Senators, before we get underway, it is my pleasure to announce that, following a merit selection process, Maureen Weeks has been appointed as Deputy Clerk of the Senate. Maureen is currently Clerk Assistant (Procedure), but has also headed up the Senate Committee Office and the Table Office. She has a long experience as a committee secretary and, in a previous life, was also Deputy Clerk of the ACT Legislative Assembly. Maureen's appointment is the culmination of more than 35 years in the service of two parliaments. I know that you will join me in congratulating her on a well-deserved promotion.
Honourable senators: Hear, hear!
On behalf of the Chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, Senator Macdonald, I present the report of the committee on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017, together with the Hansard recording of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.
Ordered that the report be printed.
I seek leave to move a motion to vary the conduct of business, namely a motion to defer consideration of the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 until Thursday 30 March 2017.
Leave not granted.
Pursuant to contingent notice of motion, I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion relating to the conduct of business, namely a motion to defer the consideration of the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 until Thursday 30 March 2017.
The opposition is moving this motion and has been required to suspend standing orders in order to get appropriate time to consider the legislation which is before the chamber and to consider amendments which are not even yet before the chamber. Whatever one's views about the substance of the provisions of the government's bill—and the opposition has made its position very clear—it is a bill that makes changes to the Racial Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Commission Act and they are changes which are of critical importance to the nation. Yet the government, with some of the crossbench, has been in an obscene rush to drive them through this place. Let's recall: this bill was introduced to the Senate on Wednesday 22 March and referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee the next day. Labor sought an inquiry process and a report in May. The government managed to get through its demand for a committee to have a single morning of hearings last Friday with virtually no notice, and then to report in a report that was tabled just now—just moments before debate on this bill is listed to begin.
It is also an absolute disgrace that this government, and the government dominated Senate inquiry, failed to call any Indigenous witness last Friday. What an absolute disgrace. When representatives of the Aboriginal Legal Service did come to the hearings and asked to be allowed to speak, they were not allowed to do so. It really does say everything you need to know about this government and its real views about freedom of speech when it denies Indigenous Australians the right to be heard on changes to anti-racism laws that it is trying to press through the Senate.
Even in the few hours of the limited public hearings, it became clear that there are a number of serious problems with the procedural changes which are being proposed in the bill. Schedule 2 of the bill alters the complaints handling procedures of the Australian Human Rights Commission. This is distinct from the substantive changes to section 18C, about which there have been a great deal of focus. It is clear from the evidence before the committee that there are a number of problems with those amendments. It has also been flagged that the government will amend schedule 2 to deal with the many problems identified in evidence last week. On Friday, their own officers said there were problems with schedule 2 of the legislation, including in relation to the procedural changes which are proposed. The government has flagged that it is going to move amendments to its own legislation. Where are they? We are about to start debate on the bill. I invite you, Senator Brandis, to table the changes now, because your officers have flagged them. Where are they? You are going to proceed to debate a bill when you have not even provided to the chamber the amendments to schedule 2, which were flagged on Friday. What that really shows is what a sham this all is.
Do you know why they want to debate it and get it done? Because they just want to lose it quickly and get it off the agenda. As long as Senator Xenophon and his team stick to the position they have articulated for some time, this bill will fail, except for those aspects of schedule 2 of the procedural changes in relation to which there may be a majority in this chamber, including some that the opposition may support. We flagged in-principle support for some of the issues raised. But no, the government do not want to actually have a constructive discussion. They want to just drive it through and lose it quickly so it can be taken off the agenda. Do you know what that really shows us?
It really shows us that the object of this bill is entirely internal. They are not actually interested in getting changes through, because, if they were, Senator Brandis might have broken the habit of a lifetime and actually had a negotiation with someone, actually had a conversation with someone, actually provided something to the opposition and to the crossbench in relation to those areas where there might be majority support for the change that is the procedural aspect of this legislation.
But, no, we do not have any of that; we have the government insisting on bringing this in today, tabling the report just moments before I got to my feet and not providing us with the amendments that they themselves have flagged. Let us understand this. The government have flagged amendments to a bill that they want you to start debating when you have not seen the amendments. If the crossbenchers are not concerned about that, with respect, they ought to be. The government should at least have the courtesy, before the debate commences, to show the Senate the changes which they are proposing.
Once again we see yet another last-minute attempt to delay the Senate from dealing with an issue that has been the subject of public discussion and the subject of discussion in this parliament and in this Senate, by its committees, since the end of 2013. There is nothing more to be said on this matter, because every possible argument about section 18C has been made and made again over the course of the last 3½ years.
Might I remind honourable senators, and particularly those members of the crossbench, of the history of this matter. The coalition government was elected in September 2013, with a promise to reform section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. We promised to do that for two reasons: firstly, because it represented an unjustifiable constraint on freedom of speech, as we saw in the Bill Leak case, as we saw in the QUT students case; and, secondly, because it was not well worded to deal with the core vice of racism that is racial harassment, which was entirely missing from section 18C. We had a long public discussion in 2013. In May 2014 the Abbott government released an exposure draft of changes—changes that are very, very similar to the ultimate form of the bill that has now reached this chamber. Mr Abbott in September 2014, for reasons he explained at the time, decided not to proceed with that bill and, to use his words, took the matter off the table.
But the public discussion of section 18C continued, in particular because we continued to see section 18C being used as a vehicle for the persecution of innocent Australians, as it was used as a vehicle for the persecution of the late, great Bill Leak, as it was used as a vehicle for the persecution of a handful of completely innocent teenagers who were students at the QUT who made a wisecrack about a racially discriminatory computer lab. Those youngsters were subject to the persecution of a process for months and years. That is the reason the matter continued to be a matter of concern to all thinking Australians.
Last year the Prime Minister decided to revisit the issue, by asking me to refer the issue to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights for inquiry and report. I sent that request to the parliamentary human rights committee on 8 November last year. In the following two months, the parliamentary human rights committee held nine full days of public hearings, including a public hearing in every single capital city in Australia. Nine full days of public hearings is a very long inquiry for a parliamentary committee, by any measure. It reported on 28 November. That report was tabled.
The government considered the report. I discussed the report with the President of the Human Rights Commission, Professor Gillian Triggs, whose contribution to this discussion has been very constructive, and Professor Triggs suggested some amendments of her own, many of which the government has taken up. The matter was brought up in the Senate, when the bill was introduced last week, and a view was taken by senators that, purely for the purpose of having a look at some drafting matters, there would be a brief Senate inquiry. It was not, as you say, Senator Wong, for half a day, because in substance the inquiry went for the whole of Friday, which is about the length of time a routine Senate inquiry that does not go into the merits of the issue—because the merits had already been extensively canvassed by the parliamentary human rights committee—would expect to take. That committee has reported back, and we are now ready to debate the bill, on an issue that has been a major issue in public discussion in this country for 3½ years. There are already 20 speakers on the speakers list for the second reading. The Senate can deal with this matter this week, as it always planned to do. It should deal with the matter this week, and Senator Wong should not be indulged in trying once again to play politics with this issue.
I rise to speak in favour of the opposition motion to suspend standing orders in order to make sure that we have time to consider the government's amendments to the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. Let us go back a step here. Let us consider the time line. In 2014 the Prime Minister redefined what the phrase 'no surprises and no excuses' meant. That was the PM who gave us knighthoods. He then set out plans to make it easier for people to attack others on the basis of their race. We thought that was just a little hiccup. We thought, 'If this is an idea that's so bad that Tony Abbott rejects it, surely it's gone for good.' But this is like some bad zombie movie. It just keeps coming back and back and back.
We have the Attorney-General here, who said that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights needed to inquire into restrictions on freedom of speech in Australia. That is a fair call. It is always good to examine freedom of speech. It is a fundamental tenet of any liberal society. But then the Attorney-General decided to direct the committee to inquire only into the operation of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, not into real restrictions on freedom of speech. Think about the Border Force Act, for example, which says to a doctor or a nurse or a health professional, 'We'll make a criminal out of you if you stand up and say that you've witnessed abuse in offshore detention facilities,' or indeed the ASIO Act or the vast pieces of anti-terrorism legislation, which make it almost impossible for journalists to report on abuses that go on right across Australia's network of asylum seeker detention centres.
We heard in the committee inquiry process that members of the Indigenous community were denied a hearing. So much for freedom of speech! It is really telling that the parliamentary joint committee looking at this issue, which was dominated by members of the coalition, could not agree on what changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act were necessary or justified.
Now out of that process, where there is clearly internal division, we see a bill rushed through basically so the Prime Minister can give the far Right of his party another victory. This is all about the internal politics. Senator Wong was absolutely right. This is all about the internal politics within the coalition. This is about a government that is now governing for itself and not for the community. Outside of its little echo chamber this is not an issue. Barnaby Joyce belled the cat. It is not often I agree with Barnaby Joyce, but he belled the cat. This is not a conversation that is happening around kitchen tables in Australian communities.
Now we have some amendments that were cobbled together at the last minute. God knows what they are. We have not seen them. You want to rush this legislation through the parliament and we have not even seen the amendments that you are proposing. Surely good process would mean that when we come into this place we are all presented with the amendments to this 'critical piece of government legislation'—in your words. The Attorney-General said that we have had weeks, months and, indeed, years of ventilating this topic. Why on earth are the amendments not even ready for us to look at right now as we go into debating this legislation?
We hear time and again the old platitudes about freedom of speech, but we do not hear about freedom of speech not being freedom of consequence. These platitudes are mentioned by the coalition. Freedom of speech is a critically important issue in a liberal democracy, but what about freedom of consequence? To say that the community support for retaining the current wording of section 18C is overwhelming is an understatement. When there is so much pressure from the community pushing you in the opposite direction you have to ask yourself: why is the government going so hard on this issue? It is very clear that there is the mother of all fights within the coalition right now.
The fundamental issue for me is this. Time and time again this government has been asked: just what is it that this government would like to say, or have other people say, that they cannot say now? What is it that this small group of mostly privileged white men want to say that is racially offensive or insulting which is not justifiable, reasonably or in good faith, and about which they claim has no overriding public interest? What is it? (Time expired)
I urge other senators to support this suspension of standing orders motion. I also take this opportunity to respond to the assertion that the opposition is simply trying to delay government business. The Attorney-General should reflect on yesterday in this place, when the opposition with other members of the Senate passed I think 11 bills and started debate on the 12th. We ably assisted the government with its legislative program yesterday. That shows you that where there is proper process—where there is a government program that is set out, organised and foreshadowed—you will find the opposition cooperating.
But on this bill we have seen an absolute shambles. This bill, which seemingly was of no priority, suddenly became a priority. It was whisked through cabinet and the government's own processes in the party room and into this place. We were given one morning for a committee to inquire into it and report back to the chamber at the commencement of proceedings today. Now the government wants to move straight into second readers. The Attorney-General in his contribution said: 'There are 20 or so second readers, so no matter there. We can get on with that'—without actually seeing the amendments.
So all senators who would like to contribute could do so without actually knowing what the government intends the final legislation to look like. Perhaps your support or opposition will hinge on some of the amendments. We do not know, because we have not seen them. We might get them today. The Attorney did not actually go to where the amendments are at, despite the request by Senator Wong in her presentation that the government provide some indication of where those amendments are at, how many there are and what they go to. None of that was addressed in the Attorney's contribution today.
We saw last week the government seeking to use the Senate as a rubber stamp for their own political difficulties and their own political agenda. This is what this suspension of standing orders motion goes to. We must stand up and protect the role of this chamber for a start and protect established practice. We must require the government to follow proper process, which would normally be a bill gets introduced, it heads off for a reasonable committee process and it comes back to the chamber with notice and, if there are to be amendments, the amendments are foreshadowed and people are provided an opportunity to have a briefing on those amendments and perhaps to consult on them. We hear rumours that the Human Rights Commission may not support some of the amendments that the government is proposing. We do not know, because we have not seen them. Perhaps we would like the opportunity to seek the view of the Human Rights Commission about the way they do their work and whether the government amendments are actually going to assist that work or frustrate it. Again we do not know.
The Senate must stand up for itself. It cannot become a patsy of the government. It is meant to be here as a check on executive power. That is the role that we are asked to do. To fulfil our role in this place we must stand up for proper process. We cannot continue to have this chamber used as a rubber stamp for the government. That is what happened last week and that is what is being attempted here today. Last week it was the different deals, that we are still not fully aware of, and the price of those deals—certainly, the price that families pay. It is a serious issue, family tax payments and child care. The price that Australians will pay is serious, as is the outcome of last week. Again, we cannot allow this.
I have had representations right across my community about this bill. They expect the Senate to take it seriously. They want a rational and informed debate. We are simply asking to shift the debate from today to Thursday. It is not like we are sending it off to the never-never. We understand the political difficulties. It is, actually, not our issue that you have internal political difficulties of this. We are simply asking that debate proceed on Thursday, not today. That is not a big ask but what it does say to the government is that when the Senate needs to do its job it will stand up, against the executive, and make sure that we are given the time and opportunity to do that job and do it seriously. This is a serious bill and it deserves serious consideration.
At the outset, I acknowledge that colleagues in this place can have sincerely-held differences of opinion on matters that are the subject of the human rights legislation. But I do not think there can be any legitimate claim that the issues addressed in this legislation have not had very good ventilation.
The opposition's motion to suspend standing orders is an attempt to re-litigate something that this chamber has already determined—that is, that the Senate committee inquiry would report today and, therefore, that this chamber would be in a position to address this legislation today. I must disagree with the proposition of colleagues opposite that there has been a rush on this legislation. It is important to remember that the human rights committee of the parliament has had an extremely extensive inquiry into all of the issues around the existing legislation and potential modifications to that legislation. It was an exhaustive inquiry and I must commend Mr Goodenough and the committee members for the work that they did there.
In addition to that, we have the Senate committee inquiry, which has reported to this chamber within the last half hour. But that is not the end of scrutiny. We have listed—all colleagues can see on the speakers' list—20 speakers for the second reading debate. There is no attempt by the government—nor, if there were, would it be supported by this chamber—to curtail the opportunity for colleagues to speak in the second reading debate. That will go for as long as it goes and is entirely in the hands of colleagues in this place. I have no doubt that there will also be a good debate in the committee stage. I should point out that there will be a small number of amendments from the government, of a purely technical nature, which are the product of discussions the government has had with Professor Triggs and which seek to satisfy some issues that she had with the initial draft. I provide that by way of context but highlight, again, that we will have a good committee debate. I have no doubt of this.
This has been a model of good process. The human rights committee and their work represented this parliament at its best, in terms of the conduct of their duty. The government is not seeking to curtail debate, in this place, in any way, shape or form on this legislation. I do want to acknowledge something that Senator Wong and the Manager of Opposition Business referred to: that yesterday was a red-letter day for legislating in this place. There were 11 packages addressed—12 bills in total—and I thank all colleagues for their cooperation in that. It would be terrific if that cooperative spirit continued today and for the rest of the week so that we can get on with the business of addressing the human rights legislation.
What we are seeking to do through the legislation—that, I hope, we will be in a position to debate shortly—is to address that balance between appropriate protections for individuals in our society and that fundamental right, and fundamental capacity to exercise that right, of freedom of speech. It is not something that any of us should take lightly.
Let me end where I started: I recognise that there are colleagues of goodwill who reach different conclusions on these matters, but it is time that we moved onto the business of addressing the legislation before this place. I do not believe that the motion to suspend standing orders should be supported.
I rise to support the suspension of standing orders on the consideration of the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. I say, very clearly, to all senators and anyone who is listening or watching: what you are seeing here is a government making an absolute mockery of the processes of this Senate and, by extension, making an absolute mockery of Australia's democracy. Even worse, they are doing so to try and make it easier to be a racist in this country, because—make no mistake—that is the core content of this legislation. The government wants to make it easier for Australians to engage in racist hate speech. They want to send a message out there into the community that it will be okay to say things that previously you could not say without offending section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
I sat as a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, and it is very true to say that it was a significant inquiry. It took us a fair length of time, and it visited right around the country, as it should have. But what the Attorney did not tell the Senate was that the committee recommended precisely nothing in regard to 18C. It did not make a recommendation to engage in specific changes to 18C. What the committee did was float a range of options and leave it at that. As I said at the time, it was a blancmange of a report from the human rights committee.
The government has moved of its own volition to make changes to 18C that will make it easier to be a racist in this country. Then we had to put up with a quick and dirty inquiry that took precisely one morning, in terms of hearings, from the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, which I also sit on. What a disgrace it was that representatives from the Aboriginal Legal Service were prevented from giving evidence to that committee by the government members, against the wishes of the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party members of that committee. So, we had the quick and dirty inquiry, the report of which was tabled only just over half an hour ago in this place, and then the government attempted to bring this legislation on for debate.
I have news for the government: Barnaby Joyce is right. This is not an issue that is dominating the barbeque conversation in this country. What it is an issue that has dominated the pages of TheAustralian, that has dominated the agenda of the IPA and its agents in this place, and that has dominated the agenda of the culture warriors who make up, exclusively, the far right of the Liberal Party in this place. It is those culture warriors doing the job of the culture warriors in TheAustralian, the culture warriors on Sky and the culture warriors in the IPA who have driven this debate so far that it has bullied a craven Prime Minister into acquiescing to their demands in moving to make it easier to be a racist in Australia. How far he has come—Mr Turnbull—from his glory days.
Make no mistake, the reason we are doing this in such a hurry today is that the Prime Minister is like a little boy who has to swallow a spoonful of cough medicine. He just wants to get it all down in one go. That is a really important point. This rush is about nothing more than politics. It is not about making good policy. It is about the Prime Minister getting a difficult issue, or an issue he sees as difficult, off his plate as quickly as he can.
The Greens are going to stand shoulder to shoulder with multicultural Australia here, because we have listened to what they have told us. There is never a good time to make it easier to be a racist in Australia, but now is the worst of all times, because multicultural Australians are telling us that racism is on the rise. They have told us about the toll it takes to be a victim of racism—the mental health toll and the physical health toll that are taken on people against whom racist acts are perpetrated. These are people who will face more racism if this legislation passes unamended through this place.
Senator Fifield has just described the amendments as technical. If they are just technical, give us a look at the things. We have not seen the amendments, and I do not accept that they are technical, because my understanding, from the evidence Senator Brandis gave to a committee, is that they will go to the heart of how the Human Rights Commission operates, and there is every chance that they will be detrimental to the work of that commission.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Wong to suspend standing orders be agreed to.
I rise to speak on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017, and I start by making this point: it says something distressingly sad about this government that it wants to legitimise offence, insult and humiliation all in the name of free speech—a value that gives expression to one of the cornerstones of our democracy. It is even more distressing that this government, captured as it is by a small group of ideologues, is prepared to change the barrier for what may be racially discriminatory from a sense of personal offence to one of fearfulness, for that is exactly what the changes proposed by this government to the Racial Discrimination Act and the Australian Human Rights Commission Act achieve. They declare it permissible to employ verbal abuse to affront and shock people, drawing the line only at the point of harassment. Harassment is about generating fear; it is not about protecting freedom. The boundary that Senator Brandis wants to set is harassment, the fear of being pursued and harried, rather than the protection of people's dignity. But I suppose that is what one might expect of someone who proclaims the rights of people to be bigots, and it is certainly consistent with what one may perceive to be both the instinct and the aspiration of the Attorney-General.
The Racial Discrimination Act has been on the statute books for over 40 years, and it has served our community well. It was one of the many legacies of the Whitlam government to us, and the section that has caused so much discussion in recent times has been with us for some 25 years. But, typical of a government bereft of any fresh or constructive ideas, this government's preferred way forward is to go backwards. Let us recall that the former Prime Minister's modus operandi was to smash down whatever the Rudd and Gillard governments had constructed—witness the reckless approach when it came to climate change policy. For his part, the present Prime Minister chooses to do little more than dance to his predecessor's tune—as I have previously described him, the organ-grinder's monkey.
Senators will remember that the Prime Minister has said on no fewer than 16 occasions that amending the Racial Discrimination Act is not on his agenda. Well, now it is. Whilst imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, what this tells us is that the Prime Minister has no control over his own agenda. His is set for him by the ideologues, and he simply obeys.
Laws are amended when they have been found to be inadequate by the courts or when they are no longer able to meet contemporary legal demands, and this government has singularly failed to demonstrate why this act needs changing. Is the government introducing these amendments because it has nothing else to do, a sort of 'make work' program? Or is it pursuing a more insidious purpose—to cuddle up to One Nation in an attempt to save seats? What is it that the Attorney-General wants to say that he cannot say now? Why does he want to change good law into bad law? Why does he want to send a signal to Australians that more racial abuse is permissible? Because that is the precisely the signal that is sent not only by the legislation that is before the chamber but by his rhetoric. Why is it that the policy preoccupations of the government, at least as they are paraded in this place, so constantly persuade us that we are in some kind of parallel universe where positives become negatives and vice versa?
Why is it that this government seems to be determined to subject us to a constant amateur-hour channelling of JRR Tolkien, transforming this parliament into a kind of Mount Doom? Why is it that it seems to model itself on the grotesques who live in the land of Mordor? Why is it that virtually everything it touches—the Racial Discrimination Act, for example—is left tarnished and spoiled as though it had been mangled by a gang of orcs?
The answer lies in the desperate need shown by the Leader of the Government in this place to acquire a bit of character. Since he has not, in all the time he has been in this place, provided the slightest evidence that he has anything that might be described as character, he is constantly grasping for the illusion of it. He might bask in the title of 'leader' but, in truth, he is a serial misleader. He has repeatedly misled the parliament and the Australian people over his involvement in the Bell Group affair. He has misled the parliament over claims that he consulted the former Solicitor-General, Justin Gleeson SC, prior to amending the Legal Services Directions. He has misled the public when he claimed to have consulted the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda, before establishing the Don Dale Royal Commission when in fact he had not. In some jurisdictions it is three strikes and you are out. Whatever character this Attorney-General lacks, the Prime Minister has demonstrably failed to make up for it, because he should have sacked him years ago.
I have to say for the Attorney-General to arrive at the position in which he currently finds himself is a little sad. In fact, only the most hard-hearted people in this place would fail to feel a little sympathy for him. His is a lonely and thankless job: the leadership of a dysfunctional government in this place with a rabble at his heel and a rabble who is constantly on the lookout for somewhere to send him. One day it is the prospect of a High Court appointment—I presume the government is not going to be silly enough for that. Another day it is the prospect of appointment as High Commissioner in London—a suggestion that has led UK based Liberals to beg the Prime Minister to spare them the indignity of having to share London with the Attorney-General. But at last he has found his purpose, a token that might give meaning to his role as the first law officer and a cause that appears to perfectly suit his instinct and aspiration: to water down the Racial Discrimination Act. He wants to water it down so that he can say something he cannot say now: that he has found a cause that truly matters to him. To continue with the Tolkien allusion: he has found his 'precious'.
Gollum was not the most articulate of Tolkien's characters. Explanation was not his forte. In that, he displays a character not dissimilar to that of the Attorney-General, because this man has been totally unable to explain why he needs to amend 18C of the act. He has not been able to explain what he wants to change the language or why a term like 'harass' might have more legal force than 'offend, insult and humiliate'.
One might ask: if one is to change the intention of 18C, would a word like 'vilify' or 'degrade' work better than a word like 'harass'? But I think the answer is lurking in the very term the government has chosen to use, because 'harass' has connotations of the pursuit, of frequency, of repetition, of interference, of threat and even of incipient violence. It evokes the emotion of fear as distinct from loathing or disgust. That is precisely the shift in meaning that this amendment affects. Taking offence at racial vilification is no longer enough. The victim of racial vilification now would have to be fearful, if the Racial Discrimination Act is to apply, and I think that is disgraceful.
It is difficult to determine how the term 'harass' would be defined, and I daresay, should this pass—which I hope it does not—the courts would be eventually called on to interpret the proposed amendment. The Law Council of Australia has raised concerns that the term could denote proximity between people and hence not cover situations where racially offensive speech is used in a media article. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Attorney-General have been able to lend any clarity to the purpose of the amendment. Their commentary has both been vague and inconsistent.
I have to say the ducking and weaving from the Attorney-General has not been only in relation to these amendments. His behaviour in this place has been characterised by obfuscation and imprecision, a desire to obscure the truth and to mislead the parliament of the people about his intentions and actions. We all know he spent tens of thousands of dollars of public money trying to hide his diaries from public scrutiny. We all know his refusal to tell the full story in this place about the Bell matter and other matters. We also know he is not unfamiliar with conflict of interest. We have seen that he has a penchant for appointing old friends to well-paid board appointments without being able to indicate whether he did so on the advice of his department, whether he knew his old friend was in fact a Liberal Party donor or whether he acted for a member of his family in a criminal matter. The Attorney-General has clear form. His general mischief, whether as a senator or as an office-holder, begins to make sense when we see him attempt to defend the indefensible: an amendment to a sound and effective law so as to permit racial slurs that are not currently lawful. As I said earlier, what is it that he wants to say now that he could not say before?
As we look at the proposed amendments the Racial Discrimination Act, things get even more curious. Besides changing the language and meaning of section 18C, the Attorney-General is also proposing to change the objective test for determining a breach of 18C by introducing 'a reasonable member of the Australian community'. As presently drafted, the statute's objective standard is whether an act is 'reasonably likely, in all the circumstances' to have the relevant effect—offence, insult or humiliation. It is very difficult to understand the reason for such a change. Is it, for example, designed to prevent a court from taking into account the views and sensitivities of a specific ethnic or racial group on the grounds that 'a reasonable member of the Australian community' may not know or appreciate the sensitivities of the various communities that make up our multicultural Australia?
This is again a matter of concern to the Law Council of Australia, as it should be. Had the government been able to display any sense or sensibility at all, it would not have attempted to fool around with 18C or the objective standard. It would have acted as all sensible government act. It would have left well enough alone.
Tinkering with perfectly sound legislation and the associated procedures for complaints handling is always risky, not least of all because of the risk of unintended consequences—even though the changes may well, in some circumstances, be well intended. That is the real risk of the procedural changes that are sought. There is a real risk that those changes, as recommended by the Attorney, will adversely affect not only those bringing complaints under section 18C for racial discrimination but also the thousands of Australians who are party to complaints for disability discrimination, sex discrimination and age discrimination. But the government cannot leave well alone.
It is impossible to think that the Attorney-General will be successful in his quest to amend the Racial Discrimination Act by watering it down to appease the hard Right of his party. I hope this parliament represents a people who understand what a fair go looks like and, as representatives of a people who value inclusion and harmony, I hope this parliament will demonstrate its abhorrence of anything that might render our community less inclusive or less harmonious. I hope that this parliament will vote this amendment down.
It is a poor reflection on this Prime Minister that he would even permit the proposed amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act to see the light of day. What a disgrace it is that the government dominated Senate inquiry failed to call any Indigenous witnesses.
Disgraceful.
Not only is it disgraceful, what a profound statement about freedom of speech, about who they have in mind when they lecture us all about freedom of speech. How is it that the men—and women, but in this case the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General—who stand up in the parliament and say, 'We believe in freedom of speech', then deny Aboriginal Australians and their representatives the right to speak at a committee? That is a profoundly important statement about their values. It is one that reflects most poorly upon them. The Australian people are far better than the behaviour and agenda of the government in relation to this legislation. The community wants to see the parliament toss out proposed amendments to section 18C.
I want to end on this point. In voting on this, and in discussing this legislation, I hope that people in this place can not only think of the rhetoric and the principle and the politics, I hope that in this place they can also have in their minds the experience of the young Muslim woman on the bus or the young Asian boy in the street, or some other member of Australia's multicultural community who is abused because of who they are. Not only is the amendment before this place wrong, but also in many ways what is most wrong and what has been most damaging has been the signal that has been sent by a Prime Minister who believes he is a Liberal moderate, the signal that he is sending in cahoots with this Attorney-General, that this sort of racial abuse is more permissible. I ask my colleagues in this place: think of the people who this legislation is designed to protect and think of the principle, the message, that this legislation seeks to send out to the community, because what it says to the community is, 'We do not believe in this modern multicultural Australia that it is okay for you to be abused because of your race.' That is a principle that we should all stand for.
I rise with mixed feelings to speak on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. I say mixed feelings, because there are some procedural aspects to this bill that the Greens intend to support. I refer specifically to parts of this bill that seek to amend the Australian Human Rights Commission Act and change some of the processes and ways that the commission conducts its business. But, of course, that is not the headline of this bill. The headline and the core attempt of this bill is undoubtedly to make it easier to be a racist in Australia by gutting the protections against racism in this country that are contained in section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Those 18C matters are dealt with in schedule 1. Schedule 2 amends the Human Rights Commission Act, and, in the most part, as I said, those relate to complaint handling processes of the commission. Schedule 3 amends the Native Title Act and relates in the main to annual reports. I can flag now that we are reserving our right to move a number of amendments to those matters dealt with in schedule 2, as well as ensuring that we do whatever we can to make sure that 18C stays the way it is, which is as a strong protection against racial hate speech in this country.
I want to go to the speed with which this bill is being rushed on first. I have made some comments about that already today. A casual observer of the way that this government has conducted itself could be forgiven for thinking that this is the most pressing issue facing Australians today. Quite frankly, not only is it not the most pressing issue but it is also not in the top 10 of pressing issues. In fact, it is not in the top 100 most pressing issues facing Australia today. This entire cacophony of a debate has been generated by The Australian newspaper, by the IPA and by the agents of the IPA on the Far Right of the Liberal Party. They have succeeded in bullying a gutless Prime Minister into supporting changes to racial protection laws in this country that, if passed by this place, will make it easier to be a racist in Australia.
There is never a good time to make it easier to be a racist, but now is the worst of all times. Multicultural Australia has united to defend 18C as it currently stands. In doing so, they have been abundantly clear with anyone who is prepared to listen. They have been clear that racism is on the rise in Australia. They have been clear about the physical and mental health impacts on people who suffer from racism. They have been clear about the fact that racism practised against their communities is detrimental to individuals and it is detrimental to communities as a whole. And the Greens have listened very closely to that evidence as put before the human rights committee, time after time. We will stand shoulder to shoulder with multicultural Australia. We will defend the protections against racism in this country and we will do everything that we can to ensure that multiculturalism in Australia, that beautiful fabric that weaves right through almost every element of our society, is protected and enhanced.
The government has consistently and abjectly failed to make the case for change in relation to 18C. I pose, for the umpteenth time, that question that proponents of change would rather run a million miles than actually front up and answer: what is it that they want Australians be able to say, what offence and insult on the basis of race do they want Australians to be allowed to give, that they cannot currently give? Time after time that question is posed, and time after time proponents of change refuse to answer it. Instead, they say that this is all about freedom of speech—as if freedom of speech was ever an unfettered right in a Western democracy!
But those of us who value freedom of speech—and I genuinely believe that is everybody in this place—ought know that it has never been an unfettered right in a liberal democracy, and it ought never be an unfettered right in a liberal democracy. No, this is not about freedom of speech; it is about freedom from consequence. It is about making it easier for people to say racist things in this country without facing consequences for those statements. If this government was serious about freedom of speech, they would be in here repealing section 42 of the Border Force Act, which imposes jail terms of up to two years for people like teachers and nurses who speak publicly about the horrors they witness in Australia's detention centre network.
But the government is not in here doing that. If they were serious about freedom of speech, they would be having a sophisticated debate about defamation law in this country. But they are not doing that, because this is not about freedom of speech; it is about freedom from consequence. If they were serious about freedom of speech, they would be revisiting the powers that exist to issue suppression orders in this country, to stop journalists reporting the truth in Australia. But they are not having that debate, because it is not about freedom of speech. This legislation it is about freedom from consequences.
We have the sad but entirely predictable spectacle of the Attorney-General coming into this place claiming with more front than a D9 bulldozer that these changes to 18C are about strengthening section 18C. It absolutely beggars belief. Black might be white in the Attorney-General's mind, and war might be peace, but, no, in no reasonable assessment is the government doing anything other than gutting protections against racism in this country.
Back to the unholy rush with which the government has conducted itself. I want to remind the Senate what the President of the Human Rights Commission submitted to the quick-and-dirty Senate Legal And Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into this legislation. This is Professor Triggs:
Any proposal to amend the RDA should involve extensive public consultation as it has the capacity to affect the human rights of all Australians. In particular, there should be consultation with those communities whose members are most vulnerable to experiencing racial discrimination.
And she is absolutely right about that. But, instead, what we have had is a quick-and-dirty inquiry that gave just three working days for people to make submissions and less than 24 hours notice for people to appear at a public hearing—a public hearing, mind you, that denied representatives of the Aboriginal Legal Service their opportunity to appear.
Despite the advocacy of ALP and Greens members of that committee, the government used its numbers to deny the Aboriginal Legal Service a chance to appear at that hearing, and in doing so ensured that that hearing and that committee process—the only process that was specifically inquiring into the legislation that we are debating—did not hear from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. They did not hear from this country's original inhabitants—the group which is potentially most impacted by racism in this country and certainly the group that has subjected to racism in this country for the longest time, because racism against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians started the day Europeans arrived in this country, over 200 years ago, and it is still going today. For this Senate to make a decision not to hear from those people through the committee process is an absolute bloody disgrace.
I want to talk about the human rights committee process. I am the Greens representative on that committee, and I want to be very clear about what we heard through the processes of that committee. Day after day, submission after submission, we heard and read that weakening 18C would unleash more racism in Australia, which would harm the health and wellbeing of members of the multicultural spectrum in this country. We heard about the harm that racism causes. We heard how it can cripple self-esteem. We heard how it can damage mental health. We heard how it can make people less likely to engage with their communities and with government services that are there to support them. We heard those stories and similar stories from the Islamic community, the Jewish community, the Chinese community, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the Lebanese community, the Vietnamese community, the Sikh community, the Japanese community, the Indian community, African communities, the Greek community, the Cambodian community and many others, including many peak bodies of multicultural Australia.
And we heard that weakening protections against racism in this country has the potential to unleash a torrent of vilification and abuse and to ostracise people from different cultures from around the world and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their own country. And remember: in many, many instances we are dealing here with Australians—Australian people who hold Australian citizenship, people who this government wants to leave more vulnerable to racism.
I want to raise a case that highlights some of the problems with what the government is proposing in regard to its 18C changes. It is Campbell v Kirstenfeldt 2008, a case in which an Aboriginal woman, Kaye Campbell, was subjected to appalling racism from her neighbour, Mervyn Kirstenfeldt. Mr Kirstenfeldt made derogatory comments to Mrs Campbell's family, using appalling racial slurs and telling them to go back to the scrub where they belonged. Mrs Campbell's 18-year-old son was a target of this abuse. Mrs Campbell said that, when she walked past Mr Kirstenfeldt's house, he would stand inside his screen door and glare and swear at her. Mrs Campbell said she was not able to go anywhere without being scared. This case ended up in the Federal Court, where Mr Kirstenfeldt's conduct was found to be offensive and insulting—two of the words that the government is seeking to remove from the act.
The simple fact is: we do not know if behaviour like that is going to meet the replacement standard that the government is seeking to insert, because the government is actually throwing away two decades of case law with these changes. The explanatory memorandum states:
The new test of whether a public act harasses or intimidates a person or a group of people on the basis of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin will focus on the vice at the heart of racial vilification. It will protect individuals from genuine racial vilification, not simply from mere slights …
Well, to have an explanatory memorandum signed off by an Attorney-General who clearly does not know the case law in regard to section 18C is an absolute disgrace. The Attorney ought to be aware of the Creek v Cairns Post Pty Ltd case where Justice Kiefel, now Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, held that the relevant harm threshold under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act is behaviour that has, to quote from her judgement: 'profound and serious effects, not likened to mere slights.' So the Attorney says that people ought to be protected from vilification, not simply from mere slights, whereas Justice Kiefel's decision in the Cairns Post case makes it very clear that mere slights do not clear the bar, as the law is currently drafted. What a joke of an Attorney-General this country currently suffers under.
This government wants to also insert what is known as a 'reasonable person test'. I want to be very clear about what this reasonable person test seeks to do. It seeks to set a benchmark for racism in this country that no longer relies on the lived experience of the people who have suffered its effects. It is a logical absurdity that the government is engaged in here. What it does is to remove the current objective standard of a reasonable member of the relevant racial group—and I want to quote the Human Rights Law Centre on this: 'Section 18C has been interpreted by the courts to require an objective standard—that is, whether conduct is reasonably likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate, judged from the perspective of a hypothetical reasonable or ordinary person from the relevant racial, ethnic or national group.' I will quote further from the Human Rights Law Centre: 'Courts have said that extreme, atypical or intolerant reactions of members of the group are not to be taken into account. This means that conduct is not unlawful under the current law if it racially offends, insults, humiliates or intimidates an overly sensitive person in the group.' I hope that is clear.
Put simply—and, I will admit, quite crudely—how can someone who has never been called the N-word in anger, or denigrated because of their particular race, possibly know what it feels like to have that happen? But that is the test the government wants to apply. Make no mistake: when taken as a whole, the changes to 18C—that is, the removal of words and the insertion of 'harassment', and the insertion of a reasonable person test—completely gut protections against racism in this country.
In the short time left to me, I want to address schedule 2, which has amendments to the Australian Human Rights Commission Act. The Greens welcome some of these amendments, and in fact many of them were recommended by the commission itself. Of the 59 items that we currently see in the legislation, the Human Rights Commission supports 50 of them. The Attorney-General has flagged that he intends to bring in amendments, which we still have not seen, despite the debate on this bill starting, that will address some of the commission's other concerns. But we do not know how many of the remaining nine issues that are of concern to the Human Rights Commission are going to be dealt with by the amendments in the government's package, because we simply have not seen those amendments.
I want to end this second reading contribution—I will have more to say as we move through the clauses as we have given a commitment that we will—on the divisive politics that are contained in this legislation. True leaders will try and unite a community and not divide it; in particular, true leaders will not seek to divide a community for base political aims. But that is exactly what the Prime Minister has done. I know there will be people who will be happy that he has done it: Senator Abetz, who is in the chamber now, his colleague Senator Paterson, Senator Leyonhjelm and many of the other culture warriors in this place who dedicate themselves far more to the culture war than they do to standing up for ordinary, everyday Australians. They will be happy that they have actually bullied a Prime Minister into doing the things that are contained in this legislation. They will be happy that we are debating this today when, in fact, there are so many other, more urgent issues like climate change, economic inequality and the government abandoning the people doing it toughest in this country, which we are not debating while we are debating changes to section 18C. Ordinary, everyday Australians will not be happy, but they will be happy when these changes go down, as they will. (Time expired)
Freedom of speech is one of the virtues that underpin the functioning of our society, a society which is the envy of the world. One of the greatest protections a minority and oppressed group could have is freedom of speech. As Robert Menzies enunciated in founding the Liberal Party, 'We believe in the great human freedoms'. And amongst them is to speak. Further, he reminded us that, by elevating the individual, we meet and defeat the terrible doctrine of the all-powerful state—a doctrine at once destructive, reactionary and negative. When government determines what we can and cannot say and has tribunals enforcing this stifling approach, we go down the destructive, the reactionary and the negative path against which Menzies warned.
It was not only Menzies. When this stifling, anti-free-speech legislation was first introduced back in 1995, it was not only I who warned about its potential consequences. Listen to this:
If this legislation is passed it will create a crime of words. This will take the legislation across a certain threshold into the realm of thought police—the most commonly voiced concern in the community and one which I share
This was spoken by former Greens Senator Christabel Chamarette. There you go: all those years ago, a former Greens senator could see how this legislation would stifle freedom of speech, and she and I shared our views. Today, I stand in this place again to indicate that, sadly, the history of this legislation has confirmed the concerns expressed by former Senator Chamarette and me all those years ago. As a result of this legislation we have a journalist commentator, a cartoonist and four students hauled before these 'thought police' because they allegedly insulted, offended or humiliated.
Indeed, back in 1995 the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties—hardly a right-wing stronghold—warned about this legislation in these terms:
… essentially the effect of that legislation will be to protect people from hurt feelings. The legislation is designed specifically and in terms to protect people from offence and insults. No other legislation or principle of law that we are aware of in this country has that effect. No other legislation or principal of the law that we are aware of seeks to protect people from hurt feelings. We say the Government has no role as the guardian of hurt feelings.
That is from the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties as expressed by one Mr Pearce.
So let's be clear: there may well be unattractive behaviours which we do not like but that government, quite rightly, does not seek to outlaw. Insulting or humiliating people should not be condoned. But you could not help but note that Senator McKim's speech was peppered with insult to the Attorney-General. Indeed, I read a letter to the editor the other day saying that no change should be made to section 18C 'by Turnbull's bunch of bigots' because it would allow insults. So the term 'bunch of bigots' was not designed to insult! Their lack of self-awareness and their lack of understanding of how they are more than happy to dish out an insult, but in a certain particular discrete area it is not allowed, according to their view of the world.
Strangely, what we have in this legislation is that the government says that you should not be allowed to 'insult, offended or humiliate' on only one ground: namely, race. If government says that one cannot encroach on individual sensitivities because of race, why not religion; the height of a person or, indeed, the shortness of a person; the overweightness of a person or the lack of it; the colour of hair; the lack of hair; skin complexion; whether somebody has freckles or not; one's financial position or lack of it; or a physical aid, such as glasses or hearing aids—the list, quite frankly, is, and can be, endless. Indeed, I saw a recent study of bullying at schools, and what was the top criterion? Was it race? No, it was not. Was it sexuality? No, it was not. It was, sadly, the issue of physical characteristics—whether somebody has buckteeth, whether they are overweight, whether they have red hair—and their social acceptance within the particular group. If you have a look at youth suicide, you will see that it is those factors, sadly, that overwhelmingly lead to that scourge that currently plagues our community.
For whatever bizarre reason of political correctness, government determined that we should be allowed to continue to insult, offend et cetera—and I accept this is unattractive behaviour but nevertheless should not be outlawed—just not on the basis of race. It is just as hurtful, just as insulting and just as humiliating to say insulting words to somebody because of what might be a physical disability or their religious belief, or because they are overweight, as opposed to their race. So the question that we have to ask in this place is: what is the role of government?
There is a threshold question here, and that is: should people be protected not about hurt feelings but to enable them to go about their normal day-to-day activities in society? I think we would all agree that that should be allowed and people should be protected. That is why we say: get rid of the words that deal with hurt feelings and deal with the issue of harassment. I must say, I am one of those people who question why we have a special provision that says you are not allowed to harass somebody because of race. My view is that you should not be allowed to harass people to stop them going about their normal day-to-day activities full stop, irrespective of whether the motivation is race, political belief, religious belief, or because you do not like the way the neighbour mows the lawn and so you harass them. We do have laws against harassment, we do have laws against intimidation, and that is the way it ought be.
Let's be quite clear that this legislation not only has government encroaching on our lives and policing us with tribunals—meting out, might I add, public humiliation along with penalties for saying the politically incorrect thing—but is a system that also punishes, as the four QUT students found out. After many years they were finally exonerated, but during that period they were publicly insulted, publicly humiliated and publicly offended by being labelled racists and being dragged through the papers. Oh, there was no problem with that, because our beloved Human Rights Commission was dealing with it! You know: the President of the Human Rights Commission who is going to support the Bob Brown Foundation on Friday at a fundraiser. That is why Senator Nick McKim likes Professor Triggs; that is why he quotes Professor Triggs with approval—because Professor Triggs is going down to Tasmania on Friday to do a fundraiser for the Bob Brown Foundation / the Greens party in Tasmania. But, coming back to the issue at stake, the QUT students were subjected to public ridicule, brought before the legal system and lumbered with a bill of tens of thousands of dollars to have their names exonerated, and also, might I add, they were publicly humiliated for all those years. I say unreservedly that our citizens deserve protection from such heavy handedness, from such ugliness—from the instruments of government.
Many within our community, for fear of the legal costs and for fear of being publicly humiliated and labelled racist, simply pay 'go away money' so that their names never appear in public. Thank goodness the QUT students took a stand. And I stand here with those QUT students, and others, who say that they should have been allowed to say and do what they did without the heavy, oppressive, stifling hand of government upon them to stop them. Do you know what their alleged great sin was? They called out racial segregation at their university and labelled it segregation. Oh, the thought police were into that big time! Those students were immediately pursued in circumstances where they should never have been pursued.
There are other aspects of this legislation that I will get into when I am able to continue this speech. There are machinery amendments to this legislation that are also vitally important to ensuring we have a proper system in place. When the Human Rights Commission and this legislation first started, 30 per cent of complaints were thrown out as being unmeritorious, as not being worthy. Now we have a situation, under the current regime, of only five per cent being thrown out. What you see is a make-work scheme for the Human Rights Commission.
In relation to Senator McKim's contribution, can I say very briefly that the facts of the case he referred to, the Kirstenfeldt case, would clearly fit into the category of harassment. Without any shadow of doubt, that would have been a case of harassment and not of hurt feelings, and that is something the Australian Greens and their mate on the Human Rights Commission will not say. As I have indicated, these are the people, from the left of Australian politics in particular, that spend their day insulting, offending and humiliating people for all sorts of reasons but then come into this place and say, 'Don't do as we do in the situation of race.' Well, ugly as some language may be from time to time, unattractive as it may be, government has no role in seeking to stifle people's speech, as the Victorian Council of Civil Liberties indicated, for the concept of hurt feelings.
Thank you, Senator Abetz. The time has reached 2 pm. We now move to questions without notice.
My question is to the minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. Yesterday, in response to a question I asked the minister in relation to Prime Minister Turnbull's support for a pay cut of up to $77 for up to 700,000 Australian workers, the minister said, 'The Prime Minister has said no such thing, and your assertion that he has done so is not the truth.' On 17 March, when asked by Neil Mitchell of 3AW whether he supported the cut to penalty rates, the Prime Minister said, 'Well, we do support it Neil, and I've been very clear about that.' Given the Prime Minister's very clear support for the pay cut, when will the minister correct the record?
The problem with your question, Senator Urquhart, is that is not what I was asked. You asserted, and others among you, including Senator Cameron, asserted, that the government had recommended or argued that there ought to be a pay cut, and it did no such thing. You know it did no such thing, Senator Urquhart, but it did not stop you from making a false claim to the contrary. It is the case that the government supports the independence of the Fair Work Commission and, therefore, supports every determination of the Fair Work Commission, because if you support the independence of a court, a tribunal or an arbitral body of course you uphold its decisions. That is what the government has done. That is what the Prime Minister said. But that is not what you put to me yesterday.
Senator Urquhart, a supplementary question.
Why is the minister so desperate to hide the Prime Minister's support for a pay cut for up to 700,000 Australian workers that he is willing to mislead the Senate?
You did not listen to the answer, Senator Urquhart. It is a bit rich from someone like you, Senator Urquhart, who sits in a party led by a man—Bill Shorten—who made a career out of taking backhanders and secret commissions from business to sell workers down the river—
Senator Wong, a point of order.
I have a number, but first let us do 'directly relevant'. I know that this leader believes that personal abuse is the way to get out of trouble, and I am very happy to continue to say—
On direct relevance, Senator Wong.
Thank you. It is clearly not relevant to the question. The Labor Party is hardly relevant to the question that was asked. I think it is self-evident.
Senator Brandis, I will remind you of the question. You have 37 seconds in which to answer the question.
If it was not clear to you before, Senator Urquhart, let me be explicit: I entirely reject the premise of your question. If you are concerned about the wellbeing of workers, why do you sit behind a man—Bill Shorten—who, as a union leader, took backhanders, secret commissions and bribes that were concealed from his members to sell them down the river on their pay and conditions—
Attorney-General, I do believe the allegation you made about the Leader of the Opposition is unparliamentary. A point of order, Senator Gallagher.
Just to be clear, there were a number of different references there that we would object to, including one previously around, I think, taking backhanded payments. The aspersion is disorderly and should be ruled out of order.
I asked the Attorney-General to withdraw. He immediately withdrew those remarks. Senator Wong, on a point of order.
I apologise, Mr President; it was my error in my first point of order. I ought to have sought that you require the Attorney-General to withdraw the reference to 'backhander'.
Attorney-General, I assume you have, but I will double-check. Attorney-General, if you would withdraw that reference also?
If you wish me to. I will confine it to secret commissions. It all means the same thing, of course: payments taken and concealed from the members of the union to sell them down the river, to sell out their pay and conditions— (Time expired)
Senator Carr, a point of order.
On a point of order, the Leader of the Government in the Senate has now suggested that the Leader of the Labor Party has undertaken an illegal act in referring to secret commissions. That is a criminal act and he knows it. He ought to withdraw it.
On the point of order, Attorney-General.
Can I address the point of order, please. In fact, those payments are the very thing that the government has introduced legislation into the House of Representatives last week to outlaw and is being opposed by the Labor Party—
That is not a point of order; that is a debating point. In relation to the words that the Attorney-General has withdrawn, I am satisfied that those words have been withdrawn. On 'secret commissions', Senator Carr, I will reflect upon that. But I do not believe, in the context that was used by the Attorney-General, that that would breach that provision of the standing orders, but I will reflect upon that. Senator Urquhart, a final supplementary question.
Given that we know the Prime Minister supports these cuts to penalty rates, will the minister now come clean with the Senate about the government's support for these cuts being extended to workers in other sectors, who also rely on penalty rates to put food on the table?
I addressed that yesterday. As the commission itself has said, there is absolutely no reason for you to assert that, because it made a determination in relation to the hospitality industry, it will make a determination of a similar or like character in relation to any other industry. I know the lying machine of the Labor Party is trying to spread that story around the place, but it is not true.
With respect, I ought not to have to stand for that—'lying machine of the Labor Party'. Are you going to allow that to stand, Mr President? It is suggesting every member of the Labor Party lies. That is the suggestion.
On the point of order, Attorney-General.
I am not suggesting that every member of the Labor Party or any individual member of the Labor Party is a liar. What I am suggesting is that the Labor Party as an organisation is a lying machine.
Order! References to that have stood in the past. What I will also do, Senator Wong, in relation to that matter is reflect upon that. My understanding—and I have in fact witnessed that here in this chamber on many occasions—is references from both sides have been made to collective groups in that manner before. Again, I will reflect, and I will come back to the chamber if I need to. On the same point of order, Senator Wong?
Yes, just to clarify. I appreciate that you are doing us the courtesy of reflecting. I do invite you to consider whether simply calling all of the coalition a 'lying machine' is the sort of debate we want in this chamber, which according to the misleader of the government, as I have called him, is an appropriate way of describing the Labor Party.
My personal view is that those remarks should never be used. However, I have to go on precedent, and I have to go on what the standing orders allow. Again, I will reflect upon that, and I will come back to the chamber if I need to. Attorney-General, you have the call.
There are few sights more absurd than Senator Wong on her high horse. Mr President, through you: Senator Urquhart, if you are so sensitive about this matter, why is your party voting against legislation to outlaw corrupting benefits? You are committed to doing that. That is the position that you have taken.
Who said that?
So you are going to support the government's legislation? You are going to support Senator Michaelia Cash's legislation?
Opposition senators interjecting—
I hope you do, but I will be surprised if I ever see it.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Would both sides come to order. If both sides would settle and come to order.
Senators, I draw to your attention the presence in the chamber of a parliamentary delegation from the Republic of Singapore led by Madam Halimah Yacob, Speaker of the Parliament of Singapore. On behalf of all senators, I wish you a warm welcome to Australia and, in particular, to the Senate. With the concurrence of senators, I invite Her Excellency to take a seat on the floor of the Senate.
Honourable senators: Hear, hear!
Madam Yacob was then seated accordingly.
My question is to the Minister for Defence, Senator Payne.
This'll be good!
I would suggest you listen to this one. Can the minister advise the Senate of the support the Australian Defence Force is providing to Queenslanders affected by Cyclone Debbie?
I thank Senator O'Sullivan for his question. Indeed, our thoughts are with the people and communities of North Queensland at this very dangerous time. As Tropical Cyclone Debbie makes landfall in north-eastern Queensland, our ADF—its highly trained personnel, its equipment and their experience—are ready to assist those who are affected. The ADF has pre-positioned its humanitarian assistance and disaster relief assets to provide immediate assistance to local communities who may be affected. We are working closely with the Queensland government and Emergency Management Australia. The ADF has established a joint task force to provide support for the region. This task force is largely made up of personnel from the Townsville based 3rd Brigade. We are also sending additional assets to Queensland in preparation.
HMAS Choules is heading to Queensland to be ready to support recovery efforts if required. She will take on supplies in Brisbane early tomorrow morning and will be ready to sail north as soon as it is safe to do so. Air Force aircraft in Townsville, Darwin and Amberley are on standby to provide airlift capability for the delivery of essential stores and equipment as well as wide area surveillance. Two Navy MRH helicopters have deployed to Oakey and are ready to provide immediate support in addition to the existing Army rotary wing aircraft based in Townsville.
At the request of Premier Palaszczuk, the Turnbull government has agreed that Brigadier Chris Field, currently the commander of 3rd Brigade in Townsville, will act as the recovery coordinator for Tropical Cyclone Debbie. As the Queensland Premier, Ms Palaszczuk, has said in relation to support being provided by the ADF, 'The level of cooperation is unprecedented.' She has thanked the Commonwealth 'very much' for making the Australian Defence Force personnel available to help Queenslanders in their hour of need.
This is a very pressing task for the ADF. We hope that the emergency is not as considerable as predicted—of course we do—but we will be there with the people of Queensland is required. (Time expired)
Senator O'Sullivan, a supplementary question.
Minister, to the extent that I am entitled, can I thank you on behalf of Queenslanders for the thoughtful preparation. Can the minister detail some of the ADF capabilities that will be available to assist?
The joint task force, which is task force 661, will be well positioned to supplement a range of Queensland state disaster response options. Our response will include ADF medical teams that can provide support both on the ground and via aeromedical evacuation; airborne search and rescue capabilities, including Air Force Orions, Hercules and King Airs and the Navy's multirole helicopters; transportation of personnel as well as the delivery of supplies and stores through Army Chinooks and Army and Navy multirole helicopters; Army engineering, to support assistance with road clearance and debris removal; emergency military accommodation; amphibious vessels from HMAS Choules for remote coastal stores delivery which may be required; mental health psychological support teams; and Navy expeditionary reconnaissance and clearance teams, who may be required to survey and clear harbours of debris. Our personnel are positioned in the Queensland government emergency management centres in Brisbane and in Townsville and other regional communities, and we will make every effort to meet any requests for additional capabilities. (Time expired)
Senator O'Sullivan, a final supplementary question.
Can the minister outline how else Defence has supported disaster relief operations across Australia?
Firstly, let me be clear, the issues with HMAS Canberra and Adelaide have not affected Defence's ability to meet its operational tasks. Under the ADF's regular planning cycle, HMAS Choules assumed duties as the online, or ready, ship to support any HADR requirements in mid-March. She is a 16,000-tonne ship that is well suited for disaster relief operations. That is why she is now sailing towards Queensland to assist those impacted by this significant cyclonic event. Navy has directly addressed any misconceptions around this issue in a statement, which is on the ADF 'On the record' web page today. The Australian Defence Force has a very proud history of supporting Australian communities which have been hit hard by natural disasters. In 2009, over 600 Defence personnel worked with the Victorian government after the Black Saturday bushfires. We supported communities in Brisbane and the Lockyer Valley following the floods in January 2011; in 2011, again, in Cyclone Yasi; and again after Cyclone Marcia in 2015. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Social Services, Senator Ryan. Australians were horrified by the evidence of appalling violence and abuse towards people with disability on last night's Four Corners program. In one harrowing account, Anne, the mother of a child with autism, said:
I could not sleep knowing my son was in that house. … I would park my car out the front of that house … so that if he did need something I'd be there. But the reality is … I couldn't protect him at that point. I had to get him out.
Was the government aware of these issues before the reports were aired on Four Corners? If yes, what action has the government taken, and, if not, why not?
I am not briefed on whether the government was aware of what was broadcast last night. I have not seen the broadcast myself, but I am aware of the news reports today. I will take that on notice and come back to the chamber.
Senator Brown, a supplementary question.
Does the minister—and I understand if he has to come back and let the Senate know—accept that these reports demonstrate that the NDIS Quality and Safeguarding Framework is inadequate to address issues of abuse?
No, I do not accept that such a broad-ranging statement can be based on one particular media report. I am not dismissing the coverage of what I saw this morning—I did not see it last night—but I do not think—
Senator Wong interjecting—
Senator Wong, I tell you what: I am not going to waste the Senate chamber's time with constant interjections and commentary from you. You are not the supercoach here. I am actually trying to treat the senator's question with respect. I do not have a brief on it. I represent the portfolio. I am being honest with the chamber. Senator Brown, I do not think that such a broad-ranging statement, given the success of the rollout of the NDIS thus far—
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order on both sides!
Given the success of the rollout thus far, Senator Brown—through you, Mr President—I do not think such a broad-ranging statement can be based on one program. I will get the information you request. I will treat your question with the respect it deserves and come back to the chamber when I am fully informed. (Time expired)
Senator Brown, a final supplementary question.
A second supplementary question: Minister, in response to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee report on violence, abuse and neglect of people with disability in institutional and residential settings, the government ruled out an inquiry. Given these horrific reports of abuse, will the government overturn its position and support an independent national inquiry into violence against and abuse and neglect of people with disability?
I do not think it will surprise the Senate to hear that I, as the Minister representing the Minister for Social Services, will not overturn the previous government's policy in an answer to a question in the Senate.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Energy, Senator Birmingham. The world is horrified at recent press reports of the totally unexpected and unpredicted back-to-back mass coral-bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef, the fourth bleaching event in 20 years. Last year's survey of the reef found that 81 per cent of the northern sector was severely bleached and damaged. Reports this week from Professor Terry Hughes, of the James Cook University ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, have suggested that the central section of the reef, from Mackay to Port Douglas, arguably the most important to the tourism industry, is now also suffering from severe bleaching. Can the minister please inform the chamber of the government's understanding of the extent of damage to the reef from warming waters this year and the long-term consequences of this damage?
I thank Senator Whish-Wilson for his question and his interest in this issue. Of course, it is important, as Senator Canavan rightly highlighted yesterday, that we take issues in relation to the Great Barrier Reef incredibly seriously, as we do, but also that we do not engage in scaremongering or excessive embellishment when it comes to issues in relation to the reef that could in fact further damage industry, business and operators up there unnecessarily. The effects of the 2016 and 2017 coral-bleaching events are of deep concern to our government. They emphasise and are the reason for the importance of our joint efforts to build resilience through the Reef 2050 Plan and ongoing management by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
The article released in Nature on 16 March 2016 highlights that local management of fisheries and water quality offers little resistance to bleaching but may improve prospects for recovery. It is also likely that other ecosystems and species within the World Heritage area, like seagrasses and mangroves, are critically supported by such policy measures. We of course are determined and committed to working on the delivery of our Reef 2050 Plan—
Pause the clock. Senator Whish-Wilson, a point of order?
Mr President, I did ask specifically for the minister to update the chamber on his understanding of the extent of the recent bleaching event, which is critical information that we need.
Thank you, Senator Whish-Wilson. You did ask in relation to: 'Can the minister inform of the government's understanding?' Minister, I will remind you of the question.
Thanks, Mr President. Indeed, as I was saying, the government is committed to delivering its Reef 2050 Plan to help address many of these issues. I can inform Senator Whish-Wilson that results from the second round of surveys conducted in October-November 2016 are still being analysed. In general, they are consistent with the findings presented in the interim report.
Based on reports and surveys to date, mass coral bleaching has occurred in the Great Barrier Reef for the second consecutive year. Bleaching is consistent with the accumulated build-up of thermal stress across the reef, shown in the Bureau of Meteorology's thermal stress mapping tools. Senator Whish-Wilson, as I said, the advice I have is that in general they are consistent with findings presented in the interim— (Time expired)
Senator Whish-Wilson, a supplementary question.
I am actually shocked, President, that we do not know the extent of bleaching. My second question relates directly to this. Given that you obviously do not know the extent of bleaching in this back-to-back bleaching event, Senator, is the government, in the face of this uncertainty, reconsidering its lobbying efforts to keep the Great Barrier Reef off the List of World Heritage in Danger, given these recent severe bleaching events?
It is remarkable that Senator Whish-Wilson, firstly, will not take seriously the fact that the government has proper analysis, proper processes, to make sure that when we talk about issues like coral bleaching it is based on the facts and the evidence and what is actually occurring. That is exactly the process that is underway and that is exactly what I outlined before. It is even more staggering, frankly, that the Australian Greens sit there as a cheer squad, hoping, wishing, that the Great Barrier Reef would somehow be listed as further endangered. They are hoping, cheering, wishing, it seems, that they will be able to go out there and say, 'See, we were right all along,' and, in doing so, of course, causing damage to the lifestyles, the jobs and the economy of those in Queensland who rely upon the Great Barrier Reef. Our government is working proactively through our record levels of investment, through our Reef 2050 Plan, to deliver solutions in relation to the reef—efforts that that will make a real difference rather than the damage you wish— (Time expired)
Senator Whish Wilson, a final supplementary question.
Professor Terry Hughes tweeted, 'I showed the results of aerial surveys of bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef to my students—
Government senators interjecting—
Order on my right!
Senator O'Sullivan interjecting—
Order! Senator O'Sullivan.
Could I start again. Professor Terry Hughes, who conducts sea surveys, tweeted, 'I showed the results of aerial surveys of bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef to my students and then we wept.' Clearly the government's Reef 2050 plan is failing.
Senator O'Sullivan interjecting—
You might think it is funny, Senator O'Sullivan, but the rest of Queensland does not.
Order! To your question.
Professor Terry Hughes also said, 'It is not too late to save the reef if we leave coal in the ground.' Do you agree— (Time expired)
Do I agree that Senator Whish-Wilson needs a hanky? I think Senator Whish-Wilson needs a lot more than a hanky. Senator Whish-Wilson needs a reality check on a whole range of fronts. Senator Whish-Wilson should welcome, should embrace, the $2 billion of investment in the health of the reef that our government is helping to drive. The fact that we through our Reef 2050 Plan comprehensive actions that are being undertaken in unison with the Queensland government to address the multitude of threats and risks and challenges that the reef faces. Yes, we are taking these issues absolutely seriously. Unlike you, we are not trying to politicise them. We do not wish ill upon the people of Queensland—
Pause the clock. Senator Whish-Wilson, on a point of order.
Mr President, my point of order: I know there were lots of interjections there, but I wanted to be clear on what my question was. His final quote was: 'It is not too late to save the reef if we leave coal in the ground.' Does the minister agree?
Senator Bernardi, on the same point of order?
Mr President, just on the point of order. There was actually no question asked because Senator Whish-Wilson during his rant ran out of time and did not actually pose the question.
Thank you, Senator Bernardi. The minister, I think, is aware of that. I will call the minister.
Mr President, again, unlike the Greens, we recognise that addressing global emissions is a global challenge, but it is not dealt with by just crippling one industry in Queensland. Of course, Senator Whish-Wilson wishes to cripple the tourism industry; he wishes to cripple the coal industry. In fact, there is not a job or an industry in Queensland or across the country that the Greens do not seem to wish to cripple. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Indigenous affairs, Senator Scullion. Can the minister advise the Senate on the government's Indigenous land reform agenda, including progress on negotiating township leases in the Northern Territory?
I thank the senator for the question and his longstanding interest in these matters. Last year marked the 40th anniversary of Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory. I know that Senator McCarthy, as part of the Yanyuwa group, has been there—and I have been there with her. There is this sense of 'now it will change', 'now it is going to be different for us'. I think it is reasonable to say that we just have not delivered on that reasonable expectation of 'this will mean something different for me economically'. That is why we have worked side-by-side with communities to ensure we can negotiate practical land reform solutions that meet the particular individual needs of communities across the Territory.
I recently had the very great honour of being able to attend at the base of Uluru a leasing ceremony for Mutitjulu—the long-term leases over individual lots, and particularly local decision-making for the community about land about their land. This is the first township lease that has been finalised since 2007. There are a number of others in the pipeline. We are the first government, I think, to properly consider community-controlled leases. I am not saying we have done well, but it is a lesson for everybody. We thought we had the answer. Eventually, when nothing seemed to be working, we said to the community, 'How do you think it will be?' and, remarkably, in different ways and in different places, they have put up the solutions. I would particularly like to acknowledge Sammy Wilson, Dorothea Randall and Craig Woods in Mutitjulu. I really appreciate your work. And I would like to thank traditional owners from right across the Territory for the advice that you provided me to get to this particular point. I hope it is a reflection not so much of government but of parliament. I know that people will be using these lessons on the other side when they come to the treasury bench. I am very pleased to be working in partnership with those traditional owners. (Time expired)
Senator Smith, a supplementary question.
Can the minister explain how land reform supports more jobs and business development in remote communities across Australia?
Land reform is absolutely critical if we are going to support better outcomes for Indigenous communities. Whether you want to get a job, you want it to own your own house or you want to get into a business, just like everyone else, land reform is critical. These are long-term transferable land use agreements so people can start their own business or build their own house. Residents need land tenure arrangements to be able to go to the bank and access a loan that every other Australian just takes for granted. If you want to leave something, you normally leave your own property. In Mutitjulu, I spoke to the residents about their plans for a tourism business, their plans for an arts centre and their continued plans for land tenure arrangements under the township lease.
Senator Smith, a final supplementary questions.
What other measures is the government delivering to support the better use of Indigenous land, including through the government's developing Northern Australia agenda.
The Northern Australian white paper announced a range of measures to assist Indigenous economic participation. Over $20 million is being provided to support native title holders, and that is in the prescribed body corporates, so that is the organisation that is effectively made up of the court of determinations in native title. This is the first time that we have provided funding directly to those native title holders and supported communities, including those in your home state like Gooniyandi. We have provided $17 million towards cadastral surveys—that is area mapping and those sorts of things—$12 million to expand opportunities for Indigenous ranger groups and $10 million for land pilots. But the most important is the first $20 million we provided to provide equity. We have a developer come to your community. You have only just had this land that you have lost forever being handed back to you. This will give you equity. You can buy expertise and have legal advice like everyone else in the arrangement.
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. Yesterday, the minister failed to tell the Senate what work the government has undertaken on the overall economic and budgetary impact of the cut to penalty rates his government supports. Given that the minister, or the Prime Minister, claims that the pay cut of up to $77 a week for up to 700,000 workers 'will generate more jobs and more employment', what work has the government undertaken on the overall economic impact of the cut to penalty rates?
I thought I told you—was it you or one of your colleagues yesterday, Senator Gallacher?
Opposition senators interjecting—
It was you—that the government, in fact, last Friday, made a submission to the Fair Work Commission in which it specifically made representations to the Fair Work Commission in relation to the implementation phase of its award with a particular request that it consider the interests and mitigation strategies to protect the interests of those who may be affected by the award. That is what I told you yesterday, Senator Gallacher, and that was the submission.
Senator Gallacher, a supplementary question.
The Liberal member for Bowman, Andrew Laming, has said about the decision to cut penalty rates, 'There will be virtually negligible difference in either jobs created or hours.' Who is correct, the Prime Minister or the member for Bowman?
Senator Sterle interjecting—
Order, Senator Sterle!
Senator Gallacher, I have not seen Dr Laming's remarks, so it is not my practice to comment on remarks that I have not seen, nor would you expect me to. However, I am familiar with the Prime Minister's remarks, and I entirely agree with them. I believe—and it used to be the position of your side of politics too, by the way, Senator Gallacher—that, when an independent court or tribunal established to act independently of the executive government makes an award, it behoves everyone, whether they agree with the decision or whether they do not, to support it, because to refuse to support the decision is to defy the rule of law.
Senator Sterle interjecting—
Before I call Senator Gallacher, Senator Sterle, the use of props the way you have been using them is disorderly. Please desist.
Why has the Prime Minister committed his government to supporting cuts to penalty rates when he cannot even convince his own backbench of their merit?
I am sorry, Senator Gallacher, but every time you make that misleading statement I am going to correct you. What the Prime Minister has said is that he supports the decision of the Fair Work Commission, because the Fair Work Commission is the independent arbiter. We do support the decision of the Fair Work Commission and we would support whatever decision the Fair Work Commission made, because if you set up an independent arbiter, as your side of politics did when you were in government, Senator Gallacher, then you are obliged to support it, unless you want to attack its integrity, which in effect is what the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, is now doing. I referred in answer to your colleague Senator Urquhart's question before about the lamentable and shameful record of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Shorten, when it comes to selling workers down the drain by accepting secret commissions and trading away their terms and conditions, so do not come in here and attack an independent tribunal. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Employment, Senator Cash. Can the minister update the Senate on what the Turnbull government is doing to support young Australians into the workplace?
I thank Senator Back for his question. The Turnbull government is investing $855 million to get our youth who are on welfare out of welfare and into work. In fact, next week, our $763 million investment in the innovative Youth Jobs PaTH program commences. This is a government that firmly believes that the best form of welfare is a job.
In terms of the Youth Jobs PaTH program, it is a new approach to youth employment and is all about getting our youth ready, giving them a go and getting them a job. Young Australians, as we know, often want to work but they just cannot get their foot in the door for that important first job as they do not have the necessary skills that employers are looking for. We also know that employers would love to give our youth a start but they cannot afford to take a chance on them because they do not have the necessary training that the employers need. PaTH directly associates and looks at these issues.
The Youth Jobs PaTH program has three elements to it: preparing our youth, trialling our youth and ensuring that they get a job. In the first part of the program, what we will do is provide our youth with work-ready skills and industry-specific training. In other words, we will ensure that they are prepared for the workplace. We need to ensure that young Australians have the skills that employers need so that they are not confined to a life on welfare. In terms of the program, it also gives participants the opportunity to get their foot in the door of a workplace. Again, how often do we hear that young people are motivated to go out and get a job but, because they do not have the skills and experience, an employer just will not take them on? This is why it is all about getting our youth ready, giving them a go and getting them a job.
Senator Back, a supplementary question.
I thank the minister for that complete response. Can the minister outline examples where interns have been used by employers in Australia?
I think most people in this place would recognise that internships have been a fantastic way of gaining experience in a workplace and they offer up a world of opportunity for those who have the opportunity to participate in them. If I look around here, I am sure many senators will put their hand up and say, 'I was able to undertake an internship and that's how I got my foot in the door.' Some may be surprised to note that, despite those opposite being opposed to the PaTH program—they are opposed to getting our youth out of welfare and into work—a number of Labor MPs and senators have themselves had numerous interns through their offices. In fact, no fewer than 44 interns have passed through the offices of Labor senators—that is all we know about—and approximately 150 have passed through the doors of the Labor Party.
Senator Cormann interjecting—
How much do they get paid, Senator Cormann? In many cases, they do not. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Back, a final supplementary question.
Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches to the hiring of young people in this country?
Senator Wong, on a point of order.
Thank you, Mr President. I wonder whether you could consider whether that question is in order. Odgers' makes it clear that a question which invites a minister to comment on the policies of non-government parties or other parties is not in order. There are a number of rulings—by President Sibraa, President Reid and President Calvert—which I am happy to go to. I am raising a point of order about whether the question that has been asked is in order.
Thank you, Senator Wong. In recent years, and including with my predecessor, that question—and, in fact, the exact wording of that question—has been asked and accepted on many occasions. Again, there are many aspects now to reflect upon in question time and I will also take that on board. But the minister is in order to answer the question as it was asked.
In relation to alternative approaches, I am. In fact, it goes to Senator Di Natale, the Leader of the Australian Greens. His preferred choice was to hire an international au pair. He chose to hire a young worker—not an Australian youth but someone from overseas—and not pay them above the minimum wage. What he did, though, was ensure they got on a plane and came to Canberra at taxpayers' expense. As someone said to me, 'Our greatest fears have been realised: the Greens have implemented a nanny state!' But, colleagues, the Greens' hypocrisy is not in short supply.
Order. Pause the clock. Senator Ludlam, a point of order.
Thank you, Mr President. No part of the senator's question went to the matters that the minister is traversing. She knows very well that this is utterly irrelevant to the question that was put to her. It was the subject of a Press Council ruling. Could you please bring her back to the question that she was asked.
Thank you, Senator Ludlam. I will allow the minister to continue.
Colleagues, google 'Di Natale and intern' and guess what pops up? A job advertisement, which I will now read from. It is a job advertisement for the intern, which states: 'The position has no financial remuneration available and no employment position is on offer.' (Time expired)
My question is to the Attorney-General. What is the Attorney-General doing to address the overwhelming evidence that abused children are being returned to their abusers while protective parents are being forced to say nothing for fear of losing their kids to the Family Court system?
Thank you very much indeed, Senator Hinch. I want to acknowledge the interest you have taken in this issue both as a senator and, for many years before that, a broadcaster. I can tell you some of the measures the Australian government is taking to deal with the evil of child abuse. The Commonwealth supports an approach which ensures greater national consistency at state and territory schemes through Working With Children Checks. The 36 recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse report on Working With Children Checks raised a range of significant technical and legal resourcing issues, most of which fall to the states and territories, who, as you know, have primary responsibility for child protection matters. On 17 February this year my department led a working group of all Australian governments in order to further develop the Working With Children Checks scheme and to ensure greater consistency in information sharing between jurisdictions. So that is one measure that we have undertaken.
I might take the opportunity to mention another measure that the government has undertaken. In November last year we announced that we had developed additional measures to stop child sex offenders from travelling overseas by amending the Passports Act. Under current passport legislation the passports of all Commonwealth offenders, including child sex offenders, are already refused or cancelled for the period they are on parole. Law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities are also already able to request the Minister for Foreign Affairs to cancel sex offenders passports or refuse to issue passports. A number have been cancelled or refused— (Time expired)
Senator Hinch, a supplementary question.
Attorney-General, you mentioned greater national consistency. What is the government's position on establishing a national child protection agency to address the problem of the diabolical faults, failings and failures of state and territory agencies?
Our approach and our attitude is that what matters most is that there be the greatest possible sharing of information between jurisdictions. We are not of the view that child protection is primarily a Commonwealth responsibility because, appropriately, it is and always has been a state responsibility. As you know, all of the state and territory governments have, in one form or another, child protection ministries. But in a federal system where the Commonwealth can make a difference is in ensuring and taking the lead, as we have done, to ensure that state and territory laws are consistent. Where there is information on child sexual abuse collected by police forces or by welfare authorities or other government instrumentalities, that information is shared on a national database, as it is. That is our particular contribution in leading consistency and sharing information. (Time expired)
Senator Hinch, your final supplementary question.
The failures in South Australia, in Victoria, in Queensland—we have been hearing these stories for years and years now. What is your government's objection to a national agency which would be an umbrella group and would stop kids being bashed up in Sydney and then moved to Adelaide where maybe one of them may die?
My approach to this issue is an entirely pragmatic one, as I am sure yours is. We want to have whatever works best. I think that a national bureaucracy based in Canberra is less likely to be effective than state agencies and child protection agencies who have investigative officers, social workers and other support staff on the ground in the capital cities and the provincial cities and towns of Australia and who have a greater investigative capability than some agency based in Canberra could ever have. That is why, Senator Hinch, as I said in answer to your earlier questions, my preference is for the national government to assume a coordinating role to ensure that information between the jurisdictions is as freely shared and as readily available as possible and that state and territory laws are as consistent as they can be. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Defence, Senator Payne. In April last year the Prime Minister held a doorstop and said 'the submarine project alone will see Australian workers building Australian submarines with Australian steel'. This was backed up by Minister Pyne, who said that the future submarines would be 'all-Australian build with Australian steel' and that this was the recommendation of the Department of Defence. Is the government going to stand by its election commitment and use Australian steel to build future submarines?
I thank Senator Carr for his question. As part of the work that is being done by the future submarine office, DCNS and Defence have already engaged with Australian steel companies BlueScope and Bisalloy. Both companies supplied the steel used to build the Collins-class submarines, as many people may recall. The engagement has involved initial visits to the premises of both companies in Wollongong, as Senator Fierravanti-Wells would be very familiar with, on 6 and 7 February to look at the current steel productions processes used by BlueScope and Bisalloy. Further work over the next six months will include the clarification of technical specifications and our qualification requirements for the pressure hull steel, which will provide BlueScope and Bisalloy with the information they need for our steel production needs.
Let me be very clear: any suggestion that the government is not committed to using Australian steel on the future submarines is plain wrong. We are working very closely with Australian steel companies, as I have just demonstrated. Of course, it is no wonder those opposite are unable to understand that. They come to this discussion with a zero record: zero ships over six years, zero submarines over six years, zero Australian jobs in shipbuilding over six years and zero Australian shipbuilding industry. It is no wonder they do not understand.
Senator Carr, a supplementary question.
At a recent hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, Defence officials would not guarantee that Australian steel would be used to build the future submarines. Minister, given your statement today reaffirming the use of Australian steel, have you raised the government's policy with Defence procurement officials? If not, why not?
I do not specifically recall whether I have had a conversation since the particular hearing to which the senator refers, but the Department of Defence and officials concerned with the Future Submarine Program are in absolutely no doubt about the government's policy, which I have just very clearly reiterated.
Senator Carr, a final supplementary question.
At the same parliamentary hearing an official from DCNS said that the company is disappointed in the low level of Australian industry engagement on the future submarines project. Does the government want local industry involvement in the future submarines project, or are you content to sit back and see the work go to French companies?
Senator Carr is, unsurprisingly, completely incorrect. We are absolutely committed to maximising the involvement of Australian industry in the Future Submarine Program, and any suggestion to the contrary is completely wrong.
Let me detail some of the engagement between DCNS and Lockheed Martin Australia with Australian industry, who completed their first submarine industry day in Adelaide in November last year. Over 450 companies, R&D institutions and educational organisations attended the day. The second industry day took place in Sydney in February of this year. Over 270 companies, R&D institutions and educational organisations attended the day. I read this morning that the third day was held in Melbourne this week, again with hundreds of people engaged and involved. Further submarine industry days will be held throughout Australia in 2017, with the next day scheduled in Brisbane in May. The suggestions that Senator Carr made are totally unfounded. We are absolutely committed to maximising Australian industry involvement in the development of future submarines— (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham. Will the minister inform the Senate how the government's changes to VET student loans are helping new and continuing students to undertake high-quality training aligned to workplace needs and strong employment outcomes?
I thank Senator Paterson for his question and interest in this topic. The Turnbull government's new VET student loan program commenced on 1 January this year. As senators would recall, it replaced Labor's failed VET FEE-HELP program and scheme, which saw vulnerable students targeted, taxpayers ripped off and the reputation of the vocational education and training sector tarnished.
Our new program, happily, is getting off to a very strong start. More than 180 providers have received provisional approval to offer VET student loans under the program. This is reflective of the high standards we have applied for admission, in that it is down from the 270 providers who offered the old VET FEE-HELP scheme. More than 70,000 students have opted in to continue and complete their studies from the old VET FEE-HELP scheme, while around 20,000 students to date have applied for a VET student loan to help them with their important vocational education studies. This is a strong vote of confidence in the VET student loans program, with providers now being thoroughly assessed for permanent admission to that program to commence from 1 July 2017. Aside, of course, from those 40 public providers whom we have guaranteed access into the new scheme.
This program and the adoption of it to date by both providers and students is a vote of confidence in the government's reforms and changes, which are restoring integrity to vocational education and training services; providing, of course, much stronger safeguards and protections for students; and ensuring that taxpayers' loans to students are better protected by guaranteeing they are going to students in cases where there are high prospects of employment outcomes due to the alignment between what they are studying and the job prospects in those sectors. We are very pleased at the start in relation to VET student loans and are confident it will only go from strength to strength.
Senator Paterson, a supplementary question.
Can the minister advise the Senate how the government is strengthening protections for students from the abuses and rorts that occurred under Labor's failed VET FEE-HELP scheme?
Under VET FEE-HELP, students were left with debts for courses that they could not complete, often did not need or even want to do and that had little employment outcome. In fact, the commissioner of the Australian Skills Quality Authority, who, coincidentally, happens to be former Labor Attorney-General Michael Lavarch, said of the scheme:
I have been in and around public life for a long time. I think I can fairly say that this was the worst piece of public policy I have ever seen
We are pleased that we have cleaned it up and fixed it up. In contrast, under the coalition specific protections are in place for students; a dedicated compliance strategy is there. We have changed the laws to make it easier for debts to be remitted for students. We put in place legislation that I am delighted passed the parliament this week to establish a new VET student loans ombudsman. There are strengthened protections at every step of this new program to ensure that the rorts and the waste of the past are never repeated again. (Time expired)
Senator Paterson, a final supplementary question.
Can the minister provide details to the Senate on the views of employers, unions, consumer protection advocates and training providers regarding the VET student loans ombudsman?
The new VET student loans legislation, which, as I referenced, passed through the parliament this week, has indeed been warmly welcomed across the sector. Training providers have said that it provides protection, knowing that those who do the wrong thing will be weeded out. Unions, even the NTEU, have said that they are certainly supportive of the actions the Turnbull government has taken in this regard. Consumer law representatives, such as the Consumer Action Law Centre, have said that it is a significant step to resolve disputes, that it will assist the sector to rebuild its reputation and the trust and confidence of students, parents and employers. They have said that the fact the government is acting so quickly to establish this service is welcomed. This uniform praise is recognition that the Turnbull government's reforms in relation to VET student loans, including the new VET student ombudsman, are the solutions that are necessary to clean up the mess that we inherited.
Mr President, my question this afternoon is to the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis. In evidence to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, the Attorney-General has refused to say whether or not his office asked that a direction be drafted to prevent the Australian Taxation Office from intervening in the Bell Group litigation, at a potential cost to the taxpayers of $300 million.
We did this last night, Louise. It's all over.
Last night the ATO advised the committee that around 4 March last year they were told by officers—
You keep flogging a dead horse and it's still dead.
An opposition senator: You wish it was dead!
Mr President, I think Senator Brandis deserves to be able to hear the question.
Yes, and there needs to be quiet on both your side and the side of the government. Order!
Last night the ATO advised the committee that around 4 March last year they were told by officers from Treasury and the Australian Government Solicitor that such a direction was being considered. Did your office ask that a direction to the Australian tax office be drafted? Yes or no.
Point of order, Senator Back?
Yes, point of order: the Hansard from last night's proceedings will confirm that what the senator just said is incorrect.
This is not a point of order; this is a debating point.
Mr President, I did not see the proceedings yesterday, but I have read an account of it and I have been briefed on it. I can confirm that, as Senator Back just pointed out, what Senator Pratt has said is false.
Senator Pratt, a supplementary question.
Why has the Attorney-General continued to frustrate the committee's deliberations by refusing to answer whether or not his office asked for a direction to be drafted? I ask again: did your office ask that a direction to the ATO be drafted? Yes or no.
Mr President, I have dealt with this at great length, and I have nothing to add to what I have already said.
Senator Pratt, final supplementary question.
Why is it that at every turn, the Attorney-General obfuscates and attempts to duck the scrutiny of the Senate? What is he so afraid of?
Mr President, it is the case, as the honourable senator being the chairman of that committee would know, that certain public interest immunity objections were taken in relation to the protection of legal advice given to the government. Those objections, which are the standard objections that have always been taken by the executive government and have been taken by Attorneys-General of both sides of politics, including, for example, the Hon. Gareth Evans, are a standard form of response where a question seeks to know of the legal advice given to the Commonwealth. Those objections were taken on advice, Senator Pratt. They were taken on advice.
My question is to the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Senator Fierravanti-Wells. Can the minister inform the Senate how the coalition government is using its overseas development assistance to help manage and protect the Kokoda Track?
I thank Senator Williams for this question. This is an important question in the last sitting week before Anzac Day, and of course this year we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign. Australia plays a key role in protecting and preserving the Kokoda Track region, through our Kokoda Initiative. This is an initiative in partnership with the government of Papua New Guinea. We have committed $25 million, over the next five years to 2020, to keep the track open and safe.
I would like to share with the Senate some of the achievements of the Kokoda Initiative. We have provided upgrades to road links, to the Kokoda air strip and to the VHF radio network covering the track. We have also provided support for the Kokoda Track Authority, its track maintenance activities and a reinvigorated ranger program. We have funded 39 village health volunteers, who provide basic health services to 91 villages; this has benefited over 15,000 people. We have administered over 5,000 vaccines to children under the age of five. We have provided antenatal checks to more than 1,200 mothers. We have trained 88 elementary schoolteachers and primary schoolteachers, which has improved learning outcomes for over 1,900 students. The achievements through this partnership have also built or renovated 15 double classrooms, 16 teacher's houses, five health posts and 35 water and sanitation facilities. All of these things have enhanced the quality and life of local communities across a whole range of areas—environmental, cultural, military heritage, health and education— (Time expired)
Senator Williams, a supplementary question.
Thank you, Mr President. I thank the minister. Can the minister explain why there is a need to assist PNG in maintaining and improving the Kokoda Track region?
Papua New Guinea is not only our closest neighbour; we also share a long and very close history. Let's not forget that 650 Australians lost their lives during the Kokoda campaign in 1942, and this number would have been much larger had it not been for the people of Papua New Guinea. Who can forget that iconic photograph of the Australian soldier being guided by a fuzzy wuzzy angel? We want to ensure that the 75th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign is commemorated properly—through special ceremonies, through publications, through different development projects along the track and through the development of a military heritage strategy. We have assisted the government of Papua New Guinea, the National Museum and art gallery and the conservation and environment protection authority to work with local communities. (Time expired)
Thank you. Senator Williams, a final supplementary question.
How does Australia benefit from keeping the Kokoda Track open and accessible?
Thousands of Australian trekkers do the 96-kilometre trek every year. In this 75th anniversary year, many more trekkers are expected to visit and to commemorate this important campaign. By keeping the track safe and open, we are able to also help protect the region's heritage values. In so doing, we are honouring the memory of the 650 men and boys who lost their lives on the track, but we are also honouring the camaraderie and the friendship that exists between our two countries. They came to our aid when we needed them most, and so it is only fitting that, at this time, we honour that shared history and the common bonds that bind our two countries together. The Kokoda Initiative ensures that this place of national significance will be preserved for years to come.
I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to questions without notice asked by Senators Urquhart and Gallacher today relating to penalty rates.
This government comes in here and portrays itself as above board, really kosher, everything going well. But the reality is different. Senator Brandis talks about the Fair Work Commission and the independence thereof, but he does not tell the chamber that the bipartisan nature of appointments to the Fair Work Commission have been set aside since 2013. He does not say that we have continually appointed people from the right of industrial relations to the Fair Work Commission.
I do not cast any aspersions on those people's credentials to be Fair Work commissioners, but they are not impartial. There is no union and employer representation coming forward. He has simply skewed the Fair Work Commission's ability to rationally decide on issues like penalty rates by deliberately appointing people from his preferred side of politics. Senator Brandis comes in here and says, 'It's an independent umpire. Why are you being critical?', when since 2013 they have been slowly but surely setting out to skew the deliberations of that august tribunal to suit their own ends.
Let's get back to the central issue here. It is someone's daughter, brother, son, cousin or nephew who goes out to seek part-time or any employment in the workforce, is unable to get five days permanent work, ends up working some casual and part-time work—and heaven forbid they are lucky enough to enjoy a penalty on a Saturday or Sunday! What this miserable government wants to do is reduce that earning capacity. They have done no study on the net benefit to employment. They have done no study on the net benefit economically. It is simply that people are going to miss out on the opportunity to enjoy a reasonable level of living in casual and part-time employment.
More importantly, there is no creation of employment here. Senator Abetz goes closest to it when he says: 'You should all be happy to have any sort of job—any job at all. If you don't get penalties, bad luck. Just cop it. Get a job.' Well, the difference between the UK, the United States and Australia is: we have got higher minimum standards, and, in those higher minimum standards, we enjoy hard-won, hard-fought-for conditions like penalty rates. And we ought to fight to keep them, not appoint people to the Fair Work Commission whose whole ideology is to reduce those sorts of arrangements, to allegedly make the economy more competitive.
I have got to say: people who enjoy permanent part-time or part-time work or low-paid work in hospitality, enjoy as much as they can possibly get—and they spend it. I am not sure that they are off depositing their penalty rates incentive into a bank account! They spend it. A friend of mine ran a very fine establishment in the Victorian country, and paid the appropriate rates of pay—paid penalty rates—and a lot of those people actually spent some of that money in their leisure hours in the same establishment. And that is what would be happening around these sorts of arrangements.
People may be studying. They may be at home, studying, and getting some permanent part-time work, or getting some casual work. And heaven forbid they might actually earn a decent wage on Sunday!
This miserable government has gone right out of its way to take that off them, by deliberately setting in place a procedural path of politicisation of the Fair Work Commission. Can anybody from the government side name anybody from the employee representation side who has been appointed to the Fair Work Commission? And the resounding answer has got to be no. Senator Brandis says, 'It's all fair. It's independent. It's the independent umpire,' yet he, his government, his cabinet and his Prime Minister have deliberately set out to only appoint employer representatives as Fair Work Commissioners, in the last five years at least. So he has continued the ideological line of the Hon. Tony Abbott which has continued under the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, and they stand up there and say, 'It's the independent umpire. Why are you complaining?'
Well, what we are complaining about is: you are ripping off hardworking, ordinary Australians who need a leg up, not a push down. We will continue to fight this issue all the way to the next election, and you will get your just deserts. Your return will be in the ballot box. (Time expired)
I, too, rise to speak to the motion to take note of the minister's answers. I could not believe what I was hearing from Senator Gallacher. It was just the same tired old Labor politics of division and left-wing ideology, and it was simply untrue.
On this side of the chamber, we understand that governments do not create jobs; employers do. And this government is standing up for small business people, who want to get ahead and grow jobs and create new jobs. If those opposite actually went out and talked to small businesses in their electorates in their states, they would hear very clearly that small shops, pharmacies, takeaways and small hotels, who have not benefited from the dirty EBA deals that those opposite have done with the big businesses, are suffering. And they want to employ more people. They want to open on Sundays. They want to employ students. They want to employ more women. But they cannot afford to do it. So, if they do open, what do they do? They work seven days a week—they do it themselves, so that they can open their doors and get business, because they simply cannot afford to employ more staff.
Senator Gallacher said, 'Oh well, the Fair Work Commission!' and tried to rubbish them. But it was your commission. You on the other side established that. And, just because you do not like the rules that the independent umpire makes, it is no excuse for walking away from what they said.
Let us just remember what Mr Shorten said on accepting the decision of his own umpire that you set up. He was asked:
… the Fair Work Commission will report soon on Sunday penalty rates. They're an independent body, in fact you had a lot to do with the way they operate now when you were Minister. Will you accept their findings given this is an independent body assessing penalty rates for Sunday, if you're Prime Minister.
So, given what those opposite are saying now, do you think that Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, said: 'I've got problems with the Fair Work Commission. I don't agree with giving my independent umpire the decision'? No, he did not say that at all. What Mr Shorten said was: 'Yes,' he would. The interviewer said: 'You'll accept them?' He said: 'Yes,' quite clearly—'Yes.' No ifs; no buts; none of the concerns about the commission that Senator Gallacher was alluding to just now. And the journalist said: 'Even if they reduce Sunday penalty rates?' and Mr Shorten said: 'Well, I said I'd accept the independent tribunal.'
But all of a sudden he does not like the decision of the independent tribunal, so what is happening? Those opposite are now coming out with the same old, tired old rhetoric, trying to find reasons to undermine their own commission. And it is falling on deaf ears. People out in the community are not that simple. Yes, you are stirring up some emotion. But the facts are: the Fair Work Commission took years to come to this decision. They took about 7,000 submissions. They consulted widely. They came out with a very cogent report on this decision. Yet, again, instead of actually dealing with the facts in the Fair Work Commission's report, those opposite again are just pulling out this tired old 19th- or 20th-century union-warfare sort of language, because they cannot debate the points.
The facts are very clear. If you go and talk to any small business in your state, they will tell you that they want to employ more people. This penalty rate system was set up in the day for very good reasons, when people did work nine to five, Monday to Friday, they did not work Saturdays and Sundays, and they went to church with their families on Sundays. Well, sadly, that is not the case anymore.
Women want more flexibility in the workforce. Men want more flexibility in the workforce. We have got a lot of students. We have got a lot of young people who want their first job and cannot get it, and you are denying them an opportunity.
Who can forget the shameful incident that happened in the other chamber to my friend and colleague Ann Sudmalis?
She is one of the most wonderful local representatives. She has a heart the size of a planet. Where were any of you over there when your members absolutely demonised her for saying that she wanted more young people in her constituency to work with these penalty rates? Where were you when your colleagues made this wonderful woman cry? Shame on you all!
That was another demonstration of just how out of touch the government really is on this issue. That contribution takes me back to something I heard Tony Abbott say. It might have been last year or when he was still Prime Minister. He said, 'If you don't want to work on a weekend, fair enough; don't work on a weekend'. And that is just what Senator Reynolds seems to believe. But it is not the case. Lots of people have to work on weekends. My partner, who works in the health area, was delighted when she heard that, because she works a 24-hour, seven-day roster. She would love not to work after hours and not to work on weekends, but she does not get that choice. Many people in our communities do not get that choice. When there are jobs on weekends that people need to live on, people should get a penalty for working weekends, and it does not matter whether they are well paid in organised professions or in hospitality or in other areas where this first tranche of cuts will take place. That argument really demonstrates that the government just do not understand. They think people work on weekends because they want to work on weekends, but it is not the case. I do not know anyone who wants to work on a weekend, and if they had the choice not to work they would take that as an option. People would rather spend time with their kids and their families doing activities that are available on weekends that are not available in the normal course of a working week.
The other argument that government members want to throw at us is that the Fair Work Act was set up by the Labor government, and that is absolutely true. No-one has said that the Fair Work Act is perfect. In fact, we recognised while we were in government that it was not perfect and we actually moved amendments to include in the objectives of the Fair Work Act 'the need to provide additional remuneration for employees working overtime or employees working unsociable, irregular or unpredictable hours or employees working shifts.'
We entrenched in the Fair Work Act objectives the fact that penalty rates had to be there. What the Fair Work Commission did not get—I do not know why they did not get it after we moved those amendments and put in the objectives—is that they could go ahead and cut penalty rates. That is simply wrong. That is not a position of the Labor Party. We are directly opposed to it.
We now know that the Fair Work Commission ignored those objectives as far as we are concerned and the reason behind the intent of putting those objectives in the Fair Work Act. So we intend to legislate to enshrine that penalties are there. If the government wants to support the bill they can. They have a choice just as they have made a choice on many other decisions they have not liked, whether from the Human Rights Commission or the Road Transport Remuneration Tribunal—any of those decisions. If they have not liked them, they simply legislate against them: 'We do not like that decision. We're going to legislate against it.' They have that absolute opportunity. They cannot say simply say because it is an independent body that it is unchallengeable. That is never the position they have taken on anything else. It is a ridiculous argument, it is a fig leaf of an argument and they will not be able to hide behind it. The Australia public will not let then get away with it.
Let's understand what the Fair Work Act actually replaced. Yes, we did put it in place to replace Work Choices. Maybe people need a little bit of a reminder about what Work Choices did to people. Let's just go back and look at what Work Choices did: 100 per cent of AWAs under Work Choices excluded at least one so-called protected award condition, 64 per cent removed leave loadings, 63 per cent removed penalty rates, 52 per cent removed shift-work loadings, 41 per cent did not contain gazetted public holidays, 29 per cent modified rest breaks, 27 per cent modified public-holiday payments, 22 per cent did not provide for any wage increase over the life of the agreement and 16 per cent excluded every award protection and condition from those agreements. I am not surprised that we are headed back there under this government. That is where this government comes from. This is where this government would like to go. Penalty rates are certainly the first step for these workers, and the next step will be every other worker and then the rest of the conditions next. (Time expired)
To commence my contribution in this debate, I want to make an observation. It is what Labor contributions seem to be underpinned by: misrepresenting answers given by ministers, misconstruing things and selective quoting—which I have seen a lot of today. It started with Senator Urquhart's question where she selectively quoted from Senator Brandis's answer from yesterday in trying to make a case, which she was not able to in the end. Senator Brandis, in his answer, was able to demolish the point that she was trying to make. It was also very revealing to hear today that the Labor Party intend to vote against the legislation to prevent corrupting benefits. I thought that was a very, very revealing answer. To hear that the people who are coming in here railing against these cuts to penalty rates, as they have characterised them, are then going to try and push back on this proposal from the government to protect workers and ensure their rights are protected when it comes to these big business and big union deals. There was a lot of noise from the opposition when that point was made, but I have not yet heard anyone deny that that is what Labor are going to do to protect workers' rights instead of the rights of big unions. It is just astounding that they try to come in here and claim the moral high ground when they have no capacity to do so.
In other areas of this debate, opposition members have pointed to us speaking about the independence of the Fair Work Commission and the way it reaches its decisions and tried to contrast that with our decision to abolish the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which is a ridiculous link to draw.
Why?
I will take that interjection, Senator Bilyk. I wonder whether Labor are trying to call for the government to abolish the Fair Work Commission. Is that what you are trying to do? It is ridiculous to link the decision that has been reached by an independent body, based on thousands of submissions from all sorts of entities and individuals, and say we should not—
Senator Bushby interjecting—
Exactly right! I just wonder whether that is what those opposite are trying to do. Are they trying to call for the abolition of the Fair Work Commission, the body that they established, to which they appointed commissioners, and that they said they would respect—as per the contribution provided by Senator Reynolds. They want to pick and choose what decisions they support and will adhere to.
A point that was made to me earlier was: where were Labor when, in 2009, the predecessor entity to the Fair Work Commission decided to reduce penalty rates for workers? Where were they when the Australian Industrial Relations Commission made that decision? Were they quiet? Yes, they were. They did not stand up and campaign on that issue, saying that workers' rights were being stripped. Now it is politically convenient for them to do that, and they are making all this noise.
I want to go to the impact on small business. We have talked a lot about small businesses, such as those in our community, Senator Bilyk, and how they make up the economies of our small regional communities. What does Labor say to those businesses that cannot open on a Sunday? What does Labor say to those people who do not have a job on a Sunday because businesses cannot open—people who have zero dollars in their bank account because businesses do not open and they do not get paid? Labor wants to vilify small-business operators. It wants to make small business operators out to be people who are just in it to make a buck, who push down and oppress employees. I am sick of that. These people are genuine, honest, hardworking people who want to contribute to their local economies. They respect their employees, because that is what makes a good small business. I call on Labor to stop vilifying small-business people and allow them to do what is right for the economies of their small communities. Help them to open on a Sunday. Help them to employ people who need these jobs in our small communities. Labor should get on board and stop playing politics.
Senator Duniam, you are actually a nice young lad for someone on that side. At least you do not scream and yell, like a number of other people on your side do because they think that being loud gets the message across, makes them more realistic or something like that. But I do have to pull you up, Senator Duniam, for saying that we often misrepresent answers. One problem we on this side have is that we cannot get proper, decent answers, especially from Senator Brandis. Senator Brandis so often says—and Hansard will show this time and time again—'I am not aware of that comment. I never heard that. No-one spoke to me.' At least once or twice every question time we get those comments. I do have to wonder how many staff Senator Brandis has and what they actually do, because surely his staff should be telling him when these things are in the media—that is, all over the media, not just in one piddly little newspaper.
Are we discussing penalty rates?
We will get to that. Don't you worry; I am not going to let you off penalty rates altogether—no way.
We get a recurring pattern of 'no answer'. Once again today Senator Brandis failed to address just how important penalty rates are to the workers who receive them. He cannot tell us what impact these cuts will have on workers, because he will not admit there is an issue. That is one of the big problems with your side—you cannot see that there is any issue in low-paid workers losing $77 a week. Well, let me tell you: we on this side understand.
Oh, stay, Senator Duniam. Don't leave. I listened to you.
I don't think you had a choice.
That is true. I did not have a choice. That is absolutely true.
We on this side understand that that $77 is not for any sort of luxury. We understand it is to help pay the power bill, to help buy the kids' school uniforms, maybe to help send the kids on an excursion. I was on the Labor Party's Fair Work Taskforce and was privileged to travel around Tasmania to hear from people from my home state—also that of Senator Duniam, and I think Senator Whish-Wilson might have heard some of this too—how much of an impact a cut to penalty rates will have on people. As Senator Marshall said, people do not choose to work weekends to make a fortune. A lot of people work weekends because otherwise they would not get the job. Part of getting the job is: 'You can work in my restaurant but I need you to work Saturdays,' or, 'I need you work Sundays,' or, 'I need you to work after hours in unsociable hours.' People do that because the extra bit of money they get helps them pay their bills. It helps them to have some dignity. That is really important to people, and something those on the other side do not often think about.
The cuts to penalty rates will obviously have a detrimental effect on the wider economy; that is just common sense. If you reduce the incomes of 700,000 people, there will be less money for people in the community to spend, and family budgets will be even tougher. We have thousands of people who are already doing it tough because this government do not really care about people with lower incomes. This money is not banked until it becomes trillions of dollars. It is certainly not sent off to the Cayman Islands, for example. It is not invested in shares. It is money that is used every single day to help people live to a standard of living that I doubt any, even at the lowest level, of those on the other side have ever lived to. I doubt they have ever had to struggle. I would be surprised if their penalty rates did not fund their overseas holidays, if ever they worked in a job that had penalty rates—probably while they were living at home being looked after very well.
The most cruel thing of all about the penalty rates cut is that it has coincided— (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Education and Training (Senator Birmingham) to a question without notice asked by Senator Whish-Wilson today relating to the Great Barrier Reef.
It is genuinely really hard not to despair—as a senator and as someone, who, like most Australians, loves the ocean, lives near the ocean and has had some of the best moments of my life in the ocean—that I cannot ask a very serious question to the federal environment minister through his representative here today, Senator Birmingham, about what is unfolding in the greatest living organism on this planet, the Great Barrier Reef—a devastating, back-to-back mass coral bleaching event. Not only can he not answer my question as to what is the current state of this bleaching event that the Great Barrier Reef is experiencing right now, with unprecedented warming waters off the coast of Queensland, and not only do we not even have data from last year's bleaching events that he cannot tell us about, but then he laughs. He thought it was a big joke when I read him a quote from one of the scientists who are studying the Great Barrier Reef—one of the international experts from James Cook University—who said on his Twitter:
I showed the results of aerial surveys of #bleaching on the #GreatBarrierReef to my students, And then we wept.
All Senator Birmingham can do is tell me that I need to get a hanky, as though somehow it is funny that the biggest environmental catastrophe that I am ever likely to see in my life is occurring now on the Great Barrier Reef. The representative for the environment minister in the people's Senate thinks it is a joke. I hope that Australians look at the footage of Senator Birmingham and the rest of the Liberal-National Party senators. They will see the hooting, the laughing, the cajoling and the crass, shallow politics of the Liberal Party. I hope Australians look at the footage and they realise who is representing them in their parliament, in this government, and that they do not care about the environment and about rising global emissions that are killing our Great Barrier Reef.
The environment minister's representative could not even answer a well-intentioned question and give this house an update on what is going on in the Great Barrier Reef. The whole world is looking at this. It has been reported in all the major newspapers across the US, in Europe and in the UK, because the Great Barrier Reef is one of the natural wonders of the world and it is dying. Eighty per cent of the northern sector of the reef—the top third of the reef—experienced mass coral bleaching last year, in 2016, the third bleaching event in 20 years. Not even in their worst nightmares did scientists expect that we could get a bleaching event two years in a row. This bleaching event is occurring in the central part of the Great Barrier Reef. We have heard evidence directly from Professor Hughes and other scientists recently that it looks severe. This area is what the tourism industry relies on. There are 70,000 jobs on the Great Barrier Reef.
I ask each and every senator in here today: have you been lucky enough to go to the Great Barrier Reef—to go snorkelling with your kids, with your partner, with your friends or on your own? If you have not been lucky enough, who knows when you are going to get the chance?
I heard recently in a Senate inquiry that the giant kelp forests off Tasmania that used to stretch from the top of Tasmania to the bottom of Tasmania have now died this summer as well—10,000-year-old giant kelp forests that, like the Great Barrier Reef, make up the backbone of the ecosystems for our fish and our fisheries industries. This is no laughing matter for the government to come in here and treat my question with contempt, laugh at it, scorn it and tell the scientist who posted this, who has been studying the Great Barrier Reef for most of his life, that I need to get a hanky for asking this question, because they think it is funny that the Great Barrier Reef is dying on our watch.
Question agreed to.
I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move:
That the provisions of paragraphs (5) to (8) of standing order 111 not apply to the following bills, allowing them to be considered during this period of sittings:
Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2016-2017
Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2016-2017
Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017
Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2016
Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2017
Crimes Amendment (Penalty Unit) Bill 2017
Disability Services Amendment (Linking Upper Age Limits for Disability Employment Services to Pension Age) Bill 2017
Personal Property Securities Amendment (PPS Leases) Bill 2017
Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Amendment (Polar Code) Bill 2017
I table statements of reasons justifying the need for these bills to be considered during these sittings and seek leave to have the statements incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The statements read as follows—
STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2017 AUTUMN SITTINGS
APPROPRIATION BILL (NO. 3) 2016-2017
APPROPRIATION BILL (NO. 4) 2016-2017
Purpose of the Bills
The bills request legislative authority for additional appropriations to fund expenditure to be incurred in 2016-2017.
Reasons for Urgency
Appropriations proposed in the bills provide funding for expenditure that is required to implement decisions and funding adjustments that involve further expenditure in 2016-2017, which have been agreed since the 2016-2017 Budget. Passage of the bills before the last day of the 2017 Autumn sittings will ensure continuity of the Government's programs and the Commonwealth's ability to meet its obligations as they fall due; and facilitate the commencement of new measures. Should passage not be granted in the 2017 Autumn sittings then activities to be funded by the bills may be deferred or significantly delayed.
(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Finance)
STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2017 AUTUMN SITTINGS
BIOSECURITY AMENDMENT (BALLAST WATER AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL
Purpose of the Bill
The bill will provide for critical additional powers for human biosecurity officials to manage the risks associated with mosquitos and other disease carrying vectors at Australia's airports and seaports that pose a risk to human health. These amendments allow enforcement of relevant biosecurity measures.
The bill will also amend Chapter 5 of the Biosecurity Act 2015 to align fully with the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments (the Convention).
Passage of the bill in the 2017 Autumn sittings is essential for Australia to minimise the human health risks from vectors and to give full effect to the Convention when it enters into force internationally on 8 September 2017.
Reasons for Urgency
There is an immediate requirement to strengthen vector control measures to counter threats from, amongst other things, mosquito-borne diseases.The amendments will allow for the improved management of potential human health and biosecurity risks, drawing on recent experiences in Australia and overseas.
Amendments to Chapter 5 of the Biosecurity Act 2015 are needed in order for Australia to be legislatively compliant with the Convention. This will provide certainty for the shipping industry, both local and international.
Australia will need to ratify the Convention prior to 8 June 2017 if it is to come into force in Australia at the same time it comes into force internationally on 8 September 2017.
Introduction and passage of the bill in the 2017 Autumn sittings will enable Australia to give full legislative effect in the Act to the Convention in line with the above-mentioned timeframe. This will maintain Australia's positive international standing in relation to biosecurity and environmental control measures. If this does not occur, Australia is at risk of damaging its positive international reputation.
Australia is seen as a world leader in biosecurity risk management. Failure to pass this bill in the 2017 Autumn sittings will cause repercussions from Australia not being fully legislatively compliant with the Convention when it comes into force internationally. This will also affect our ability to enforce key biosecurity and human health measures.
(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources)
STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2017 AUTUMN PARLIAMENT SITTINGS
COMPETITION AND CONSUMER AMENDMENT (MISUSE OF MARKET POWER) BILL 2016
Purpose of the Bill
This Bill makes amendments to the misuse of market power provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (the Act) following the recommendations of the Harper Review of Competition Policy.
Reasons for Urgency
The Bill contains important reforms to a key provision of the Act relating to the misuse of market power. The Government announced the reforms in March 2016. Passage of the Bill as soon as possible is required to provide stakeholders with certainty in relation to a major provision of the competition laws.
(Circulated by authority of the Treasurer)
STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2017 AUTUMN SITTINGS
COPYRIGHT AMENDMENT (DISABILITY ACCESS AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL
Purpose of the Bill
The bill amends the Copyright Act 1968 to streamline, modernise and simplify provisions relating to the use of copyright material by the disability, education, library and archives sectors. The bill will also introduce new standard copyright terms for published and unpublished materials.
Reasons for Urgency
Whilst Australia's Copyright Act already fully complies with the requirements of the Marrakesh Treaty, expedited introduction and passage of the bill will enhance Australia's copyright scheme to better reflect the principles of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled, which was ratified by Australia on 10 December 2015 and which entered into force on 30 September 2016. Passage of the bill will remove regulatory burden and improve access to and use of valuable information by the disability, education, library and archives sectors.
The bill is the culmination of long term and extensive consultation with key stakeholders in the disability, education, library and archives sectors, rights holders' representatives and relevant Commonwealth and state and territory government agencies.
(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Communications)
STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2017 AUTUMN SITTINGS
CRIMES AMENDMENT (PENALTY UNIT) BILL
Purpose of the Bill
The bill amends the Crimes Act 1914 to increase the value of the Commonwealth penalty unit from $180 to $210, to take effect from 1 July 2017. It also delays the first indexation of the value from July 2018 to July 2020.
Reasons for Urgency
The bill must be passed in the first half of 2017 to allow the amendment to commence by 1 July 2017.
The urgency of the bill derives from the need to maintain effective and dissuasive penalties for Commonwealth criminal offences. The measure forms part of a broader package of cross-portfolio Budget repair measures, announced as part of the 2016-17 MYEFO.
The penalty unit was introduced in 1992 to allow financial penalties for offences across the entire Commonwealth statute book to be adjusted in line with inflation with a single amendment to the Crimes Act. Maintaining the value of the penalty unit over time (in real terms) is necessary to ensure that financial penalties remain effective punishments and deterrents to the commission of Commonwealth offences.
(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Justice)
STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2017 AUTUMN SITTINGS
DISABILITY SERVICES AMENDMENT (LINKING UPPER AGE LIMITS FOR DISABILITY EMPLOYMENT SERVICES TO THE PENSION AGE) BILL
Purpose of the Bill
The bill aims to substitute the upper age limit from section 18(a) of the Disability Services Act 1986, with reference to the pension age in the Social Security Act 1991.
Reasons for Urgency
This bill gives effect to a mechanical amendment to the Disability Services Act 1986 to align the upper age limit of the Disability Employment Services – Disability Management Service program (DES-DMS) to the pension age under the Social Security Act 1991.
Under the Social Security Act 1991, the Age Pension eligibility age will be raised by increments of six months occurring every two years from 1 July 2017 until the Age Pension eligibility age reaches 67 in 2024.
Currently, to be eligible to start to receive services under the DES-DMS program, a person must be aged between 14 and 64. The purpose of the age restrictions was to conform with the intention of the program to provide support to persons with disabilities of working age.
The increase in the pension age means that there will be people with disability who are aged 65 or older but who have not reached the pension age; who are on income support with mutual obligations to seek work; and who under the current provisions would be excluded from receiving support under DES-DMS to meet those obligations.
By linking the upper limit to the pension age rather than a set age, the Bill ensures that there will be no gap between the pension age and the upper limit for services under the DES-DMS program during the period of the increase to the pension age between 2017 and 2024.
Any delays in the passage of legislation beyond this date will mean that there will be people with disability aged 65 who may be required to seek work as part of their income support, but who are unable to access the usual supports through Disability Employment Services from 1 July 2017 because the age limit for DES-DMS will remain at 64 years old and will not have been adjusted to match the increased age of qualification for the age pension.
Introduction and passage of the bill in the 2017 Autumn sittings is also required to implement these changes before 1 July 2017, as it is necessary to allow at least three months to adjust the relevant IT systems.
(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Social Services)
STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2017 AUTUMN SITTINGS
PERSONAL PROPERTY SECURITIES AMENDMENT (PPS LEASES) BILL 2017
Purpose of the Bill
The Bill amends section 13 of the Personal Property Securities Act 2009 (the Act) to extend the minimum duration of a lease after which it is deemed to be a PPS Lease, a type of security interest, from more than one year, to more than two years. The Bill also amends the Act to provide that leases of an indefinite term will not be deemed to be PPS leases unless and until they run for more than two years.
Reasons for Urgency
The Bill will significantly reduce the Act's regulatory impact on short term equipment hire and rental businesses, many of which are small and medium businesses. The hire and rental sector relies on indefinite term leases which usually run for less than a week and rarely exceed two years. Very few equipment hire leases would be caught by the amended provision. However, section 13 as amended by this bill would continue to appropriately capture longer term leases. The amendments would not modify the operation of the Act in relation to leases which are 'in-substance' security interests.
The equipment hire and rental industry is largely comprised of small and medium size enterprises, which due to the complexity of certain aspects of PPS Act have difficulty consistently making legally accurate registrations on the Personal Property Securities Register. Making a correct registration (a perfected registration) will protect the priority position of a lessor's security interest against competing interests in the same collateral. Many hire and rental operators unknowingly face the risk of losing valuable assets to the estates of insolvent customers by operation of the vesting provision which provides that an unperfected security interest will vest in the customer (the grantor) in the event that the customer becomes insolvent. This can have serious consequences for small businesses.
The passage of this Bill in the Autumn sittings will reduce the risk to small business of unknowingly losing ownership of assets where customers become insolvent, and provide certainty about the operation of PPS Leases for small and medium businesses.
(Circulated by authority of the Attorney-General)
STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2017 AUTUMN SITTINGS
PROTECTION OF THE SEA (PREVENTION OF POLLUTION FROM SHIPS) AMENDMENT (POLAR CODE) BILL
Purpose of the Bill
The bill amends the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 to implement the International Code for Ships Operating in Polar Waters (Polar Code), which is a mandatory code adopted by the International Maritime Organization.
Reasons for Urgency
The Polar Code entered into force internationally on 1 January 2017. To ensure Australia remains compliant with its international obligations, an amendment to the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983 is required. Passage of the bill in the Autumn sittings would indicate Australia's full support for the Polar Code and enable our international obligations to be met.
Australia has a strong national interest in Antarctica, including in the safety of shipping, environmental protection of Antarctic waters and search and rescue responsibilities. The Polar Code benefits these interests by making shipping in Antarctic waters safer.
(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport)
by leave—I move:
That leave of absence be granted to Senator Macdonald for today for personal reasons.
Question agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That leave of absence be granted to Senator Di Natale for the period 28 to 30 March 2017.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) acknowledges the vertical fiscal imbalance in the Australian federal system and the impact this has on local government's ability to meet its expenditure responsibilities;
(b) notes that Financial Assistance Grants to local government have been subject to an index freeze since the 2014-15 Federal Budget; and
(c) calls on the Government to lift the freeze on indexation of the Financial Assistance Grants in the 2017-18 Federal Budget.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The government does not support this motion as the indexation of financial system grants for 2017-18 onwards was announced in May 2016 and is reflected in the 2016-17 budget papers.
Question agreed to.
At the request of Senator Di Natale, I move:
That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to establish Renew Australia, and for related purposes. Renew Australia Bill 2017.
Question agreed to.
I present the bill and move:
That this bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a first time.
I move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I seek leave to table an explanatory memorandum relating to the bill and to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
We are in the middle of a climate emergency and an energy crisis and this government is asleep at the wheel. This Bill, the Renew Australia Bill 2017, establishes an independent public authority charged with planning and driving the transition to a new clean energy system.
Pollution is wrecking our way of life and everything we care about on this planet. What precious little time we have to protect and safeguard our planet is slipping away. To insulate our livelihoods from the catastrophic effects of climate change, we need real leadership – not a business as usual response. And that's what The Greens are in this place to do. To provide the leadership that this country so desperately needs, because this Government aren't giving it.
We have a plan to act and act urgently to remake our economy and secure our prosperity, by powering our new economy with clean energy and decoupling our future and our systems from pollution. The Government's plan is coal, coal and more coal. Not only do they – along with the Australia Labor Party - want to build Adani – a monster that will trash our reef, burn our planet and run roughshod over our native title legislation – but there are also reports that they'll use scarce public money to build a new coal-fired power station! Building a new coal fired power station now is like knowing cigarettes cause cancer but starting your kids on a pack a day, or knowing asbestos kills but having your family live in it anyway. While Japan cancels plans to build a major coal-fired power station, we're looking at building them.
Our plan is what Australia really needs. Our plan will ensure energy generation for electricity is at least 90 per cent renewable by 2030 and that our energy productivity is doubled. This Bill will establish a Government authority, Renew Australia, that will short-circuit the current paralysis that we're seeing – with standoffs between the Federal and State Governments – by taking the issue out of the hands of politicians and into the hands of experts. A number of submissions to the Finkel review, including from big energy companies like Origin energy, have also supported this idea that we need a new national body to oversee electricity reform.
Our plan is for this new public authority to leverage $5 billion dollars of construction in new energy generation over the next four years. This policy will also provide for a $250 million clean energy transition fund to assist coal workers and communities to transition, with the total amount spent rising to $1 billion over the decade. What this Government should be doing for the workers at Hazelwood right now is providing them with certainty and a long term plan, not a last second thought bubble from a former Prime Minister who's suffering from relevance deprivation syndrome.
We will implement pollution intensity standards to enable the continuation of gradual staged closures of coal-fired power stations, like what we've seen with Hazelwood. But as we do so we need to ensure that no-one is left behind, that the workers in those coal-fired power stations and their communities are looked after and that supply is continued so that the lights stay on as we make this transition. We need to get off coal and onto renewables right now if we have any chance of meeting the challenge of climate change, and The Greens' believe that we can do this, while looking after people through this transition.
Our plan aims to electrify transport and industry, including new industries that want to access cheap and clean energy. As a result of that, even with a doubling of energy efficiency, energy production for electricity in Australia actually needs to increase by about 50 per cent by 2030. So the Green's plan is to grow the amount of electricity that we produce in this country but to make it clean and green. To do that, we are going to need all shoulders to the wheel.
Government needs to seize this issue as an opportunity because government will be an integral part of this transition to our clean energy society. Renew Australia will drive Australia's transformation into a clean energy powerhouse and will utilise a combination of mechanisms, including driving down costs and creating a highly skilled clean energy workforce through a staged pipeline of construction projects over the next 15 years.
Renew Australia would also run reverse auctions for the construction of lowest cost clean energy assets, with a preference awarded towards community owned energy projects and those projects that commit to buying their materials and employing people locally. There is 20 tonnes of steel in a wind turbine. If we can make that Australian steel, we should. Renew Australia would encourage workers to purchase energy infrastructure through superannuation funds, which hold billions of dollars available to be invested in nationally significant infrastructure.
The Bill goes on to outline Renew Australia's responsibilities to layout a timetable for the planned closure of coal fired power stations and for principles of investment in the new national electricity grid. As is set out in clause 13—Renew Australia has the capacity to build, finance, own or operate renewable energy projects and also to run reverse auctions for new private sector renewable energy projects. Renew Australia must take action that is in the public interest.
Tackling global warming needs real leadership. In the face of the climate challenge, the rest of the world is moving rapidly to transform their economies and we cannot be left behind, but right now we are being left behind. We need to move beyond coal, and we need to move beyond this paralysis, but the government is stuck and is picking fights with the states on national television.
On 25 July in 2015, Germany produced 78 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy. On 16 May 2016, this number was up again – Germany produced almost all of its power from renewable energy. While other countries are moving forwards, we're moving backwards. Why is cloudy Germany leading the way, when Australia is blessed with a high level of manufacturing capacity, very smart people with intellectual resources and more wind and solar than almost any other country in the world?
Why are countries around the world trying to solve this problem, while we scrap the price on carbon and build massive coal mines and power stations? We should be world leaders; we should be the new energy superpower; we should not be leaving it up to other countries to grab the benefits that are going to come in the 21st century to those countries which produce clean, green renewable energy.
Our hope it is that Australia becomes a destination of choice for industry around the world, which is looking for a place to come to for cheap and plentiful power supply that is produced cleanly. Australia can be a renewable energy superpower if the Government has the courage and vision to put in place a national plan.
Let us be the place in the region where you come to run your business if you want to know that your business is being run on secure renewable energy. We want to increase the amount of electricity that is produced in this country, as we start getting transport—cars, buses, trains—off fossil fuels onto electricity. The jobs that will flow from this are manifold. The German experience suggests to us that there is somewhere in the order of 100,000 jobs available in renewable energy. This Bill will go a long way towards doing that.
Our country can't afford to be left behind and neither can our planet. The stakes literally could not be higher. Let's take the politics out of this debate, which are making it toxic, and get moving on this issue before it's too late.
I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) congratulates organisations and groups across Australia providing essential services to people who are homeless, including the Larrakia Nation, Darwin; 24/7 Street Kitchen and Safe Space, Sydney; Food Not Bombs, Adelaide; After Dark Saints, Brisbane; South West Australian Homeless People; and the Homeless Persons Union, Victoria; and
(b) calls on the Government to increase federal funding for homelessness services and public housing, and ensure the money is spent effectively.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That there be laid on the table by the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Energy, by no later than 9.30 am on 30 March 2017, the following documents:
(a) any correspondence between the Department of the Environment and Energy and the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources or his ministerial staff in relation to the Draft National Recovery Plan for Leadbeater's Possum; and
(b) any correspondence between the Department of the Environment and Energy and the Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources or her ministerial staff relating to the Draft National Recovery Plan for Leadbeater's Possum.
Question agreed to.
I, and also on behalf of Senators Farrell and Rice, move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes:
(i) the success of the inaugural Australian Football League Women's (AFLW) competition held between 3 February 2017 and 25 March 2017,
(ii) the enormous public support for the women's competition was reflected in crowd numbers at games, with many games reaching stadium capacity, and
(iii) the grand final held on 25 March 2017 was attended by more than 15,000 people;
(b) congratulates:
(i) all eight teams who participated in the competition,
(ii) the Adelaide Crows for winning the inaugural AFLW premiership,
(iii) Adelaide Crows player, Ms Erin Phillips for winning Best on Ground in the grand final and the AFL Players' Association Most Valuable Player,
(iv) Adelaide Crows player, Ms Chelsea Randall for being awarded Most Courageous Player, and
(v) Melbourne's Ms Daisy Pearce for being recognised as the AFL Players' Association Best Captain; and
(c) calls on the Government to support grassroots initiatives that promote gender equity in sport and help to ensure women are able to participate at a professional level in traditionally male-dominated sports.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) acknowledges the recent electricity supply shortages in South Australia that resulted in rolling blackouts, even though generation capacity existed in gas power plants that lay idle;
(b) recognises the potential for batteries and energy storage to both stabilise energy supply and drive down costs in South Australia; and
(c) calls on the Government to fix the National Energy Market's rules and level the playing field by implementing 5-minute settlement periods.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
On 8 February, the Australian Energy Market Operator directed load shedding in South Australia. At that time, thermal generation was supplying 68 per cent of South Australia's electricity, operating at 81 per cent capacity; wind generation was supplying three per cent, operating at six per cent capacity; and solar generation was supplying five per cent, operating at 22 per cent capacity. To date, the government has committed $220 million for storage projects, including the virtual power plant being built in South Australia, and a number of feasibility studies examining pumped hydro projects. The Australian Energy Market Commission, the body responsible for making the rules in the national electricity market, is currently considering a rule to move to five-minute settlement. The Australian Energy Market Commission has publicly stated that a directions paper will be published on 11 April setting out its initial position, and a draft rule will be published in July.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That—
(1) The Senate notes that:
(a) on six previous occasions the Government has refused to release the business case and cost-benefit analysis for the $1.9 billion Perth Freight Link on the grounds that it would prejudice relations between the Commonwealth and the states; and
(b) given the resounding defeat of the Barnett Liberal government in Western Australia and the change of government on 11 March 2017, this ground is no longer applicable.
(2) There be laid on the table by the Minister for Finance, by no later than 2 pm on 29 March 2017, the full un-redacted business case and cost-benefit analysis for the Perth Freight Link.
Question agreed to.
At the request of Senator Pratt, I move:
That—
(1) The Senate notes:
(a) the failure of the Attorney-General and officers of the Attorney-General's Department to provide any responses to many of the questions asked in the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee inquiry into the nature and scope of any agreement reached by the Commonwealth and Western Australian governments in relation to the distribution of proceeds of the liquidation of, and litigation concerning, the Bell Group of companies (the proceeds);
(b) answers to these questions would enable clear facts to be established regarding the Commonwealth's actions, and give the public confidence the Commonwealth is acting consistent with its constitutional responsibilities and protecting its position with the states; and
(c) the failure to provide answers has significantly compromised the ability of the committee to fulfil the terms of reference of the inquiry.
(2) The Senate requires the Attorney-General, by 12.45 pm on 29 March 2017, to provide answers to the committee to questions taken on notice by him or officers of the Attorney-General's Department, listed in Appendix 1 of the committee's interim report tabled in the Senate on 22 March 2017, or alternatively make a substantive claim of public interest immunity that is acceptable to the Senate.
(3) The committee report to the Senate on the Attorney-General's compliance with this resolution on 29 March 2017.
(4) The Senate requires that the Attorney-General be in the Senate at 9.30 am on 30 March 2017, so that a senator may ask the Attorney-General for an explanation in connection with his actions on this matter, and at the conclusion of the explanation any senator may move a motion to take note of the explanation; or if the Attorney-General fails to provide an explanation, any senator may move to take note of his failure to do so.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The government opposes this motion as unnecessary and a waste of the Senate's time. The Attorney-General tabled answers to the outstanding questions on notice on 23 and 24 March. Those answers included a comprehensive explanation of the basis of the claims of public interest immunity, referring to well settled legal principles.
The question is that general business notice of motion No. 274, moved by Senator Urquhart, be agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the first Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs was appointed by the Fraser Government in 1978,
(ii) subsequent Labor and Coalition Federal Governments have appointed Ministers with a portfolio concerned with youth, and the Howard Government had three different ministers who held the youth affairs portfolio,
(iii) in 2013, the Abbott Government abolished the youth portfolio,
(iv) in May 2014, the Government advised it was planning a "focused and targeted approach" to consult with young people, yet, this year is likely the last National Youth Week with no funding in the forward estimates – the Deloitte 2017 Millennial Survey suggests that young people struggle to engage with major political parties and not having a Youth Minister acts as a clear signal that engagement with young people is not a priority for this Government, and
(v) Australia's youth unemployment and underemployment is an increasingly systemic concern – the current youth unemployment rate sits at 13.3 per cent, and the youth underemployment rate sits at 18.3 per cent; and
(b) calls on the Government to:
(i) to appoint a Minister for Young People,
(ii) ensure that this minister have a particular focus upon youth engagement, youth employment and transition to work, and
(iii) ensure that this minister sit within the Cabinet.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The government does not support this motion. Everything we do as a government is designed to deliver greater opportunities for young Australians. Every minister is focused on what they can do for young people. As detailed in the administrative arrangements, Minister Birmingham is the minister responsible for youth affairs as well as for education and training. Minister Cash, as the Minister for Employment, is focused squarely on addressing youth unemployment, including through the establishment of our Youth Jobs PaTH Program. With all ministers working for young people wherever possible, we believe we can deliver the best outcomes for young Australians.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The opposition will also not be supporting the motion. We do not believe that the crossbench should determine in motions the make-up of any future ministry. Nonetheless, we think the issue of youth unemployment and underemployment is an important one. Unfortunately, the Turnbull government has achieved yet another record, and yet again it is not one we should be proud of. Youth underemployment is at the highest it has been at any time in the 40 years since the ABS started to record it, reaching an appalling 18 per cent. There are now more than 650,000 young people who cannot find work or cannot find enough work, according to the Brotherhood of St Laurence report. This is on top of the rise in youth unemployment in February to 13.5 per cent. These are not good numbers for the country, and they are a damning indictment of Malcolm Turnbull's lack of leadership and policies.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
It is incredibly disappointing that the government and the opposition are opposing this motion. If the major parties are genuine about recognising the needs and aspirations of our youth then they should support the call for a minister for young people. Currently, young people feel like they are being spoken at, not with, about policies that have a direct bearing on their lives and their futures—policies in areas like housing affordability, education, employment, transport and health. With no minister responsible for advocating for young people at a cabinet level, we run the risk that the needs and views of our youth will continue to be an afterthought. Appointing a minister for young people will send a clear message that the parliament wants to engage with Australia's youth and that we take their needs seriously.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Senator Hanson-Young.
I would just like to add the Greens support to this motion. I suspect the chattering amongst particularly the older members in this chamber just indicates how important it is to get proper youth representation on the benches of the government, as well as in the parliament.
Senator Hinch, were you also seeking leave?
I do indeed, sir.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order, on both sides!
I support Senator Kakoschke-Moore with this motion. Young people deserve to have a minister, the same way that women have a minister. I think it should be done. I support you 100 per cent. I am also disappointed in the opposition and the government for sitting on their hands on this one.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Kakoschke-Moore be agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) expresses its deep concern that the Government is unable to rule out Australia's involvement in the recent air strikes in Mosul which caused the deaths of more than 200 civilians, well over a week after the incident;
(b) calls on the Government to confirm by 5 pm on 29 March 2017 whether or not Australian command and control aircraft or other assets are implicated in the air strikes; and
(c) expresses its sincere condolences to families and friends of the civilians who were killed in this appalling strike.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
This is a complex and difficult campaign against a desperate opponent in Daesh, in a strongly contested urban area. An investigation is underway into the 17 March 2017 air strike, and Australia will work with the coalition-led investigation. The government takes allegations of civilian casualties very seriously. I am advised that Australian strike aircraft were not involved in the air strike. Operational records show that Australian E-7A Wedgetail did not fly on 17 March 2017 and that the Australian KC-30A did not refuel the aircraft involved in the air strike. Further, while the investigation is underway, it is inappropriate and unhelpful to speculate on the outcome.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Ludlam be agreed to.
I inform the Senate that at 8.30 today 16 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter has been received from Senator Cameron:
Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:
The need for the Senate to condemn the Prime Minister's lack of empathy for Australian workers who rely on penalty rates to make ends meet."
Is the proposal supported?
More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
It just scarcely gets there. I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.
I move:
That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:
The need for the Senate to condemn the Prime Minister's lack of empathy for Australian workers who rely on penalty rates to make ends meet.
I rise to speak in support of Senator Cameron's urgency motion. I will read it again. He said:
That in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:
The need for the Senate to condemn the Prime Minister's lack of empathy for Australian workers who rely on penalty rates to make ends meet.
It almost needs no explanation, but I shall go to the matter. You have heard the term 'fake news', I am sure. I thought it was an American concept, connected with the last presidential election, the Donald Trump election, but I have to say that I think it has now infiltrated Australia and we are now finding this concept of 'fake news' becoming insidious in Australia. I would like to particularly refer to some remarks that Senator Seselja made to this Senate last Thursday. I am reluctant to repeat his comments, because they are so wrong as I will go on to explain, but I will read you what he said last Thursday in speaking on the very sensible piece of legislation that Senator Wong has introduced to reverse a decision of the Fair Work Commission in respect of reducing penalty rates in the retail and hospitality area. Senator Seselja said:
They sold me out on penalty rates. I think we got time and a half in the nineties on a Sunday. I was young. I was 19 and I joined the SDA in good faith, hoping they would do me a good deal. It turned out like so many others in the union movement and like Mr Shorten: they sold me and thousands of other workers out as well.
I did not think this sounded right, because I have some familiarity with that union, the shop assistants union, the SDA. It is a great union, full of great officials. So I rang one of these officials—Athol Williams was his name; he has been around for a long time in the ACT—and I said: 'This statement has been made by Senator Zed Seselja. Can we get this checked out?'—because the last thing I would want to happen is for Senator Seselja to mislead this parliament, particularly the Senate. 'Is it right that Senator Seselja was sold out?' I know Senator Seselja has had his problems. He lost to Senator Gallagher a couple of years ago. He got pushed out of the ACT by Jerry Hanson. So I thought perhaps I should feel sorry for him.
So I got this information checked out. And what did I discover when I checked out this fake news? Fake news seems to be where you say something that is untrue and then, to a certain portion of the electorate or the community, it suddenly becomes truth. Was Senator Seselja 'sold out' by this fantastic union? Let's look at the facts. My mum used to say a little knowledge is sometimes dangerous. Of course, that is the case in Senator Seselja's speech. What he seems to assert is that the penalty rate that he received on a Sunday, being time and a half, was a sell-out provision. Unfortunately for Senator Seselja the circumstances back in the 1990s, when he was working for Woolworths as a 19-year-old, was that there was an award that covered the Australian Capital Territory, the relevant shop award—every state and territory had a slightly different penalty rate; it was not like it is now—and the penalty rate in the ACT followed the penalty rates in New South Wales, which was time and a half.
So Senator Seselja was receiving time and a half. We checked out the agreement he was under. He was receiving time and a half, but he was also receiving higher wages and conditions. I am not sure whether he was casual or part time; it does not really matter; the calculations are the same. If he was a part-timer, then he was about 5.5 per cent better off than if he had been under the award. If he was a casual—and you have to make a few assumptions here—he was anywhere between 7.8 and 11 per cent better off. So this senator who got up in this place with fake news claiming he had been sold out by the union was in fact better off than if he had been under the award.
The reality is that Senator Seselja misunderstood his terms and conditions. Thank God he had a union like the SDA, which did not misunderstand the situation! They got him an increase, they got him a pay rise, and— (Time expired)
What a delight it is to be able to follow Senator Farrell in this debate. The decision by the Fair Work Commission in relation to penalty rates for shop assistants is 150 per cent, exactly what he claims Senator Seselja was on as a young man—and he says, 'What a great deal the union had organised for him'! You see, what has happened is that, since the days of Senator Seselja, the penalty rate has increased by 150 per cent to 200 per cent, determined by the independent Fair Work Commission established by Labor under Labor's Fair Work Act. All five appointees of this review panel were appointed by Labor and it was headed up by the former assistant secretary of the ACTU—you could not get it more Labor than that—and it determined that that 200 per cent penalty rate should be brought back to that which Senator Farrell just praised as being the appropriate level, namely 150 per cent. So isn't that an interesting observation by a former SDA official.
But the real crux of this debate is that the Fair Work Commission, an independent body as it is, which has to make a determination every four years and review penalty rates, has come to the conclusion that the current rate for shop assistants mitigates against the unemployed and the underemployed gaining employment opportunities. That is a matter that needs to be taken account of, especially when we know that there are over 1,088,000 underemployed Australians and about 700,000 unemployed Australians, of whom about 300,000 are young people. So the Fair Work Commission determined that this is an opportunity to get more people onto the ladder of employment.
Anybody who understands anything about employment knows that if somebody is in gainful employment their mental health, their physical health, their self-esteem and their social interaction are all improved—and not only those individuals but everyone else in their household. Study after study has shown that. That is why it is such an important good for the individual, socially and economically, to get as many people into employment as possible.
What we have in this country, and we have had it from day one, is a commission that determines what is a fair thing and you balance up. So the Fair Work Commission, having determined a penalty rate of 200 per cent, has now realised that that penalty rate is too high and mitigates employment opportunities, and has therefore reduced it back to 150 per cent, which it was, as confirmed by Senator Farrell, the mover of this motion himself.
Another thing that the Labor Party contributors to this debate will never tell you about are the enterprise bargaining agreements union officials do away from the modern awards where they have traded away penalty rates. That is the truth of the matter.
Mr Shorten was a master at it, when he dudded to the Chiquita mushroom workers, when he dudded the Cleanevent workers and when he dudded the Unibilt workers with the Australian Workers' Union. And, sure, in getting rid of some of those things he also just happened, on the side, to negotiate a $75,000 deal for a campaign manager for himself from Unibilt, and things of that nature—all revealed by the royal commission—there, black on white, for all to see.
The important thing to understand with this penalty rate regime is that the Fair Work Commission has now determined that, when you put that aside, the vast majority of people are not employed under award conditions but under enterprise bargaining arrangements negotiated by the union movement and the employers.
Let us have a look at what big unions and big business negotiate in relation to wages for a Sunday. If my family were to operate a bed and breakfast, I would have to pay my staff on a Sunday $10 an hour more than staff employed at a five-star hotel negotiated by a trade union. Can you see why Labor always loves big unions and big business?
We know why you want to give $50 billion to the big end of town, big businesses!
Because big business can put the family company out of business and the big unions love it because they have a more fertile ground in getting union members out of big businesses, because the close relationship that exists between worker and employee in a small business is such that the union movement basically cannot penetrate that market. And so, if I were to run a family bed and breakfast on a Sunday, I would have to pay my staff $10 more than the five-star hotel in the city.
If I were to run a family chicken shop, I would have to pay my staff $8 an hour more than the multinational KFC down the road. How do the union officials over there justify that wage disparity? Why do they not come in here with motions condemning the union deals done with multinationals like KFC? And KFC is not the only one. If I had a family owned hamburger shop, I would have to pay workers $8 an hour more than the multinational McDonald's.
You're just cherrypicking! Why don't you tell the real truth?
Where is the ranting and raving of Senator Polley about the poor McDonald's workers in the City of Launceston that are being denied this extra $8?
Why don't you explain why you want to give $50 billion in tax cuts to the big end of town?
Or, indeed, if I were a family greengrocer, I would have to pay my staff $5 an hour more than the local Woolworths down the road. Or, if I were to run a family pizza business, I would have to pay my workers $8 an hour more on a Sunday than the multinational Pizza Hut. Or, if I were to run a clothes shop—
Senator Abetz, resume your seat for a moment. Senator Polley, I notice you are on the list to speak, and you will have the opportunity. I assure you that you will be heard with respect and quietly. Please resume, Senator Abetz.
Thank you for that protection, Mr Acting Deputy President Back. You see, the Australian Labor Party do not like hearing the undisputed facts. Can they dispute these wage rates where workers on union-organised enterprise agreements are being paid less in the big businesses in town as opposed to the small businesses? I will not be dissuaded from pursuing this issue.
An independently run clothes shop open on a Sunday has to pay their worker $7 an hour more than David Jones. A family bookshop has to pay their worker $8 an hour more than Target. A family newsagent has to pay $7 an hour more than Officeworks. A family bottle shop has to pay their worker $7 an hour more than Dan Murphy's. A family hardware store has to pay their worker $5 an hour more than Bunnings—and so the list goes on.
The union officials that make up the benches of the Australian Labor Party have spent their lives trading away penalty rates. They have spent their lives setting up the Fair Work Act. They have spent their lives stacking out the Fair Work Commission with Labor appointees. Now they have the audacity to turn around to the Australian people and say that somehow the Turnbull Liberal-National Party government is denying people their just wages.
They are! You are!
Senator Polley foolishly interjects and says, 'You are.' Well, since day one from the formation of Australia, we have had an independent industrial commission—and so it ought to be independent. Indeed, when Mr Shorten, the man that traded away penalty rates for his workers on a number of occasions, was asked on the Neil Mitchell program on 21 April 2016 if he would abide by the decision of the Fair Work Commission if they were to reduce penalty rates. He answered, 'Yes'—not once, not twice but three times. Three times he said he would accept the decision—a decision which now puts penalty rates back to where they were a few years ago when Senator Seselja was a young man. It is a penalty rate regime that Senator Farrell embraces. So basically what has occurred is that the penalty rates went up from 150 per cent to 200 per cent. On reflection the Fair Work Commission said: 'This is cutting too many people out of an employment opportunity. We should reduce it back to 150 per cent.'
When you have an independent industrial umpire, it stands to reason that sometimes you will agree with their decision and other times you will not agree with their decision, but you have to protect the integrity of the umpire. When they determined that the penalty rate should be 200 per cent, did you have the sort of outrage from the small-business community? They said, 'We don't agree with the decision, but, you know what, it's the umpire's decision and we will pay accordingly.' But now we have a leadership of the Australian Labor Party and of the ACTU that is willing to say to the Australian people, 'If you don't like a law, you can break it.' That is what the new ACTU secretary said in recent times: 'If you don't like a law, just go and break it.'
The Labor senators in this place were given the opportunity to vote on a motion supporting the rule of law in this country, and they denied leave. They denied, with the Greens and others in this place, a proper debate on this issue. So when you come to industrial relations and the Australian Labor Party, you see that they speak with forked tongue. They speak out of both sides of their mouths. They will say that penalty rates have to be protected, but then busily negotiate away the rates for their own deals. And then they have their own convoluted deals, where money somehow finds its way into union pockets.
This is a very important debate for our nation to have. Do we want the unemployed, the underemployed, the consumers of Australia to have greater opportunities? We on this side say yes, and we accept the umpire's decision. What is more, this will also alleviate the burden on some small business people who are either unable to open their businesses on weekends and compete with the multinationals because of the union wage deals, or they do work on a weekend and ensure that they and their family are all embracing the business on the weekend because they cannot afford to pay people. This decision will enable them to employ the unemployed and the underemployed, and that will be a huge social good for each and every one of them. In relation to police, nurses, firemen: their penalty rates are, of course, protected. Penalty rates are not being abolished; they are simply, by this decision, being adjusted by Labor's own independent umpire.
If Tasmanian Liberal senators and members were to take time out of their busy schedules or bother to come over to the northwest coast of Tasmania and consult small businesses about penalty rates then they would know what I do: that the cuts to penalty rates would not be enough for them to open on a Sunday. It would not be enough for them to put on more staff. However, for those businesses that do pay penalty rates, the workers are going out into the community and spending every cent at their local stores.
Cutting penalty rates does not help rural and regional communities; it does not support small businesses. This is their bread and butter. You are cutting the money they spend on their power, their insurance or clothes for their children. If the Liberal government want to spark jobs growth, they would be better off using COAG for something that is productive and axe payroll tax, which is a tax on jobs and a direct barrier to business growth—especially in Tasmania.
We have had, once again, part of the truth being spoken in this chamber by Senator Abetz. We know that when a union goes to negotiate, it does not just look at the Sunday and Saturday rates that workers get; it negotiates better terms and conditions for its members who work for the entire week. It is just cherry picking for those on the other side to come into this chamber, day after day, and rearrange the truth about what is happening with unions when they go out and negotiate.
What I have asked, and what we asked in question time today, is: what is the modelling? Put the modelling on the table that the government has done that will prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that there will be more jobs in these sectors where it is now cutting the penalty rates. I guarantee you there will not be any further jobs in Tasmania, as Senator Lambie said. I guarantee you, when you go out for lunch on a Sunday you will not be paying any less for your meal. You will certainly not be paying any less for your coffee.
It is all right for those on the other side to say, 'We have to support the Fair Work Commission because they're independent.' Of course they are independent. But if the decision is wrong, then we have every right on this side of the chamber to stand up for the most vulnerable in our community, the lowest paid workers. It is just a coincidence that this is the same government that has failed to have proper representation of women on its frontbench. And here it is now attacking hairdressers and attacking beauticians; it is going after pharmacists, it is going after hospitality, it is going after retail—which are all dominated by women. We also know that it is talking about essential services being protected. When it comes to registered nurses who work in the aged-care sector, they will not be protected. The emergency services it is talking about only go to the nurses and doctors who work in a general hospital, not those in aged care.
We know that the government is very happy to give the big end of town, big business, a $50 billion tax cut at the very same time that it is now attacking the lowest paid workers in this country. They are saying: 'Yes, we need to cut these penalty rates because it's costing small business. They will not be able to open their businesses because it costs them too much.' I can tell you there are not a lot of restaurants in Launceston that are not doing very well. You always have to make a booking to try to get in. I am not sure if Senator Whish-Wilson has experienced the same thing when he has wanted to go out in his local community. It is very hard to get in.
The reality is penalty rate cuts are not going to bring about any more jobs. If they were, then they would have done modelling. But the Australia Institute has shown that in fact the financial pain that will be caused by cutting the penalty rates will have a negative impact on the economy and it will absolutely worsen the deficit. And there will not be any new jobs created. So to come in here and say, 'We're going to talk about the facts, we're going to put on the table the reality about these big bad unions and the way they negotiate enterprise bargaining agreements'—I have never been a union official, but I can assure you that through all my working life I have always belonged to a union. I believe that they are there to serve the best interests of their members. Those opposite can come in here and try to muddy the waters and make assertions about the Leader of the Opposition, but, at the end of the day, everywhere I go throughout this country this is the topic of conversation.
I spoke to registered nurses from the aged-care sector that came to parliament today. They know, as I do, that the topic of conversation around every dinner table and at every worksite is about penalty rates and what that is going to mean. I had to sit in a room this morning and hear the struggle that aged-care nurses and people working in aged care have to go through in trying to get a mortgage. A lady was telling me that she had to re-establish a mortgage after her relationship broke down. She was crying. She said: 'Without those penalty rates, I would not have been able to have a mortgage. If they cut these penalty rates, I will lose my house.'
This Prime Minister and this government have no empathy whatsoever because they come from the big end of town. It is in their DNA. Whatever they have to do to make sure that low-paid workers are kept down where they belong is what this government will do, day after day. People on this side of the chamber and the crossbenchers will stand up for those workers, today, tomorrow and every day to protect their rights. (Time expired)
I rise today to speak against the matter of urgency submitted to the Senate by Senator Cameron. The government opposes this motion and in fact denies the basic premise of this motion. The coalition respects the independence of the Fair Work Commission, and it was their decision to modify Sunday penalty rates in retail, pharmacy, fast-food and hospitality awards. It will help small businesses to open their doors and to compete on a level playing field, and it will help create more jobs.
It was Bill Shorten who, as workplace minister, established this review of penalty rates. It was Mr Shorten who called for the review. It was Mr Shorten who set the rules. It was Mr Shorten who appointed the independent umpire. And it was Mr Shorten who said he would accept that independent umpire's decision.
Labor is so hypocritical on the issue of penalty rates. As a union boss, it was Mr Shorten who was happy to make the deals that cut penalty rates to low-income workers. It was Labor that was happy for big businesses and big unions to lower Sunday penalty rates through the enterprise agreements. Labor is only now opposed to lowering penalty rates when an independent umpire is the one that modifies them for small businesses.
It is empathy for small businesses that seems to have been forgotten in this debate. There are over two million small businesses in Australia that turn over less than $2 million. Many of these are family businesses, either working for themselves on Sundays and public holidays, or not opening at all due to the cost of wages. Consumers are increasingly demanding that those businesses, large and small, operate seven days a week. By amending the Sunday and public holiday wage settings in the retail, hospitality and fast-food sectors, more of those small businesses will be able to meet consumer expectations, by staying open longer. In doing so, they offer their existing employees more hours—or they might take on additional staff, including some of the 259,000 young Australians currently struggling to enter the workforce.
This lowering of penalty rates on Sundays creates a more level playing field for small businesses. Thousands and thousands of small businesses have been competing on this uneven playing field against big businesses that have negotiated with unions through enterprise agreements that mean that they avoid paying those high penalty rates on Sundays. Let me give you a couple of examples. For permanent full-time and part-time staff on Sundays, a bed and breakfast, for instance, must pay $10 an hour more than a 5-star hotel. A family chicken shop must pay $8 an hour more than KFC. A family-owned takeaway must pay $8 an hour more than McDonald's, and a family greengrocer must pay $5 an hour more than Woolworths. The Fair Work Commission's decision will help small businesses open their doors and help them compete on a level playing field and create more jobs. The Liberal and National Parties will stand up for these small businesses who want to get ahead, and for the unemployed and underemployed who want to work.
Mr Shorten's hypocrisy on penalty rates knows no bounds. Mr Shorten was happy to make deals, cutting penalty rates to low-paid workers. He has always been happy for big businesses and big unions to have deals that cut penalty rates. He is only opposed to penalty rates when the modifications are made by the Fair Work Commission, the independent umpire, and when those modifications are done in favour of small businesses. Can I point out that the Fair Work Commission was in fact established by the Labor government in 2009. The commission was tasked by Labor to review all awards every four years. This is part of the four-yearly review of modern awards established by the Labor government in 2009. As workplace relations minister in 2013, Mr Shorten amended the Fair Work Act to specifically require the commission to consider penalty rates as part of that process. Labor appointed all the members of the commission who made the penalty rates decision. Mr Shorten owns this decision. He set the rules. He appointed the umpires. He has repeatedly said that he would respect the commission's decision.
In fact on the Neil Mitchell program on 21 April last year, when asked by Mr Mitchell whether he would accept the finding—given that it was an independent body assessing penalty rates for Sundays—if he was Prime Minister, Bill Shorten answered, 'Yes.' Neil Mitchell repeated the question: 'You will accept them?' And Bill Shorten said, 'Yes.' Neil Mitchell said once more, 'Even if the independent umpire reduces Sunday penalty rates?' And Mr Shorten said: 'Well, I said I would accept the independent tribunal.' Mr Shorten said he would accept this decision. But for him now not to accept the results is sheer hypocrisy and political opportunism.
When he was leader of the AWU, Mr Shorten reduced or removed penalty rates for some of Australia's lowest paid workers. Workers at Cleanevent were stripped of all penalty rates, with no compensation at all, under a 2006 agreement for which Mr Shorten was responsible as the national secretary of the AWU. The Melbourne & Olympic Parks Trust agreement, approved also by Mr Shorten in 2001 and 2003, stripped workers of all penalty rates and overtime, except 125 per cent penalty rates for work performed between 1 am and 6 am.
Since Mr Shorten became leader, the unions have donated more than $25 million to the Australian Labor Party. Last year, they not only donated nearly $10 million to the ALP; they also spent another $16 million on their own campaign to make Bill Shorten Prime Minister. Mr Shorten has made it clear that he will return that favour, and in the last year he has taken the side of union bosses ahead of the 35,000 owner-operator truck drivers, ahead of the 60,000 CFA volunteer firefighters, and ahead of the 300,000 small building businesses in the construction industry. And now he is putting their interests ahead of the small businesses yet again. When it comes to standing up to union bosses, Mr Shorten is proving himself to be the weakest Labor leader in a generation.
However, by contrast, the coalition understands that governments do not create jobs—employers create jobs. We stand side by side with the hardworking small business men and women who drive this country. We recognise that the decision to modify Sunday penalty rates will help small businesses open their doors, compete on a level playing field with large businesses and create more jobs. Many small shops, small pharmacies, takeaways and hotels have found it simply too expensive to open on Sundays.
This is also an independent decision. Just as interest rates decisions are made independently by the Reserve Bank to remove any suggestion of political interference, decisions about employment awards and conditions are made independently by the Fair Work Commission. And it is done this way to ensure that outcomes are evidence based and not political. The Fair Work Commission spent years studying the evidence, including evidence from 5,900 submissions and 143 witnesses. It carefully considered union and employer reviews and expert advice. This is the decision that the Fair Work Commission has made.
Senator Polley mentioned the impact on women—
Senator Polley interjecting—
and this is something that I would like to pursue a little bit further, because the Fair Work Commission—
Senator Polley interjecting—
Senator Polley, expressly considered whether reducing Sunday penalty rates for hospitality and retail workers would impact on the gender pay gap, and it noted—
Order! Senator Hume, resume your seat. Senator Hinch, on a point of order?
We have heard Senator Polley. She has made her speech. Now surely she should let Senator Hume make hers.
Thank you, Senator Hinch. I cannot disagree with you. Senator Polley was heard in silence, and Senator Hume will be heard in silence.
Thank you, Acting Deputy President. The Fair Work Commission expressly considered whether reducing Sunday penalty rates for the hospitality and retail workers would impact on the gender pay gap, and it noted that the evidence did not support this. In fact, when it comes to underemployment in the retail and hospitality industries, women are overrepresented. In other words, women are more likely to want more shifts in the retail and hospitality sectors. They stand to benefit from more jobs. Also, many women own small businesses—small businesses that will benefit from this decision.
More hours away from their family for less money.
Senator Chisholm, you will have your chance to speak. Senator Hume, please resume.
Can I also touch on issues that are pertinent to my own state of Victoria. During the Fair Work Commission's deliberations on this particular issue, they received a number of submissions from Victorian businesses, and I would like to repeat some of the quotes in those submissions.
Mr Williams, the owner and manager of the San Remo hotel in Victoria, who has 24 employees, said that, by reducing the number of hours that he works, there would be more hours available for staff—a positive benefit to small businesses if Sunday penalty rates were reduced. Ms Usher, who is the owner and manager of the Fitzroy Beer Garden in Fitzroy in Victoria, has 12 employees, and she said that she expects that the six-hour shifts currently worked by either herself or her husband would be taken by one of the existing casuals.
They've just got speaking notes and they just go through them over and over.
You're not going to complain about that, surely?
Order on my right and my left! Senator Hume, please resume.
There are negative impacts from Sunday penalty rates on small business if the penalty rates are not reduced. They were emphasised by Mr Ryan, who is the owner of the Gippsland Hotel in Sale. He has 23 employees. He works on public holidays with his wife and managers, and does not roster any casual staff at all. Mr Bilston, the general manager of the Amora Hotel Riverwalk Melbourne in Victoria has 89 employees. He said that skeleton staff are utilised in the restaurant on Sundays to reduce the cost of wages due to penalty rates. As you can see, business owners can hire more staff and have more working on Sundays. It suits customers. It suits staff. It suits business owners.
This is an independent decision by an independent umpire. Mr Shorten and the Australian Labor Party would do well to abide by the rules of the independent umpire. (Time expired)
Yes, it was the independent Fair Work Commission that came down with the finding, but I do not know why they came to that finding. They did an investigation into it, and that was the finding they came down to, but workers are doing it tough; there is no question about it. From the increased cost of living, they are doing it exceptionally tough.
But let us have a look at the other side. Businesses are also doing it tough. They need a helping hand. I have spoken out because I have come from a small business background, and I think I am one of the very few in this house that has actually employed staff, over a long period of time, as you have, Mr Acting Deputy President Back. So you have to have one if you are going to have the other. You have to have people go out and invest to open a small business. Let me make it quite clear: there were over 260,000 small businesses that actually shut down in this last year. So they exited out of being in business.
I have heard, from people coming through my office, that the Australian people do not want the penalty rates cut. I will support what the people want. Over 75 per cent do not want the penalty rates cut, and I support that.
That is why One Nation is actually supporting the tax cuts to businesses: to help out businesses as well. But if Labor are going to complain about this, let me just make it quite clear about the workers of Australia. Under Labor, there were over 100,000 457-visa-holders. There have been 400,000 ABNs handed out in the last year to non-Australian residents, and we have got 400,000 foreign students in Australia who can actually work. So what are you doing for those workers in Australia looking for jobs? Where is Labor now? (Time expired)
Senator Polley interjecting—
You are interrupting your own colleague, Senator Polley.
It is without doubt that this is a matter of urgency. It is without doubt that this Prime Minister has displayed an absolute lack of empathy for Australian workers who rely on penalty rates to make ends meet—we know that. It is without doubt that the Prime Minister must be condemned for his comments, his actions and his total disregard for low-paid Australian workers.
What we have seen in this place and out in the community is a Prime Minister whose priorities are quite simple: he wants a tax cut for large corporations and a pay cut for low-paid workers. What we have seen is a Prime Minister who says he wants the Fair Work Commission to phase in penalty-rate cuts over time, but he has been unable to say what this will mean for the take-home pay of low-paid workers. What we have is a Prime Minister who will not say if it will be a sudden cut or one that is phased in over a number of years. Worse than this, we have a Prime Minister who is not prepared to stand up, defend the low-paid workers of this country and amend the Fair Work Commission's remit so that their take-home pay will not be cut. We have a Prime Minister who says he supports a cut to penalty rates but he will not explain what it means for workers. He has brushed it off as a decision—and we have heard this time and time again—of the independent umpire, but he fails to recognise the issues with the commission's argument, and, worse, he is failing to do anything about it. There is no compassion, no empathy and no action. He is just completely out of touch with the daily difficulties faced by workers and their families.
Then we have his representative here in the Senate, Senator Brandis, who has been running a protection racket for the Prime Minister since he made the clear-cut statement that he supports wage cuts for low-paid workers. Time after time, Senator Brandis comes into this place and completely disregards the fair and honest questions from Labor senators. He accuses Labor senators of everything under the sun but fails to confirm the basic fact: the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, supports wage cuts for low-paid workers and has shown blatant disregard for the plight of these workers. What the Prime Minister fails to address with his cute language about the phasing in of wage cuts is that a wage freeze is a real wage cut. That is what it is. The Prime Minister knows this. He is trying to be clever, but he is coming across as callous. Maybe he is trying to display some compassion, but Australians are not stupid and they are seeing through the rhetoric because his words are empty. His words do not support that he cares about the take-home pay of workers. He does not care about their weekly budgets, he does not care about the small businesses that they shop at and he does not care about them making ends meet, paying their bills on time and having something left over for a small treat for their kids. For the Prime Minister, it is clear that wage earners are dispensable.
Well, they are listening, and they are not happy. They are not happy about the callous disregard the Prime Minister has shown for their take-home pay, and other wage earners across the economy are watching this Prime Minister's words more closely. They can see that he is not backing workers in the retail, pharmacy, hospitality and fast-food industries. They can see that he is failing to back hairdressers in their new battle, and they are worried that he is not going to back them if the time comes for penalty rates to be reviewed in their award. However, there remains time for the Prime Minister. He has a clear choice before him: continue down this path, where the take-home pay of low-paid workers is cut, or support Labor's bill that will correct the error in the Fair Work Act and protect the penalty rates of low-paid workers.
What do the cuts mean? The cuts have a double hit on low-paid workers. The most obvious is the impact on their weekly budgets, but there is also the impact on their morale and on their sense of purpose. Workers that I have spoken to about the penalty-rate cut say that the cut to their take-home pay will be devastating. Rhetoric from the government is meant to strike a balance in different situations and support those who are doing it tough—that is what a government is meant to do—but the rhetoric from this government is that these jobs do not even matter and that they are totally dispensable. One worker who I spoke to said that a cut to rates will affect staff morale. She said, 'Why should we give up our weekends if it's not worth it?' She continued that it will not motivate people to come to work. It is clear that words said in this place matter. People out there do listen. The words of this Prime Minister and the lack of action from him are extremely hurtful.
It is really important to note that the retail, fast-food, pharmacy and hospitality industries are staffed mostly by women. The wage gap in this country between men's and women's wages is still at 18 per cent—women get 18 per cent less than men in this country. Yet, instead of boosting the wages of low-paid working women and instead of seeking to reduce the wage gap, this government is going to stand by and let women's wages get cut. Well, there is no way that Labor is going to stand by and let this happen. The bill that Labor introduced will protect working women and women working in these industries to ensure that they can provide the basics for their families after working all weekend and missing birthdays, sports matches and other special events; to ensure there is no wage cut of $77 a week for working women; and to ensure that they hear loud and clear that their work is valued.
In conclusion, I believe in strong penalty rates for overtime, weekends, public holidays, late nights and very early mornings. There is a clear need to better remunerate workers for taking on unsociable hours that are often essential to a business but that mean valuable time away from friends and family. Working those hours when others are relaxing and taking their time of leisure has clear costs on an individual. This must be remedied through improved wages. Never, never, must these workers ever face a wage cut. The Prime Minister must heed this call. He must change his tack, support workers' penalty rates and stop his callous rhetoric that this pay cut is a good thing. We have heard continually, time and time again, from the other side that this is a good thing. Well, those opposite should go and talk to the workers out there who are facing this. For mothers trying to work overtime, penalty rates make a difference. Those who are working on weekends in industries where they will face this cut are doing it because they need to work. They are doing it to put food on the table, to buy things for their kids, to ensure that they get a fair go—and this is not a fair go. They want to make sure there is enough money in their wallet when they reach the check-out counter at the supermarket. They want to ensure that their bills are paid on time. These things matter to people out in the community, but I do not think anyone on the other side understands that. They do not understand how workers, particularly women workers, rely on penalty rates to get by and make ends meet.
There is something rotten in Turnbull's Australia. When a company like Harvey Norman can pocket $900,000 in workers' wages because of a decision by the Fair Work Commission, there is something deeply wrong. It is really sick and deeply shocking. As the Fair Work Commission's decision covers the retail sector, hospitality and fast food, there will be many corporations pocketing workers' wages. Let's not mince words; that is the outcome here. There is no proof that more jobs will be created. There is no proof that society is going to be improved. Workers are going to be ripped off, and particularly those who are already doing it tough. We know that women dominate in the industries that have been targeted by the Fair Work Commission. In many of those sectors—hospitality, retail—about 55 per cent of workers are women, who depend on their penalty rates to make ends meet.
What we also know is that it does not have to be like this. I congratulate my colleague Adam Bandt, the member for Melbourne and the Greens' industrial relations spokesperson, who has brought forward a very neat way to handle this which would allow the Fair Work Commission to continue to set rates but would put in place a floor below which rates could not go so that workers' wages could not go backwards. How reasonable that is! Mr Bandt announced that last May. At the time, Labor said 'no way'. Going into the election there was actually a unity ticket between Labor and the Liberals on accepting the Fair Work Commission's decision straight out. I acknowledge that Labor now are working with the Greens and Jacqui Lambie and that we have combined legislation we are all supporting. It is really excellent that it has got to that point.
Where do we go from here? We must now look at how we are going to get the numbers, because it is so urgent that this protection be put in place. Today's debate, and also what is going on in the community, where there is an increasing outcry to protect penalty rates, sends a clear message to Senator Hinch, the Nick Xenophon Team and One Nation to stand up for penalty rates. Do not do the Canberra shuffle, where out in the community you say, 'Yes, I'm really concerned; you shouldn't be done over; you should get your penalty rates,' but then come in here and do deals that result in the wrong thing being done. This is the time to stand up for the public good. That is clearly where we should be now.
It would be deeply wrong to allow penalty rates to be thrown out. Surely, when we come into this place our commitment should be to work to improve the lot of all Australians, not to allow the clock to be turned back. But that is what will happen if penalty rates are cut in the way proposed. We should not be allowing any of our forebears' achievements, which have improved the lives of the majority of people, to be overturned. Why did we win penalty rates? To allow people to spend more time with their families and communities, in recognition that they were losing valuable recreational time. But we now know that those protections and penalties should still be in place because so many people—40 per cent of young people—depend on penalty rates for survival, just to make ends meet. For them, penalty rates are absolutely essential.
We need to see this debate in the context of increasing attacks on the rights of unions and workers to organise collectively. And you hear it so clearly every time somebody from the government gets up to speak on the matter. The President of the ACTU, Ged Kearney, recently spoke about the prolonged, concerted attack on unions and how corporations are becoming emboldened by the anti-union government that the Turnbull government is. The Turnbull government, if it is allowed to proceed with this, will be driving further inequality in our society. In this place we need to recognise that public opinion is on the side of the public good. The public are standing up for penalty rates, and we in this place, through our work, need to lock-in legal protection for penalty rates. We can do that, and it surely should be our top priority.
I want to take this opportunity to put on record—echoing, I am sure, many other senators in this chamber—that my thoughts and prayers are with those people in Queensland affected by Tropical Cyclone Debbie. I hope that all those affected stay safe and I wish them a speedy recovery.
I rise today to speak on this important motion put forward by Senator Cameron, who has been a powerful advocate for workers, both in this chamber and over a long career in the union movement. I am also proud to stand in solidarity with Bill Shorten, the federal Labor leader, in opposing these cuts to penalty rates. It is something I am really passionate about.
It is not surprising that Senator Hanson made a poor contribution to this debate; I was expecting that. But for her to backflip on something that, so many times, she has been on the record as supporting and then come in here and fail to defend herself was astonishing. I was also astonished by the performance of Senator Hume, who tried to defend the impact this decision will have on female workers basically by saying they will just have to work longer. That is absolutely the wrong attitude and it shows the lack of empathy those opposite have in looking at these penalty rate cuts and the impact they will have in the community. You need no clearer evidence of that than what we have heard in the debate over the last hour.
It also adds to how out of touch this government is. On a day when it is pursuing changes to 18C to make it easier for people to be racist and discriminate against people, it also has on the agenda for later this week cuts to company tax. This is the agenda it is pursuing. It shut down the opportunity to have a debate on our legislation in this place earlier today. So that is all you need to know about this government: it wants to have tax cuts for multinational companies, and it also wants to support a pay cut for those in society who can least afford it.
Who does this impact? It impacts 700,000 Australians and, particularly from my point of view, 150,000 Queenslanders. This will have a significant impact on the Queensland economy, particularly on those in regional areas. I think six out of the 10 electorates most severely impacted by the penalty rate cuts are in Queensland. I would like to point out that electorates like Leichhardt and Dawson, in regional Queensland, are particularly going to be impacted by it.
I had the opportunity last week to ask a question of Senator Nash, the minister responsible for regional development, who basically admitted that they have done nothing to buttress the impact that this is going to have on regional Queensland. When you already see the struggling local economies in those places and add to that a looming penalty rates cut, that is only going to have a dire impact on those places, especially on those who can least afford it. Once upon a time you could probably expect the Nats in this chamber to speak up proudly about something like this, but now we hear nothing. They are in bed with the Liberals supporting a cut to those people who can least afford it.
Let me come back to Senator Hanson. It really is tough to keep up with her sometimes. Let us look back at what she has said on the record on this issue over a number of years. This was pre getting elected to the Senate, on Sunrise in 2014. When asked about penalty rates she said: 'You can't survive in today's climate paying penalty rates. Years ago it used to be sacred, a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday, now it's not anymore.' There you have Senator Hanson, prior to getting elected, saying that penalty rates were out of date. Then, in the infamous Insiders interview only a couple of weeks ago, on 5 March, when asked if she supported penalty rates, she said, 'I think, in principle, yes, I do, because we have to.' So there you go: twice in recent times we have had Senator Hanson on the record supporting penalty rates. But then last night, apparently, on Senator Hanson's Facebook page she claimed she has listened to people and no longer supports penalty rate cuts. What can you actually believe from Senator Hanson? She comes in here and does not give a proper account of what she is doing on penalty rates. She did not commit to support Labor's legislation. Again, we see flip-flopping and a lack of consistency from Senator Hanson that really goes to show what her motives are all about, and they are not standing up for those people who are going to be impacted by these penalty rate cuts and those most vulnerable Queenslanders.
What we know from a Queensland point of view is that we have high underemployment and an increase in casualisation, so increasingly people are relying on penalty rates to keep their heads above water. We also have record low wage growth. This is what we are seeing across Australia and in Queensland. On top of that, it is a priority for this government to make that situation worse by introducing penalty rate cuts that are going to have such a devastating impact on so many people throughout Queensland and Australia.
Ever since the FWC decision on penalty rate cuts came, the attacks on the government and supporters of those cuts have been relentless, especially from the unions and the Labor opposition—even though the FWC was set up by Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten and even though the opposition leader said on 3AW three times during last year's election that he would abide by the umpire's decision. Labor has run a very clever campaign pinning the penalty rate cuts on the government, and that has washed off on senators who want to respect the commission's independence. The emails and the insulting tweets have not stopped: 'What would you bleepers with your snouts in the trough know about doing it tough? What would you silver spoons and nobs know about the workers and about being broke?' Et cetera et cetera et cetera, as Yul Brynner would say.
My personal position on Sunday penalty rates has been very public since my radio days. I believe they should be the same as Saturday rates. I know a lot of small business owners would agree. But in my maiden speech I promised I would listen. On this, I supported the umpire's decision. I have decided now to go to the third umpire, the review umpire, you the people—the Sunday workers, the single mothers and the university students who study all week and only work on Sundays. On my Senate salary an extra few bucks does not mean much. Losing a few would not matter, but I remember the days, believe it or not, when it did. This is not about my personal circumstances, or even my personal opinion, it is about what is best for the community and what is best for some of our lowest paid workers.
There are emails like this one that say things like: 'Everyday Australians rely on this income to make ends meet. We sacrifice our family time on weekends.' Another one: 'What justice is there by decreasing wages of the most vulnerable? My wife works Sundays cleaning at a shopping centre.' So I have consulted the third umpire, and the third umpire's decision is that cuts to Sunday penalty rates are O-U-T out!
The question is that the need for the Senate to condemn the Prime Minister's lack of empathy for Australian workers who rely on penalty rates to make ends meet is a matter of urgency.
I present the 164th report of the Committee of Privileges, titled Search warrants and the Senate.
Ordered that the report be printed.
I move:
That the Senate adopt the recommendations at paragraphs 2.24 and 3.47 of the report.
There is uncertainty at law about the extent to which parliamentary material may be protected from seizure under search warrant. In the Commonwealth jurisdiction, the matter is currently governed by a settlement between the parliament and the executive: a national guideline for the execution of search warrants where parliamentary privilege may be involved.
As senators would be aware, this guideline has been tested for the first time in the investigation of a suspected leak from NBN Co, involving the execution of search warrants at former Senator Conroy's Melbourne office, at the home of one of his staff, and at Parliament House, Canberra. The background is set out in the committee's 163rd report, which I tabled on 1 December last year.
The committee now reports on two inquiries arising from this matter. The first concerns the status of the seized documents.
Under the guideline, former Senator Conroy made a claim of parliamentary privilege over the seized material. The committee's task is to recommend to the Senate whether that claim should be upheld.
The committee examined the documents to determine whether they came within the definition of proceedings in parliament. This is the test for the scope of privilege in legal proceedings, which turns on the connection of the material to parliamentary business. Generally, proceedings in parliament may not be questioned in legal proceedings, and the national guideline imports similar protections in relation to the execution of search warrants.
On the evidence before the committee, the committee considers that the documents satisfy the definition of proceedings in parliament and warrant protection on the basis of their connection to parliamentary business.
The committee also considered how well the stated purposes of the guidelines were met in the execution of these warrants.
The guideline is intended to enable claims of privilege to be made and determined, with seized material sealed away with a third party until the question is resolved. Any practice which, in the meantime, allows the use of such material undermines that purpose. This is the context in which the committee examined the second matter referred, the question whether any contempt may have occurred in the execution of the warrants.
There were two allegations raised by former Senator Conroy.
One involved photographs of the covers of various documents being permitted to be sent off site to NBN officers. The committee has found that, ultimately, this conduct did not amount to an improper interference, because appropriate restrictions were applied to their use and agreed arrangements were ultimately made for their disposal.
The second allegation was more concerning. Senator Conroy alleged that information which was subject to a privilege claim may have been used against NBN employees who were alleged to have provided information to him. NBN Co conceded that disciplinary action was, in fact, taken against two employees, but submitted that it occurred independently of the AFP investigation and was taken solely through its own internal investigation and that 'the breaches relied upon did not include any communications with parliamentarians, their office or their staff'.
The committee notes, however, that information discovered at the site of one of the warrants may have assisted in identifying one of those employees for the investigation, although there is conjecture as to the extent to which that material may have been used. Any such use demonstrates the risk that information which ought to be quarantined may be used for purposes which are not authorised by the warrant and are inconsistent with the purposes of the guideline.
As explained in chapter 3 of the report, the committee considers that the execution of the Melbourne warrants may have had the effect of interfering with the duties of a senator, and with the functions of the parliament more broadly, by undermining the operation of these national guidelines and diminishing the protection that should be available to parliamentary material. The committee also notes that information which ought to have been protected may have been used to the detriment of a person with a connection to parliamentary proceedings.
On that basis, the committee considers that an improper interference has occurred on this occasion. The threshold for a finding of contempt is a high one, however, requiring cogent evidence of an improper act or motive. The committee notes in its report various mitigating factors and—rather than recommend that a contempt be found—suggests that an alternative remedy lies in the resolution of the privilege claims that I mentioned earlier.
As I have noted, the committee recommends that the claim of privilege over the documents be upheld, because of their demonstrated connection to parliamentary business. In finding that an improper interference has occurred, the committee has also concluded that the seized material also warrants protection on those grounds.
One of the effects of the recommendation that the claim of privilege be upheld is that the subject material would be withheld from the investigation and, therefore, incapable of being used in any prosecution or any other legal proceedings, thereby limiting the detriment to any persons involved. The committee considers this to be an acceptable outcome, given the difficulty of further establishing the facts of this matter.
The motion I have moved would adopt the committee's recommendation that the claim of privilege be upheld and that the seized documents be returned to Senator Conroy.
It would also adopt the committee's conclusion that an improper interference occurred, as discussed in chapter 3, and its recommendation that the Senate refrain from making a finding of contempt, noting that the subject documents will be withheld from investigation.
Finally, the committee asks the Senate to note the requirement for remedial action in relation to the national guideline for the execution of search warrants where parliamentary privilege may be involved, which the committee will address in the inquiry into intrusive powers.
If no other senator wishes to speak at this time, I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
Pursuant to order and at the request of the chairs of the respective committees, I present three reports from legislation committees as listed at item 13 on today's Order of Business, with respect to the 2016-17 additional estimates, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committees.
Ordered that the report be printed.
I move:
That the Senate adopt the recommendations contained in the report of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee and that an order of the Senate be made to replace a document with a revised document, which removes disclosed personal information.
Question agreed to.
On behalf of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, I present two reports of the committee as listed at item 13 on today's Order of Business.
I present two government responses to committee reports as listed on today’s Order of Business. In accordance with the usual practice, I seek leave to incorporate the documents in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The documents read as follows—
Australian Government response to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee report:
An inquiry into the Private Health Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Bill 2015 [Provisions] and related bills.
Senate Economics Legislation Committee
An inquiry into the Private Health Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Bill 2015 [Provisions] and related bills.
Government Response
Recommendation 1
APRA meets regularly with the industry representative bodies for the private health insurance industry to discuss matters of mutual interest and maintains open and transparent engagement with them.
APRA has undertaken a range of actions in relation to guidance to assist the private health insurance industry:
APRA has published a three year plan to comprehensively review the prudential framework for private health insurers (refer http://www.apra.gov.au/PHI/consultations/Pages/prudential-policy-outlook.aspx). As part of the review program, APRA released for consultation a prudential practice guide (PPG) and draft prudential standard on risk management in December 2016. PPGs are intended to assist insurers to understand their obligations under the prudential standards and provide APRA's view of better practice. The industry has the opportunity to provide comment on the PPG and prudential standard before they are finalised.
In addition to the guidance materials now available to the private health insurance industry on the APRA website, APRA is undertaking reviews of parts of the PHI prudential framework over the next 3 years. For example:
In the interim, APRA' s broader set of prudential guidance applicable to other industries assist private health insurers to understand APRA's expectations of better practice, as the key principles of each guidance document are consistent on a cross-industry basis. This guidance material is readily available on APRA's website and APRA has encouraged private health insurers to familiarise themselves with these documents.
Australian Government response to the Senate Economics References Committee report:
Foreign Investment Review Framework
Response to Recommendations
Response to Senator Xenophon's Recommendations
On behalf of the Chair of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, Senator O'Sullivan, I present an interim report of the committee on the provisions of the Airports Amendment Bill 2016, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.
Ordered that the report be printed.
by leave—I move:
That the Senate adopt the recommendation contained in the interim report to extend the time for the presentation of the report of the committee to the first sitting day in March 2018.
Question agreed to.
In continuing my remarks on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017, I will make a few brief observations before moving on to the machinery provisions. In a previous contribution, a Greens senator used what I find to be a very patronising term, and that is when the term 'ethnic groups' is used. It suggests that everybody of a particular race, as of necessity, agrees with a particular point of view. For example, with David Adler from the Jewish community we have somebody who is very supportive of changes to section 18C. In the ethnic communities that I move around in there is a divergence of opinion. Indeed, just recently, there was a meeting of various ethnic community groups in Hobart, where a few people spoke against changes to section 18C and some in favour. In a good healthy democracy, that is as it ought be. But to try to present every ethnic community as some sort of homogenous group is, quite frankly, patronising.
The other point that I would seek to make is that I was concerned about reports that a Labor member now wants to not only keep section 18C but extend its application even further—in other words, stifling freedom of speech even further. What that would mean, in effect, is that we would reintroduce a blasphemy law into this country, because this Labor person wants to extend section 18C to religion. One of the bizarre justifications for this was the case of a Muslim woman having her hijab ripped off. That is completely unacceptable behaviour, but our criminal law deals with that. That is assault. It should not occur. Whether it is a hijab or a jumper or whatever it might be, that sort of behaviour should not occur. It is outlawed, and we do not need special laws for it. It is the same with being abused in the streets. That should not occur. We have laws about public order in relation to that.
But now I am being told—and this is the point I sought to make earlier—that you can call somebody a 'dirty Arab' and be found to have offended under section 18C; but, if you call them a 'dirty Muslim', no action can be taken. This is, yet again, about hurt feelings. This Labor member would want that covered as well. So we would be offended if we were called a 'dirty Arab' or a 'dirty Muslim', according to this Labor member, but what about if you were called a 'dirty unionist', a 'dirty Liberal', a 'dirty Labor Party member' or a 'dirty deal maker'? The list goes on. Where would we have government step in and say, 'You are not allowed to use this language'? As somebody who supports freedom of speech, I do not believe governments should be involved in the area of hurt feelings but it should be in the area of having public order—protecting people from assault.
Moving briefly to the machinery provisions, the government seeks to insert a new 'reasonable person' test. We heard Senator McKim oppose that. The 'reasonable person' test, I suppose, is a very foreign concept to people in the Australian Greens, but it is a well-known concept in the law designed to ensure that the law is applied in a manner in tune with community expectations. Another one of the changes is requiring the Human Rights Commission to observe the rules of natural justice. The fact that we actually have to amend to ensure that the likes of Professor Triggs, who is going down to address a Green fundraiser later this weekend, is a sad reflection on the way the Human Rights Commission is currently being conducted under Professor Triggs. That we do have to protect—
Senator Abetz, if you could resume your seat. Senator McKim, on a point of order.
Senator Abetz has misled the chamber again. Professor Triggs is not going down to address a Greens fundraiser. I wanted to place on the record that that is a lie told by Senator Abetz.
Thank you, Senator McKim. That is a debating point. It is not a point of order. I am sorry; there is no point of order, Senator Abetz.
Senator McKim has to withdraw.
I am sorry, Senator Abetz. Yes, you are correct. Senator McKim, it is a ruling that the President has issued with the acting chairs that 'lie' is not a word that we use and should be avoided in all instances. I would ask if you could just rephrase or withdraw. Senator Hanson-Young, on the point of order.
Mr Acting Deputy President, Senator McKim referred to the fact that what Senator Abetz had said was not true and that it was a lie, not that Senator Abetz himself is a liar.
Senator Hanson-Young, I actually gave Senator McKim an opportunity to reword if he wanted to, but it would be desirable if he could withdraw the accusation where he used the word 'lie'.
I do withdraw after you have asked me to, Mr Acting Deputy President. I do withdraw the accusation that it was a lie and substitute that it was 'maliciously deceitful'.
Chair, you are required to enforce the standing orders, and to assert that somebody has maliciously misled is a reflection and needs to be withdrawn. I should not need to direct the chair as to that.
Senator Abetz, I sat through question time today when the Attorney-General used different words too, and I have ruled on it.
Well, in that case, I would ask you to refer it to the President.
It will be referred to the President.
Thank you, because it will need to be withdrawn.
Senator Abetz, you have the call.
The Bob Brown Foundation is, in anybody's language, a Green organisation and it is a fundraiser that Professor Triggs is unwisely addressing.
Senator McKim, on a point of order.
I will not use the word that I used before, but I will just repeat: it is not a Green event. It is not.
Thank you Senator McKim. That is a debating point.
It is the Bob Brown Foundation, completely unrelated to the Australian Greens! This is how the Australian Greens dissemble and seek to mislead the Australian people, and of course, sadly, that is what Professor Triggs has done on occasion with a Senate committee as well. But to require the Human Rights Commission to abide by the rules of natural justice should not be required. It should go without saying. But the fact that Professor Triggs and the Human Rights Commission will have to be directed to follow natural justice tells us everything we need to know about the current administration of the Human Rights Commission. Further, that we will be raising the threshold required to accept the complaint also should not be necessary, but under this administration it is, sadly, required, and similarly with limiting judicial review and allowing costs to be ordered if there are unmeritorious appeals.
This legislation was seen as bad by the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, by a Greens senator, by me and by many others some 20 years ago. The proof is now in the pudding; it is bad. Bill Leak, QUT students, Andrew Bolt and others are testimony to that and that is why this legislation needs amending. (Time expired)
Today we are discussing the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. The Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, the person I believe to be the worst Attorney-General in Australia's history, has introduced this bill under the pretence of defending freedom of speech. Is it any surprise that the Attorney-General, after spending much of his ministerial career attacking the President of the Human Rights Commission for doing her job, would seek to introduce a bill that winds back human rights protections that have served Australians well for 20 years?
The changes to the Racial Discrimination Act proposed by this bill are not designed to improve freedom of speech, nor are they designed to protect ethnic communities and Indigenous Australians from racial abuse. This bill is designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to protect the prime ministership of Malcolm Turnbull. What has been clear from the Prime Minister's behaviour ever since he took over from Mr Abbott is that he has been beholden to an agenda pushed by the ideologues who make up the majority of his party. These ideologues are like a pack of hungry wolves, baying for Mr Turnbull's blood, and the only way he can keep them happy is to keep feeding them, so he throws them a few scraps of right-wing extremist policy to feed on, one after another, just to keep them satisfied. Whether it is his backdown on an Australian republic, an emissions trading scheme, his pursuit of a plebiscite on marriage equality or the bill that is before the Senate today, Mr Turnbull has abandoned one by one the moderate principles he once held in an increasingly futile attempt to keep the wolves at bay, and he has disappointed many. Many Australians who may have had faith in Mr Turnbull are now waking up to the fact that he is utterly beholden to the extremists, who will never, ever be completely satisfied. They will always be in charge of him. Their desire for more regressive right-wing policy will never be satisfied, and Mr Turnbull does not have the courage or even the authority to stand up to them.
It is very telling that, before the government introduced this bill, Mr Turnbull claimed that changes to the Racial Discrimination Act were 'not on his agenda' So why is it on his agenda now when it was not before? The answer is simple: the Prime Minister does not have control of his agenda. And how ironic it was that Mr Turnbull used Harmony Day, of all days, to announce that he is watering down race hate laws. It demonstrates the sheer insensitivity of this government that a day that is supposed to be about celebrating respect, inclusiveness and cultural diversity was hijacked to announce this regressive policy. What galling, shameless effrontery it was to use that day to announce that they are moving to undermine the very principles the day has been earmarked to celebrate.
It just goes to show how out of touch this government is with the concerns of Australians. After all, this is a reform that very few Australians are actually pushing for. I certainly have not been faced with a barrage of letters or emails from people saying changes to 18C must be pursued with urgency. As far as I can recall, I have received three emails, which I know is three more than many of my colleagues have received. It may be a priority for Senator Bernardi, Mr Christensen and conservative columnists such as Andrew Bolt, but no-one is coming up to me in the street to say we really need to do something about the Racial Discrimination Act.
However, when I talk to ethnic communities in my home state of Tasmania, the message is loud and clear. They want protection from racist hate speech and they are very concerned with the impact that changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act may have on people in their communities. As their peak body, the Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia, or FECCA, said in a media release that the Racial Discrimination Act provides an 'important protection against racially motivated attacks, including hate speech, against members of Australia's culturally and linguistically diverse communities'.
Mahatma Ghandi said that a nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members. This is something that those opposite could really learn from. Time and time again—and I have given so many examples of this before—their policy approach is based on attacking the most vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians, at the expense of the privileged few. When it comes to racial abuse and racial discrimination ethnic minorities and Indigenous Australians are some of the most vulnerable people in our community. And they need the protection of the Racial Discrimination Act. Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act has served those communities, and our nation, very well for more than 20 years.
Before I talk about why section 18C, as it is currently drafted, should be defended let me explain a few things about racial discrimination. First of all, we know that racial discrimination, or racism, is still widespread in Australia. Nearly half of Australian residents from a culturally and linguistically diverse background have experienced racism at some time in their life, and three in four Indigenous Australians regularly experience racism. The most common form of racism is racial abuse, of which one in five people living in Australia has been a target.
There have been a number of studies that show racism can have profound negative effects on the people who experience it—impacts on physical and mental health, reduced productivity and reduced life expectancy. A study of 823 Australian secondary school students found that the mental health impacts of racism include depression; a constant fear of being physically or verbally attacked; having little or no trust in anyone except family; and even some physical symptoms such as headaches, increased heart rate, sweating, trembling and muscle tension.
Racism also presents barriers to participation which can entrench social and economic disadvantage. Before his election to parliament the member for Fenner, Andrew Leigh, co-authored a study which found that an Indigenous Australian must submit 35 per cent more applications than an Anglo-Australian to get a job interview. For the same chance of an interview an applicant of Middle Eastern heritage must submit 64 per cent more applications, and one of Chinese heritage must submit 68 per cent more.
While we have all heard the saying 'sticks and stones may break my bones', the truth is that what we say can hurt and can have real consequences. It can affect people's lives, their livelihoods and their mental and physical wellbeing. Let's also recognise that if we tolerate or permit racist language, particularly in the public arena, it sends a message to Australians that it is okay to discriminate through other means. The proponents of this change to section 18C claim that insulting or offending someone is objective, that it is up to an individual whether they are insulted or offended by a statement. I believe that anyone who says that has not had to suffer racial abuse, certainly not on a regular basis.
As FECCA said in their evidence to Friday's hearing into this bill, the removal of the terms 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' sends a message to Australians that it is okay to offend, insult or humiliate someone on the basis of their race. To those opposite, who want to weaken the protections in section 18C, I pose this simple question—and it is one that most people on our side have been asking for a long time: what is the problem you are trying to solve? What is it that Australians are not allowed to say now that you would like to permit them to say? As I said, we have been asking that question for a long time but we cannot get an answer from those on that side in regard to that.
In 2015-16, the Human Rights Commission received 77 complaints under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. This represented less than one per cent of all the complaints received by the commission. While the majority of complaints were either withdrawn or resolved through conciliation, only one complaint proceeded to court. While hundreds of complaints have been made under section 18C since it was introduced, proponents of changing this section cite a small number of cases as examples of why the current section needs reform.
One of the cases often cited—in fact, it was mentioned by Senator Abetz—is that of a complaint against the Queensland University of Technology for Facebook posts made by some of its students. This case went to court, but was dismissed by the Federal Court and leave was denied for the complainant to appeal. Without providing any comment on the appropriateness of the students' posts or the merits of the complainant's grievances, I simply ask the question: how does this example provide a case for watering down the protections of section 18C? If the court found that the case did not meet the threshold for a breach of section 18C then what changes to 18C would have improved the outcome for the students? The answer is none.
Government members who have advocated for changes to section 18C have argued that change is needed to protect free speech. But the free speech protections that those opposite are so set on are already provided in section 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act. Quite simply, you cannot read section 18C in isolation, as it interacts with 18D. Section 18D provides a number of exemptions which ensure that public interest and constructive public discourse are protected. For example, you cannot say anything unlawful if it is said in good faith in an artistic performance or in publishing a report in the public interest or in contributing to genuine academic debate.
That brings me to another case that is often put forward in favour of a change in the law—that of political cartoonist Bill Leak. Regardless of the merits of the process to which Mr Leak was subjected, you cannot use his case to argue the merits of the wording in section 18C, because the complaint against him was withdrawn. We have no test as to whether his cartoon was a breach of section 18C. And if it was, it is very possible that the free speech protections provided by section 18D would have applied to him anyway.
Neither of these examples provide a case for change to sections 18C or 18D of the act. The QUT example is a bad example because it was found not to be a breach of the act. The Bill Leak example is a bad example because there was no opportunity to test its legality under the act. I am not saying that the cases could not have been handled better, but this goes to process issues that would not be addressed by changes to section 18C.
I have yet to hear the proponents of removing the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' from section 18C put forward a real example of something that they say should have been allowed, but was which was found to be a breach under the act. If Senator Brandis or any of those opposite have an example, please enlighten me, because I am still waiting for just one example. What words which would offend, insult or humiliate a person on the basis of race should people be allowed to say freely that they cannot say now under the current law? What racially vilifying language—what racist hate speech—does the government want to permit in the name of free speech?
Advocates for removing or watering down section 18C constantly misunderstand or deliberately misrepresent what this law does. This section of the act protects ethnic minorities and Indigenous Australians from nothing more than some of the most vile, hurtful racist language. It is completely disingenuous to claim that section 18C, as it currently stands, allows people to take legal action against others for hurt feelings. The language prohibited by 18C goes well beyond that and, as has been pointed out many times to those opposite, the court has interpreted this section so that it only applies to:
…profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights.
If free speech is the primary concern of those pushing for this change then they should consider the implications for free speech when protections in section 18C are watered down. This point was made by Robin Banks, the former Anti-Discrimination Commissioner in my home state of Tasmania, when she explained to a parliamentary inquiry into free speech the effect racism can have on the targeted individual. Ms Banks said:
...they end up being silenced, which is an anathema to freedom of speech. It causes people to feel that they have to hide from society, shut themselves down, withdraw from active engagement and not speak out because of fear of being further attacked for being different.
This is exactly the kind of response to racism which, as I mentioned earlier, causes it to entrench disadvantage through social and economic participation.
We heard Senator Brandis using Orwellian language the other day to defend the government's changes to the act. Senator Brandis kept claiming that section 18C was being strengthened. If this is about freedom of speech, as those opposite claim, then surely the changes are about allowing people to make statements now that they could not previously. That, by inference, means a weakening of section 18C. So how can the government be strengthening this section and weakening it at the same time? The government really cannot have its cake and eat it too. Of course, the truth is obvious to most people.
Then we have the comments by Andrew Bolt, one of the government's strongest supporters on this change to the Racial Discrimination Act, that you would have to insult someone on the basis of their race five times before it met the bill's definition of harassment. Mr Bolt has revealed the uncomfortable truth that Mr Turnbull, Senator Brandis and the rest of the government do not want to admit—that this bill will lead to more racist hate speech in Australia.
If the government were completely open about the impact of their changes then why are they avoiding scrutiny of this bill? Why have they sought to rush it through a three-day Senate inquiry? Why did government members of the committee exclude the Aboriginal Legal Service from giving evidence at Friday's public hearing? Why have they allowed a situation where not a single Indigenous voice was heard in relation to a law that could have wide-reaching consequences for Indigenous Australians? And why, as was revealed in Friday's hearing, did the government only consult with the Australian Human Rights Commission on the procedural changes in the bill, but not on the changes to section 18C? The government senators simply do not want this bill subjected to scrutiny, because they know that the consequence of the changes to 18C will be more racist hate speech in Australia.
In addition to the changes to section 18C, this bill makes a number of changes to the complaints handling processes of the Australian Human Rights Commission. On this side, we are disappointed by the rushed nature of these changes and the lack of consultation—an approach to legislating that is becoming more and more the norm and a habit with this sloppy, lazy, out-of-touch government. The changes, if passed, would result in additional red tape, additional delay and added costs for parties to complaints and would impede access to justice.
Labor will move amendments to the bill to improve the government's poorly conceived changes to the complaints-handling procedures, to ensure that they do not create new problems. As for the proposed changes to 18C in schedule 1 of the bill, of course we will be opposing them. The proposed changes to 18C are, as I said earlier, an ideological obsession of the Turnbull government, without any basis. By putting forward these changes, Mr Turnbull is doing nothing more than bowing to the right-wing extremists who run the Liberal Party and providing comfort to anyone who wishes to racially vilify their fellow Australians with impunity. It just goes to show that Mr Turnbull is willing to do anything, willing to sacrifice any principle, in order to maintain his leadership of the Liberal Party. It is very well known that he is more interested in defending his prime ministership than he is in defending Australians from racism.
As a servant of the people of Queensland and Australia, I am very pleased to support this long-overdue amendment to the Racial Discrimination Act. After numerous broken promises by the government, policy flip-flops and resistance to just plain common sense, I am delighted to see that reason has finally taken the day and the government has accepted One Nation's argument that the Racial Discrimination Act needs to be changed. This government-sponsored Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 seeks to remove the words 'insult', 'humiliate' and 'offend' from section 18C of the act as grounds for the charge of racial vilification and replace them with the word 'harass'. It also seeks to help filter out frivolous or vexatious complaints and require the Human Rights Commission to advise those who are the subject of complaints as soon as they are received.
Pauline Hanson's One Nation welcomes these changes as long overdue and, whilst we would like to see far greater changes, such as the removal altogether of part IIA of the Racial Discrimination Act, which contains these provisions, the government has at least taken a significant step in the right direction. At least limiting complaints to harassment imposes a requirement for an objectively measurable event as a trigger, rather than the current ridiculous situation in which complaints are derived from a subjective emotional state and therefore can be based on a whim. As most people in Australia are aware, to their cost, the now infamous Racial Discrimination Act 1975 purports to prohibit 'offensive behaviour based on racial hatred', but in reality it is simply a blatant attack on free speech. This draconian law has been used to silence individuals such as reporter Andrew Bolt and the late, great and respected cartoonist Bill Leak, who had the temerity to make comments not in accordance with the politically correct half-baked opinions of the left-wing controlling elites.
If the Senate will indulge me, I would like to recount a little history of this truly reprehensible piece of extreme leftist legislation. The Racial Discrimination Act was first enacted by the failed Whitlam government in 1975. This act purported to make so-called racial discrimination unlawful in Australia and overrode inconsistent state and territory legislation using the 'external affairs' power contained in section 51 of our Australian Constitution. As my Senate colleagues will be aware, the external affairs power has been regularly abused by both Labor and coalition governments since then in order to override the rights of the states to make laws, contrary to the intent of the founders of our Constitution.
In the case of the Racial Discrimination Act, the basis for use of the external affairs power was the signing of the so-called United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in the dying days of the Whitlam government, which was in turn adopted by the UN based on an original proposal by the Soviet Union in 1948 which sought to align democratic Western governments with Soviet policy. In 1948, following the Nuremberg trials, world leaders gathered to construct a lofty-sounding Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Soviet representatives argued that, to prevent a resurgence of Nazism, free speech should be qualified by banning so-called hate speech. The Soviets advocated making it a crime to advocate 'national, racial or religious hostility' but not of course 'class hostility'—in other words, to say anything with which they self-righteously disagreed.
Such efforts to supposedly combat hate, by denying freedom of speech, were vehemently opposed by Western delegates, including even the left-leaning Eleanor Roosevelt, who wisely said that a hate speech qualification would be 'extremely dangerous' since 'any criticism of public or religious authorities might all too easily be described as incitement to hatred'. Mrs Roosevelt and other delegates knew well that similar laws in the prewar Weimar Republic had not only failed to prevent the rise of the Nazis but had been successfully used by the Nazis to silence their critics, much as radical Muslim groups and their apologists do now.
The Soviets lost on their 'hate speech' gambit in 1948 but were finally successful in 1965 with the creation of the UN's lofty-sounding International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which contained a section calling for the criminalisation of 'ideas based on racial superiority or hatred'. This belated victory, and its subsequent adoption in 1975 by the Whitlam Labor government here in our country, represented the triumph of the Soviet view of free speech as bad and censorship as good.
Of course, not ready to be outdone in the repression-of-liberty stakes, in 1995 the Keating Labor government went one better and added section 18C. Keating's amendment states, inter alia:
(1) It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:
(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and
(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.
While some may believe that this act reflects some high-minded principle of fairness and justice, in fact nothing could be further from the truth. The hallmark of the Soviet Union was the corruption, the hijacking, of language, to become an instrument of oppression—calling war 'peace' and slavery 'freedom', for example—and this was no different. The pretence of protecting people from injustice was in fact a Trojan Horse to silence those who dared to dissent from the Communist Party line. Those of us in this parliament who believe passionately in the right to free speech are implacably opposed to this Soviet legal landmine and strongly support this amendment.
Unfortunately, the Liberal Party appears to have had a chequered history on this issue, as it has with several other key principles of classical liberalism, such as low taxes and responsible government spending. Like identical poles of a magnet, the Liberal Party and freedom of speech appear to have repeatedly approached one another only to be repelled by some invisible yet irresistible force. When the Hon. Tony Abbott was Leader of the Opposition, with square jaw and steely gaze, he publicly committed his future government to repealing section 18C following the Bolt case. However, once elected Prime Minister Mr Abbott's gaze seemed to drift out of focus and his jaw seemed to slacken. The member for Warringah suddenly decided that the promised change was a 'complication' to his 'planned overhaul of terror laws'. Perhaps it was the squeak of ministerial leather. Perhaps it was the raised voices and clenched fists of the enemies of liberty who opposed the change. Either way, Mr Abbott folded like a cheap umbrella.
However, this pesky, free speech idea just would not die, would it? In March last year the Australian Law Reform Commission called for a review of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Following a laborious two-year inquiry into Commonwealth laws that encroach on traditional rights and freedoms and an examination of whether those laws are probably justified, in a 592-page report tabled by Senator Brandis, the Australian Law Reform Commission questioned whether the Racial Discrimination Act 'unjustifiably interferes with freedom of speech'. The report further questioned whether section 18C was even constitutional, pointing out that its validity had never been tested before the High Court. Very promisingly, Senator Brandis was quoted at the time as saying that the government was 'committed to preserving and maintaining the freedoms which underpin the principles of democracy'. Senator Brandis said:
To this end, I have written to my Ministerial colleagues asking them to carefully consider what action might be taken in relation to the laws which the Commission has identified as warranting further consideration.
It is regrettable that we then had to wait another 12 months for this to bear fruit.
Happily, it seems that the member for Warringah's successor, the current Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, may well be undergoing a journey in the opposite direction to Mr Abbott. Having initially stated that free speech was 'not a priority for his government', I am heartened to see that under pressure from One Nation there are encouraging signs of a damascene conversion. Whether or not the centrist flip-floppers on the crossbench torpedo the current amendment, I very much hope that the Prime Minister's conversion will prove to be the case. It is a scientific fact that, given sufficient time, the jellyfish did eventually evolve into the vertebrate.
Although it seems hard to believe today, with neo-Stalinists like the member for Sydney lurking one heartbeat from the Labor leadership, in fact historically the Labor Party was not hostile to the principle of freedom of speech at all. Enlightened former Labor leadership figures such as John Curtin, Ben Chifley, Peter Baldwin and Barry Cohen certainly seemed to have had a strong appreciation of the importance of this issue. However, very sadly, today Labor is marching determinedly to a different drum. As the anaconda-like grip of the Socialist Left progressively tightens around the Labor Party tolerance for opinions dissenting from left-wing orthodoxy is on its last gasp.
As for the Greens, all I can say is that repression of freedom of speech could have no more eloquent a champion. The smug, elitist sense of superiority that infuses these koala-hugging commos appears to leave them without the slightest awareness of the terrible repression which they champion in their pursuit of ideological conformity with their own, frankly, antihuman world view. Even the possibility that someone else might hold a legitimate and well-reasoned opinion that differs from theirs appears to simply be beyond their comprehension.
Of course the absurdity of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act is that in truth government can legislate to regulate behaviour but it cannot regulate feelings. Whether or not someone insults and offends is an entirely subjective matter in the mind of the beholder. Section 18C actually weakens and disempowers people. It turns people into victims. As my crossbench colleague Senator David Leyonhjelm said, the truth is that offence may only be taken, not given. The idea that the world is otherwise is simply a rose-tinted left-wing fantasy. But then a colourful lunar landscape seems to be a pretty accurate description of the Green vision of society. Transgender pixies riding their solar-powered unicorns over oh-so-sustainable rainbows seems to be a more accurate representation.
Throughout this debate a common rhetorical question asked by senators, like the former speaker Senator Bilyk, and members, like Mr Bill Shorten, on the control side of politics is: what is it that you think people want to say but cannot say under the current legislation? The answer to this fatuous question is obviously just 'the truth'—'All we want to hear is just the truth.' When Bill Leak called out Aboriginal mistreatment of their own children, the enemies of free speech swooped and charged him but, as demonstrated by the Northern Territory intervention, rampant child sexual abuse, neglect and drug taking in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities is simply fact.
Because of laws like the Racial Discrimination Act ordinary decent people are simply afraid to speak the truth because the truth can get you arrested, fined or even jailed. If your Muslim Sudanese neighbour is engaging in female genital mutilation, your Syrian Muslim cafe owner is a terrorist building a bomb or the Afghan Muslims in the public housing flat next to you are molesting small children, chances are that you are afraid to speak out.
Similar laws overseas have led to exactly this. In the UK, where similar anti-liberal restrictions on freedom of speech exist, 1,400 children were raped by Pakistani Muslim gangs in Rotherham. But, in the words of the inquiry into this mass crime, 'Staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist.' In San Bernadino in the US, where a Muslim terrorist killed 14 innocent—
Honourable senators interjecting—
Senator Roberts is entitled to be heard in silence, as are all senators.
In San Bernadino in the US, where a Muslim terrorist killed 14 innocent people, neighbours of the killers subsequently admitted that they did not report suspicious activity because they didn't want to 'racially profile' these people. So let's be clear: political correctness ruins lives. It kills people. State censorship by provisions like section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act actually gets people killed.
To the Leader of the Opposition, his Labor colleagues, weak-kneed crossbenchers and the cultural Marxists in the Greens: that is what we want to be able to say. We want to be able to call a spade a spade. We want to be able to call out Muslim drug dealers, child mutilators, hate preachers, terrorists and perverts.
Much has been made of the effect of the amendment of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act on ethnic minorities, such as the Jewish community. Extreme left-wing organisations, such as GetUp!, have tried to fan concerns that somehow free speech equals hate speech. This line has been enthusiastically run by left-wing secular Jewish pressure groups, such as the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. However, it is utterly untrue to claim that the Australian Jewish community is opposed to the government's proposed amendments to the Racial Discrimination Act.
In fact, as Jewish One Nation staff members have been keen to point out, the Rabbinical Council of New South Wales has publicly made statements expressing concern that the existing wording of 18C prevents rabbis speaking out on matters of faith. Going further, in the online journal J-Wire, leading Jewish barrister Geoffrey Bloch has strongly argued for repeal of section 18C. As Professor Michael Berenbaum, founder of the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum, has pointed out, discrediting anti-Semitism is much to be preferred to gagging anti-Semites and so infuriating and driving them underground. This is, of course, the reason I am happy for the Greens to continue to stand up on their hind legs and give vent to their anti-Semitic spleen in this place.
This issue was taken further by the Australian Jewish News in December last year when it argued:
When Jews act to restrict freedom of speech they undermine their argument against people like Jake Lynch and his cohort who prevented supporters from Israel from presenting their point of view at Sydney University.
And my Jewish friend David Adler strongly supports the removal of 18C.
In truth, the real beneficiaries of section 18C are, of course, Australia's Islamists. Australia's Muslim community is bulging with hate preachers and terrorist apologists, none of whom have ever been brought up before the Human Rights Commission for insulting, humiliating or offending their Jewish, Christian or secular Australian communities.
So, apparently, the current section 18C only applies to non-Muslims. No wonder the Greens and Labor want to keep it as it stands. The fact is, once you suppress free speech, all forms of other political ills are possible. Civilization as a whole may pass unremarked and unchallenged from an open society into one of systemic oppression, without the ability of the victims of such tyranny to even speak out against their oppressors.
Perhaps the real problem here with those who oppose amending 18C is a lack of understanding of what free speech actually means. Free speech is not the ability to say things that conform to the politically correct consensus that increasingly is dominating our lives. Free speech is the ability to say things that those in power disagree with. It needs to be remembered that even in Stalin's Russia people were still free to politically agree with Comrade Stalin! But that was no freedom at all.
What the thoughtful apologists for section 18C are really about is silencing criticism of their own actions and ideas, because they see this as the beginning of opposition that may thwart their plans for control of us all. What the Spanish Inquisition, Stalin's Russia, ISIS and the Greens who screech their support for 18C have in common is their belief that they—and they alone—are right and that those who disagree with them are not just wrong but immoral. What they fail to grasp is that this hubris is the common fountainhead of all tyranny.
It is no consolation if the goons who knock on your door in the middle of the night to drag you away are wearing socks and sandals instead of jackboots. In the words of Salman Rushdie, 'The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.'
Senator Hanson-Young, on a point of order.
Mr Acting Deputy President, it is obvious that Senator Roberts has got himself all worked up into a lather, here, this afternoon. I understand he is passionate about this issue. He is giving a very good description as to why freedom of speech is important to him.
Senator Hanson-Young, come to the point of your point of order, please.
I think he should consider his reflections on other people in this chamber. Senator Roberts, you will always have the defence of satire on your side.
Senator Hanson-Young, resume your seat. There is no point of order. Senator Dastyari?
On the point of order, I would like some clarification, Mr Acting Deputy President. What are the rules around us being able to bring popcorn into the chamber when Senator Roberts—
Senator Dastyari, please resume your seat.
You can see that this issue is a comedy issue because the people of Australia are abused in this. Genuinely free societies do not arrest cartoonists, kids at university or reporters because some activist claims that they were offended by what they said. For goodness sake, what has this country come to? How can anyone call themselves a liberal or even a social democrat and allow this Stalinist repression of free speech to continue?
I urge senators in the Labor Party and the crossbench who do genuinely believe in free speech: do not be bound by your party's errors. Please think for yourselves and consider what sort of society we all want our children to grow up in.
Unlike the previous speaker, Senator Roberts, I do not feel the need to bring a cheer squad of giggling knuckle draggers to sit in the chamber with me to support me. I feel confident in my own beliefs.
That is the nicest thing you have ever said about me!
You were not giggling at that point! So, it is disappointing that some senators are so lacking in belief in their own speeches that they need those sort of cheer squads with them to encourage them. I will try to make a little bit more of a sensible contribution to the debate on this Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 than what we have just heard.
It is a low bar.
It is a low bar. I am sure all senators fondly remember my first speech to the Senate! I am sure it is emblazoned on your memories, especially my friends Senator Smith and Senator Rushton! In my first speech, really the core theme that I touched on was the need for us all—regardless of our party and regardless of where we are from geographically—to work hard to bring our community together. It is only by bringing our community together that we can solve the big challenges that face our country and the world as a whole. So it is extremely disappointing that we find ourselves debating a bill that will do the exact opposite of bringing us together. In fact, this bill will further divide Australia, and there has never been a worse time for a bill such as this which will divide Australians and turn them against each other. As I say, our country does have big challenges facing it, and we all know that it is only by working together that we will solve those challenges.
Evidence that was received in the rushed inquiry into this bill from the federation of ethnic communities in Australia pointed to the absolute, undisputed fact that racism is on the rise in our country. It is a very sad fact that, for a range of reasons and, I dare say, partly because of some of the racist sentiment which, unfortunately, we do hear at times from members of this chamber and other people in leadership positions in our community, we are seeing racism on the rise. We are seeing more complaints from people of non-Anglo-Saxon backgrounds about the racism they experience on public transport, in employment situations, when they are being served at stores and in all sorts of other situations.
I am not for a moment saying that most Australians are racist. I am very proud of the fact that our country is the most successful multicultural nation in the world. Most Australians, I think, are not racist people but, unfortunately, we do have some among us who want to pick on people from other backgrounds. It is happening all too often, and I do fear that this bill will only encourage that into the future. Given that and given the risk of opening the door to more racist speech, we have to ask ourselves: why is the government so determined to push on with this bill?
We have had a number of speakers from the government talk about the importance of free speech. I accept that, particularly for the Liberal Party, the rights of the individual are an important value, and many members of the Liberal Party fight hard for them. But what is not ever recognised by members of the Liberal Party in advocating this free speech reason behind this bill is that there has always been constraints on free speech—in our society, in every Westminster parliament and in every Western democracy like our own. The law of defamation restricts people's ability to go out in public and say things which damage the reputation of other people, especially without any foundation. That is just one of numerous examples I could give where there have been constraints placed around free speech for what is considered to be for the benefit of society as a whole. That is nothing more than what section 18C, as it currently stands, seeks to do. It seeks to put limits on free speech for the benefit of the community as a whole. I think that most people in Australia recognise that there does need to be a limit on what people can say about each other because of the damage and hurt that can be inflicted when unfair, untrue or hurtful comments are made about someone, particularly in relation to their race.
Australia has come a long way in its dealing with these kind of matters. Unfortunately, my own party supported the White Australia policy, I think until the 60s, before it came to its senses and realised that was not the kind of Australia we wanted to build. Australia has come a long way in rejecting those sorts of policies; although I am sure there are a couple of senators in this chamber who pine for those days. We have moved on from that, including by recognising the need to put constraints around what people can say about others on the basis of their race.
There are other values which are just as important to Australia in the modern day as the need to protect people's free speech and their liberty, and one of those values is respect for others. In a previous speech I gave to the chamber about this topic, I talked about the fact that all of us who are parents—regardless of the party we are from—I am sure try to instil in our children respect as a value that they take on right throughout their lives. I talked at that previous time about the importance of respect for others no matter who they are and no matter where they are from. Again, opening the door to more racist speech in a form that this bill will allow is the complete antithesis of showing other people respect and it effectively gives the green light to people to be disrespectful of others on the basis of their race. That is not something I have ever encouraged in my own children and I doubt there is a senator on the other side of this chamber who would want to see their children behave in that kind of disrespectful manner. But unfortunately, that is going to be the consequence of this bill.
By their continued reliance on this notion of free speech, what we have seen from a number of speakers from the government is that they do not get it. I was here earlier today when Senator Abetz was talking about how important free speech is. He was asking why we should be putting constraints around people and what they can say on the basis of someone's race; he said that next it will be about whether someone has freckles or—I think he said—about whether someone has spectacles or braces. That sort of analogy shows how out of touch members of this government are and shows that a number of them just do not get it. They just do not get the fact that as people who are elected to this Senate we are all incredibly privileged people. Most of us have had the good fortune to be raised in a loving family and have had certain opportunities along the way, whether or not we have come from very humble beginnings.
The fact that certain government senators have drawn those sorts of analogies demonstrates that they have never actually experienced being in a position where they have less power than other members of the community, which is the daily experience of people from non-Anglo-Saxon backgrounds in this country. No-one from an Anglo-Saxon background in this country gets picked on because of their race or gets discriminated against because of their race, and that is because we are the more powerful members of this community. It is only people from less powerful backgrounds, such as those from our ethnic communities, that experience this. Indeed, listening to Senator Abetz's speech reminded me of some of the debates I had to endure in student politics from speakers from the Young Liberals. It is very unfortunate that some government senators have not evolved from those kinds of juvenile arguments that you would put up when you were in your 20s. These are real problems that are experienced by people all around Australia.
Again, why is this government changing section 18C? We all know that this country faces massive challenges, whether they be economic, environmental, social—all sorts of challenges—into the future. We are spending time on this, and an inordinate amount of time has been spent by both the government and certain media outlets pushing this barrow, when there are all these other challenges out there that need to be dealt with. The Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, made the point that no-one is talking to him about this in his electorate, and I have to tell you no-one is talking to me about it anywhere I go in Queensland, whether it be Brisbane, the Gold Coast or regional Queensland. It has not been raised with me once as a burning priority for this country to deal with. I was in the chamber when Senator Williams spoke about this bill the other day, and he made the same point.
It is not surprising that a new opinion poll released today, a Fairfax Ipsos poll, showed that 80 per cent of Australians oppose what the government is doing through this bill. So, the very first item of business on the government's agenda today in the Senate was to try and push through legislation that 80 per cent of the community actually oppose! We can only assume that the real reason why this change has been such a big priority is that 80 per cent is the proportion of the coalition caucus that wants to see these measures go through and that is obsessed with these kinds of changes in the same way that certain media outlets are obsessed with it.
As part of the arguments that have been put up along the way for why this is necessary, we have continually heard members of the government seize upon two cases that have involved section 18C. One was the case involving QUT students, and one was the case involving the late cartoonist Bill Leak. Now, there may be issues with the way those cases were handled—and I note that a number of the procedural changes that are being moved in this bill will seek to improve some of the processes for handling complaints. But what has been forgotten in this entire debate is that those two cases that apparently underpin why these changes are so essential are both cases where the complainants lost. The complainant made a complaint to the Human Rights Commission; the relevant process was undertaken; and, whether it was the QUT students or Bill Leak, their actions were not successful.
I do not remember too many other instances where we have devoted so much time to debating legislation to try to fix problems that do not actually exist. The existing legislation is working. The legislation is weeding out cases that are lacking in merit and is preventing people from upholding frivolous complaints. Yet, despite that, the government is spending all this time trying to change this legislation—for a problem that does not exist.
I was a lawyer. Every single day of the week, people bring legal actions, whether they be about negligence or contract law, competition law, migration law or any other area of the law. People lose those cases, but we do not see the government say, 'The law has got to change because too many people are losing their cases.' We have only found the government to show that level of dedication in this one area, and that is because, as I say, the Prime Minister's leadership is so weak, and he so terrified of being done out of this position by conservative members of his party, that he has to jump at their beck and call. It is embarrassing to see the leader of our country held hostage by an extreme rump in his own party that is preventing him from showing leadership and from standing up for the values that we know he actually believes in.
What are the changes being proposed here? In the first instance, I want to deal with the changes of substance to the wording of section 18C. Section 18C, as it stands, essentially states that people cannot offend, insult or humiliate others on the basis of their race. It seems like a pretty reasonable position to take. As I say, it is a sentiment that demonstrates the kind of respect that we try to instil in our children and in all Australians. That has been changed in this bill so that you will only breach section 18C if you harass or intimidate someone on the basis of their race.
Now, none of us knows exactly what that is going to mean, and we took evidence at the committee inquiry on the problems that will be caused by that uncertainty, particularly around the meaning of the word 'harass'. No-one knows what constitutes harassment, rather than offending or insulting. All we have had to rely on so far is one of the chief barrackers for this change, Andrew Bolt, who has said that in his view it probably amounts to racially abusing someone on five occasions. So it will be 'okay' to do so on one occasion, two occasions, three occasions or four occasions, but it is not until the fifth time someone is racially abused that it starts becoming a problem and the law should step in. I do not think that is acceptable. I think it is unacceptable to racially abuse anyone once, let alone twice, three times, four times or five times.
There is no doubt—and again we took evidence about this at the inquiry—that, in making this change, the government is raising the threshold for what is required to constitute discrimination. The sorts of racial slurs that would currently be in breach of section 18C and on which people can take action will now be allowed to go through to the keeper. It will only be if someone is harassed and if there is a cause of conduct of racially abusing them that they will be able to take action. How is that supposed to make all of the members of our community of ethnic backgrounds or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds feel now that they are exposed to greater levels of racial slurs that they cannot take action about? They can only take action if it constitutes harassment, which suggests a course of conduct. I do not think that is fair. I do not think that is the kind of Australia that we want.
There are also a number of changes to the process that the Human Rights Commission will need to follow in taking these kinds of complaints. Labor has made it clear for some time now that we accept that the processes the Human Rights Commission follow could be improved. Indeed, the Human Rights Commission has made that point themselves. What we still remain concerned about is that we understand that there are more amendments going to be made by the government to this bill, which I think we only received about an hour ago. I do not know what the amendments are. I cannot comment on them. It is pretty unfair, I think, that the government is tabling these kinds of amendments to important legislation as it is being debated. That is just a reflection of the appalling process that this government has followed around this bill.
The bill was introduced in the middle of last week. I think it was Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon we found out that there was going to be a rushed half-day hearing into this bill. There was very limited opportunity to consult with anyone who would be affected by these changes. Labor senators managed to at least include representatives of ethnic communities to come along and give evidence at the hearing on Friday morning, but, shamefully, led by Senator Macdonald, government senators prevented the Aboriginal Legal Service from giving evidence. I just could not believe that an Aboriginal organisation was prevented from giving evidence about changes to the law which would make it easier for their own people to be racially abused. Unfortunately, that is the kind of government we have, or that is at least the kind of chair of that committee we have in Senator Macdonald. Members of the government might like to reflect on his continued behaviour as the chair of that committee.
We were also told in the inquiry that, despite comments by Senator Brandis to the contrary, the Human Rights Commission did have serious concerns about some of the changes to this bill. The Human Rights Commission did make a number of what seemed to be worthwhile suggestions as to how the bill could be improved, particularly in the area of procedures that it would follow. As I said, I do not know which of those suggestions have been picked up. I know that about an hour ago the shadow Attorney-General received some proposed amendments to this bill.
The fact that the government is sharing amendments to this bill as we are debating it just shows what a rushed process this has been, what a shambolic process this has been and how it really is just being driven by an internal political objective, which is to try to get the extreme right of the Liberal Party off the back of the Prime Minister and give him a little bit of breathing space. Now, I have some really sad news for the Prime Minister: it is not going to happen. Every time you give in, they just take more comfort. We have seen it on climate change. We have seen it on marriage equality. Now we are seeing it on the Racial Discrimination Act. Give them an inch and they will take a mile. I think that they all thought that, with Senator Bernardi defecting and going and forming his own party, the pressure would be off, but apparently it is not the case.
There are still people within the Liberal Party who want to drag it to the right—failing to recognise the politics in this country is won in the centre. I even feel a little bit sad for the Prime Minister, because we know that he does not believe in these changes just as we know that he does not believe in the changes he has to stick with around marriage equality and climate change, but, because he is beholden to a rump in his party and has no courage and no strength of his convictions, he has given in yet again. I can only imagine what the next fight is going to be. Senator Paterson and all the other ideologues from the Institute of Public Affairs are no doubt dreaming it up as we speak. It is pretty amazing that the Prime Minister of this country feels so intimidated by Senator Paterson, who I do not think has even turned 30—not that there is anything wrong with being young. It is a real sign of how weak this Prime Minister is. (Time expired)
I too rise to speak in support of this bill. As a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, I too participated in the inquiry to freedom of speech in Australia, but, unlike those opposite, I took great heart from the process. I would like to share with this chamber why I did so.
There is no greater democratic value or individual freedom that is more greatly valued or more often cited in the Western world than the right to freedom of speech or freedom of expression. But no freedom is ever truly free in any society, and our society here is no different.
Human rights and our democratic freedoms are universal ones, but the preservation of these rights is not an issue for the left or right of any parliament, because they are truly universal rights. We may disagree on process and what the outcome looks like, but I do not believe any of us have a moral high ground on human rights or the preservation of democratic freedoms. As I said, democratic freedoms are the foundation of all modern democracies and are something that should never be taken for granted, because they are neither self-evident nor self-sustaining. Because of that, here in this place and in the other place we are the guardians of democratic freedoms of all Australians. I believe that there is no more important responsibility charged to any of us on behalf of the Australian people.
Our constitutional founders deliberately did not codify a bill of rights in our Constitution as the American founding fathers had, and that was for very good reasons. When you have a look at the reasons that they did not do it, I am very grateful today that they have given us the opportunity to progress with the times. So, rather than codifying a bill of rights, after extensive discussion and debate, our founders recognised and understood that societal values, norms and opinions change over time, and so too must the standards by which we assess freedoms and also imposition of those freedoms through human rights legislation, and that they too had to evolve with time and current values and standards. Our founders also recognised that once codified in a constitution, they would be difficult, if not impossible, to transform over time. I would ask all in this place to imagine had our founders actually codified the morals and the values and societal norms of 1901, and shackled us with that in this house, how challenging it would be to make sure that our legislation moved with the times.
Listening to those opposite saying, 'Australians do not raise 18C with me'—of course they do not. They are not going to talk about specific aspects of complex legislation. But if you ask them a different question, if you ask any Australian, 'Do you value your freedom and your right to speak, your freedom of speech', there would be few, if any, Australians who would not identify that as an important issue. Our founders, because of that, had great faith that the Australian people, through their elected representatives—through us—would ensure that laws and judgements represented the community standards of the day. It is an incredibly difficult and challenging balancing act in all democracies, and Australia is no different, but it is something that must be constantly challenged and tested on behalf of Australian society, a process that starts and ends with us in this place.
It is the role of parliamentarians in a responsible parliament to balance human rights with our democratic freedoms, and this bill achieves that balance. The bill amends the Racial Discrimination Act to redefine conduct prohibited by section 18C to ensure that the defined conduct more accurately encompasses the notion of racial vilification. I strongly support the removal of the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' from section 18C, not because I am a bigot but because I truly believe that the word 'harass' and the legal definition around that more accurately represents what we are trying to prevent—that is, racial harassment and vilification. We are strengthening this act. We are preserving freedom of speech, but we are also ensuring that this legislation meets contemporary Australian standards, which, again, is something that our founders charged us in this place with. One of the ways it is achieving a better balance of community standards is by introducing the 'reasonable member of the Australian community' as the objective standard by which contravention of section 18C should be judged, rather than by the standard of a hypothetical representative member of a particular group. This is a critically important change to this legislation, which, again, preserves a good balance.
Almost three years ago I spoke in this place about my concerns about the restrictions on freedom of speech and how section 18C in particular has been abused. In its current form, I do not believe section 18C today strikes the right balance between people exercising their right to free speech and the prevention of racial discriminations. The human rights legislation we implement in this parliament is designed to protect the rights of Australians, but what we do not often talk about in this place is that when we implement legislation to protect somebody's rights—in this case their human rights—by that very act we are also further restricting someone else's freedom of expression and freedom of speech. That is a really important point that gets lost in the politicisation of this point—that is, when you introduce legislation that does impose rights for certain members of our community, quite rightly it does also restrict freedoms, and in this case freedoms of expression, of some Australians. That is something we need to talk about more often in this place to make sure that, politics aside, we have got the balance right and that it reflects community standards.
As a member of this committee, I was very proud of the way that the inquiry happened. I would particularly like to congratulate my colleague Mr Ian Goodenough for his chairmanship of this quite challenging inquiry. The committee received 11,000 submissions. We held nine public hearings right across this country. We heard a wide range of quite diverse input from people—different aspects of the same issue from their own personal perspectives. What really pleased me was that this discussion was robust. Quite often it was very emotional and it was very harrowing sometimes to listen to some of this evidence. But, most importantly, it was done with great respect. That gives me heart and that makes me proud to have participated in this process, because to me this inquiry demonstrates that as hard as it can be sometimes to discuss challenging issues in Australia today it can be achieved. Considerable weeks of work were put into getting the draft of this report right and to doing justice to everybody who appeared and the range and diversity of opinions. So whatever happens with this bill, I take great heart that we have not completely lost the ability in this chamber and in this place to have the debates that Australians should rightly expect us to have in this place. I passionately believe that our society is absolutely improved by a diversity of ideas, robustly contested and debated. I believe also that in this way the bad ideas that come forward, that the majority of society think are bad ideas, wither away and they die while the good ones gain traction so that changing societal norms and community standards are reflected in the legislation that we debate in this place and that we ultimately pass.
The treatment of the late Bill Leak, a respected cartoonist and satirist, demonstrated to me that we still have serious constraints on freedom of speech in Australia and that we are not actually 'je suis Charlie' as many of those tried to claim here in Australia. We have heard the criticisms of those who, I believe, deliberately misunderstood or misrepresented some of the arguments. Some of those arguments include, 'There's been no-one successfully but unfairly prosecuted under section 18C'. This conveniently ignores that those who have been pursued relentlessly and for years under 18C and have been subject to years and years and years of legal action, who have been financially crippled and also had the financial stress that it incurs. Clearly we saw that through the evidence given—not just through various representatives of ethnic groups and religious groups that had experienced racial vilification, but from those who had been unfairly put through this process. Sadly, under this process truth is no defence. Bill Leak found that out. It is also interesting to note people in here talk about cartoonists. Bill Leak was not the first cartoonist who was caught in this web of 18C. Those opposite often say, 'Well, 18D is a get-out-of-jail-free card'. But 18D is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. I will explain why.
You might remember the Bropho case in Western Australia, where a cartoonist was caught up for seven years under this current legislation. In that case, truth was no defence under 18D, and he was taken through the courts for seven years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, it had taken an enormous toll on Dean Alston's life. Truth was no defence and he got caught up in this web. Again, this is a web that others have been caught up in since. Others might try to downplay it and say: 'Well, it doesn't really matter. It is only a few cases.' But, let me tell you, if it was any of you or any of your family members who were caught up in this web, in how this has been applied, you would be the first ones here saying how bad this system was. One person treated unjustly under this process is one too many.
In terms of that, I would like to share with you some of the evidence we received from Mr Alexander Woods, one of the QUT complainants. He said:
I feel I should explain the simplistic incident and add to it my personal experience. I was 19 and in my second year of uni. I was with two of my engineering mates and we were trying to find a computer so that we could do our uni work. … There was a computer lab that looked like any other. We sat down and about five minutes later a lady came towards us and asked us if we were Indigenous. We said, 'No, we are not,' and she quite brusquely asked us to leave, because they were reserved for Indigenous students, and that we had to go. We promptly left and about 45 minutes later I found another computer where I posted on a Facebook page to a couple of thousand other QUT students. I said:
Just got kicked out of the unsigned Indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation.
I did not follow the post too closely after that, but what ensued was quite a political debate both for and against the merits of the facility. It was not until the next day, when I got a letter from a staff member at QUT, that I was told to take down the post. I promptly jumped on Facebook to take it down but it was already deleted. I sort of put the incident to the back of my mind until about two years later, when I was in my last semester of uni and I was faithfully reading my emails one Friday afternoon. I had an email from the HR department at uni detailing a case that had been with the [AHRC] for over 14 months, with a conciliation scheduled for the Monday, which was just one business day after. I was quite confused because at no point had anyone from the commission ever got in contact with me personally, and, to the best of my knowledge, ever tried. I spoke to the university's lawyers, who told me that conciliation was optional and the uni has been dealing with it for quite some time. I did not appreciate the full gravity of the situation at the time, and I was not legally represented. Around two months later, I was served with a notice to appear at the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, as I was personally being sued for over $250,000. At the same time, I was offered a confidential settlement of $5,000. I was extremely disappointed with my university and the commission, who I felt have effectively hung me out to dry.
Those opposite may brush away this injustice, but one injustice like this is too many, and this represents the stories of many others.
I believe the words 'insult', 'offend' and 'humiliate' are synonyms, and they are deeply subjective. They protect against hurt feelings, and they lack clarity, and that was never the intent. When you go back and have a look at the released cabinet papers, and at comments by Michael Lavarch, the Labor Party Attorney-General, you will see that how they are being applied today was never the intention of the government when they introduced this legislation. I agree that the word 'harass' captures the conduct intended and is more consistent with the original intent—and it is still the intent of government today within the act. The word 'harass' is a term deeply understood legally. It is much simpler to determine whether or not someone has been 'harassed', rather than 'offended' or 'insulted'. It is far less subjective. For an act to be unlawful under section 18C:
… a reasonable member of the Australian community must be of the view that the act must be reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to harass or intimidate a person or a group of people on the basis of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin.
That, despite all of the hyperbole and venom from those opposite, is not racist. We are not racist. We are not condoning hate speech. We just have a different point of view on how it should be addressed in our society. I believe that, by providing the clarity that is in this bill, the law will be stronger. There will also be a better balance with protecting Australia's freedom of speech. While we might not get to that point of genuinely—as in France, 'Je suis Charlie'—having true freedom of expression, and political expression in particular, I think it does go some way to redressing the balance. This bill will also extend protections against racial vilification. I believe the case for reform is simple and clear. It is simply the right thing for those in this chamber to do.
As I have said, these amendments will strengthen the legislation. After going through this inquiry, I believe that simply doing the process reforms and changes is not enough—as necessary as they are; they will improve the process and they will make it fairer for defendants and respondents and will also simplify the process and make it more transparent. But, without the changes to 18C in particular, it will still leave too many people who do push the boundaries of freedom of speech, such as cartoonists, vulnerable. It has been clearly shown in many cases that 18D as it is is not sufficient; people can still be dragged through the courts, because truth, in the current legislation, is no defence.
The intention of the Racial Discrimination Act under these amendments will not change. As I have said, it is still designed to protect the very people it was introduced to protect, albeit with greater clarity and without overly burdensome restrictions on people's freedom of expression. This bill restores the balance, I believe, more appropriately, between people's freedom of expression and of political communications and the legislation we introduced and we oversee to make sure that the rights of particular individuals in our society are protected as far as possible.
I have been left with the impression from the comments of those opposite that they disagree with us because they fundamentally do not trust the Australian people enough to have confidence in Australians' ability to have robust but respectful discussions about issues that are critically important to our nation, to them, to their families and to our future. Again, we have heard some of those speeches today from those opposite; they are not only hinting but I think actually, in effect, saying that they do not trust Australians to have these respectful discussions on issues that are so important to them.
But I have far more faith in the Australian people. I do believe in their ability to have robust and respectful debates. Yes, there will always be people who take discussions on either side to extremes. But I think what this inquiry has shown us all is that it is possible, even amongst those of us in this chamber who have such diverse points of view, to still come together and have these debates, and if, in this chamber, we can come together and have these debates civilly and robustly and come up with a very comprehensive report that does justice to the input from all Australians who have submitted, I think that demonstrates, more than anything else, that we need to have a lot more faith in the Australian people that we can have these debates, on same-sex marriage, on freedom of speech and on other contentious issues, and not have to nanny-state them and say, 'We can't have these discussions because it will incite hatred.' I just do not believe that, because the majority of ordinary, sensible Australians will always triumph, I believe.
So I urge all of you in this place to have the same faith in the Australian public as I do, because, if we do not preserve the balance between our democratic freedoms and the rights that we implement, who will? (Time expired)
I rise to speak on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. In doing so, I wish to acknowledge Senator Reynolds was a member of the human rights committee that inquired into, particularly, 18C and 18D. Having said that, she would be well aware that there was no recommendation from that committee report that suggested that there should be a change to 18C. She would know that. She was a part of the committee inquiring into the report.
Senator Reynolds also mentioned that people are not talking about 18C. Her own colleague Mr Barnaby Joyce has indicated, to his colleagues and to the wider community, that people are not going up to him and saying, 'You have to do something about 18C.' What Senator Reynolds says to us here today is that, if you ask a different question, if you ask a question about freedom of speech, you will get a different response. And I am sure you would. Mr Joyce is not backwards in coming forwards. I think everyone in Australia would probably agree with that. But if you ask the question: 'Do you believe that we need protections to protect people from race hate?' I believe that, overwhelmingly, Australians would say yes, because this is not a racist country, and that is not what we are saying here. We are saying that the protections are in the act already. We are saying that 18C—and 18D, which provides the exemptions; that was glossed over by Senator Reynolds—is the balance that we need. That is what the Labor Party says. And of course the inquiry, as I have already indicated, found no basis to make this change.
What is even more galling is that the announcement of these changes was made on Harmony Day. I mean, seriously! Give me a break! Couldn't you have done something a bit better than that? We waited over a year to get a response to the inquiry into the violence, abuse and neglect against people with disability. And you responded within days to the inquiry into the Racial Discrimination Act—and on Harmony Day. The Prime Minister really should be ashamed.
This bill is about the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, selling his soul to keep his job. It is about the Prime Minister being forced into a position where he now says to the Australian people that racist hate speech is okay, simply to satisfy ideologues in his own party and his accomplices in One Nation. It is a sad state of affairs we find ourselves in.
As has been repeatedly stated by senior government frontbenchers, including, as I have already indicated, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Joyce, and the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, the changes in this bill are not in any way a priority for Australians, and will in fact hurt the government in ethnic communities. So where is the priority? The priority is in their own caucus room, and that is no way to run a government.
The bill changes the wording of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act by removing the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' and replacing them with the word 'harass'. There is no basis for this change, no logical reason why this should be done. This is an act that has served us well for over 40 years. It is one of the greatest gifts bestowed upon the Australian people by the Whitlam Labor government. It has stood the test of time as a hallmark of the values we, as a multicultural society, hold. In this country, we do not believe that people should be offended, insulted or humiliated simply on the basis of their racial or ethnic background. That is plainly wrong. Yet that is entirely the consequence of what this bill authorises.
The bill also creates a new objective standard for determining a breach of section 18C that does not allow courts to take into account the perspectives of minority groups. This is unbelievable—completely unbelievable. This is a deliberate weakening of protections against racial hate speech and racial discrimination. It is an absolute disgrace. This amendment is in fact a profound statement of what this government really stands for—what its modus operandi is.
The Senate must stand as the last line of defence from a government deliberately intent on inflicting harm on Australians from a minority background. Labor won the fight to protect Australia's laws against racial discrimination in 2014 and we will do it again. Of course this government has repeatedly failed to answer the simple question—and, in fact, I have heard Senator McKim ask this simple question: just what does the government want Australians to be able to say that they cannot say already under the existing law? Despite the government's decision not to answer this question, we know the answer. We know the answer because friend of the hard right in the Liberal Party—no friend of Mr Turnbull's—Mr Andrew Bolt, told us. Andrew Bolt has told us the truth—a truth that the Prime Minister and his government have tried not to mention: that the proposed changes to section 18C will allow more racial hate speech in Australia. According to Mr Bolt, a person will have to be insulted on the basis of their race five times before they could fall under the government's definition of 'harassment'—five times! Is this the acceptable standard that the government really wants to set? Apparently so. Labor believes that to be harassed just once on the grounds of race is not good enough, that to be offended, insulted, intimidated or humiliated just once is not good enough.
There can be no defence for racist hate speech. The Australian people agree. Just today we have seen polling in the Fairfax papers to back this up. The Fairfax Ipsos poll has found that an overwhelming majority of Australians oppose legalising speech that offends, insults or humiliates on the basis of race. The poll of about 1,400 voters shows that 78 per cent of Australians believe it should be unlawful to offend, insult or humiliate someone on the
basis of their race. Even 76 per cent of respondents who intend to vote for the coalition said they support retaining the words 'offend', 'insult' and 'humiliate' in the Racial Discrimination Act.
We know the number of Australians who say they intend to vote for the coalition is dwindling. It is no wonder when the government is so intent on ignoring the advice of their own ministers in pursuit of wacky ideological changes that are simply not on the radar of most Australians. Yet for some Australians these changes will have a deeply profound impact, and I want government senators to think about this. I want to quote from Australian of the Year finalist Mr Deng Adut from the page 1 story in today's Sydney Morning Herald. I think this is a particularly pertinent passage:
Australian of the Year finalist Deng Adut, a former South Sudanese child soldier who arrived in Australia as a refugee, said he was deeply concerned by the government's proposals.
'It's outrageous the Senate is thinking about doing this,' Mr Adut told Fairfax Media.
'This will be giving a free ticket to racism and telling the whole world we don't care about minorities.'
He said he did not believe Coalition MPs understood how damaging racist speech could be.
He said:
'In Australia politicians live very comfortable lives—they aren't the ones on the receiving end'—
of racism.
'Racism reduces you to a lesser being and that's what this legislation is about.'
'It's psychological pain, psychological injury—it holds people down.'
I ask government senators to let that sink in and to have a think about those words. 'It holds people down. It's psychological pain. It's psychological injury.' That is the legacy that Mr Turnbull wants to leave from his time in office as Prime Minister: racist hate speech. That is the gift that Mr Turnbull wants to give to Australians.
How can this government seriously condone what they are doing to our minority communities with this amendment? Really, it is deeply disturbing. Legal experts have agreed that the government's changes to 18C will significantly weaken the existing protections against racist hate speech. We know that ethnic and legal groups, including the Human Rights Commission, the Law Council of Australia and the Human Rights Law Centre, have raised serious concerns over this bill. The Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, can make ludicrous and erroneous references to free speech and Voltaire all he wants, but the fact is that this bill has nothing to do with political correctness. It has everything to do with deliberately targeting and singling out minority ethnic communities to make them feel less safe in their home, in their country. It is detrimental to individuals and to communities.
With this bill, this government is directly promoting racial hate speech in Australia. The Attorney and the Prime Minister cannot crab walk away from this damning and inconvenient truth. Let us not forget that, as I said earlier, the government chose to announce these changes on Harmony Day, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Well, there is a sickening twist if ever there was one. As they walk the tightrope of views in their own shattered and divided party room, the government have sought to bring this bill on without a proper debate. They have limited to just a few days the time available for a Senate inquiry. They deliberately excluded First Australians—unbelievable but true—through the Aboriginal Legal Service, from making adequate representations to that inquiry. A government dominated Senate inquiry did not call any Indigenous witnesses. Some respect for our First Australians shown there! For the government to exclude Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians from having a say on legislation that directly affects their ability not to suffer racist abuse in their own country is an absolute disgrace.
And isn't it interesting, Mr Acting Deputy President, that the government have chosen to introduce this bill into the Senate rather than into the other place. It is because the government believe this bill will be voted down in this place. It is all designed to stop them suffering an embarrassing and humiliating defeat on the floor of the other place, where they cannot be confident their own members will support their position. That is how deeply divided the mob over there are.
This bill has pitted members representing diverse communities against members and senators with an ideological obsession with section 18C. It is entirely unwarranted and entirely unfounded. The court has already interpreted section 18C so that it only applies to 'profound and serious effects, not to be likened to mere slights'. The discussion within the government on this made-up issue of free speech and political correctness continues to ignore completely the subsequent section in the act, section 18D, which provides relevant exemptions. Section 18D states:
Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith:
(a) in the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or
(b) in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or
(c) in making or publishing:
(i) a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or
(ii) a fair comment on any event or matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment.
At the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee hearing held on Friday, Mr Harry Oppermann, vice-chair of the Canberra Interfaith Forum, said the current provisions of 18D would have excluded the late cartoonist Bill Leak from any prosecution at all. I quote now from the Guardian Australia article titled 'Ethnic minority and legal groups concerned over Racial Discrimination Act changes', published on Friday, 24 March:
Oppermann said not a single person of his mother’s family, his father's family or their circle of friends survived the Holocaust.
'Both of my families were murdered in their entirety,' he told [Liberal senator] Fawcett.
'I know of no ethnic cleansing, massacre or genocide which was ever prevented by good speech.'
There is a broad coalition of opposition to this amendment bill from ethnic and religious minorities across Australia, the people who will be most affected by this change. We should heed their call, not the siren songs of free speech and anti political correctness emanating from the Institute of Public Affairs, One Nation and half the Liberal party room. Frankly, the Prime Minister too should have heeded their calls. He should be standing with our diverse and multicultural communities. Instead, he has turned his back on them. He has decided to side with One Nation and their leader, Senator Hanson. They have morphed into the one. They are one in the same: One Nation and the Liberal Party; the Prime Minister and Senator Hanson. Well, Labor will not abandon fundamental Australian values. We will not abandon the bedrock principles of the society we have built, where we encourage and respect diversity. We will stand with multicultural communities. We will stand with persecuted minorities. Labor will not support changes to the Racial Discrimination Act deliberately designed to make life harder for Australians from minority backgrounds.
This bill also makes a number of changes to the complaints-handling processes of the Australian Human Rights Commission. A number of these changes have been poorly drafted and rushed through without adequate consultation. That goes to part of the reason that Labor tried, earlier today, to allow more time to deal with this matter by moving a suspension of standing orders. It is disappointing that that motion was voted down, because the proposed changes put forward by the government would result in additional red tape, additional delay and added costs for parties to complaints. They will impede access to justice.
Amendments to this bill must be made to ensure that the government's poorly conceived changes to the complaints-handling procedures do not create new problems. That is why these issues need to be considered properly and in an orderly manner, not in a rushed manner designed to stem the bleeding from a politically wounded Prime Minister.
The Senate should draw to a close this act, draw to a close this tawdry debate, end the hand-wringing over section 18C and vote to protect the right of Australians to freedom— (Time expired)
I rise to make a contribution to this debate tonight on the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. Of all the pressing issues that the government has before it, they have chosen this issue rather than looking at the housing crisis, which is killing off Australian's dreams of home ownership; at the energy crisis, which has seen Australians pay higher energy costs without doing a thing about fossil fuels; and at climate change, and we have heard what their response to climate change is today. They seem to be in denial and making a joke of the fact that the Great Barrier Reef is currently having another serious episode of bleaching. What about the atrocious evidence we saw last night on Four Corners about abuse of people with a disability in residential and institutional settings? Instead of looking at these problems, the government has chosen this one, which even the member for McMillan has described as a '15th-order issue'.
You can bet that tomorrow they will be coming into this place at some stage saying, 'We need more hours, because there are all these other bills on the Notice Paper that we think are really important.' Instead of addressing those issues that they think are really important and that they themselves have admitted are priority issues, what they are doing is wasting time here on this particular issue—not that I am saying that protection from racial discrimination is not very important, because it is. But what those on the other side think is that it is okay to tear down those protections. They want to waste our time having this debate again, which most people thought had been put to bed after Mr Abbott's little blip in history. They are trying to drag that up again. Most people assumed that after his attack on the protections of racial discrimination it would have been consigned to the dustbin as yet another part of that blip in history where he was Prime Minister—along with things like the knighthood for Prince Philip and his very strange definition of 'no surprises and no excuses'. But, like some really bad zombie movie, this just refuses to stay buried. I am hoping that we will knock this off and then it will stay buried.
Here we are again talking about a change that nobody wants, that is good for nobody and that nobody thinks is needed except for a small group of people, most of whom have never experienced racial discrimination in their lives, and it is highly unlikely that they ever will. We have just had an extensive joint parliamentary inquiry by the human rights committee, which, despite being stacked by members of the Liberal Party, did not recommend that any changes be made to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. At the hearing I attended in Perth, overwhelmingly people wanted those measures to be retained.
In the last few days, we have had yet another Senate inquiry into this current bill—that is, if you can describe what happened on Friday as a Senate inquiry. It was an inquiry in which the chair banned the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service from appearing before it. Our first peoples, the people who have been subject to racial discrimination since colonisation, were excluded from giving evidence on Friday. Time after time the parliament hears about the continued need for protections against racial discrimination. For the joint parliamentary committee inquiry alone, we heard from hundreds of organisations, and thousands of individuals, about the need for racial discrimination protections. I want to specifically address the impacts of racism on our first peoples, on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the first peoples that the chair of the inquiry, Senator Macdonald, excluded from participation in the inquiry last week. ANTaR wrote a submission to the joint parliamentary inquiry saying that, far from being a theoretical discussion, racial discrimination has a very real impact on the health and wellbeing of our first peoples. They said, in their necessarily quick submission to the inquiry on Friday:
Racism and discrimination contribute to poor mental health, increased self-harm and suicide, decreased school attendance and lower workplace productivity, and participation in society more broadly.
When releasing their reconciliation barometer, which they do every two years—they released one towards the beginning of this year, which was actually—
Debate interrupted.
Last Thursday, 23 March, the Therapeutic Goods Administration's joint advisory committee on chemicals and medicines scheduling rejected an application made by the New Nicotine Alliance to permit the sale of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes. To be clear, the TGA, the advisory committee and ultimately the Department of Health oversee a poisons standard that allows the sale of nicotine in cigarettes. Cigarettes are the most harmful way to consume nicotine, yet the Department of Health allows them to be sold virtually everywhere. However, the same department is happy to enforce the ban on the sale of e-cigarettes to people who want to quit smoking and improve their quality of life.
In 1976 Professor Michael Russell published an idea in the British Medical Journal. He said, 'People smoke for nicotine but they die from the tar.' Based on his foundational work, nicotine replacement therapy was accepted as a way for smokers to quit. Patches, gum and sprays were developed in the knowledge that individual and population health outcomes improved when people could quit smoking with the help of these products.
If we fast-forward 40 years, e-cigarettes have been legalised and are widely used to reduce smoking rates across the developed world, with the United States and Europe leading the way. Recently, New Zealand and Canada have announced their intention to legalise e-cigarettes as well. Australia is the only country in the Anglosphere to maintain a ban. It is an extreme and out-of-touch position.
A conservative estimate for the United States published last year by leading international academics, including Professor Ron Borland from the Cancer Council Victoria, found that vaporised nicotine products, or VNPs, including e-cigarettes would save tens of thousands of lives. They say:
Based on current use patterns and conservative assumptions, we project a reduction of 21% in smoking-attributable deaths and of 20% in life years lost as a result of VNP use by the 1997 US birth cohort compared to a scenario without VNPs.
Obviously, the results are not directly comparable with Australia, but our Department of Health advise that tobacco consumption costs 15,000 Australian lives and $31.5 billion in economic and social costs each and every year, making smoking one the largest avoidable causes of death. Imagine that we could swiftly reduce that by 20 per cent: why would we not do so?
Public health bodies overseas and some of our leading anti-tobacco researchers are very supportive of e-cigarettes. Everyone—and I mean everyone—agrees that e-cigarettes are less harmful for smokers and those around them. Most people acknowledge that while there are some risks, especially of uptake by children, these are small and can be managed with appropriate regulation, given that there are not enough people in the whole of Australia who could use them to cause more harm in any reasonable public health equation. We have tried a lot of things over the years to get people to stop smoking, from research through public advertising to more coercive and controversial measures such as huge tax rises and plain packaging. I can only dream that they could all have such an impact on saving lives as e-cigarettes could. Given that tens of thousands of lives can be saved, we must ask whether there will be a time when Department of Health officials are called before parliament to answer for what they do and say now.
Ultimately, this is an easy question I ask myself and I ask others. Would you want a loved one who cannot or will not quit smoking to light a cigarette or to use an e-cigarette that is far less harmful and that may actually save their life? It is a simple question really, and I believe there is a very easy answer. And if we know the answer for our own love ones, how then can the Department of Health deny them to the whole Australian public?
I want to put on the record, to inform the ministers, Minister Hunt and Minister Gillespie, of the need for action in Australia. If the TGA and the Department of Health cannot do what is right here, then ultimately the parliament will have to do what is right and take this decision away from the ministers responsible.
I rise tonight to speak on something which I think most Queenslanders, certainly, and most Australians have been monitoring closely over the last few days, the impact of Tropical Cyclone Debbie, which hit the Queensland coast around lunchtime today. For several days now we have watched with a growing sense of dread the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts and radar as the cyclone grew in strength as it approached the North Queensland coastline. We are only now starting to get reports of the damage that has been caused as a result of this fierce category 4 cyclone. Some of the reports that we have received so far are that there have been wind gusts of up to 260 kilometres an hour as it passed over Hamilton Island and not much less as it hit the coast.
Even as the cyclone moves inland and has been downgraded, I think to category 3, it still has very high winds, which are causing a lot of damage as it works its way inland. The fact that it has been a very slow moving cyclone means that it has dumped an awful lot of rain wherever it travels, so I think we can expect to be hearing before too long reports of massive flooding, which will have very severe impacts on the North Queensland community. Obviously, wind gusts and torrential rain like that we have seen over the last 24 hours or so have a lot of effects. I know there are tens of thousands of houses in North Queensland which have lost power. Hundreds of schools have closed and tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. Obviously, most of the major transport connections, whether they be road, rail or air, have had to be closed until the worst of the cyclone has passed.
Apart from the immediate impact that this is having on North Queensland, when we see large cyclones like this in North Queensland we also unfortunately see very long lasting economic damage to communities. The area that the cyclone has passed through, around the Whitsundays, is one of Queensland's and Australia's most important tourism destinations. I am sure that many in this chamber have taken holidays there and know many others who have as well. The tourism industry is a major employer in that part of Queensland. I am very concerned to see what kind of effect this is going to have on the tourism industry. We have seen that other large cyclones like this have caused long-lasting damage to tourist facilities. I think that it will take several days before we can be fully aware of what the impact is going to be.
Cyclones like this can also potentially have massive effects on the natural environment: whether we are talking about rainforests or the Great Barrier Reef. As we know, the reef is already under threat from climate change and other factors, so it would be terrible if we were to hear that this cyclone has caused further damage to the reef.
It is likely that there is going to be extensive flooding through North Queensland as a result of this cyclone. Parts of Queensland are in drought and would welcome the rain, but I suspect that they are not looking for the level of rain they are getting right now. That most likely will also have some very damaging effects on agriculture and communities in that part of our state.
Over the course of the day I have made contact with a number of senior officials in Queensland, both to check on the situation and to offer any help that can be provided. I spoke this afternoon to the Queensland Deputy Premier, Jackie Trad, who will be overseeing the disaster response for the Queensland government. I have made contact with the Premier's office, with a number of state and federal MPs in the region and with the mayor of Whitsunday shire, Andrew Wilcox. I know that I am not alone, certainly among Queensland Labor senators but I suspect all senators here, in offering whatever support we can provide to the affected communities and governments in the days ahead.
I will mention in passing that there have been issues between the state government and the federal government over spending for NDRRA, the emergency assistance that is provided by the Commonwealth government. Today is not the day to be making political points about this, but I do just ask the Commonwealth government to have a generous attitude when it is assessing applications for funding to help repair this damage. These kinds of storms, when they come through, cause literally billions of dollars in damage, and it is important that the federal government does not take a penny-pinching approach in trying to help us repair this damage.
When we see cyclones like this, we also see the best of Queensland and see communities come together. I wish all the emergency services and energy workers well in the repair job.
I rise tonight to speak about a recently released report, The economic value of informal mental health caring in Australia. The report was published last Thursday—it was launched here in Parliament House—by Mind Australia and the University of Queensland.
In June 2015, an estimated 240,000 Australians were providing informal mental health care to an adult with mental illness. Fifty-four thousand of these were considered primary carers. The majority of these informal carers were female and of working age; 38.4 per cent of these carers were not in the workforce; 14.7 per cent of care providers were under the age of 25; and 49.1 per cent of those considered to be primary carers had been providing care for at least 10 years.
This is the first report of its kind to quantify the replacement cost of informal mental health caring in Australia. The report found that the number of hours of informal mental health care provided in 2015 was 208 million and that that would cost governments an estimated $13.2 billion—that is after offsetting any Centrelink payments—to provide formally in the mental health services sector. This amount is larger than the national expenditure on mental health of $8.5 billion for the 2014-15 financial year.
This demonstrates the crucial role that informal mental health carers such as family members and friends play in the care of people with mental illness in Australia and how important it is that these carers are supported so that they are able to continue their vital caring roles and maintain their own mental and physical health. Without this mostly unseen mental health workforce, the quality of life of those currently receiving this care would be significantly reduced.
The amount of money that the federal and state and territory governments spend on mental health carers is low compared with the value of care they provide. The report estimated the government expenditure on services for mental health carers to be approximately $1.2 billion for 2015, and $1.1 billion of this came from the federal government in the form of income support payments. In other words, when you take that out, a small amount is spent. Some mental health carers receive support; however, others do not. The report found that 35 per cent of primary mental health carers were unaware of the services that were available to them, and around 50 per cent of mental health carers reported that their support needs were not being met.
The report noted a number of key issues around support services, including the limited availability of information regarding such services and the requirement for additional assistance, including respite care—which is a very big issue—and psychological support, and for these services to meet their intermittent caring needs. More should be done to provide this cohort of carers with better services to meet their needs, including the provision of flexible services that align with their caring responsibilities and support them in their caring roles. There is also a need to ensure that information regarding available support services is disseminated more widely so that more people are aware of what is available.
Going forward, it is also important to ensure that mental health carers are not further disadvantaged by the national rollout of the NDIS. While those they care for may receive services under the NDIS—and that is by no means guaranteed, given that the NDIS will only provide services and supports, and packages will only be available, to a relatively small percentage of the people with mental illness in Australia—we need to make sure that the needs of carers themselves are not overlooked, especially when various funding streams are being transferred to the NDIS.
We need to remember that we have to look after and support all those informal mental health carers who are providing so much valuable support in our community—support which, if you combine it with that provided by other carers in Australia, adds up to about $60 billion. That is a tremendous contribution. We need to be recognising that and supporting the contribution of all carers, in particular the informal mental health carers, in Australia.
I rise to speak on an issue that is incredibly important to Australia, the future of the metals-manufacturing industry in this country. In the metals-manufacturing sector, steel and aluminium play a vital part in the Australian economy, particularly in regional Australia. You only need to look to see the vital role that steel plays in a number of regional communities and economies from Newcastle to Wollongong and in Queensland. The aluminium industry provides thousands of jobs in Gladstone.
Certainly the threats to Australia's steel and aluminium industries come from a number of factors which include low international prices and a significant restructure of the industry. Certainly energy security also plays a vital role, and the federal government's lack of action on energy and particularly on gas is a gross act of negligence by the federal government. Chatting to a few CEOs around a table does not make for an energy policy that is going to deliver for workers and manufacturing in Australia.
But we must look at the role that dumping plays in the Australia and particularly in the manufacturing industry. Dumping is the practice of goods being exported to Australia below their normal worth, often with the intention of weakening your competitors. Many of the manufacturers who dump goods are from state-owned corporations and are subsidised. Statistics released by the ABS recently show that imports of Chinese aluminium to Queensland have increased from $150 million to $168.5 million in 2015-16. These figures show a concerning trend.
A report by the federal government's own Anti-Dumping Commission released in September highlighted this critical point:
The ongoing significant global over-supply has depressed steel and aluminium prices, resulting in prolonged difficult trading conditions for steel and aluminium producers generally, including in Australia.
However, the deliberate distortion of the global market by foreign manufacturers has led to a significant global oversupply of steel and aluminium. These foreign manufacturers are often state-subsidised and state-owned. This oversupply has been as a result of a deliberate intention by overseas manufacturers to weaken international competitiveness and harm Australia's steel and aluminium industry.
The OECD has expressed concern about the role of market distortions when they said 'excess capacity in one region can displace production in other regions, thus harming producers in those markets'. Furthermore, the OECD goes on to explicitly call out 'unfair trade practices such as dumping'. I am not advocating to exempt Australian steel and aluminium from global competitiveness. I am merely advocating for fair trade practices by countries who want to export their products to Australia—fair trade practices for those workers in Gladstone who just want a level playing field.
The Anti-Dumping Commission was established by the previous Labor government in 2013 to look into complaints by Australian companies against overseas companies who seek to dump products in Australia. In my home state of Queensland, we have seen thousands of Gladstone aluminium jobs vanish, in part, due to this oversupply of aluminium in the market. Gladstone has a proud history in the aluminium industry—from QAL, which turns bauxite into alumina, to Boyne Smelters, which is where the alumina is smelted into aluminium. Thousands of aluminium jobs have been lost overseas. When overseas companies dump cheap and state-subsidised products into the global market with the aim of harming international competitiveness it is Gladstone families who lose out.
My colleague Senator Carr is well attuned to the problems facing the industry and so is federal Labor leader, Bill Shorten. At the last election, we announced a comprehensive plan to secure the future for steel and aluminium. A Labor government would ensure that Australian building standards are upheld on government-funded projects, the use of locally-produced steel on federal government projects is prioritised and the anti-dumping regime currently in place has suitable enforcement and penalty options available to them. Labor will also create a national steel supplier advocate. At this critical point for the manufacturing sector, we need to ensure that the Australian government brings the industry together and that industry, unions and state governments all have a seat at the table so that we stand by this valuable industry in our country.
It is a pleasure to rise tonight to continue my contributions to this place on the positive and good things coming out of Tasmania. Tonight it is a real pleasure to speak about a remarkable young Tasmanian man by the name of Campbell Remess—a young man who I firmly believe deserves high recognition, and at such a young age. I suspect some of my Tasmanian colleagues, including Senator Whish-Wilson, may be familiar with Campbell's work, but I will quote briefly from his website, which is called Project 365:
My name is Campbell but everyone calls me Bumble.
I’m 12 years old. When I was 9 I asked mum and dad if we could buy christmas presents for kids in hospital when they told me it would cost too much I decided to make them. I decided that I would make 1 present a day which is 365 a year and give them all away.
The local, national and international media reporting on Campbell has given me a bit of an insight into this young man, what drives him and what makes him such a special young person. As his website states, he is 12 years old. I think the reason his mum and dad told him that he could not afford to buy the presents is that he has eight siblings. The global attention he has received for simply having a kind heart is, I think, a great reminder of what is good about humanity—something we do not see enough of in this day and age.
As his website suggests, he spends his time making teddy bears by hand—a skill he taught himself over the last couple of years—and he presents those bears as gifts to sick children at the local Royal Hobart Hospital. As I understand it from the media reporting on Campbell and his story, he felt the impact of cancer at home, with his father, who has beaten the disease four times over. Campbell made his father a bear. He said in recent media coverage:
Cancer gets worse with stress, so I made him the bear, so he could get rid of the cancer.
What an amazing thing for a young child to say and what an amazing act for them to undertake for their father.
More recently, Campbell raised over $26,000 for cancer research at a gala dinner held in Hobart. At the gala dinner, Campbell sat up on stage and sewed together another teddy bear, which took 45 minutes, and then it was sold for the decent sum of $5,000, which also went to cancer research. Now he says that he wants to host one of these events in every capital city across the country—and I say: power to him. If there are any colleagues here who want to help him host that, I would encourage them to reach out. Just to further demonstrate how kind this young man is, he even made two teddy bears for the kids who lost their parents in the Dreamworld tragedy and sent the bears up to them.
Campbell has become somewhat of a global sensation. There are videos about his life and what he does. His kind acts have attracted over 30 million views online. He has had international support and interest from celebrities, including through Ellen DeGeneres's fan website and also the New York fashion designer, Malan Breton, who has donated over 100 metres of faux fur to Campbell and has reportedly put in a good word with reputable sewing machine maker, Brother, to give him some more support.
I think everyone would have to agree that he is very much a special kid. He stated in an interview with the Daily Mail:
Lots of people like skateboarding and socialising with their friends, I just like coming home and sewing.
When we know what the reason is for him doing the sewing, again, we cannot but be impressed by how kind this young man is. The fact that he does so much for a good cause, from the heart and with such humility, is just simply amazing.
Back home in Tassie, local media have covered some of the comments on his Facebook page and what people have stated about the impact he has had on their lives. One mother, Julia, whose son received one of Campbell's 'Winner' bears, said:
You really do bring sunshine to people's lives. It's amazing how something so simple as a teddy bear can make such a difference.
In a world where there's more take than give, where greed becomes stronger than generosity, you are the exception and I hope everyone can take a piece of your message and pay it forward.
More recently, Campbell created a teddy bear for one of my good friends and Tasmanian parliamentary colleague Dr Vanessa Goodwin, who has recently been diagnosed with brain tumours. So I am urging all colleagues and all Australians to get on board and support this amazing young man and what he does. Go to his website www.project365bycampbell.com.au to help this young man help so many others.
On this night when Cyclone Debbie is wreaking havoc on our fellow Australians in Queensland, I would also like to acknowledge that I understand you will always be Queenslanders first but as a southerner, south of the border, I say that we are praying for your safety and the safety of your families and community and we sincerely hope and trust that there are no lives lost and people are able to recover as quickly as possible after this great storm has passed.
I rise this evening to welcome a very important agreement that was reached last Friday on the Central Coast between the Central Coast Council, local garbage workers and their union. This is a deal that will end a deadlock that has gone on for far too long, and it will indeed protect workers' rights and end the dispute. I feel a bit like Senator Duniam: it is quite nice to actually have a good story to tell about industrial relations instead of the shameful stories that we have been hearing throughout the parliament all week.
It is enormously disappointing that our hardworking local waste workers had to fight for 18 months against a Liberal-controlled council in the first place and then a Liberal-imposed amalgamation and administration just to get the same pay for the same work. These workers have been negotiating for a new enterprise agreement since February 2015. My office has been advocating on their behalf for nearly 18 months as well, to try and draw attention to the injustice of the deal that was being offered. And this goes to the nature of insecure work, which is everywhere in our community.
At the end of each contract for doing the waste works in our areas, a tendering process begins, and it involves companies tendering at the lowest hourly rate frequently being the ones who win the contract. Accordingly, the hourly rate of the employee drops to suit the incoming tenderer. Furthermore, with each new contract, workers had to reapply for their positions and forfeited any accrued entitlements. It is shameful to think that is going on. With the councils' finances funded by people in the local community, we want our local workers to be paid fairly for the work that they do. We want our local workers to be in secure employment in our community, and certainly this was not the situation.
Finally, a deal has been negotiated by the Transport Workers Union, and it was achieved with the Central Coast Council and their officers to end this completely untenable situation. Happily, it includes a clause that requires the council to include in its tender negotiations for the contract: continuing employment for the employees of the current contractor, assurance that all existing employees receive statutory leave entitlements that are recognised by those that tender, an agreed minimum rate of pay for those employees, and an immediate end of industrial action.
I was proud to stand with the waste workers as they stood up for their rights and did strike. It is a terrible inconvenience for the community, but the community have been supporting them. They have been out at Woy Woy and Gosford train stations, all the way up to Wyong, helping the community understand that, in moving around in the community with such heavy machinery, there are safety issues. We cannot afford a casualised workforce where people who do not know how to manage that heavy equipment are forced into the community on insecure wages.
I am very pleased that this agreement removes the potential threat of workers being sacked by a new contractor and means that their rights that have been ignored in the past will now be honoured. Our great local garbos, as we affectionately call them, and their families now have job security. This agreement keeps food on the table and mortgages being paid for hundreds of local families, and it safeguards local jobs from severe cuts to pay and conditions. Critically, it now offers significant protections that workers did not have before.
The impact on our regional economy is very significant. We have seen the short-sightedness of this government opposing penalty rates and not standing up for Australian workers. We have seen from the Australia Institute that this government failing to stand up for decent wages for workers could stand to cost Australia $650 million. They just do not understand the economics of taking the money out of a regional economy. It does not grow the economy; it shrinks it. It is a threat to small businesses, it is a dangerous practice, and it is the foolishness of this government that we are seeing in regard to that on display very frequently.
I particularly acknowledge the great efforts and great civic leadership of Ian Hankinson, who led the men from the depot and got a great outcome for them. But remember: part of the pressure that applied for this was the fact that there was a by-election. Otherwise I doubt the Liberal government would have come to any support of this arrangement. (Time expired)
I rise tonight to put on record my alarm, anger, frustration and sadness at what is happening in the Great Barrier Reef at the moment. The whole world is hearing about a second back-to-back mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef. This has been portrayed by scientists who have been studying the Great Barrier Reef for over 25 years, including Professor David Booth from UTS, who appeared at a Senate inquiry that I was chairing, as the worst bleaching event that they have seen. This is the fourth mass bleaching event of the Great Barrier Reef in the last 20 years. Sadly, it looks like much of the reef will not recover.
I rise tonight to put on record to the Australian people that there are some politicians and members of parliament in this building who do care deeply about the future of the Great Barrier Reef, our environment, the communities and the jobs that rely on the Great Barrier Reef. I rise tonight to let the Australian people know that there are some members of parliament, especially among the Australian Greens, who have been consistent in calling for the action on emissions that we know is so important to the warming waters and the damage that that is doing to these precious ecosystems that support the marine life, including our commercial fisheries in places like Queensland. And I rise tonight to put on record that there is one political party that is above the political opportunism and the political populism that goes with denying climate science and the impact it is having on our lives and on precious places like the Great Barrier Reef.
I also rise tonight to express my consternation at the answers I got from Senator Birmingham in question time today when I asked some very serious questions. I asked the government to update the Senate on the state of this fourth mass bleaching event, which is attracting international news. The news, we know, is already grim. But I expected that the government would have answers. I was deeply shocked that the government has not even analysed the data dating back to last October, nearly six months ago. I also asked a question on why the government is lobbying to keep the Great Barrier Reef off the World Heritage Endangered List, especially given these back-to-back bleaching events. I did not get a straight answer. In fact, I did not get an answer at all. It seems to me that the government have their heads in the sand. They do not want to analyse the data on the bleaching of the reef because it is so embarrassing for them. Every Senate question time so far in the last two parliamentary sittings, they have been actively encouraging so-called clean coal. We are exporting coal and climate change to the rest of the world and it is an embarrassment to this government when the world's largest organism is dying.
I was also gobsmacked today when Senator Birmingham and other members of the coalition parties seemed to think it was funny or somehow a joke when I mentioned the grief expressed by Professor Terry Hughes, one of the more eminent climate scientists who lives and studies the Great Barrier Reef, and the grief expressed by his students, scientists studying the Great Barrier Reef. They seemed to think it was a big joke. Well, it is not a big joke; it is actually very sad and very serious. I have no doubt that this bleaching event is going to have very serious ramifications for Queensland. If we do not do something about it, it is only going to get worse.
I rise here tonight to say that the Greens will continue to take the hardest possible line on keeping fossil fuels in the ground and doing everything we can to reduce global emissions so that we can save our reefs and the communities that depend on them.
It is with sadness that I rise this evening to acknowledge the passing of Andrew Burry. His passing, this week, has come as a great shock to a great many people. Now is not the time for long tributes, but I do want to join with all those in the HIV and LGBTI communities in acknowledging his passing. Andrew recently served as the CEO of the Western Australian AIDS Council for some four years. He has also served as the vice-president of the Australian Federation of AIDS Councils and is well known here in the ACT as the former general manager of the AIDS Action Council of the ACT. He has also been part of the Victorian AIDS Council and sat on the board of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations.
In rising tonight to pay tribute briefly to Andrew, I really want to acknowledge what a significant contributor he has been to the HIV response in Australia. His knowledge, expertise and experience is going to be sorely missed by a great many, especially in my home state of WA. He was well-known as having an irreverent sense of humour but also as a strong champion for disaffected communities. He was a leader in both the HIV and LGBTI communities. As I said before, over a very long time he was an active and significant contributor to the HIV response in Australia. I want to join with people from a wide range of organisations in expressing my condolences to his family tonight.
Andrew Burry served the Australian community with distinction and purpose. The President of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, Dr Bridget Haire, said:
Andrew's powerful, robust advocacy was informed by an unshakeable conviction that community-led responses matter. His leadership, and the AIDS Council's standing, were recognised by the WA Government, which has announced that the Western Australian PrEP trial will be largely managed through WAAC's M Clinic.
Dr Haire also said:
His insights and experience have contributed greatly to AFAO's mission.
It is no small feat to get a PrEP trial up and running in Western Australia, and I think it is really testament to Andrew's great community engagement capacity and his community leadership. ACON's CEO, Nicolas Parkhill, said:
Many in the HIV sector knew Andrew to be a wonderful person who contributed a great deal to the Australian HIV response, in many roles, over many years. Countless people around the country will miss him greatly on both personal and professional levels.
Tonight, in briefly acknowledging Andrew's passing, we have lost a great community advocate. I pay tribute to the legacy that I know he will leave to the community for a great many years to come.
I rise to speak about the 1800RESPECT service because over the past few months there has been a real concern about this service. This is what happens when something is not quite right, because we have seen media coverage, we have online petitions, we have social media advocacy and the union has been speaking out and has been active. It is, of course, causing senators like me and Senator Moore to ask questions. In short, there is a real level of unease from various members in our community about the future of the 1800RESPECT service. It causes me great concern, and it ought to cause great concern in this chamber.
This is a service that offers unique and vital assistance. Domestic violence and sexual assault numbers show consistent growth despite the fact that most of other violent crime rates are falling. Since 2010, this service has been the only national provider of expert, qualified counselling, information and support for very vulnerable women. These women who, facing sexual assault or domestic and family violence, can get the help they need when they need it—or at least that was the plan.
Unfortunately, we now have a crucial service—a service that offers support to women in crisis—in limbo thanks to the dysfunction and the neglect of the Turnbull government. In August, as part of a restructuring, the government implemented a triage system. Callers are directed first through a call centre at Medibank Health Solutions, and it appears that the counsellors that undertake this triage process do not have the same level of skill and expertise as did the previous provider. The restructure has also meant that the existing service provider, Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, has had to tender to continue for the provision of the service. In some regard, that might be considered unremarkable, except that MHS provided RDVSA with just four days to complete an expression of interest. That is an unreasonable time frame to give any provider to make a reasonable application, let alone the one that has been running the service for the past six years.
There are serious questions about this process, and so far they remain unanswered. I have sent a list of 17 questions on notice to the Department of Social Services, and I am yet to receive an answer. These questions go to the process for allocating resources to Medibank Health Solutions and, in turn, to other providers within that network of service provision. These questions go to monitoring the performance of these services. And these questions go to the contractual arrangements which establish the level of service that will be provided to Australian women through this service, which has served us very well.
The minister, so far, has sought to hide behind the fact that there is a subcontractual arrangement in place and that, therefore, for some reason, he cannot be named responsible for this chain of events. This is simply unacceptable. This is a government service provided to address a serious social problem—a problem which all Australians in recent years have recognised as requiring the most urgent attention from government. It is simply unacceptable that the minister is unwilling to take responsibility and explain to the Australian public what is happening with this service and what steps he is taking to ensure this service remains in place at the standard it has been previously for Australian women. He owes it to Australia's most vulnerable women to resolve this situation.
I rise tonight to talk about Western Australia and the GST. It is obvious to people in this chamber that the McGowan Labor government was swept into power a couple of weeks ago in Western Australia—in fact, a tsunami of seats were won—because the McGowan Labor government offered a fresh approach. They are committed to reducing the disgraceful debt that was run up by the Barnett Liberals, and they are fighting for a fair share of the GST. The McGowan Labor government has promised to do that against a backdrop of complete inaction by Western Australian Liberal MPs and senators on speaking up for Western Australians on the issue of the GST.
What is needed is a fairer distribution of the GST. These Liberal MPs and senators have consistently let down Western Australians. They have failed to deliver for their state. It is not as if they are backbenchers. In fact, the only person I have ever heard talk about the GST is Senator Dean Smith, a Western Australian Liberal senator. He has spoken out, but he too has failed miserably in getting a fairer share of the GST for Western Australia. But at least Senator Smith has spoken out.
Let us talk about the senior Liberals who are not backbenchers: two are in the junior ministry, four are cabinet ministers and two members help comprise the four-person leadership group. They are very, very senior people within the Turnbull government, but, since 2013, they have sat on their hands and zipped their lips when it comes to WA's share of the GST. As I said, they have repeatedly left it to Senator Dean Smith, who also, along with them, has failed to deliver. But one could argue it is much harder for a backbencher and far easier when you are a senior player in the Turnbull government. But none of them have ever spoken about it, and they have left Western Australia to just flounder on its own.
This has been the topic of much discussion in the newspapers in Western Australia. In last week's edition of The Sunday Times, Peter van Onselen belled the cat when he said:
Barnett must have hoped for more when the Coalition seized power back in 2013.
Julie Bishop is deputy Liberal leader, what has she achieved on GST outcomes for WA? Without her support Malcolm Turnbull never would have ousted Abbott as PM. Why didn't Bishop demand GST reform as the price for her backing?
Mathias Cormann is Deputy Senate Leader, and will probably be Senate Leader before the year is over. As Finance Minister to boot what has he done to fix the GST inequity his home State suffers from?
Christian Porter moved to Canberra after a stint as WA treasurer, using his maiden speech to declare his passionate desire to fix WA's GST distribution. Since then he's gone from the backbench to a stint as parliamentary secretary to a PM (having the ear of the leader) to Cabinet and a place at the table of the powerful Expenditure Review Committee.
Has he lost his passion for this issue or simply been unable to achieve outcomes?
Michaelia Cash is touted as a rising star in Canberra, having been promoted to Cabinet by Turnbull, making her one of the most senior women in the Government. As a Senator her job first and foremost is to represent her home State. Well?
Why hasn’t she put the acid on Turnbull …
That was in the Sunday Times just last Sunday, and there have been pieces in the West Australian and the Sunday Times for weeks on end.
Less than 35c in the dollar is WA's GST allocation, and it is a problem. And it is not just a problem for WA but also for the national parliament. Of course the GST distribution is a difficult issue, there is no doubt about that, and one where each state and territory has a vested interest in getting the greatest share of the GST for their own state. We all get that, we certainly get that, but that does not mean the federal government just ignores it. The over-representation of WA MPs and senators in senior roles in the Turnbull government does not mean they can put their heads in the sand and fail to represent the interests of Western Australians on the GST.
The new McGowan state Labor government is hot to trot on this issue, make no mistake. It will not go away quietly on the issue of the GST. Western Australian Liberal MPs and senators, particularly those in senior positions within this government, can no longer ignore this issue. The recent wipe out, the tsunami, of the Barnett government came—one way it came about was because it was out of touch and arrogant. That should be a lesson for the federal Liberal government. All of those seats it now holds in the House of Representatives are under threat, and this issue is a hot topic for Western Australians. If they ignore the media, the editorials, the letters in the newspapers, then they will be going the same arrogant way that the Barnett government went. The issue of a fair distribution of the GST will remain an issue for Western Australians, but I doubt very much whether the out-of-touch current federal MPs and senators will see that. It is time the Turnbull government either put up or shut up on this issue.
Last month I had the great privilege of attending Investing in African Mining Indaba 2017, or Indaba 2017, representing the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Senator Canavan and also representing the Australian government. The conference was held in Cape Town in South Africa.
With everything going on in the world, it is very easy for Australia to overlook the significance of the scale and scope of our resources sector right across the African continent and the amazing work it is doing for both the Australian economy and for more than 40 African countries. There are enormous opportunities for further economic growth and jobs, particularly for my home state of Western Australia, while at the same time assisting responsible development, community development and economic development right across the African continent.
Now in its 23rd year, Mining Indaba is the world's largest mining investment conference. This year it was attended by more than 7,000 delegates—many hundreds from Australia. This was a nearly 50 per cent increase on last year, which has been largely attributed to the resurgence of commodity prices and increasing confidence in the sector, particularly in Western Australia. At Indaba there were several hundred representatives from Australian based extractive companies and also from mining equipment, technology and service—METS—companies. Again, they were predominantly from my home state of Western Australia. I found it somewhat ironic having to go all the way to Cape Town to meet so much of west Perth, but they were a great group of people and I particularly enjoyed my engagement with them all.
As I said, at Indaba there were several hundred Australian representatives. One of the biggest stories—one that is largely untold here in Australia, but which I think is a great one—is that today there are more than 200 ASX listed extractive companies operating in more than 600 locations in 40 African countries, and some have been there for several decades. These companies have already invested more than $45 billion right across the African continent. In addition to the ASX listed companies, there are many more Australian based extractive and METS companies with operations in Africa who are listed on overseas exchanges. One of the great stories from Indaba was to hear how many of these companies are implementing wide-ranging sustainability and community development projects, not only in consultations with the local communities but also with a wide range of NGOs, including Transparency International Australia. To date, most of these activities remain largely uncaptured by the companies outside of their companies, because they are just simply the way of doing business now. Consequently, these are stories that are untold in Australia. But it is a wonderful story of community engagement development that can coexist with responsible mining practices.
Austrade were also very predominant there. With the sponsorship of major Australian mining and METS companies, they once again mounted the largest exposition at Indaba. It was certainly the most popular lounge of any country there. Australia at its best was truly on display. The Australia lounge was the go-to venue in the conference hall. It was a lively hub for Australian sponsors for all of Australia's heads of mission, Australian officials, many African ministers and their officials and a wide range of conference delegates. The fact that the Australian government had sent an official representative was extremely well received by all of those involved. I think that is indicative of the opportunities they provide Australia—particularly my home state of Western Australia, which has such close connections with many African countries.
The Australian government's policy of economic diplomacy was also on full display. It was particularly pleasing to see the extent of local engagement and cooperation between our companies, between our diplomats, between our universities on the ground—technical colleges, state mining departments and many Australian NGOs. It was clear to me, however, that this largely organic collaboration would benefit from further and more formalised liaison and integrated planning. This is an issue that I addressed in detail in my report to the government on my return.
While the downturn in commodity prices has produced its challenges, millions of people globally, particularly on the African continent, can continue to be lifted out of poverty by the sustainable and responsible development of extractive resources. The recent uplift in commodity prices provides a great opportunity for further economic development. Mining development also presents challenges for responsible governments across Africa, who are in the process of developing internal democratic institutions, wide-ranging social reforms and regulatory systems, as well as the supporting legislation and bureaucracies to sustain those institutions. But specifically in this case, their challenge is to more effectively regulate the operation of extractive companies to ensure that their national resources and their people are not exploited and that their nations gain the social and economic benefits that these industries can provide. It is clear that many countries across Africa are now doing just that. Australia is a resource rich country with a globally established reputation for excellence in mining, and companies willing to invest in Africa are ideally placed to further share our experiences and expertise in a wide range of mining extractive METS and mining service support industries.
It was very pleasing to see the Australian government is working in close partnership, not only with the companies involved and with the NGOs but also with state departments and TAFEs who—again from my home state of Western Australia—in particular have expanded their support for these industries and African nations. But it is clear that there is so much more that Australia can do in these areas with relatively modest but well targeted development investments that I think would seamlessly integrate with the work being done by companies and NGOs in local communities and at mine sites. Extensive experience of the Australian resources sector on the African continent provides a valuable source of information and a template for other Australian industries on how to expand in this rapidly developing market.
Australia's relationship with Africa, however, goes well beyond mining. We share significant economic and security interests with many African nations. I think it is important to Australia that our engagement strengthens the capacity of African nations to capitalise on the benefits of population growth and socioeconomic development. Australia's flagship aid investment in Africa is the substantial but very well targeted Australia Award scholarship program. Last year alone, 268 Australia Awards scholarships were provided to African students, with—pleasingly—almost 50 per cent of those now going to women.
Today, there are over 6,000 Australia Awards alumni in Africa. In addition to building their critical skills and knowledge, this program has now fostered—and I met many of them while I was there—an influential network of leaders, particularly in the local communities and in business, who are promoting a new generation of links between Australia and many African nations. In fact, 98 per cent of the alumni surveyed reported that they were applying their award-acquired learning in their jobs today right across Africa.
Australians understand the sustainable economic benefits of a well governed mining industry; that it can bring growth, jobs and investment which flow through to higher living standards for all in Australia. This is true not just as I said in Australia but also in Africa. It was clear at Indaba that Australia, across many, if not all, of the countries we now operate in, had established a strong reputation as a trusted and knowledgeable resources partner, both in mining technologies and also, critically, in community based sustainable programs. I have listed many of those in my report, and they deserve much more attention and recognition here in Australia.
There is no shadow of doubt in my mind that Africa matters to Australia and that it will matter even more in the near future. I believe now is the time to deepen and broaden our ties across this wonderfully vibrant and diverse continent—with almost a billion people, millions of whom are now moving into the middle class and looking for many of the goods and services that we can provide them.
It is clear that Australia has much to offer, and I think that is particularly the case in Western Australia, particularly in the area of economic diplomacy but also in the area of sustainable development. I think the upcoming foreign affairs white paper is the perfect place to start addressing a renewed relationship with countries on the African continent.
On many occasions I have spoken in this chamber about the importance and the priority that this government has failed to give to the ageing population of this country. We know that there have been a number of ministers in the role of minister for aged care, but we have not seen, either from the Abbott government or from the Turnbull government, a minister for ageing.
We also know that over $3 billion has been gutted from the aged-care sector over the last three to four years. We also know that we have a rapidly ageing population and we know that workforce issues are paramount to the care that Australians expect and what they deserve. We have had numerous conversations in this chamber in relation to penalty rates, and I will come to that and how that will affect those people caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our country.
But we know that part of the money that has been taken away from the aged-care sector was always earmarked for the development of a workforce strategy. This government has absolutely failed to show any leadership at all when it comes to rolling out the reforms that were part of the former Labor government's Living Longer Living Better policy development. In fact, they have never really had their eye on the ball since they took government; consequently, the rollout of the reform has been not as smooth as it should have been.
I also believe, from the feedback I am getting from the sector, that this government has missed many opportunities to communicate and engage with the sector, to ensure that we have not only a highly skilled workforce but one that can meet the needs of older Australians. We know that, in my home state of Tasmania over the next decade, we are going to need around 5,000 additional aged-care workers. Where are they going to come from? It is the government's responsibility, even though it wants to push that responsibility onto the aged-care sector. It is also its responsibility to show leadership.
Last year was a very mediocre year, I would suggest, for this government. I know, from the people I talk to throughout the sector when I visit homes and when I meet with the various interest groups from within that sector, that they feel somewhat let down by this government. But it is all contributed to by their total dysfunction. The Prime Minister has been unable to show any leadership at all. They went to the last election promising jobs and growth and have delivered neither of those things—apart from, I understand, the Prime Minister looking to employ extra social-media advisers. Well, I would have to say that he needs more than social-media advisers if he is going to turn the fortunes of his government around.
This government has failed to seize the opportunities that are there in terms of the aged-care sector. There are great job opportunities. There needs to be a career path for those people working in the sector. We need to be talking up how valuable those people working in the aged-care sector are.
As recently as last month, we had consumer directed care rolled out, which means that those people who are still able to live in their own homes will be able to have support. But the big difference is: instead of the pot of money going from the federal government to the providers, each individual will be able to direct the sort of care that they want. So they will be able to spend their pot of money and to choose the sorts of services that they want. That works marvellously well, and it will, I am sure, without any doubt, in the major cities around this country. But when it comes to regional and rural Australia, unfortunately, that is not going to be the case, because (1) they do not have choice of providers, and (2) if you go out to remote areas in this country and to the Aboriginal communities, you will very quickly see that the CDC rollout is not going to work there. That is not because of this government—I am not suggesting that that is why it is not going to work. What I am suggesting very strongly is that this government has not listened to those people who are working in remote areas of this country. Unfortunately, it is not going to work there. The government needs to take heed of that and to look at other ways of delivering those services. I have spoken many times about what the government could be doing, and I am well aware that Indigenous community groups and people working in the sector have also raised their concerns with this government.
Unfortunately, the government has, yet again, added to the anxiety of older Australians who do not understand what this all means for them, because the government has failed to run an education campaign. It failed to inform anyone who was not already receiving these sorts of home-care packages. That, quite frankly, is a failing. I had raised that with the former minister but, unfortunately, she flew out the door.
The other area that really is of concern to the sector is the ACAT assessments—the assessments made of an individual as to what sort of support they need to enable them to stay in their own home or go into residential care. Now, here is an extraordinary thing. I have been to Senate estimates hearings on aged care for a lot of years now, and I really could not believe it. Here was a golden opportunity for the minister to ensure her department—or his department it was then—came to those estimates able to answer questions; they were pretty basic sorts of questions around: 'How long is it taking the assessment, through ACAT, around the country—just a breakdown in states?' I thought that was a pretty obvious question if you are running such an important area of government policy. But they were shocked that I would ask the question. I was mortified for them that they could not answer a simple question like that and had to take it on notice.
But maybe I can help them, because I have had so many calls to my office and I have spoken to so many other colleagues around this country. I will give you an example. Can you believe this? I have had one call from a worried daughter whose mother has just come out of respite and has been assessed for a level IV package. That is a pretty high package; it would indicate that they need a fair bit of assistance, but they have been given three different waiting times for her mother to receive the package. The worst was for a one-year wait! Quite frankly, this is unacceptable. That woman's health is going to deteriorate more. If she has to wait for a year, then the possibility is that she is going to deteriorate to the point where she may have to go into residential care.
Another person, a gentleman, has called my office distressed because his 93-year-old father has been told that he will not get access to a home-care package for—wait for it—three years! He is 93, and they expect him to wait for another three years! Well, I sincerely hope that he is still here in three years, but it will not be through any assistance from this government or the department.
When it comes to penalty rates, what the government is saying is that we are overreacting and that it is not going to go beyond shop assistants; it is not going to go beyond people who work in hospitality; it is not going to go beyond people who work in pharmacies; it is not going to go beyond—anything that you want to name, in its view. But in each and every one of those sectors, the people who work there deserve their penalty rates. But the secret is already out because the government is trying to say that essential services will not be affected; however, aged care and registered nurses are not protected, because they do not work in the public hospital system. We already have a crisis where we do not have enough people working in aged care and we do not have enough registered nurses working in this sector. It is not necessarily because we cannot attract them, although that is part of it but the aged-care sector pays somewhere between 20 per cent and 40 per cent less than someone who is a registered nurse in the public health system. Take penalty rates away from registered nurses who work in aged care, take penalty rates away from those caring for the most vulnerable, and what will we have? We will have a tsunami.
We cannot, at this point in time, guarantee that we are going to have enough people to look after those who are in care now and who are getting assistance that they need at home. What is going to happen if this government is allowed to take away the penalty rates of those who look after the most vulnerable, the people we should respect: older Australians?
I want to talk tonight about the impacts of global warming. I watched in horror recently as senior government ministers handed around a lump coal in the House of Representatives and laughed, joked and cheered as if coal was some kind of climate saviour rather than one of the major causes of global warming that it actually is.
I have listened in disbelief recently as Prime Minister Turnbull, with no evidence whatsoever, blamed renewable energy for problems in South Australia caused by transmission lines being impacted by extreme weather. Today, I fumed in this place during question time as a minister in this place—Minister Simon Birmingham—mocked my friend Senator Peter Whish-Wilson. The context of that mocking was that Senator Whish-Wilson had read out a tweet from Professor Terry Hughes, who is the head of the ARC Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. I want to put that tweet on the record again tonight:
I showed the results of aerial surveys of bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef to my students and then we wept.
That is the tweet, the quote from Prof Hughes, that Senator Whish-Wilson read out in question time today. As part of the response—and I will not dignify it by calling it an answer because it was not an answer from Minister Birmingham. It was a response to Senator Whish-Wilson's question, and as part of that response Minister Birmingham suggested that Senator Whish-Wilson might need a hanky. Of course that met with the typical fake laughs and fake cheers from government senators in this place that we have become all too familiar with.
It would not surprise me to learn that Senator Whish-Wilson did need a hanky every now and again when he thinks about climate change, because I know how seriously he takes this issue. I know how much it means to him as a human being and as a senator that we get on top of global warming. And do you know what I say to Senator Birmingham? He can bring me a hanky while he is at it because I do not mind admitting that I have shed a few tears about climate change myself, especially when I have to sit down with kids at my place and apologise to them for the bloody lack of effort and intensity with which this government is treating the issue and for how they want to dig up more coal to create higher levels of carbon in our atmosphere and cause more climate change.
I do not mind admitting that I have needed a hanky every now and again too, and you can bring a few hankies for Professor Hughes and his students too who told us that they wept when they saw the results of the aerial surveys on the Great Barrier Reef. Good on them for weeping. I am glad they care so much. I wish other people in Australia and particularly in the Senate and in the House of Representatives cared half as much as Professor Hughes about global warming. But do you know who are really going to need hankies? It is our children and their children. They are the ones who are going to really need the hankies because they are the ones who will be weeping at the loss of opportunity, the loss of life and the massive extra challenges that they will face in their lives as a result of the greed and stupidity that we are showing as a generation and our collective blind refusal to act on what is absolutely staring us in the face.
Let's be up-front about what is going on here. The Great Barrier Reef, one of the most magnificent natural icons in the world, is dying before our eyes. What we are getting is lumps of coal being waved around and jokes about hankies. But of course it is not just the Great Barrier Reef. In my state of Tasmania we have recently seen unprecedented wilderness fires. Areas and ecosystems have burned that have never burnt before—to our knowledge—that are not fire adapted and that will most likely never recover from the burning of the fires that we saw in Tasmania last summer. And I will tell everyone that, if you want to go and see our great kelp forests in Tasmania in their prime, I am sorry but you have missed them. They are nearly gone thanks to ocean warming. The east coast of Tasmania is one of the top three ocean warming hotspots on the planet. They are gone. If you want to dive on those forests, you have actually left it too late.
So what can we do? Well, of course, we can take strong action. But I will tell you what I am not going to do: I am not going to debate climate science with fools. I am not going to debate climate science with idiots who claim that it is not real or fools who claim it is not being caused by human action. I am not going to waste a minute of my time debating those matters with those people. I am saying that we need to collectively focus on how we are going to meet the challenges, because, colleagues, the feedback loops are kicking in here. We have a major crisis on our hands. We are all in terrible trouble. We need to focus on adaptation and how we are going to deal with sea-level rise. It is going to displace billions of people around the world this century, and, above all else, it is going to massively impact on the most vulnerable people. How are we going to deal with increases in temperature or localised decreases in temperature caused by changes in local climates? How are we going to deal with an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like Cyclone Debbie, which right now is pounding Queensland? How are we going to deal with those things? Those are the questions we need to be asking ourselves, and that is where the debate needs to be headed now—not to debating whether or not humans are causing climate change, when so clearly our actions have contributed so much to the disaster that our planet, this ecosphere and the people on it are facing.
I know one thing: the Australian Greens will keep fighting on this issue. We will be ceaseless in harrying this government and others in this place who think a mine like the Adani mine is still a good idea. We will be harrying them and harassing them ceaselessly, those fans of coal, those stupid people who are going to cost future generations so much. We will give it everything we have got, but I will tell you now my biggest fear. My biggest fear is that when my time in the Senate is done all I will have left to do is stand up, in my last contribution in this place, and apologise to future generations for our collective failure to take the action we needed to give them even half a sniff at the opportunities we have enjoyed in our lives.
It gives me great pleasure to rise tonight to participate in the adjournment debate. Last Monday evening I attended the first function held by the Parliamentary Friends of Free TV, here in Parliament House. It was an opportunity to hear directly from some of the biggest names in Australian sport on the future of sports broadcasting. I was particular taken by the contribution of the former Australian cricketer, now a broadcaster, Mel Jones on how important free-to-air broadcasters are to the growth of women's sport. Mel, a fellow Victorian, spoke passionately about the growth of all forms of women's sport and predicted an explosion in participation and audience numbers in coming years. The importance of our free-to-air broadcasters as part of this process should not be underestimated.
Like me, many senators have noticed the huge crowds flocking to new sporting codes like the Women's Big Bash League and the women's AFL. These crowds are so big that the chief executive of the AFL had to lock the gates and issue a personal apology to disappointed fans waiting outside—and, by the way, as much as it pains me: congrats to the Adelaide Crows. But even these huge crowds were dwarfed by the number of people watching at home. The first round of the AFLW attracted a national free TV audience of almost one million people, and the final of the Women's Big Bash peaked at over 700,000 viewers. As a very keen netballer, I am very happy to see netball back on prime time television and to see the flow-on effects of that deal and the financial contribution it has made to the sport.
This audience reach increases the profile of women's sport and of the athletes. In turn, this increases the athletes' ability to market themselves and their sport and inspire a whole new generation of potential superstars. It is a virtuous cycle that is underpinned by partnerships between free-to-air broadcasters and women's sporting codes. For me, though, the importance of the growth in women's sport is actually greater for those girls who may never play in front of huge crowds or have a million people watching them on TV. It is crucial for those girls who are inspired to join their local club and just give sport a go. Unfortunately, there is much research around that suggests girls stop playing sport from about year 8. There are a variety of reasons, but one of them is that they are not able to picture themselves as somebody who might go on to participate in sport into adulthood. My hope is that Mel Jones is right and we are about to see an explosion in women's sport, and that it is felt right down at every local netball court across the country. I hope that, unlike me in the early eighties, heading off to the Benalla cricket ground to try to get a game with the local team only to be told, 'Girls don't play this sport,' young women right across the country can participate not just in netball, not just in tennis but, indeed, in cricket, football, rugby et cetera. It will be great.
It does not have to be just netball. One of the great benefits of the growth of digital television and multichannels is that Australians can now see many more types of sport that previously may have struggled to get a look in. Take, for example, the rise in interest in the modern pentathlon following the gold medal winning performance of Chloe Esposito at the Olympics. Indeed, this is why I am such a strong supporter of the anti-siphoning list. This list ensures that sporting events like the Olympic and Commonwealth games are not available just to those who can afford them. It is worth remembering that 99 per cent of Australians receive free-to-air TV and that it is watched by 13 million Australians daily. By comparison, less than 30 per cent of Australians pay for access to subscription television. You only need to examine the UK experience when cricket moved from being shown by Channel 4 and Sky in 2005 to being shown only on subscription TV: not only did audience numbers drop 92 per cent, but participation in cricket has seen a 32 per cent fall since the pay TV transition. This occurred at a time when—as hard as it is to believe—the English cricket team was No. 1 in the world. The sport should have been booming locally. This is something that, as Australians, we cannot allow to happen here, and that is why we should continue to support such a strong anti-siphoning list.
Of course, the importance of free TV goes well beyond sport, particularly for those of us in regional Australia. Quality free-to-air services are vital for regional and rural Australia. Free-to-air television delivers regional news services that are trusted for their local focus. Local news services mean local reporters, including sports reporters, camera operators and all the other support staff who contribute to the making of a news service. This means local jobs for regional Australians, often young Australians at the beginning of their careers in the industry. I recognise that the free TV industry faces numerous challenges as it attempts to compete with multinational streaming services like Netflix and YouTube, which do not face many of the regulations imposed on our own local broadcasters. We want a strong, healthy and vibrant broadcast sector in Australia. That is why I was concerned to learn that our free-to-air broadcasters are still paying the highest broadcast licence fees in the world. In fact, our broadcasters pay licence fees 115 times greater than those in the USA and almost 19 times greater than those in the UK. If we want to be able to continue to receive the local stories, Australian dramas and live sport for free, we will need to make some tough decisions and put our broadcasters in the very best position they can be, in a challenging environment, to deliver for our local communities.
The government has already taken steps to ensure that big global streaming services like Google and Facebook pay tax here in Australia. This is an important step, as it will help offset the cost of the urgently needed licence fee relief for our broadcasters. Australian free-to-air broadcasters already pay corporate income tax, but that will continue to shrink as their revenues fall and if we do not act to bring the licence fee regime back into line with
international best practice. This is critical if we want our broadcasters to continue to provide and invest in regional news services and local programming of interest to our local areas.
Important in this equation are the roles of the ABC and SBS in providing unique services to Australians that are not already provided by commercial broadcasters. We must never forget the reasons why taxpayers fund the SBS and ABC. They are funded to provide unique programming that contributes to our sense of national identity and to reflect Australia's multicultural society. They are not funded to mirror the services already provided by the commercial sector, or to only speak to certain sections in our community. I am on the record in several spaces over my time here in this parliament to ensure that both SBS and the ABC particularly service rural and regional Australia's needs in this area rather than competing with commercial broadcasters in urban spaces. We need national broadcasters that truly deliver on their charters, rather than churning out a poor imitation of what is already provided for free on commercial television. One example that has been mentioned to me recently is SBS's recent offering The Chefs' Line. Here is a program that is incredibly similar to reality cooking shows already available on free-to-air TV. You have to wonder how this sort of programming does anything to promote the important objectives that are set out in SBS's charter.
I am a strong supporter of our national broadcasters. I believe they deserve public funding to ensure that they meet their charter obligations and deliver high-quality services in line with those charters. But principally I am concerned that they do more to deliver for regional Australia. The recent announcement by the ABC is a welcome first step in moving their focus from Ultimo back to the regions. I would encourage the management of SBS to look at this example and reacquaint themselves with their own charter. They have an important role to perform in Australian society, and I will continue to encourage them to focus on delivering it.
The vision for the future has to be of a strong and vibrant free-to-air broadcasting sector, one that competes with all comers on a level regulatory playing field—a sector that is willing and able to invest and innovate in local services and in content that is valued by all Australians. We need efficient national broadcasters that use taxpayers' money in the delivery of unique services in line with their charters.
I am looking forward to more women's sport being televised, showcasing the possible to young women as they take up new sports, as role models show what strong, skilled athletes are doing across a range of sports. I remember netball back in the day. The first broadcaster that picked up netball was the ABC with the Commonwealth Bank Trophy. You had to get up very early on a Sunday morning to watch that particular national competition. Now we have a fantastic broadcasting agreement with a commercial provider, which is brilliant. That is what we want to see—that type of investment. Tough decisions will need to be made to realise that vision, but we have little other choice. The services to all Australians, particularly those in the regions, are too important for us not to take urgent action now.
I rise to highlight that this week, at the United Nations in New York, over 120 countries are taking part in negotiations for a new global nuclear weapons treaty. For more than two decades, multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations were at a standstill. The last treaty concluded in this field was the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. But this long period of inaction has now come to an end.
Yesterday, a majority of the world's governments began work on negotiating a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons. This historic UN treaty-making process draws on previous humanitarian disarmament initiatives to ban chemical weapons, biological weapons, anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions. Its interest has been building for some time among states to negotiate a new treaty to ban nuclear weapons based on their unacceptable humanitarian consequences.
Yet the Australian government announced last month that it was boycotting these nuclear disarmament negotiations, as they supposedly are not in our national interests. It told Senate estimates on 2 March that it 'would not be able to negotiate in good faith'. Turning our back on the United Nations at a moment of great international instability and uncertainty, when global solutions to collective security and humanitarian challenges are more crucial and urgent than ever, is not the answer. That is why Labor is urging the government to fully explain its position.
The boycott has the effect of seriously tarnishing Australia's international reputation, alienating those of our neighbours in South-East Asia and the Pacific who are among the leaders of this vital UN initiative. Another notable distinction is that, of the 115 nations belonging to nuclear-weapon-free zones, Australia was the only one to vote against the start of these negotiations. As a party to the non-proliferation treaty, Australia is legally required to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear disarmament. So how is boycotting the negotiations compatible with that obligation? That was the conclusion of John Carlson, who headed Australia's nuclear safeguards office for two decades, in a recent article for the Lowy Institute. ANU Professor Ramesh Thakur has also argued that the boycott could breach the NPT. The government must explain to the parliament and to the public how its decision can be reconciled with its international legal obligations.
In 2010, all parties to the NPT expressed their deep concern that any use of nuclear weapons would have 'catastrophic humanitarian consequences'. Why, then, has Australia refused to join 159 nations in declaring that these weapons should never be used again, under any circumstances? How can any government insist that these are legitimate, useful and necessary weapons, when they are clearly inhumane and immoral? We must fundamentally reassess our position on these ultimate weapons of mass destruction. These instruments of incineration and radioactive contamination are not acceptable for any nation. Most of the world's nations recognise that and are now taking appropriate action towards humanitarian disarmament.
The Australian Labor Party supports this week's UN negotiations, which will continue for three weeks in June and July. We support the humanitarian imperative of these negotiations and share international frustrations with the pace of disarmament. Our national platform, adopted in 2015, expresses firm support for 'the negotiation of a global treaty banning nuclear weapons and welcomes the growing global movement of nations that is supporting this objective.' With this in mind, I moved a motion in the Senate yesterday noting the grave threat that nuclear weapons pose to all humanity and urging the government to participate constructively in the negotiations supported by the Senate. Earlier this month, an Ipsos poll showed that the vast majority of Australians want the government to join the negotiations. Only one in 10 Australians think that the government should not support the process. The government is wildly out of step with public opinion. That is why Labor supports effective and feasible action towards nonproliferation and disarmament and will continue to actively pursue a path towards these objectives.
If we are truly dedicated to achieving a world without nuclear weapons, we should be firm in our conviction that these weapons are unacceptable for all nations, in all circumstances—no exceptions. The UN treaty being negotiated in New York to prohibit nuclear weapons will establish this as a principle in international law. How can other types of weapons be prohibited under global conventions but not yet the most destructive weapons of all? The Australian government argues that nuclear weapons can be prohibited once they have been completely eliminated. But for other indiscriminate weapons, prohibition has stimulated action towards elimination by stigmatising their use, production and stockpiling. I think that is an incredibly important factor that has come about. The statement provided this week at the UN by Mr Peter Maurer, the President of the ICRC, highlighted this fact. He said:
Of course, adopting a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons will not make them immediately disappear. But it will reinforce the stigma against their use, support commitments to nuclear risk reduction, and be a disincentive for proliferation. It will be a concrete step towards fulfilling existing commitments for nuclear disarmament, notably those of Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. As with chemical and biological weapons, a clear and unambiguous prohibition is the cornerstone of their elimination.
It is a clear statement. What is clear is that these negotiations will proceed, with or without Australia at the table.
While Australia is not represented in any official capacity at the negotiations this week, several members of Australian civil society are there as part of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. They are working alongside like minded governments to achieve a successful outcome. Among them is Sue Coleman-Haseldine, a Kokatha-Mula woman from South Australia, whose community has suffered greatly from the dreadful, ongoing impact of British atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s. Three years ago, she travelled to Vienna to speak at a major diplomatic conference that helped pave the way for this week's UN negotiations. There she showed courage. She said:
We are telling the story so that our history is not forgotten but also to create a better future for all people, all over the world.
If you love your own children and care for the children of the world, you will find the courage to stand up and say "enough".
Always keeping in mind that the future forever belongs to the next generation
For the sake of current and future generations, I urge the Australian government to change its position, to stand on the right side of history and join the UN negotiations this week in New York and commit to the cause of eliminating nuclear weapons.
I rise to speak about the problems of immigration from Islamic countries. Australia is one of four settler countries. The others are New Zealand, Canada and the United States. Immigrants to Australia have enriched our society, a society now founded on equality between the sexes, separation between religion and government, and the rule of law. We face a new challenge because, over the past 40 years or so, large numbers of settlers have come from Islamic countries, where equality between the sexes is not accepted and where religion and government are commingled. We know that Islamic countries are organised very differently and that people from these countries hold different beliefs on equality between the sexes, homosexuality and the role of religion in society.
This is a historic moment. By bringing this matter into the parliament, my party is throwing open the debate on banning or, at the very least, greatly reducing the migration of such people to Australia. Australia's points-based immigration system does not give any weight to the person's ability to adopt our values or integrate into our society. You might think that our immigration system would acknowledge the well-known beliefs of citizens in Islamic countries when assessing suitability for settlement into Australia, but it does not. I say we should. The central issue is whether or not people from Islamic countries can integrate and adopt our values. If they cannot then Australia is not the right place to settle.
Australians are increasingly worried about immigration from Islamic countries. In July and August 2016, Essential conducted a survey and found that one in two Australians supported a ban on Muslim immigration. A significant swathe of those in favour were actually Greens voters. Australians told Essential that people from Islamic countries do not adopt our values, do not integrate and have the potential to become a terrorist threat.
While only a small number of such people are engaged in terrorism, the AFP have some 500 individuals under review at any one time. It is difficult to anticipate who will become radicalised and commit an act of terrorism here. This is true not only of new entrants but also of those born here to parents who were earlier such entrants. There is no doubt that there is a link between terrorism and Islam. The terrorists tell us that. Terrorists tell us they are trained in mosques.
It is regrettable that both major parties and the Greens want to stop the debate about banning or greatly reducing immigration from Islamic countries in the false belief of maintaining cultural harmony. Australians are worried about Islam and Islamisation. They want to talk about it, and they want to talk about it themselves, without being called racist.
It is shocking that the New South Wales Department of Education has known of the problems at Punchbowl Boys High School for years, and yet nothing was done about radicalisation of its students—only now, when shamed into action by the media. Police liaison officers and those tasked with implementing deradicalisation programs should never be excluded from a school on the basis of cultural sensitivity. Equally, female teachers should not be treated differently because they are female, to satisfy some cultural bias.
In Canada, a settler country like Australia, they have settled about a million Muslims. In 2006 they surveyed how things were going, and they repeated the survey in 2016. They found that second-generation Canadian Muslims are more likely than the first generation to identify as a Muslim before identifying as a Canadian. They also found that living in Canada did not have a secularising effect and that people were more strongly drawn to Islam in Canada than in their home country. If the same situation applies in Australia, it goes some way to explaining why so many Muslim Australians are willing to fight in Syria but not willing to join the Australian Defence Force.
We already have problems in Australia caused by immigration from Islamic countries. We need to do something about it now because the Muslim population is growing faster than the rest of Australia because of higher fertility rates. Our current immigration points system ignores the beliefs of those coming from Islamic countries and in doing so places large numbers of people at odds with our legal system and our values.
I commend to government the research of the Pew Research Center, which conducted 80,000 face-to-face interviews with people in 39 Islamic countries. Many of these countries have been the source countries for a large number of settlers into Australia. The shocking results of that research would make any thinking person pause. I will mention just one finding. Ninety-one per cent of those surveyed in Iraq said they supported sharia law. We have settled 42,862 Iraqis into Australia.
The coalition and Labor governments have crossed their fingers and hoped the massive immigration program from Islamic countries would work out. Yet they have not conducted any substantive studies to see whether it is doing so. It is time they did. We do not know whether people from Islamic countries keep their beliefs and values from their home country when they settle in Australia, because successive Australian governments have not done the research. It is time that the ABS or another trustworthy research organisation did that job and gathered useful information in respect of settlers from Islamic countries.
The Islamisation of some Australian suburbs suggests that settlers from Islamic countries are forming increasingly closed communities that live according to their own rules. It sows the seeds of conflict between communities. There is no place for this in Australia.
We need to ban or greatly reduce immigration from Islamic countries until we have the debate about Islam that Australians are demanding, until we better understand the problems we now have and until we know how to fix the problems. Meanwhile, we are the only party that says things that need to be said and will do the things that need to be done.
My friend Jeff Cheverton died on 2 March this year. When the news was shared around the many networks who had had the privilege of knowing this remarkable and wonderful man there was a sense of disbelief, shock and sadness, but there was also laughter. When we shared our memories of Jeff Cheverton, you could not help but laugh because you knew he was with you. When I knew I had to say something about Jeff in this place, the person I wanted to talk to was Jeff, because he would have a lot of information on how I could best describe him and impact a lot of the adjectives. So I thought I would start by putting a lot of adjectives together, because these are the words that were spoken and shouted about him when we were talking about our loss. Jeff was outrageous, strategic, compassionate, unpredictable, committed, mischievous, analytical, loving and very loved, egotistical, driven, vivacious, funny, loyal, honest, so competitive, charming and, indeed, an all round ripper of a bloke. I have really tried hard not to use the word 'passionate' but Jeff was passionate about many things, particularly social justice—for giving a voice to those who were vulnerable and often silenced.
Jeff Cheverton was Brisbane boy, the youngest and, I think, very spoilt seventh child of a strong, loving family. Jeff had a special gift of connection. He genuinely liked people and wanted to know about you and, naturally, he shared a whole lot about himself at the same time. It was said that when Jeff was in a room things always became exciting and interesting. I first met Jeff Cheverton when he was the editor of the University of Queensland newspaper Semper. This was in the late eighties, during a particularly difficult political period, both in the wider Queensland community and on the campus, because this was towards the end of the Bjelke-Petersen era and, on the University of Queensland campus at that time, there was a particularly vicious battle for the control of the student union. This happens quite a lot, but during this period it reached a new height, or perhaps low.
Rarely does campus politics make media comment in the wider world, but the work of Jeff and his team, as they produced cutting-edge copy, challenged thought, made people think always and actually caused real commentary about what was happening politically and personally at the time. This was at the same time as the university campus radio station 4ZZZ was engaged in a really tough battle with the then student leadership. The University of Queensland at that time bristled with music, outrageous behaviour, journalism and energy, as well as a whole lot of extraordinarily great parties. Also at this time, we had the chance to learn more about how student politics operated. Whilst I was not a student politician then—it was after my time—I did have the exciting experience of working with this generation of people and seeing their knowledge and passion at work on campus. Jeff was one of the many of that group who took this passion into his work after leaving university.
Around the same time, Jeff was a member of the very first lesbian and gay Pride in June 1990. He explained later that Pride started because people were angry and impatient for change. Mr Acting Deputy President, you would remember that at this time sex between men was still illegal in Queensland and lesbianism was denied or just made invisible. The term 'pride' at the time had a political and militant focus. Jeff said:
… we set out to create spaces where lesbian and gay men could be out and proud in spite of Queensland's history of repression and violence against alternative sexuality. We didn't beg acceptance; we simply demanded rights.
Unlike other gay organisations at the time, Pride wasn't interested in backroom deals or a softly, softly approach to law reform. Pride took the view that lesbians and gay men have a right to express our sexuality and be treated as equal to—
and typically Geoff—
(if somewhat more glamorous than) heterosexuals.
Pride sought to provide opportunities for lesbians and gay men to publicly challenge homophobic attitudes and heterosexual privilege. The public sphere became the focus of our activities.
Jeff always made sure that people were involved and engaged. He did not want to take over. He did not want to exclude.
I got to know Jeff much more openly when I worked with him in the area of mental health, where he was a genuine activist. Jeff worked for many years with the Queensland Alliance for Mental Health, which is the peak body representing the mental health sector in Queensland, supporting members, the wider mental health community and individuals with a lived mental health experience. During his time at Alliance, Jeff worked very closely with people with a lived mental illness experience, their families, their carers and the wider community to ensure that they could share their experience so that there was no longer an isolation or an ignorance about the impact of mental illness. He was dedicated to values-based leadership, and his teams were based on working together openly, and boards were based on respect and open communication. In his 2007 essay in the Australian Journal of Social Issues, Jeff argued that it was the importance of values that made the organisation strong, and that if you had a strong values-based leadership you would have a strong organisation. I remember talking with him many times when he was leading the Alliance and one of his absolute favoured projects was to ensure that people with a lived mental health experience would be able to have the skills development that would allow them to tell their own stories. He developed a panel of speakers who understood the challenges of living with a mental illness, who were then able to tell their own stories rather than be used as an example.
At that stage, across a range of community organisations in Queensland, public sector departments and also political groups, we were able to share with people who understood the real issues of mental illness and had that knowledge based on real life rather than just some kind of theory. I clearly remember the pride with which Jeff spoke about the team and was able to talk with people and ensure that they would have the experience which they could take into their lives after they had worked with the Queensland Alliance for Mental Health.
The passion Jeff had for ensuring that people would not live in seclusion or face stigma was the topic of his Churchill Fellowship in 2007. That Churchill Fellowship was based particularly on trying to remove the stigma of mental illness. He developed recommendations around the need for mental health social inclusion campaign in Australia. He worked very clearly with organisations in the UK and the US to ensure that a campaign would have a high-profile national social marketing which presents positive and normalising images of people with mental illness and that it would include a diverse range of grassroots community projects, providing opportunities for people to have direct contact with people with lived experience at the local level. To make sure that the leadership of the social inclusion campaign would come from consumers, people who understood and had lived with mental illness, the whole process was worked on the values of the consumer network, which states—and we say it proudly—'Nothing about us without us.' He also looked at the issue that in any of these processes there needed to be strong evaluation research components to ensure development and growth over time.
There has been no stronger work in this area than in Jeff's paper in 2007. As result of the work he had with the Churchill Fellowship, he then went on a process of going into the community and providing information on this issue. Indeed, at that time we were involved here with the Senate Select Committee on Mental Health. Jeff was a submitter to that particular inquiry. He also gave us the opportunity to learn more about the Churchill Fellowship project that he had done. Out of his work with Alliance, he became involved with the Mental Health Council of Australia, where he had worked for many years, and in a range of important conferences and discussions around the issue of mental health. You may remember that there was a strong injection of funding around this time into mental health, and it was important that we had people like Jeff there challenging the standard beliefs, pushing us forward and, most particularly, ensuring that the voices of those who are often silenced were there in the development of programs and policies—again, 'Nothing about us without us.'
It is interesting that Jeff's passion and engagement in these issues around value-based leadership and the engagement with people who most know their subject continue into the Medicare Local network and the Primary Health Networks which we now have. After he left the Queensland Alliance, Jeff moved in to work in these networks. In 2016, he was involved in a paper that talked about the Partners in Recovery program, which is an incredibly important element of the mental health journey at the moment in Australian policy. In a paper that he wrote only last year, Jeff talked about the need in the Australian government's Partners in Recovery program to establish a new form of mental health intervention aimed to better support people with severe and persistent mental illness with complex needs, and their carers and families, always ensuring that the person and their families and carers are able to be considered with respect and engaged in development of policy.
He then talked about a program called co-creation, which is a process of leadership and team building which he valued very deeply. He talked about this both in discussion and in a paper that was published in the Medical Journal of Australia, where he said:
Co-creation entails a new vision of value creation through a shift in thinking about the co-creators of value, the value networks, and the entire value of ecosystems.7,8 It involves redefining the way an organisation engages with individuals, partners and stakeholders by bringing them into a process of value creation and engaging them in enriched experiences throughout the journey, in order to design new products and services, transform management systems, and increase innovation, productivity and returns on investment.
Always, Jeff brought his intellectual knowledge, the years of study that he had done after that time at the University of Queensland, where he not only was involved in student politics and the editing of Semper Floreat but gained a Bachelor of Arts degree with double majors in law and French. He also went on to study social planning and certificates in business and was studying for a Diploma in Health Economics at Monash. He brought knowledge, experience and professionalism into his work and in that way ensured that the incredible importance of working effectively in the area of mental health and public health would ensure that we would make a difference and that there would not be stigma and ignorance. One of the speakers at one of the celebrations of Jeff's life talked about the fact that he wanted people to know; he wanted to ensure that there was genuine knowledge. He was also very clear that he rejected bigotry in any way on any topic. He felt that the ignorance of bigotry stopped learning and growth.
I am not sure whether there has been a world record put in place for people singing Shirley Bassey's Love Story in a public space. But in remembering Jeff Cheverton a couple of weeks ago in Brisbane at Orleigh Park, West End, where there had been many a fine party over the last few years in which Jeff was involved, there was an outpouring of love and respect for this wonderful man. As our voices were raised with some skill and a lot of enthusiasm as we sang Love Story, we could not begin to understand what a difference this man had made in our lives and also the lives of so many.
Jeff's partner of over 25 years, Rod Goodbun, was always with Jeff making him stronger and making them stronger as a partnership. Rod was able to speak about his experiences with Jeff a number of times over the last few weeks. Rod, on behalf of so many people, I thank you for sharing Jeff Cheverton with us. You together, and Jeff as an individual, have changed lives and, most importantly, will continue to change lives. The processes, passion and professionalism which Jeff brought to his work will continue to enrich the lives of many people who desperately deserved that enrichment. Jeff was indeed a ripper of a bloke and he will never be forgotten.
Thank you, Senator Moore, a fine tribute.
I acknowledge Australia's historic nation forged by Christian explorers and pioneers from Britain and other European lands, which created the federal Commonwealth under the Crown, and I acknowledge Australia's first inhabitants, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as part of our nation. Australia is in a dysfunctional and toxic relationship with itself. One party to this relationship is the Australian government via its various agencies. The other party is the Australian people. All relationships are built on trust and empathy. It does not matter if it is a commercial relationship or a personal relationship; they have the common elements of trust and empathy.
So, what is the situation with regard to the Australian government and the people? Simple. The people feel like they are not being heard and they do not trust their government. The erosion of trust and empathy has created a dysfunctional and toxic relationship that is bad for our democracy. What happens when relationships break down? Well, in the commercial realm, one party will break the relationship and find another company to partner with. It is no different in the personal realm either; if the level of deterioration is large enough, one party will make a break and re-partner and move on.
The problem with the government is that, while the government can churn through the people it partners with, the people have only one government and therefore are not in a position to choose unless they relocate to another country. This makes them feel powerless and weak. That is not a position people want to be in. The Australian government is repeatedly attacking its citizens as if it were waging war on them. I wish I could tell you it was for a good reason, but I am at a loss as to why any government would embark on a strategy to seemingly attack its own citizens.
It is not because of bad laws. The legislation in the examples I will quote today is actually quite good. The problem arises when the culture of government organisations is such that the legislation is not applied fairly and without favour, or with the other party's best interests at heart. In reply, Australians take steps to retaliate. They engage in tax evasion as if it were a victimless crime; they are 'sticking it to the government' and feel they are achieving something when they do it, without any thought of how harmful it might be to the general populace.
But let's look at some examples in detail to illustrate my point. One of the more obvious examples is the immigration disaster. But I will speak about that topic on another occasion. The recent Centrelink debacle is a great example of a government embarking on a malicious and callous campaign targeting the most vulnerable members of our society. With almost limitless resources, the Department of Human Services attempted to claw back money from the community that they are not entitled to take. The trumped-up claims of debt were a disgraceful attempt to impose measures on the community to bail out a bankrupt government.
How did they do it? IT people were tasked with making changes to database software enabling the Centrelink computer system to calculate debt using the customer's entire Centrelink history rather than just their recent history. The two managers have since left—one to retirement and the other to the NDIS—leaving behind a system that was doctored to bluff customers into paying a fabricated debt rather than challenge it and discover there was no debt. It is cavalier. It is inaccurate. The error rate of the letters is near 100 per cent. It is corrupt. How do you fix it? Close it down and start again. New organisation. New people. New relationship.
Another Department of Human Services organisation, the Child Support Agency, has a long history of financially gutting non-custodial parents in a relentless strategy that seems aimed at rendering their victims insolvent. Again, the legislation is fairly sound and does not need to be changed much if it is applied fairly. The problem is that it often is not applied fairly. It is not a gender issue but, because the majority of non-custodial parents are the fathers, men usually end up being the ones most affected by the actions of this group of individuals.
On a societal level, one of the unintended side effects of marriage breakdown is the high incidence of suicide. It is one of the most pressing issues of our time and predominantly impacts males. It depletes our productivity and destroys families. It cannot be totally eradicated but it can be substantially reduced. The solution requires a government with the conscience to feel ashamed by it and the political courage to do something about it. There is also the matter of female suicide, which is no less important but not as prevalent. Suicide is a complex issue with many triggers. It is not always easy to know which trigger causes an individual to take her own life—what the final straw was—but in some cases it is very evident.
Suicide is a symptom, not a cause. Before we can tackle the cause, we must expose its various components. This will simplify it. To make the issue easier to understand, let's look at one area of male suicide—that which might be attributed to the actions or inactions of the Family Court, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Child Support Agency. If three whales beached themselves on Bondi Beach every day, there would be a public uproar to help them or to do something about the situation to prevent it from happening. A crazed lunatic uses a car to kill five people in Melbourne's Bourke Street Mall, injuring some 37 others, and there is an outpouring of grief for the victims. Yet up to 90 Australian men commit suicide every month because of their Family Court and Child Support Agency experiences and no-one bats an eye. That is not to detract from the tragedy of the former examples but to assist in putting the events into perspective. The statistics do not relate only to men. For women it is roughly 18 per month, and there is one child under 18 per month. The average of 90 per month for men is three a day—each and every day. Let's think about that for a moment. That is someone's father, brother, uncle, son, cousin or nephew—gone forever.
As I said, this is not really a gender issue. The split does not occur between husbands and wives but along the lines of custodial and non-custodial parenting. That is where the female statistics come from. When the issues of non-custodial parenting impact on women, some of them take their lives in the same way and for the same reasons that men do. The common denominator is the Family Court that determines custody or the child support agency.
What does it say about us as a society when we allow so many men and boys to commit suicide—an entirely preventable outcome? Why do we provide almost no support for males? Why do we provide almost nothing for male victims of domestic violence, preferring to sweep it under the carpet along with the male suicide rates? Why do we continue to cling to the paradigm that men cannot love their children as much as women can and do? Where do we draw the line? To stand aside and allow it to happen is negligent. To be aware of it and do nothing almost makes it deliberate, especially if you are in government and have the power to stop it.
For the most part, the legislation around family breakdown is reasonable. The problem arises in its application. When public servants have power but there is no independent oversight and no penalty for wrongdoing, the system can run out of control. What happens then? Well, we know what the outcome is. We see it in the statistics. The recommendations of the 2005 review of the family law system were not implemented when the Rudd government came to power in 2007. The recommendations of the 2015 parliamentary inquiry into the child support system were diluted to get them through a hostile Senate. Recommendation 21 of that inquiry would, if implemented, have been beneficial to a constituent whose story I will detail shortly.
Who fails to implement recommendations of an inquiry when it could stop the alarming suicide rate? Why? We must ask ourselves these questions. We might not like the answer, but we must ask them and forge ahead to an outcome that is acceptable to our community. In the family law arena, we often hear the phrase 'in the best interests of the child'. I have yet to understand how the suicide of a parent is in the best interests of a child.
Over the last Christmas break, I assisted a New Zealand woman who came to Australia to visit her children for Christmas. She had experienced a period of unemployment and had accrued arrears of child support, which she arranged to pay by instalments via the New Zealand internal revenue office directly to the CSA in Australia. The woman went to return to New Zealand, because she had to go to work. For no reason, as a payment arrangement was in place, CSA issued a departure prohibition order preventing the woman from leaving Australia until the debt was paid. The woman had no accommodation in Australia and limited funds. What's more, she lost her job in New Zealand, removing any capacity to pay anything more of the child support debt. Doggedly, the CSA clung to the logic that she had to pay the debt before she earned the money to do so. The woman had no ability to secure welfare in Australia and could not secure a credit card because all of her identity documents were in New Zealand except for her passport. She did not expect she would need them for a brief visit to Australia to visit her children.
One of my constituents has been a non-custodial parent for over 30 years. The conduct of the CSA that he witnessed in the 1980s repeats itself through the decades. How is that possible? He has dealt with various CSA officers in various locations in a number of states. The only logical conclusion is that there is a corporate culture or groupthink operating as part of the indoctrination when one joins the agency. The measures implemented—and I will detail some of them shortly—are akin to persecution. It appears the CSA staff suspend the presumption of innocence and treat the non-custodial parent as some kind of criminal who is not to be believed, regardless of how credible his or her evidence might be or how fair the outcome he or she is seeking might be.
The notion that self-support is a higher priority than child support is not considered important, if the anecdotal evidence is anything to go by. Logic dictates that, if a non-custodial parent cannot support himself, he cannot then support his children. This logic appears lost on CSA officers in many cases.
Cases of domestic violence aside, where is the logic in taking a child from the parent with the most resources or the capacity to gain those resources and lodging them with the parent who has the least amount of resources, then gouging the non-custodial parent to subsidise the custodial parent? Where is the incentive for custodial parents to work not only to support themselves but to demonstrate their work ethic to the child? Part of their income is tax free and, in some cases, the custodial parent enjoys a higher income than the non-custodial parent. Plenty of people would rail against a doubling of their income tax or even an increase of 20 per cent, but they do not see the harm in taking 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 40 per cent or more from a non-custodial parent and giving it tax-free to the custodial parent.
I have a constituent whose ex-wife is a master's degree qualified lawyer. She has stated, 'I will get the lowest paid job I can and you'll top me up with tax-free child support'. And the system supports her in that endeavour. You say, 'Ah, but that can't happen under the legislation,' but I tell you it can and it does. How? Let me explain. The custodial parent, the mother, is determined by the CSA to have no earning capacity, despite her master's degree, and the non-custodial parent, the father, is determined to have an earning capacity of more than half a million dollars per annum, regardless of his actual earnings. This huge imbalance means that the majority of debt under the child support program will fall to the father. The earning capacity of $500,000 per annum is a ridiculous figure, I know, but it is a real example.
If the legislation were applied fairly, the mother's earning capacity would be close to $100,000 per annum, and the father's would be a similar amount. That would make the calculation of child support depend upon the percentage of access afforded to the father. If the parents could negotiate a reasonable degree of shared care, there should be almost no money changing hands. That would be a fair application of the legislation. Enter the inexperienced, incompetent, or dishonest CSA officer who determines the mother has no earning capacity and the father has a ridiculously high earning capacity. The father may challenge this determination. If he does, the officer assigned to investigate the calculation is usually the officer who determined it in the first place. If the father objects further and takes the matter to the AAT or even on to the Federal Circuit Court, he is not permitted to question the original determination, as that has already been deemed justified by virtue of the earlier investigation by the CSA. He can only criticise the CSA and AAT for not following procedure. The CSA and AAT invariably follow the procedure impeccably. Is it any wonder non-custodial parents simply give up? They are fighting a system that is not designed to be beaten, even when it is wrong. The list of examples goes on and on and on and on: all dressed up as being in the best interests of the child. Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Those who have not been touched by events such as these find it hard to believe it goes on, but it does. Every single day we are killing off our productivity as a nation and destroying the lives of the next generation. The system is corrupt. How do you fix it? Shut it down. Start again. New relationship. Trust and empathy.
I have spoken about the final example before, which is just as serious—that of the Department of Veterans' Affairs and our veterans—so I will be brief on this occasion. Our veterans have sacrificed to provide us the freedoms we enjoy each and every day. Initially, DVA was staffed by veterans for the most part and the relationship with diggers was efficient and effective. Trust and empathy. Gradually, the veterans were replaced with career public servants and the relationship changed. Public servants find it difficult to empathise with veterans and the veterans end up being treated with contempt because they get frustrated attempting to get through to someone who has no idea what it is like to be held accountable for your actions when those in the Public Service rarely are.
What do soldiers and veterans say about the military workplace? If you stuff it up, people die. They do not see that attitude in the Public Service, except that if someone stuffs up in Veterans' Affairs then somebody dies all right—usually a veteran. We want our citizens to be shareholders in our future. Trying to do the right thing, not fighting the government at every opportunity. I will say the term again: shareholders in our future. Let that sink in for a moment. That is how you secure empathy. That is how you build trust. That is how you build a healthy relationship. That is how you build a nation. One Nation.
A Senate inquiry into crystal methamphetamine heard last week from Holyoake that children in Tasmania as young 10 years of age are smoking ice. Regional areas in Tasmania have the highest rates of ice use in the country. It is clear that ice abuse is increasing. It is cheap and easy to access. The link to organised crime is also very, very clear. This is a national issue that must be addressed with a national approach.
I note that last week a group of former premiers, police commissioners and legal advocates pushed for decriminalisation, and to treat drug use as a health issue rather than an issue for the justice system. I can see this group has the best intentions, and while I do not agree with the push to decriminalise drug use, I do agree that drug use is a health issue. But to argue that drug use should only be tackled as a health issue ignores the criminal link. Only a holistic approach to tackling drugs will provide Australia with the tools we need to overcome a wave of drugs flooding our communities and tearing apart families.
There are two elements to this issue—that is, supply and demand. A holistic approach would target both at the same time. Targeting supply means a unified federal approach to organised crime laws. At the moment, if one state makes laws to clamp down on organised crime then the groups just move to states with laws that are more welcoming. Welcome to Tasmania. Leaving organised crime to the states to fix has only resulted in the issue being duckshoved between states like a hot potato. A federal government with courage and a backbone would be willing to take on the responsibility of getting tough on organised crime, to stem the flow of drugs into our towns and communities, and to begin healing our families and communities. Any federal governments who do take on the challenge in the future will have their work cut out for them. Ice use has almost doubled, organised crime groups are growing savvy and setting up meth labs within Australia, and it is costing Australians a whopping $36 billion.
The second element of this issue is demand, and this is where I agree with the group of former premiers, police commissioners and legal advocates. Drug users should not be jailed. We know that drugs are readily available within Australian jails, so it does not seem logical to send drug users who commit minor drug-related crimes there. Instead, the government should be setting up rehabilitation centres so that these people can heal and overcome their addiction. But the government has thrown this issue into the too hard basket.
Drug users are people with mental and physical health issues and they need to be treated as such. I ask the government to not write off this group of people as no-hopers and to approach reform with care, compassion and just a little bit of tough love. My son was a drug user; he was addicted to ice. But he has overcome that addiction, and now he is helping others to do the same. He has had very little choice in his rehabilitation and recovery. It was rehab or jail. Fortunately, he accepted the second chance that life handed to him. I only wish I had the avenues to deal with his addiction when he was a teenager. As the law stands, parents do not have the right to involuntarily detox their children. But I know that if I had that opportunity when he was younger then he would not have mixed with the organised crime groups to support his habit, and the damage caused to his various relationships would have been far less.
Ice is a completely different beast: one pill can kill; one hit can hook. As such we need to treat it differently. Most Australian parents fail to realise that they do not have any legal rights should their son or daughter become addicted to ice. It is my job to educate Australian parents about their lack of rights under Australian law to protect their children from themselves. The $300 million the Liberal government is rolling out to tackle ice will be a waste of money if the government does not give Australian parents the right to involuntarily detox their ice addicted children and, ultimately, is empowering organised crime groups.
Tasmania also has the second highest rate of suicide in Australia, with 16.3 deaths per 100,000 people according to the latest data provided by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. In fact, suicide is almost double the Tasmanian road toll each year and costs the Tasmanian economy more than $53 million per year according to KPMG. There are a range of factors which contribute to suicide risk in rural communities, including the accumulation of difficult conditions like drought, flooding, fire, economic and financial factors, family pressures and domestic violence, increasing use of ice, and a lack of access to services.
Fortunately, in Tasmania we have an organisation called Rural Alive & Well, known as RAW. RAW supports individuals, families and communities in Tasmania with the consequences of the trauma caused by natural and economic pressures and disasters, in a mainstream policy and service framework that lacks an understanding of 'culturally safe' practices in rural communities.
RAW's motto is 'Talk to a mate'. They make sure they get their boots on the ground to provide support for people living and working in rural and regional Tasmania who might not be able to access services, such as farmers and veterans. RAW goes above and beyond, by increasing its client load over time. If the current rate of increase continues for the rest of the financial year, the RAW outreach program alone will see 2,140 clients. That is an almost 100 per cent increase from the previous financial year. RAW outreach travelled almost 250,000 kilometres in the 2015-16 financial year to assist their clients.
For $1 spent on RAW services, RAW returns up to $24 in savings back to the community. And RAW does all this with just 10 workers—that's right: just 10 workers. Wow, this organisation is cost-effective and achieving real rural and regional outcomes. So imagine my surprise when I found out RAW is facing the real possibility of having to pull out of Tasmania due to a lack of funding. Their charitable funds are non-recurrent and provide no operational certainty. The federal government's funding to RAW, which received under the national suicide prevention strategy, has now been transferred to the Tasmanian primary health network and will be used for the commissioning of yet-to-be-determined services, including mental health and clinical services. Imagine the economic impact on Tasmania if the people in our growth industries, such as aquaculture, fruit growing and wine production, do not receive the outreach help they need so desperately. I am asking the federal government, leading up to the May budget, to fully fund the extended RAW outreach program on a recurrent basis over the forward estimates to allow RAW to continue the great work they are doing.
I am going to change direction now and discuss the case of Glenn Kolomeitz. Glenn Kolomeitz, the CEO and state secretary of the New South Wales RSL, took that job at significant personal and financial cost to himself—a reduced income and time away from his young family—out of a sense of dedication and commitment to veterans' welfare. As a lawyer, on leaving the regular Army in 2012, he began appearing pro bono for veterans in PTSD related criminal cases around New South Wales and in entitlement appeals before the AAT.
Glenn identified the need for reform in the ex-services charity sector, so he accepted the role of CEO RSL New South Wales on a platform of renewal, reinvigoration and a greater mission focus. That mission is the care and wellbeing of serving and ex-serving ADF members and their families. Glenn brought to the job a veteran's understanding of the issues confronting the ex-service community, along with solid professional legal and business experience and credentials, and the ethical posture of both a lawyer and a former policeman. There is no doubt that Glenn is the most qualified CEO and state secretary the RSL in New South Wales has ever had. This combination of war service, ethics and business sense was absolutely critical for the RSL to move forward and become relevant and financially sustainable into the future.
When he took the job, the old men of the RSL New South Wales state council knew his background, the skills he brought to the table and his strategic plan for the organisation. Glenn very quickly began to discover financial irregularities and company structural defects in RSL New South Wales and set about rectifying them. He identified the legal obligation for RSL New South Wales to dedicate all revenue from its almost half a billion in cash and property to its charitable purpose—the care and wellbeing of veterans and their families—and established a social impact investment model which would put that money to work whilst generating a good return on the investment to sub-branches.
The extent of the financial irregularities soon became apparent to the extent that he demanded a forensic audit of all expenditure in RSL New South Wales. This led to the need for Glenn to exercise his statutory obligations as chief executive and report the irregularities to various regulatory agencies—the ACNC, the ATO, the Office of Fair Trading and eventually New South Wales Police. To his credit, the New South Wales Minister for Veterans' Affairs, David Elliott MP, took the pressure off Glenn by organising a New South Wales Police strikeforce to investigate RSL New South Wales. It appears the old men of the board did not like Glenn doing his job—acting ethically and professionally—so they started a bullying campaign against Glenn.
One state councillor sent an email to sub-branches across northern New South Wales, saying that Glenn had 'gone to the dark side'. I must advise that particular state councillor that he is the dark side, not Glenn. He is the subject of numerous investigations. Glenn has been trying to fix the mess the state councillors either created or contributed to by failing in their duties as directors of this half a billion dollar company or by directly concealing fraud on the part of their forerunners. One RSL member recently said that, by demanding the forensic audit, reporting the organisation to regulators, and cooperating with all investigations, Glenn 'called the artillery in onto himself'. Sadly, the artillery—without any fire—is the old men of the state council, who, rather than looking inward at their own breaches and failures, have opted to attack the soft target, the salaried CEO.
When Glenn demanded a forensic audit, the most vocal voice in the RSL boardroom against the audit was the current state treasurer, Bill Harrigan, an 80-year-old man who has no qualifications in business or accounting and no experience which would qualify him as a treasurer. This is the same 80-year-old man who argued vigorously against doing any company director training when Glenn attempted to introduce Australian Institute of Company Directors training to the state council. Had these old men done some governance training of this nature, they might not be in the position in which they find themselves now. This is the same 80-year-old man who has been accused of bullying and vilifying young veterans and other RSL and club members and staff, and who is presently facing a disciplinary hearing for bullying before his own RSL club. How is this old man a fit and proper person to sit on the board of a half a billion dollar business, let alone to be its treasurer?
These state councillors have been claiming they were not aware of all the financial misdeeds and mismanagement going on around them. The state president, John Haines, has been in that boardroom for 20 years. For him to say he had no idea what was going on either means he was asleep at the wheel of the RSL or he was aware and chose to ignore it. Either way, he and the rest of that board have not exercised their duties as directors.
The sheer quantum of allegations is simply overwhelming: allegations a former state president misused funds, including multiple phones for family members and cash withdrawals against the company credit card; allegations another former state president and a number of sitting state councillors were getting directors' fees for sitting on the board of another arm of RSL New South Wales; allegations these state councillors were laundering funds through the RSL welfare trust to the other arm on which they were sitting as directors; allegations the current state president took payment for his voluntary work at Granville RSL sub-branch; allegations the current state president also attempted to launder funds through the RSL welfare trust to bolster support for him in the election of state president; allegations the current state councillors concealed the frauds allegedly perpetrated by a former state president in order to get him to relinquish the state presidency; allegations a state councillor was involved in travel rorts overseas in support of wounded ex-Defence athletes—and the list goes on and on and on.
It now appears the state president and his cronies are attempting to bury these matters by disengaging the forensic investigators brought in to look at these and many other allegations before the investigation is complete. It appears they have arranged a board of inquiry but will attempt to ensure the minimal amount of evidence is put before it in order to exculpate themselves. This is consistent with the smoke-and-mirrors manner in which they operate. The state council recently told the membership of RSL New South Wales that they had stood down pending the outcome of the board of inquiry. Even a cursory look at the resolution under which they purportedly stood down shows they have not, in fact, stood down at all—they are still performing all the duties of state councillors and are still making decisions of a financial nature, notwithstanding that they have allegations of financial mismanagement hanging over their heads.
They are also running around poisoning many of the initiatives started by the CEO, Glenn Kolomeitz, including his social impact bonds program, which would ensure veterans' welfare programs would be properly funded for generations to come. They are running a scorched-earth campaign against the CEO which will damage the RSL in New South Wales long after these old men have passed.
In the meantime, they have bullied, harassed and publicly vilified the one member of that organisation who brought any hope of reform—the CEO, Glenn Kolomeitz. Their conduct towards him is straight out of 1950s workplace relations. These old men must get over their misplaced thirst for revenge, publicly apologise to the CEO and let him get on with the job of fixing the mess that they have made.
You old men have taken away the integrity of the New South Wales RSL. You old men have one job left to do: stand down. You have no other option. You are an absolute disgrace, the lot of you! And shame on you!
I also see that the RSL South Australia is back in the news today, with the Adelaide based InDaily reporting on the mass exodus of the RSL South Australia board of directors. Five of the nine RSL board of directors have resigned following revelations of a cash-flow crisis in the South Australian state branch. RSL National has sent in an auditor to assess the books. It is good to see the national RSL has finally woken up out of its coma after many, many years, and is actually starting to get a little active on this situation—better late than never.
Lastly, I would like to briefly touch on the issue of the maritime colleges. It is time to give Tasmania a fair go. I welcome the recent announcement by Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne revealing plans for a maritime technical college to be based in South Australia—that is, as long as the new college does not impact on the business models of AMC and AMFA.
The announcement leaves the door open for a pathway to more senior training that will impact on the business models of AMC and AMFA. Training which is currently provided at AMC for defence research and autonomous underwater vehicles, to name a few, will be severely restricted and undermined if the new college were to undertake those types of training, or take some of its funding.
The name of the new college, MTC, is similar to AMC, which at first glance looks threatening. At a time when funding is scarce, the government should not be putting resources into an area which is already covered by existing colleges that provide research and training envied by the rest of the world.
As long as the minister undertakes that the new business model will not interfere with the business models of both AMC and AMFA, I will support this new announcement. Otherwise, there will be a day of reckoning, Mr Pyne, and I will not forgive; nor will I forget. Let us not destroy what is left of the country's institutions. AMC and AMFA deserve a fair go. They have earned that, and they have earned their reputation as being some of the best in the world. I will not stand back and watch you, just to get votes, to save your own butt, in parliament, take from these two institutions.
A couple of years ago I had the privilege of being an election observer in Myanmar. One memory stands out in particular: standing in a school quadrangle on a bright afternoon in the regional city of Taunggyi; queues of people waiting patiently to get into the polling booth; a couple of military guys on bikes watching from the perimeter; but, apart from the long wait, nothing here is amiss. I think probably all of us in this place have had this experience in Australia more times than we can count: a school hall marked out into sections; people getting their names checked off; cardboard booths with voters hunched over a sheet of paper. One difference between this place and identical schoolyards in South Hedland or North Fremantle is: after you have voted, an electoral commission volunteer presses your finger into an ink-pad before you are allowed to leave, so that everyone heading back out into their afternoon has a bright purple pinkie finger proving that they voted. That is the memory that will stay with me: three women, beaming into the camera, holding their fingers up with enormous pride, having just voted in Myanmar's first election in decades.
This precious day is incredibly moving, because I know how much it has cost people. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has spent more than 15 years under house arrest. Thousands died or were tortured at the hands of a vicious military regime that turned this beautiful country into a living nightmare of paranoia and poverty. Today, across much of the country, courage has won. As the votes tally on a whiteboard until late at night there will be no arrests and no shots fired. Another outstanding memory is how familiar that all feels—scrutineers are haggling, journalists and candidates hanging around nervously and people glued to their mobile phones, trying to get a sense of how the ballot is unfolding around the country. I love it. It was the last thing I expected, but it feels like home. But there is a catch—there is always a catch: in the months leading up to that election, more than a million Rohingya people were struck off the electoral role and prevented from voting, entrenching their status as outsiders in their own land. The 2015 Myanmar election was more or less free and fair unless you were Muslim or you lived in one of the areas where decades-old civil wars still simmer. In Myanmar, since early October 2016, we have been witnessing what very likely constitutes crimes against humanity, including the murder of more than 1,000 Rohingya people in Rakhine State. Military and police operations have resulted in the displacement of at least 97,000 people, arbitrary arrests and disappearances, extrajudicial killings and the most horrific sexual violence against Rohingya women and children at the hands of Buddhist extremists. And all the while state authorities and much of the global community have reacted with blind silence.
One of the ways these atrocities become possible is when people are cast as less than human. It is a calculated process of organised dehumanisation: these people are not like us, they have strange names, they worship violent gods, they are not from here, they hate us and they mean us harm. Perhaps they are not people at all. Maybe they are like a virus that we need to vaccinate ourselves against.
Growing up in Perth's southern suburbs, human rights were something that mattered to other people in other places. They were abstract. They were academic. They were something on paper, handed down from 1948, having something to do with the people I would occasionally see on TV being tear gassed or trying to flee across borders.
Many of us in this building, me included, are in the fortunate minority for whom human rights can be safely taken for granted because ours are so rarely threatened. We are male, white, safe, financially secure and politically cocooned. We get to look at human rights through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars—something indistinct and far away.
Last October, Australia launched a bid for membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council. There are two seats up for grabs but three candidates: Australia, France and Spain. Let me put my cards on the table now: I support the bid. I want it to succeed but only if we mean it. About two months after launching the bid, in an address to the Lowy Institute in December 2016, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ms Julie Bishop, characterised the bid in this way:
Our platform for election is to commit to upholding fundamental freedoms and rights, many of which are now coming under increasing attack from different quarters. Australia has a strong track record in promoting fundamental freedoms, making us an ideal candidate for the Human Rights Council.
Let's start at the beginning. This parliament has still not come to grips with its founding human rights violation: that the ground we stand on tonight was stolen from the planet's oldest continuing civilisation. Our country is irretrievably shaped by the vast national silence shrouding the frontier wars: 23 decades of dispossession and incarceration for which there are no national monuments or moments of silence. Violently occupying country is a human rights abuse, stealing children is a human rights abuse, deliberately erasing language and song is a human rights abuse and jailing children and driving desperate people to suicide is a human rights abuse. The initiation of this catastrophe is still designated as a mandatory national celebration—Australia Day—when we are encouraged to take a day off work, get pissed and watch fireworks light up country over which sovereignty was never ceded.
I know there are people, including those in this parliament, whose political persona is fabricated around the conceit that this is all ancient history or maybe did not happen at all. Our great national amnesia makes parties like One Nation possible. Human rights violations are not something that just happen far over the horizon; they happen right here to Aboriginal kids in overcrowded prisons and to women and children in violent homes. So, before we get to waving our finger at other people from behind a lectern in New York, we might want to look at getting our own house in order.
There is no question that the horror of Australian funded and run offshore internment camps will weigh against our case to take a place on the Human Rights Council. People have been murdered in the delicate care of ministers Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton. People have set themselves on fire and starved themselves nearly to death, and these barbed wire enclosures are now mental illness factories. The worst thing about this inhuman bipartisan policy of exemplary detention is that these people are on the run from precisely the kind of human rights abuses that the Australian government claims to stand against. It is like locking the fire escape on a burning building. That is why we are going to struggle to make the case that we are ready to lead the world in human rights advocacy.
Some of these fires are ones our own government helped ignite. Families fleeing the sectarian horror in Iraq have discovered that Australia, alone in the world, is locked into a system of mandatory, unreviewable offshore detention, indefinite until death or repatriation back to the regimes they fled from. There are other acts of official cruelty that will weigh against us. In 2014, the UN Human Rights Council resolved to launch an investigation into war crimes and other atrocities that took place in the late stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Australia opposed the inquiry. At the time, Foreign Minister Bishop said, 'I do not think the resolution adequately recognised the significant progress taken by the Sri Lankan government to promote economic growth.' Instead, Australia was gifting the Sri Lankan military patrol boats to intercept families fleeing the terrors that still stalked majority-Tamil parts of the country.
There are traumas much closer to home. Our neighbours in West Papua are still being denied self-determination nearly 50 years after the 'act of no choice' locked in the Indonesian occupation of their ancestral lands. Four thousand unarmed West Papuans were arrested last year alone for protesting. You can be beaten or murdered for flying the Morning Star flag in West Papua, but the Australian government still provides diplomatic cover for these atrocities and helps train the paramilitaries, like Detachment 88, that are implicated in some of the worst of the violence.
Self-interested appeasement runs deep in Australia's shallow foreign policy pool. As recently as last week, Foreign Minister Bishop travelled to Davao, the hometown of Philippines President, Rodrigo Duterte. There are many examples of Duterte's homicidal tendencies, but here is one from 2009:
If you are doing an illegal activity in my city, if you are a criminal or part of a syndicate that preys on the innocent people of the city, for as long as I am the mayor, you are a legitimate target of assassination.
He has now brought this spirit of unapologetic mass murder to the presidency, but in her speech in Manila Ms Bishop was moved to observe that 'Australia and the Philippines are experiencing exciting and interesting times.'
This parliament narrowly avoided having to confront some horrifying truths about our largest trading partner this week, since the government seems to have pulled its proposal to enact an extradition agreement between Australia and the People's Republic of China. This was no doubt done to avoid embarrassing the Chinese Communist Party, which would have to rate as one of the most determined and systematic abusers of human rights on earth. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo and the Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti were jailed, maybe forever, for expressing opinions found to be threatening to the brittle authoritarians in Beijing. This week several of my colleagues and I joined Tibetan campaigners who are asking for nothing more than the right to return to their homeland without the threat of imprisonment. I sat in my office this morning with two young Tibetan men who had been imprisoned and tortured by Chinese authorities. They had made their way somehow to Dharamsala and then on to Australia. For my entire life I have seen Australian ministers of both political stripes participating in the ancient Chinese ritual of kowtowing, yet I cannot remember anything stronger than formulaic incantations of concern for human rights, which are then politely ignored so that the real business can be conducted.
Our behaviour where abuse conducted by our strategic allies is concerned is even more craven. There has been not a whisper of concern expressed by the Australian government on the release, by the WikiLeaks publishing organisation, of the Iraq or Afghanistan war logs or the state department cables. Despite the crimes and casual violence revealed in these documents, the Australian government reflexively lined up behind the Obama administration and attacked the whistleblowers. They treated Ed Snowden with the same paranoid revulsion when he exposed the machinery of the Five Eyes global surveillance network in which Australia is an enmeshed and deeply compromised participant. This is a human rights violation machine; that is what it is for.
To really understand the uniquely Australian hypocrisy towards human rights, we need only spend a few moments considering our role in the Middle East. There is no Israeli atrocity towards the people of Palestine so horrific that this government would not be willing to fabricate a justification for it. An endless siege, artillery bombardments, drone strikes, ground invasions, assassinations—there is nothing here that cannot be whitewashed in the name of some diplomatic outcome that, to be honest, I have never been able to understand. Australia drops weapons and supplies to Kurdish fighters in Syria for their part in the war against the medieval barbarity of Daesh, but we are silent when they are jailed and bombed out of their home cities by the Turkish government. Late last year, the Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne, made his way to Riyadh to flog Australian military equipment to the head of Saudi Arabia's National Guard, seemingly oblivious to the Saudi government's genocidal war in Yemen, which has killed at least 10,000 people. This one-sided conflict now threatens seven million people with deliberate starvation. Defence analysts believe that this conflict would end tomorrow without US and British military, logistical and intelligence support—with Australia contemptibly scrambling along behind.
If we are serious about getting on the Human Rights Council then let's do it, but let's mean it. Let's clean up our own act; build communities, not prisons; close the camps; and give no further material support, training or weapons to documented human rights abusers. Australia will no longer participate in wars of aggression. Our Defence Force will deploy only for defence or for the kind of humanitarian support that they are about to throw themselves into in North Queensland. Wind back mass surveillance and stop providing diplomatic cover for human rights abusers just because they happen to be our allies. Get engaged in the campaign to ban nuclear weapons, probably the ultimate tool of human rights abuse. Wind our foreign aid budget back up to the level we committed to and use it for the kinds of things that we can all be proud of: health, education, democracy, peace building and local economic resilience. Put human rights and the rule of law at the heart of Australian foreign policy, because there is so much work to do. The world is grappling with a lunatic regime in Pyongyang that tests nuclear weapons every couple of years. It is grappling with barbarity of Daesh, the nightmare of the Syrian civil war and the Russian government's queasy interventions at home and abroad.
The Human Rights Council is an incredibly important multilateral platform on which to promote the rule of law and our shared human values. More than 68 years ago, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and way back then Australia was a founding member of the United Nations, formed in the aftermath of the Holocaust, the Blitz, the firebombing of Dresden, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Australians were instrumental in drafting the Declaration of Human Rights in the aftermath and the shadow of the Second World War. We have modern achievements that we can be proud of as well: our work internationally on the death penalty, for which I would credit Foreign Minister Bishop and those who came before her in that office; our defence of self-determination in Timor-Leste; and a couple of quite specific but important actions during our tenure on the UN Security Council. But the very concept of human rights is under sustained attack in Australia. If you argue that Muslims are a virus, a disease, to be cleansed from our community then know that you have adopted the language of the Holocaust. Human rights matter because they cut across this language and the violence that proceeds from it.
Set aside the language of UN resolutions and rights diplomacy just for a moment and bring into your mind, if you can, the expression on the face of that battered and blood-covered little boy in the back of a Syrian ambulance. Can you recall the look of incomprehension in his eyes? I can. The boy's expression was seen around the world because we recognised him. He was familiar. We wanted to wrap him up and care for him. He is family. That look in his eyes is the solvent for the toxic nationalism whipped up by One Nation and their forebears in the Liberal-National Party. He is Syrian, yes, but he is family, and I believe that most Australians want this kid and others like him protected no matter where they were born. Maybe one day he and his family will emerge from a polling booth in Aleppo with bright purple ink on their pinkie fingers.
That moment in Myanmar that I cannot forget was made possible in part because our foreign aid budget had helped put DFAT and Australian Electoral Commission officers on the ground for months in advance to help local authorities run the election. So, good luck, Australia, in getting on the Human Rights Council, but for heaven's sake let's mean it.
Between November 2016 and February 2017, Australian Aletia Dundas was based in the southern Hebron Hills of Palestine, serving as part of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel, a project of the World Council of Churches. She and her team monitored human rights abuses and provided protective accompaniment to Palestinian schoolchildren, workers and activists who faced the threat of violence or harassment as a result of Israel's military occupation.
The following are Aletia's reflections on her time in occupied Palestine:
Each Saturday morning we would accompany and observe local nonviolent land actions. These actions were usually organised by Palestinian activists who were joined by sympathetic Israeli activists, and a small group of internationals. Operation Dove, Ta'ayush and Christian Peacemaker Teams are some of the organisations that we work with. Operation Dove is an Italian peace organisation also offering protective presence to people affected by the military occupation. Ta'ayush is an Israeli-Palestinian human rights organisation that works for an end to the occupation through nonviolent direct action. Christian Peacemaker Teams is also committed to nonviolence and provides protective presence in Hebron and the surrounding areas.
As the sun beat down on the hillsides south of Hebron, a cheerful and determined band of residents headed off to plant a tree on their agricultural land a short distance from the Palestinian village of At Tuwani. Followed closely behind by a group of internationals and Israeli activists, they marched along the side of the hill holding olive seedlings, gardening equipment and flags. At the chosen spot some began to dig a suitable hole while a couple of women fixed a banner which said 'Women for freedom of movement' to a fence nearby.
I asked one of the Israeli activists from Ta'ayush what sort of difficulties they face when they participate in such actions. He told me that their car will often be stopped on the road as they travel from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, and the Israeli soldiers will look for any possible reason to detain them. They have been arrested and questioned multiple times during land actions. Palestinians pay an even higher price for engagement in activism, and are subject to military courts rather than civilian. The role of Israelis who condemn the occupation and abuses of human rights is also important. The cost of nonviolent activism for all is high in a context like this.
Glancing behind this group, a short way up the hill I notice a few settlers beginning to gather by a small shed. These settlers live in an outpost near to the Jewish settlement called Ma'on. Both the Ma'on settlement and the nearby outpost encroach upon the land that belongs to the residents of At Tuwani. Settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law. The outposts are too. Outposts were illegal under Israeli law until very recently. And yet, these settlers were clearly unsettled by the presence of a cheerful and harmless group of predominantly women and children standing up for their rights. So they called in the Israeli army for backup.
Within minutes six army jeeps, a police car and the civil administration vehicle arrived at the scene and surrounded our group, which was about 30 strong at the most. When the army first arrived, it wasn't clear what they would do. Eventually, they did the only thing they could legally do, which was to declare the area a closed military zone. Some of the soldiers were young men and women, aged still in their teens, who seemed hesitant and afraid. They briefly detained one Israeli man from Ta'ayush and ushered the rest of us back to At Tuwani.
But the action wasn't over. Reports came through that a group of about 30 settlers had entered the Palestinian village of At Tuwani. They were singing loudly and trespassing in various Palestinian homes. In a very relaxed way, and only because so many internationals were there as witnesses, the army encouraged the settlers to leave. None of them were detained or arrested as far as we know, and the tension was eventually dissolved.
This situation led me to reflect on the conditions needed to achieve justice through nonviolent means. Olive tree planting is such a beautiful metaphor. While olive branches have come to be understood as an international symbol of peace and conciliation, they also represent the homelands and livelihoods that are under threat while settlements continue to expand onto Palestinian land and while the military occupation continues. Planting more olive trees, and doing so on land that has been stolen, is an act of strength, resistance and summud (steadfast perseverance). While the Palestinians were the ones planting the trees, this tiny act of resistance would not have been possible without the witness and solidarity offered by Israeli and international friends.
I congratulate Aletia Dundas for her work monitoring human rights violations by Israeli settlers and the military, and for providing protective accompaniment to Palestinians harassed because of the Israeli military occupation.
On another matter, when it comes to the housing crisis it is clear that young people are getting done over. It was not so long ago that houses were recognised as homes for people, but now they are increasingly commodities to make money from. A generation ago you only needed three or four times your annual income to buy a home; now it is more like 10 times in our big capital cities. Government used to intervene into the market to ensure homes for all, but it is now a cutthroat world with millions in housing related stress.
There is clearly a generational divide, but we must remember that many older people are also doing it very tough. In particular, owing to the sexist nature of our workplaces and retirement benefit schemes, older women are increasingly being left without a secure, affordable home. Just remember these figures: 105,000 Australians face homelessness every night and over 40 per cent of these are women. Fifty-five per cent of homeless women are fleeing domestic violence.
Last year, the government threatened to cut the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. Thanks to the tireless work of housing campaigners, including an open letter signed by 209 major charities and frontline services, it was saved for another year. A cut would have impacted some of the most vulnerable people in our community. Unless the NPAH is extended and increased we will see more people living on the streets, more women facing family violence and sexual assault alone, fewer young people going to school, higher unemployment and more admissions to emergency departments. All these things are connected. Not spending enough on homelessness is particularly harmful for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, who disproportionately experience both family violence and homelessness.
Why are so many women finding themselves homeless? The issue is of course complex. However, there are two major reasons why this has become a major crisis. Housing has become a commodity in international financial markets. House prices continue to escalate in major urban centres. Housing has become unaffordable for the average resident. The Liberal-National government argues that the solution is to increase the stock of housing. Developers and investors, including foreign investors, are being encouraged to build more housing, with tax breaks to encourage this. But in fact, according to a recent UN report a significant portion of investor owned homes are simply left empty—for example, one report estimates that 82,000, or about one-fifth, of investor owned units in Melbourne are unoccupied. In such markets the value of housing is no longer based on its social use. Properties are equally valuable to these people regardless of whether they are vacant or occupied. They are built with the intention of lying empty and accumulating value, realised thanks to the unfair tax breaks on capital gains. Developers and speculators are likely to replace affordable housing that is needed locally with luxury housing that sits vacant because that is how best to turn a profit quickly.
This goes to the heart of why there is the housing crisis that we have today. United Nations special rapporteur for housing Leilani Farha said it best in her recent report:
Housing has … become a financial commodity, robbed of its connection to community, dignity and the idea of home.
Women and children are most vulnerable to this disconnection. There are many reasons for this, all embedded in an unjust patriarchal society that privileges male control over female human rights. For example, women are still more likely to have low-paid, part-time, insecure jobs. As single mothers, women have less opportunity to find suitable employment. When domestic violence occurs, women are often forced to flee and often lose the family home. Domestic assault in NSW has risen from a rate of 257 per 100,000 people in 1995, reaching a high of 400 incidents per 100,000 people in 2014. Similarly, reports of family violence incidents in Victoria have increased steadily since 2010-11, with an 8.8 per cent increase from 2013-14 to the following financial year.
The private rental market is also becoming increasingly unaffordable. This also creates gender segregation. In Australia, average-income single female workers can afford to live in only one suburb of Melbourne and cannot afford to live anywhere in Sydney. Older women are even more vulnerable to extreme poverty and homelessness,. They are more likely than men to experience discrimination during their lifetime of employment, are very likely to spend much of their retirement years living alone, have relatively little access to superannuation and are likely to experience severe poverty in their old age. Indeed, one study found that 51 per cent of older women over 85 live in or near poverty. Older women, especially those living alone, become particularly vulnerable to homelessness if they are in the private rental market and dependent on the pension. The number of older women renting in the private rental market is increasing, from 91,000 in the 2006 census to 135,000 in 2011. The vulnerability increases in the case of a medical crisis or a chronic medical condition, as successive governments have cut Medicare down to the bone. According to a new report from the Mercy Foundation, women older than 55 are being squeezed out of the private rental market in Melbourne as real estate prices continue to rise. As a result, more older middle-class women are being exposed to homelessness, especially those who have led traditional roles raising a family.
Adequate housing must be seen as a human right. It is not a commodity. Older women—our mums, our grandmothers, our aunties—are increasingly vulnerable to homelessness. We are now in a major social crisis, and it will get worse if we do nothing. Governments must intervene to revitalise public housing and take on the real estate speculators and big banks. We owe it to those women to reclaim housing as a right and a social good.
On another matter, a troubling issue has arisen in the Manly Dam catchment area in the northern suburbs of Sydney. Seventeen years ago, several hectares of heritage listed bushland in the headwaters of the Manly Dam catchment were bulldozed in an act of overdevelopment and unnecessary urban sprawl. We are once again seeing an assault on this critical public land, this time, heartbreakingly, to expand a school that was once lauded as a model for environmental education. The bushland identified for the expansion currently serves as both a treasured green space for Manly residents and a home to many threatened species, including the eastern pygmy possum, the powerful owl, the eastern bent-wing bat, the grey-headed flying fox and the swamp wallaby.
It is unacceptable that a rethink of the entire plan was not undertaken by the relevant New South Wales environment and education departments. It is possible to ensure adequate space for the school's expansion without destroying valuable public land that has already suffered from overdevelopment. The Greens' New South Wales spokesperson on the environment, Dr Mehreen Faruqi, has met with members of the Save Manly Dam Catchment Committee, and together they are calling on the government to permanently protect this land. I recently had the opportunity to visit this area with the Greens' parliamentary leader, Richard Di Natale, and the Greens' New South Wales planning spokesperson, David Shoebridge. We met the Save Manly Dam Catchment Committee. They briefed us and provided us with the most stunning bushwalk, and it all provided a powerful reminder of why this area should be protected.
I first became acquainted with Manly Dam in 2000. At the time, the New South Wales government had put land in trust to the Spastic Centre of New South Wales. It was rezoned by the Warringah council to allow medium density, and it was then sold to Ardel, which then proceeded to overdevelop the area—a classic case of the problems with Sydney's planning laws.
In June 2000, many locals, members of the Save Manly Dam Catchment Committee and supporters like me stood together in acts of civil disobedience opposing this overdevelopment that was damaging the urban bushland that is unique in this area. For many days, at the crack of dawn, we would gather and greet the bulldozers. On 16 June, I was arrested along with five others. It was a story that I took into the New South Wales parliament, where I was a member at the time. At our arrest there were 40 people on site. Not long afterwards, hundreds of people rallied at the site in a last-ditch effort to save the land. Sadly, however, much of that area was destroyed by the bulldozers.
Today, once again, the bushland in the Manly catchment is under threat as a result of poor planning. Sadly, this time, as I said, it is in the name of public education, but that is a totally false construct. The choice between the environment and public education is a manufactured problem. It is a false trade-off. Greens are strong supporters of equipping our public education system, our teachers and administrators with the resources they need to provide world-class education to all children. Financing and building high-quality infrastructure underpin the achievement of this goal. But there should be no false dichotomy between education and the environment. Instead of pursuing innovative solutions in the planning process to find space for 1,000 pupils without destroying the precious bushland, the planners have reverted to 1950s-style chop-it-down planning.
The most recent approval for land clearing around the school completely flies in the face of the values of this great community, as articulated by the former principal, David Tribe. In 1989, Manly Vale Public School was designated a centre of excellence in environmental education. Principal Tribe's contribution was outstanding. So many Manly residents that I have met understand that excellent public education and protecting our environment go hand in hand. I congratulate members of the Manly Vale school community and the Save Manly Dam Catchment Committee for all that they have done to resolve this situation and to protect the community's land.
The Greens support the call for the remaining public land in the catchment of the Manly Warringah War Memorial Park to be protected either as a nature reserve or by adding it to the Garigal National Park. This level of protection is warranted considering the environmental diversity of this land and to remove the threat it is under.
Poor New South Wales planning laws are causing the destruction of the last remaining bushland found within too many suburbs of Sydney. Our urban bushland should be protected. Manly Dam bushland is one of these areas. It should be preserved for future generations and for the many species that are part of the rich biodiversity of this area. To achieve that, we need to recast the planning laws in New South Wales and also ensure that the political donations from developers are not allowed to pollute the democracy of that state.
This evening, I would like to bring some highlights of a recent listening tour throughout South-West Queensland. I want to highlight the initiative that people show in Queensland and also government intrusion at both federal and state levels that is seriously hurting and in fact destroying some of the regions. I will start with Miles, where we continued the tour from the last time I spoke on this topic.
We met—'we' being me and Sharon Lohse, the One Nation candidate for Warrego, who since the redistribution has moved to the seat of Callide—on Monday morning, 20 February, with David Sweetapple, Jon Kingston, John Hoffman, Rachel Kerwick and Paula, at Paula's cafe. They are respectively a developer and salesman; a real estate person who bought Hub Real Estate there; the owner of Miles Engineering; an earthmoving, mechanical work and retail salesman and developer; and a cafe owner, as I said. They had serious complaints with what appeared to be the council not enforcing an agreement with Origin to move the camp for the coal seam gas mining contractors into town. In fact, people in town had invested heavily in building accommodation and had depended upon that agreement, and they were very concerned that it seemed that the council would not honour that agreement. I have since found that, due to some publicity, the council and Origin Energy are going to move the camp and fulfil that promise.
I raise that because two days later we visited Santos's coal seam gas production—it is not mining—near Roma, and that seems to be going extremely well, with very good relations all round. But Origin and its predecessors have really not been consistent in their application.
Also, what seems to have happened in some areas with coal seam gas extraction is that the companies have rushed to get hold of the windfall and in the process have seemingly bypassed environmental regulations and not looked after promises. It just seems that the government has enabled, in many areas, the bypassing of sound environmental regulations and has been negligent, possibly, or certainly dismissive about property rights and water, both overland water and underground water.
What this shows is that government now serves itself in Queensland at the expense of the people. This is not only the current Labor government or the previous Bligh Labor government but also the intervening Newman Liberal-National Party government. This causes massive disruption to communities and to individual lives. Government is the problem. Freedom is a society run by the people. Control is a society run by bureaucrats. This was pointed out to me by several people, as we went around southwest Queensland. Both a free society and a control-oriented society have rules, but in a free society the people make the rules.
We went to Roma that same day and met with Chris Van'tHof at the Club Hotel Roma. Here, again, we see rules going mad, suppressing people and hurting business and the community. What we see is that taxes are killing business. From memory, I will give you some examples from what Chris told us. He invested over a million dollars in setting up a nightclub in Roma. It is the only nightclub for 600 kilometres. He also invested $250,000 in security equipment, in addition to the $30,000 that was mandated, and then another $10,000, which was not required, in buying the best security and identity tracking device available. What he is able do with that, at his own initiative, is provide people—young men and women—with a very safe place for a nightclub in Roma. What happened was that the number of late night extended hours were cut from 12 to six, so the business case on which he had based his projections was completely turned upside down. I wondered why extended hours that were shortened from 3 am to 2 am would hurt? He told me that it was because the government has priced alcohol out of the reach of most people, so people preload at private residences and other places. Then they come to the pub, tanked up, at 12.30 am, and he has only an hour and a half to make his money and to pay off that one and a quarter million dollars that he has invested in the club. Also, people are deterred from drinking in the pub because of the taxes on the alcohol served in a pub.
The irony is that some of the changes were delayed by the Bligh government. They changed their regulations willy-nilly. Now there is a slowness in reverting back to the old regulations, and the Palaszczuk government is changing its mind. Also, from what we heard, mandated closing times lead to violence. When people get tanked up and leave at 2 am, they are still wanting to go out and so we actually have more violence, potentially, because they are in unsupervised places; they are in unrestricted places. Also, as the publican at the Club Hotel Roma said, the law of unintended consequences applies because they have wilder parties, underage drinking and drugs on private premises. The alcohol taxes are actually killing socialising and leading to an increase in drug use and possibly an increase in violence. The problem here is government.
That afternoon we moved to Santos's Roma field. I noticed very clearly that they had some high standards, very clean operations and a very professional approach. We were led on our tour by Rob Simpson, who is in charge of the operations for that field. He was joined by Andrew and Jeremy. We talked with and listened to Scott and Andrew, two farmers in the area. They said that their responses were very positive, and they echoed many farmers in the area. We have since heard that from other areas. Farmers and townsfolk in Roma are very pleased with Santos's operation. We heard no complaints from anyone there and had no indication of any complaints. What seems to have happened is that, after a 50-year record of conventional gas extraction, Santos moved to the Fairview operation north of Roma, which is probably one of the world's best coal seam gas extraction fields. They have done a really good job there, and then they moved back to Roma. They have gone at it slowly and learned along the way. They have maintained good relationships with the community and with the farmers. What they have done is shrunk the footprint for each gas well, which means less intrusion on the farmer. So farmers are now getting enormous benefit by drought-proofing their land. In bad years, they are still getting their revenue from the coal seam gas extraction.
I have a check list for coal seam gas extraction. Does it respect private property rights? There has been a history in our state of Queensland of state governments—both Liberal-National Party and Labor Party—pushing aside farmers property rights: stealing and destroying their property rights. In fact, the farmers at Roma said that the gas companies are respecting private property rights. They are respecting the treatment of water and handling it responsibly. They are minimising the interruption to overland water. They are putting in place dams for stock. They are managing any gas leakage. There is no gas leakage. They are managing environmental standards very, very well—no pollutants. They have a very good plan, it seems, for managing the salt, and they look after the cultural heritage. So it seems that Santos is providing a good example of effective management of a very important resource, because ultimately that has to be extracted if we want to make the most of our resources and provide cheaper energy.
Then we moved on to Charleville, where we met with Campbell McPhee, who owns and manages the Charleville Western Abattoir, the next morning. This is a very, very clean abattoir. It has very high standards, although I am not an expert. We noticed that government inspectors were there at every stage of the process—and of course the company has to pay for that. This company exports from far western Queensland to the United States, primarily—85 per cent. It has to have very high standards to do that, so compliments to the people at the abattoir. The company also exports to China and to some very expensive restaurants in Sydney. Up until the start of this abattoir, there was no small animal abattoir in Queensland. This venture now employs 165 people, many of whom are Vietnamese people. They needed people on 457 visas from Vietnam to come in because there was insufficient local skill and labour available. It was wonderful to see that the Vietnamese have integrated so well. On my previous visit, Annie Liston, the mayor of the Murweh Shire, which is based in Charleville, said that the integration has been wonderfully successful, with people working side-by-side. The abattoir earns $70 million in exports a year, treating a record 686,000 goats in one year. This is dealing with a feral goat problem but also encouraging the farming of goats in their own right. In an average year, they kill around 600,000 goats and send that to the export markets and earn export income for our country. They send it on road trains to Brisbane daily and sometimes bring sheep and in the future will be slaughtering sheep. They need to slaughter quickly, and they use government supervision.
But here is the problem, despite the success of this: there is now a move by a separate company, with Chinese owners, to reopen a kangaroo abattoir in order to treat larger animals—donkeys, camels, horses and beef cattle. There is no problem with that except that they cannot get the energy. They were promised by the energy supplier access to reliable energy, but they cannot get it, and that might now be delayed. The other problem with electricity—and this was first thing Annie Liston, Mayor of Murweh Shire, said when we met her on a previous visit to Charleville—is that electricity prices are very high and reliability and security mean electricity supply is very vulnerable. The electricity bill at the abattoir is $1.2 million for a year.
What I am trying to show with these examples is the initiative, creativity, dedication and commitment of the people of Queensland despite governments interfering. What we have to do is keep listening and acting on our constituents' requests and make it easier, because what continues to emerge is that the key challenges people of Queensland face at the moment are energy prices, regulations and taxes, and, in the case of the farmers, the return of private property rights.
Each year on 31 March, the International Transgender Day of Visibility brings the trans and gender-diverse community and their friends, advocates and families together and offers them an important opportunity to publicly affirm and celebrate trans and gender-diverse people's lives, their stories and their contributions to our communities.
We have seen significant progress in the fight for rights and community acceptance for trans and gender-diverse people in recent years. Much of this progress has been due to the work of incredibly brave and diligent leaders working within their community—people like Georgie Stone, who is an inspiring young activist who was here in parliament this week when she presented a petition with more than 15,000 signatures calling for much-needed legal reforms allowing trans teens to access hormones without going through the court system; people like Sally Goldner, who is the first trans woman named to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women for her longstanding work in the LGBTI community and her outstanding advocacy; and people like Brenda Appleton, who was inducted to the honour roll just a few weeks ago for her many years of groundbreaking work including the establishment of a peer-based mental health support service.
Leaders like Georgie, Sally and Brenda show us the power of public advocacy and visibility. Greater visibility and awareness lead to greater acceptance, and on this note I find it very encouraging that referrals to the Royal Children's Hospital gender service in Melbourne have increased dramatically over the last five years. In 2012, they had fewer than 20 new referrals. Last year there were 226 new referrals, and I understand that the service is on track to receive around 300 new referrals this year.
This increase is not happening because there are suddenly more trans people, and it is not happening because, to quote the rantings and ravings of the News Limited papers, the Safe Schools program has become 'a Trojan horse employed by Marxist and socialist-Left activists to force a radical lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex agenda on children and schools'. No, the rocketing increase in the number of kids presenting is because trans young people feel safer and more comfortable in coming forward to seek the medical assistance they need to proudly and happily live their lives as the people they truly are.
International Transgender Day of Visibility is a fantastic opportunity for trans and gender-diverse leaders and communities, allies and advocates to stand together. This solidarity is growing. I was thrilled to meet Tiwi Islander Sistergirls and Pacific Islander trans community members at this year's Mardi Gras. I hope that, as acceptance and visibility continues to grow in years to come, more and more diverse people and communities will join in the Mardi Gras celebration.
But unfortunately, despite these encouraging signs, there is still a long way to go. Just yesterday, I heard the heart-rending story of Archie, who was physically and verbally harassed and humiliated for wearing makeup on a night out in Melbourne. Archie said he was singled out by a guy in the street. He stopped all his mates to swear at him. After challenging him, Archie was then abused by the group of men for 15 minutes for 'starting a fight', 'not minding our own business' and 'taking things too seriously'. Archie continues by saying how later, at a bar, a stranger began propositioning the two women friends he was with, and he says: 'As I put my arms around them and said we weren't interested, he began to shout that he knew what I really wanted and that he'd be happy to bend over for me. We finally managed to get to the bar and as we waited in line, the people standing directly behind us openly speculated about my sexuality until one of them reassured the others that I "might not actually be gay".' Nobody's night out should be ruined and their safety compromised simply for being who they are, but sadly these types of incidents still occur.
I also acknowledge that there is work to be done to ensure diversity in who and what is 'visible.' Sadly, in mainstream discussions about trans rights in Australia, some voices are too often excluded, such as trans people of colour, trans refugees and asylum seekers, genderqueer people, gender-fluid people, brotherboys and sistergirls, and anyone who exists outside of the gender binary. To these communities and individuals, I give my heartfelt commitment to listen to you and learn from you about how to be a better ally. I want you to know: if you identify as a trans or gender-diverse person and feel that your voice is not being heard, please contact me, because I want to hear your story. Everybody has the right to be comfortable with their identity, to be safe and happy, and to be part of our community. International Transgender Day of Visibility is a chance to recognise progress, to congratulate communities and individuals working towards justice and equality, and to reflect upon how much more we as a community can do to make this happen.
I would now like to take time to congratulate the Adelaide Crows on their grand final win over the weekend and the whole AFL women's competition on a thrilling first season. I am only a first generation Victorian. My family heritage is firmly South Australian, and of course I am claiming it this week given the Crows' win. My cousin Ian will be very pleased to hear me say that! It was a great game, and I am flawed by the skill of players like Erin Phillips—an elite basketballer and just an astounding footballer.
Watching the medal presentation to these premiership players gave me goosebumps. It represented so much, after year upon year of watching the AFL grand final celebrations, to see women on that dais this time. All the pioneering women footballers who came before this year's competition can claim their portion of the glory, and we thank them for paving the way. Women have been honing and developing this game for years, and some are lucky to be in the generation that have finally taken their place on the elite stage.
It is inarguable that women's footy is here to stay. This season of elite competition has been thrilling, and it has drawn legions of fans to watch in person and on telly. I went along to my beloved Bulldogs' first game, at Whitten Oval. It was a beautiful late summer's night and the warm glow was enhanced when we beat Freo. Commiserations to my colleague Adam Bandt, who was cheering his hometown's Dockers that night. He was drowned out by the west's barracking for the red, white and blue. There was a big crowd there that night. This new league brought a refreshed fan base with it. I was surprised and delighted to see the number of young people; groups of friends, men and women alike; and young families with six-year-old girls, with their favourite player's number on the back of their footy jumper, hanging out on for an autograph at the end of the game.
We have come so far in the last decade. When my sons were playing junior football the girls they played with, though small in number, were often amongst the best players in the team. But once they got through under-12s it was: 'Sorry love, you can't play anymore.' Last Sunday morning I rode my bike past one of the grounds they had played at, JJ Holland Reserve in Kensington, and there were two women's games in full swing! While the AFL competition has been a breath of fresh air, we still have a long way to go in terms of how our women footballers and athletes across codes are recognised and compensated on an equal footing with their male counterparts. The average female wage in the AFL is $8,500. The average male wage in the AFL is $300,000.
I went along recently to the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance's Game Changers forum in Melbourne. It was a platform for an important conversation about women transforming Australian sport. We heard from the likes of Angela Pippos, Caroline Wilson, Ros Lanigan and Kelli Underwood—all women who live and breathe sport and play vital roles in our media landscape. We heard about the problems with our mainstream media. 'It's still male, pale and stale,' said Angela Pippos commenting on the white blokes dominating the sports media. That is pretty reflective of many other public spaces, wouldn't you say? It is unfortunate, but this is still the case. Kelli Underwood noted that, unlike women in sports media, Gerard Whateley has never been rated out of 10 for an outfit on a red carpet! It is thanks to women like Angela and her colleagues, as well as the players and other women's footy pioneers, that we have some reason for hope—hope for women to take the field, to take the premiership dais and to take the commentary microphones in even greater numbers. This is their rightful place, and we should celebrate them.
This parliament has played a role in celebrating women's sport in a range of ways through the years. To further that work, I have been pleased to have fruitful conversations with my parliamentary colleagues about the prospect of establishing a parliamentary 'Friends of AFL Women' group. We will of course follow the proper avenues with the President and the Speaker in due course, but we hope to have the support of our colleagues across the parliament.
Congratulations again to all the teams who took the field in this first season of the AFL women's competition. It has been a blinder!
I want to finish tonight by reflecting upon my experience in the Senate over the almost three years that I have been here. When people ask me how it is going, I will often prevaricate. I say what a privilege it is to represent people, to be an advocate for them. I reflect upon meeting people such as the Muslim women I had morning tea with on Sunday. They were wonderful engaged women. They were engineers, entrepreneurs, medical practitioners. They were bringing their community together and contributing to our broader community in so many ways. It is a privilege to be their advocate and to represent their views in this parliament. They do not deserve to be the brunt of the racism and prejudice that is thrown at them in this parliament, such as that spouted by Senator Hanson earlier tonight.
When I reflect on how my almost three years have been going I move on to how, because of senators like Senator Hanson and others in the government ranks, I often find being here in parliament pretty soul destroying. It is not because people are challenging me with ideas different from my own. I relish that. I love to be challenged. I love to tussle with ideas and new ways of looking at things. No, it is because so much of what passes for debate in this chamber is based on division, prejudice, arrogance, total disrespect for evidence and science, and spruiking total fantasy as fact.
My politics is based on respect and love; on treating all people as equals regardless of background; on presuming the best in people; on celebrating difference and diversity, not being challenged by it; on seeing us Australians as citizens of the world, a part of a global humanity; on respecting the rights of the rest of nature that we share our small planet with; and on respecting the rights of the people and species of the future. They deserve to have the same chances as we do to live healthy lives.
My politics is also based on paying attention to evidence and to science. What I find particularly galling in the debates here is the people in positions of power and influence, the senators in this chamber, who wilfully deny scientific evidence; who are helping to put the lives of all of us and of future generations, and the amazing diversity of life on this planet, at risk; who, despite the evidence of the harm being done by global warming, refuse to act on that evidence; who talk platitudes about protecting the Great Barrier Reef but plan to open up a coalmine that, when that coal is burnt, will result in carbon pollution equivalent to the emissions of New York City; and who laugh when the starkness of the evidence, the record coral bleaching that is going to kill the Great Barrier Reef, is put before them, as it was in question time today. They laugh, and they wash their hands of the shared responsibility of all of us to act. Our life support systems on this planet are at crisis point, yet we are sleepwalking into these crises. The Greens are committed to tackling global warming and all the other crises that we are facing with an emergency-scale response, appropriate to the scale and the urgency of the problems we face.
To get over the soul-destroying elements of being here, I try to stay positive. I try to feel that our role here is to continue to try to bring people together. So I want to conclude by inviting all others in this place to join with us in facing reality and in being part of the solutions to the problems we face, not the problems. I will do my best to stay positive and optimistic that others here will eventually see sense and we can tackle these problems together.
Senate adjourned at 23:02