDC is.
A point of order, Mr Speaker, on relevance.
What's the point of order?
On relevance. He's speaking about America. I'm talking about an Australian centre for disease control. The hint is in 'Australian'.
Honourable members interjecting—
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. Leader of the House, just before you commence: when I'm being yelled at from both sides, in both ears, it's very difficult to hear what's going on. The Leader of the House has the call.
Mr Speaker, in accordance with the standing orders, the opposition has the ability to raise one relevance point of order. That was raised earlier. Mr Speaker, this is a continual habit of the Leader of the Opposition. He has a glass jaw, as we know, and pops up frequently, but it's not—
Leader of the House—
within his ability to do that.
One of the problems that arise out of points of order—
Honourable members interjecting—
Order! Leader of the Opposition, this is particularly directed at you. One of the issues when the Leader of the Opposition approaches the dispatch box and doesn't immediately state the point of order is that—
Opposition members interjecting—
I don't need the advice. One of the issues, when the Leader of the Opposition does approach the dispatch box and doesn't state the point of order, is that there becomes a situation where there's an uncertainty as to whether you've previously raised, for instance, a point of order in relation to relevance. So I'm going to reiterate to the Leader of the Opposition the importance of stating the point of order when he does come to the dispatch box. The minister for health is being relevant and can return to the question.
The member for Lalor is warned.
The member for McEwen is warned.
If Australia had the rate of loss of life of the OECD, there would have been 30,000 lives lost. If Australia had the loss of life, sadly, of the United Kingdom or the United States, upon which the model of the opposition is based, the loss of life would have been 45,000. By contrast, we have gone down the Australian way, and it has saved lives and it has protected lives. That Australian way has been based upon a very simple principle— that we have a national incident centre, with a chief medical officer who has been co-opted for the duration of the pandemic to all of the discussions within the National Security Committee, which the Prime Minister has chaired and upon which all of the large decisions, the biggest decisions, have been made based on medical advice directly to the Prime Minister and the National Security Committee. And that structure includes the Communicable Diseases Network Australia, the AHPPC, the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group, all feeding in through the National Incident Centre and the Chief Medical Officer.
When the big decisions had to be made, ultimately it was the national security committee, and ultimately it was the Prime Minister, who had to take those decisions, and that structure has protected Australia.
The member for Kingston is warned.
The bigger the decision, the more clear was the vision of the Prime Minister. The strength of the approach he's taken and the closing of the borders to China are as large a decision as any Australian has taken in peacetime since the Second World War, and that structure and those decisions have saved lives. We stand by our model, not the American model. (Time expired)
I'm also delighted to ask a question of the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Will the minister please provide an update to the House on how the Morrison government is responding to the latest COVID-19 variant, omicron, in order to protect the lives and livelihoods of Australians?
I want to thank the member for North Sydney. He's also been a great advocate for action in relation to HIV. Together we launched the PrEP, the pre-exposure prophylaxis, with regard to another pandemic, and that has helped save lives and protect lives in Australia. We did that along with many others on all sides who have been advocates for action.
As for this pandemic, as I was saying, when we look around the world we see over 630,000 cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours and, agonisingly, over 8,200 lives lost in just the last 24 hours. Against that background, what has occurred in Australia remains something to which almost every nation in the world would aspire: one of the lowest rates of loss of life in the world, one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world, and one of the strongest economic recoveries over the course of the pandemic in the world. These things have come from the actions which the government has taken.
In particular, when we look at the vaccination rate, we now have 39.3 million vaccinations. Ninety-two and a half per cent of Australians aged 16 and over have had a first vaccination, and 87 per cent of Australian aged 16 and over have had a second vaccination. Very significantly, as of today, we have now reached an extraordinary 99 per cent of all Australians over the age of 60. It had been 99 per cent of those over the age of 70; now it's those over the age of 60. So those who are most vulnerable are most protected. That is a level to which the whole world would aspire: 99 per cent of over-60s. We've done it in our way, on our watch, in our time. We've done it on a voluntary basis, but we've done it through advocacy and support. These things have protected Australians.
In terms of the omicron variant, the actions that we took on the weekend—which the Prime Minister authorised with decisions which were immediate—were to stop the flights from southern Africa, to ensure that there was quarantine in place, and to work with the states to make sure that the 72-hour provision was in place. That provision was endorsed and strengthened for the next two weeks by national cabinet only yesterday, under the Prime Minister's chairmanship. These are the actions that have protected Australia, are protecting Australia, will continue to protect Australia and will save lives and protect lives.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Last night, Senator Fierravanti-Wells told the Senate:
… those who resist the introduction of an effective federal integrity body raise people's curiosity. One has to ask the question: are they conflicted? Why are they resisting the implementation of such a body?
What conflicts are preventing the Prime Minister establishing an effective anticorruption commission?
None. I have here our bill.
An honourable member: Table it.
I will. There are around 350 pages here of a detailed, well-designed Commonwealth Integrity Commission. There's $150 million which has been put aside in the budget, through the budget process, to ensure that that can be implemented. We have done the work to ensure that an effective Integrity Commission can be implemented in this country.
There is only one obstacle to that being passed in this parliament—the Labor Party. The Labor Party don't support this model. They don't want this model. They want to be able to turn these matters into some sort of kangaroo court that can be used for politicking and gameplaying. The shadow Attorney-General, on nine occasions, has frivolously referred matters and wasted the time of the Australian Federal Police, and has been dismissed. I do not take the proposal from those opposite, which is only two pages long and consists of a couple of bullet points, as any serious proposal or intention. If you wish to support a serious proposal, here it is. I table it for members of the House.
The opposition will be pleased to grant leave—
Leader of the Opposition, is this on a point of order?
I'm offering leave to the Prime Minister to introduce the legislation. We can debate it now!
The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The government is not seeking leave.
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's strong record on online safety has been further bolstered by our world-leading anti-trolling laws and today's initiation of a parliamentary inquiry to put big tech under the microscope?
I thank the member for Higgins for her question. She is a distinguished medical practitioner and researcher, and she has a very strong interest in people being safe offline as well as online.
Our Liberal-National government has a very strong track record in keeping Australians safe online. We established the eSafety Commissioner in 2015. We gave it powers to deal with the cyberbullying of children. We added powers to deal with the unauthorised sharing of intimate images. We promised a new Online Safety Act at the 2019 election, and we consulted extensively on that in 2020, and this year we have legislated that act. The new powers for the eSafety Commissioner will take effect from January next year.
Over the weekend, the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General came together to announce powerful new anti-trolling laws. For too long, the social media platforms have allowed anonymous trolls to get away with spewing violent hate online with no consequences. So we are changing the law so that the platforms will be liable in defamation for comments made on the platform, unless they meet the requirement specified—a complaint scheme, so that if somebody is concerned they have been defamed they can efficiently raise that concern, and the person who posted that comment will have the option to voluntarily take it down. And there will be a power for the federal courts to require platforms to disclose identity information to allow the complainant to commence defamation proceedings.
This is a fast-moving space. Just a few months ago we saw testimony by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen which revealed troubling new information about the practice of the tech giants. For example, do the algorithms used by big tech drive users, including children, down a rabbit hole of viewing ever more problematic content?
We have announced today that we are establishing a parliamentary select committee to give Australians the chance to raise their concerns about big tech. The member for Robertson, who is a former teacher, a former telco executive and a mum, as well as a very effective member of parliament, will chair this committee. It is going to consider a range of online harms faced by Australians, and whether algorithms increase those harms and the mental health impacts. These are issues of great concern to Australian families, to Australian parents—indeed, to just about every Australian. This is a chance for those who are concerned to be heard. It's also a chance for the big tech companies to come before this parliamentary select committee to explain what they're doing to keep their users safe, and to satisfy the Australian people, through the parliament, that what they're doing is sufficient.
This is precisely the kind of work the parliament should be doing. Keeping Australians safe is a very high priority for this government.
My question is to the Prime Minister. In the Senate last night, Senator Fierravanti-Wells said a national anticorruption commission is 'overdue' and questioned why the government is resisting an 'effective' commission. With a majority of the House and now a senior Liberal senator demanding the Prime Minister act, will the Prime Minister introduce an anticorruption bill today so that parliament can get on with having the integrity debate the nation so clearly wants us to have?
I've tabled the draft legislation. That is the product of the design work that has been done on a proper Commonwealth integrity commission. A proper Commonwealth integrity commission is not supported by the Labor Party.
The member for Corangamite is warned.
It's not supported by the Labor Party, and that is what is preventing this matter from proceeding.
You're a fraud!
The member for Isaacs will come to the dispatch box and withdraw that unparliamentary remark.
I withdraw.
My question is to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction. Will the minister advise the House how the Morrison government is supporting Australian manufacturers to grow and create jobs and ensure they have an affordable, reliable supply of energy? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?
I thank the member for Lindsay for her question and for her relentless focus on manufacturing in Western Sydney and right across this great nation. She is backing our manufacturers to grow their businesses and grow jobs. We are back now to a million people working in manufacturing across Australia. We haven't seen that since those opposite put in place their carbon tax a number of years ago. We are back to over a million, and 7,500 of those are in Western Sydney. There are 800 manufacturers in Western Sydney. The member for Lindsay and I were lucky enough to visit one of those, ACO, a proud Australian manufacturer in Western Sydney in her electorate, just last week. They provide the products used in the major infrastructure projects going on right across this nation, including Nancy Bird Walton airport and the Northern Road in her electorate. They, like all manufacturers that are energy intensive, rely on gas to make their products locally. They rely on that affordable, reliable energy, and they need access to affordable, reliable gas.
Ken from ACO confirmed to us that his energy costs have come down over 30 per cent. He is able to reinvest the savings from that reduction in energy costs in his business, and we want to make sure that this continues. That is what our plan is focused on and that's why we recently put out a national gas infrastructure plan, making sure that we have the pipeline infrastructure and the supply sources in place to make the most of the energy resources this country has. It includes projects like the Kurri Kurri generator in the Hunter Valley, with 650 megawatts for when the Liddell generator closes.
I was asked about alternatives. We have seen alternatives in the United Kingdom and Europe, where we have seen a 400 per cent increase in the gas price, which hasn't occurred here. But the other question is on what those opposite are planning. What's their alternative? We do not know their plan for gas, we do not know their plan for net zero and we don't know their targets for 2030 or their plan for net 2030. But we do know that the Leader of the Opposition has jokers to the left and clowns to the right, and he is having a bet each way. He is having a bet on both the clowns and the jokers. But we know that, if the member for McMahon has his way, he will be tearing up the Kurri Kurri generator, he will be getting rid of those jobs and he will be letting the price of electricity go up when the Liddell generator closes. He rejected the Kurri Kurri generator before he even saw the business case. If you want to have secure work in this country, you have to have secure energy.
My question is to the Prime Minister. The Herald Sun revealed this week that Border Force officials are failing to even look at the vaccine certificates of arrivals at our international airports. Baristas need to see a vaccine certificate when people buy a coffee in Sydney, so why don't Border Force officials demand the same thing from people entering Australia?
The Minister for Home Affairs may wish to add to this answer. I have tremendous respect for and confidence in our Border Force. It was actually our government that established the Border Force. The Border Force did an amazing job, particularly following on from the great work in stopping the boats, in ensuring that Australia's borders were secure, and they continue to do that job every single day.
In these practices, the Border Force put in place arrangements with the international airlines to ensure that proof of vaccination is provided back at the point of uplift, and the Border Force is then undertaking compliance activities with arrivals. That was further upgraded last weekend to ensure that that is done not only at the point of embarkation but also on arrival with all of those arrivals coming through. So it is simply false for those opposite to come and cast a slur on the fine work done by our Border Force in the middle of a pandemic. They bring this in here. So, as usual, we have the Labor Party saying, 'Yes, we support the work on the border, but we're happy to get stuck in and give them a slap at the same time.' The minister may wish to answer further.
I'm very happy to add to the response just given by the Prime Minister. What we have implemented is a multilayered approach to making sure that we have in place the appropriate checks and balances to ensure that when people enter this country they do have the appropriate vaccination status and certification. Prior to uplift, an individual passenger or a family have to make sure that they have a negative PCR test available. That is checked on check-in by the airline, which also checks that every individual or every member of the family who's transiting or coming through to Australia has the appropriate vaccination status. That is the first part of the process.
Of course, when they arrive in Australia we make sure that the appropriate checks and balances are in place to ensure that these people have the appropriate vaccination status. That includes checks by the Australian Border Force. I have to say that the Australian Border Force has been exemplary in the work it has done, first, to ensure that our borders are open and that we are in a position to be able to welcome back people to Australia as soon as we possibly can and as soon as it is safe for us to do so. The Border Force has worked very consistently for a number of months to make sure that everything that is needed is in place to ensure that people who arrive in Australia have been able to demonstrate the negative PCR test and that they have the appropriate vaccination status.
My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry and Minister for Science and Technology. Will the minister please outline to the House how the Morrison government's investment in quantum technologies is securing our technology future and creating jobs as we come back from COVID-19?
Can I thank the member for Wentworth. He knows how important science is to our nation and also the importance of Australia's commercialisation of research and development. Advances in technology are reshaping everyday Australian lives. I know many in this House will remember the days when we operated a computer that was the size of a small bedroom or later, perhaps, the size of a suitcase, or a mobile phone the size of a house brick. Today we can hold these small devices in the palms of our hands. We have come remarkably far in technology advances, and Australia has played a key role on the global stage, inventing wi-fi and the black box—not forgetting the Victa mower, spray-on skin and the first ultrasound scanner. Many Australian inventions have helped to shape the world as we know it now.
Now we are on the verge of a new frontier, and I speak of quantum technology. I don't blame anyone in this House who would have trouble explaining it, but I have no doubt people will understand the significance of quantum technology.
Quantum will unlock smarter, more accurate and faster computers that can solve the most complex problems we encounter today that current computers cannot do. For Defence, it can enhance our intelligence capability, cracking those codes. It will also transform the way that doctors diagnose and treat cancers, and it will help our miners unlock resource deposits. Only this morning I met with our Chief Scientist, Dr Cathy Foley. She is very famous because she and her team were able to develop an application called the LANDTEM sensor system. This system is used to unlock valuable deposits of minerals deep underground, and this has led to mineral discoveries worth more than $6 billion. That's why she's our Chief Scientist.
This is why our government has announced our Blueprint for Critical Technologies and the National Quantum Strategy. Our government will invest over $110 million to secure our quantum future. We estimate that our investments in this new and exciting field of technology advancement will create some 16,000 jobs by 2040 and contribute some $4 billion to our national economy. Our investment provides a much-needed confidence boost for our industry, which is why Google will invest $1 billion in Australia to unlock the growing potential of this technology. They're going to work closely with CSIRO to help to develop a research hub and to be at the forefront of quantum technology research.
The Morrison government is embracing this critically important technology. We're going to drive jobs. We're going to grow the economy. We're going to ensure that Australia is at the forefront of this amazing technology.
My question is to the Prime Minister. Harper is five years old. He has been diagnosed with Batten disease. Batten disease is a degenerative neurological condition that gives children living with it an average life expectancy, from diagnosis, of seven to 10 years. Harper had been funded for 24/7 home care under the NDIS, but in May Harper's funding was cut by more than half, to only allow for three overnight care visits a week. Why is this, Prime Minister?
I'll ask the Minister representing the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme to respond further. The issue that has been raised by the member sounds very concerning, and Harper's condition sounds absolutely heartbreaking for him but also for his family. I will ask the minister to make further comment on this, but I'd be pleased to learn more of that case and look into that matter with the minister.
We thank the member for Maribyrnong for bringing the matter to the House's attention. The NDIS is an insurance scheme that is designed to provide funding that is reasonable and necessary, and, in this case, on the facts that the member has presented, it sounds both reasonable and very necessary. It's designed to go up and down with stages of someone's life. I'll speak to the minister directly after we've finished here to ensure that the funding is necessary for the various stages of this little child's life, and if need be we'll get the situation reviewed as is provided for under the law.
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia. Will the minister outline how the Morrison-Joyce government has continued to support the agricultural industry to achieve record production levels and how this government has ensured new export markets are explored and trade barriers are minimised?
I thank the member for Mallee for her question, because she, better than anyone, understands the importance of not just agriculture but agricultural trade to regional and rural Australia, particularly to those 334,000 Australians who work in agriculture. Three in four of every one of those jobs relates to trade. I'm proud to say that we are continuing to invest in that. The account figures today prove the importance of increasing our production, which has gone, for the first time in our nation's history, to over $70 billion, and the agricultural GDP has gone up by 44 per cent from the September quarter last year to the September quarter this year. That's an amazing result in the face of bushfires, droughts and floods.
We've also increased our exports by 47 per cent.
While we're increasing production, we have to find a market for it, and part of the Ag2030 plan is investing significantly in our export markets—$330 million put aside to increase market access. And that's not just the free trade agreements; that's actually about the market access, and that's putting boots on the ground: 22 agricultural counsellors and five surge counsellors looking at market access commodity by commodity, breaking down the technical barriers. In fact, they've improved over 53 market access agreements, maintained 111 and improved another 55 market access agreements. Some of that has been seen as the first boatload of barley going to Mexico to go into their beer; over 700,000 tonnes going into Saudi Arabia; getting better market access for India, Pakistan and Nepal; and getting longer shelf life agreements for our meat into Saudi Arabia.
We're also putting more scientists within the agricultural department to ensure that we get through the risk assessments quicker to be able to meet their requirements to get that market access. It's very important. And for the first time we have a national agricultural representative to go to international fora to be able to articulate that agricultural production systems here are different to those around the world and therefore we should have different methods of being able to produce the best food and fibre in the world.
We're also trying to streamline and modernise our trade export platforms. We have 330,000 export certificates printed out every year. We're now digitising them; we are making sure it's done once. And those that want to apply to get an export permit, instead of doing 20 paper based applications they will do one online one, and we'll get out of their life and allow them to get on with the job that they do.
We're also modernising through industries—working with the red meat sector, putting in place 40-year reforms around the modernisation, using technology so that they can use Google glasses to do inspections by our department and cutting the costs of the red meat industry by $45 million a year. That means more jobs in regional Australia. Our Ag2030 plan is about growing agriculture and growing the future for regional and rural Australia.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Parent, single mum Sarah, who lives in Perth, has said publicly that a shock $70,000 cut to her 11-year-old autistic son's, Jonah's, NDIS plan means she'll only be able to afford a support worker once or twice a week. She's probably going to have to quit her job to care for him. Why did the Morrison government cut Jonah's plan?
Let me thank the member for Maribyrnong for his question. In the particular case the member's raised, I'll speak to the member afterwards to get the details in full—quite confidentially—of the participant in question, and we'll chase it up and have a look. As you know, the law actually has a requirement for plans to be reviewed and updated as required.
It is important though for the House to understand the Morrison government over the last 12 months has put in over $17 billion extra into the NDIS. It could be the largest estimate variation of any program of any government in our nation's history. That gives an indication to the House of the commitment of the entire House to this scheme.
The minister will resume his seat. The member for Maribyrnong, on a point of order?
On relevance: this was about Jonah O'Sullivan's cut of over $70,000, not about the NDIS in general.
The member for Maribyrnong will resume his seat. When a question is asked without notice about a specific incident or a specific example such as this, no-one could expect a minister to know the facts and circumstances behind that particular case. The minister is being relevant and will return to—
The member for Newcastle is warned. The minister has the call.
The beauty of the NDIS is the scheme started in a bipartisan way and it's continued that way, to everyone's credit. And I think the parliament as a whole should be proud of what we've achieved together with the NDIS.
It is an extraordinary world-first. It's a scheme that no other country in the world has tried to put together in the time frame and in the way that, collectively, we have. There are over 470,000 participants with permanent and significant disability on the NDIS. It's a social insurance scheme that every Australian can rely on, a scheme that enjoys the support of everyone in the House, a scheme whereby, if Australians find themselves in difficulty, they know there is a social insurance policy there to assist them.
The issues of this particular case will certainly be looked into by the minister and the department, because, with over 470,000 Australians being cared for in the insurance scheme, there are always opportunities to improve and to look at particular matters. But this is something we should be proud of. It is something the Morrison government is leaning into, and we're leaning into it heavily. There is no other program that has seen the sheer amount of resources that have gone into the NDIS to assist so many Australians, and that's something we should applaud. The Morrison government has always stood behind the NDIS. The Morrison government has built the NDIS. The Morrison government finalised all the agreements with the states and continues to work cooperatively and collaboratively towards this world-first. It's something we collectively should be proud of.
My question is to the Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business. Can the minister update the House on the strength of the Australian jobs market under the Morrison government's prudent economic management. Why is it so important that every Australian who can work gets into a job?
I thank the member for Barker for all the work he's doing in his electorate, especially some of the innovative ideas he's bringing forward to assist businesses, not just to get workers into a job but also to get workers into a home. I thank the member for the work he's doing to champion that.
We can all see that the Morrison economic plan is working, with the Australian jobs market roaring back, about which the Treasurer has spoken to today. There has never been a better time for businesses to be hiring Australians than right now. The National Skills Commission, through the internet vacancy index, tells us that last month we saw a 13-year high, with 250,000 jobs available right now, a 7.8 per cent increase in October. We know not all jobs are advertised online, so we know there are at least 280,000 jobs available right now for Australians to lean into prior to Christmas.
I've just spoken to the CEO of Amazon, an impressive national CEO. She's got 1½ thousand jobs in Western Sydney right now. Right now, we know there are over 29,000 Australians on the jobactive network scheme in Western Sydney who are able to lean into those jobs. There are 902,000 Australians on jobseeker payment, and over 86,000 young Australians on youth allowance (other)—not in work and not in employment. We know that the best type of jobseeker or youth allowance (other), the best type of welfare, is a job. And we know that the best way to grow our economy is to move people into work. We also understand and appreciate the mutual obligation of Australians to put people into work, and I can report to the House that the Employer Reporting Line the Morrison government has put in place for those that aren't taking their mutual obligation seriously has received over 2,200 referrals, and 180 individuals are facing compliance action. It's clear the jobs are there now. They're there now for every Australian to take advantage of, and we would encourage every Australian to have a crack at those 280,000 jobs.
In July last year the member for Rankin said the biggest test of the government's management of the recession and its aftermath will be what happens to jobs. It's pleasing to say that we're seeing unemployment roaring back. The member for Rankin made it clear that it's about whether unemployment stays too high for too long—
The member for Rankin is warned.
and unemployment is lower right now, coming out of a once-in-100-years pandemic, than when the Morrison government came into government. The economy is larger, growth is faster, jobs are coming back. The Morrison economic plan is absolutely working.
Member for Corangamite, this is your final warning.
Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Documents are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable members earlier today. Full details of the documents will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
Four months ago I wrote to the Minister for Education and Youth regarding his decision to give JobKeeper to private schools while denying it to universities. I ask that you write to Minister Tudge regarding his failure, for four months, to answer question No. 617.
I thank the member for Fenner. I'll deal with that matter.
I seek leave to move the following motion—and I apologise to members of the opposition for delaying the matter of public importance:
That this House:
(1) notes:
(a) in a free and democratic nation any experimental medical intervention which has zero long-term safety data should only be administered with the free and informed consent of the person undergoing the medical intervention,
(b) no Australian should ever be placed in a situation where they are coerced into undertaking any medical intervention with the threat of being sacked from their job and denied the freedom to work in their career of choice and the career that they have trained for,
(c) any policy by a government or a private sector employer that mandates Australians to be injected with an experimental vaccine violates basic human rights,
(d) thousands of Australians, including nurses, police officers, airline pilots, teachers, truck drivers, disability workers, charity workers, office staff et cetera, have already been thrown out of their jobs and denied the freedom to pursue their career of choice for not submitting to being injected with an experimental, provisionally approved substance that has no long-term safety data,
(e) compulsory mandates requiring Australians to be injected with any COVID injections, and policies of segregation, discrimination and medical apartheid are not based upon the latest science or the latest evidence, but such mandates are based upon the marketing literature of the vaccine sellers, superstition and mindless fearmongering, and
(f) the most recent—
Member for Hughes, these motions to suspend standing orders are meant to be brief. How many items do you have left?
I have two more points, Mr Speaker.
The member for Hughes has the call.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. Further:
(f) the most recent published data from the UK Health Security Agency, titled COVID vaccine surveillance report: week 46, records that those injected twice between the ages of 30 and 79 years of age have a greater chance of having COVID than those not injected, and the title of a recently published study by researchers from the University of California is self-explanatory; it is 'vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads'. The esteemed virologist Geert Vanden Bossche has warned that such mandates will result in a catastrophe and has stated: 'No healthy individual should be considered more of an infectious threat than another. There is no scientific rationale for any individual, whether vaccinated or not, to discriminate against contacts with any healthy vaccinated or unvaccinated person';
(2) notes that the federal government of Australia has multiple constitutional powers to ban COVID vaccine mandates and to ensure that workers currently sacked from their jobs under vaccine mandates can return to their work and recommence their careers before Christmas.
Only hours ago, in the USA, a federal judge—
Member for Hughes, you said you had two more. A motion to suspend standing orders is not an opportunity to debate the issue.
I'll conclude with the final point:
(3) calls on the government to immediately bring on the No Domestic Vaccine Passport Bill 2021, introduced in this parliament in July by the member for Hughes, for debate and determination before this parliament rises for the Christmas-New Year holiday break.
Leave not granted.
I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Hughes from moving the following motion immediately:
That the House:
(1) notes:
(a) in a free democratic nation, any experimental medical intervention, which has zero long-term safety data, should only be administered with the free and informed consent of the undergoing the medical invention;
(b) no Australian should ever be placed in a situation where they are coerced into undertaking any medical intervention, let alone an experimental provisionally approved medical intervention (which has zero long term safety data) with the threat of being sacked from their job and denied the freedom to work in their career of choice and a career that they have trained for;
(c) any policy by a government or the private sector which mandates Australians to be injected with an experimental genetic agent violates basic human rights;
(d) thousands of Australians including nurses, police officers, airline pilots, teachers, truck drivers, disability workers, charity workers, office staff, etc. have already been thrown out of their jobs and denied the freedom to pursue their career of choice for not submitting to be injected with an experimental, provisionally approved substance that has no long-term safety data due to compulsory mandates for medical intervention with the COVID vaccines;
(e) compulsory mandates, requiring Australians to be injected with any of the COVID injections, and policies of segregation, discrimination and medical apartheid are not based upon the science or the evidence - such mandates are based upon the marketing literature of the vaccine sellers, superstition, and mindless fearmongering;
(f) the most recent published data from the UK Health Security Agency, titled: COVID Vaccine Surveillance Report week 46 - records that those injected twice aged between 60 and 79 years of age have a greater chance of having COVID than those not injected. And for those in age groups between 40 and 69 years of age the data records those "injected twice" have more than double the rate of COVID infections compared to those not injected at all;
(g) the title of a recent published study by researchers from the University of California is self-explanatory: 'Vaccinated and Unvaccinated individuals have similar viral loads'
(h) the esteemed virologist Geer Vanden Bossche was warned that such mandates will result in a 'catastrophe' and have stated: "No healthy individual should be considered more of an infectious threat than another. There is no scientific rational for any individual, whether vaccinated or not, to discriminated against contacts with any healthy vaccinated or unvaccinated person"; and
(i) that recent detections of the Omicron COVID variant in Australia have all been among people with a vaccine passport, demonstrating that vaccine passports are worse than useless;
(2) notes that the federal Government of Australia has multiple constitutional powers to ban COVID injection mandates, and to ensure that workers currently sacked from the jobs under vaccine mandates can return to work and recommence their careers before Christmas;
(3) only hours ago, in the USA a federal judge issued preliminary injunction against the US President's vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. With the decision, no healthcare worker in all 50 states of USA can dismissed from their job for not submitting to mandatory injection with a COVID genetic vaccine, with the judge noting: "if human nature and history teach us anything, it is that civil liberties face grave risk when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency..."; and
(4) call on the Government to immediately bring on the No Domestic COVID Vaccine Passport Bill 2021, introduced to this Parliament in July by the Member for Hughes in July for debate and determination before this Parliament rises for the Christmas New Year break.
With only a few weeks left until Christmas, many Australians are facing a dark and bleak Christmas holiday. They are facing a situation where they will not be able to recommence their jobs. They are facing a situation of being sacked from not only their employment but also their career of choice. This includes nurses. This includes police officers, airline pilots, teachers, truck drivers, disability workers and charity workers. Many of them have already been thrown out of their jobs, denied the freedom that we are blessed with here in Australia to pursue their career of choice, simply for deciding—they have made the decision for themselves—that they do not want to participate in this global vaccine experiment. That should be the free choice that these people have in a democratic society. Standing and sessional orders should be suspended because we here in this parliament have only hours before we will pack up and go on holidays. This parliament will close down over the Christmas break for all of us to enjoy the Christmas holidays and a Christmas break. But we will be denying that break to thousands upon thousands of Australians.
We heard only a few hours ago that in the USA a federal judge issued preliminary injunctions against the US President's vaccine mandate for healthcare workers. With this decision, no healthcare worker in all 50 states of the USA can be dismissed from their job for not submitting to a mandatory injection with a COVID genetic vaccine. The judge noted:
If human nature and history teach us anything, it is that civil liberties face grave risk when governments proclaim indefinite states of emergency.
The House should bring this on for a debate. If the member for Macarthur has an alternative opinion, let's have the debate, because there are thousands of medical experts with far higher qualifications than the member for Macarthur who have treated far more COVID patients than the member for Macarthur has and have a completely different opinion to the medical bureaucrats of this nation. We deserve to have that debate. There is no single source of truth when this comes about. Mandates forcing Australians to be injected against their free will, using coercion, are unethical, un-Australian and should stop. This parliament has the power to do so. It has the power to reunite our nation, to end the segregation, to end medical discrimination, if it wants to.
That is the choice that I wish to put to this parliament that they can vote on immediately.
Is the motion seconded?
I second the motion. I'll be very brief. I support this motion because of the heartache that I am hearing and the harm that I'm hearing from my constituents, people who have lost their jobs or are about to lose their jobs, all because they will not be part of, or do not wish to be part of, a provisionally approved medical procedure in this country. It is a provisionally approved medical procedure. There is no denying that fact; it's on the TGA's website. For governments to be saying to people—it is not, I appreciate, the Australian government; it is state governments that are saying it—that they must go and have this medical procedure done in order to keep their job is anathema. It is hurting people—a lot of people.
To show the stupidity of it—I mentioned this last night in this place—a psychologist in Mackay who does home consults by telehealth has to be double vaccinated, or she loses her career of 30 years. Tell me: how is COVID going to crawl down the internet and infect one of her patients? It's absurd. But the whole thing is absolutely absurd. It's not just workers who are going to be hurt here. I know of small business owners—cafe owners—who don't want to partake in the medical procedure, and they are going to have to shut their doors. Perhaps even some of them will go bankrupt in Queensland from 17 December.
We can do something about it here in this place. We should do something about it. We control the data that comes from the Australian Immunisation Register. It can be flicked off with a switch, and then no-one knows who's vaccinated and who's not. We should have that stance until the people who are imposing this medical segregation actually say they're going to stop it and not harm anyone anymore.
The question is that the motion moved by the member for Hughes be disagreed to.
A division having been called and the bells having been rung—
As there are fewer than five members on the side for the noes in this division, I declare the question resolved in the affirmative in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
Question agreed to, Mr Christensen, Mr Craig Kelly and Mr Llew O'Brien voting no.
I have received a letter from the honourable member for Watson proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:
The government's failure to increase real wages in line with the rising cost of living.
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—
The story of flatlining wages in this country is a story of insecure work. The government thinks insecure work is not a problem. Just the other day, the Minister representing the Minister for Industrial Relations in this chamber described same job, same pay as a made-up issue. Insecure work has changed fundamentally in Australia. As we grew up, we all knew there would be jobs you'd have as a student that would be casual or insecure job—it might be when you were at school—and unless you did further study afterwards you would have insecure work.
Those parts of the industry have always been around. But the change is that, increasingly, we now find people who are supporting families in insecure work. We find people who are relying on being able to pay the bills on their own in insecure work. We used to see insecure work in parts of retail and hospitality; we now see insecure work in the mining industry and in the aged-care industry. It's not just students in insecure work; we now have teachers in insecure work. We have people working at universities in insecure work. What does it mean for your payments? Your mortgage isn't casual. Paying the rent isn't casual. The grocery bills aren't casual.
Supporting a child isn't casual. Being a carer for someone isn't casual. And, yet, this government thinks it's a made-up issue. The issue there is real.
But we also need to remember that the government can act. It is within the capacity of government to fix this problem. If there was ever a moment when we showed that when government want to change things they can, it was during the pandemic. We have actually proven that this can be done. We had a situation where face masks weren't going to be manufactured in Australia. So the government investment came in, the direction came in, the support came in and it happened. We weren't doing hand sanitiser very much in Australia. We realised as a matter of sovereignty we needed to do it, so intervention happened and the change occurred. We had a wage subsidy going across the Australian workforce. It required legislation. It required government action. It wasn't done perfectly by any means, but in terms of a level of support it can be done. The pandemic showed that, when government wants to act, it can.
But the story of insecure work is one where the government does not want to act. When it comes to the evidence that they don't want to act, the person who gave the game away ages ago was Mathias Cormann when he was finance minister, making clear that low wages were a deliberate design feature of this government's plan for the economy. You deliver low wages by having people without job security. If you don't have job security, you don't have the same capacity to speak up and negotiate. It's hard enough getting people in insecure work to speak up about safety issues, let alone their entitlements.
But we also know from the pandemic not only is it possible for government to act; we also know that the Prime Minister, when it's time to act at different times, will just wander off. When we needed vaccines to be brought into Australia and brought in quickly, he just said: 'No, it's not a race. We are at the front of the queue. It's not a race.' We have just had economic figures today that would have been different were it not for the lockdowns—lockdowns which only occurred because we were not vaccinated early enough. That's the only reason they happened. Just like he went away during the bushfires, he walked away during the pandemic. And now he is walking away when it comes to acting on insecure work.
There are real consequences to this. 'Same job, same pay' is not a made-up issue. Can I tell you about two meat workers working at the exact same abattoir, both doing the same job, one working directly for the company and the other working as a labour hire casual. Those of you who've worked in retail or hospitality remember the concept that if you are working as a casual you get paid a loading. Have a think on this. The casual working for labour hire earns $500 less a week. The casual is on the lower rate of pay because of what labour hire is being allowed to do to insecure work. It's not that labour hire doesn't have a place. There can be times when it's appropriate for labour hire when there is surge employment or when you are employing people that the business normally wouldn't and you need people for a night or a short period of time. There's an appropriate role for labour hire, but that role is not to undercut wages and take away secure jobs.
In the same way, how many times do we hear them talk about mining, but we never hear them talk about mineworkers? Take two train drivers at Pacific National coalmine in the Bowen Basin, both doing the same job, with one working for the company, employed by Pacific National, and the other doing the exact same job but employed by a labour hire firm. The train driver employed by the labour hire firm is, once again, a casual. Does the casual get a loading? Does the casual get paid more? No. On the payslips, the casual gets paid $300 less every single week.
When we look at the fact that real wages are going backwards, it's not some accident. It's by design that the government has deliberately decided to not bring in legislation to close down loopholes as they've arisen. The other loophole we have seen is with respect to gig workers. Who would have thought we would be in a situation where earlier this term the previous minister for industrial relations was asked by the Leader of the Opposition whether or not every Australian worker should be paid at least the minimum wage?
That should not be a difficult question to answer. There's a link between the words 'at least' and the word 'minimum'. They sort of go together. What was the response from the government? It was: 'It's very complicated.' There is a direct link between the fact that the government has refused to act on the gig economy and the fact that this is an area where we see, right through to horticulture, people being paid in the order of $3 an hour, of people riding deliveries for us during the pandemic, getting food to people 's homes during the pandemic, and dying on the way there because they had to try to keep pace with an algorithm that was their employer. They are not earning the minimum wage. And the government 's response to all of these issues—whether it's this or whether it's endless consecutive contracts that people are on—is: 'Oh, but it's Labor 's legislation.' First of all, the gig economy and Uber were not that big in Australia in 2013. The Amazon model that's emerging now? It wasn't that big in Australia eight years ago. Tell me another piece of legislation where, when it is gamed, they don't come in with new legislation saying, 'We need to fix the loophole.'
We have the Assistant Treasurer, who will bring in legislation all the time when there is a new tax loophole, to say, 'We need to shut this down.' With the minister of immigration, there will be a court case and some loophole that he thinks has opened up, and new legislation will come in here. But, when it comes to workers having secure jobs, they want the loopholes to be there. They want the loopholes to cause people to have insecure work, because that puts downward pressure on wages. I will tell you, the safety net doesn't exist if you can be paid less than the minimum wage. The safety net does not exist if you have an enterprise agreement and the employer can just undercut it by bringing in labour hire. The safety net doesn't exist if you can endlessly be on one short-term contract after another so you effectively are never off your probationary period. People are now qualifying for long-service leave before their job becomes a secure job.
An honourable member interjecting—
It's not a made up issue for the miner who is being paid less than the person they are working beside. It's not a made up issue for the person delivering food to the homes of people in this room and being paid less than the minimum wage. It's not a made up issue for the person working in what might be called some sort of posh professional job who works in the industry their entire lifetime and never has a permanent contract and never has job security. We want people to have the confidence to go to the bank and get finance, we want people to have the confidence to go to their local shops and spend money. We want people to have the confidence to spend again, with consumer consumption getting the economy moving again. That doesn't happen if you are in fear every day as to whether your shift will be here next week. It's not only that they don't have a plan to fix the problem of secure jobs; it's not only that they deny it. They want insecurity.
What the government wants and what the government has shown throughout this pandemic is that we have a dedication and commitment to helping businesses continue to employ hundreds of thousands—millions—of Australians, and that is precisely what has happened during this pandemic. Quite frankly, we have done so in the face of fierce opposition from the Labour Party, who purport to represent workers but take every opportunity to slow the process of this parliament or the decisions of this government in rescuing and saving those jobs. So to have the member for Watson come in here today and to be speaking so passionately for the conditions of workers—it is hollow. Because the member for Watson and the Labor Party have taken an approach which would ultimately have led to fewer Australians being in work.
The dedication and commitment of the Morrison government throughout the pandemic has been: what can we do to support all Australian businesses—small, medium and large businesses—to continue to employ their workforces in the face of a once-in-100-years pandemic? It's about how we can support those businesses to continue to invest and, now that we're in the recovery phase, how we can encourage those businesses—with their capital reserves and with the resources that they have now been able to build up in the midst of a recovery—to have the confidence that they need to make further decisions to employ even more Australians.
We've seen that it's working. We've seen that, since September, 347,000 Australians have got back into work. Contrary to what the member for Watson says, if you look at the unemployment data and the employment statistics in recent years, even during the pandemic, the vast majority of new jobs created have been full-time jobs, which do have the protections that he speaks about. But you don't hear that from the Labor Party. You don't hear the Labor Party congratulating the government on critical decisions that we took during the pandemic with JobKeeper and HomeBuilder. You don't see the Labor Party congratulating the government on putting more money in the pockets of workers through our tax cuts.
We've seen that, since the 2018-19 income year, an Australian worker on a salary of $60,000 a year has been $6½ thousand better off due to the tax cuts and the personal income tax reductions put in place by our government. The Labor Party might not think that $6½ thousand means much to those people, but we in the Morrison government know that it does. We know that in the end, Australians look at their pay packet and what they get after tax. That's ultimately what is in their pockets and what they are able to use to provide for their families.
Does anyone seriously think that the Labor Party, as the Morrison government has done, would put in place tax policies that will see 95 per cent of Australians not paying a higher marginal tax rate than 30c in the dollar? Of course not. Before the last election, the Labor Party took a litany, a succession, of new taxes to the election, which would've hit the exact people that the member for Watson purports to care about today in his MPI. Whether it was taxes on superannuation, taxes on retirees, taxes on housing or higher personal income taxes—you name it—it would've hit millions and millions of Australians.
Does anyone seriously think that the Labor Party, since the 2019 election, have had a major conversion of their views on higher taxes? Does anyone really believe that the member for Rankin, who said he was very proud of their tax plans before the 2019 election, has suddenly had a major conversion on these topics? No. What we see from the Labor Party is not that they have had some massive change of heart. All we're seeing from the Labor Party is that they're going to hide their true intentions on one side of an election and do something different on the other side. That's the only thing that's changed.
I criticise the member for Maribyrnong for many things, and he deserves criticism for many things, but at least he was honest before the last election. At least he was honest that he had a plan for $387 billion of higher taxes. They were so proud of it that they set up very nice photographs with their economic team in the lead-up to the election. How proud they were of those higher taxes. Give him credit—at least he was honest about it. What we now see from the Labor Party is blatant dishonesty, hiding those things on one side of an election. Does anyone seriously think that they've had a major conversion since the 2019 election? Does anyone seriously think that those taxes that they were very proud of are all of a sudden taxes that they repudiate?
To go to wages: the latest ABS data has shown that private sector wages are up 2.4 per cent over the year. This is the highest it's been through the year since December 2014. In March or April last year—when the pandemic was hitting, lockdowns were first being put in place and businesses were being forcibly closed in response to health orders—if anybody had said then that unemployment now would be 5.2 per cent and that private sector wages for the year would be up 2.4 per cent, every right-thinking member of this House would've said, 'We would take that in a heartbeat.'
The member for Rankin, to his credit, set a test. He said the government's economic approach would be borne out by the unemployment figures. It was an interesting test. It's not a test that he has continued to speak about, but it was a marker of success that he himself put in place. Now we see unemployment at 5.2 per cent—lower than when we came to government and lower than the rising unemployment we saw under the former Labor government, of which the member for Rankin was a very important member, being Wayne Swan's brain. He thinks that's a compliment. If he thinks that's a compliment, good luck to him. We now see unemployment at 5.2 per cent, and, as the RBA have said, there's an expectation that with the economic recovery we're seeing now it could even be significantly lower than that. That's the true test. The true test of our economic response to this pandemic is borne out by those figures.
Who would have thought—again, thinking back to March or April last year—that one of the major complaints we would hear from the Australian business community would be the massive labour constraints that are now being felt. That is difficult for those businesses but it's a far superior problem to have than the alternative, which is higher unemployment, putting even less pressure on wages, which would consequently mean lower wages growth—not the 2.4 per cent that we've seen through the year, in the middle of a pandemic, which compares favourably to almost any jurisdiction in the world.
In discussing and thinking about the Labor Party's approach to these things, their response to one of the most successful programs put in place by the Morrison government last year, the HomeBuilder program, tells the story. The HomeBuilder program, which we put in place in June last year, provides grants to help predominantly first-time buyers purchase a new home and to support the one million people who work in the residential construction industry—the tradies, the plumbers, the carpenters, the concreters, the architects, the designers, the landscapers, the roofers. It helps a million Australians who work in the residential construction industry, yet the Labor Party criticised and opposed the policy. The Leader of the Opposition, to his great shame, said these grants would just be providing 'gold taps and pearl baths' to HomeBuilder grant recipients. There are 135,000 HomeBuilder projects, through which we've seen new construction of detached housing up by nearly 35 per cent—higher than prepandemic levels. Every single tradie in this country is busy, is gainfully employed, is working hard with the support of that program. The Labor Party opposed it. The Labor Party criticised it. That is emblematic of everything they have done during this pandemic. The Morrison government supports jobs and wages growth.
This government is a dumpster fire of dishonesty, disunity and desperation. We know this because, at a time when the cost of living—petrol, rent and all the rest of it—is going through the roof, real wages are going backwards. On the day that we learn Australia's downturn in the September quarter was the worst in the developed world and at a time when we've lost 200,000 jobs in two months, when we've got two million Australians unemployed or underemployed at the same time as we've got skills shortages—at the same time as there's all of this economic carnage—those opposite just want to talk about the Labor Party. After a decade in office, a wasted decade of missed opportunities, the best they can do in question time and now, in this matter of public importance discussion, is to bang on and on about Labor—about a photo that was taken three years ago, about the last election, about 10 years ago and all the rest of it. That just shows how bereft they are of empathy and compassion for people who are doing it tough. The working families of this country, right around middle Australia, are finding it harder and harder to keep up with the skyrocketing costs of living, because their real wages are going backwards.
There is no empathy or compassion for the small businesses or for the people who lost their jobs because those opposite couldn't get around to ordering vaccines in time and they couldn't build purpose-built quarantine.
After a wasted decade of missed opportunities, they get question after question on the economy, about all these important issues, and all they can do is recite the same old focus group reports and the same old tired lines about the Labor Party. That's just one of the many reasons why it's time to put this government out to pasture. They have had almost a decade now to deal with these issues—the issues in skills, the issues in the labour market, the issues with the cost of living, the issues in the last couple of years with the pandemic—and, at the end of all of that, what do we have? We have the third worst contraction in the economy in the history of the national accounts, the worst-performing economy out of the 28 OECD countries that have reported already for the September quarter.
This is the downturn that we didn't have to have. It didn't need to be this way. We're getting into this position because of the mistakes made by those opposites. Their mismanagement of the pandemic has become mismanagement of the economy as well. It's a downturn which comes courtesy of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, but the bill is being picked up by the small businesses and working families of this country.
With all of this going on and such a terrible set of numbers released by the ABS today, you would think those opposite would show a little bit of contrition. But this is a government which is temperamentally incapable of taking responsibility for anything. This is a government that takes all of the credit when things are going well but none of the responsibility when times are tough and things are difficult. Given that these lockdowns and this downturn were caused by the government and their failures on vaccines and quarantine and economic support, you would think there would be a little bit of responsibility taken. But, again, there is all of this talk about Labor, all of this claiming credit for a recovery which we hope materialises but hasn't yet, at the same time as they don't take responsibility for the downturn itself. You can't have it both ways. You can't take credit for the recovery without taking responsibility for the downturn that we've learned all about in the course of today.
The economy under this government has three defining features. First of all, we have the world's worst downturn in the September quarter, and I've covered that. Secondly, there are the issues in the labour market, with 200,000 jobs lost in two months and two million Australians unemployed or underemployed at the same time as we have all of these skills shortages. That is the second defining feature of this economy. Thirdly, there are the cost-of-living pressures that people are confronting because their real wages are going backwards.
All of this means that we confront the uncertainty of the new strain of the virus from a position of weakness—certainly weaker than we would be had the Prime Minister and the Treasurer done their job—and that's why we can't be complacent about this recovery. Every single person on this side of the House wants the economy to recover strongly. But we have to decide, in this building, whether we want that recovery to be back to how things were before, with all the insecure work and wage stagnation which has defined their decade in office, or whether we can do better, whether we can have a strong and broad and inclusive and sustainable recovery where working families can actually get ahead and aren't left behind. The thing those opposite don't understand is that it's not an economic recovery if people don't share in the benefits.
The government welcomes a debate about the economy and certainly about wages and the economic recovery that the government is invested in providing for all Australians. Listening to members of the opposition, the Labor Party is the political party that is supposed to represent the worker. Former heads of the trade union movement come into this parliament regularly and try and dumb down and provide the most simple commentary about industrial relations that you could provide in this country. We heard that from the shadow minister and member for Watson, who tried to maintain that in Australia people are paid $3 an hour, somehow. If someone is paid $3 an hour in this country, that's unlawful and that needs to be reported immediately. And it's wrong to maintain that people have insecure work because they work in a new economy or in new companies that have been advanced in the new economy that we represent. He named a couple of them—Amazon, for example. Amazon, worldwide, employs 1.3 million people, who aren't in insecure work. That's a lot of people for any one enterprise to employ around the world. Uber in Australia employs 86,000 people, who find the pay acceptable and choose to work for Uber because they can choose their hours; they can control their hours.
The members opposite laugh, but that's why this company is successful. They're innovating. This is the new economy. That's not insecure. They're paid Australian wages and they work voluntarily for that company. This is not the Middle Ages. This is not serfdom. The No. 1 reason a person volunteers to work for Uber—this is proven in surveys—is that they can control their working hours. It suits them. They can choose when to work and when not to work. That's the truth of a company like Uber and their employment. Yet the Labor Party rail against it. They say Uber was good in 2012 when it was small but, because it has become successful and big, it's now bad.
Somehow the member for Watson tries to make a link to $3 an hour where there is no link to $3 an hour. In fact, the national minimum wage in Australia, which the member for Watson should know, is $20.33, or $772.60 per week. That's the national minimum wage. As members opposite should know, there are many awards and agreements where the minimum wage is higher than that—in fact, it's the highest minimum wage in the world. It is unlawful to not pay the right wages and awards in Australia. Members opposite try to create a problem that they know is not correct all the time in these discussions. It is wrong to do so.
When I walk around this economy at the moment, what I hear from every business in Australia is that they are critically short of workers. Members all around Australia need more workers. They are offering more money. Without naming them, I have had Labor state ministers in Labor jurisdictions tell me that they are paying well above award wages, sometimes double in various sectors and industries, because they are so critically short, because they need those workers.
What is this government doing about it? That's why we've got more apprentices than we've had for a long time. That's why we're trying to get Australians into jobs first before, in my own portfolio, we bring people from overseas. Our labour market is running red hot. It is a time where we will see, as we have seen, 2.4 per cent higher wages over the year, the strongest growth since 2014. Of course we're going to see higher wages as we continue to go forward, because every employer is desperately short of labour. You can go to almost every sector anywhere in the country and they are demanding labour. We already have the world's highest minimum wages. But people are offering more than our minimum wage in many sectors. This is great news for employees. It is fantastic.
We have the strongest industrial relations and legal framework in the world as well. The Fair Work system the Labor Party likes to rail against was set up by the Labor Party. It was set up by Prime Minister Gillard. The piece rate, which the member for Watson is actually referring to but didn't name, was established by Julia Gillard. The commissioners were all appointed by Labor. You do wonder about the honesty of people coming into this place and suggesting that people are being paid $3 dollars an hour in Australia. It simply isn't true. I think that is a demeaning thing for this country to hear when, actually, we have one of the highest minimum wages in the world, a strong economy, thousands of jobs available right now in almost every single part of this country for anybody who would like to get a job, and employers are looking at paying higher wages as well. We've seen 2.4 per cent increases, the strongest in seven years. Instead of saying, 'That is great news for Australians and we want to see that wages growth continue,' Labor say we've got a terrible system and we have troubles.
The reality is that wages growth will continue to be strong while there is high demand for labour. There will be high demand for labour in the coming years. It is our job as a parliament and as a government to keep the momentum going of getting people job ready, supporting them back into work in those jobs in our regions, suburbs and businesses.
If there were an example of a government in denial, that last speech was it. I've sat in this parliament and watched minister after minister refuse to get to the dispatch box when questioned and refuse to back in a minimum hourly rate for Australian workers. They have gone time and time again refusing to back in a minimum hourly rate. So to hear the previous speaker come up here and say everyone gets paid the minimum rate here in Australia—guarantee it. Back it in and guarantee it. Legislate it, and then we might believe you.
Of course, there are a lot of things that keep increasing under this Morrison-Joyce government. It's certainly not wages. It is dishonest statements, scandals, rorts, marketing slogans, glossy brochures and, of course, desperation. These are all things increasing under the Morrison government, but it is certainly not wages.
But there's also something else of critical importance to the Australian people and Australian families that is increasing—that is, the cost of living. When you listen to those on the other side, you would think—and they're coming pretty close to saying 'Australian families have never been better off.' That is the type of denial this government is in: 'There's nothing to see here. Everyone's happy. Everyone's got a job. Everyone's getting paid the most they've ever been paid.' Well, it's simply not true. They need to go back to their electorates and actually spend some time listening to the struggles of Australian families.
I can give them a tip on where to start: they can start by listening to families with young children and their struggle when it comes to child care. Families using early learning and care are feeling cost-of-living pressures every day. The latest data shows that childcare fees rose by 2.4 per cent over the 12 months to March 2021—that's 2.4 per cent, despite fees having been frozen for six months in 2020 due to the pandemic. That is more than double inflation. It means the value of the childcare subsidy keeps being eroded. The subsidy is tied to inflation, so parents are paying more and more out of pocket every single time these fees go up. What does this mean for people's back pockets? This is an extra $390 in fees, just like last year. At the same time real wages have fallen by $700. Childcare fees have now gone up more than 39 per cent under the coalition. It has been a massive hit to families' budgets.
Rather than confront this issue, rather than acknowledge this issue, we hear the minister get up and explain it as a childcare hourly rate. He is trying to convince Australian families that child care is cheap by using the hourly rates, whether it's $5 an hour or something else. But what he doesn't realise—or maybe he does, and he's just trying to pull the wool over people's eyes—is that parents don't use one or two hours of child care; they often need between 30 and 50 hours a week, because that is what they need to work to make ends meet. At times the minister thinks he has been very clever. It's obviously in the talking points: 'If we talk about the hourly rate, it doesn't sound so bad.' But it all adds up.
Out-of-pocket costs have gone up more than 12.5 per cent since the introduction of this government's new childcare system. They are the highest they have ever been in this country—and that is out-of-pocket costs, not overall fees. The average Australian family pays 19 per cent of the average wage in out-of-pocket costs. Instead, the response we get from this government is to make the system more complex and tinker around the edges—but no real plan to rein in out-of-control fees or make the system more easy to navigate. Indeed, they won't do a thing about raising the subsidy for 75 per cent of families using the system because, according to this government, those families don't deserve any extra help. Well, Labor thinks 97 per cent of families using the childcare system need extra help. That's what the election of a Labor government will do; we'll provide cheaper child care right across this country to 97 per cent of families using the system. For real change at the next election, vote Labor.
Not likely! Thank you to those opposite for bringing this matter forward. The cost of living is critically important to everyone across Australia, and we're delighted to be talking about it. Unfortunately, this motion lacks context. It's a broader problem with MPIs; the need to keep things pithy and one sentence provides little space for exposition. But, in this, as in everything, context is key. The last few years have been tough—very tough. While the pandemic started as a health crisis, it has rapidly spread to be an economic one. Economies have been hit either way, and movement restrictions, initially, had the same detrimental effect on spending, which led to chaos in the countries who let this virus rip. But the last two years have also shown us that, by taking the pandemic seriously, locking down our borders and using public health initiatives from mask mandates to lockdowns, we have kept disruption to a minimum.
Each time we come out of lockdown, we spend like sailors on shore leave. A quick look at the economic data shows that, for every dip during a lockdown, there is huge growth that follows. That is the story of today's national account figures: there is certainly a dip, but the strong expectation is that the next quarter will see large amounts of growth. As the Treasurer reminded us today, the economy is recovering strongly, and this is particularly clear to see in the labour markets. Those who were working at the end of the last century will remember the high levels of unemployment during the last recessions, in the eighties and the nineties. These have been avoided this time thanks to a huge amount of investment and support from the federal government. Our payments—JobSaver, JobSeeker and more—have kept our unemployment low and supported thousands of Australians when they have needed their government to step up. Since the start of September, 350,000 jobs have come back, and job ads are more than 30 per cent higher than they were at the start of the pandemic. The RBA is forecasting the unemployment rate to fall below five per cent and to be sustainably in the fours, for only the second time in more than 50 years. When unemployment falls, wages rise.
The other function of real wages is inflation. In the June quarter last year, we saw the largest fall in inflation since the 1960s as a result of our COVID-19 response. This saw real wages growth of 2.1 per cent over the year to the June quarter of 2020, which is the highest in over a decade. Inflation has now rebounded from the record fall in CPI inflation in the June quarter of 2020. Once this has flowed through, real wages are forecast to increase.
Today, real wages are in line with pre-pandemic levels. We have faced the greatest economic shock since the Great Depression and come away with optimism, low unemployment and big spending. Real wage levels demonstrate that we have been able to recoup the losses of the pandemic, and on these foundations we will now grow. In the Statement on Monetary Policy released on 4 November 2021, the RBA upgraded their forecast for wages growth, reflecting the upgrade to labour market forecasts. The RBA expects wages growth to pick up to above two per cent by the end of 2021 before accelerating to around three per cent by the end of 2023, the fastest pace in almost a decade. The RBA governor said on 16 November:
Wages growth is expected to pick up … In terms of the specifics, our central forecast is for the Wage Price Index to increase by 2½ per cent over 2022 and 3 per cent over 2023 …
No-one is pretending that the economy has been stellar over the past two years. Of course it hasn't. The pandemic has ensured this in Australia and globally. But I am certain that Australia will see new growth as we leave this pandemic behind, and this growth has been driven by decisions on this side of the House. Our economic stewardship has kept Australia in work and supported, and with these foundations our future looks bright.
The worst of COVID is hopefully now behind us, but what it's left in its wake is another crisis: a housing crisis. It's harder to buy a house today than ever before. The cost of buying a house has skyrocketed in the last 12 months. It is up 20 per cent right across the country. It's the same story with rent. It's harder to rent today in many parts of the country than ever before. The big jump in the cost of petrol has already been mentioned in this debate. Petrol is now costing the average family 900 bucks a year more than it did last year. That's a massive jump, but it pales in comparison with what's happening with rent.
Just think about this for a minute: in Cairns, up in Queensland, the average rent is 2,000 bucks more this year than it was last year.
In Burnie, down in Tasmania, the average rent is now $2½ thousand more than it was this time last year. In North Nowra—not far from here, on the coast—it's gone up by $2,800 a year. In Launceston, back in Tasmania, it's three grand more than it was this time last year. On the Central Coast of New South Wales the average rent is $3,600 more this year than it was last year. Not far from here, in Yass, it's 4½ grand more, and up in Darwin it's now 6½ grand more than it was last year.
It's the people living in places like this who will determine who sits in the Prime Minister's chair after the next election. But it's not just them. This is happening almost everywhere, right across the country. This is the biggest bill that millions of Aussies pay every week, and it's going through the roof.
When rent goes up but wages don't there are real-life consequences. Here's just one example, Mr Deputy Speaker. This is a photograph from the Cairns Post, from a story from a couple of months ago. What it shows is a mum, a dad, a 13-year-old daughter and their dog sitting in the boot of their car on the edge of the Captain Cook Highway with a sign that says:
WANTED
2 BED
RENTAL
SML FAM
+ DOG
Then it has their mobile phone number. That shows you just how desperate and dire things are. These aren't backpackers looking to hitchhike up and down the coast. This is a family trying to find an affordable place to rent.
Here's another story, from Lake Macquarie, about a bloke who hired a car to sleep in. How in the hell does that happen? He hired a car to sleep in because he couldn't find an affordable place to rent. Here's another story from the Newcastle Herald about a young woman named Chloe. She's 24. She's a nurse at a local hospital. She's sleeping in her car as well. Up the Pacific Highway, in Coffs Harbour, I heard a story about a place that was up for rent where 50 people turned up to have a look. The person who eventually got the property had to pay the rent 12 months in advance, but that's not the worst part—she took out a personal loan just to do it.
Further up the highway, at Byron Bay, there's not even a women's and children's refuge. I was told in Byron Bay that the local police commander reckons there are 400 women and kids sleeping in cars around the town. The charities in these places tell me that they're now seeing as many as three times the number of people coming in for help that they saw this time last year.
When we ask questions about this in parliament, the Prime Minister tells us that there isn't a problem. How out of touch is this Prime Minister! He needs to get out of the Lodge and get into the real world. He needs to visit his own electorate, where rents are, on average, up by $3,800 a year.
On top of that, we've got a homelessness minister, who's at the table at the moment, who's been the minister now for almost a year—for 344 days, to be exact—and has only even said the word 'homelessness' on eight of those days. He's spent more days running away from 60 Minutes cameras than he has even saying the word 'homelessness'. We need action here, and we need it now.
On the last speaker's notes: all of those stories are horrendous. They're well and truly noted, but there is nothing that this government has done, in relation to its policies, that has driven any one of those people out of their accommodation and forced them to live in their cars.
The concept of housing that is now seeing prices go through the roof is, purely and simply, a matter of the cost of money in Australia, which has never been this cheap. Australians everywhere are taking advantage of it and trying to get into the market. The market is heated beyond belief. However, this is not because of government policy; it is simply the fact that, through these last two years, we have had record-low interest rates. Money is at its cheapest rate ever, and therefore people are taking this incredible opportunity and they're putting themselves in incredible debt.
A throwback of that is that there is a very diminishing pool of rental houses available.
To throw that into this area here, where that somehow or other this is because of government policy—it's just not true. What this government has done is really give Australians an opportunity to make sure that they can secure the job they want. That's what our policies are doing—driving the private sector, which employs 90 per cent of all Australians. If we as a government can get the private sector to grow, we'll continue to create the pool and the demand for workers, for labour, that we've currently been able to achieve—a 5.2 per cent unemployment rate. We've got to be proud of that.
In my electorate—and I'm sure it's happening in everyone else's electorate—workers are harder to get. Job vacancies are everywhere. Workers are hard to get. Workers now hold the upper hand. Every cafe, every hospitality area, is hiring. Jobs are available. In agriculture jobs are on the land. In mechanics, diesel mechanics, jobs are available. The work that we are doing to try and encourage apprentices into apprenticeships has been incredibly successful. But we've got a lot to do, because at the moment there are so many trades that are finding it very difficult to find apprentices that want to come in. Australians, for whatever reason, do not really want to take on many of the jobs which previously we've been very proud to take.
For painters and decorators there are huge vacancies, as well as in plastering, tiling, roof tiling and plumbing. You look at a whole raft of trades about which you'd normally be incredibly proud to say, 'That is what I do as a profession,' and right at the moment there's a genuine shortage. At the moment, it's looking like the only opportunity we have to fill those shortages so that our Australian businesses can continue to work in a profitable manner, to work in a productive manner, to meet the demands they have with their contracts, is to look at overseas workers. We need to be able to do this. Stopping overseas workers coming in to pick up some of these trades and some of these jobs will penalise the Australian businesses that need them. We wish there was an Australian pool that we could call on to come and do these jobs. We wish there was a whole range of apprentices knocking down the doors of these trades, wanting to get a job, but the reality is they're just not there.
What we're doing is trying to invest in the TAFE systems, trying to encourage a greater relationship between the TAFE colleges and industry so that they're offering the courses that are most relevant in each of the respective areas. This is something that we are very cognisant of—that our TAFEs need a great relationship with industry so that they're offering the most pertinent courses.
But right now we understand it's the private sector that creates jobs for our people. More vacancies create high demand for our workers. As that demand for our workers goes up, wages go up. That is something that we're very aware of. We understand that, if we can keep that unemployment rate down, we will be pushing the wages rates up. (Time expired)
Mark it down: Wednesday 1 December 2021 is the day that the dream of homeownership died under the member for Nicholls's way of thinking. The member for Nicholls has just said that money has never been cheaper. It's never been easier to get a loan. Well, let me tell you, if you're a casual worker in Australia, it is nigh impossible not only to get a loan, to get a mortgage, but also to get a rental property. That's aside from the fact that the market is hot. We've just heard today from the shadow minister for homelessness about newspaper articles on real people here in Australia, in 2021, sitting in the boot of their car. We heard about a family looking for a home and a nurse who had to live in her car.
This is not the stuff of fiction; these are real Australians today, trying to find a home in Australia.
Then the member for Nicholls says the apprentices aren't there! Ha! After eight years of absolutely hacking into vocational education and training and letting all of the rorts and rip-offs happen, no wonder the apprentices aren't there. This economy has been honeycombed, absolutely hollowed out, by a stale, tired government that quite frankly doesn't want to be here. They're a do-nothing government. This government proclaim that they want to get out of people's way, but they knife each other day in, day out to get to this place, and then when they're here they rort and they re-route the public purse for their own disposal. So no wonder Australians think that they are on the nose.
This government has failed to increase real wages and the price of living, and the cost of living has gone up. Mince today is $13 per kilo. That's not for your lean, heart-smart mince. No, that'll set you back between $18 and $23 a kilo! That's regular mince. An iceberg lettuce costs somewhere between $2.50 and $5. These are the real things that people buy every day. That's the real cost of living.
The price of a mortgage, the price of paying rent—these are some of the biggest investments in someone's pay packet, and they are going up while real wages are going down, and across the country we have seen this like never before during this pandemic. Those opposite try and use the pandemic as a life raft to try and avoid the sinking ship that has been nearly a decade of this stagnant coalition government, now led by this leader. Many people when they talk to me in the shops—when they are buying their mince and their lettuce—say, 'Gee, Meryl, I think this is all on the nose.' Well, it well and truly it is.
Let me tell you, after eight long years, those opposite have lost the answer. In my electorate, the people of Paterson are fed up. They've watched this government fail to increase wages, watched this government fail to back in penalty rates, watched them fail to invest in trades training and training for professionals we so desperately need.
The rising cost of living is leaving a generation of first-home buyers out in the cold. The Australian dream of home ownership is well and truly dead. And in my electorate I have people waiting three to six months to be able to secure a rental property. Even then, the rents are so outlandishly high that the household budget is shredded by it.
I have been very vocal in this place about Labor's plan to ensure same job, same pay, and I was so proud to be able to second Anthony Albanese's bill for that same measure: same job, same pay.
I want to say to you that this government has failed. People of the Hunter: you have been ripped off by your government. You have been rightly confused when Senator Malcolm Roberts, who parades around the Hunter and says he backs workers in, votes with this government at every given opportunity. Let me tell you, One Nation might make a decent cartoon, but they run roughshod over the people of Paterson, hand in glove with this government. So do not believe them when they tell you they stick up for you as well. They do not stick up for you. Labor stands for same job, same pay, and we will do that every day for you as a hardworking Australian. This government has abandoned the hardworking Australians.
Australia, undoubtedly, in the face of a tough couple of years, has one of the most outstanding economies in the world, which is currently just 0.2 per cent smaller than it was in December 2019, in the prepandemic stage. And, of the advanced economies of the world, we are bettered only by the US and France in that growth rate. I might point out at this stage that the reason that the going has been tough has been the COVID virus. In the US they've had 800,000 deaths, and in France they've had 119,000.
In Australia, we've had 2,000. I'm quite content to sit at number 3 on that growth rate if that's what it means.
This has been an economic miracle built on the foundations of our performance in combating COVID-19, and we have one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world, currently at about 87 per cent fully vaccinated. I might point out that over 99 per cent of the over-60s in Australia are now fully vaccinated. That is a remarkable achievement, and it's been achieved despite the political attacks on the government and, lamentably, on the quality of the vaccines throughout the vaccination program. Remember the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, virtually barring Vaxzevria—that is, the AstraZeneca vaccine—from Queensland, throwing red meat to the anti-vaxxers and seeking to destroy public confidence in a perfectly good vaccine that has saved millions of lives worldwide. By Labor's assessment, the national vaccine program was late, it was bungled, it was botched et cetera. Guess what? It was delivered on time. The Prime Minister nominated the end of October, back in December 2020, as the time that the vaccination program would be complete. Here we are today on 1 December, and we, by any calculation, are at the complete stage. We may have missed it by a couple of weeks, but it's been delivered on time, and the management of the pandemic, compared with the OECD average, has saved 30,000 lives in Australia. Compared ourselves with the US and the UK, it's estimated, we've saved 45,000 lives.
So today's result on the national accounts for the September quarter, showing a 1.8 per cent reduction in GDP, is hardly a surprise as it came from the time when our two major states—over half the population of Australia—were in lockdown because of the delta outbreak. The Australian economy is not a basket case. It is a miracle, and we should all be proud of it because, while wages growth is important, having a job, keeping a job and being able to get a job are far more important. In Grey, I can tell you we have vacancies from one end of the electorate to the other. We are screaming out for workers, so if anyone's out there wanting a job I suggest they come and visit us. As sure as night follows day, where you have tightness in the labour market it will lead to higher wages.
Unemployment is currently at 5.2 per cent in Australia, which is slightly up, by 0.6 per cent, from the previous assessment, but it is on the back of those lockdowns. We already know that this lift in unemployment and the drop-off in the GDP is a blip, as all the economic indicators are already pointing up. It was a mistake of the Labor Rudd-Gillard years—and they made plenty of mistakes, I might point out—that they were so focused on 'short-termism', and here they are again responding to every ripple in the road, if you like, and trying to generate a headline a day about the short-term response, when they really ought to be focused on the long term. That's how you get policies like pink batts and cash for clunkers, for instance. How do we know this is a blip? Because we already have the information that tells us it is a blip, that 350,000 jobs have already been created since September, that we've seen a 4.9 per cent lift in retail spending and that $100 million has been invested in the non-mining sector, with accelerated tax write-offs and whatever has generated that investment.
So, after the predictions of the member for Rankin, for instance, when JobKeeper was going to finish and he said hundreds of thousands were going to be thrown out of work, what we found out was no-one was thrown out of work and the jobless rate continues to decline. As it does, wages will increase.
The time allotted for this discussion has concluded.
I move:
That amendments (1) to (6) be agreed to.
I want to speak in support of the motion that's just been moved by the Leader of the House. And I want to make clear that what the Leader of the House has just moved is the opposite of what the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts has been arguing all day today and for some time. The bill that's in front of us does a very good thing at the government's initiative, and that is to change the screen producer offset from 20 per cent to 30 per cent for TV production. There is a really good reason why the government came forward with that. Years ago, it would have been the case that the cost per minute of feature film production was way in excess of the cost per minute of producing something for TV. That has changed fundamentally, and now, as we all know from the different shows we've binged on from time to time, the cost of producing television is way in excess of what it used to be. That part of the bill has always been supported by both sides of the House.
The minister for communications had also included some measures that were effectively a tax on small businesses operating within the film sector. That was to change the threshold from half a million dollars to a million dollars for postproduction, effectively for documentary. It was having an impact of composers. It would have meant that, if you were in charge of a very large production, this bill was very good to you, but, if you were a smaller player, you were going to take a hit with small-business tax.
When Labor moved these amendments in the Senate with the support of all the crossbench—including the Greens party, and I acknowledge the leader of the party here now—it didn't even go to a division. But immediately after, the minister was in contact with one film production company after the other, saying, 'You need to stop Labor from doing this.' He put out on Twitter:
Labor's political games are putting the Australian screen production sector at risk.
I call on Labor to provide certainty to Australian businesses and pass our bill as it stands.
The position the minister was saying was putting everything at risk, he's now adopted and the government has now adopted.
I won't detain the House further, because what we have now is a really good outcome for the screen sector, a really good outcome for jobs, a really good outcome for Australian stories being told. I want to thank the Leader of the House for moving the motion and note we could have got here so much earlier had the minister for communications not been determined to look after larger productions and have small businesses take a hit.
BANDT (—) (): The Greens support this motion and support these amendments. By standing up to the government, the parliament has just helped save the Australian screen sector and save Australian stories. These are very, very important amendments that the House is now agreeing to, and it shows the critical importance of having a range of voices in this parliament able to hold the government to account.
As the member for Melbourne, as the former arts spokesperson for the Greens, and now as the leader, can I say that one of the ways that we will recover from the pandemic is by growing jobs, growing businesses, growing industries in Australia. That includes the screen sector, and it includes the postproduction sector. We will do that by government getting behind them, not cutting their support.
The government wanted to cut the support that was being given to small production and postproduction companies, effectively targeting documentaries. That would have meant it would be very, very difficult to tell our own stories to ourselves as a country here in Australia. This sector is very reliant on getting the same kind of support that is handed out to the bigger end, but the government wanted to attack the smaller end of the sector. The parliament took the government on, held them to account and said no, and today the parliament has won.
I want to acknowledge the amendments that were moved by the opposition, which the Greens supported. The Greens had similar amendments which we would have moved, but we supported the opposition's amendments. I acknowledge in particular the work of Senator Hanson-Young, who has taken up the fight for the screen sector, the production sector and the postproduction sector in this country and is a big part of the reason that we have now helped save the Australian screen sector and our ability to tell our own stories. This will make a big difference. It will make a huge difference to our culture. It will make a big difference to jobs and to the economic recovery, including in places like Melbourne. It happened because we have a Senate and a parliament that aren't just dominated by the government but have voices that are prepared to hold them to account. When you take the government on, you can win, and today the parliament has had a big win. I support the motion.
Question agreed to.
I understand that it's the wish of the House to consider the amendments together.
I move:
That the amendments be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That business intervening before order of the day No. 5, government business, be postponed until a later hour this day.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Minister for Health and Aged Care, I thank everybody who has contributed to this debate. The bill has been named in honour of Maeve Hood and the tireless work of her family to raise awareness and build support for those people in our community suffering from mitochondrial disease. It's been named the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021. Maeve is a young child who suffers from a type of severe mitochondrial disease, meaning that she can't talk and she can't walk independently. Mr Deputy Speaker, with your leave, I might invite the health minister to continue the summing-up speech.
Leave granted.
Free votes are a rare thing in this House. During the course of this debate there have been fine speeches of high intent from those who will vote for the bill, those who will vote against the bill and those who may choose to abstain. Whether it's been the member for Hindmarsh, the work of the member for McMahon, who began this journey with me some years ago, the words of the member for Robertson or those of the member for Mayo, whose speech was truly beautiful and agonising at the same time with the story of her grandson, or whether it's been the member for Menzies, who will take a different position to myself and others, this has been the parliament at its absolute finest.
This bill has been named in honour of Maeve Hood and the tireless work of her family to raise awareness and build support for those people in our community who are suffering from mitochondrial disease. It's been named the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021 as a consequence.
Maeve is a young child who suffers from a type of severe mitochondrial disease, which means that she can't talk and she can't walk independently. It also means, heartbreakingly, that she may not see an adult future, and that time may come earlier. Despite these incredible challenges, she is a fiercely loved family member—a little sister, a daughter, a niece and a grand-daughter. Her family describe her as the most beautiful and sensitive little girl. However, even with the challenges they face, Maeve's parents, Sarah and Joel, are paving the way for other families to avoid their heartache and to have a biological child who does not suffer the debilitating effect of this disease. This is what Maeve's law is designed to do, and this is what Maeve's law, if passed, will help achieve.
Maeve's law will create this pathway through amendments to the Prohibition of Human Cloning for Reproduction Act 2002 and the Research Involving Human Embryos Act 2002. These amendments will harness new assisted reproductive technologies that will provide parents with the option to have their own biological child while minimising the risk of transmission of mitochondrial disease, a disease that can be agonising, be debilitating and lead to children losing their lives at a young age. These technologies fall under the umbrella of 'mitochondrial donation', a term that encompasses IVF based assisted-reproductive technology. With the help of a donor it minimises the risk of a mother passing mitochondrial disease onto her child. It is new and it is complex, but it is not untested. Under stage 1, mitochondrial donation will be legislated for lab-based research and training purposes. This will be followed by allowing some families to access the technique as part of a trial at one carefully selected licensed and Commonwealth funded clinic. Making this technology more readily available in a range of clinical settings within stage 2 will be subject to a separate decision of government. This decision will be informed by the success of stage 1, expert opinion and community consultation.
In developing Maeve's law we have looked to the experience of the United Kingdom, where mitochondrial donation was legalised in 2015. We've also had close regard to the outcomes of the 2018 inquiry by the Senate Community Affairs References Committee and to consultations undertaken by the National Health and Medical Research Council over 2019 and 2020. The development of this bill has been informed by the government's direct consultations. We have engaged extensively with experts, scientists, clinicians and researchers, members of the community more broadly, advocacy groups, our state and territory counterparts and, fundamentally, families such as that of Sarah and Joel Hood. In particular, we have worked with the opposition and the crossbench. I thank especially, at a personal level and within the context of the parliament operating I think in its finest way, the member for McMahon for his support right from the outset to see this bill through in a way which would give it its best chance for success—and his work has been carried on by the member for Hindmarsh.
Collectively, this input of government, opposition and crossbench—the member for Mayo has been such a strong and passionate advocate, and the member for Higgins has been a fine champion of this bill—and this input of the parliament, expertise and direct experience has shaped the introduction of this technology through a careful two-stage process. I acknowledge and respect that not all members of the community and this parliament are comfortable with the use of this technology, and that is why a free vote, a conscience vote, a rarely drawn upon collective mechanism, is being used on this bill and has been allowed by both the major parties.
While this government is committed to providing families with access to this technology, it is also committed to ensuring it is delivered safely and effectively every step of the way whilst respecting the space and scope for difference of opinion. For this reason, Maeve's Law has in-built protections and safeguards. The bill provides for five different types of licences, with corresponding steps in stages 1 and 2. Each of these licences will require an application to the NHMRC, which, after careful vetting, will then closely monitor the activities of that specialised clinic.
In honouring Maeve, the bill offers hope. It offers hope to those parents who wish to avoid the possibility of passing on severe mitochondrial disease to their biological children—a disease that leaves one baby born each week with disabling suffering and with a life that will likely be cut short at five to, potentially, 10 years at most. It offers hope in the same way that IVF has now led to 15,000 children being born in Australia. There wouldn't be a person in this chamber who has not been touched by the gift that is IVF in one way, shape or form. This is the evolution of IVF. Maeve's Law will help bring the suffering to an end. It will provide the pathway that gives parents the opportunity to have biological children who are free from severe mitochondrial disease and gives children the best possible start in life.
I wish to thank key stakeholders, as I have done. I particularly want to thank the Mito Foundation and all those involved—Sean and Catherine—and the many, many families who have made representations to parliamentary representatives, whether in the House or in the Senate. I thank everybody for their contribution. I also thank all members who have spoken and all members who have sought information in their deliberations and during the debate on this bill. I particularly thank the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills for their review and their concerns—and I note that their concerns are addressed in the addendum to the explanatory memorandum, and I note that we have replaced figure 1 on page 67 to provide more clarity. I now table the addendum to the explanatory memorandum.
I thank everybody, but above all else I thank all those families who have helped bring this parliament to this moment. I respect the views of all, but, ultimately, my hope and my belief is that this House will see fit to pass this bill to give hope to Maeve's parents and to give hope to all parents. I commend the bill to the House.
The question is that this bill be now read a second time.
A division having been called and the bells being rung—
Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to cancel the division.
Leave granted.
The division is cancelled. The question is that the bill be now read a second time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum. I seek leave to move government amendments (1) to (16) on sheet QJ138 and government amendment (17) on sheet QJ149 as circulated together.
Leave granted.
I move:
(1) Schedule 1, item 10, page 6 (line 4), after "from", insert "a human egg of".
(2) Schedule 1, item 17, page 18 (lines 14 to 19), omit paragraph 28J(2)(a), substitute:
(a) that appropriate protocols are in place to enable proper consent to be obtained before any of the following activities are carried out under the licence (see paragraph 28N(1A)(a)):
(i) an excess ART embryo, a human egg or a human sperm is used;
(ii) a human zygote or a human embryo (other than an excess ART embryo) is created or used;
(iii) any material not covered by subparagraph (i) or (ii) of this paragraph is created, developed, produced or used;
(aa) that appropriate protocols are in place to enable compliance with any restrictions on such consent;
(3) Schedule 1, item 17, page 21 (lines 22 to 29), omit subsection 28N(1), substitute:
(1) A mitochondrial donation licence is subject to the condition that the requirements of subsection (1A) are met before any of the following activities are carried out as authorised by the licence:
(a) an excess ART embryo, a human egg or a human sperm is used;
(b) a zygote or a human embryo (other than an excess ART embryo) is created or used;
(c) any material not covered by paragraph (a) or (b) of this subsection is created, developed, produced or used.
(1A) The requirements are as follows:
(a) each responsible person in relation to the material referred to in paragraph (1)(a), (b) or (c) must have given proper consent to the carrying out of the activity;
(b) the licence holder must have reported in writing to the NHMRC Licensing Committee that such consent has been obtained, and any restrictions to which the consent is subject.
(4) Schedule 1, item 17, page 21 (line 32), omit "(1)(b)", substitute "(1A)(b)".
(5) Schedule 1, item 17, page 22 (lines 3 to 6), omit subsection 28N(3), substitute:
(3) A mitochondrial donation licence is subject to the condition that the carrying out of an activity referred to in paragraph (1)(a), (b) or (c) must be in accordance with any restrictions to which the proper consent under paragraph (1A)(a) is subject.
(6) Schedule 1, item 17, page 23 (lines 7 and 8), omit "the use of a human egg or a human sperm", substitute "the carrying out of an activity referred to in paragraph (1)(a), (b) or (c)".
(7) Schedule 1, item 17, page 23 (lines 16 to 18), omit the definition of responsible person in subsection 28N(8), substitute:
responsible person, in relation to material mentioned in an item of the following table, means a person mentioned in column 2 of the item.
(8) Schedule 1, item 17, page 25 (after line 6), after subclause 28P(5), insert:
(5A) Without limiting section 15, the NHMRC Licensing Committee may also request, and have regard to, advice from any person having appropriate expertise.
(9) Schedule 1, item 17, page 26 (line 33), omit "28N(1)(a)", substitute "28N(1A)(a)".
(10) Schedule 1, item 17, page 27 (line 11), after "from", insert "a human egg of".
(11) Schedule 1, item 17, page 28 (after line 13), after subclause 28R(6), insert:
(6A) A person who is or was the holder of a clinical trial licence or a clinical practice licence must take reasonable steps to ensure that information the person collects as required by subsection (1) or (3) is not disclosed to another person except for the purpose of complying with this Act.
(6B) A person who is or was any of the following must not disclose information collected as required by subsection (1) or (3) to another person except for the purpose of complying with this Act:
(a) the holder of a clinical trial licence or a clinical practice licence;
(b) an embryologist specified in such a licence;
(c) a person authorised by such a licence to carry out an activity authorised by the licence.
(6C) Subsections (6A) and (6B) apply despite a law of a State. However, those subsections do not prevent a person from disclosing information to a Registrar of births, deaths and marriages (however described) of a State in accordance with a law of that State relating to the notification or registration of births.
Note: A defendant bears an evidential burden in relation to the matter in this subsection (see subsection 13.3(3) of the Criminal Code).
(12) Schedule 1, item 17, page 28 (line 14), omit "and (6)", substitute ", (6), (6A) and (6B)".
(13) Schedule 1, item 17, page 28 (line 16), omit "the person", substitute "the person who is or was the holder of the licence".
(14) Schedule 1, item 17, page 28 (line 20), omit "or (6)", substitute ", (6), (6A) or (6B)".
(15) Schedule 1, page 45 (after line 9), after item 55, insert:
55A At the end of section 19
Add:
(4) A report under this section must not include information about any of the following matters unless the NHMRC Licensing Committee considers that the information does not identify, and is not reasonably capable of being used to identify, any person:
(a) approvals under subsection 28P(3) (including applications for such approvals and the outcomes of those applications);
(b) births of children as a result of pregnancies achieved using a mitochondrial donation technique under a clinical trial licence or a clinical practice licence;
(c) adverse events notified to the NHMRC Licensing Committee under paragraph 28S(3)(a).
(16) Schedule 1, item 103, page 55 (table item 2, column headed "Protected persons"), after "28J(4)", insert "or 28P(5A)".
(17) Schedule 1, item 17, page 26 (lines 11 to 17), omit paragraph 28Q(1)(d), substitute:
(d) that a human embryo created for a woman using the technique is not selected for implantation in that woman on the basis of the sex of the embryo.
The proposed government amendments will (1) clarify that donated mitochondria must be sourced from human eggs; (2) expand and clarify the circumstances for proper consent before mitochondrial donation treatment; (3) clarify the circumstances in which the Embryo Research Licensing Committee of the NHMRC is able to seek expert advice when performing its statutory functions; (4) enhance mitochondrial donor privacy by clarifying the operation of provisions that deal with the mitochondrial donation donor register; (5) further enhance privacy by ensuring that the Embryo Research Licensing Committee's statutory report to parliament cannot disclose identifiable personal information; and (6) address an issue raised by the recent review of the bill by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee that relates to sex selection of embryos by providing that embryos created using mitochondrial donation techniques cannot be selected for implantation on the basis of their sex.
I thank all members of the House from the government, the opposition and the crossbench, those opposed to the bill and those supportive of the bill. I believe we have been able to strike an agreement on these measures which I understand are not controversial. I particularly thank the member for Menzies for his support and the member for Hindmarsh, the member for McMahon and the member for Mayo for their support. These clarify the bill and, I believe, address the concerns of those who may not ultimately vote for it, but I hope these amendments will find the support of all members of the House.
I rise to speak to these amendments to the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021, or, as we now know it, Maeve's law. As this is a conscience vote, I rise to speak not as a shadow assistant minister but as an individual MP. Before I go to the amendments, I would like to acknowledge every member of the House who has expressed their views in this chamber with respect and passion. It has been an honour to bear witness to this considered debate on an issue that raises age-old tensions between the advancements of technology and deeply seated faith based beliefs. I thank the community members, faith leaders, researchers and, of course, the mito community and the Mito Foundation in particular for all their hard work and consultation. And, of course, we acknowledge and thank Maeve's family.
To all the members of the commissions and parliamentary inquiries, I say thank you, especially to the member for Macarthur for taking the time to sit with me and go over this with long explanations and discussions. I pay tribute to the hard work of the minister in bringing this important bill to this House and the enormous amount of work that he has done. I pay tribute to past shadow health ministers, especially the member for McMahon, who has worked on this bill over the years. But in particular I would like to acknowledge the member for Hindmarsh, the shadow minister for health, who has shown great sensitivity and stewardship of this bill through our own party processes in this last leg of the bill's evolution. On speaking to these amendments, he has offered me very wise counsel, and I am pleased to say that we are absolutely on the same page in supporting these amendments. I thank him for his patience and clarity in explaining them not only to me but to all of the Labor MPs who sought his advice.
The amendments will do a number of important things. They will clarify that donated mitochondria must be sourced from human eggs. This was already a feature of the bill but, due to its importance, the amendments put it beyond doubt. They expand and clarify the circumstances in which proper consent is needed before mitochondrial donation techniques are used. They clarify the circumstances in which the Embryo Research Licensing Committee of the NHMRC is able to seek expert advice when performing its statutory functions. They enhance mitochondrial donor privacy by clarifying the operation of provisions that deal with the mitochondrial donation donor registry. They further enhance privacy by ensuring that the Embryo Research Licensing Committee statutory report to parliament can't disclose identifiable personal information. Finally, they address an issue raised by the recent review of the bill by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee that relates to sex selection of embryos by providing that embryos created using the mitochondrial donation techniques cannot be selected for implantation on the basis of their sex.
This last point is a late addition to the amendments that is worthy of a little more explanation. The review of the bill by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, which delivered its report in August 2021, recommended that additional clarification or an amendment may be appropriate in relation to embryo sex selection. In particular, the committee questioned whether the provision of the bill that would enable a woman the option of selecting the sex of embryos is necessary and appropriate. This is especially the case as the inclusion of sex selection requires additional manipulation of embryos and can create additional risk to their viability. The government amendments omit this sex selection condition and insert a new licence condition in its place, meaning the selection of an embryo cannot be on the basis of sex.
On the basis of in-depth discussion with the member for Hindmarsh and other stakeholders in the mito community, it is clear that these amendments do not impinge on the purpose and promise of this bill. Therefore, I will be supporting them.
In conclusion, both the member for Hindmarsh and I support these amendments and this bill because, as the member for Hindmarsh said in his speech on the second reading:
… for all of the technical and ethical issues that this bill raises for members, ultimately these pieces of legislation are about people. They're about patients. In this case, they're about very young children and their parents, grandparents and wider families.
I support these amendments.
I don't think there's anyone here who has looked seriously at the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021 who hasn't spent a lot of time agonising over it. For some 76 years, every single educational institution in Australia has put Aldous Huxley's Brave New World on the reading list. Brave New World is about cloning and selling cells. When we had the cell debate here previously, the late Peter Andren—a person respected, I think, by every person in this House for his integrity and his intelligence, who was a very strong atheist or agnostic—and Tony Windsor voted 23 times against cell research. I was surprised because both of them were very antireligion, and it was looked at as sort of a religious issue. I quote Peter Andren. He said, 'I just cannot look forward to a society in which human beings are bought and sold on the shelves of Woolworths and Coles.'
I think, at the end of the day, that's a pretty good call. Educators in this country have left that book on the reading list, and have been determined that that book is on the reading list, for over 75 years. A lot of scientists, with all due respect to them, get carried away and start playing God, and this really is in that sort of pavilion. So I will be opposing the bill. The late and great Peter Andren, I think, gave a great example.
I commend the government on the amendments it's bringing forward this afternoon to the Mitochondrial Donation Law Reform (Maeve's Law) Bill 2021. As many members will know, including the few that were in the House at about 9 o'clock last night when I spoke on the second reading speech, I have serious reservations about four areas of this bill. Two of those areas of reservation are now being addressed by the amendments which the government is bringing forward. In particular, government amendment (15), which relates to reporting, puts in place a proper system of reporting, which was absent in the original bill. I will not be proceeding with my amendment to enhance reporting because that's being done by what the government has brought forward in these amendments.
More significantly, government amendment (17), which goes to the issue of sex selection, was the reverse in the bill. Indeed, section 28Q of the bill originally before the parliament provided that sex selection could occur under the techniques provided for in this bill. That, I believe, for many people, is a novel step too far. It's unnecessary for the operation of these techniques if they are proven to be safe and efficacious in the future. That was why I was proposing an amendment that would have banned, or removed from the bill, the ability to actually sex select.
As the government has now brought forward this amendment, which will have the same effect as the one I have circulated to honourable members, I indicate to members in the chamber that I will not be proceeding with that particular amendment. Once again, I commend the government on doing so in relation to both this and to much more adequate record keeping and reporting to the parliament on what's proposed to happen under this research.
Question agreed to.
I move to the other two areas of reservation which have not been covered in the government's amendments to the bill. I move my amendment (2):
(2) Schedule 1, page 6 (after line 36), after item 10, insert:
10A At the end of Division 1 of Part 2
Add:
9A Minimum data required before clinical practice stage
Before the Governor-General makes regulations declaring a mitochondrial donation technique for the purposes of the definition of permitted technique in section 8, the Minister must be satisfied that there is sufficient clinical evidence that the technique has been used on 5 trial participants.
I will come to the others as a batch if I have leave of the House. What amendment (2) does is very simple. It inserts a further basic safeguard into the bill, namely that before the clinical practice stage—that is, the stage when these techniques would be used in general clinical practice applicable to those who might qualify after the research is undertaken—the minister must be satisfied that there is sufficient evidence that the technique has been used on five trial participants. Now, this is a very small number of participants in a trial in order to then move to the next stage. The amendment doesn't prescribe how the minister must be satisfied. It simply provides further assurance that a small number of trials, namely five, have been undertaken.
Many might argue that five is an insufficient number—'Why shouldn't it be 10, 15, 20 or an even greater number than that?' But I believe that this would add some further assurance that the minister is satisfied, without prescribing how the minister has to be satisfied, that there have been five trials undertaken and that it's okay to move to the clinical-use stage. It provides more assurance about the efficacy and the safeties of the procedures and techniques being utilised. I can't understand why anyone would not vote in favour of putting this safeguard in place. It doesn't do anything to stop the trials continuing. It simply provides a further assurance to the parliament through the minister that, indeed, this is something which has been achieved.
I put that in the context that this research has been undertaken in the UK for some five to six years now. One of the published papers from last year from the scientists involved, who are proponents of the research, was still talking about this being research that may have potential in the future. This is after five or six years of research. It said that questions about the safety and efficacy of the research are still to be determined in terms of their research program they're undertaking. In the context of that, I think this is a small, further assurance so that the parliament and, through this parliament, the people of Australia can be assured that, if this step is taken to go to general clinical application of these techniques sometime in the future, the minister is satisfied.
I could labour the point over point over and over again, but a Federal Court judge once told me that repeating my argument didn't help it, so I will sit down on that note!
The advice provided to my officers and to my office is that, after a very long period of time, there has not been a single life saved. There was a saying in the law when I was associated with the law that 'hard cases make bad law', and we are moving into a very dangerous environment here. I think all of you have read Aldous Huxley. I think you'll want to think twice about what you're doing.
I think you've made your point, Member for Kennedy
I'm not going to repeat myself, but in five or six years not a single life has been saved.
Question negatived.
by leave—I move amendments (7) to (16) together:
(7) Schedule 1, item 19, page 34 (line 4), omit the definition of pronuclear transfer.
(8) Schedule 1, item 19, page 34 (line 5), omit the definition of second polar body transfer.
(9) Schedule 1, item 20, page 34 (line 15), omit paragraph 7A(b).
(10) Schedule 1, item 20, page 34 (line 17), omit "transfer;", substitute "transfer.".
(11) Schedule 1, item 20, page 34 (line 18), omit paragraph 7A(e).
(12) Schedule 1, item 20, page 35 (cell at table item 1, column headed "the permitted techniques are …", paragraph (b)), omit the paragraph.
(13) Schedule 1, item 20, page 35 (cell at table item 1, column headed "the permitted techniques are …", paragraph (e)), omit the paragraph.
(14) Schedule 1, item 20, page 35 (cell at table item 2, column headed "the permitted techniques are …" ), omit the cell, substitute:
maternal spindle transfer
(15) Schedule 1, item 20, page 35 (line 14) to page 36 (line 4), omit section 7D.
(16) Schedule 1, item 20, page 36 (line 29) to page 37 (line 8), omit section 7G.
These amendments go to what I believe is a fundamental area of difference in terms of the ethical consideration of this matter, and I'll put it in this context: there are essentially five techniques which are provided for in this bill, but they can be split into two categories. There's a category of mitochondrial techniques which involve the transfer of material between eggs—namely, the maternal spindle transfer and the geminal vesicle transfer. They don't involve any destruction of an embryo in order to undertake those techniques. There are three other techniques that involve transfer of material between zygotes or embryos—namely, pronuclear transfer, first polar body transfer and second polar body transfer. These three techniques involve, necessarily as part of the undertaking of the procedure, the destruction of a zygote or an embryo.
I note in passing that under the bill only two techniques—namely, maternal spindle transfer and pronuclear transfer—are permitted for the clinical trial licence phase. But one of these techniques—namely, pronuclear transfer—involves the destruction of the zygote or the embryo. Accordingly, these amendments, when taken together, would remove from the bill those techniques or procedures which result in the destruction of the embryo. It would allow mitochondrial research to be undertaken involving the gametes, the egg and the sperm, but it wouldn't involve the destruction of an embryo. For me, that is a line at the end of the day consistent with the view that I took almost 20 years ago when we were discussing stem cell research and cell therapy at that time—that there is a line between techniques which do not involve the destruction of an embryo and the techniques which do involve the destruction of the embryo.
Given the experimental nature of what has been proposed, the absence of any data from the UK, as I referred to earlier, and the lack of any evidence that these techniques will achieve what is proposed, I believe it is entirely reasonable to ban the deliberate destruction of a zygote or an embryo at this stage. Moreover, we're told that this research is probably going to take 10 years or more even at the very basic stage, so, if there is some further evidence that arises from the research over the coming years, then it's entirely appropriate for this parliament to address it again sometime in the future. But I, and I suspect some others in this place, believe that at this stage it's inappropriate to allow techniques to go forward which would involve the destruction, necessarily as part of that technique, of the embryo, and that's why I've moved these particular amendments. Again, I could speak at much greater length, but I suspect that members understand what the position is that I'm putting in relation to these amendments. I commend the amendments to the House.
The member for Kennedy is seeking leave to speak again?
I'm not coming at this from the classical religious point of view that an embryo is life. Probably the greatest man I've ever met in my life was Dr Harvey Sutton, who was an Anglican priest as well as a doctor and a man revered in his lifetime. He said that an embryo was not a life. He was very anti-abortion, but they are two separate issues. So I'm not going at this from a classical religious point of view.
I've been a cattleman all my life, and you line breed, but if you line breed very assiduously you will get some very serious problems. I think most people who read history books know the aristocracy in Europe had dreadful problems because they were inbred.
An honourable member interjecting —
Look, it's a serious matter, and I don't think it requires frivolity. I really don't.
An honourable member interjecting —
The member is laughing. I mean, he seriously thinks it is a funny matter.
My generation watched movies like 'Dr Moreau's island', and they were very, very scary.
The Island of Dr Moreau, yes.
Once you are start playing God, I think that's where we're going here. I really do. I would bring to the attention of the House that, however intelligent you think you are as far as line breeding is concerned, the aristocracy of Europe would provide a very strong argument against that line of thinking. Even though you don't believe that's where you are going here, I think you are going in that direction.
ES (—) (): I want to indicate my support for the amendment. I thank everybody who's participated in this debate. I think it's been held and conducted in a way that brings great credit to this House. I, like many, was very disappointed, at the outset of the whole debate on mitochondrial donation, to be simply advised that we can't get any information about the progress of this research that has been going on since 2015 in the United Kingdom. We're prevented from having any access to that on privacy grounds. That means that we must now start from ground zero in starting to look at all these issues.
It takes me back a little bit. Those of us who were around the House in 2006 will remember that we had the therapeutic cloning legislation being debated here. The big aspect then—and there was a lot of hype, I must say, associated with it—was the demand for embryonic stem cell research. All of these potential benefits were being discussed pretty openly by politicians—that's what we are—and not necessarily by all the researchers, other than those who ran the various research laboratories. Some laboratories specialise in embryonic stem cell research, while others specialise in adult stem cell research. Since 2006, the great gains for humanity have come out of the adult stem cell research. Does that mean we're setting up research facilities just to experiment to see what happens? Surely, if the UK were making progress, there would be something that we would know about it. I know that a lot of our research scientists are getting very excited about these techniques.
The other thing I wanted to say is that what I said about embryos in 2006 is that embryos should be afforded the same respect from the moment of creation, regardless of the method, intention and age. I've got to say that remains my position now, but my position could be internally challenged on my part if it could be shown that there are overwhelming benefits to humanity. Yet there's no information out there, so there's no justification for saying there's an overwhelming benefit to humanity. We're just going to see what happens. To me, it's a bridge too far. I didn't like the media reporting of my views on this. The reporting referred to me as a Catholic, which I am, but I took great pains not to take briefings from the church or from other vested interests, although I must admit I spent a lot of time with Mike Freelander, a good friend of mine, who explained to me a fair bit about it, because he has treated children who had mitochondrial disorders. But I thought: 'This is a conscience vote. This has to be what you really believe.' My personal view, and my strong belief, is that simply conducting research on the basis that you will destroy human embryos in the process is a bridge too far.
I rise to acknowledge my support for these amendments. I've given a speech on this already. I also concur with the views of the previous speaker. I think it's very limiting when people say, 'I don't know what's wrong with your argument, but I'm going to talk about your religion.' I don't think that wins any argument; that just reinforces a previous conceit.
I think the issue is probabilities, possibilities and risks. There is no definite example—in fact, there is no example—of success through this process in the United Kingdom. They've been with it for five years. We all understand the scourges of mitochondrial disease. We absolutely understand it. But there has to be some form of deliberate attachment to success that they've seen, and we haven't seen that.
We are making, I believe, a large ethical step—saying that we will create human life for the sole purpose of destroying it. That is something that crosses a boundary for many of us. It calls on us to deal with the scourge of mitochondrial disease but not in so doing to avail ourselves of any other, further mechanisms of proscribing it. I won't delay the House, but I think it's incredibly important that we understand exactly what we're about to vote on here.
This is probably one of the most difficult speeches I will make in this House because of the import of it. I've got so many conflicted interpretations of why I'm saying this. It's not because I'm in the health portfolio or because I am a Christian and a Catholic. My concern about the technology which this bill will enable is about potentially creating a whole new blended germ line of human life.
As the member for Kennedy outlined, it is amazing technology. The doctor in me, having worked in paediatrics and seen unfortunate kids with these mitochondrial diseases, understands that they are horrible diseases. I understand that. All of us understand that, and we want people not to go through that suffering. But the technology here is still experimental. It is very experimental. There are cells for everything, but your germ line cells go down through generations, so if it goes wrong you might be creating an unintended bad outcome. According to my ethics, which are independent but aligned with Christian thinking, we shouldn't be doing this.
If a family is afflicted by this disease and the mother wants to bear a child, we do have technology where a donor egg can be implanted. But it doesn't involve the destruction of experimental embryos, basically, and it's not going to potentially enable cloning technology of humans to advance, with unintended consequences to the germ line mutation. I support the amendments brought by the member for Menzies, but I won't be supporting the bill.
I want to commend the amendments that have been put to the House. There are many bioethical dilemmas with the bill that is before us. I, for one, have met with a sufferer of this horrific ailment, and I do feel massive sorrow around the fact that I cannot vote for the bill if the bill doesn't have these amendments. It is a serious affliction. I've spoken to this girl at length about that affliction and what it has caused for her life.
I realise right here and now that those people do deserve some form of hope.
There are two bioethical dilemmas, one being the issue of essentially three sets of DNA being in a new human being. I'm willing to put my concerns on that to the side. But where I can't put my concerns to the side is around the destruction of human life. I just do not believe that we can destroy human life to alleviate the suffering, or the potential suffering, of another human life. Knowing that this process, this treatment, hasn't resulted in anything that is successful as yet leads me to say that we probably shouldn't destroy human life.
I do commend the amendments and I hope the amendments are supported, because if the amendments were supported, I would support the bill, and I suspect there might be other people that would support the bill.
Some members might have listened to my speech on this last night. In the course of my speech, I made several observations. Indeed, I referred to a paper that the member for Menzies alluded to only a few moments ago. It's a paper by some researchers at Newcastle University in England that was released only a year ago, which, again, raises serious concerns about this matter. In particular, I am guided by the submission from the Robinson Research Institute in Adelaide. I have visited that institute and I have spoken to the researchers there—not recently, but some time ago. It's a research institute that is associated with the University of Adelaide. It's a research institute that focuses on these very issues, and one that I have considerable confidence in, having visited their facilities and been taken through all of the work that they do.
I quoted a particular passage of their submission to the Senate committee inquiry, which I want to repeat for the benefit of those members who might not have listened to my speech. It says: 'In summary, our primary concerns with the currently proposed mitochondrial donation law reform are that: (1) it allows genome modification in human embryos; and (2) the possibility that children conceived in this manner could have developmental defects because the technology has not been tested and refined to a level appropriate for clinical use. We believe that it is essential to answer the above questions by conducting further research before mitochondrial donation be permitted for use to treat carriers of mitochondrial DNA disease.'
I believe that their concerns are ones based on some of the best researchers we have in this country. In particular, when they talk about developmental defects, that is a matter that concerns me. The technology has not been proven. Indeed, if it had been, I suspect that we would have had some reports coming out of the UK to confirm that. The fact that we haven't raises those concerns. My concerns are not based on ethical, religious reasons or otherwise. They are based on the research, and I've done a fair bit of reading on this, that points me in the direction that says that there are still untested and untried processes involved in all of this. For those reasons, I believe the amendments are quite reasonable and should be supported.
My question just goes to the amendments put forward by the member for Menzies. Am I to understand that, if the amendments put forward in their entirety were to be agreed to, the member for Menzies would be in support of the bill as it stands on the table? I think, if that is the case, I'd be happy to support the amendments.
I rise to make a clarification around a technical point, as a paediatrician and someone who has worked in stem cell research and, in fact, worked for a long time at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, where Professor David Thorburn, who's one of the pre-eminent scientists in the area, works. I have a significant amount of background in this area and have also worked in the area of the ethics of new technology.
We know that throughout history new technology has been something that has benefited Australia and, indeed, the world over and over again. Every time there is new medical technology that has an ethical dimension to it, it comes to places like this parliament to make important decisions. It's probably worth reminding that at each point it's important that the conversation and the debate is had right across the whole spectrum of belief systems, but sometimes there can be some technical things that people are confused about. For example, 40, 50 years ago there were a lot of concerns about organ transplantation and donation. In fact, some faith based communities believed it would create monsters of humans. There were many debates and ethical concerns about whether indeed we would have Frankenstein people as a result, because where is the soul based? Is it based in an organ or in the soul of a person? There have been a lot of changes over many decades. IVF is another example where there has been a change in technology.
When it comes to the question raised by the member for Menzies, the two types of techniques that are being discussed do make a big difference to whether this technology is likely to be successful or not. The PNT, the pronuclear transfer, technology is the one that is leading the way with regard to the technology discoveries that are being talked about. If we were to support the MST, the maternal spindle transfer, technique, that is less likely to be successful. So, if you are to vote for one over the other, then you are more likely to vote against the technology being able to be supported and therefore being successful in the treatment of this condition. I just wanted to make that technical point.
I also want to finally make the point that, as a doctor—and I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker Freelander, will have had this experience—over and over again I find that people will be very clear about their views until they have to face those medical ethical questions themselves. Organ donation is a great example. So often people will say it's incredibly distasteful to think about organ donation for a loved one, but if you ask, 'Would you like to receive an organ donation?' their views can often change.
I'd like to just point out that the member for Mayo made a very wonderful speech last night. I think, for anyone who would like to have a look at it, it's a beautiful speech expressing how it's impacted her family. As a paediatrician—I know you, Mr Deputy Speaker, feel like me about this—I think it's very important we remember that the theories we're talking about here have a direct effect on individuals, and it could be one of us in the room at some point. I'm very supportive of the fact that we're talking about these different techniques, but the technique that we're talking about with the member for Menzies is not the technique that is likely to be successful for this technology going forward.
Very briefly, the analogy with organ donation I think is misplaced. There is no transference in terms of what might happen in the future when an organ is donated in terms of the DNA from that organ, and that is a difference in this regard.
I'm tempted, but I can't comment on that, I'm afraid.
The question is that the amendment be disagreed to.
by leave—As I move this, I note a particular thanks to the Prime Minister for his support through the process and to Kylie Wright from my office for her support through the process. I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
Can I thank the members of this House for the very mature, compassionate, considered and reasoned way in which this House has conducted this debate. I thank the Minister for Health and Aged Care. I thank the shadow minister for health and the previous shadow minister for health, the member for McMahon. I thank all members for their contributions. I thank all members for the respect they have shown to each other's contributions. This is the House at its best, I'm sure we would all agree.
This has been a very difficult issue, I know, for many. Indeed, these issues are difficult for me as a person of faith. But this law, known as Maeve's Law, which we have now passed, is a law to honour Maeve and to understand the challenges faced by Sarah and Joel. It could also have been called Liam's Law. It could also have been called Kara's Law, which is what led me to be the patron of the Mito Foundation. Kara died almost five years ago next year. She died of her 20th stroke. She was a beautiful girl. I knew her very well over many years, and I know that her parents, Craig and Karen, would be very pleased this day.
Karen also has that MELAS mutation. Her son, Braden, has it, and he's now suffering from the condition. His younger sister Samantha also has that gene. I just pray this will give hope to so many Australian families. I do indeed thank the House for the way that they have dealt with this matter.
I support the remarks of the Prime Minister on behalf of the opposition. I also want to pay tribute to the Minister for Health and Aged Care, who has shepherded this through. Regardless of what comes for the minister of health, this is a fitting high point for the minister for health this evening, and he can take due credit.
I also want to thank my own chief of staff, Andrew Garrett, and, on behalf of the member for Hindmarsh, Tomasz Skladzien, for their assistance, and the staff of the minister for health. Some people who opposed this bill pointed out that this has a long way to go before it saves a life. That is right, and that is a legitimate point to make. But the important thing is the House has started the journey today, and there will be lives massively improved and saved, in my view, as a result of the actions taken by the House today. This is the House of Representatives, the people's house, at its very best. I commend the House.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Scullin has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum to the bill, and I move government amendment (1) on sheet SW141:
(1) Schedule 1, items 10 to 12, page 9 (lines 14 to 19), omit the items.
Question agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I rise to speak to the Investment Funds Legislation Amendment Bill 2021 and to support the amendment moved by the member for Whitlam. This bill makes several changes to the Future Fund and the investment funds that it manages. In summary, the bill would implement a new employment framework for staff of the Future Fund Management Agency, the agency that is responsible for the administration of the Future Fund. Staff of the agency would no longer be employed under the Public Service Act but would be directly employed under the Future Fund Act. The bill will make documents with respect to the Future Fund and Future Fund Management Agency's investment activities exempt from the operation of the Freedom of Information Act. It will implement a cap of $650 million as the annual maximum distribution allowed for the Medical Research Future Fund, along with other changes to the operation of the MRFF. It will shift administrative responsibility for the Emergency Response Fund from Home Affairs to the National Recovery and Resilience Agency, which follows the change to the Administrative Arrangements Order that shifted responsibility for emergency management from Home Affairs to the Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio.
The staff of the Future Fund Management Agency are currently employed under the Public Service Act. This means that they are subject to the general employment framework that governs the Public Service. Schedule 1 of the bill will provide for a new employment framework for employees of the Future Fund Management Agency, where they would no longer be employed under the Public Service Act but, instead, be directly employed under the Future Fund Act. Labor recognises that the Future Fund Management Agency is a different kind of Public Service entity and that it operates in quite a unique employment market, similar to other Commonwealth entities such as the RBA and ASIC, which have arrangements to directly employ specialist staff. We note that this proposal is not a new one. Former Labor finance minister Lindsay Tanner, in a speech to the National Press Club in November 2009, said that the then government would be working with the Future Fund to examine options for the alternative employment framework, recognising the unique nature of the agency. However, Labor also notes that the Morrison-Joyce government has engaged in eight years of diminishing the capability of the Australian Public Service, including through its arbitrary staffing cap policy, resource and staffing cuts and a growing and wasteful overreliance on private consulting firms, contractors and labour hire to perform core public sector work. This is privatisation of the APS by stealth.
It tells you something about the employment and bargaining framework that this government has presided over that you have to staff out of the Public Service Act in order to retain high-quality staff and provide them with requisite pay and conditions.
The Australian Public Service and the wider public sector have a crucial role to play in serving our community and shaping the future of our nation. However, years of cuts and outsourcing have undermined the capacity and capability of the Public Service.
Labor is committed to building a stronger Public Service that delivers better outcomes for the community, contributes to building a fairer and more inclusive Australia and is a better place to work. Labor recognises the essential role of the APS in designing and delivering services for the public good and in developing policy solutions to the challenges the nation faces, both now and into the future.
With respect to the FOI exemption, schedule 2 of the bill will exempt documents relating to the investment activities of the Future Fund Board of Guardians and the Future Fund Management Agency from the operation of the Freedom of Information Act. It would mean it would join the list of similar exemptions for documents in respect of the commercial activities of entities such as the Attorney-General's Department, Australia Post, the CSIRO, the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, and NBN Co. Again, like the proposed changes to the employment framework, the proposal is not new. Former Minister Lindsay Tanner, in that very same speech in 2009, said that Future Fund board documents in respect of acquiring, realising or managing investment by the Future Fund board would be provided with the exemption under the FOI Act. Former Minister Tanner said that this was on the basis that 'the Future Fund is of the view that some of its information which if made publicly available would place at risk the return that could be earned for the funds or limit the range of investments the board can access.' The possibility of disclosure of sensitive information under the FOI Act has created some uncertainty for other entities entering into arrangements with the Future Fund.
We understand that the rationale for the change that is before us today is still the same. Labor understands the importance of ensuring particular documentation relating to commercial activities has a requisite degree of protection. However, the government's track record on transparency and freedom of information in the last eight years it has been in office is not something that should fill anyone with hope. The Morrison government has systematically abused Australia's freedom of information laws and has resorted to repeatedly breaking the law to hide from the Australian public information they have a right to know. They abuse claims for cabinet confidentiality, unlawfully claim documents in a minister's office cease to exist when they switch roles and make sweeping claims for exemptions totally at odds with the spirit and letter of FOI laws. They deliberately starve the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner of funding and resources, exacerbating delays in releasing information that they're forced to make public. A recent report found that 41 per cent of requests for non-personal information were refused outright in 2019-20, and just 26 per cent were granted in full. This is a government addicted to secrecy. Notwithstanding all this, we do recognise that a balance needs to be struck between transparency that is in the public interest and the protection of commercially sensitive information that is important to the operation of the Future Fund.
With respect to the Medical Research Future Fund, schedule 3 of the bill makes a series of changes to the administration, and the most significant change is the proposal to implement a maximum annual distribution of $650 million from the MRFF from 2022-23. This amount will be set in legislation, but it will be open for the Treasurer and Minister for Finance to set another amount by disallowable instrument, and the legislated amount will be subject to a five-yearly review. A key point to make about this amount is that it represents yet another broken promise from the government. In fact, it's one of those occasions where it's a broken promise built upon another broken promise. We all remember that on the eve of the 2013 election the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, promised a number of things, including that there would be no cuts to health.
But what did we get? Cuts and cuts. And now we are seeing cuts to the Medical Research Future Fund.
Of course, the government isn't spending the whole $20 billion it has in the fund. In the five financial years from 2016-17 since money has gone out of the fund, a total of $1.2 billion to 30 June has been spent on medical research. Australians know now more than ever the benefits of medical research, and so does Labor. The government's response is not to deliver on the initial promise to the MRFF, the medical research community and all Australians. We heard at the Senate inquiry the consequences of locking in this broken promise, and Labor will not support that.
There are other changes that are proposed for the MRFF in this bill which we do support, however: allowing for the direct transfer of funding from the MRFF to states and territories; and extending the duration of the Australian Medical Research and Innovation Strategy and Australian Medical Research and Innovation Priorities, which are used to assist the health minister in deciding how financial assistance from the fund is provided. We support allowing for grants to be provided by instalments.
With respect to the Emergency Response Fund, Labor hopes that the transfer of responsibility of the ERF to the newly established National Recovery and Resilience Agency will finally see some funding get out to communities that need it. For most of its existence since it was formed, in December 2019, this $4 billion fund has been earning the government hundreds of millions of dollars in interest. It finally spent $50 million in the last financial year, however its net earnings as of 30 June this year far exceed what has gone out: $726 million in net earnings versus $50 million spent. I support the amendments made by the member for Whitlam to this bill.
I rise to support the second reading of the Investment Funds Legislation Amendment Bill 2021, though not the amendment being moved by the opposition. Of course, this bill does a range of important administrative things for the operation of the Future Fund. To begin with, I comment on how lucky we are to have the Future Fund and what an amazing legacy it is of the Howard government, and particularly then Treasurer Peter Costello, who, quite fittingly, now chairs the Future Fund Board of Guardians.
The Future Fund has just shy of $250 billion funds under management, with $200 billion of that in the Future Fund structure initially envisaged back in 2006. Of course, at that time, after many surplus budgets delivered by Treasurer Costello, the debt left to the Howard government by the previous Labor administration was paid down. Future surpluses, coupled with the final stages of the privatisation of Telstra, allowed for the creation of a Future Fund which was in particular necessary given the unfunded liability that was in existence because of future Commonwealth Public Service superannuation payments that were not provisioned for as a balance sheet item by the Commonwealth government prior to that. Those future liabilities were going to continue to put pressure on the budget if a decision like creating a future fund to cover those liabilities was not taken.
Now we're in a position where we have, as I say, nearly $250 billion in total, but the component that's there to help support the liability of Commonwealth Public Service superannuation—those prior to the scheme we have now, of course. We don't have the defined benefit schemes anymore, except of course in defence and some of the judiciary et cetera. In the general Commonwealth Public Service there are not those schemes that used to be in existence before the introduction of compulsory superannuation. The workforce going forward provides for its own superannuation, through each Commonwealth public servant receiving their superannuation payment from us as a government, which we are required to do like any employer is required to do in this nation. There is the legacy of the entitlements that are fairly owed to people who are on those old defined benefit schemes, and the first responsibility and priority of the Future Fund is to provide for that.
The $200 billion we've got to provide for that future liability is something very reassuring. It reminds us of the fiscal challenges we've had over the last 20 months or so, and of the important and necessary decisions to borrow money to invest in our economy and in supporting businesses and individuals because of the challenges of meeting the COVID pandemic health response and economic impacts. It's a great relief to have the legacy of decisions like the creation of the Future Fund back in 2006. That $200 billion is an enormous amount of money we have because of those decisions. Think of where we'd be if we didn't have that money provisioned and we had those unfunded liabilities still in place. We would be having a whole different set of policy debates and discussions in this place right now because we would have to be figuring out a conventional fiscal solution to those liabilities, which would clearly put an enormous amount of pressure on the budget. So we're in a good position there.
I commend the Future Fund on their investment performance over the years. I think their average long-term return is sitting at 8.8 per cent. Their objective is about 6.6 per cent, so they're continuously exceeding that each and every year. That of course means the size of that pie continues to grow. Not only can it provide for what it was initially intended to; as its investment performance is more successful than its targets, that opens up new opportunities for investing in other worthy future interests of our government. The Medical Research Future Fund, which sits within the Future Fund's management responsibilities, is a good example of the sort of thing—if or when in the future we are in a position to look at the successful, greater-than-expected growth of the Future Fund and think about where we can invest surplus funds we might generate through the Future Fund. It is an enormous opportunity to consider things like medical research through that process.
This bill takes on two important changes. I was surprised that the member for Cooper made the point—I was surprised when I read it as well—that it was former finance minister Lindsay Tanner who first foreshadowed these sorts of reforms, more than 10 years ago. We have both been in government over that time, so, frankly, there's not much benefit in political pointscoring and arguing about why it is, having foreshadowed the need for this more than 10 years ago, that we're getting to it now. But I'm pleased we're getting to it now. I'm optimistic and hopeful that the bill will get the support of the House, move through and come into effect—particularly the two significant changes that I'm briefly going to comment on.
The first change is the exemptions under the FOI Act. I think it's pretty obvious why the Future Fund would not want to have to comply with the FOI Act, like every other agency needs to. The Future Fund would be spending a lot of money on very valuable advice—on investment decision-making, business cases et cetera, that any prudent funds management company would undertake. That, I suspect, would be worth millions and millions of dollars every year. Commissioning that sort of advice and paying for it is in our interest—we are the ultimate beneficiaries of the Future Fund when they spend that money—as it is that they are the only beneficiary of that advice they commission. You could foresee circumstances where, if they don't have these exemptions from the FOI Act and they are put in a position where they are legally required to release information—that could be millions and millions of dollars of private investment advice they have commissioned and paid for. It fairly belongs to them, and it shouldn't be something that someone else—a potential competitor investor, for example—can get access to at no cost because of the technicality that the Future Fund has to comply with the FOI Act. I think we would all find that regrettable. I think we can all agree that, if the Future Fund pay fairly for certain information using the money we have provisioned—all of us as taxpayers, as beneficiaries, as Australian citizens—that should belong to them.
They shouldn't, in any circumstance, be compelled because of an FOI determination to have to release that advice.
I also understand that the Future Fund have raised issues where they might not have been provided full information from other parties that they engaged in investment discussions and other pertinent discussions as to how to manage their funds, because there is a fear that information turned over to the Future Fund by other parties, independent of any obligation under the FOI Act, would then potentially see the information that they have provided to the Future Fund revealed in the public domain through the FOI Act process. Again, this is all very sensible commercial-in-confidence information, that we can all agree should be protected. We don't want the Future Fund in any way, shape or form to not be able to achieve and pursue the best investments possible that they believe will achieve the investment profile that they, as a board of governors, determine, or that they are in any way limited in the avenues that they can pursue to put the funds that they have custody over in the best possible place to get a strong and safe return for the people of Australia.
So this certainly seems a commendable change, that we remove the risk of them having to turn over information that any other business that is operating any comparable funds management firm would never have to do, because they themselves are not subject to the FOI Act. I stress that of course there are still an enormous number of safeguards—governance safeguards, probity safeguards—in place in overseeing the operations of the Future Fund. This is a sensible change. It means that they won't have that risk with information that shouldn't be in the public domain or accessible to competitors et cetera, and that should remain as commercial in confidence. I think we can all agree that that is a sensible and necessary suggestion, first raised by then Labor minister Lindsay Tanner more than one decade ago.
The second substantial part of this legislation is moving the employees of the Future Fund Management Agency from being members of the Australian Public Service into their own defined employment category within the Future Fund. I think we can all understand the sense in this. Again, it was proposed by then finance minister Tanner 10 years ago. You can imagine that the Future Fund would want to structure the way in which they employ their staff, the way in which they remunerate their staff and the way in which they attract talent. They have to meet the standards of the industry that they are operating in. They have to be able to compete, through the conditions and remuneration et cetera that they have to be able to offer, to get the best people. They have to compete with the standards of organisations similar to them to employ the very best people. So we should empower them to be able to operate in that free environment and not be constrained by the structures of the Australian Public Service around these things.
It's been noted already in these debates that there are other Commonwealth agencies that have the same set of circumstances in place for exactly the same reasons. They have to be able to compete for the best staff possible in an environment where there are other competitors that are structured very differently in the way in which they employ people, compared to some of the rules around the Australian Public Service. So I think that's a very commendable objective as well, and it's something that we should support so that we can make sure the people who are managing this $250 billion of our money—that we are lucky to have—are the best people to be in charge of the custody of that. That is not to say that the people at the Future Fund we already have are not the best people—they are, of course. They are performing exceptionally well, and I have outlined the success of the performance of the investment returns of the fund since it's creation. But we clearly need to make sure, looking forward, that they have the most flexibility that we can provide them to employ the best people. We want the best people looking after that amount of money.
I should have looked this up before this debate to find a more recent statistic, so I won't test my memory and guess, but certainly the Future Fund, as a sovereign fund, is on a per capita basis one of the most impressive in the world. In fact, putting aside per capita, it's also one of the largest in the world, and we should be very proud of that. Coupled with the enormous value of the funds under management in the superannuation system on top of that, we are very well provisioned in this country for the future. The Future Fund is a vital part of that, as I've outlined. Those funds are there to support the defined benefits scheme entitlements that Commonwealth public servants are validly entitled to, and they should have confidence that the government is never going to struggle to meet those commitments.
We are lucky to have this endowment. We are lucky that it is of the size that it is and is being managed as well as it is. We wish it that same success into the future, but in order to secure that we should always look for ways and respond to opportunities to make changes to the statute instruments that its managers operate under so that they can go out and perform to the best of their ability, which is to the benefit of all of the people of Australia. I commend the bill to the House.
I'd like to speak to the amendment relating to schedule 4, the Emergency Response Fund. I have had years of experiencing disasters. Having lived in the Blue Mountains for more than 30 years, I've experienced the fires, including the bushfire that took my own home in 2013. But let's go six years forward from my experience in 2013 to the Gospers Mountain fire in 2019. It was a longer fire. It destroyed more habitat, although fewer homes were lost. I have to say it affected far more people. More people were threatened, had near misses and endured extraordinary conditions, and the fire responders faced things they had never thought they'd see, ever. There are people only now realising the mental toll that it has taken, along with the cumulative effects of floods and COVID.
In between those two bushfire events was the creation of the Emergency Response Fund. I spoke in this place and welcomed the creation of that fund. But, two years on, the only thing that's happened is that the fund has got fatter. A small amount of money has been committed, but only a measly $50 million has actually gone out the door. The interest earned has been around $725 million, so the fund is sitting there getting bigger while the work that should be done to help prepare for the next fire, flood or other natural disaster simply isn't happening.
Now we know that there's a round of funding opening up in just a few days time, with the applications closing in early January, on 6 January. Community groups are expected to be able to whip up a proposal to spend $20,000 to $10 million in that time. I think what puzzles me most is that the Hawkesbury, the home of the Gospers Mountain fire, is not being given priority points for bushfire but only for flood. Under this funding coming from the Emergency Response Fund, only projects targeting flood will get priority. Without the bonus points in this competitive round, it's hard to see what fire preparation projects or strategies might be successful. The timing of this grant round is appalling. It's at a time when people want to relax with family and friends as we head towards Christmas. What you really have to wonder about with the timing is when the announcements of the successful projects will be made. No doubt they will be perfectly timed to suit a Morrison election campaign. The Morrison government is good at announcement, but as we've seen to date with the Emergency Response Fund—which is one of the subjects of this bill, the Investment Funds Legislation Amendment Bill 2021—their report card gives them an A for announcement and a D for delivery.
When I asked community members who were deeply involved in the fires and floods that we've had in the last two years about what fundamental changes there have been that would make something similar much easier to bear, there is a fairly unanimous shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head. In fact, the last couple of weeks have been ones of intense anxiety for people who live on the river as they watch the Hawkesbury water rise from the Warragamba spilling.
There is no sense of urgency from this government about the Emergency Response Fund, nor from the New South Wales government in terms of making changes to laws so water can be better managed at Warragamba Dam. That is causing enormous anxiety, as are all the other things this fund could have been used for.
The Bells Line of Road is easily cut during heavy rain. The bridges go under. We could still easily find ourselves loading boxes of carrots into helicopters to get across the river should we see something similar to the floods that we had in March this year. Greens Road at Lower Portland remains unrepaired. People cannot get through. They are still travelling a dangerous dirt road. The Upper Colo Bridge is a long way from being replaced. Cornwallis has barely been looked at, and the riverbanks still have great big holes in them.
It is no clearer to me or others what has being done to improve the evacuation routes out of the Hawkesbury or what has been done to ensure that people know where the evacuation centres are. This fund could have done that. If there is a fire, the same thing applies. It's not clear to anyone that when the RFS rightly says to people in Upper Colo or Colo Heights, 'Now is the time to leave, and you should head to Wilberforce,' there is anywhere to go in Wilberforce that would be a safer place. In fact, there are no additional safer places in either the Blue Mountains or the Hawkesbury other than things that have been done through the efforts of local communities to upgrade their locally run facilities. These are the things that this fund could have done, but it has failed to do that. Nor do we have improved mobile coverage or good NBN.
The government did nothing to prepare for the 2019 Black Summer bushfires despite warnings. Once again, we are in another disaster season with nothing built, no jobs created and our communities no better protected. I know this Prime Minister doesn't hold a hose, but he should be doing everything possible to help my community hold that hose and fight the next fire or be ready to fight and deal with the inevitable next flood. This is the lost opportunity of the Emergency Response Fund to which this bill refers.
I want to take a moment to go into a little bit more detail about what residents at Greens Road in Lower Portland are experiencing. This is a road that was wiped out, let me remind you, eight months ago. Eight months ago, the floods took sections of this road. In that time, Hawkesbury Council and the state government have been unable to deliver any sort of temporary solution for people to keep the road open. All they have is plans. They open the road for a moment, and then they close it when there is 10 millimetres of rain. Of course, we have had weeks of rain now, and residents are profoundly affected by that. We have people living in this area in Lower Portland who are still trying to do repairs to homes that were damaged during the March floods, and yet here we are. They are unable to do those repairs. This is emblematic of the failure of every level of government to recognise the urgency that my community feels in getting action.
One might say that this is the responsibility of council and state government, yet the funding comes from this place. The funding comes through the things that we agree to. This parliament cannot ignore its responsibilities. When you are in government, you have a responsibility to ensure that the funds you allocate are properly spent and spent in a timely way. So I would urge the Morrison government not to step away from its responsibilities and say, 'There's the cash; over to you.' I urge them to step up and work with the New South Wales government and demand that the Hawkesbury City Council speed up the process so that people can get back onto their road and have a way to get to their homes safely without causing even more trauma and anxiety for their families.
I am going to continue my speech from a few days ago and outline a few key points around this amendment. The Investment Funds Legislation Amendment Bill 2021 gives rise to a range of regulatory impacts on businesses, as set out in the PJCCFS and ALRC reports. The PJCCFS and ALRC reports have been certified as independent reviews which involved process and analysis equivalent to a regulation impact statement.
To address the gap in PJCCFS and the ALRC inquiries and the government's consideration of options for class action and litigation funding reform, supplementary analysis on the costs, benefits and risks associated with the new measures was prepared consistent with the Australian Government Guide to Regulatory Impact Analysis.
A number of key impacts were identified. Litigation funders will experience greater barriers to charging unfair and disproportionate fees and commissions in class actions, reducing the availability of windfall profitmaking. Litigation funders may be incentivised to undertake greater book building to inform their decision to support a class action, which entails identifying, communicating with and enrolling class members to the action. Litigation funders will gain certainty and clarity about court powers to intervene in litigation funding agreements and how courts will assess a proposed distribution of claim proceeds under a class-action-litigation funding scheme.
Litigation funders may experience greater uncertainty about the enforceability of some litigation funding agreements and their returns in class action proceedings, although this uncertainty is likely to abate over time with the development of precedent. Litigation funders may also experience a reduced funding appetite, especially in respect of cases in which they would previously have received a windfall return. Litigation funders may be subject to additional administrative and compliance costs to comply with the new regulatory requirements.
The government is ensuring fair and reasonable compensation for class action claimants and appropriate regulation of litigation funders and lawyers. It is crucial that Australia's class action system and litigation funding regime be conducted with impartiality and fairness so as to provide equitable outcomes for all Australians.
The reforms respond to a range of recommendations by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services and the Australian Law Reform Commission in their respective inquiries into litigation funding and class actions. The government introduced these measures because action was needed to address what the joint committee found was systemic and inappropriate skewing of proceeds away from class members to litigation funders.
The Morrison government—our government—is taking action to ensure that if you participate in a class action case your benefit and outcome is beneficial directly to you, as it should be. Individuals participating in class actions are seeing more than 50 per cent of compensation awarded by Australia's judicial system go directly into the wallet of lawyers and litigation funders before claimants see a cent. I don't think that's right. That's why the government has acted in this way. There are five key elements to the reforms in the bill: enhanced protection of the right of class action plaintiffs to choose whether to join a class action litigation funding scheme, a type of managed investment scheme under the Corporations Act 2001; court powers to approve or vary the distribution of the proceeds of the funded class action to ensure it is fair and reasonable; a rebuttable presumption that a distribution of over 30 per cent in total of the proceeds of the scheme to nonmembers of the scheme is not fair and reasonable; a requirement for courts to consider the advice of certain independent experts, if any are appointed, to assist in determining the fairness and reasonableness of a proposed distribution; and disincentives to funders from seeking common fund orders to extend their commissions to nonmembers. Together the changes form a comprehensive package of reforms to promote a fair and reasonable distribution of class action proceeds to claimants who are member of a class action litigation funding scheme. They also continue the government's work to enhance oversight of the litigation funding industry, and I commend the committee on its work.
I will finish with a short summary and go back to where I started on the Corporations Amendment (Improving Outcomes for Litigation Funding Participants) Bill 2021 and speak to the House on how it began. On 28 October 2021, the House referred an inquiry into the Corporations Amendment (Improving Outcomes for Litigation Funding Participants) Bill 2021 to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, of which I am a government member. Just a little bit about class actions: they enable a representative plaintiff—
Order. The member for Moncrieff will resume her seat. I've just been advised that the member for Moncrieff should have sought leave to speak a second time because it is not immediately after she was interrupted yesterday. Is leave granted?
I'm happy to grant leave but I believe the member is speaking about the wrong bill at the moment. I believe that we're debating a different bill.
The Investment Funds Legislation Amendment Bill 2021?
Yes, that's right. Is that the bill the member is referring to? I'm happy for her to speak on this, but listening to the speech it appears it is about a different bill.
I was in continuance of the last speech that I came to the House with. My understanding is that that was the Investment Funds Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. Madam Deputy Speaker, I had actually completed my speech.
Thank you, Member for Moncrieff. I call the member for Indi.
The Investment Funds Legislation Amendment Bill 2021 contains four different parts which all deal with very different things. Firstly, I have really strong concerns about schedule 2 and I would like to see that schedule struck completely from this bill. Schedule 2 allows the Future Fund, Australia's publicly owned sovereign wealth fund, to operate with an unnecessary level of secrecy. I oppose this part of the bill, and I urge and expect the Senate will remove it from the bill.
The second part of this bill makes changes to the Medical Research Future Fund, which puts money into medical research in Australia. The bill sets a limit of $650 million a year on how much that fund can invest in medical research in any given year. I spent 12 years working in the Department of Rural Health at Melbourne Medical School. Through that experience of my research in rural Australia, I think it's a real shame that the government is legislating such a low limit on how much we can invest in our health. There are other very eminent medical researchers in this House—there's one sitting over there. It's an expensive business and it's an important business, and I am really disappointed that this bill is legislating for such a small amount when there's such a great need. In particular, there's a great need in rural and regional Australia, where the comorbidities of chronic disease and people's health outcomes are so much worse than other parts of more populated metropolitan Australia. There's a lot of work to be done there and I think the government is being a bit lousy on that.
The government had originally envisaged that this fund would spend $1 billion per year. Instead, this bill is drastically cutting that amount. The reality is even worse. The government's own policy is to spend an average of just $500 million a year on medical research over the next decade, which is half of what was proposed. That's really not good enough. Less money going into medical research means poorer health outcomes for Australians.
As I said, regional Australians are particularly disadvantaged by this; we have such a great burden of disease that really needs addressing. We need to get our fundamental research in place in order to address the structural reasons for this and, indeed, some of the other key components that have been longstanding in rural health. And yet when I look at the projects that the Medical Research Future Fund has invested in I see that this particular need in rural and regional Australia has simply not been addressed in any substantive way. Only eight per cent of research funding is going into regional health research in Australia, yet regional Australia has 20 per cent of the population of this nation and a much greater burden of disease than any other population. Eight per cent of the funding is absolutely not good enough. Rural and regional health professionals and researchers have been calling for a better deal for a long, long time.
Another part of this bill relates to bushfires. Schedule 4 makes administrative changes to the Emergency Response Fund, making it easier for the Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience to access and distribute money from the fund. As an MP from a region that was heavily impacted by the Black Summer bushfires and as someone who has closely scrutinised the government's bushfire response to make sure it is done effectively and fairly, I want to address these provisions directly.
The $4 billion Emergency Response Fund, or ERF, was set up in September 2019 by an act of parliament. The point of the ERF is to finance emergency response and recovery following natural disasters in Australia that have a significant or catastrophic effect. Under the original legislation, the government can spend up to $200 million a year from the fund—$150 million for emergency response and recovery and $50 million for resilience measures. The ERF can only be accessed when the government determines there is a need for additional support following a natural disaster. Any spending from the fund requires formal government approval and, under the ERF, the Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience has broad discretion over how the funds are allocated. Under the initial legislation, it was Emergency Management Australia that held administrative responsibility for expenditure of the fund. However, this legislation transfers that responsibility to the newly established National Recovery and Resilience Agency.
On a pure policy level, these changes make sense, and I support this part of the bill. But, in doing so, I must register my concern at the way the government has politicised and continues to politicise bushfire recovery spending. This bill makes it easier for the minister of emergency management to oversee the distribution of enormous sums of public money for national disaster recovery. Of course, we do that while this nation is still without a federal integrity commission that might provide reassurance to the public about the integrity of government grant schemes, particularly when there is so much oversight by the minister. So it's essential to consider the government's record on this issue to assess whether the legislation involves appropriate safeguards to prevent misappropriation or, indeed, abuse of any funds.
From day dot, I've had serious concerns about how the government has allocated bushfire recovery funding. I have raised public concerns: firstly, that the funding was delivered too slowly; and, secondly, that funds earmarked for bushfire recovery were used to fund projects hundreds of kilometres away from where the bushfires actually were and that some bushfire recovery schemes simply excluded areas that had been affected by fire.
Recently I raised concerns about a massive new bushfire recovery program that is directly relevant to this legislation. Since it was established, the NRRA has introduced two grant programs—the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants and the Preparing Australia Program. With the Black Summer grants, there is $280 million available, but there are some serious problems with the program. First, any local government area that the government declares was affected by Black Summer fires is eligible for funding. But the list it has provided includes some locations which were kilometres away, so far distant from the nearest fire. The government has given no explanation for how it came up with this list of eligible locations. There seems to be no safeguard against pork-barrelling the whole pot of money.
Consider this: the locations that are eligible for grant funding have been put into two groups. The most affected places, called category 1, have a funding envelope of $4.5 million. The less affected places, category 2, have a funding envelope of $1.6 million. So, in theory, a heavily affected locality, like the Alpine Shire in my electorate, should receive around $4.5 million and a less affected one, like Wangaratta, should receive around $1.6 million—except that is not how it actually works. If you read the guidelines closely, those funding envelopes aren't actually real. Anyone in either category 1 or category 2 locations can apply for a grant of up to $10 million, which is more than double the total funding envelope for the most affected places. If the government decides that a category 1 location, like Towong or East Gippsland, in the member for Gippsland's electorate, or Bega, in the member for Eden-Monaro's electorate, didn't put forward an application of sufficient quality, it will simply redirect some of its funding to less affected locations. There appear to be no safeguards in the guidelines to make sure that this funding, a quarter of a billion dollars, actually goes to places that were most affected by bushfires—none at all.
We could see a project in Brisbane win $10 million while the entire Upper Murray community misses out. It's possible.
Even the way the government has classified places as category 1 or 2 is completely opaque and lacks any logic. The Alpine resorts of Mount Hotham, Mount Buller and Falls Creek are classified in the guidelines as category 2, meaning they were only lightly impacted by the fires and are earmarked for less funding. But anyone who knows our area knows that the fires got within metres of Dinner Plain and nearly wiped out the Mount Hotham Airport. Both Mount Buller and Falls Creek had fires come within a few kilometres, were drenched in smoke for months and lost the entire summer tourist trade. Indeed, all three resorts are entirely contained within the Alpine and Mansfield local government areas, both of which were classified as category 1 and earmarked for more funding.
I also have concerns about the second grant program announced by the NRRA, the Preparing Australia Program. This program will award grants of up to $10 million to help communities build their resilience to natural hazards like bushfires, floods and tropical cyclones. The program has $150 million available over the next three years. Once again, this program has a list of priority locations which will get first dibs on funding. The priority list includes cities like Geelong, Hobart and the Sunshine Coast, but Towong in my electorate was left off the list. Towong Shire was absolutely slammed by the Black Summer bushfires. Forty per cent of the area was burned. One-third of all farming land was burned. Thousands of livestock animals were lost. I saw that the government has also excluded four heavily affected LGAs across the Murray. I am calling for Towong Shire to be added to the government's priority list for the Preparing Australia Program. After everything that community went through, I don't want to see them miss out on disaster preparedness funding. Preparedness is one of their key concerns. We don't want to be in this situation again.
I would also like to raise my deep concern about the timing of the grants. The government announced just weeks ago that it would open applications for the Preparing Australia grants on 10 December and close them on 6 January. It is, frankly, pretty ridiculous. Who is expected to be putting in a $10 million grant application in a three-week window over Christmas and the New Year? I'm calling on the government to extend the deadline for these grants to give our communities a real chance to get in their applications. These concerns are highly relevant to this legislation because the bill before us gives considerable authority to the NRRA, the body that the government has entrusted with this grant scheme. I'm not the only one who has concerns about bushfire spending. The member for Gippsland, until recently a cabinet minister, said that the flawed design of the Black Summer scheme will 'rip off' his community. He said:
The Canberra bureaucracy and the Ministers responsible have clearly made a mistake and rather than stubbornly plough on and make it worse, they should increase the allocation to East Gippsland and any other Shire that was actually burnt.
His position was backed up by the state MP Tim Bull and local mayor Mendy Urie. I back the member for Gippsland on this and request that, if we are to give the NRRA and the minister more powers over bushfire spending, the NRRA listen. It must listen more closely to the bushfire affected communities.
I'm extremely pleased that the Coordinator-General of the NRRA, Shane Stone, has accepted my invitation to come to Indi to meet with me this Saturday morning in my Wodonga office. During the agency's former iteration as the National Bushfire Recovery Agency, I was able to enjoy a very positive working relationship with that agency's leaders, holding several tours of bushfire affected parts of Indi to hear directly about the concerns people have. These tours proved crucial in communicating to government our community's needs in the immediate recovery, and it will be crucial this time for the government's understanding of our needs for building longer term resilience. After meeting with Mr Stone this Saturday, I will be heading straight up to the Murray Valley and the Upper Murray to meet with bushfire affected communities around Corryong. I really hope that Mr Stone can join me on one of these trips in the very near future.
Australians are smart enough to judge the government not just by their words but by their deeds, and in their deeds we've seen a disturbing willingness to use public money to advance political objectives. It's reasonable to raise these concerns because the government has shown since the Black Summer fires that it is willing to politicise bushfire recovery funding, and we simply can't have that.
When we look at legislation like this it makes it easier for the minister and the NRRA to make decisions about allocating funding, so we are right to ask questions about that.
If we are to give the NRRA more powers with this bill to spend public money on an issue as important as bushfire recovery, I'm calling on them now to show greater transparency about their decision-making and to show a greater commitment to bringing funding where it is actually needed.
I would like to thank all members who have contributed to the debate on the Investment Funds Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. This bill will enhance the ability of the Future Fund Board of Guardians and the Future Fund Management Agency to continue investing for the benefit of future generations of Australians.
The bill puts in place a new employment framework that will reinforce the board's independence from government and provide more operational flexibility to allow the agency to recruit and retain key investment management staff from around the globe. It will also help establish staff and remuneration structures that better align with norms in the financial industry.
The bill ensures that appropriate governance, accountability and transparency measures remain in place. Providing a partial exemption under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 for the board and the agency will reduce the risk of disclosing confidential, competitive and commercially sensitive material to the detriment of investment performance and industry relationships. It aligns the treatment of the Future Fund board and the agency under the FOI Act with that of other entities that deal regularly with commercial information, such as NBN Co and Export Finance Australia.
The new disbursements framework for the Medical Research Future Fund will provide greater certainty to assist in the forward planning of grants programs and allow the important commitments under the Medical Research Future Fund 10-year investment plan to be met. It will also isolate the level of disbursements from financial market fluctuations while supporting the perpetual funding objective of the MRFF.
Once these changes are implemented, the government will issue a new investment mandate with a view to increasing target earnings over the medium term and protecting the funds balance over the long term. The bill will also transfer responsibility for expenditure from the Emergency Response Fund to the newly established National Recovery and Resilience Agency, and streamline administrative arrangements for transfers from the Emergency Response Fund Special Account.
Once again, I thank all members for their contributions. 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 Whitlam has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.
by leave—I move Greens amendments (1) and (2) together:
(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 3), omit "2,".
(2) Schedule 2, page 17 (lines 1 to 10), omit the Schedule.
These amendments remove schedule 2 of the bill.
What does schedule 2 do? Schedule 2 provides an exemption for the Future Fund from FOI laws 'in relation to documents in respect of the investment activities'. So it seeks to keep secret how the Future Fund is spending public money. The explanatory memorandum goes on to say that this is to reduce the risk of the Future Fund 'disclosing highly sensitive commercial and proprietary material' given to it by private investment managers. It says that the current application of FOI laws:
… presents the risk of negative impacts on investment outcomes, reduced access to investment opportunities and it could also prejudice investment managers in their dealing with other market participants.
Apparently, the current application of Australia's FOI laws to the Future Fund is the weak link in global capital markets that might lead to sensitive information being released and everyone losing money. What nonsense!
This introduces new protections that are completely unnecessary, and I'll come in a moment to why the government is actually moving to introduce this cover-up about how the Future Fund invests its money. But we can dispense with the so-called reason for the amendments right now, because section 47 of the FOI Act already provides government bodies, including the Future Fund, with an exemption for releasing information that would have the effect of 'disclosing trade secrets or commercially valuable information'. That's why, in its 15 years of existence, the Future Fund has never released any commercially sensitive information in response to an FOI claim. So what schedule 2 does is provide a wholesale exemption to say, 'You don't have to release any information,' when they've already got an exemption from releasing commercially sensitive information. So this is about giving them protection in saying, 'We don't have to tell you about all sorts of other information. Forget what you might hear from the government—if they bother to defend the existing bill—about how this is about so-called commercially sensitive information. What rot! They've already got that exemption. They're introducing a whole new layer of secrecy over the Future Fund with this schedule 2.
Why? Do they want to cover up where the Future Fund is investing $250 billion in public money? What is the bill really about, given that it can't be about commercially sensitive information, because they've already got that protection? It's about stopping the Future Fund—and the government, by extension—from being embarrassed about investments they have made in dodgy corporations. Schedule 2 is about hiding from the public things such as the Future Fund's investments in Adani Ports.
Last year, the Australian Centre for International Justice obtained, through FOI, documents showing that the Future Fund had invested $3.2 million of the public's money in Adani Ports. This is the same Adani Ports that struck a $290 million deal with generals in the Myanmar military to build and operate a commercial port in Yangon. Late last month, the day before the ASEAN summit—and in response to a public campaign against them, including by the likes of the Australian Centre for International Justice and their highlighting of the Future Fund's activities—Adani announced that they were walking away from this deal with the Myanmar military.
So we have a situation where public money is being invested through the Future Fund in a company that is doing deals, or wanting to do deals, with repressive authoritarian regimes like the Myanmar military. We only found out about that because of the freedom of information laws that this government now wants to remove the right for scrutiny over. In other words, we would never know that public money had been invested in a company that wants to do deals with one of the most repressive regimes in the world if it weren't for the freedom of information legislation, but now this government wants to cover it up and say you can't make freedom of information requests through the Future Fund. This is clearly about a government embarrassed because the Future Fund is making investments in dodgy corporations. (Time expired)
Do you wish to seek the call again?
Yes, please.
The member for Melbourne has the call.
This is a perfect illustration of why we need the FOI to apply to the Future Fund. This is the public's money that you're investing, and, if it is being invested in dodgy corporations that then go off and do deals with dodgy regimes on the other side of democracy, then the public has a right to know about it. The government is taking that away. This is consistent with this government's activity when it comes to public money—they rort public money themselves, and then, when institutions that they oversee start investing in dodgy corporations, they want to cover it up. And of course this is the same Adani Ports that's part of the broader Adani Group that are also wanting to develop the monstrous Carmichael coalmine in the Galilee Basin. We only found out about the Future Fund's investment in a company that is building one of the most climate-destroying projects in the world because of our freedom of information laws. But, instead of responding to what is an international embarrassment and divesting from Adani Ports, the Future Fund and the government want to pull up the shutters so no-one can find out where public money is being invested.
That is a hallmark of this government. Whenever they are caught out, whenever they are exposed, they shut up shop. This government's idea of solving a problem is just to hide the problem and say, 'There's nothing to see here.' And schedule 2 of this bill is just the latest attempt by this government to avoid scrutiny.
I come back to the point that I made at the start: this is not about commercially sensitive information, because the Future Fund already has protection under the FOI Act from releasing commercially sensitive information. This is about the government running another cover-up.
I expect that there will be some members on the crossbench who support this, and I hope the opposition supports this, and I hope the government supports it, because this government is very fond of saying to everyone else, 'Oh, if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide.' They're very prepared to say to people online, 'We're going to force you to disclose things that you might not want to disclose.' They're very fond of saying to people who are doing it a bit tough, finding it hard to find a job and who are on welfare, 'We're going to force you to jump through hoops and do all sorts of things that most other people don't have to do.' And they pass law after law in this place to say people in their everyday activity, including their online activity, now lose the right to privacy. And they come in here time after time after time and say, 'If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide.' Well, apply the same logic to how you spend public money. The logic is even stronger when it comes to public money, if the government is to be at all consistent.
Again, I plead with other members of this House: do not pull up the shutters and remove the right for the public to know how the Future Fund is spending public money. This will not affect the Future Fund's commercial returns or investment. That remains protected, but what this will do, if members in this place don't support this amendment, is give the Future Find the right to engage in a whole new layer of secrecy and cover up investments, investments that we have already seen involve dealings with dictatorships and funding them indirectly through the use of public money.
If that is one thing that has been disclosed through FOI, what else is there? What else is there that the Future Fund is doing? We do need an overhaul of the Future Fund's investment mandate, but, until that time when we stop the Future Fund by law from investing in dodgy corporations or perhaps assisting dictatorships, then we should at least have the right to know where public money is going. We should at least have that right to know, because, if they were assisting the Myanmar military indirectly, then who knows who else the Future Fund is assisting, and the only way we'll find out is through freedom of information laws. So I commend these amendments to the House, because all they will do is provide a basic level of transparency into what the Future Fund is doing. And, if the government doesn't support them, and if others don't support them, then they are engaging in a cover-up of Future Fund activities.
My contribution will be short. Quite simply, if schedule 2 of this bill were to have the effect that the member for Melbourne said it will, I would be advocating for the Labor Party not to support it and to support the amendment put by the member for Melbourne, but it does not. There's nothing in this bill which will prevent disclosure of the fact of a holding of the Future Fund by simple observation, by a question at question time, by a Senate estimates question or by any other form in this place. Whether it holds an interest in Adani Ports, whether it holds an interest in Telstra, whether it holds an interest in any other corporation, or whether it holds any other financial interest, nothing in the bill will prevent the disclosure in this place or anywhere else of the fact of a holding. What it will do is prevent the disclosure of certain commercially sensitive information.
Let me explain why this is important. The Future Fund does not just buy interests in other commercial entities and other investments; it sells them as well. Like every other investment fund in the country, it doesn't just buy them; it sells them as well. If you are a counterparty to a transaction with a government body and you want to get inside information on the value of a particular holding that you're interested in purchasing, you could engage a commercial investment adviser to kick the tyres on that particular investment and do all sorts of normal processes that you might do in a non-transaction due diligence process, or you could, under the existing laws, conduct a freedom of information request, which could disclose a whole range of commercially sensitive and prejudicial information to the vendor of an asset on the sell-side transaction.
It is for this reason that we did not support a proposition put by the government which would have applied to every private sector registered superannuation fund in the country, except themselves, in what was known as the portfolio disclosure holding proposition, which was intended by the government to be introduced by way of regulation. We did not support that and we said to the government, 'We will not support this proposition if you're going to have one law for yourself but another law for every registered superannuation entity in the country.' We actually happen to support the proposition contained within the current bill before the House, which is perfectly commercial. We had big questions as to why they would try and treat every other private sector superannuation entity differently to the way they are proposing to treat themselves.
That is the background to the Labor Party's position on this bill. The government changing its wrongheaded position on the portfolio holding disclosure proposition and bringing it into line with what will now apply to the Future Fund is the reason we are willing to support this proposition for the bill. So I stress again: if the effect of schedule 2 in this bill were as outlined by the member for Melbourne, we would not be supporting it, but it isn't. Nothing within this bill will prevent disclosure of the fact of the holding or an investment by the Future Fund or any of its associated entities, but it will prevent a counterparty in a commercial transaction using freedom-of-association laws to get an advantage over what is essentially the Australian taxpayer in a transaction which involves the sale of an asset held by the Future Fund. That is why we will not be supporting the amendment moved by the member for Melbourne.
In response to that point, which I presume to be the government's argument as well: if that were right, there would have been a slew of FOI applications being made right up until now that would have disadvantaged parties and disadvantaged the Future Fund and its investments, and I would imagine that there would have been put before this parliament a string of examples of what the opposition and government considered to be FOI abuses. It hasn't happened. It hasn't happened for the simple reason that there is already an exemption from disclosing commercially sensitive information under the Freedom of Information Act.
The fact that none of those things have happened suggests that the government in fact has a very different motive for moving this set of amendments, and that is to introduce a whole new layer of secrecy in the Future Fund, and that should be opposed.
The question is that the amendments moved by the member for Melbourne be disagreed to.
A division having been called and the bells having been rung—
There being fewer than five members on the side of the noes in this division, I declare the question resolved in the affirmative in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
Question agreed to, Mr Bandt, Dr Haines, Ms Steggall and Mr Wilkie voting no.
The question now is that this bill be agreed to.
A division having been called and the bells having been rung—
As there are fewer than five members on the side for the noes in this division, I declare the question resolved in the affirmative in accordance with standing order 127. Again, the names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.
Question agreed to, Mr Bandt and Mr Wilkie voting no.
Bill agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I move:
That business intervening before order of the day No. 18, government business, be postponed until a later hour this day.
Question agreed to.
I rise to speak on the Biosecurity Amendment (Enhanced Risk Management) Bill 2021, a bill that I have been waiting some time to speak to, indeed. I was very happy to see that I'll finally get an opportunity to make some brief remarks on this bill at this time.
The federal government have primary responsibility over biosecurity matters relating to Australian borders, but only when it suits them.
There are some important things being done in this bill, but, in the brief moments that I have to make commentary on this bill, I make the observation that, in times of a COVID pandemic that was declared in January last year and that saw our parliament schedule have to be rearranged from March last year, we are only now, in December, being given the opportunity to continue debate on this legislation. It is only in the second half of this year, 18 months after—
As I observed earlier, this is very important legislation that is before us—the Biosecurity Amendment (Enhanced Risk Assessment Management) Bill 2021. The federal government, as I said, have primary responsibility over biosecurity matters relating to Australian borders, but only when it suits them. Sometimes the Prime Minister passes responsibility to the states. Sometimes he doesn't hold a hose. But this is also the Prime Minister who has in his office a boat trophy that says, 'I stopped these.' It's a pity he couldn't stop the one boat that really mattered—the Ruby Princess.
Our international borders are a federal responsibility. They always have been and they always will be. The Prime Minister's idol once said:
We will decide who comes into this country and the circumstances in which they come.
The Ruby Princess was a Morrison government border failure, and thousands of Australians paid the price—some the ultimate price. It is vital our appropriate national border staff have the legislated powers to manage our biosecurity risks at the border.
In particular, these laws will strengthen border biosecurity protections for those entering Australia by ship or air, by expanding pre-arrival reporting requirements for aircraft and vessels; strengthening penalties for noncompliance with negative pratique requirements; creating a mechanism to make a human biosecurity group direction; increasing civil and criminal penalties for contraventions of chapter 3 of the Biosecurity Act, which deals with managing the biosecurity risks relating to goods; streamlining the process for making certain determinations; specifying prohibited, conditionally non-prohibited and suspended goods, or granting permits based on risk assessments; and increasing efficiency and ensuring transparency of expenditure on biosecurity related programs and activities by permitting the agriculture minister and the health minister to authorise the expenditure directly through the Biosecurity Act.
Ultimately, it's work like this that will contribute to Australia's pandemic preparedness and response at the border—some 18 months after that pandemic started. So it has to make one wonder: how on earth is it that, more than 18 months into this COVID-19 pandemic, the Morrison government is only now getting around to introducing this legislation to strengthen border biosecurity protections? The delay in bringing about this essential legislation to protect our nation during the pandemic is negligent and unforgivable. We must get this right for the health of our nation.
We've seen how this can be managed well in the management of Western Australia, where there was a COVID-19 outbreak on the MV Artania cruise ship off our coast last year. The WA police were shocked to discover that there was no Australian Border Force presence for our ports. This was a typical 'I don't hold a hose' situation—the Morrison government failing to help in Western Australia. So the Western Australian government had to take things into their own hands. While the federal government completely stuffed the handling of the outbreak on the MVRuby Princess, the WA government had the health and welfare of the crew, the passengers, and the Australian public at the forefront by keeping ship occupants on board rather than letting potentially unwell people off the ship to mix with the wider community and Western Australian medical staff. The whole scenario was resolved in just over 15 days between making a decision about how to manage the situation and the vessel then departing with no crew hospitalisations and no deaths.
This is greatly in contrast to the damning report outlining the serious inadequacies that exist across Australia's biosecurity system. Remember, the Ruby Princess disaster occurred in March 2020. It is now December 2021. You have to acknowledge the swiftness of this Morrison government in dealing with pressing issues!
The April 2021 Inspector-General of Biosecurity's report entitled Confidence testing for at-border delivery of critical human biosecurity functions—Ruby Princess cruise ship incident found weaknesses in the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment's management of human biosecurity functions and recommended a strengthening of arrangements for intercepting listed human diseases and human biosecurity risk material to ensure that efforts be directed to areas of highest risk. The review also found that information systems that underpin its human health activities need to be transformed. The inspector-general made 42 recommendations that went to improvements around the management of human biosecurity in the vessel's pathway. Yet this bill doesn't actually implement those recommendations.
How is a global pandemic not enough to prioritise our national biosecurity processes? We now have legislation in front of us, in this parliament, to do just that, and yet the recommendations made on one of the most serious breaches of our border under this government during a COVID-19 pandemic are not being dealt with in the legislation. How is a global pandemic not enough to make sure that our national biosecurity processes are strengthened, are enhanced and protect our nation? It's been more than 18 months, and we are only just getting to this legislation now, and it doesn't even do what is needed to protect our nation from COVID-19. It is typical of this Morrison government, which is all announcement and no follow-through.
Debate adjourned.
I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring in relation to business for today:
(1) the following bills have priority over all other business during government business time:
(a) Biosecurity Amendment (Enhanced Risk Management) Bill 2021;
(b) Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Amendment Bill 2021;
(c) Crimes Amendment (Remissions of Sentences) Bill 2021; and
(d) Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Superannuation Outcomes For Australians and Helping Australian Businesses Invest) Bill 2021;
(2) following the third reading of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Superannuation Outcomes For Australians and Helping Australian Businesses Invest) Bill 2021, the House to adjourn until 9.30 am on Thursday, 2 December 2021; and
(3) from 8 pm until the adjournment of the House:
(a) any division called shall be deferred until 9.30 am on Thursday, 2 December 2021; and
(b) if any Member draws the attention of the Speaker to the state of the House, the Speaker shall announce that he or she will count the House at 9.30 am on Thursday, 2 December 2021.
The question is that the motion be agreed to.
Question agreed to.
The Biosecurity Amendment (Enhanced Risk Management) Bill 2021 will amend the Biosecurity Act 2015 to strengthen the management of biosecurity risks to human health posed by maritime and aviation arrivals. It will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the administration of the Biosecurity Act and increase a range of civil and criminal penalties.
The bill will amend provisions relating to human health, equipping human biosecurity officers and biosecurity officers with a strengthened legislative framework to identify, assess and manage human biosecurity risks entering Australia through the maritime and aviation pathways. This will be done by expanding pre-arrival reporting requirements, strengthening penalties for noncompliance and creating a mechanism to make a human biosecurity group direction to identify, assess and manage the risks posed by classes of people who have been, or may have been, exposed to a listed human disease, such as passengers on board a cruise ship.
These amendments address many of the recommendations made by the Inspector-General of Biosecurity in his review of the Ruby Princess incident. The bill will increase the maximum financial penalties that apply to several civil and criminal penalty provisions under the Biosecurity Act concerning managing the biosecurity risks relating to goods. These increases relate primarily to regulated entities such as commercial importers and to operators and persons in charge of aircraft or vessels, all of whom have a particular responsibility to know and understand their obligations under the Biosecurity Act. The increased civil penalties will serve as a deterrent to anyone considering undermining our biosecurity laws, and the criminal penalties will allow appropriate and proportionate punishment for offences under the Biosecurity Act.
The bill also streamlines the processes for making certain determinations specifying prohibited, conditionally non-prohibited and suspended goods, or granting permits based on risk assessments. It also increases efficiency and allows transparency of expenditure on biosecurity related programs and activities by permitting the agriculture minister and the health minister to authorise the expenditure directly through the Biosecurity Act. The passage of the bill will ensure that the biosecurity framework remains effective and responsive in protecting Australia's human, animal and plant health; environment; and economy. This includes ensuring a fit-for-purpose human biosecurity framework that addresses critical challenges identified over the course of Australia's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This bill will safeguard Australia's economic recovery and human health, both now and into the future.
The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Dobell has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be disagreed to.
Question agreed to.
Original question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The government is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all Australians. Australia has a robust national security and counterterrorism framework to ensure that our agencies have the powers they need to prevent terrorist attacks and deal with those who seek to commit them.
These laws need regular assessment to ensure that powers remain appropriate to the current threat environment, and that the objective of protecting national security is balanced against upholding the rights and freedoms of individuals.
The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, known as the monitor, independently reviews the operation, effectiveness and implications of Australia's national security and counterterrorism laws, ensuring they contain appropriate protections for individual rights, remain proportionate to terrorism or national security threats, and remain necessary.
This bill would amend the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act 2010 (INSLM Act) to clarify reporting arrangements for the monitor and provide a framework for the engagement of staff to assist the monitor in its work.
The amendments will assist the monitor in the performance of their role and, as a result, will help ensure Australia's counterterrorism and national security legislation remains proportionate and consistent with Australia's international obligations.
Amendments to clarify the Monitor's reporting arrangements
A key function of the monitor is to review Commonwealth counterterrorism and national security legislation and to report on the outcomes of those reviews.
The monitor can conduct own motion reviews on specific matters, and must conduct specific statutory reviews and reviews on matters referred by the Attorney-General or the Prime Minister. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) may also refer matters to the monitor, and the monitor may decide to take up the referral as an own motion review.
This bill would amend the INSLM Act to enable the monitor to report on own motion inquiries in standalone reports, separate to the monitor's annual reports, and to clarify the review and reporting arrangements for statutory reviews, own motion reviews and reviews conducted under a PJCIS referral.
This responds to recommendations made by the former monitor, Dr James Renwick CSC SC, and by the 2019 Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community.
Amendments to address the engagement of staff to assist the Monitor
The bill would also provide a framework for the engagement of staff to assist the monitor. The monitor is a part-time statutory appointment. When the position was established in 2010, it was envisaged that the monitor would only undertake one review a year. Since then, the role has evolved, including through an increased number of statutory reviews of various legislation.
The monitor is now supported by three permanent employees of the Attorney-General's Department, whose services have been made available to assist the monitor, as well as legal representatives who are engaged in relation to specific reviews.
This bill would formalise those arrangements by amending the INSLM Act to include provisions for the engagement of staff (including contractors) to assist the monitor with the performance of functions and exercise of their powers.
The bill also provides current and former staff of the monitor with appropriate protections for any acts or omissions done by that person in good faith during the course of assisting the monitor in the performance of its functions or exercise of its powers.
These protections are similar to arrangements for the staff of other statutory oversight officeholders, such as the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the Integrity Commissioner and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.
Conclusion
The government acknowledges and appreciates the monitor's ongoing role in reviewing the operation, effectiveness and implications of Australia's national security and counterterrorism legislation. If passed, this bill will assist the monitor in the performance of their role, helping to ensure Australia's counterterrorism and national security legislation remains necessary, appropriate and proportionate.
I rise to speak in support of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Amendment Bill 2021, which was introduced into the Senate and then amended following negotiations between the Attorney-General and me. I thought the original bill introduced by the Attorney-General into the Senate was good legislation. However, when the Attorney-General contacted me to seek Labor's support, I took the opportunity to suggest a range of improvements which, in Labor's view, would make the bill even better. To her credit, the Attorney-General engaged constructively with me and my office on those suggestions and ultimately agreed to many of the amendments we suggested, either in whole or in part.
Moreover, while she did not agree to two of Labor's suggestions, in both cases the Attorney-General did agree to workable compromises. I would like to the thank the Attorney-General for working with the opposition to improve the bill in the national interest.
The Independent National Security Legislation Monitor was established by the Rudd Labor government in early 2010 under the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act 2010. Labor created the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor to review and report on the operation and effectiveness of Australia's national security and counterterrorism laws. Since then, the monitor has produced a number of significant reports recommending improvements to a range of counterterrorism and national security laws. The monitor helps to maintain the confidence of the Australian people in our security and intelligence agencies by ensuring that our laws remain effective, are fit for purpose and contain appropriate safeguards for protecting the rights of individuals. The position is modelled on a similar institution in the United Kingdom, which has operated successfully for two decades. Shamefully and foolishly, the current Liberal government sought to abolish the monitor completely in 2014. Then, when Labor's opposition and a public backlash forced the government to abandon the plan, the government sought to achieve the same objective by leaving the position vacant for over eight months.
Indeed, prior to the introduction of this bill, the only bill this government has ever introduced with the words 'independent national security legislation monitor' in the title was the bill to abolish the office. Labor welcomes the fact that the government appears to have developed at least some appreciation for the important role that the monitor plays.
Against that background, let me turn to the bill itself. The bill would amend the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act to expressly empower the monitor to report on own-motion inquiries and statutory reviews at any time, and in standalone reports. Currently, there is no express provision allowing the monitor to prepare and give to the Attorney-General a report on own-motion inquiries or statutory reviews sooner than or separately from the annual report. The bill would also amend the act to expressly empower the monitor to report on a referral from the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security at any time, either in the monitor's annual report or in a standalone report. While the act currently allows the committee to refer an inquiry to the monitor, it is silent on reporting a referral from the intelligence and security committee.
Finally, the bill amends the act to provide a framework for the engagement of staff, including contractors, to assist the monitor in the performance of his or her functions or the exercise of his or her powers. Under the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act, the monitor is protected from any legal action in relation to acts or omissions done in good faith and in the performance of his or her functions. As part of the proposed framework for the engagement of staff, the bill would extend those protections to staff of the monitor.
The monitor has sought these amendments for some time, particularly the amendments to clarify how and when reports may be provided to the Attorney-General. In his Report of the comprehensive review of the legal framework of the national intelligence community, former ASIO director-general Dennis Richardson also recommended that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act be amended to provide that the monitor may prepare and give to the Attorney-General a report on any matter relating to the performance of the monitor's functions at any one time.
In addition to making some minor technical changes to the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act, the amendments agreed between the government and Labor in the Senate would do the following. First, the tabling requirements for reports to the independent monitor would be amended so that reports must be tabled within the earlier of: 30 calendar days or 15 sitting days of receipt by the Attorney-General. This will ensure that reports by the monitor will be made public much sooner than is currently the case. Secondly, Australian public servants and other potential employees can only be made available to the independent monitor with the monitor's agreement, and that agreement can be revoked at any time. It is important that the monitor is independent and is seen to be independent of the government. That is the principle that this amendment is designed to uphold. Thirdly, the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Act will be amended to enable the monitor to be appointed on a full-time basis.
I commend the bill to the House.
I thank my parliamentary colleague for his contribution to the debate on the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Amendment Bill 2021. This bill reflects the government's ongoing commitment to ensuring Australia has a robust national security and counterterrorism framework. It will assist the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor in the performance of their role, helping to ensure Australia's counterterrorism and national security legislation remains necessary, appropriate and proportionate. The bill implements the recommendations made by the former monitor in the 2019 Comprehensive Review of the Legal Framework of the National Intelligence Community to allow the monitor to report on matters more urgently or particularly than in the annual report. The additional amendments moved by the government will ensure appropriate reporting and staffing arrangements for the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, ensuring they can effectively execute their important oversight role. I thank my colleagues across the chamber for their support for these measures.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
The Crimes Amendment (Remissions of Sentences) Bill 2021 repeals section 19AA of the Crimes Act 1914, which automatically applies remissions or reductions granted under state or territory laws to federal sentences.
The Australian government's most important responsibility is to keep Australians safe. This bill supports this by addressing the significant risks to community safety as a result of the high numbers of remissions, known as emergency management days (EMDs), that Victoria has been granting to federal offenders since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most states and territories have abolished remissions. Victoria is the only jurisdiction with laws providing remissions or reductions that are resulting in significant discounts for federal offenders under section 19AA of the Crimes Act.
Under section 19AA of the Crimes Act, the Commonwealth has no discretion about the application of remissions and reductions to federal offenders. This situation is unacceptable, and means federal offenders are not serving the sentences handed down by the courts in recognition of their crimes.
Repealing section 19AA of the Crimes Act through this bill is necessary to restore respect for the sentences which courts impose on federal offenders, including the careful balance struck by courts between the appropriate expiry of the non-parole period compared to the head sentence. Currently, if offenders are found suitable for release on parole after EMDs have been applied to reduce their head sentence, their rehabilitation and reintegration options may be limited or less effective during their shorter parole period, increasing the risk of reoffending. The removal of the unpredictable application of EMDs is critical to ensure community safety.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Victoria were generally granting fewer than 10 EMDs per federal prisoner for restrictions in circumstances like natural disasters and staffing shortages. But, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Victoria has been handing out much higher numbers of EMDs to federal offenders in their prisons.
As a result, many federal offenders incarcerated in Victoria, including terrorists, child-sex offenders and drug traffickers, are receiving substantial discounts off the sentence expiry date set by the sentencing court.
The release of high-risk federal offender Adam Brookman is an example of how problematic the application of EMDs can be. In June 2021, following his guilty plea, the Supreme Court of Victoria sentenced Mr Brookman to six years and eight months imprisonment for an offence against the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978. Specifically he undertook weapons training, reconnaissance and guard duty, and provided medical services in support of groups engaged in hostile activity in Syria. Despite the court fixing a head sentence that did not expire for a further nine months, Mr Brookman was released on the date of his sentencing because Victoria had granted him more than 340 days off his sentence during the period he was on remand.
There are more people charged with terrorism offences on remand in Victoria, and, as the pandemic continues, they are accruing hundreds of days off their sentences in the event they are convicted. In the interim, our agencies are using the options available to mitigate against the risks posed by the early release of high-risk federal offenders like Mr Brookman, including control orders. Even this has become problematic under the current framework, as sentence expiry dates for terrorists incarcerated in Victoria keep changing unpredictably as EMDs are periodically accrued. This bill will put an end to this unacceptable situation.
Fundamentally, the current framework compromises community safety, as it allows dangerous offenders to be released much earlier than the date set by the sentencing court. This includes, for example, a high-risk child-sex offender with an extensive prior criminal history in three states and a history of breaching multiple community based orders. Despite being sentenced to spend three years and one month in prison for his despicable crimes, the high-risk child-sex offender's sentence expired in August 2021 after Victoria granted him more than 300 days off his sentence. The bill will prevent circumstances such as these occurring and will ensure that federal offenders like this serve the sentence that is handed down by the court.
Further, this bill is necessary to ensure that federal offenders are being treated more consistently across Australia. Under the existing laws, a federal offender incarcerated in Victoria may serve a significantly lower sentence than they would if they served their sentence in any other jurisdiction. In addition, where an offender has been sentenced since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, courts have taken into account additional hardships and restrictions imposed on prisoners, so offenders are already receiving consideration of the impact of COVID-19 when being sentenced. The subsequent granting of EMDs by Victoria can lead to the impacts of COVID-19 being 'double-counted', with offenders effectively receiving two discounts off their sentence.
In the interests of community safety, remissions and reductions applied by states and territories before commencement of the bill will be taken to have no effect. This does not apply to anyone released from prison prior to commencement of the bill. This ensures that any offenders who are still in prison at the time the bill commences will not receive hundreds of days off their sentences and will instead serve the sentence that the court considered was appropriate for them.
Conclusion
This bill addresses the significant risks to community safety as a result of the discounts that Victoria is handing out to its prisoners during the pandemic. The bill enables the community to be satisfied that federal offenders will serve the sentence as handed down by the sentencing court regardless of the state or territory in which they are imprisoned.
Labor supports the Crimes Amendment (Remissions of Sentences) Bill 2021. The bill will repeal section 19AA of the Crimes Act, which applies remissions granted under state or territory laws to head sentences for Commonwealth offences. A remission is a reduction in the term of a prison sentence. The upshot of section 19AA of the Crimes Act is that any such reduction to a prisoner's sentence under a state or territory law is applied automatically to the head sentence of an individual who has been convicted of Commonwealth offences. The laws of states and territories vary in this area, which means that individuals who are handed the same sentences in different states may ultimately end up serving a different term of imprisonment, depending on the state or territory in which they are sentenced.
The other aspect of section 19AA of the Crimes Act, subsections 19AA(2) and (3), would also be repealed. Subsection 19AA(2) applies any state or territory law crediting what is known as 'clean street time' as a reduction of a federal offender's sentence in the same way as clean street time would apply to reduce the sentence of a state or territory offender in the same jurisdiction. Subsection 19AA(3) ensures that clean street time is taken into account where an offender breaches their parole in a state or territory that does not provide for reductions in sentences based on clean street time. The bill would replace subsections 19AA(2) and (3) with a new subsection in a different part of the Crimes Act. While courts could still consider clean street time when dealing with federal offenders who have breached their parole conditions, state and territory laws in relation to clean street time would no longer apply automatically to federal offenders.
This bill was the subject of an inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. The primary concern raised by submitters about the bill was that the measures in the bill would apply retrospectively, with the effect that reductions in sentences that had already been applied would be removed by the bill. In response to that concern, the Attorney-General's Department submitted:
Remissions and reductions from sentences are not an entitlement, and it is not unreasonable to expect that changes may be made from time to time to discretionary benefits such as these.
It also noted that the changes in the bill would not impose any additional punishments or change the sentence imposed by the sentencing court.
Labor understands and takes very seriously the concerns raised by submitters about this aspect of the bill. However, on balance, we do not think those concerns outweigh the clear advantages associated with ensuring greater certainty and consistency when it comes to the length of federal sentences and the interests of community safety. I commend the bill to the House.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a third time.
by leave—Reluctantly, I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring in relation to business for today:
(1) the following bills have priority over all other business during government business time:
(a) Biosecurity Amendment (Enhanced Risk Management) Bill 2021;
(b) Independent National Security Legislation Monitor Amendment Bill 2021;
(c) Crimes Amendment (Remissions of Sentences) Bill 2021;
(2) following the third reading of the Crimes Amendment (Remissions of Sentences) Bill 2021; and
(3) from 8 pm until the adjournment of the House:
(a) any division called shall be deferred until 9.30 am on Thursday, 2 December 2021; and
(b) if any Member draws the attention of the Speaker to the state of the House, the Speaker shall announce that he or she will count the House at 9.30 am on Thursday, 2 December 2021.
I rise in support of the motion that has been moved by the Special Minister of State, but, in doing so, I need to acknowledge and to explain to anyone who might be listening and paying attention that they are paying far more attention than the government has been paying during the course of today. There is a reason that these mistakes happen, and today has been littered with them. The reason these mistakes are happening is really simple. This government has decided to be the first government where ministers do not take responsibility for their own legislation, so whoever is rostered on is in charge of whatever is in front of us. There have been a few outcomes from that today. We've had this one, where a motion was moved. The wording of what was moved—it hadn't been negotiated back and forth with the opposition, so we let it through in good faith—actually said that the House would adjourn after we got to the third reading stage of a bill that we weren't going to deal with. That meant that, earlier today, this House resolved that it was going to meet forever. That was what was decided. You had a motion, you had a vote—
I'll admit I like it when parliament sits, but even that is too much for me. So the House resolved—and this is why leave had to be granted for a fresh suspension to be moved—that it was going to meet forever. We try to be cooperative on occasions like this, but the bizarreness of that happening was because there is no planning and order to the program and ministers don't take responsibility for their own legislation. So in one day we had the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts put out a media release after a bill was amended in the Senate, saying he didn't like the amended bill. It was either going to pass in full or not at all. Three hours later another minister, the Leader of the House, was in here adopting all the amendments that Labor had carried in the Senate. So effectively the minister's position became: 'It's either going to get through in full, not at all or exactly as Labor requested.'
Then we had another bill where the member for Moncrieff spoke on a completely different piece of legislation and then we ended up with a suspension of standing orders being moved to have the parliament sit forever. When the program came down earlier this week and I said that this was the moment when the government gave up, I meant it figuratively. I did not expect that they would, in fact, give up.
Keep going forever. Interestingly, though, the way they were going to keep going forever was in keeping with this government, because they were going to keep the parliament sitting forever with nothing before it, with nothing to do, with no actual purpose.
We'll support the suspension of standing orders but remind the government that this place is not a bubble. This place matters. Paying attention matters. Having ministers responsible for their own legislation matters. That's why the relevant shadow ministers come in here and take the business of government far more seriously than the government itself takes it.
Question agreed to.
House adjourned at 20:14
This week, Barbados declared itself a republic, putting in place as president Sandra Mason. It's 55 years since Barbados became independent from Britain, and this republic is the culmination of a two-decade process. Barbados, of course, will still compete in the Commonwealth Games. It will still be a country with British traditions. But it it'll stand proudly on its own two feet as a republic, and with Rihanna as its national hero.
A bit over two decades ago, Australia also considered becoming a republic, with 45 per cent of Australians and 63 per cent of Canberrans voting yes. When that vote was defeated, Australians were assured that there would be another vote coming along sometime soon. But, in two decades, one hasn't come along, and it's likely to be a full generation between republican votes. In that time, we've seen the revelation of the palace letters, making it very clear that Buckingham Palace was consulted and forewarned about Governor-General Sir John Kerr's likely decision to dismiss the Whitlam government, provided advice about how the Governor-General's reserve powers might be exercised and that Sir John Kerr even war-gamed possible scenarios with the palace and Prince Charles in which he himself might be dismissed as Governor-General.
Only a third of Australians know that the Queen is our head of state, and the monarchy is becoming increasingly unrepresentative of a diverse, modern, multicultural Australia. Imagine if we had a rule in Australia that you could only be Prime Minister if you came from a particular lineage, which favoured the male side and in which all members were members of a particular religion. We would think it was completely anathema to our modern plurality to choose our head of state on a basis that guaranteed that no Indigenous Australian could ever become the head of state. It is time for an Australian republic, and we should make modest steps in that direction. That could include repurposing the Queen's Birthday holiday, changing the face that's on the back of our coins from a picture of the Queen to a selection of Indigenous Australians, improving our understanding of the oldest continuing culture in the world, while standing firmly in the Asia-Pacific as a country which proudly allows its own to become the head of state.
I've been a passionate Australian republican all my life and I'm keen to see this done. It's very clear it will take a Labor government to put in place the referendum that will allow Australians to choose to become a republic and finally have an Australian as our head of state.
This morning I am going to speak about four infrastructure upgrades in my electorate of Boothby that I am incredibly proud to have seen completed during my time as a federal member of parliament. These upgrades have changed people's lives. They've made my local residents safer. They've got them to school, to work and to the shops more quickly. They've particularly managed to get them to Flinders University and Flinders Medical Centre more quickly and more safely. Three of them were started and completed during my time as the member for Boothby. One of them was started just before, but it's fully complete as well. The reason that we have been able to fund and deliver these very important infrastructure upgrades is that the Morrison Liberal government are strong economic managers, which has meant that we have been able to fully fund and deliver these life-changing projects for my local community.
The first project that I'm particularly proud of is the Springbank intersection upgrade. I first came across the issues at the Springbank, Goodwood and Daws Road intersection way back in 1996, when I was a first-year uni student at Flinders University, which is within my electorate of Boothby. I spent seven years getting stuck at this intersection.
Then, after I was preselected as the candidate for Boothby in 2015, I spent another seven years getting stuck at this intersection again. So I couldn't be more proud that I've fixed this terrible problem for my local community that's been a problem for 40 years, not just the past 20 years that I've been going through it. It was fully complete in early September, so we now have 60,000 vehicles a day that no longer get stuck at this terrible dogleg. We've managed to actually increase the green space in the area as well.
We've put in a brand new entrance to the historic and heritage listed suburb of Colonel Light Gardens, and we actually delivered this ahead of time. The federal government funding that went into this project was $30.7 million and the total project was valued at $61.4 million. We have changed people's lives, and I am so proud. It's also right next door to the Repat hospital, which the state Labor government cruelly and shamefully shut down when they were in power. We've reactivated the Repat and federally we've put in $40 million to get this amazing veterans hospital site back up and running. Nearby, we have the Darlington upgrade, which is fully delivered federal funding of $603 million; the Flinders link, which extended the train line from Tonsley up to Flinders University, finally linking it with the city and also linking Flinders hospital with the city, $70.5 million of federal funding; and Oaklands crossing, fully complete, with $95 million of federal funding. All of this has changed lives—made people's lives safer and got them to work more quickly, to school and to the shops—and I'm so proud to have delivered these projects. (Time expired)
With fire season approaching, I would like to acknowledge the firefighters of the Rockingham, Baldivis, Kwinana, Karnup and Secret Harbour volunteer fire and emergency services for their continued efforts to keep the community safe from the bushfires that can spring up across the electorate of Brand. I want to also thank the volunteers of the Rockingham-Kwinana State Emergency Service for all they do across the year to help members of the community in need.
As it starts to heat up, more people will be visiting our beautiful beaches and will be taking to deeper water in their boats. I'd like to thank the efforts of the Secret Harbour Surf Life Saving Club and also Marine Rescue Rockingham for serving our coastal areas. I know all the volunteers of both these organisations will have a busy summer helping swimmers and boaties that run into trouble while out in the beautiful Indian Ocean.
While Christmas is a joyous time for most, we cannot forget those less fortunate than us. For some, Christmas is a very difficult period. Thankfully, my electorate of Brand—like electorates right across this great country—is full of passionate and caring people who work over the holidays to help those in need. This includes the remarkable team at the Coastal District Care Centre who organise an annual Christmas appeal. Last year, the appeal ensured 150 Christmas hampers were delivered to those in need, and it is likely that this year Coastal District Care Centre will help support another 150 families across the district enjoy a better Christmas. I'm really pleased to take part in this annual appeal. Donations in the form of non-perishable food goods and unwrapped gifts can be dropped off at my Rockingham electorate office and also the electorate office of my local state parliamentary colleagues Roger Cook in Kwinana, Paul Papalia in Warnbro and Reece Whitby in Baldivis until this Friday 3 December. Unfortunately, the electorate office of Premier Mark McGowan remains closed due to the shocking threats of extreme violence made against him and his staff.
At this point, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of the staff in my office and in the offices of those state MPs who have had to endure much over the course of this year. The recent threats and harassment from only a few individuals take a toll on their lives and their wellbeing. Nonetheless, these community minded people keep on with their great work helping people right across the electorate of Brand. Usually, at this time of year, I would name the staff and the officers, including mine, but I realise that, in this terrible climate of violence driven by extreme antivaxxer movements, naming them in the Hansard may put them at greater risk and that is truly a dreadful situation. But to all of the electorate officers across the state offices and my Brand electorate office: you all know who you are, and many of the kind community of Brand know who you are too, and I want to thank you all and thank you for your commitment to the local community.
I'll take this brief opportunity to say Merry Christmas to all the MPs here today and those in the Senate as well. I hope you all have a really restful break after a pretty tough year.
Heathridge Park is a 9.3-hectare reserve which is home to a diverse range of more than 30 sporting clubs and community groups. The sportsground hosts both junior and senior cricket and football clubs, with around 1,300 participants, and several tennis, basketball and badminton clubs. The City of Joondalup provides youth services at the park's facilities, and the RSL, Playgroup WA, the Child and Adolescent Health Service, the 1st Beldon Scout Group, and the University of the Third Age are among the community groups that use the facility.
In 2019, the City of Joondalup initiated a needs analysis and feasibility study, which confirmed the inadequacy of the ageing infrastructure. The city's draft concept plan for Heathridge Park proposes a new multipurpose building, to replace the three existing buildings, and an upgrade of the sporting facilities and public amenities, to provide greater year-round use. The estimated cost of construction of the development is approximately $15.7 million. The next stage of the process will be the detailed design and tendering for the construction phase, subject to the necessary local, state and federal funding being secured.
I wish to highlight the disparity in the state government's funding of community facilities in suburbs located east of Marmion Avenue compared with suburbs located to the west of Marmion Avenue along the coast. In the lead-up to this year's WA state election, the McGowan government committed $8 million to the Sorrento Surf Life Saving Club redevelopment, and a further $4.9 million was allocated to the Ern Halliday Recreation Camp in Hillarys. In contrast, only $2.5 million was committed to the redevelopment of Heathridge Park, which is located east of Marmion Avenue.
As one of the more disadvantaged suburbs in the city of Joondalup, according to the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas index, Heathridge presents a strong case for additional financial support from the state government, as residents of suburbs with lower index scores generally tend to access community facilities and active reserves for social and sporting activities more often. The residents of Heathridge and suburbs located east of Marmion Avenue deserve parity of funding with their neighbours along the coast. To support the City of Joondalup, I have prepared a submission for a federal funding contribution towards the upgrade of Heathridge Park as part of the current budget process.
Law-abiding age pensioners are the vulnerable people now being targeted by Centrelink in what I can only describe as a new low. Rather than recouping the billions of dollars in JobKeeper pocketed by profitable businesses, the federal government is instead targeting older Australians in a cruel and mindless attempt to claw back money. Again, just like robodebt, they're doing it with useless automated systems that cost a bundle to create but achieve nothing other than terrorising the most vulnerable in the community.
Computer generated letters, in a barely comprehensible form, have been fired off to older Australians, demanding financial records dating back years, with the deadline often only one week away. Moreover, each carries the threat of cancelled payments. We saw, just recently, media reports of an 80-year-old man with advanced dementia and living in a nursing home whose pension was cancelled because he didn't provide the requested information. 'Shocked, bullied and panicked'—that's how another octogenarian felt after opening a three-page letter from Centrelink demanding that she supply financial records dating back a startling 17 years. 'I'm just so stressed. I don't understand why they're doing this. The pension is the only income we have.' This is what yet another, 83-year-old, woman told my office last week. Both she and her husband suffer serious health issues, with her husband needing assistance simply to breathe.
Indeed, since commenting publicly about this issue, I've received correspondence from age pensioners right across Australia, sharing their stories. Overwhelmingly, people feel offended by the way Centrelink questions their integrity and fearful that, by inadvertently doing the wrong thing, they may be accused of fraud. Then there's the worry of having pension payments cut, when they rely on that money to live.
These are good people who have always paid their bills on time, paid their taxes and done what they can to be good citizens, so receiving a letter from a federal government agency suggesting otherwise is obviously deeply distressing.
Of course, the explanation given by the department and the minister is that these letters protect age pensioners from debt. What nonsense—what they actually do is create more work for already overburdened and under-resourced Centrelink staff and force older Australians to jump through unnecessary hoops. How about we start treating older Australians with respect and provide them with a service that assists and supports them, as our social security system was designed to do, starting with ditching these crappy automated systems? Yes, that would require more staff and better training. Yes, that would require more face-to-face services and better ways of communicating with people. But that's exactly what's required if we are to start treating older Australians fairly and with respect.
I've been blessed since 2010, when I was first elected to this place, to be represented in my Riverina electorate by fabulous mayors. I represent a dozen local government areas, and each and every one of them has a fantastic mayor at the helm. Local government elections will be held this Saturday across New South Wales, and good luck to all the candidates, because it takes courage, as we know, to put your hand up for public office. Whilst people realise that local government is all about roads, rubbish and rates and getting the little things done, they do play a very important part in the three-tiered levels of government that we have in this nation. Three long-serving mayors of the 12 mayors in my electorate have decided not to contest the elections, and I want to pay tribute to them today: Coolamon shire mayor John Seymour OAM, Lockhart shire mayor Rodger Schirmer and City of Wagga Wagga mayor Greg Conkey OAM. I also want to pay tribute to their wives who have partnered them on this journey and have led the shires and the local government areas as well as their husbands, I have to say.
John Seymour's wife is Margaret, and she is a fabulous lady. Like him, she is also an Order of Australia medallist. John has been 23 years on council. He was first elected in 1999—seven years as deputy mayor, nine years as mayor—and he's done a wonderful job. Rodger Schirmer's wife is Alison, and she's been a wonderful support. He's been nine years on council and was immediately elected deputy mayor. He was elected mayor in 2016, so five years in the top job, in the big chair at Lockhart. The City of Wagga Wagga mayor is Greg Conkey OAM and his wife, Jenny, is also an OAM. Greg, like me, was in that noble profession of newspapers. He, like me, was an editor, and I've known Greg for many, many years. He was first elected to council in 2012 and has been mayor from 2016. It's not easy being the mayor of a very large, vibrant regional capital, but he's done a great job. He's been one of the drivers of getting the levee bank, along with state and federal government funding of course, around our city to protect our city. He edited and managed the Riverina Leader newspaper for 26 years.
In the time remaining I want to thank and wish good luck to the nine other mayors in my electorate: Bland's Brian Monaghan, Cootamundra Gundagai's Abb McAlister, Cowra's Bill West, Forbes's Phyllis Miller OAM, Hilltops's Brian Ingram, Junee's Neil Smith, Parkes's Ken Keith OAM, Temora's Rick Firman OAM and Weddin's Mark Liebich. I have to pay special tribute to Phyllis, who is going for the presidency of Local Government NSW.
Twelve months ago I stood here raising concerns about the treatment of Mohammad El Halabi, World Vision's manager in Gaza, who was jailed by the Israeli government. At that time, the court case was in the final stages. It still hasn't finished. It's been 5½ years that this man has been held in an Israeli prison, away from his family and away from his work with World Vision. The Jerusalem Post is a major Israeli newspaper edited by a former adviser to the current ultraconservative Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett. Last month, their editorial stated:
Israel said he diverted millions of dollars contributed by the Australian government that were earmarked for humanitarian aid to Hamas. World Vision suspended its operations in Gaza and hired investigators to check the Israeli claims. Australia did the same. After exhaustive research, they both came up with no evidence to back the Israeli claims.
Halabi's trial has dragged on for years. Something so simple—the Israeli claims that he funneled money to Hamas—should have been easy to prove in court. Why is the trial not over remains a mystery …
They go on to say:
Halabi has been in jail for more than five years and has endured 165 court sessions without any credible evidence to back the charges against him. He has been denied bail and his trial has been declared secret without any credible reason except possibly to hide the fact that the prosecutor is afraid of being exposed for unjustly keeping an innocent man in jail for such a long time.
That was from the Jerusalem Post.
Last week, there was a Australian parliamentary briefing about the case. It was addressed by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, both of whom are deeply concerned that Mr El Halabi has been tortured in custody and that the basic elements of a fair trial have not been met, including the presumption of innocence and access to the evidence being brought against him. They quoted a United Nations human rights expert, who said:
Mr el-Halabi's arrest, interrogation and trial is not worthy of a democratic state. Israeli authorities must grant him the full rights of a fair trial, or else release him unconditionally.
The forum was also addressed by the former head of World Vision Australia, Reverend Tim Costello, who said:
Mohammed has resolutely refused to plead guilty – even when he was offered a plea deal that would have seen him released by now. He maintains he is innocent and will not trade his personal freedom in exchange for a slur on the integrity of himself or World Vision …
Israel has not only accused Mohammed of wrongdoing – they have suggested that World Vision and indeed the Australian Government have allowed money to go to terrorists … One wonders if this is a larger campaign to impugn any group that seeks to respond to the humanitarian needs of those who have suffered under a military occupation for decades.
Australia must condemn any attacks on legitimate human rights advocacy or aid to Palestinians and call for Mr El Halabi to be freed.
It's always great to see the concrete, real-life efforts of our government's policies on the ground. Twin Electrics and Plumbing is a fantastic Chisholm business. Located in Burwood, it's a local business and a family business, run by father-son duo Brian and Darren Cross. Having run a small business myself, I know how much hard work it takes to succeed, even at the best of times. The COVID-19 pandemic put significant stress on all of our local businesses, and Twin Electrics was no exception. But thanks in part to the Morrison government's policies, especially JobKeeper, they were able to make it through. Even better than just making it through, Brian and Darren were able to invest in their business to set it up for future success. With our expanded instant asset write-off, Twin Electrics was able to purchase two more road vehicles as well as a trailer, mounted jet-pressure machine and a scissor lift.
Of course, I was thrilled to hear all this, but I really want to talk today about a problem that Brian mentioned to me, which is that Twin Electrics, like many small businesses, are struggling to find the qualified specialists they need. State government infrastructure projects have had the effect of crowding out small businesses from being able to hire qualified tradies. Meanwhile, closed borders, necessary due to the pandemic, have meant that skilled workers from overseas cannot fill the gaps. Due to our record investment, the Morrison government have succeeded in getting record numbers of Aussies into trade apprenticeships, but these apprentices won't be suitably qualified to work for a business like Twin Electrics for a few years yet.
That's why last week's announcement from the Prime Minister that the borders were opening for skilled visa holders was so important. Although omicron has delayed this a little, it's clear that the Morrison government is alive to the concerns of small businesses and will make this move in the right direction as soon as it is safe to do so. Thanks, Brian, for your very important feedback. Our government will always deliver for small businesses like Twin Electrics.
This could be my last speech in this place for 2021—a year a lot of us would like to forget. I'm going to stick to non-COVID content because we don't need another politician telling us how hard the year was. We all know. Here are just a few highlights from my year representing my electorate of Wills and the people of Wills.
In January, I met with the Wills Grandmothers for Refugees group to discuss 500 refugees who were released from community detention with no financial support and how to help them out. In February, I campaigned to save independent cinema, along with the Palace Pentridge Cinema in Coburg in my electorate. In March, I presented members of the Coburg Lions FIDA club, a footy team for people with intellectual disabilities, with new jumpers designed by Indigenous artist Teddy Chessells. I also joined Brittany Higgins and thousands of other people to march for justice, equality and safety for women. In April, I launched a policy paper about how Australia can crack down on multinational tax avoidance and make big multinationals pay their fair share.
May was a busy one. With Labor leader Anthony Albanese and the member for Werriwa, who's here in the chamber, I launched Labor's Multicultural Engagement Taskforce report and I called very strongly for more ethnic diversity across Australian politics. Labor's shadow minister for education and shadow minister for women visited Wills and spoke to a huge crowd of passionate locals at the Retreat Hotel in Brunswick. A few days later, Labor's shadow minister for the arts came and spoke at a gig at the Moldy Fig, a New Orleans style jazz club in my electorate. Fortunately, he didn't bring his guitar! Let's hope he doesn't watch this speech.
June was a big month for sitting weeks. In this House, I called the government out on their woeful response to the Tatmadaw, the perpetrators of Myanmar's coup on 1 February. In July, the deputy Labor leader visited Wills to check out the great work of some local manufacturers—Aerochute; Mouldbuster; and Softmed, a PPE manufacturer.
In August, I hosted a community meeting on the situation in Afghanistan with Afghan Australians. Way back in May, I called on the government to urgently provide visa pathways for Afghans who worked with Australian personnel. The government's failure to act represents one of the biggest moral and strategic failures of any government in our history.
In September, I hosted a Wills youth forum to hear from young people in my electorate on the issues that matter to them. In October, I spoke on Labor's alternative vision on climate change at Per Capita, a think tank on Australian diplomacy, in the lead-up to the COP26 conference. In November, I hosted a housing forum with the shadow minister for housing and some passionate constituents to discuss the great need to invest in public housing and how a good home can ensure a great start in life, as it did for me and my family. Just last week, the shadow minister for climate change and energy visited Wills and announced two community solar batteries for solar storage in Brunswick and Coburg—practical, real action on climate change.
That's it. I got there throughout most of the year. Goodbye, 2021. May next year be nothing like you! I hope to work with my constituents of Wills and I look forward to working for them in 2022.
One of the great privileges of being in this place is that you get to meet some pretty extraordinary people and some people who want to do very important things in their community. There's no group for whom that is more true than the extraordinary group of families who came together with the concept to create Grace's Place. Grace's Place is a world first. It will be a residential centre—a place to go—for kids whose families have been the victims of homicide. Sadly, every year significant numbers of Australian children have a family member who is murdered. The families that came together for Grace's Place had a vision, and that was to support those kids through this new, world-first facility.
Some years ago, Greg Hunt and the government committed $6 million to build Grace's Place. We've gone through all of the various approval processes, and Grace's Place is physically being built in Blacktown right now. It's going to be something very special. It will open in September next year. In my current role as Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, I'm particularly conscious of the significance of Grace's Place and the fact that it will help children who are going through extraordinarily difficult times.
To the whole Cusumano family and all the other families: thank you so much for what you have done, for your vision, for your perseverance and for your grace. Grace's Place is going to be a tremendous testament to your efforts.
The Mortdale Men's Shed is going from strength to strength. Greg Moar and the gentlemen down at the men's shed are doing a fantastic job, helping the local community, local schools and other organisations through practical things, building things, that help build our community. They moved of course from Riverwood to Mortdale in 2017 and, credit where it's due, Georges River Council has done the right thing by the Mortdale Men's Shed in backing them and providing that space at Riverwood. It was great to visit Greg and the gentlemen recently, and I look forward to a future visit.
Coolaburoo in Padstow is a remarkable organisation, a community organisation, that sits at the heart of Padstow, supporting seniors in our community, supporting people who are doing it tough. It was great to join their AGM recently to talk with Rosanna and the whole team. It's been a tough year for Coolaburoo like so many community organisations, but 2022 is going to be a great year for the organisation.
In accordance with standing order 193 the time for constituency statements has concluded.
Federation Chamber adjourned at 10:31