( I remind senators that the question may be put on any proposal at the request of any senator. There being none, we will move on.
This is a Labor bill introduced by former Senator Gallagher. On 30 May this year the Senate Economics Legislation Committee handed down its final report on corporate tax avoidance, titled Much heat, little light so far. As many experts note, there was a strong emphasis on transparency. Labor has committed to a broad-ranging multinational and tax haven transparency package: mandatory disclosure to shareholders of tax haven exposure; a public beneficial ownership register that includes trusts, a measure that the government has crab walked away from; and public excerpts of country-by-country reports by global firms about how much tax they pay and where.
This bill implements a very specific tax transparency measure. The Taxation Administration Amendment (Corporate Tax Entity Information) Bill 2017 amends the Taxation Administration Act 1953 to require the Commissioner of Taxation to publicly release tax data for large private firms with turnover of $100 million or over. This is as Labor originally legislated in 2013 in the Tax Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013. Section 3C of the act details the type of income and tax information the Commissioner of Taxation is required to make publicly available annually for corporate entities. The bill addresses a prominent deficiency in the tax transparency regime that arose after amendments were made in 2015 and it brings approximately 600 large companies into the tax transparency regime. The 2013 measure was a significant advance in tax transparency that accompanied and complemented other significant reforms to close tax loopholes used by large companies. Since then, three years of tax data on corporate tax entities has been publicly released—2013-14 through to 2015-16. It has facilitated constructive discussion about corporate taxation in Australia.
Civil society and advocacy groups argue that tax transparency data is a vital tool for oversight, scrutiny and policy debate, but we've also seen a government that hates the idea of tax transparency. We needn't look much further than the highly politicised attack on ABC's Emma Alberici's analysis of tax data to see how fearful the government is. In fact, last year the government coincidentally released the remaining tax transparency data on the day the nation was engrossed in the final passage of the marriage equality bill.
With the notable exception of the government, almost everyone recognises that tax transparency improves behaviour. Large private companies know that they will be held to account for the amount of tax they pay, and that will change behaviour. As originally passed, section 3C was a tax transparency measure that aligned the thresholds for public reporting of public and private corporate entities, basic tax and income information at $100 million. Section 3C was amended in October 2015 to completely remove private companies from public reporting by the new government in the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (Better Targeting the Income Tax Transparency Laws) Bill 2015.
My colleague in the House of Representatives the shadow Assistant Treasurer said, at the time, that the coalition did so after:
… an astro turf campaign, following really, what might have just have been an idea dreamed up after the second sherry in the Melbourne Club …
The Senate has begun the task of restoring the previous tax transparency laws. However, in December 2015, section 3C was amended again to include private companies. This was as part of the debate of the Tax Laws Amendment (Combating Multinational Tax Avoidance) Bill 2015. However, the threshold was $200 million. No genuine policy rationale was given for either the removal of the public reporting requirement for public companies or the restoration of the requirement with a significantly higher threshold. As noted in a Senate Economics Legislation Committee report on the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (Better Targeting the Income Tax Transparency Laws) Bill 2015, the Australian tax office gave evidence during this inquiry that one in five private companies earning over $100 million does not pay any tax. How did we get there?
During the Senate debate about the government's tax laws amendment bill 2015, the Liberals and the Greens engaged in a backroom deal to let Australia's largest private companies continue to avoid tax transparency. The coalition found a new partner in Senator Di Natale's Australian Greens. The Labor Party stood firm, and the Labor Party held to its position to protect tax transparency. At this point I'll note that, despite the outright fabrications of the coalition that we voted against their Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law, Labor only voted against the amendments that came about from the Liberal Party and the Greens political party deal. We took the pledge to restore the original tax threshold to the 2016 election. If the government will not fix this, we will aim to from opposition.
Schedule 1 of this bill amends the Taxation Administration Act 1953. Section 3C details the type of income and tax information the Commissioner of Taxation is required to make publically available annually for corporate entities. This bill amends 3C(1) to align the threshold for private corporate entities with that of public corporate entities by lowering the threshold from $200 million to $100 million. Item 1 section 3C(1) repeals the current wording of section 3C(1) and substitutes it with language that ensures corporate tax entities, including private companies, with total income equal to or exceeding $100 million are subject to public reporting requirements of section 3C. Item 2 clarifies that the amendment made in schedule 1 applies to the 2017-18 income year onwards. I encourage all those who consider themselves friends of transparency to support this bill and help us deliver one of the vital tools for public discussion about the integrity of our tax system.
I would also note that, in a parliamentary sitting period when the wealthiest individuals in this country have been given massive tax cuts by this government and when it is bringing to the Senate this week a bill to give further tax cuts to the big end of town and big corporations, one of the issues that Labor is vitally concerned about is the capacity for this country to provide decent health care, decent education and decent infrastructure facilities across the country. I don't want to see this country being the equivalent of the United States of America. I don't want to see this country get to a position where the disadvantaged cannot get access to decent health care and a decent education, and where the population in general are denied access to decent infrastructure around the country—because that's where we are heading under this government. Under this government, we are heading towards the Americanisation of Australian society, the Americanisation of Australian economics.
We are in a position where we will not have significant funding to make sure that the standard of living that the fair go in this country demands can be dealt with effectively, because of the lack of funding available through the tax system. We are determined to make sure that the fair go in this country stays here. We are determined to make sure that corporations who should be paying tax do pay their tax, and this bill is an important aspect of that.
Transparency is fundamental to the tax system. Transparency is important to make sure that we've got the funds available to fund the necessities of a modern society, and the transparency that we are proposing in this bill is fundamental to that. On that basis, I conclude by saying that this bill should be supported. If the government themselves were ever keen to do anything on transparency, they should support this. They should stop hiding the problems created by the lack of tax being paid by corporations and private companies in this country. They should stop their ideological attack on the tax base of this country. They should make sure that ordinary workers in this country, families in this country and individuals in this country can access decent health care, decent education and decent infrastructure, because, without the money coming in in a fair and balanced way through taxation, this will not happen. So transparency is important, and this bill will provide that transparency.
It is quickly becoming part of the lexicon of Australia that Labor lies, and more and more Australians understand that. That lexicon, that approach, could hardly be demonstrated more than when it comes to taxation. Anyone who might be listening to this debate, perhaps some of the newer senators, might be impressed with Senator Cameron's fine words—most of which weren't accurate, but they do sound fine—and you could almost think, 'Yes, isn't that wonderful?' But let me tell you about Labor's tax record.
I have the benefit of having been in this parliament for some time. I was here in 1992-93, when the Labor Party promised the people of Australia a tax cut. More than promising a tax cut, they actually said, 'We're going to legislate this tax cut as we approach the 1993 election, and we're going to put it into law.' The then Treasurer made a big thing about them: 'These are l-a-w law tax cuts.' Others who were around in those days will remember the l-a-w law tax cuts.
These tax cuts were introduced because all the pollsters in that period of history had the Labor Party losing the election and the Liberals winning the 1993 election. So Mr Keating thought he'd be a bit smart and impose on the next government substantial cuts in revenue by having these l-a-w law tax cuts. What happened? The Labor Party unexpectedly won the election and the first piece of legislation introduced in the new parliament was a Labor bill to cancel the l-a-w law tax cuts. So anything the Labor Party ever says about taxation you take with a grain of salt. Of course we all remember the carbon tax promise by Ms Gillard, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'. I see all the Labor people leaving the chamber when these unfortunate facts are exposed. 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead', remember that one? It was written in blood: 'No carbon tax under a government I lead'. What was the first piece of legislation introduced when that government was re-elected, basically on the back of that promise that there be no carbon tax? A carbon tax.
Senator Cameron also berates the government for heading down what he called the American path with health and education. Again, nobody would believe the Labor Party on health again. We all remember just last election that disgraceful, dishonest campaign by the Labor Party, about how the then government, the Liberal government, was going to sell and abolish Medicare. It was an outright lie. Never was there one skerrick of evidence to suggest that. Yet the Labor Party and the unions, particularly the CPSU were out everywhere on polling day, running the line that the Liberal Party was going to sell Medicare. I remember at the prepolls in Herbert during the election that the CPSU were out there in force, telling these outright lies, standing over little old ladies, saying, 'You know, you won't have Medicare should the Liberals win this time'. It was a disgraceful lying campaign, for which the CPSU has become infamous.
Since then, the federal coalition government has increased spending on health. Senator Cameron also mentioned education. I don't know whether he's been asleep or simply doesn't understand, but he would have heard Senator Birmingham make the most radical positive reforms of education that we've seen in a long time, with all students, no matter what schools they go to, getting an increase in funding per capita over the years ahead. In Queensland, I often interact at various happy events—handing over cheques to state schools, to private schools, to Catholic schools—and teachers, who understand these things, are grateful that someone is actually doing the right thing by education funding. I have to say, more often than not I'm at functions with Catholic schools and the Catholic education people in the north appreciate the additional funding they're getting and the fairness of the funding.
Senator Cameron and many members of the Labor Party and the Greens political party will keep railing about these personal income tax arrangements that went through, which give a greater percentage of relief to lower income people than higher income people. They keep raising issues like, you know, Senator Wong will get an extra $12,000 tax cut. They don't actually use that example; they use others, but I'll use that similar one. So I say to the Labor Party, if you think it's so bad, there is a provision for you to give those tax cuts back to the tax office. If you think they're bad and you are so passionate about it, you can give them back. The Greens political party are another one. They always rail about these things. I always tell them, 'You don't have to accept the tax cuts; you can give it back'. But I can bet you, I can guarantee you, not one of them ever will. They'll just put it in their pocket and continue to blame others for it.
I have digressed slightly from the bill, and I now want to turn to it. The government has a very, very proud record when it comes to taxation anti-avoidance. We've particularly looked at multinational companies to make sure that they do pay the right amount of tax. I'm going to indicate a number of the initiatives taken by the coalition government—initiatives which didn't even reach the talking point in the Labor government of six years! Sorry: there was one thing that the Labor government did say about tax six years ago, when Mr Shorten was an economics minister. They said that we had to have a competitive tax for corporate Australia, because otherwise Australia would fall behind in investment by corporations, and that would mean that we would fall behind in manufacturing and in any sort of work that created jobs. Those jobs would go overseas because the corporate world look around. If they can make widgets in Australia and pay 30 per cent company tax on their profits, and they can make widgets in the United States, France or anywhere else in the world and only pay 20 per cent corporate tax, where are they going to make their investment? The widgets will sell anywhere in the world; the jobs can be created anywhere in the world. So if we're not competitive in our corporate tax rates the jobs will go around the world. Mr Shorten knew that a few years ago, and he was advocating it. Now—for purely populist political envy reasons—he's changed his mind.
But the government has continued to take strong action. This includes a commitment to ensuring that tax transparency rules are effective in promoting broad compliance and public confidence in Australia's taxation laws. The government introduced the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law and the diverted profits tax, which Labor did oppose—I'm sorry, Senator Cameron: you did oppose it. These measures have been successful in bringing a further $7 billion a year in sales revenue into Australia's tax net.
Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law stops multinationals avoiding a taxable presence in Australia. This is real initiative, real legislation, from the coalition government—something the Labor Party never did in government in six years. The Greens supported them for six years but never bothered about that either. The diverted profits tax, which the coalition government introduced, prevents multinationals shifting profits overseas. That's been around for a long period of time, but it specifically related to motor cars in the 1950s. Now it applies across the board, so it doesn't allow profits to be shifted out of the taxation system.
In the most recent budget, the government announced further measures to stop multinational tax avoidance. These included strengthening the rules that limit interest deductibility to stop companies shifting profits out of Australia, including requiring companies to align the value of their assets with the value included in their financial statements. The government also broadened the range of large multinationals who were subject to the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law and the diverted profit tax. There are some other very strong actions being taken by the government, including the establishment of a tax avoidance task force within the ATO on 1 July two years ago. We also signed the OECD Multilateral Instrument on 7 June last year. We've doubled the penalties for multinationals avoiding tax. We've increased penalties for breaches of tax reporting obligations by multinationals. We've also implemented OECD recommendations for country-by-country reporting, to give the ATO greater access to multinational transfer-pricing information, and that's essential for the ATO to do its work. We've also aligned Australia's transfer-pricing rules with the latest OECD guidelines. These initiatives have ensured that multinationals comply with the law. Since 1 July 2016 the ATO has raised—listen to this—$5.2 billion in tax liabilities from large companies.
Australia is a global leader in the international fight against tax avoidance. We are taking strong international leadership with the G20 and the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project. This problem with profit shifting and base erosion is not, of course, unique to Australia. It is happening, particularly, in many developing countries around the world, and that's why the OECD has been so strong in promoting measures to avoid base erosion and profit shifting. The government, together with the ATO, continues to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of our tax laws. We have a very proud record of making sure that profits earned and generated in Australia are subject to the Australian tax laws.
At an estimates committee hearing a couple of years ago, this subject came to the fore—why there were so many private companies in Australia not paying tax in a particular year. Mr Cranston from the ATO said at that hearing:
… we—
being the ATO—
look at this over a number of years, because it is certain companies are at different cycles in their business cycles. Some have losses that need to be utilised, and they get utilised in different years. And there are other reasons. When we do have a look at some of these taxpayers that do not pay tax, some companies may embark on a strong investment strategy; so they actually have strong expenditure, because they say there is not the need for profits like you often seen in public companies, where there are franked dividends required. So a lot of private businesses will expand their businesses and their expenditure levels, and therefore their profits are lower. We have seen that as well. At other times we have seen where there has been aggressive tax planning, and we have dealt with that as well.
So the government and the tax office are well aware where there is illegal tax avoidance taking place, but not a lot of the statistics show the true story. Notwithstanding that, as I mentioned previously in my contribution, the government has taken a very strong stand to ensure that companies, including multinationals, pay the right amount of tax. This commitment to ensuring that tax transparency rules are effective in promoting broad compliance with and public confidence in Australia's tax laws is a continuing and ongoing one of the government. We continue, as appropriate, to bring forward legislation to stop multinational anti-avoidance procedures and to ensure that a diverted profits tax doesn't happen so that multinationals can't shift profit overseas.
I'm very pleased to be part of a government that has a sound economic record. We understand the need to manage spending very carefully, something our opponents don't seem to understand. We understand the importance of making sure that everybody in the Australian system pays their fair share and their correct share of tax, and we will continue to do that. This bill before us today from the opposition is not necessary and it is not one that I will be supporting.
I rise to say the Greens will be supporting this Taxation Administration Amendment (Corporate Tax Entity Information) Bill 2017 today, and we will be moving amendments in the committee stage to improve this bill. It is often said that in Australia we have a tax-and-transfer system: people pay their taxes, and then those taxes are transferred to pay for services such as schools and hospitals. But the Greens have often argued that in Australia what we have, in effect, is a tax avoidance system. I'm very proud to represent a political party that has led on this issue in this Senate, in the last five years especially.
In fact it was in 2014, nearly five years ago, that previous leader of the Greens senator Christine Milne initiated a groundbreaking Senate inquiry into tax avoidance in Australia, an inquiry that ran over a number of years and produced some very strong recommendations. Many of those recommendations and much of that witness evidence have been used to implement legislation in this place to tackle the issue of tax avoidance. I give a shout-out to those stakeholders that came to visit us in parliament in 2013, 2014—stakeholders such as Micah Challenge, an umbrella group of activists in their own way, I suppose you could say, who wanted to see changes to tax laws, to prevent tax avoidance, which of course punishes the poor; and Tax Justice Network, who have campaigned tirelessly to see laws improved.
It was interesting to listen to Senator Macdonald's speech. He actually surprised me this morning: he did a reasonable job of getting his mind around the issues. He outlined what the government have done, during their term, around some significant pieces of legislation. What he omitted, of course, was that that legislation wouldn't have passed without the help of the Greens and all the work that we've done to tackle this issue.
I need to step through the history behind why we have this bill here before us today. I know corporate knowledge tends to get eroded very quickly in this place not just in the chamber but also in the broader community and the media. This bill dates back to another bill, in June 2013, in the dying days of the Gillard government. Labor put forward the Tax Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 2) Bill 2013, requiring the public reporting of information on all companies—that is, private and public companies—earning over $100 million, and that passed into law. Those original Labor laws aligned the thresholds for public reporting by entities with basic tax and income information at $100 million. I'm not sure why that $100 million level was chosen; nevertheless, it passed into law. The Greens supported that bill—of course we did. We voted for it both here in the Senate and in the other place.
That act was repealed when the Abbott government came into office. They introduced a bill to remove private and public companies from any public reporting requirements. Of course, the Greens opposed that bill. Here's where it gets a little bit tricky. On 15 October 2015, the bill to repeal Labor's laws relating to tax transparency snuck through this Senate. I say 'snuck' very carefully. I was sitting in the chair as acting deputy president when the bill was being debated, and the speaking list collapsed. A critical piece of legislation from the coalition government passed the Senate without even a vote; it went to the voices. The speaking list collapsed, Labor didn't call for a division—I would have if I hadn't been in the chair, but that's where I was—and it passed without even a vote. That surprised a lot of people.
An opposition senator interjecting—
You can go to the video and have a look at it if you want to see what did happen on that day. It surprised a lot of people, especially some of the stakeholders and the media, and of course I was very angry. Personally, I was very angry that we didn't have a fight on that bill, because such a critical piece of legislation was being repealed. I pay tribute to Labor for bringing those laws in when they were in government in 2013.
Not long after that, through the Senate inquiry process where we looked at significant pieces of legislation we could use to tackle multinational tax avoidance, the government, in December 2015, brought before this place a bill called MAAL, the multinational anti-avoidance law. I put up an amendment to MAAL—it was a bit cheeky—that had been in Labor's entire $100 million tax transparency package because I thought that was an opportunity for us to get it back. Unfortunately, that was voted down in the House, but, after some significant debate in this place, the government agreed that they would include a tax transparency measure in their bill along very similar lines to section 3C, which provides for annual information that companies have to make available for private and public entities, but they wouldn't come at $100 million. They agreed that they would make companies over $200 million in size disclose their financial affairs. That included around 218 or so of the largest companies that weren't disclosing their affairs. It wasn't what we wanted, but, at the same time, it allowed for the beginning of disclosure, and it allowed the MAAL, the multinational anti-avoidance law, to pass, which gave the ATO, the Australian Taxation Office, significant new powers. It provided, for the first time, country-by-country reporting, which is absolutely critical to tackle things like base erosion and profit shifting. More importantly, it forced companies over $1 billion in size to provide general purpose financial statements, not the flimsy special purpose statements that they'd been using to avoid disclosure in the first place.
We worked with the coalition. The Labor Party campaigned against that legislation and against the Greens' move to include tax transparency in the legislation. In the end, we got the legislation through this place, but not without a big fight and a lot of mud throwing, may I say. Indeed, I remember a billboard in Sydney that said that the Greens voted against tax transparency, even though we were the ones who brought it back, got it on the agenda and got laws passed—but there you go. That was a Labor billboard smashing up the Greens going into the 2016 double dissolution, although we did all that great work. Four years of Senate inquiries supported the government in their legislation, improved their legislation and introduced tax transparency—and we had the mud thrown at us. But still, with the adults in the room, we got the significant package through, and we get the chance today to work together to improve the government's current laws, and that's a good thing: the Greens working with Labor and hopefully with the crossbench and even the Liberal Party. Labor have been happy to introduce tax transparency laws in the past for companies with over $200 million; why not $100 million? In fact, why not even $50 million? Transparency is a good thing. If you've got nothing to hide, why be worried? That's the simple principle that applied to companies with $200 million. It should equally apply to private and public companies with over $50 million. Personally, I'd like to see all companies disclose this kind of information, but this would be a really good start in terms of statistically capturing a much larger number of companies.
We now have the multinational anti-avoidance law, the MAAL. The ATO told us at Senate estimates they're proud that they've been able to bring in $4 billion to $5 billion in new revenue because of this legislation. It would have been avoided previously. That revenue is absolutely critical to pay for the education of our kids, for public hospitals and for our social safety net, such as Newstart or pensions. With that tax and transfer, at least we have made some gains in actually taxing the companies that were avoiding their obligations—their obligations to all Australian taxpayers. Let's face it, if you don't pay your tax in this place as an individual, the tax office will come down on you like a ton of bricks, and so they should. Why is it that big multinational corporations have been getting away with avoiding paying tax?
Well, they need more changes, because—unfortunately, while it may be unethical and immoral—it wasn't strictly speaking illegal until we changed the laws in this place.
On that point, the Greens at the last federal election took a package around multinational tax avoidance that included another 18 policies we want to see implemented in this place for a total crackdown on big companies, big wealthy corporations, not paying their fair share, which is totally unacceptable. While we acknowledge we have made some gains, and we can do so again today, there is still a long way for us to go.
I want to talk about the legislation we would like to improve with amendments. The debate in 2015, those of us that were here would remember, wasn't quite a Senate sleepover, but it was very close to it. I think we went until three or four in the morning debating this legislation. It wasn't a pretty time. My voice was hoarse from yelling. We were all getting a little bit wound up because we wanted to see these tax laws passed.
Previous senator Ricky Muir put up an amendment to remove grandfathering clauses. Let me tell you a little bit about grandfathering. Grandfathering basically allowed nearly 1,500 companies, private companies, to essentially be exempt from filing reports to the corporate regulator, ASIC. These grandfathering arrangements had been in place since the Keating government in 1995. It was the Labor Keating government that exempted these 1,500 companies from publicly reporting. There was no political will from Labor or Liberal in this place to change that. Senator Muir moved that amendment, but the Greens pointed out at the time that the government wouldn't pass any of the legislation if the grandfathering were brought in. The Liberal Party didn't want to see their rich mates disclosing their financial information, and it was going to be a deal-breaker.
It was a difficult choice for us. I confess today, as I did at the time, it was difficult. We would have liked to have seen those grandfathering exemptions removed, but it meant that the multinational anti-avoidance laws and the new Greens tax transparency laws that we brought in wouldn't have passed this place, and the tax office and our stakeholders desperately wanted those laws passed. The reason we had the debate in December was that they needed to be passed by the new year of that year for the government to be able to get the country-by-country reporting in place. That country-by-country reporting was absolutely critical.
So we had to vote down previous Senator Muir's amendment around grandfathering. But what I said that night in the Senate—and I said it publicly to the media—was that the Greens would make a commitment to coming back to this and, at the right time, we would remove the grandfathering exemptions. We will be moving an amendment to do that today. True to our word, we want to see all companies filing those annual reports. There's no reason at all for that exemption to be in place. It's a historical precedent that's been a bad precedent because it is not transparent; it's the opposite of transparent. We would certainly be hoping that Labor would support the Greens' amendments and that we can actually get that archaic exemption removed in our tax transparency laws.
What else does this bill seek to do? It seeks to reinstate Labor's threshold of $100 million. As I said previously, the Greens would support that. We would have liked to have seen $100 million in our amendment in 2015 to the MAAL laws, but the government wasn't going to come at that. So we're quite happy to support lowering that to $100 million. We've had discussions with the Labor Party about lowering it even further to $50 million, and I'm hopeful they will support that amendment to go a step further and increase tax transparency. There's no reason that companies shouldn't be transparent in their reporting. There's no reason at all. Given what they have to file privately for the tax department anyway, you can't claim that is extra red tape. You can't claim that somehow it increases the burden on companies' reporting requirements. If anything, it's for our agencies to provide it in a format that makes it publicly available.
A whole range of people out there, many I have mentioned already, came to parliament nearly five years ago to ask us to act on things like tax transparency. It allows journalists and other public-good advocates in this area to access information and to do that analysis. Let's be frank. As senators we're very busy. We cover a lot of different areas. But many of these advocates do it full-time and many of them do it voluntarily, because they care deeply about a fair tax system where everybody pays their fair share of tax.
There's no reason at all that this kind of information shouldn't be publicly available to help shine a light on potential tax avoidance. I think Senator Cameron mentioned that one in five large private companies has been avoiding paying their tax. I don't know where that statistic comes from but the risk is there. If you can't see it, if you can't monitor it, how can you manage it? It's a simple principle: you can't manage what you don't monitor. We don't have that information available, and we know the tax department's always under the pump. This Liberal government has cut its staff numbers and resources consistently. We know if the ATO had more money it could have a war chest and fight things like profit shifting. For example, they took Chevron—one of the biggest tax avoiders in this country—all the way to the High Court and won a very big tax settlement. That's because of the MAAL laws we helped pass. These gave the ATO the ability to do that.
If we don't invest in the tax department and its people, how do we expect to get a return on investment for the Australian people? They're the ones on the front line, making sure that we do have a fair tax system and that everyone pays their fair share. Whether you're a billionaire or someone on the minimum wage, everybody needs to pay their tax. That principle is a fundamental one. If we can't get that right we certainly shouldn't be looking at new laws in this place. I understand we will—possibly even today—cut corporate tax rates even further. Considering how many of these corporations don't pay their fair share of tax or use legal but immoral loopholes to get out of paying their fair share of tax, why are we even considering cutting headline tax rates for corporations? Their effective rates are so low already.
If you don't know the difference between 'headline' and 'effective': headline is what we debate about—30 per cent down to 25 per cent—but in many cases, after all their deductions, their effective tax rates are zero. In many other cases their average effective tax rates are well below 20 per cent already. This is thanks to Australia's very generous tax laws around deductibility. Why are we considering cutting corporate tax rates when we haven't properly fixed tax avoidance in this country?
I congratulate Labor for bringing this bill on today and, at least, trying to resurrect what was lost in 2015 in the Senate when their original laws went down. I hope the crossbench see that it's in every Australian's interest to do whatever they can, whenever they can, to tackle tax avoidance in this country. It's our job as Australians to put resources and time into this and to show leadership on this most important issue. I look forward to having more to say in the committee stage.
Getting serious about multinational tax avoidance is a question of basic fairness. Fairness is a core belief for Australians, a quality that we all hold very dear. It's more than just an Australian value; it's an integral part of our culture. But there's something happening in Australia right now that's at odds with our egalitarian values and our sense of a fair go. We're experiencing growing levels of inequality. This year the richest one per cent of Australians own more wealth than the bottom 70 per cent combined. If that isn't obscene enough, only six Australians have more combined wealth than the bottom 20 per cent.
The policies of the Turnbull government are not only failing to address Australia's growing inequality but they are also adding fuel to the fire. I have spoken in this place several times about the problem of multinational tax avoidance and its erosion of our tax base. Multinational tax avoidance is one of the biggest contributors to inequality not just in Australia but also throughout the world.
Multinational companies use sophisticated techniques to artificially reduce their profits in higher-tax jurisdictions and increase them in low- or no -tax jurisdictions. These techniques often involve basing their headquarters in a tax haven and then reducing the revenue of their national subsidiaries through charges from the head company such as loans, licence fees or royalties. The arrangements are often made through a complex web of companies to make them difficult to follow and to exploit loopholes in the law. In July 2015, the International Monetary Fund estimated that this was costing developing countries about US$213 billion per year.
The extent of the tax avoidance problem has been revealed in the infamous Panama papers and the Paradise papers, leaked to the media by an anonymous source in 2015 and 2017 respectively. Both leaks revealed not only instances of tax avoidance but also tax evasion, fraud and money laundering. The Paradise papers included the names of over 700 taxpayers and more than 300 corporate entities in Australia. Despite the scale of the problem of multinational tax avoidance, the Turnbull government has failed to show that they are serious about it.
While Labor in government sought to introduce a number of transparency measures, many of these have been wound back by those opposite resulting in more than $1 billion being handed back to big business. Labor's measures included plugging loopholes in Australia's transfer-pricing rules and anti-avoidance provisions. We also passed legislation which cracked down on companies overvaluing assets in international transactions. Labor in government also signed 28 bilateral information-sharing agreements with tax agencies in other countries, including the Cayman Islands and Monaco, which netted about $730 million in additional tax between 2012 and 2014.
Of course, tackling multinational tax avoidance is not just about the legislative measures you put in place but the resources that are there to enforce those measures. So we funded the tax office to set up a specific audit program looking at the use of offshore marketing hubs, getting hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue. By contrast, of course, those on the other side, the Turnbull government, have slashed over 4,000 jobs from the Australian Taxation Office. How can they claim to be serious about tax avoidance when they're making such savage cuts to the very agencies that are charged with enforcing anti-avoidance measures?
It's been revealed just recently, through Senate estimates, that the government will be defunding the Serious Financial Crime Taskforce from July 2019. This revelation comes two months after the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, Ms O'Dwyer, praised the task force for uncovering Australia's biggest tax fraud, which involved, funnily enough, the Cayman Islands.
The government is yet to deliver anything on multinational tax avoidance. It's quite farcical that last year this government trumpeted their so-called success in clawing back $4 billion in a crackdown on multinational tax avoidance, and yet it was revealed in Senate estimates that not one cent of that was attributable to their Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law. In fact, the government had relied on laws introduced by the previous Labor government for their tax crackdown, including laws that they had opposed.
We know the real game for the government. We know what they're playing at here. They don't want to get serious about tackling multinational tax avoidance, because it'll upset their mates in big business. However, at the same time they need to pretend that they're doing something about it, because ordinary Australians won't cop it. They won't cop having to pay more tax to make up for multibillion dollar companies that pay none.
Despite evidence of growing inequality, we have a Treasurer, Mr Morrison, who denies that the situation's getting worse but his denial is at odds with all the evidence. It's what we've come to expect from a government which is basically for the big end of town and whose leader is personally named in the Panama papers.
Corporate tax avoidance not only offends Australia's sense of fairness but has very severe consequences for ordinary citizens and taxpayers. Every dollar of revenue that is lost to tax avoidance schemes is a dollar that has to be either raised from ordinary Australian workers and small businesses or cut from essential services such as health and education. But that's not the only unfair aspect of multinational tax avoidance. It also makes an uneven playing field between multinationals and companies without an offshore presence—companies that don't have an overseas headquarters in a tax haven to which they can siphon their profits. And, for those multinational companies that choose to pay their fair share of tax, there's competitive pressure on them to engage in the same kind of behaviour as those who don't.
The Tax Justice Network advocates countries adopt three measures that they believe will help in the crackdown on multinational tax avoidance. These measures are the automatic exchange of information between tax authorities in different countries; a public register that lists the owners and beneficiaries of companies, trusts and foundations; and the requirement for multinational companies to break down their financial reporting on a country-by-country basis. It's this last measure that is addressed by the private senator's bill we are now debating. But that measure is not new. In 2013, the then Gillard Labor government passed legislation that would require the Australian Taxation Office to publish information about the taxable income and tax paid by companies earning over $100 million from 1 July 2015. This bill seeks to reinstate the $100 million threshold after the government voted to increase it to $200 million. The disclosure threshold shielded around 600 large private companies from scrutiny, and this is the kind of cosying up to big business that we have come to expect from the government.
Let me give you an idea of what we have learnt from the data that has been released under the current disclosure regime. In the 2015-16 financial year, reports were published on 2,043 large public and private entities, and 732 of those paid zero tax. I get that companies have ups and downs and can make losses from time to time, but how much of that is a genuine loss, and how much is just a loss that they've managed to put on paper? These entities had a combined income of over $500 billion. But, guess what? An average Australian worker, such as a teacher or nurse or a retail assistant, would have paid more in tax than 700 of Australia's largest companies. When ordinary Australians hear that one-third of our biggest companies didn't turn a profit, I don't think that passes the pub test. It beggars belief that close to 36 per cent of Australia's largest companies made a loss in 2015-16.
The disclosure of this information has made a very useful contribution to the public debate about tax avoidance in Australia. The government haven't offered any policy rationale for increasing the threshold from $100 million to $200 million—not any. And I find it quite ironic that the bill the government introduced to shield 600 private companies from this transparency included the words 'combating multinational tax avoidance' in the title. Embarrassingly for the government, it appears not everyone in their ranks agrees with this decision, because just last month a Senate inquiry report on corporate tax avoidance recommended reinstating the original $100 million threshold—and guess what?— was supported by government senators on that committee. Given that government senators on the Senate economics committee have endorsed the recommendation, I really look forward to hearing them speak in support of Labor's bill.
Reinstating the $100 million threshold is just one of a number of measures that are needed to tackle multinational tax avoidance. But, unfortunately, the government just pay lip-service to the issue. They pretend to be serious about making companies pay their fair share of tax, but our Prime Minister, who, by the way, as I said, is personally named in the Panama papers, has not only been busy watering down tax avoidance measures but also wants to give $80 billion to the very corporations who are engaged in this behaviour. The Turnbull government do have a chance to show they are serious about multinational tax avoidance, and that is by adopting Labor's plan.
Our comprehensive plan includes tightening deduction loopholes, greater transparency about tax information and beneficial ownership, greater protection for whistleblowers and a range of other measures. All of this is in addition to our commitment, contained in this bill, to restore Labor's $100 million threshold for public reporting of tax data for private companies.
So, if those opposite want to demonstrate a commitment to addressing corporate tax avoidance, supporting this bill would be a very good place to start—although I must admit I'm not holding my breath. We know that supporting their mates in big business is in their DNA. You only need to look at the record of those opposite to see what approach they will take to multinational tax avoidance. It's a consistent record of opposing Labor's anti-tax-avoidance measures when we were in government, a consistent record of watering down those measures while they were in government and a consistent record of pandering to their mates in big business, topping it all off with the pursuit of $80 billion in corporate tax cuts. We on this side of the chamber are proud of our record when it comes to tackling multinational tax avoidance and we're proud of the package of measures we have proposed in order to tackle it further when we are in government in the future. I support the bill.
I rise today to speak on the bill introduced to this place by a parliamentary colleague from the Labor Party who recently departed this place, Senator Gallagher. Senator Gallagher's bill, the Taxation Administration Amendment (Corporate Tax Entity Information) Bill 2017, as has been discussed already, lowers the threshold for publicly reporting corporate tax information of Australian private companies from $200 million to $100 million.
This is not the first time the Australian Labor Party has tried to control confidentiality and commerciality and invade the privacy of private companies whose only crime, potentially, is running a legitimate business. When in government they passed legislation to lower the reporting threshold to corporate tax entities with a reported income of $100 million or more. As noted in 2015 by the then Assistant Treasurer, my good friend and esteemed colleague the Hon. Josh Frydenberg MP:
These laws abrogate the fundamental right to confidentiality.
Moreover, the information to be disclosed, already in the hands of the Australian Taxation Office, will not help the ATO in assessing additional tax. Public disclosure of the information as prescribed in this Labor bill will not inform the public any more than they already are informed and will be unlikely to raise additional revenue that will go anywhere near compensating for the additional administrative burden, the red tape and the invasion of privacy that it will impose.
I say 'invasion of privacy' intentionally, because submissions on the measure, before it was introduced by Labor in this place, highlighted the risk that disclosing the tax affairs of closely-held companies will effectively disclose the tax affairs of those companies' owners—the individuals who own the company, not the company itself. They also highlighted the risk of making public the commercial-in-confidence information of private companies. This bill raises serious privacy concerns but at the same time does absolutely nothing to help the tax office actually assess tax. It's a violation of privacy that is a craven attempt by the Australian Labor Party to further demonise the embattled business community and it ignores the laudable efforts of the coalition government to address tax avoidance, particularly by multinational companies.
The coalition has much to be proud of in its record of addressing corporate tax avoidance. Indeed, multiple game-changing pieces of legislation have already been passed in this place and in this parliament. The government is committed to combating tax avoidance and we are implementing far more well-considered and balanced measures than this. In fact, Australia has been a world leader in combating multinational tax avoidance. As G20 president in 2014, Australia led the global response to corporate tax avoidance by multinational companies and ensured that it remained at the top of the international agenda. Under Australia's leadership the first of the G20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting recommendations were delivered in 2014. Indeed, Australia was one of the first companies to commit to implementing the OECD's country-by-country reporting. Country-by-country reporting requires large multinationals to report annually for each jurisdiction in which they do business the amount of revenue, profit, income tax and economic activity.
Introduced in December 2015, country-by-country reporting is a very effective information-sharing regime for use by tax and revenue agencies around the world, about which we have heard a significant amount from the Commissioner of Taxation, Chris Jordan, as recently as the last budget estimates. He described country-by-country reporting as being of 'enormous value' and 'transformational' in our international tax work. For the first time, tax administrations have received a global picture of multinationals' operations. This was a very significant step into improving the transparency for tax administrations, and it was Australia that paved its way.
The coalition's 2015 budget also introduced the common reporting standard to combat multinational tax avoidance by exposing taxpayers with hidden offshore investments. The common reporting standards, you may recall, call upon jurisdictions to obtain information from their financial institutions and automatically exchanges that information with other jurisdictions on an annual basis. It sets out the financial account information to be exchanged, the financial institutions required to report, the different types of accounts and the taxpayers covered, as well as common due diligence procedures to be followed by financial institutions. The coalition government legislated for this transformative reform in 2016, and we have been reporting since 1 July 2017.
In my capacity as Deputy Chair of the Senate Economics References Committee, I did, in fact, sit on the inquiry into corporate tax avoidance, which delivered its final report just last month. That inquiry has been going on since 2014 and was recommitted to this parliament immediately after the election in 2016. In that report it was noted the success of the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law, MAAL, and also the diverted profits tax, DPT, both of which have been integral parts of the government's additional $7 billion in sales revenue coming into that tax net, something that the coalition is particularly proud of.
The Turnbull government has been extremely tough on tax avoidance and has been so while still respecting the privacy of private companies. The government has also been successful in applying pressure on multinational corporations that try to avoid paying tax in Australia and, as a consequence, many of the companies in question have changed how they report taxable activities in Australia. Coalition senators noted in our comments in that particular report that the coalition wholeheartedly agrees that transparency is important to ensure that companies pay the right amount of tax. However, we also noted that a balance must be struck between taxpayer confidentiality and the need for any information made public to be well understood and also to be relevant.
While the coalition's track record on combating tax avoidance has been undoubtedly outstanding, we acknowledge that there is more to be done and, indeed, we are not done yet. In the 2018-19 budget, the government announced further measures to ensure businesses are paying their fair share of tax. These measures include such positions as strengthening the rules that limit interest deductibility, to stop companies shifting profits out of Australia, including requiring companies to align clearly and transparently the values of their assets with the values included in their financial statements. A further measure is broadening the scope of large multinationals being subjected to the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law and the diverted profits tax. So these measures further strengthen already legislated and implemented measures to combat corporate tax avoidance. It's imperative though that, whatever measures are established to combat tax avoidance, consideration must be given that any requirement does not unreasonably add the burden and red tape to businesses, noting that many of the businesses—in fact, the vast majority of businesses that we are dealing with—are law-abiding corporations.
This Labor bill is yet another piece of legislation from those opposite designed to inundate business with further compliance and regulatory burden. Never to be outdone, the Australian Greens, for whom the concept of business is obviously foreign, wish to amend the bill to further lower the reporting threshold to $50 million. The attitude of the Australian Labor Party and the Greens towards business is part of the irrational and desperate rhetoric of class welfare. Were we let them to have their way—
Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—
Class warfare, not welfare!
Order!
If we were to let them have their way, they would have businesses spending more time and more money on complying with regulation than actually engaging in business activities which require that compliance. The vast majority of our businesses, as you know, are good people who are simply providing the products and services for which there is genuine need and demand. For some reason, Labor and the Greens assume that everybody out there is a criminal until proven otherwise; that they are criminals waiting for the government or the ATO to turn a blind eye. This ingrained hatred and distrust of a capitalist system that is the foundation of Australia's success and prosperity bewilders me.
Red tape is no laughing matter; it's very serious. By one estimate, red tape costs the Australian economy as much as $176 billion every single year. Every new Commonwealth government elected in Australia in the last decade has declared that it would tackle Australia's regulatory and red tape burden. In fact, I might actually point out that Kevin Rudd commissioned a myriad inquiries, reviews, commissions and tribunals into this. He personally acknowledged the scourge that is red tape. He said:
The quantity and complexity of business regulation today is eating away at the entrepreneurial spirit of Australian business.
Goodness me; are you sure he was a Labor Prime Minister!
Former Prime Minister Rudd also created the Commonwealth government's first minister of deregulation. It's not often that I speak in glowing terms of Kevin Rudd's time in the top office but I have to say: wouldn't it be nice to have a Labor leader who actually understood the value of Australian businesses. Instead of embracing the job-creating power of business, which drives our economy, the current opposition leader has sought to demonise businesses large and small, creating a chasm between the Australian Labor Party and entrepreneurial business. If only the Australian Labor Party had a leader-in-waiting in the wings who understood the importance of a healthy relationship between government and the business community. Oh, wait, hang on; I think maybe it does. It does! I note that the member for Grayndler gave a very stirring speech last Friday when delivering the annual Gough Whitlam Oration. Mr Albanese declared:
… we do have to engage constructively with businesses large and small.
We respect and celebrate the importance of individual enterprise and the efforts and importance of the business community.
I'm not exactly sure who the member for Grayndler meant by 'we' in that sentence because, far from respecting the efforts and enterprise of the business community, his leader, Mr Shorten, continues to paint those hardworking business owners as pariahs and has all but declared that, should he become Prime Minister, he will wage a war on business. We know that the ALP has no plan to create jobs, no plan to increase wages and no plan to grow the economy. The ALP is no friend of business. The legislation being debated today is yet another manifestation of the lazy and ignorant attack that is the most base of political tactics.
But I am digressing, I'm afraid. As I was saying, the coalition government has not only promised to cut regulation but has delivered on this very promise. Since the coalition came to government in 2013, the government's regulatory reform agenda has cut burdensome compliance costs for individuals, businesses and community organisations by over $6 billion. In fact, the Annual regulatory reform report, released on 27 May by my great friend and colleague, the Hon. Craig Laundy MP, highlighted the coalition's stellar track record in making it easier for businesses and households to comply with regulations. Between 1 January 2016 and 30 June 2017 the government took decisions to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses by more than $800 million a year. The biggest single regulatory saving, worth over $444 million, came from the abolition of Labor's Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal—what a surprise! As Minister Laundy noted:
This Tribunal was set up by Bill Shorten as Workplace Relations Minister in 2012 as part of a deal between Labor and the unions. It effectively pushed tens of thousands of owner-drivers—many small family businesses—to the brink of collapse, rendering them uncompetitive with big union-dominated trucking companies.
The Turnbull government will always shun unnecessary regulation, and has been working tirelessly to make our regulatory environment easier for businesses and households, encouraging growth and encouraging innovation in the economy.
If the objective is to ensure that those who should pay tax do pay tax, should we not turn our attention to the black economy more urgently? When we're talking about non-reporting and the covering up of information, the black economy is indeed their true home. Instead of creating more red tape and diminishing the privacy of Australian businesses, we in the coalition are, in fact, creating policy and taking steps that go to the heart of the problems of the black economy. Typically, the black economy refers to people who operate entirely outside of the tax system or who are known to tax authorities but who deliberately misreport their tax and superannuation obligations. The black economy can also include those engaged in organised crime and those who are engaged in the production or sale of prohibited goods. We know that the black economy exists, so we should, therefore, be devoting efforts to ensure that adequate and lawful reporting takes place, not arbitrarily targeting those businesses who already do report to the Australian Taxation Office with increasingly burdensome red tape requirements.
Acting Deputy President Sterle, you will not be surprised to hear that we on this side of the chamber are taking real steps to crack down on this type of unlawful black economy behaviour and to ensure that all businesses that should be paying tax in Australia are, in fact, doing so. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has estimated that underground production in Australia could be as much as 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product. That equates to approximately $22 billion. That is not a figure to be sneezed at. Luckily, the Turnbull coalition government is here to clamp down on the black economy.
As recently as last Friday, in fact, the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, the Hon. Kelly O'Dwyer, announced a new advisory board to support the coalition's ambitious reform agenda to disrupt the black economy. Minister O'Dwyer announced that Michael Andrew AO, who provided such strong leadership to the Black Economy Taskforce last year, will now chair the Black Economy Advisory Board. The coalition are taking real and serious steps to crack down on those who are not, in fact, paying tax or who are engaging in non-market and offline transactions. The advisory board will advise the Treasurer about implementation of the government's decisions attacking the black economy and will contribute to a government report every five years about new threats emerging from the black economy. The black economy is harmful to those honest businesses that do report and pay their taxes. That's why the coalition are delivering real and genuine reform in this space: $315 million in additional funding to the ATO to increase its enforcement activity against black economy behaviour. The black economy standing taskforce, led by the ATO, will also ensure that a whole-of-government approach is used with agencies, sharing intelligence, best practice, and knowledge.
This is on top of the good work that the ATO is already undertaking. Commissioner Chris Jordan, the commissioner of the ATO, outlined to the budget estimates in 2017 just how the ATO will be increasing its attention on businesses not doing the right thing, the black economy, phoenix operators and individuals in the market to ensure that there is a level playing field for all businesses. The commissioner also outlined how the ATO will have a strong focus on the intermediaries—the lawyers, the accountants, the pre-insolvency advisors and the liquidators—who facilitate illegal activity in the black economy and phoenixing operations.
It's this type of important and practical work that is crucial for strengthening our taxation and reporting systems without burdening those businesses who are already doing the right thing by the government and by the nation. This piece of legislation, introduced to this place by the opposition, is no more than a distraction to a coalition agenda that is already addressing the very important issue of corporate tax avoidance, whether it be from multinationals or from domestic entities.
I rise today to speak on the Taxation Administration Amendment (Corporate Tax Entity Information) Bill 2017. Here is a good reminder: in this place, when you stand up to speak on a bill, look at the speakers list and don't speak after someone who knows what they're talking about; it's always a very dangerous thing! Obviously, normally, I'm speaking after someone from the other side, so it's not much of a problem, but Senator Hume just gave an excellent summary of what the government has done to address these broad issues without overburdening the corporate sector with unnecessary reporting requirements.
What does this bill seek to do? It seeks to lower the threshold for public reporting of the corporate tax information of private companies from $200 million to $100 million. What this is going to achieve is slightly beyond me. I don't even know that the Labor senators opposite can tell us what it's actually going to achieve in practice, apart from putting an extra, burdensome requirement on private companies in the threshold range provided.
One thing that Senator Bilyk raised earlier, which I do want to address at the start, is this issue of the 732 companies she cited who pay zero company tax. I come from a farming family background. We all know there are very good reasons why companies, particularly private companies, pay no tax. There are agricultural enterprises in Western Australia who, through drought periods, do not pay tax for years and years at a time because they are not earning any assessable income. That doesn't mean they're not earning any income; it means they're not earning any assessable income. This is a fundamental point about our entire tax system which, in the rhetoric of this debate—and not just on this bill but on the company tax cuts bill and issues of wider reform to the Australian economy—is being completely lost. We have had for a very long time in this country a bipartisan approach on this: when we're talking about taxation, we're talking about assessable income. We understand that there are legitimate business deductions and that business losses can be carried forward. Without that ability business would simply not be able to survive and compete in our economy and in an international economy which is highly competitive.
It's not just the agricultural sector. Obviously when mining and oil and gas companies come to look at Australia, or are developed in Australia to undertake large projects, you're talking about the investment of literally billions of dollars up-front. Sometimes you're looking at a decade before there is one dollar of income from those projects. If you cannot carry losses forward, if you cannot deduct legitimate business expenses, then you will have a situation where nobody is willing to invest.
So citing 732 companies that pay zero tax is just misleading. It's an attempt to distort the debate to undermine the very important fact that we need a taxation system that is predictable, convenient and efficient. We need a corporate tax system and a tax system that delivers to government the revenue it needs—but only the revenue it absolutely needs—to fulfil important, essential government services.
Yes, tax compliance is a very important part of that. That's why the government has taken very strong action to ensure strong tax compliance, including that multinational companies pay the correct amount of tax. This has included a commitment from the government to ensure tax transparency rules are effective in promoting broad compliance with and public confidence in the Australian taxation laws. The government introduced the multinational anti-avoidance law and the diverted profit tax. These measures have been successful in bringing a further $7 billion a year of sales revenue into the Australian tax net. The multinational anti-avoidance law stops multinationals avoiding taxable presence in Australia. The diverted profit tax means multinationals shifting profits overseas are stopped from doing so or are limited in their ability to do so. In the 2018-19 budget, the government announced further measures in this area to strengthen the rules that limit interest deductibility to stop companies shifting profits out of Australia, including requiring companies to align the value of their assets with the value included in their financial statements and broadening the scope of large multinationals being subject to MAAL and DPT.
There are other examples of action taken by the government. There was the establishment of the Tax Avoidance Taskforce within the ATO on 1 July 2016. Obviously, it's delivering to the budget bottom line. There was the signing of the OECD multilateral instrument on 7 July 2017; doubling the penalties for multinationals avoiding tax; increasing the penalties for breaches of tax reporting obligations by multinationals; implementing the OECD recommendations for country-by-country reporting to give the ATO greater access to multinational transfer pricing information; and, finally, aligning Australia's transfer pricing rules with the latest OECD guidelines.
Why is it important? A number of the actions I've just read out are done in conjunction with the OECD. Why is that so important? It's important because, unless we have provisions that align with the major part of the world economy and our major trading partners, there is an incentive for multinational companies to look elsewhere. We want large companies to look at Australia in a positive light as a place where investing and operating is worthwhile; but, at the same time, we need those companies to pay their fair share of tax. To do so we must work on a multilateral basis, particularly through the OECD, to make sure our rules can be applied consistently and to make sure those companies do contribute.
These initiatives have ensured that multinationals have increased their compliance with the law. Since 1 July 2016, the ATO has raised $5.2 billion in tax liability from large companies. Australia is a global leader in the international fight against tax avoidance. We're taking strong leadership in the G20 and the OECD on base erosion and profit shifting. In fact, we are leaders in the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project through the G20. The government, together with the ATO, continues to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of tax law. Again, this is key to what we are trying to do with the economy: ensure that, whilst companies are paying the tax that they should pay under the law, we also incentivise companies to grow, invest and contribute to the economy and, therefore, to the tax base.
Growth is the best way of improving the tax base. Hopefully this week the Senate will look at moving forward on the company tax cuts put forward by the government in the enterprise tax plan. Through the enterprise tax plan we will incentivise companies to invest more in Australia, which will grow the size of the Australian economy and increase the size of the tax base over time. This isn't pie-in-the-sky economics; this is the reality of what occurs in the economy. If you reduce the burden of company tax cuts while ensuring that everyone pays the correct amount of company tax, you incentivise growth in the economy. This is essential to ensuring the jobs and wage growth of tomorrow are achieved.
We want to do this to create more successful and more profitable businesses. To my home state of Western Australia, this is obviously key. We've seen the growth, in the north, of both the mining and the oil and gas sector over the last 20 years—something that has fuelled an enormous amount of economic growth not just in Western Australia but across the nation. In Western Australia, nine out of every 10 jobs are private sector businesses. That is the reason why we do not want to inflict on the private sector unnecessary red tape burdens, as Senator Hume talked about extensively. We need to have those nine out of 10 working Western Australians protected and we also need to provide the jobs for the future that a growing economy can give. We want people to grow their businesses so they can hire more Western Australians.
If you take less money out of every business through the enterprise tax plan then those businesses will have more to invest and those businesses will grow. Over time they will invest, they will grow—and, yes, for a time, that investment will potentially lead to some companies paying zero tax, as they invest, as they carry forward losses and as they look to expand their businesses into the future.
If we get caught up in this idea that some companies sometimes pay zero tax, then we will lose sight of the bigger picture, which is that we need to see those companies investing and growing—and not just large companies, but small, family-owned companies as well. Many family-owned companies would fit easily within the thresholds provided for in the bill currently before this chamber. These are not necessarily massive entities; they are relatively small entities. Some of them employ significant numbers of the Australian workforce. They're family-owned companies that operate, for example, in the resources sector or the agricultural sector in my home state, and they need to be protected.
Getting back to the more general issue of taxation in this country, we really have to remember: we have to always, when we talk about taxation, get back to first principles. Taxation should be predictable, convenient and efficient. We should never look at taxation systems that overburden either businesses or individuals with reporting obligations. We should never allow such things as double taxation to ever rear their ugly heads again. And we must never disincentivise investment and economic activity through an overly harsh burden of tax.
On taxation, we really do see a very stark contrast between the two sides of politics at the moment. We have, on our side, a very strong commitment to reducing the burden of taxation and to only taking that taxation that government needs to provide absolutely essential services. To that end, we saw last week the passage of the personal income tax cuts, and obviously this week we've got the corporate income tax cuts up for consideration by this place. I'd urge all crossbenchers to seriously consider their position on those company tax cuts. We do want an economy that's investing and is growing jobs and wages, not one that is contracting, where we are going back to, quite frankly, the bad old days when double taxation was the norm rather than the exception.
I do harp on the double taxation issue, because I think it is a very dangerous path to go down and one that those opposite are now effectively advocating, through their position on dividend imputation, which is: they will be, once again, double taxing some people's income. I've talked in this chamber before about Glen Diggins from Albany who will be, under their policy, losing around 30 per cent of his income. He is a self-funded retiree on a very, very modest income who'll be losing around a third of his income under their current policy settings. Subsequent to raising that issue, I got communications from two other self-managed-super-fund retirees in Kalgoorlie—another regional centre in Western Australia. Their incomes were not quite as modest as Mr Diggins's. They had slightly higher super-fund balances. One of them, on an income of around $137,000, will be losing $37,000 of that income in franking credits. Another, on an income of around $83,000, will be losing $21,000. I would not put either of those in a very, very high-income category. The tax system certainly doesn't put them in a very, very high-income category. Obviously, they are comfortable in their retirement, I would hope. But losing one-third and 20 per cent of their income respectively is a significant blow to them as individuals, and we must always remember that they are people who've contributed to their own retirement, in a way that was advocated by all sides of this parliament, through the superannuation system. I think it's extraordinary that we would punish those people with a potential impost of a double taxation rate from the Labor Party if they win government next year. I think that would be an extraordinary burden to place on them.
So, again, on first principles, tax needs to be predictable; it needs to be convenient; it needs to be as efficient in its collection as possible. We need to keep costs down. We need to keep red-tape burdens to an absolute minimum. I do not think the bill currently before this house achieves anything in that regard. The government has taken clear, strong steps to bring more tax into the tax base through the multinational avoidance measures that it's put forward. I think that this bill will add nothing except put an additional red-tape burden on Australian companies.
I move:
That the motion now be put.
Question agreed to.
The question now is that the bill be read a second time.
Question agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
by leave—As I flagged in my second reading speech, I have two amendments to move. I move:
Amdt 8304 revised - Taxation Administration Amendment (Corporate Tax Entity Information) Bill 2017
(1) Schedule 1, item 1, page 3 (line 9) omit "$100 million", substitute "$50 million".
Amdt 8303 - Taxation Administration Amendment (Corporate Tax Entity Information) Bill 2017
(1) Page 3 (after line 14), at the end of the Bill, add:
Schedule 2—Financial reporting obligations
Part 1—Repeal of instrument
ASIC Corporations (Exempt Proprietary Companies) Instrument 2015/840
1 The whole of the instrument
Repeal the instrument.
Part 2—Grandfathered exemption
Corporations Act 2001
2 Subsection 1408(6) (table item 7)
Repeal the table item.
Part 3—Application
3 Application
(1) This item applies to a company if, immediately before the commencement of this item, the company was exempted from complying with subsection 319(1) of the Corporations Act 2001 by the ASIC Corporations (Exempt Proprietary Companies) Instrument 2015/840.
(2) Despite the amendments made by Parts 1 and 2, that exemption continues to apply to the company in relation to the 2017-18 financial year.
I've already outlined briefly what they are, but I'll do so again. The first amendment on sheet 8304 revised substitutes $50 million for $100 million. This is the threshold at which we want to see disclosure from both private and public companies. Very briefly, the private senator's bill from Labor is to reduce the current disclosure levels from $200 million to $100 million. We'd like to see that go a step further by reducing it to $50 million.
Can I just say to the coalition senators who got up in this chamber today and said that there's no reason we should be disclosing the tax affairs of some of the most wealthy individuals in this country and some of the biggest private and public companies in this country: in 2015, you supported a Greens amendment to introduce tax transparency into law in this Senate, which passed into law. They supported disclosure of over 218 companies with thresholds the size of $200 million, so why can't they support $100 million or $50 million?
They've said in here today that they won't support this on a fundamental principle, yet they did support this fundamental principle. Let's be very clear about this. They can't come in here and use all these excuses. Senator Hume said, 'It's red tape.' I've already explained that it's not red tape for business. They already have reporting requirements to the ATO privately. There's no red tape involved in having a set of accounts being made publicly available for companies earning over $100 million or $50 million. There's no red tape involved at all. What a totally spurious argument.
Then they tried the old kidnapping clause, that somehow if individuals and companies make their information available then that commercial-in-confidence information, that sensitive information, is somehow going to put them at risk. We thoroughly debunked that in this place. There was no evidence to support that at all. I will have more to say in a minute around getting rid of the grandfathering clause.
They also said that somehow the disclosure of this information is going to be misinterpreted by people, because the fact a company pays no tax is not necessarily illegal. That's not an argument I'm going to have with them. I don't see an issue at all with that. If a company pays no tax and there are legitimate reasons for it, then fine. This is about disclosure. Anyone who understands tax—and the kinds of people who will access these accounts do understand what they're looking at—will be able to see this company's had deductions for depreciation, amortisation, capital investment and all the other stuff that we could talk for hours on. That's not the issue here, and it's not an argument to vote against tax transparency. This is simply to provide a set of accounts that can be publicly accessed by all stakeholders so that we can actually see not only companies doing the right thing, but also that our regulators are doing their job to make sure that companies pay their fair share of tax.
This is a public good piece of legislation for everyone. Let's be really clear about that. It's not going to add to red tape. It's not going to put at risk individuals in these companies, because somehow they're disclosing their private affairs. The government's already supported tax transparency for companies over $200 million. They can't provide any decent reasons why they won't support the $100 million threshold or the Greens' $50 million threshold. It's the same fundamental principle, so let's not hear any more about that.
In relation to the grandfathering clause, which the Greens have introduced in an amendment to on sheet 8303—financial reporting obligations are under schedule 2, and the grandfathering exemption is part 2 of that sheet under the Corporations Act 2001. As I said, this is an archaic throwback to Mr Paul Keating's government in 1995, that basically cut a deal to allow 1,500 high net worth individuals to not provide their annual statements to ASIC. There can be no reason for this if we're having a debate around tax transparency. The Greens support removing it. I understand that Labor will too, and I certainly hope the crossbench come on board with this. The same spurious arguments being made by the Liberal Party about lack of disclosure will not hold. This is something that I think all Australians want to see. I commend both these amendments to the chamber.
Just for the record, I indicate that Labor will be supporting the Greens' amendment on sheet 8303 and the next amendment that is up, on sheet 8304.
I want to ask the proponents of the amendments about reducing thresholds for private Australian companies to $50 million. How many additional companies will that involve? What sort of information is hoped will be gained in the difference between $50 million and $100 million—or $200 million even? Could you elaborate on that? I think your amendments indicate that the threshold for others wouldn't change, but I am interested in what additional information you might be able to achieve by going to $50 million.
I appreciate that this would apply in the case of the thresholds set by the government, but in my speech—I'm not sure if you were here or listened—I mentioned that at a Senate inquiry in, I think, 2015, there was some information given about the reasons that some companies didn't show a taxable income. Broadly speaking, they were reinvesting the money in promoting their business and therefore they had no taxable income for that year. On the difference between $50 million and $100 million, I am wondering if the fact that there is reinvestment of some of the profits in that category—in that quantum between $50 million and $100 million—is taken into account or whether that will impact at all on what you hope to achieve from reducing the threshold to $50 million?
We don't know. We estimate that it will be between 2,000 and 3,000 companies. That's what disclosure is all about—actually finding out these things.
So 2,000 or 3,000 companies out of a total of many thousands of companies in Australia. It does impose an additional burden on them. Is the information that's going to be obtained going to be commensurate with the additional cost of providing that information, particularly when you don't really know what the answer to the question is? I think you said it might be 1,000 or that it might be more or it might be less. I am just wondering what the purpose of all this is if we don't quite know what it's going to achieve?
The question is that the amendments on sheet 8304—
Temporary Chair, it appears that I am not going to get an answer to that. With respect to the mover of the amendments, that suggests that perhaps the only reason that these amendments are being moved is that they are different to the Labor Party's amendments, which are amendments that the government clearly wouldn't support. If there isn't a reason for these amendments, one would wonder why the Greens political party are pursuing the issue.
I would have thought that the Greens political party might have been focusing their attention on understanding just how important it is that we have a competitive tax system for all corporations, including foreign corporations who want to invest in Australia. That investment in Australia, obviously, creates jobs—principally for Australians. As I've often said in this chamber, I'm not very bright. If a company has an opportunity to invest in Australia and make a certain amount of profit and then pay 30 per cent tax or to invest anywhere else—America France, Singapore—and make the same profit but then only pay half the tax, you don't have to be a Rhodes scholar in economics to work out where they're going to go. Many of these other places have a competitive advantage with labour costs and regulatory costs. The several advantages we have are dissipated if the tax rate we charge on profits is so much more. That's what I would hope the Greens may be concentrating on rather than lowering the thresholds in this amendment below those in the Labor Party's amendment for reasons which, as I say, don't seem to be apparent and which, unfortunately, the promoter can't change. So I again ask the same questions of the mover of the amendment—that is, the Greens political party. While I'm on my feet, I would also ask Senator Cameron: is the opposition being consistent? I know this was at one stage $100 million. It was changed back and then this is a change back again. Is there consistency in your proposed amendment to this bill?
The government won't be supporting these amendments from the Greens. I would like to make a couple of points on them that I didn't get to make in the preliminary stage. I will make a couple of broader comments. It seems we've now got a bidding war between the Greens and the Labor Party. The Labor Party said, 'We need to change the threshold from $200 million to $100 million.' The Greens then said, 'We can do better than that; we can lower it to $50 million.' And then Labor said, 'Sure, why not?' It's more than just ad hoc. It is: 'We're more virtuous than you when it comes to bashing Australian companies.' That bidding war has been going on for a long time between Labor and the Greens. No doubt, if the Labor Party were to come back next, they might say, '$25 million,' and the Greens would say, 'We can do better—$10 million, $5 million, $1 million, $500,000, $100,000? Do we have $50?' This is where it's headed.
There are a number of reasons why we won't be supporting that amendment. But I wanted to make it clear in opposing this amendment that only this coalition government has actually taken action in this space. The Labor Party not only did nothing when they were in government for six years; they also opposed action and voted against action on multinational tax avoidance during our time in government. So if it were up to the Labor Party the billions of dollars that have been recovered from multinationals would not have been recovered from multinationals, who have sought to avoid tax—because the Labor Party voted against it, and they used a fig leaf of $200 million versus a $100 million threshold.
So let's look at what has been done. Our action on multinational tax avoidance includes a commitment to ensuring tax transparency rules are effective in promoting broad compliance with and public confidence in Australia's tax laws. The government introduced a multinational anti-avoidance law and the diverted profits, tax which Labor opposed. These measures have been successful in bringing a further $7 billion a year in sales revenue into Australia's tax net. The multinational anti-avoidance law stops multinationals avoiding a taxable presence in Australia. The diverted profits tax prevents multinationals shifting profits overseas.
I make the point again that the Labor Party opposed these efforts. They did nothing while they were in government and then, in opposition, they decided they were going to vote against holding companies to proper account. In addition, I make the point that in the 2018-19 budget the government announced further measures to strengthen the rules that limit interest deductibility to stop companies shifting profits out of Australia, including requiring companies to align the value of their assets with the value included in their financial statements and broadening the scope of large multinationals that were subject to the MAAL and the DPT.
Examples of other strong actions taken by the government include the establishment of a Tax Avoidance Taskforce within the ATO on 1 July 2016. The ATO Tax Avoidance Taskforce scrutinises the tax affairs of multinational enterprises, large public and private groups and wealthy individuals operating in Australia. Its role is to ensure these entities pay the right amount of tax according to law. Achieving these measures will increase the trust and confidence of the Australian community and other stakeholders in the ATO's effectiveness and the integrity of the tax system.
In addition, there was the signing the OECD multilateral instrument on 7 June 2017. The multilateral instrument is a multilateral treaty that will allow jurisdictions to swiftly modify their bilateral tax treaties to implement measures designed to better address multinational tax avoidance. These measures were developed as part of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project. Currently Australia is one of 78 signatories to the convention, and another six jurisdictions have expressed their intent to sign the convention.
We're also doubling the penalties for multinationals avoiding tax—specifically, the penalties for large multinationals when they make false or misleading statements to the ATO. This will make penalties more commensurate with the turnover of large multinationals and provide greater incentive for them to lodge tax documents on time and to take reasonable care when making statements to the ATO. We're increasing penalties for breaches of tax-reporting obligations by multinationals. We're increasing the maximum penalty by 100 times for large multinationals where they fail to lodge tax documents on time. This means that the maximum administrative penalty for significant global entities that fail to comply with their tax-reporting obligations will increase to $525,000.
We're implementing OECD recommendations for country-by country-reporting to give the ATO greater access to multinational transfer-pricing information. Country-by-country reporting is part of a wide range of international measures aimed at combating tax avoidance through more comprehensive exchanges of information between countries, aligning Australia's transfer-pricing rules with the latest OECD guidelines. These initiatives have ensured that multinationals comply with the law. Since 1 July 2016, the ATO has raised $5.2 billion in tax liabilities from large companies. Australia is a global leader in the international fight against tax avoidance. We're taking strong international leadership on the G20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, and the government, together with the ATO, continues to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of the tax laws.
I will just come back to a couple of points to finish. We won't be supporting these amendments. As I have said, there is now this odd bidding war where the Labor Party believed earlier today that $100 million was the right number, and now it apparently believes that $50 million is fine, and soon it'll be $25 million or lower. The point I return to is this: it is only the coalition government that has taken strong action in this area. The Labor Party had six years and did absolutely nothing in this space. When we have sought to take action on multinational tax avoidance we haven't been able to get the support of the Labor Party. They have actually voted against it. For those listening, just understand: the Labor Party have voted against taking action on multinational tax avoidance.
We believe in two fundamentals when it comes to our tax system: making our tax base is lower across the board—that's why we want to lower taxes across the board for companies; we believe that will enable us to be globally competitive because it will grow jobs and grow our economy—but, in lowering those taxes, that everyone should pay their fair share. We believe that this is not a voluntary contribution. You lower taxes across the board and encourage and incentivise investment, jobs and growth; but whether you're a multinational company or an Australian based company you pay your fair share of tax, you pay the amount of tax that you should be paying under our taxation laws.
We have taken the strong action. The Labor Party, of course, have opposed that strong action. But we're not going to engage in this bidding war that the Labor Party and the Greens are engaging in with these amendments. As a result, we'll be opposing these amendments.
I move:
That the question be put.
The CHAIR: I remind senators that this is a closure motion, so the question is that the question that the amendments moved by Senator Whish-Wilson be agreed to is put.
The question is that the amendments on 8304 and 8303 standing in the name of Senator Whish-Wilson and moved together be agreed to.
I move:
That the bill be read a third time.
The question is that the bill be read a third time.
I seek leave to move a motion relating to the conduct of business in the Senate—namely, a motion that government business order of the day No. 3, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017, be called on immediately and take precedence over all other government business until the conclusion of all proceedings on that bill.
Leave not granted.
Pursuant to contingent notice, I move:
That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Wong moving a motion relating to the conduct of the business of the Senate, namely a motion that government business order of the day No. 3, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017 be called on immediately and take precedence over all other government business until the conclusion of all proceedings on that bill.
What I am moving to do is bring forward the debate on the company tax legislation. The reason I'm doing that is that that is the bill the government claims has priority, that is the bill the country is focused on and that is the bill the Senate should be debating. The government has listed a whole range of legislation prior to that bill being debated. And we know why that is. It's because they want to give themselves time to try to do a deal with the crossbench. Let's be clear about it.
We on this side of the chamber don't support these company tax cuts and, if a number of the public statements from senators are true, then neither do a clear majority in this chamber. Senator Hanson has told Fairfax:
I have no intention of supporting corporate tax cuts.
And on Twitter yesterday she declared in a tweet that she personally signed:
One Nation are no chance of supporting company tax cuts.
Just this morning, Senator Griff told journalists that his party remain unconvinced. In an email to Senator Hanson's supporters today—maybe not today but recently—her office declared that Senator Hanson has announced that One Nation will not be supporting company tax cuts which include multinationals.
If what Senator Hanson and One Nation and Senator Griff, Senator Patrick and Centre Alliance are saying in public and to their supporters is true then there is absolutely no need to delay this debate for another hour. We should get on with debating the bill. If One Nation and Centre Alliance are serious that they don't support these unfunded and extravagant tax cuts, then they won't delay debate to enable more backroom deals. If senators do not support this motion, we can only assume one thing: that they are not being honest with the Australian people and are seeking to deceive voters in the July by-elections by saying one thing on company tax cuts now but keeping them alive so they can do a dirty deal in August, after the by-elections.
Can I say: unlike the government, we are not actually voting to gag this bill. We are voting to bring this bill on for debate. Last week we saw the government and crossbench senators vote to gag debate on a bill. We're saying that we're happy to debate it, so let's bring it on. I also make the point that the Senate has extensively debated this issue. We've spent seven hours and 40 minutes debating the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan) Bill 2016 and six hours and 13 minutes debating the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enterprise Tax Plan No. 2) Bill 2017, so we've already spent 14 hours debating a policy that a clear majority of senators say they oppose.
We on this side believe that these bills are about an $80 billion handout to big business at a time when we have the budget in deficit, penalty rates being cut, wages failing to keep up with inflation and schools and hospitals being cut. Seventeen billion dollars of these tax cuts will go to the banks—the same amount that the government is cutting from schools. Let's remember what is also happening: by cutting out revenue sources down the track, this government is ensuring that a future government will be in the position of having to look to cut education, to cut health and to cut social security—even to cut defence, particularly if there is a downturn in the economy—turning off the tap in order to impose more spending cuts. These tax cuts, we believe, are deeply unfair and unaffordable. As Goldman Sachs and others have pointed out, the vast majority of these tax cuts would actually go into the pockets of overseas investors.
It's time for senators here to put up or shut up: are you being straight with the Australian people? If One Nation doesn't support this motion and if Centre Alliance doesn't support this motion, Australians are entitled to assume that these senators are not being honest with the Australian people. Australians can assume that these parties are seeking to deliberately deceive voters in next month's by-elections by keeping these tax cuts for companies and the big banks alive so that they've got the option of doing a dirty deal with the government when we return in August.
For that reason, the Senate should bring on this debate. We should debate these tax bills. The government say that they are the centrepiece of their economic plan but, instead, they've pushed them down the debating list because they want time to try and do another backroom deal. They're entitled to try and do a backroom deal but the Senate is entitled to say: 'No, we have a position. The majority of the chamber has a position that does not support billions of dollars going to multinationals and the banks.' We are entitled to bring on this bill and have a proper debate. I urge senators to support the suspension of standing orders to enable this debate to be brought on. Let's get on with debating this legislation.
The government will oppose the suspension of standing orders, because we are in favour of orderly management of the chamber. The government sets the government's business agenda. The next item on the government's business agenda is the very important passage of our appropriation bills. The appropriation bills are, of course, time-sensitive and they should be the next item that is dealt with.
I should also say: I'm very disappointed that my good friend and valued colleague, Senator Wong, would move to stop this debate at a time when only one Labor senator has spoken to this particular bill. Only one Labor senator has spoken to it, and that is Senator—
We're trying to help you!
Oh, oh! Senator Collins says they're trying to help us! I'm sure you're here to help. You're from the opposition; you're here to help!
I don't want to be here Friday!
Order!
Let me say again: it is absolutely true that the government is committed to this very important economic reform. The government is committed to making sure that workers in Australia are not put at a competitive disadvantage with workers in other parts of the world. We want to ensure—
Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—
Order, Senator Collins!
We've got Bill Shorten here, standing up for the top end of town, trying to help the top end of town, at the expense of Australian workers. He's standing up for the top end of town in the United States; he's standing up for the top end of town in the UK; he's standing up for the top end of town in France, in Sweden—in just about every other country around the world where there are lower business taxes than here in Australia. He is working to help businesses in other parts of the world take business investment and jobs away from Australia. That is what Bill Shorten is trying to do. He is so desperate to assist the top end of town in countries around the world, to lock in their competitive advantage at our expense, that he will stop at nothing. He will stop at nothing.
We believe that it is incumbent on us as a government and it is incumbent on the Senate to engage for as long as is necessary to find a compromise on the appropriate way forward. I think the Australian people would take a very dim view of us here as senators if we didn't allow this debate to be conducted in an orderly and proper fashion, as set out in the government's business agenda. This is yet another example of the Labor Party playing games.
Anthony Albanese is spot on. Anthony Albanese is spot on when he says that the antibusiness agenda of Bill Shorten is bad for our country. This is another demonstration of the approach taken by the Labor Party under Bill Shorten. Under Bill Shorten the Labor Party now is antibusiness, antigrowth, antiopportunity, and focused on the politics of envy and class warfare, turning Australian against Australian. What the Labor Party seems to have forgotten—and what Bob Hawke and Paul Keating well understood—is that, with nine out of 10 working Australians working for a private sector business, their future job opportunities, job security, career prospects and wage increases depend on the future viability and future profitability of the businesses that employ them and pay their wages.
Bill Shorten is happy—
Senator Cormann, I will pull you up this time. It's Mr Bill Shorten.
I'll say it again. Mr Bill Shorten is running a politics-of-envy-class-warfare-antibusiness-antigrowth-antijobs socialist agenda, selling out the best interests of working families in Australia and working to lock in a competitive advantage for businesses in other parts of the world at our expense. Bill Shorten's approach to this is un-Australian. He's desperate to put businesses in Australia at a competitive disadvantage with businesses in other parts of the world.
We are working to protect jobs in Australia. We are working to protect wages growth in Australia. We don't think it is fair to workers in Australia that we would help businesses in the United States, France, Sweden, the UK, Canada, New Zealand—businesses all around the world. I don't think it's fair to workers in Australia that we would help businesses all around the world take investment and jobs away from Australia because we are imposing higher taxes on business in Australia than are faced by businesses in other parts of the world.
This what is the Labor Party used to believe. Mr Shorten used to stand for a lower, globally-more-competitive tax rate until he sold himself out to the union movement here in Australia, until he had to promise he would commit himself to— (Time expired)
I rise to support the suspension, because it's absolutely critical that we recognise what we have at stake here. We have at stake one of the biggest, most extreme changes to our corporate tax structure ever proposed by any parliament in Australia. This is a change to the corporate tax regime that would take $85 billion from our schools, from our hospitals, from Newstart. It would mean that we've got less money to protect our environment at a time when we're losing biodiversity at a far greater rate than any other time in human history.
We have an opportunity here to debate this in a way that is thorough and orderly, as Minister Cormann said. But let's not repeat what happened last week when it came to the debate around income tax cuts. If Minister Cormann believes that that, in some way, was a thorough and orderly process, he's sadly mistaken. Last week we had one of the most significant changes to income tax ever in this country rammed through the parliament with no debate. We had gags supported by members of the crossbench, by Centre Alliance and the One Nation party. We had gags of suspension motions last week. That's not thorough. That's not orderly. We need to make sure we don't ever see a repeat of what we saw last week. Here's an opportunity, through the week, to debate corporate tax—not to have it lobbed in at a minute to midnight so that we have something rammed through the parliament in the early hours of the morning without it having been given the scrutiny it deserves—without members of the crossbench or opposition having been given the opportunity to move amendments to the proposed changes and to thoroughly scrutinise what's put before us.
We know from international experience that when corporate tax cuts of this magnitude have been introduced all they do is serve to line the pockets of CEOs and improve value for shareholders. They do nothing for ordinary working people. For example, we know that if you want to lift wages you don't cut income tax: you raise the minimum wage. This is why we're supporting a legislative increase to the minimum wage.
We've had 14 hours of debate on this package. That's right and as it should be. In this chamber we are discussing some of the most significant tax legislation ever put before an Australian parliament. We are saying let's bring this debate forward, let's have it through the week and let's scrutinise what deals may be done to secure the support of the crossbench senators. We still don't know what deal was done last week by Minister Cormann and Pauline Hanson's One Nation party in order to secure its support for income tax cuts. We don't know whether that deal extends to areas beyond the legislation that was being debated, because we didn't have time to scrutinise what was required to get the support of One Nation in order to get that package over the line. We can't repeat the mistakes that were made last week. That was a very dark day for this chamber.
We have an opportunity to do this properly. Senator Cormann said he wants to do this in an orderly way, but there's nothing orderly about what happened last week. There's nothing orderly about lobbing this in at the last minute and forcing the Senate to vote on something in the early hours of the morning without them having been given the opportunity to thoroughly scrutinise any changes or deals that may have been made. So we will be supporting the suspension. We hope that if the minister is keen to see the Senate do its job, that if the minister, as he says, is currently working with the crossbench to get their support—and they've indicated they're not prepared to give it—let's hear what the arguments are. And let's not be presented with legislation in the early hours of the morning, effectively, to hold a gun to the Senate's head.
It's quite interesting, the suspension of standing orders to bring on this debate. Senator Wong accuses me—it seems to come down to One Nation—of, in her words, 'grubby deals' being done. I have made my stance quite clear: I will not be supporting the corporate tax cuts. Senator Georgiou has also indicated that he will not be supporting them. If you think that bullying is going to change my opinion on this, it's not going to happen. It's got nothing to do with shutting down the chamber. The last time I looked, the government has the numbers in this chamber. They will determine and have their say about how this chamber is run. If you think you're going to sit there and bully me into making a decision on how I vote for this, to bring on debate, no, you can't. When this is opened up and on the floor of the parliament to be debated, fair enough.
I've just supported the Greens amendment to do with lowering it to $50 million for accountability for those in business. I look at the legislation based on what is right for the country and the people. I will not be bullied into it, and I'll make my case quite clear. Whether I support the corporate tax cuts or not has nothing to do with the seat of Longman. That's only one part of Australia. We're talking about the whole benefit to all Australians. It's the same as backing the personal tax cuts.
When you talk about grubby deals, let me remind the Greens that they supported the government's backpacker tax. That's a $100 million grubby deal they did there. Isn't it lovely? Everyone wants to throw around the words 'grubby deals'. You're not concentrating on the job that the people have elected us to do in this parliament. You've all done it, even the Labor Party. When you're in government, you all do your grubby deals—you all come knocking on the door. Let's get some accountability and honesty onto the floor of the parliament, because, I tell you what, the public are sick and tired of it. You're throwing the innuendos across the chamber at anyone who doesn't agree with you. Base it on debate. Base it on what the people of Australia want. They are all watching you. They tell me all the time it's like a sandpit in this place. The public are sick and tired of it.
Why do you have to lie to the public? Why do you have to put out false robocalls in Longman? Has what happened in Western Australia on the weekend been a wake-up call to the Labor Party? People are sick and tired of where you have this country heading. It's the same with Senator Murray Watt and all his lies that he puts out all the time in Chisholm with regard to One Nation. People will judge me on my performance and what I achieve in this chamber. If there's good legislation put up by the government, I will support it, as I have supported other legislation put forward by the Greens, by the other minor political parties, by independents in the chamber or even by the Labor Party. I will support good legislation.
In our communities and in our schools, we are speaking against bullying. We speak about bullying in the public arena but you, in this chamber, are not an example for the people of this country. You're nothing but bullies in here. Do you really think that these comments will endear to you the hearts of the public? I will stand up for anyone in this country who I believe needs a fair go. You need to wake up to yourselves and have a good look in the mirror.
I was talking this morning with Senator Cormann and Senator Birmingham and we were speculating as to what stunt the opposition might pull today. I made the prediction that they would move a precedence motion. The only thing I got wrong was that I thought those opposite would do it first-up this morning and not after private senators' business time. While those opposite are predictable, I have got to say, it is hard to follow their thinking over the last week and the start of this week.
Last week, those opposite, when it came to personal tax relief for the nation, were using every procedural mechanism and manoeuvre they possibly could to prevent us dealing with that legislation. Every possible manoeuvre, they tried. Now all of a sudden, today, we have those opposite taking the exact opposite approach—that being, to seek to up-end government business in order to alter the arrangement that we have on the Notice Paper.
It is the convention in this place that the government of the day determines the order of government business. That's something that was the convention when those opposite were on these benches and it's the case today. The government of the day determines the program; that is what the convention is. We do have, on the agenda here, a range of government business that we want to transact. Yes, the enterprise tax plan is an important piece of government business but we also have the appropriation bills, the Water Amendment Bill and the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loan Sustainability) Bill, so we have a range of important pieces of government business that we wish to transact. What we're seeking to do, by denying leave for Senator Wong to move her motion, is to conduct the business of this place in an orderly fashion. Those opposite, from their own contributions, have clearly been making the point that they're not terribly keen to afford crossbench senators the opportunity to consider, as is laid out in the program, the enterprise tax plan legislation. We think it's appropriate that those colleagues have that opportunity. The government will not be supporting the motion to suspend standing orders for the reasons outlined.
I just think this debate has exposed exactly what's going on here: there is a deal in the offing between Senator Hanson and the government. If Senator Hanson is not doing another grubby deal with this government to sell out working people in this country, then Senator Hanson will support this proposition, because this proposition is about bringing this debate on, bringing this bill on and getting a decision that she claims she will support.
Senator Hanson has got an opportunity now to put all of the speculation behind us, to get this bill on and to make sure that we have the debate now so that she doesn't end up doing as she predominantly does in this place. She predominantly sides with the Liberal Party, going back to her roots as a Liberal. She predominantly goes back to the Liberal Party and supports what is not in the interest of people in this country.
I have to say I thought the contribution from Senator Cormann was a pretty desperate contribution talking about class warfare. Let me tell you what class warfare is: class warfare is attacking pensioners; class warfare is attacking workers in this country so that they don't get penalty rates; and class warfare is cutting social security payments from some of the most vulnerable people in this country—that's what class warfare is. That's what the Liberal Party, in conjunction with Senator Hanson, have been doing non-stop since they've been in there—all the class warfare. Look at Senator Hanson's votes on the issues that are important for this community. Look at Senator Hanson's votes on the issues that give workers a fair go. What this is all about is simply another opportunity for the government to get Senator Hanson and One Nation on board to attack working people in this country. There's absolutely no doubt about it.
How about looking at the areas where this money would be better spent? How about housing? How about homelessness? How about doing the right thing by people who can't put a roof over their heads? No, not Senator Hanson, not Senator Cormann and not the Liberal Party. They would rather give the money to multinational, overseas corporations. We know exactly what's happened in Canada and we know exactly what's happened in the US, and it's not what the coalition and Senator Cormann are saying. There's been no more investment from the tax cuts in the US. There's been no more investment from the tax cuts in Canada. There have been no more jobs created. This is an economic theory that's been proposed by the Liberals and accepted by Senator Hanson, if she votes against this motion now. We will see money being handed over to the big banks and big business when it should be spent on housing and on homelessness. We should be giving families a fair go. We should be looking after the working people of this country. We should be looking after the pensioners in this country.
Senator Hanson has not indicated why she doesn't want to debate this. We should be debating it now. Not everyone who has been here this morning would know that this has been a legitimate, perfectly decent debate. It's not about bullying anyone; it's about making sure that this bill comes on so that working people in this country can be clear about exactly where people stand. What they need to be clear about is exactly where One Nation and Senator Pauline Hanson stand. You would be confused over the last period of time, because one minute it's support for tax cuts and then the next minute there's no support for tax cuts. You cannot understand what Senator Hanson and One Nation are doing from one day to another.
Senator Hanson has been out today and yesterday saying that she supports the Labor Party's position on this. She should vote that way now and make sure it's clear that One Nation does not support these giveaways to the big banks and giveaways to big business at the expense of working families.
I shall be supporting Senator Wong and her call to suspend standing orders. My position is quite clear. Senator Di Natale, my party made no deals with the government over personal tax cuts. I voted for all three stages of the personal tax cuts because I believe that they are the right thing to do for 90 per cent of Australian workers. No deal was done. Nothing was offered, nothing was gained.
On the company tax: I've made it quite clear to the government for many, many months that I am more than happy to put more companies into the lower region of 25 per cent for company tax because, if we do that at $500 million, nearly 6,000 more smaller businesses can benefit from that.
Even though I want the debate to come on, I don't agree with the Labor Party saying that it should apply only to companies with $2 million of turnover. I suspect that eventually they will come up with about $10 million. I still think that that's far too low. We got to $10 million last year with Senator Lambie. We got to $50 million last year with Senator Hanson. I'm prepared to go to $500 million this year to help 6,000 more companies.
It's a worthwhile thing to do. I agree with the government that we need lower company taxes. That's because of what's happened in the United States, Canada and other countries. But I disagree with them that there's going to be a great big flow-on of wages. In the United States, despite President Trump saying how wonderful it was going to be, the fact was that most of the money from the 25 per cent cut went to share buybacks and increased dividends. It did not flow on much. Nancy Pelosi was quite right when she said that it's not going down.
I'm open to discuss other figures—maybe $500 million, $600 million or $700 million; I don't know—but I will not give money to the banks when they're facing a royal commission. To quote a great Labor man named Mick Young—what he said once about Ian Sinclair—'They are stealing money from dead men's eyes'. That's what the banks are doing right now. I cannot, in all good conscience, support them. I will stand my ground.
The Centre Alliance will be not be supporting the suspension of standing orders. It has nothing to do with our position on the bill at all; it's simply that we support the convention that the government has control of its legislative agenda.
Opposition senators interjecting—
I ask that Senator Patrick be given another 15 seconds to finish what he was saying.
We support the convention that the government has control of its legislative agenda. This is a view that we should share, no matter who was in government. That's our position on it.
The question is that the motion moved by Senator Wong be agreed to.
I move:
That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a first time.
I move:
That these bills be now read a second time.
I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speeches read as follows—
A ppropriation Bill (No . 1) 2018 -2019
Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2018-2019, together with Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2018-2019 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2018-2019, form the principal bills underpinning the government's budget.
Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2018-2019 seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just over $95 billion.
I now outline the significant items provided for in this bill.
First, the Department of Defence will receive approximately $32 billion to keep our nation safe and pursue our national interests. This includes around $750 million for major Defence operations including Operations OKRA, ACCORDION, HIGHROAD, RESOLUTE, MANITOU and AUGURY - PHILIPPINES.
Second, the Department of Health will receive just over $10.4 billion, including approximately $97 million for establishing the Commonwealth Health Workforce Strategy and around $22 million for strengthening health provider compliance and expanding the Medicare compliance program, the Practitioner Review Program and the Professional Service Review Scheme.
Third, the Department of Social Services will receive approximately $8.5 billion, which will primarily be used to fund the ongoing implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), as well as the establishment of a Jobs and Market Fund to promote the growth of the disability services market, and a Continuity of Support Fund to ensure people with a disability who are not eligible for the NDIS continue to receive support consistent with their current arrangements.
Fourth, the Department of Home Affairs will receive just over $4.2 billion, which includes around $50 million to strengthen aviation, air cargo and international mail security and approximately $45 million to maintain Australia's border security through Operation Sovereign Borders.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule to the bill and the portfolio budget statements tabled in the parliament.
A ppropriation B ill (N o . 2) 2018 -2019
Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2018-2019, along with Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2018-2019and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2018-2019, are the budget appropriation bills for this financial year.
This bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just over $13 billion.
I now outline the significant items provided for in this bill.
First, the Department of Communications and the Arts will receive just over $5 billion. This will be used to provide NBN Co. with a government loan on commercial terms to support the completion of the National Broadband Network.
Second, the Department of Defence will receive just over $3 billion to enable the purchase of military equipment and the construction of support facilities, as announced in the 2016 Defence White Paper.
Third, the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities will receive approximately $2.4 billion, including equity investment for the delivery of Western Sydney Airport and Inland Rail, and concessional loan funding for Stage 2 of the WestConnex project.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedules to the bill and the portfolio budget statements tabled in the parliament.
A ppropriation (P arliamentary D epartments ) B ill (N o . 1) 2018 -2019
Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2018-2019 provides appropriations for 2018-19 for the operations of:
This bill seeks approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just under $250 million.
The Department of Parliamentary Services will receive approximately $193 million. This includes $2.9 million for the establishment of a Cyber Security Operations Centre for the Australian Parliament House, which will enhance cyber security for the parliamentary computer network.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule to the bill and the portfolio budget statements tabled in the parliament.
A ppropriation B ill (No . 5) 2017-18
Today, the government introduces the supplementary additional estimates appropriation bills. These bills are:
These bills underpin the government's expenditure decisions.
Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2017-2018 seeks approval for additional appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of approximately $1.7 billion in 2017-18.
I now outline the significant items provided for in this bill.
First, this bill will provide the Department of Defence with just under $948 million to better align available Defence Integrated Investment Program funding with Defence capability project operational requirements.
Second, the Department of Environment and Energy will receive just under $435 million to continue to deliver the Reef 2050 Long Term Sustainability Plan, designed to protect, and improve, the health of the Great Barrier Reef, and to support world-first research.
Third, the Department of Education and Training will receive just over $167 million. This includes funding to implement the Research Infrastructure Investment Plan, informed by the 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule to the bill and the portfolio supplementary additional estimates statements tabled in the parliament.
I commend this bill.
A ppropriation Bill (No . 6) 2017-18
Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2017-2018, along with Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2017-2018, which I introduced earlier, are the supplementary additional estimates appropriation bills for this financial year.
This bill seeks further approval for appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of just over $6.2 billion for 2017-18.
The majority of the amount in the bill relates to the Department of Environment and Energy, which will receive approximately $6 billion to facilitate the Australian government's purchase of the New South Wales and Victorian governments' shares in Snowy Hydro Limited. The purchase will build on the government's reforms to ensure reliable and affordable energy for businesses and households.
This bill will also provide the Department of Home Affairs with just over $94 million to upgrade its risk assessment and identity management ICT capabilities.
Details of the proposed expenditure are set out in the schedule to the bill and the portfolio supplementary additional estimate statements tabled in the parliament.
I commend this bill.
I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2018-2019 and related bills. These bills provide appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the annual services of the government for 2018-19 and for the remainder of 2017-18, and facilitate the implementation of a number of 2018-19 budget measures. A total of around $108 billion is sought for the 2018-19 financial year and around $7.9 billion for the remainder of the 2017-2018 financial year. These amounts are already incorporated into the budget bottom line, as presented in the 2018-19 budget. The Labor Party will support supply.
This budget is just like every other Liberal budget in that it fails the fairness test. The Liberal's budget looks after big business at the expense of people who work and who struggle. The budget gives an $80 billion tax handout to big business, including $17 billion for the big banks, at the same time as it hits schools and hospitals with savage cuts. The Liberal's budget is sneaky and unfair, and all the old nasties are in it—not only cuts to schools and hospitals but also plans to axe the energy supplement for pensioners and some of the most vulnerable people in our community, plus increasing the pension age to 70.
Any budget that gives an approximately $80 tax handout to business big, while cutting from schools, hospitals and pensioners, is an unfair budget. The only way to protect schools, hospitals and pensioners is to kick those opposite at the next election. The Liberals say they want to deliver tax relief for low- and middle-income Australians, but their income tax plan held those people hostage to tax cuts at the high end of the income scale. Those tax cuts, which won't come in until 2022 and 2024, will cost the budget $122 billion over the next 10 years. This is a huge hit on the budget—and many things can change between now and then.
The Grattan Institute—and, in particular, Mr John Daley—made a submission to the Senate inquiry, arguing that the tax cuts should not be legislated more than a year or two in the future and that supporting stages 2 and 3 leaves the budget less able to respond to shocks that may emerge over the coming years. In particular, the submission said:
Six or seven years is a very long time and, economically, the chances of a significant economic downturn over the next six or seven years are pretty large … we do not think it is prudent to be providing tax cuts of this magnitude that far in the future—certainly not to be legislating them—when there are so many economic uncertainties between now and then. And there is no need to legislate them.
We know that stage 3 of the government tax cuts will become the most expensive. They're the fastest-growing stage of the package and they are the most unfair. Thanks to Labor, we know from information provided for the Senate by the Parliamentary Budget Office that stage 3 of the government tax cuts is set to grow at a staggering 12 per cent per year. Stage 3, which is heavily skewed towards higher income earners, begins in 2014-15, about the same time as the government's company tax cuts flow to big businesses at an annual cost of at least $15 billion a year. Taken together, if implemented, the government stage 3 tax cuts and company tax cuts for big businesses will cost them a budget of at least $25 billion a year by the end of the medium term.
The government has not only failed the fairness test set by Labor and the community but it also failed the fiscal responsibility test for itself. The Liberal Party used to rail against debt and deficit and now there's barely a peep from them. On the back of the best global economic conditions in more than a decade, net debt for the coming year is double what it was when the Liberals came to office. Gross debt, which crashed through half a trillion dollars on their watch for the first time in history, will remain well above half a trillion dollars every year for the next decade. Both types of debt are growing faster under this government than under the previous Labor government, which had a global financial crisis to contend with. This year's deficit, for 2017-18, is 6½ times bigger than the Liberals' predicted in their first horror budget of 2014.
Labor's approach to the budget is fairer for middle Australia and the most vulnerable in the community and more responsible when it comes to budget repair. Our plan will deliver lower taxes for 10 million working Australians through a bigger, better and fairer tax cut. Our tax refund for working Australians will provide almost double the tax relief being offered by the government. Labor's plan will see those earning up to $125,000 a year paying less tax than they would under the Liberals. More than four million people will get a tax cut of $928 a year. We will deliver extra funding for public hospitals and 20 new MRI machines to regional centres in outer suburbs. We will abolish Turnbull's cap on university places and abolish up-front fees for 100,000 TAFE places in courses where we still need those skills. Labor can deliver on these commitments because, unlike Malcolm Turnbull, we won't give $80 billion in tax handouts to big business and the banks.
A Shorten Labor government will achieve a balanced budget in the same year as the government's budget. It will deliver bigger cumulative budget surpluses over the forward estimates, as well as substantially bigger surpluses over the 10-year medium term, and will put the majority of the savings raised from our revenue measures over the medium term towards budget repair and paying down debt. A Shorten Labor government will also be guided by clear fiscal principles. These include repairing the budget in a fair way that doesn't ask the most vulnerable to carry the heaviest burden; more than offsetting new spending with savings and revenue improvements; and we will bank changes in receipt and payments from changes in the economy—parameter variations—to the bottom line if this impact is positive. Because Labor has made tough and big calls on tax reforms—and I can list some of them: negative gearing, capital gains tax, trusts, dividend imputation refundability and multinational tax avoidance—to close loopholes to those who least need them, we will have a debt reduction plan that is superior to that of the Liberals. Our plan is fairer and more responsible, because we've made the big calls and we've got them right.
I rise to speak on the appropriations bills. Commonly known as the budget, the appropriations bills should fund the government's vision of how Australia should be into the future. Unfortunately, the vision the government has outlined in its budget is myopic. It makes the tax system less progressive, provides greater returns to those who are already better off and gives huge corporate tax cuts to the big end of town. The government pretends they're promising Australians the same service into the future, but how can that be when they're trying to deliver them with less funding and a smaller revenue base?
The budget is a total con job. Its numbers are flimsy, its promises are overcooked and it's based on an ideology that wants to provide the least assistance to Australians in need. It's a selfish budget and it's an unfair budget. More importantly, it fails to address the problems of our society that we need to solve. Housing, health care and education are all neglected in the budget. As a result, the millions of Australians who are having difficulty affording housing and health care or who are trying to get a decent education will continue to suffer. Included in the budget are larger tax cuts for those on higher incomes—billions of dollars of tax cuts to the disgraced banking sector and to multinationals, who we know will send the funds offshore. Everyday Australians will be harmed by the budget.
The Liberal Party has spent its time in power doing everything it can to drive down wages and cut penalty rates. Wages in Australia have stagnated. Insecure work is on the rise and full-time work is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Yet Mr Turnbull and his government think they can buy the vast majority of Australian taxpayers back with a pitiful $10 a week. Billions have been ripped out of the budget that pays for schools, hospitals and health care. These tax cuts are based on projections of unrealistic figures and were secured through dodgy side deals. As Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten said in his budget-in-reply speech:
They think for $10, you’ll forget they tried to put up your taxes last year.
For $10, you won’t care about cuts to your child’s school.
For $10, you’ll forgive waiting for elective surgery at Australia’s hospitals
That for $10, you won’t mind your internet’s no good and your local TAFE is closing or your daughter can’t find a place at uni.
They think if you get $10 a week, you won’t notice you’re losing $70 in penalty rates from your Sunday pay.
And this Prime Minister is so out of touch, he thinks if you get ten dollars a week – you’ll be fine with the banks getting a $17 billion giveaway.
How on earth can it be fair for a nurse on $40,000 to pay the same rate as a doctor on $200,000, or for a cleaner to pay the same tax rate as a CEO? How can it be fair that under this tax experiment the doctor earns five times as much as the nurse but gets a tax cut that is 16 times bigger? This is not a progressive tax system but a first step towards flat-rate taxation. Research has revealed that under this plan $6 in every $10 will go to the wealthiest 20 per cent of Australians. How's that fair, and how's that fiscally responsible?
I can assure the government that the Australian people won't be fooled. And for those senators in this place who are unable to see through this trick and were unable to stick to their principles: when your constituents come to complain about the healthcare, education or aged-care system, please remember to tell them that you ripped tens of billions of dollars out of the budget to give yourselves a $7,000-a-year tax cut. Please tell them you thought it was better that those on the highest income get thousands of dollars in tax cuts while those on the lowest get $10 a week. Truly, you should be ashamed. For those Australians on lower incomes, Mr Turnbull has a perfect solution. Mr Turnbull said that if you're a 60-year-old aged-care worker in Burnie in the electorate of Braddon you should 'get a better job'. It's clear that Mr Turnbull and his handpicked candidate for Braddon, Mr Whiteley, do not consider the work of aged-care workers important. I know that Labor's Justine Keay does. I know that she cares about aged-care workers, that she cares about their pay and conditions and that she cares about the vital services they provide to give senior Australians a higher quality of life.
The government expressed surprise at the reaction following these thoughtless comments, but what the Prime Minister should have realised is that perhaps this aged-care worker doesn't actually want to change her job. Perhaps she just wants to get better pay as a carer. Why should she have to stop caring for people and have to do a different job in order to get the sort of money that the Prime Minister thinks everyone aspires to? Perhaps—just perhaps—she aspires to better penalty rates, \ better staff-to-patient ratios in these facilities or better funding for aged care. It's clear that Mr Turnbull doesn't believe aged-care work is a good job. And if Mr Turnbull thinks his past as a corporate banker—ripping companies apart and profiteering from them—is a better job, maybe he should check his prejudices and reflect on how much good the collapse of HIH caused. I'm pretty certain the community up in Braddon don't care much for harbour-side millionaires raking in tens of millions per annum for stripping companies and sacking workers, but they are extremely thankful for the aged-care worker helping to feed, clothe and care for their elderly relatives in aged-care facilities. It is an example of how out of touch our millionaire PM is that he thinks most people can just walk into another job.
Let me give those in the government a quick lesson: most Australians are concerned by the idea of losing their jobs. It causes them anxiety because they know just how few jobs there are in their town or in their community and they worry about how they will pay their bills. And when Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison's recklessness tanks the economy, it's these people who will suffer. The Prime Minister telling people to 'get a better job' is not helpful and just goes to show how out of touch he and his government truly are.
Here is another example of just how out of touch the Prime Minister is. At the height of the royal commission into the banks—a royal commission that has seen reckless negligence, incompetence and downright fraudulent acts by the banking sector—this Prime Minister wants to reward them with a $17 billion tax cut. The Australian people are screaming out that we should punish the banks, and Mr Turnbull's doing everything he can to reward them—once a banker always a banker. Some members of the crossbench are lining up to support the corporate tax cuts as well. Nothing says 'helping battlers' more than giving multinational companies billions of dollars more to send offshore every year! But while those opposite have trumpeted their unfair tax cuts, they have neglected to tell you a few important things about this budget.
On the back of the best global economic conditions in more than a decade, net debt for this coming year is double what it was when the Liberals came to office. Gross debt, which crashed through half a trillion dollars on their watch for the first time in history, will remain well above half a trillion dollars every year for the next decade. Both types of debt are growing faster under this government than under the previous Labor government, which had a global financial crisis to contend with. And this year's deficit is 6½ times bigger than the Liberals predicted in their first horror budget of 2014. A $715 million cut to hospitals still remains in the budget, as does the $17 billion in cuts to schools. This budget still cuts money from our universities, and it contains a very sneaky new $270 million cut to TAFE. The Prime Minister will still cut $14 from pensioners every fortnight by taking away the energy supplement, cut dental care for veterans and cut the ABC yet again. Our well respected national broadcaster is being gutted by this government just because it won't give credence to climate sceptic quacks and anti-vaxxers—if only we could do the same in this chamber!
Mr Turnbull is keeping Medicare frozen for specialist visits. He's even keeping the GST on tampons and is still increasing the retirement age to 70. So it's clear to see what this budget is about: it's about large tax cuts for those on high incomes, tax cuts for banks and cuts to schools and hospitals. It will destroy the progressive taxation system and set the Australian government up in future years to be unable to afford the required spending in health, education and aged care.
However, there is an alternative. The Australian people have an alternative. They have an alternative government that will act in the national interest, not just in the interests of the top end of town. They have an alternative government that will put fairness at the centre of its agenda.
A Labor government will go further and do better on tax cuts for working and middle-class Australians. In Labor's first budget, we will deliver a bigger, better and fairer tax cut for 10 million working Australians. That's almost double, in fact, what the government offered in the budget. This is our pledge to 10 million working Australians: under Labor you will pay less income tax, because Labor think you are more important than multinationals, big banks and big business. In Labor's first term of government, a teacher earning $65,000 will be $2,780 better off. That's an extra $928 a year. A married couple, with one serving in our Defence Force and earning $90,000 and the other working in aged care and earning $50,000, will be $5,565 better off. That's a combined $1,855 extra each year under Labor. We can afford to do more to help 10 million Australians because we're not giving $80 billion to big business and the big four banks. We can do more to help those who need it because we're not favouring the highest income earners and because we've already made the hard choices for budget repair.
Labor is creating a level playing field for first home buyers by reforming negative gearing and capital gains. We're cracking down on tax minimisation by eliminating income splitting in discretionary trusts without affecting our farmers. And we're ending unsustainable tax refunds, for people who currently pay no income tax, while protecting pensioners and charities. Labor's plan means we can deliver a winning trifecta in government, a genuine tax cut for middle- and working-class Australians. There will be proper funding for hospitals, schools and the safety net and we will pay back more of Australia's national debt faster.
Next year, total interest payments on national debt will pass $18 billion. That's $18 billion more than the Commonwealth spends on the NDIS, aged care or child care. It is about twice as much as Australia spends on public schools. The government have locked in $140 billion in tax cuts on a further $80 billion in corporate cuts and they have said not one word about reducing debt. Before the 2013 election the Liberals were screaming, positively frothing at the mouth, about debt and deficit. What do we hear about it now? Not one word. The Liberals' only strategy is to cross their fingers and hope. It's time for this parliament to be responsible. Labor will be the responsible government that the Liberal Party is unable to be. Labor's economic reforms put us in a much stronger position to cope with international uncertainty over the coming decades. We've seen that there are global downturns and that we need to have the capacity to stimulate the economy. We can pay down national debt faster than the government, which has just put its hands in the air and given up.
The whole point of government is to provide people with the services they need to build themselves a good life. The budget isn't just numbers on a page; it's a blueprint for a better society. We all know that education is one of the most important means of building a better life. I believe that every Australian child should get the life-changing opportunity of a properly funded, quality education. They need to be taught not only reading and writing but also maths, coding, science and languages. They need individual attention in the classroom and protection from bullying, be it online or in the schoolyard. I want children to discover and fall in love with what they're good at. I want every public school to be able to offer music, drama, sport and camps and to have fully resourced libraries. As a passionate advocate for reading, I want children to fall in love with reading. For that, they need a properly resourced library.
The government can announce as many education reviews as it wants. Everyone knows that cutting school funding does not deliver better results. That's why Labor will put back every dollar the Liberals have cut from schools. The government's cuts have hit public schools and their 2.5 million students the hardest. It's public schools that will benefit the most when we invest and restore the extra $17 billion over the next 10 years. The public system teaches 82 per cent of Australia's poorest kids, 84 per cent of Indigenous kids and 74 per cent of kids with disabilities. When it comes to schools, we want the very best for Australian children.
At the next election, the choice will be simple. Labor will put $17 billion extra into schools, and the Prime Minister will give $17 billion to the banks. Labor's approach to the budget is fairer for middle Australia and the most vulnerable in the community, and it will be more responsible when it comes to budget repair. Our plan will deliver lower taxes for 10 million working Australians. Labor's plan will see those who earn up to $125,000 a year paying less tax than they would under the Liberals, and more than four million people will get a tax cut of $928 a year. It's clear that the only way to protect schools, hospitals and pensioners is to change the government at the next election. The Liberals say they want to deliver tax relief for low- and middle-income Australians, but their income tax plan is holding those people hostage to tax cuts at the higher end of the income scale and way down the track.
Labor will achieve budget balance in the same year as the government and deliver bigger, cumulative budget surpluses over the forward estimates, as well as substantially bigger surpluses over the next 10 years. Unlike this reckless government, we will put the majority of savings raised from our revenue measures over the medium-term towards budget repair and paying down debt. Remarkably, this budget is pretending that wages will increase by over 13 per cent in the next four years. Given the current wages system is obviously not delivering for workers and that the government is working actively to see lower wages, it's absolutely wishful thinking to think that this goal will be met. Labor have a wages policy which will help meet this budget assumption, restore Sunday penalty rates, crack down on wage theft and address the abuse of labour hire, where companies shift permanent jobs to labour hire jobs just to cut pay. We'll get enterprise bargaining off life support and employees and employers back to the negotiation table for more productive workplaces, more profitable enterprises and higher wages, and we'll lead a new push to deliver genuine pay equity for Australian women, because workers, not just millionaires, should be rewarded for their hard work.
While Labor will pass the appropriations bills, we will do so knowing that our plan is fairer and more responsible because we've made the big calls and we've got them right. Australians deserve better than what they've received from this government. They deserve a government that tries to build our society, not rip it apart, and that looks to improve our health and education systems, not starve them.
The appropriation bills before us today authorise government spending next year. They indicate how the government plans to spend taxpayer funds. My problem with them is that they show annual government spending will set a new record. Spending once again outstrips revenue, meaning we are continuing to fail to live within our means and that we are getting deeper into debt and continuing a decade-long run of deficits. Because of that I oppose these bills.
These appropriation bills also authorise an additional $7.9 billion of spending in the current financial year. Just to remind everyone: there are only five days left to run in this financial year. That's extra spending of $1.5 billion a day. Over the next five days Canberrans will be rolling in cash and Canberrans will proclaim, 'There's never been a better time to be a public servant.'
The government is scheduling a lot of its discretionary spending this financial year, rather than later, so that it can claim to be reducing discretionary spending over the next four years. This is fraudulent, and the Minister for Finance knows it. This government is a big-spending government, and no creative accounting can hide it. As I outlined in my alternative budget, published in the Australian Financial Review, there are plenty of options to cut spending. Cut the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities, the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, the Department of the Environment and Energy, the Department of Communications and the Arts. Cut the Australia Council for the Arts and the Sports Commission. Cut Austrade and Tourism Australia. Cut the Workplace Gender Equality Agency and Indigenous Business Australia. Cut spending on research and cut spending on foreign aid. The government could do all this in the budget bills and not have to worry about Senate obstruction. If the government did this, it could repeat the successful political tactics we saw last week.
Last week the government convinced the Senate that it was fiscally responsible to pass small, personal income tax cuts. These personal income tax cuts are now law, and the Labor opposition, unless it's prepared to accept them, now needs to campaign to raise personal tax rates at the next election. This has boosted the government's re-election prospects quite considerably, in my view.
If the government were to cut spending, it could convince the Senate that it was fiscally responsible to pass still more tax cuts. It could cut taxes on fuel and cars, alcohol and tobacco, tampons and sanitary pads, and electricity and imports. The Labor opposition would then need to campaign to raise taxes on the products that everyday Australians buy. This is a political opportunity that the government should realise is too good to miss. Unfortunately, it seems willing to miss it, because the government's big spending continues in the appropriation bills before us today. But it's not too late. It could improve its political future enormously by stealing the low-spending, low-taxing policies of the Liberal Democrats. I'd be delighted if it did.
I'd like to thank all senators who have contributed to the debate on the 2018-19 annual appropriation bills, as well the two top-up appropriation bills for the end of 2017-18. Briefly, in response to Senator Leyonhjelm's contribution, I would just make the point that the largest part of the top-up appropriations for 2017-18 is to pay New South Wales and Victoria for the acquisition of their shares in the Snowy Hydro scheme. Contrary to some of the suggestions that Senator Leyonhjelm was making, the acquisition of Snowy Hydro paves the way for Snowy 2.0 by streamlining shareholder approvals.
These appropriation bills seek authority from the parliament or the expenditure of money from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for annual expenditure of agencies. Key measures supported by these bills have been highlighted during their introduction and the detail of the bills has been explored in detail during the Senate estimates process. Particular highlights of the bills include investments in landmark national infrastructure. This includes equity investment for the delivery of Western Sydney Airport and Inland Rail, concessional loan funding for stage 2 of the WestConnex project and funding to secure full Commonwealth ownership of Snowy Hydro Limited to help support Australia's energy future.
Of particular interest to the parliament, funding has been provided in the appropriation bill for the parliamentary departments so that DPS can establish a cybersecurity operations centre for Parliament House. This will strengthen cybersecurity arrangements for the parliamentary computer network to enhance the protection of privileged information held by members and senators. The total of the appropriations sought through the three 2018-19 appropriation bills is just under $108.5 billion, and the final appropriations sought in the two 2017-18 bills is under $8 billion. Once again, I thank all senators for their contribution. I commend the bills to the Senate.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a second time.
Pursuant to standing order 115(4), proposed expenditure has been considered by legislative and general purpose standing committees. As no amendments or requests have been circulated, I call the minister to move the third reading.
I move:
That these bills be now read a third time.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a third time.
When as minister in the previous Labor government Tony Burke introduced the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, he talked about the long and fraught history around this wonderful environmental asset we have that stretches through the centre of Australia. He described the Murray-Darling as the largest environmental asset on the continent and our most important production asset. The Murray-Darling Basin stretches all the way from my home state of Queensland, down through New South Wales—and it is the water supply for the ACT—through Victoria and on through to South Australia. A large percentage of the Australian continent and a large percentage of our community know about the Murray-Darling and, in some way, are actually dependent on it.
There has been a fraught history. When the original Murray-Darling Basin Plan was introduced, Mr Burke talked about the fact that there have been debates and concerns about the best use of the Murray-Darling and the threats to the Murray-Darling for over a century. It was very difficult to get everyone together. Everyone had strong views and concerns. There was genuine fear that, somehow, their particular issues would be lost in the debate. The basis of the whole plan was to bring people together—all those who cared so deeply about the Murray-Darling—to make sure they would understand, firstly, that there needed to be a plan; secondly, that everyone had the right to be involved in that plan; and, thirdly, that no-one was going to be absolutely thrilled or feel as though they'd got everything that they wanted out of the plan.
We saw earlier this year that there was considerable debate about the viability of the plan. There were fears that some people were taking water that should have been used in other ways, and demands that there should be further uses made of the water. People were very upset and concerned about what should occur. That served a particular purpose; it made people really think about what they were doing and that the viability and protection of this wonderful asset must be an absolute certainty.
There was debate and there were disallowance motions moved, but now we're at a stage where the government has come forward with a wide range of recommendations for future action. Certainly, our party has agreed that the major concerns that we had—I think we do share a common commitment to protect the Murray-Darling. The best way to do that is through a coordinated, widely engaging plan. We believe that the government proposals that have come forward meet the concerns that were raised by the wide range of people who came to see us about why they felt there needed to be further commitment and further understanding of what was best for their river.
Something that has stuck with me is that the then Minister Burke talked about the Indigenous legend of the Murray-Darling River. That legend was of a giant Murray cod making its way through the landscape to carve out the river system. That led to a strong belief that cultural flows need to be defended and respected. Indeed, that image has stayed with me while I've been involved with talking to the local communities in Queensland about their needs. Through the whole debate, the visual concept of the cod weaving its way down that wonderful expanse of the river remained very alive to me.
Whilst we've heard much debate around the Murray-Darling Basin Plan through the discussion of the Water Amendment Bill 2018, I want to focus on a couple of issues that have come out in the package of government commitments. One of the many reasons I am confident we have a way to move forward is section 3 of the government commitments, which focuses on improving outcomes for Indigenous people and addressing the social and economic impacts of the Murray-Darling Basin. I want to run through some of these commitments as reinforcement of why I am hopeful we will be able to work our way through this. When I think about the river, I constantly keep in mind the idea of the Murray cod and the river's importance to local Indigenous communities.
In the government response to the concerns raised, section 3 talks about the commitment to two full-time staff positions for three years to support Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations and Murray and Lower Darling Indigenous Nations. They're the groups looking at the concerns of Aborigines—and not those of the islanders in this case. One area that is not included in the Murray-Darling Basin is the islander community in the Torres Strait—but they do have a common interest in water. The idea of these two full-time positions is that they:
… will work with local member nations and government agencies to translate the findings of the National Cultural Flows Research Project into practical and effective ways forward. The positions will be supported by a $1.5 million fund for costs associated with the activities, including the continued development of the Aboriginal Waterways Assessments. These commitments will be additional to the existing and long standing commitment of $635,000 per annum to these organisations.
We are maintaining the commitment to these really important Aboriginal community organisations, but we're providing the extra positions to ensure that their further work will be able to be done and that we'll look at the National Cultural Flows Research Project. That is something that we've been talking about for a while in terms of gathering information and gathering community engagement, which are critically important to the way forward.
Earlier this year, the government also announced increased flexibility to allow Indigenous land corporations to use their funds to access water entitlements as well as land. It's a really important move forward. We rely on Indigenous land corporations to look at the resources for their communities, knowing best about the local needs and what is available locally. For the first time, this is now allowing the legislation to look at water resources as well as the land. We know, in fact it's almost self-evident, that land needs water. In terms of identifying this more clearly it ties these issues together. This is also a move forward, responding to community knowledge and awareness.
The government response also talks about a:
Funding commitment for Indigenous investment on water involving:
Commitment of $40 million over four years to administer through the Indigenous Land Corporation (or other suitable organisation) a program to support Basin Indigenous communities investment in cultural and economic water entitlement and associated planning activities. Under the program, the $40 million would be allocated between the northern Basin and the southern Basin.
That is $20 million each, I would imagine. I'm not going into that level of detail, but I imagine the $40 million would be shared with the two major agencies. The way that will work out will be developed in consultation during this year. We'll be watching that to make sure that the promises and the expectations will be met in the allocation and the way that will operate.
There's also a:
$20 million grant program over four years to provide grants for economic development projects for indigenous, remote, rural and regional communities most impacted by the Basin Plan.
This is not only for Indigenous communities, it picks up the kinds of issues that have been raised throughout the history of the Murray-Darling by local and regional communities about their relationship and their needs for their river program. This will be a series of grants which will be administered by the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources and designed in consultation with the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities and the Prime Minister and Cabinet Indigenous Affairs Group.
As with all grant programs, the expectation is that there will be clear guidelines. It will go out to processes and allow the local communities to identify what work they want to do in their local areas linked to the Murray-Darling. It's envisaged that the first round of applicants will be invited to seek funds to develop their proposals for consideration under a second round. Again, that's a form of governance in terms of making sure that people understand the way the process will operate and ensuring that they will get the best possible use out of a grant program.
Again, underlying all these changes is maintaining the link between community and river, ensuring that the community will be engaged and that they will have this common goal of making sure that the river is healthy. The communities most in need of such support, as identified by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority in the Northern basin review, will be given the highest priority. I know that some of these communities have been working locally, and also with governments, for many years and that they've identified their high needs in this space. I particularly want to identify the ones in Queensland, where I have spoken with communities for a long period of time—well before I came into this place. St George and Dirranbandi are two Queensland communities that have a relationship of immediacy with the Murray-Darling and that have been suffering through a range of environmental and social issues for many years. The best way to ensure that these communities are healthy is to ensure that the Murray-Darling is healthy.
This series of grants will be a way for people to maintain a relationship with their river but to also be an active part in the wider activities of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority so that this plan continues to evolve. There is no such thing as an end, a single plan, for the Murray-Darling. It needs to look to the future so that it continues to be dynamic. We have support for high-risk communities, including Dirranbandi and St George. Two of the New South Wales communities identified are Collarenebri and Warren, and they have local engagement facilitators. This is a really useful, practical response. It brings people together who have particular knowledge on how to facilitate information and get communities working together, and allows local engagement facilitators to help identify development opportunities and funding options.
All of this work demands resources. The government has come forward with its range of options and has identified these needs. It has made a commitment to work with the state governments of New South Wales and Queensland to identify water entitlements in the northern basin that can be allocated to Indigenous communities through state water resource plans. I'm really pleased that the Queensland government, with Minister Lynham and a range of other ministers who have local knowledge and support for these parts of western Queensland, has been actively engaged in this space and working with those communities. The Warrego-Paroo water resource plan has engaged with local communities, with the Queensland government providing for 900 megalitres of unallocated surface water for community and 10,000 megalitres of unallocated ground water for community or Indigenous purposes. We have community and government working together, which is the underlying strategy to ensure that this program is effective.
The government has also announced it's committed to give priority to Aboriginal and local suppliers in delivery of environmental works under agreed toolkit measures in the northern basin. It's been put out, with a range of information going to delivery partners, that there will be a requirement for them to give preference to Indigenous suppliers, including really small Indigenous enterprises, as part of contracting and subcontracting arrangements. This will encourage the use of local Indigenous labour wherever possible. It cannot be stressed too highly how important this is to local communities. This is an opportunity for work, for genuine employment, and gives financial security to places that have been under great stress for many years. Linking the very important work of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority with a focus on developing job opportunities and skilling opportunities for local Indigenous communities, I think, is very much at the heart of this program. This should be acknowledged. It should be monitored to ensure how it's working, because sometimes plans don't follow through as much as we'd hope, but it is a really important element of the commitment from the government.
The government is supporting work for cultural gatherings and low-impact water recreation, including options to refurbish weirs at Wilcannia and Cunnamulla. I'll be looking forward to having a look at that Cunnamulla activity when it's finalised. It is important that people have these options locally. There are a number of commitments, but I've just been focusing on the Indigenous elements. One is the management of environmental water and Indigenous cultural use. The minister will direct the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, under section 175 of the Water Act 2007, to report publicly each year on how Indigenous values and water uses are considered in environmental water use and on how Indigenous people are involved in that decision making. This is critical. It means that those local activities will be reported publicly. So there will be this opportunity not only for the plans to be made and the work to be engaged but also for a commitment to public reporting.
Sometimes that last bit is dropped off the equation. So one of the things that attracts me most is that there will be a requirement to report—again, look specifically at how those communities are linked together. It's important that engagement with Indigenous communities on decisions underpinning the beneficial use of environmental water to meet Indigenous values is publicly acknowledged and celebrated. It is important that we work to get this plan right. We acknowledge that there will never be the perfect plan, but the massive need to take action on the Murray-Darling is clear. No-one ever debates that; it's just that, when they have to take actions themselves, that may not have been what they really want to do.
The other thing I want to mention before I end is the fact that, in the Australian government's voluntary Report on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, which will be reported at the UN in the next couple of weeks, the Murray-Darling Basin, quite rightly, is included under goal 06, which is to 'ensure availability and sustainable management of water for all'. The government have put in the report that they are taking to the UN a particular credit for what's happening with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It talks about the importance of the Murray-Darling Basin, how much water is involved and the number of people involved: It says:
… the health of the Basin has been impacted by drought and water extraction practices that inadequately addressed environmental sustainability considerations.
It makes it clear that that has been the sorry past of this wonderful environmental asset. It goes on to say:
The 2012 Basin Plan was developed in response to this gap to embed a coordinated approach to water management across the Basin’s four states (South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland) and the Australian Capital Territory. The Plan aims to rebalance Basin water use to sustainable levels and introduce new measures to use water more efficiently and effectively, integrating water management across state boundaries, and improving water security for all water users.
I think that reinforces the absolute commitment that we all must have to ensure that we work together to ensure that our wonderful Murray-Darling is protected and that we get the best possible environmental, ecological and productive outcomes from this wonderful resource.
It makes me proud that, when we talk about what we've done as governments working together, regardless of what flavour they are and regardless of the problems that we've had to get to this point—and they have been many—we are able to say internationally that this plan has been put in place and we're committed to taking it through to the next years, where we will have to continue to work together to ensure that we protect the Murray-Darling.
I rise to speak on the Water Amendment Bill 2018. This bill allows a previously disallowed northern basin instrument to be returned without further consultation, on the basis that it is substantially the same as the former instrument. Much of the debate has been focused on the return of 70 gigalitres of the proposed northern basin water recovery target of 390 gigalitres to consumptive use. It should be noted that the MDBA modelling, as detailed in responses in Senate estimates and published by them, shows the impact of the 70 gigalitre reduction on the Murray flows to be as low as seven gigalitres on flows in the Menindee Lakes and a four gigalitre impact into South Australia. The benefit to struggling regional communities on the northern basin is large. I will be writing to local government and other community representatives in these areas and visiting them over the next few months. I suggest to senators who are expressing concerns over this and are representing their state's interest to visit the people in the sacrifice zones of Collarenebri, Wee Waa, Dirranbandi, Moree, St George, Dubbo, and Narromine—to name just a few communities that will gain relief from this provision.
I raise concerns over other aspects of the northern basin regulation that bring into effect new machinery to assess the new role of the Commonwealth and state water resource plan accreditation. Industry and environmental groups should put far more effort into the detail of this regulation. It is too easy to argue over the 70-gigalitre number when, in reality, the maximum impact in South Australia is four gigalitres. I think focusing on the seven-gigalitre reduction has allowed measures that should be scrutinised to slip through. I'm dealing with this through Senate estimates questions and will be in more direct contact with the government and with local government, community and industry groups.
I will raise one of those concerns now. The additional recovery of the 450 gigalitres of so-called up water is subject to the caveat of zero impact on regional communities. I share the concerns of the Greater Shepparton City Council, represented by Mayor Kim O'Keeffe, who has written to me raising concerns about how this assessment will be conducted. The government needs to detail its assessment criteria and go into discussion with local government and community groups prior to finalising its assessment criteria. The United Australia Party is committed to representing all Australians, and we will not accept sacrifice zones of people who are not well represented.
This bill, the Water Amendment Bill 2018, is the result of a dirty deal between the National Party and the Labor Party. Despite Senator Moore's rose-coloured glasses, all her fantasy that we are now living in the best of all possible worlds and that the river is suddenly going to be healthy again, it is a complete lie. It is fantasy. We have the National Party, the Liberal Party and the Labor Party coming together to sell out the river and sell out river communities. It is tragic. It stands out starkly as a symbol of corporate Australia getting its way. Big business is getting its way, using its corporate muscle to get deals done that are in the interest of big business, not in the interest of ordinary people and certainly not in the interest of our river environment. But this dirty deal, this stark symbol of corporate Australia getting its way, stands out for its audacity and its impact. The Murray-Darling is the lifeblood of south-eastern Australia. It is dying, and the legislation that we're debating today is going to make things worse.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was developed supposedly to tackle this looming environmental and social disaster. However, the Basin Plan has failed. It was politicised from the start, and this bill is adding insult to injury. You don't need to take the Greens' word for it. Have a listen to the evidence that has been presented to the South Australian royal commission. As reported in the Fairfax press last week, Richard Beasley, SC, the counsel assisting Commissioner Bret Walker, said that the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan is a fraud on the environment that may be unlawful. That's a pretty serious allegation. Is this legislation going to improve it? No, it is going to make this fraud on the environment even worse. Richard Beasley said that the plan and the related Water Act had been set up to fix a dying system that has had too much water taken from it and has suffered environmental degradation. The article went on to say:
However, the setting of water savings at 2750 billion litres a year—itself at the low end of scientists' estimates of what was needed—had been cut by supply measures that would not kick in for perhaps six years or longer, if at all, Mr Beasley said. Water savings, though, would take effect now.
Despite the fact that we've got legislation that is pretending that everything is now absolutely okay, the impacts of this are going to resonate. They are going to flow down the river and have massive impacts on river communities, the river and the people that rely on this river.
I want to paint a picture of what this means. During debates in this place, we've heard a lot about devastation to the health of the Darling River and the Coorong. There are dying rivers, dying communities and parched farms because of the massive water take by corporate cotton farmers in the upper reaches of the basin. This is big agribusiness working hand in hand with the National Party to get what they want. We have seen the evidence. The evidence is starkly staring Australia in the face. And anyone can tell you that this is wrong. The government has made the wrong decisions.
Order, Senator Rice. It being 2 pm, we will move to questions without notice.
I advise the Senate that Senator Payne will be absent from question time today due to overseas ministerial business. In Senator Payne's absence, I will represent the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Defence Industry, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, the Minister for Defence Personnel, the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment.
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. Can the minister confirm that, not satisfied with giving investment bankers a $7,000-a-year tax cut, the Turnbull government now wants to give the banks they work for a $17-billion tax cut?
What we want to do is give Australians, today and into the future, the best possible opportunity to get ahead. On this side of the chamber, we understand that jobs don't grow on trees. We understand that jobs are created by viable, profitable businesses and if we make decisions in this parliament to put businesses in Australia at an ongoing, deliberate, structural competitive disadvantage compared to businesses in other parts of the world where business tax rates are much lower then we put workers here in Australia at a competitive disadvantage because, in the end, nine out of 10 working Australians work for private-sector businesses. Their future job opportunities, their future job security, their future career prospects, their future wage increases depend on the future viability and the future profitability of the businesses that employ them and pay their wages.
I know that Mr Shorten and the Labor Party, which used to support the proposition—
Senator O'Neill interjecting—
Order, Senator O'Neill.
that it's important for Australia to be globally competitive have made a decision to sell out the interests of workers across Australia.
Senator O'Neill interjecting—
Order, Senator O'Neill.
The Labor Party has decided to help businesses around the world to take business and investment away from Australia. The Labor Party has made a decision to help businesses overseas lock in their competitive advantage as a result of the decisions in those countries to lower their business tax rates. Do you know what? We are a relatively small domestic market with a relatively small domestic capital market. We compete for capital and for access to markets around the world with businesses around the world. If we make it harder for business in Australia to be successful, we make it harder for Australians to be successful. If we make it harder for the businesses that employ millions and millions of Australian workers—
Senator O'Neill interjecting—
Order, Senator O'Neill.
to compete with businesses in other parts of the world, then we're making it harder for Australian workers to be successful. The truth is that having one of highest business tax rates in the world here in Australia will damage our economy, cost jobs and be bad for working families around Australia.
Before I call you, Senator Kitching, I'm going to remind senators on both sides of the chamber that I'm going to be particularly insistent on being able to hear the questions asked so that I may rule on subsequent points of order if they are raised. Senator Kitching, a supplementary question?
Last week, the Turnbull government sided with One Nation to oppose Labor's plan to double income tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners. Why can the Turnbull government find $7,000 a year for investment bankers and $17 billion for the big banks but not find an extra $400 a year for an aged-care worker earning $40,000 a year?
The necessary funding for the important social, health and other services that Australians rely on is reliant on a strong economy. If we continue to make it harder for Australian workers to be successful, if we continue to make it harder for Australian businesses to be successful, our economy will be weaker and will be in a weaker position to pay for the essential services Australians rely on.
You're not answering the question.
I'm precisely answering the question. Of course, the Labor Party can't accept that the Australian Senate made a decision last week. Last week, the Australian Senate decided to provide income tax relief to all working families around Australia, prioritising low- to middle-income earners in the first instance, but, yes, providing income tax relief to all working families around Australia to ensure that they've got the right incentive, the right encouragement and the right reward for effort, because that is good for the economy as a whole. (Time expired)
Senator Kitching, a final supplementary question.
Senator Cormann, isn't it clear that the Turnbull government is always going to choose investment bankers and big banks over low- and middle-income workers?
No, that is not correct. I reject that absolutely and unequivocally. Everything we do is to ensure that all Australians and, in particular, low- and middle-income earners, have the best possible opportunity to get ahead. Those people who get hurt the most by lower growth, by weaker growth, are low-income earners—those wanting to get into the jobs market, those wanting to work additional hours, those wanting to move from part-time to full-time. It is well established and Labor is clearly not interested in the evidence. If the economy grows more strongly, it proportionally benefits low-income earners more than anybody else. We want all Australians to have the best possible opportunity to get ahead, and having a stronger economy, having more jobs created into the future, is a very important part of that. And do you know what? When you create more jobs, it actually improves the bargaining power of workers, because if you create more jobs they get higher wages, because if there's less— (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Jobs and Innovation, Senator Cash. Can the minister further update the Senate about the Turnbull government's commitment to creating jobs in my home state of Tasmania, particularly in the north and north-west regions?
I thank Senator Bushby for the question. The Turnbull government said at the last election that we would deliver jobs and growth in the Australian economy, and now, with record jobs growth and strong economic growth, we are delivering to Australians on that commitment. Our continued focus is on seeing more Australians get into jobs, and the Turnbull government's commitment to tax relief for both individuals and for businesses makes our economy even stronger.
Senator Bushby and the Tasmanian team would be pleased to know that every taxpayer in Braddon will be better off with the personal tax relief that passed through the Senate, including the 39,266 taxpayers who will receive immediate relief in the 2018-19 tax year, and the 14,300 who will receive the maximum amount of $530. Of course, we're also creating jobs in the seat of Braddon. Since the coalition was elected in 2013, the economy in Braddon has created 1,800 jobs. Compare this to the former Labor government, when they were in office between 2007 and 2013. The Tasmanian team will be horrified to know that 500 jobs were actually shed from the economy. Under Labor, the unemployment rate in Braddon was 9.1 per cent. It was 9.1 per cent under Labor and the Greens. It has now come down—it still has a way to go—to 6.3 per cent.
On Friday, I was delighted to be in Burnie in Tasmania with our candidate for the seat of Braddon, Mr Brett Whiteley. Yet again, we were announcing more programs to get people off welfare and into work.
Senator Bushby, a supplementary question?
I do have a supplementary. What benefits does this highly focused approach to creating jobs bring to local communities?
On Friday, I announced—and, also, Senator Colbeck joined me for part of the announcement—a Regional Employment Trials Program. This is all about giving 10 regions across Australia the ability to create localised employment solutions. Why? Because we want to get individuals off welfare and into work, because when you're in work, guess what: you are paying tax instead of relying on welfare. Under the Turnbull government, colleagues will be pleased to know that welfare dependency is at the lowest in 25 years.
I had the opportunity to meet a young man called Sean on Friday in Burnie. Sean had been looking for employment for a while and was pleased to tell me that he had secured a job and would be commencing employment shortly. He told me he'd been assisted by his jobactive provider, and, as a result of that assistance, he was off welfare and getting into work.
Senator Bushby, a final supplementary question.
Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches to job creation?
The contrast for Australians now between the coalition government and those on the other side has never been starker. We, the coalition government, have delivered income tax relief to the Australian people. The contrast is this: Labor have openly said that they will go to the next election campaigning for higher taxes. The coalition under Mr Turnbull continues to back businesses with lower taxes, because we know this will generate more investment and allow businesses to grow. And when you allow businesses to grow, as Senator Cormann has said so many times, they will create more jobs. But Mr Shorten and Labor fight us every single step of the way. They don't seem to understand that a business that has to close employs no-one. Like most, we're delighted to see that Mr Albanese is finally talking some sense. If only he could now, though, convince those on the other side to support our business tax cuts. (Time expired)
My question's to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. Can the minister confirm that just three companies headquartered in Longman will benefit from further corporate tax cuts?
No, that is not true. That is actually not true. Every single business in Longman will benefit, because benefits in Australia don't operate in isolation. Every single business in Australia does business with other businesses. Not only do they do business with other businesses but as the economy does better and as more jobs are being created consumers will access the products and services of every single business in Longman. A weaker economy means less business for the businesses in Longman. Indeed, the biggest businesses in Australia in many ways are on the frontline of global competition. They all started as a small business. There is a great Queensland business that started as a small business with three employees. It's called Qantas—three employees, in Longreach, in a shed, in the heat; that's where they started their business. Today they employ 30,000 people. Today they are buying products and services from 3,000 small- and medium-size businesses across Australia, including across Queensland. If we make it harder for Qantas to compete because we impose higher taxes on them than are faced by their competitors in other parts of the world, they're going to have to cut costs. And cutting costs means less job security for their employees. Cutting costs means fewer contracts for the small- and medium-size businesses that are supplying goods and services to them. We live in one equal system. No business and no individual Australian operates in isolation. We do better as a team, and our team needs to be competitive in competing with other parts of the world. We are an open trading economy. We compete with countries in other parts of the world. If we make a deliberate decision to put our businesses at a competitive disadvantage by forcing them to pay higher taxes here than are faced by their competitors in other parts of the world then we are sending jobs and investment overseas. Bill Shorten used to believe this. Mr Bill Shorten actually used to believe this. He used to make that point very eloquently. (Time expired)
Senator Chisholm, a supplementary question.
Can the minister confirm that just 10 companies headquartered in Braddon will benefit from further corporate tax cuts?
Clearly all he has done is take the question from the tactics committee. He didn't listen to a single word I said in my previous answer. He didn't have the agility to adjust in the context of the answer I've just given. Every single business in Braddon will perform better on the back of a stronger economy. If we put businesses in Australia at a competitive disadvantage by locking in a competitive advantage for businesses overseas, helping them to take investment and jobs away from Australia, that will mean less opportunity for businesses in Braddon. It will mean less opportunity for working families of Braddon. In order to ensure that the working families of Braddon, of Longman, of Mayo—you name it, of all of the by-elections that are currently taking place—have the best possible opportunity to get ahead, we need to ensure that the businesses that employ them have the best possible opportunity to get ahead.
Senator Chisolm, a final supplementary question.
Given that the Turnbull government last week voted against bigger income tax cuts for almost 39,000, or three-quarters of taxpayers in Braddon, and 63,000 taxpayers in Longman, isn't the Turnbull government's $80 billion handout for big business just another example of the Turnbull government looking out for the big end of town in Sydney and Melbourne?
We are looking after working families right across Australia. Every working Australian in Longman and every working Australian in Braddon who pays tax is better off today as a result of the decision that the Senate made last week.
The Labor Party last week voted to impose $70 billion in higher taxes on working families around Australia. The Labor Party last week wanted to impose $70 billion in higher taxes. It didn't want us to do anything to address bracket creep, even though the Labor Party knows that letting bracket creep run rampant will lead to lower growth. Lower growth—what does that mean? It means fewer jobs. Do you know what fewer jobs means? It means higher unemployment. That's what we used to have under your period in government. When you were in government we had a weakening economy, rising unemployment and a rapidly deteriorating budget position. We've turned that situation around. We are now on a better trajectory for the future, and the people of Longman and Braddon are better off for it. (Time expired)
Senator Wong interjecting—
Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—
Order! Senator Macdonald, let me call the chamber to order. Senator Martin.
My question is to the Minister for Regional Communications—
An opposition senator interjecting—
Order! Senator Martin, please pause. I've asked for silence during questions so that I may hear them effectively.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order! Can people take a breath, please, when I call for order. Senator Martin.
My question is to the Minister for Regional Communications, Senator McKenzie. Can the minister update the Senate on how the coalition government is delivering better mobile coverage to many parts of rural and regional Australia?
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order! Before I call Senator McKenzie, I just asked senators to remain silent during the question. There were numerous senators interjecting, so I'm not going to name them all. Please allow other senators the courtesy of hearing the question. We've had numerous complaints from the far end of the chamber consistently over question time. Senator McKenzie.
Thank you, Senator Martin, for your question and for your long commitment and advocacy for regional Tasmania. It's great to have you as part of the National Party team.
The coalition's Mobile Black Spot Program is delivering better access to wider, more reliable mobile phone coverage in regional, rural and remote Australia. We've invested $220 million in this program, in contrast—
Opposition senators interjecting—
There's a lot of noise! This is in contrast to those opposite, who are yet to deliver one mobile base station in rural and regional Australia or commit one single dollar to improving rural and regional telecommunications infrastructure across regional Australia, including in your home state, Senator Martin, of Tasmania. In fact Vodafone has just switched on its base station in Hamilton in the seat of Lyons. It's one of 26 base stations for that electorate. This has only been possible because of the coalition's committing to deliver that program.
I'm very pleased to advise senators that the coalition government is delivering on its commitment to improve mobile phone coverage with an additional $25 million in a fourth round of the program. In fact I was down in Braddon with you, Senator Martin, and the fabulous Liberal candidate, Brett Whiteley, making that announcement in Melrose. The fourth round will see coverage expanded further, with a focus on driving improved outcomes for regional businesses, residents, tourism, health, education and emergency services.
If we want to see our regions grow and compete, we know they've got to have the telecommunications infrastructure to support and enable them to do so. They're important. We're the only ones committed to doing that. They're important for customers, local families, emergency service provision and local businesses. We do not resile from our commitment to ensure that those in the regions have the telecommunications infrastructure that they need and deserve, just like those in the city.
Senator Martin, a supplementary question.
Can the minister update the Senate as to how the Mobile Black Spot Program has benefitted rural and regional Australians, specifically in my home state of Tasmania?
I bet she can.
Thank you, Senator O'Sullivan. Yes, I can. In Tasmania, the coalition has been able to leverage our investment to see over $31½ million addressing mobile blackspots right across regional Tasmania. Forty-four new base stations will be built in your home state, Senator Martin, which will see over 2,650 homes getting new mobile phone coverage—as opposed to those opposite, who, I say again, achieved zero. Only the coalition is delivering for Tasmanians.
I often hear from those opposite: 'You're only investing in coalition seats. Why aren't you putting up base stations in Labor seats?' Let's actually look at the facts. A local example in your home state is Prickly Mo's owner, Tim Lynch, a viticulturist who has been using this additional mobile phone coverage to grow his local business and connect with suppliers in a way that is ensuring he can employ more locals, which is why we're actually doing it. (Time expired)
Senator Martin, a final supplementary question.
Is the minister aware of any risks to mobile phone coverage for regional Australians?
Yes, I actually am. The greatest risk is the election of a Bill Shorten Labor Party government. The contrast could not be starker. We have a strong record of delivering the critical, regional telecommunications infrastructure that rural and regional Australians need and deserve not just to be safe but to actually grow their businesses and connect. The single biggest risk is the Labor Party, because it actually has no policy. What is there when you ask the Labor Party: 'How are you going to grow that connectivity for rural and regional Australians and the $63 billion agricultural industry? How are you going to ensure that more regional Australians are employed by growing those businesses?' Silence. If we had the Labor Party investing in rural and regional telecommunications, that is exactly what country Australians would be experiencing: total silence. I want to see more than 1,000 base stations delivered as a result of our investment.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Social Services, Senator Fierravanti-Wells. Last week the government got its tax cuts through the Senate, giving people on the highest incomes an increase almost as much as the Newstart allowance itself, yet those on Newstart got no increase. When pushed, the government keeps pedalling the myth that the payment is sufficient because the majority of Newstart recipients are on another payment.
Is there a question in this or is this just a speech?
In fact, many of these receiving another payment are still living below the poverty line. Given this, why won't the government increase Newstart?
I remind senators: senators are given a minute to ask the first question, and they are allowed to use a preamble in asking that question. I ask for no interjections during questions.
As I have indicated to the chamber, and as Senator Cash said earlier, the coalition believes that the best form of welfare is a job. The government wants a welfare system that supports the most vulnerable, that encourages those capable of work or capable of study to do so, that reduces intergenerational welfare dependency and that, more than anything, is sustainable into the future.
We have one of the best welfare transfer systems in the world. Australia targets a bigger share of its cash transfers to households in the bottom income quintile than any other OECD country. Calls to raise the rate of Newstart ignore the nature of the social security system, which is designed to target need. Over 99 per cent—can I underscore that: over 99 per cent—of Newstart recipients receive more than just the base rate of Newstart. This includes providing rent assistance to those in the private rental market and family tax benefits to those raising children. The combination of these supplementary payments often exceed—can I underline that: often exceed—the value of the Newstart payment itself.
As I said, the coalition believes that the best form of welfare is a job. One of the dividends of the good management of this government and the increase in the number of jobs in our economy is that 140,000 people have been taken off welfare. That is very important, because that's about 140,000 individuals or family units— (Time expired)
Senator Siewert on a supplementary question.
The only payment the majority of Newstart recipients receive is the $4 energy supplement, which the government wants to cut. Thirty-eight per cent of the people receiving Newstart also receive rent assistance because they pay private rent. If the minister were paying private rent, does she think that she could survive on these three payments, which equate to about $49 a day? Could the minister live on $49 a day if she were living in private rental?
As I was saying, the positive dividend of our good economic management is that there are more jobs in the economy. This economy is seeing 1,100 jobs created every day, and that means that's 1,100 families or 1,100 individuals who are now in employment. As I said, you may not—
Order. Senator Siewert, a point of order?
The minister's halfway through her allotted time and yet she hasn't anywhere near approached answering the question asked, which was: could she live on those three payments which slightly increase the base rate of Newstart?
Thank you, Senator Siewert. You have kindly reminded the minister of the question. I'm listening carefully. She has 28 seconds remaining to answer.
Thank you, Mr President. As I was saying, the coalition knows that the best form of welfare is a job. Under this government, we have seen the largest increase in jobs since the GFC. Clearly, people who are in employment are able to meet their commitments. Newstart and the other benefits are about assisting people who do not have employment. But the object of the exercise, Senator Siewert— (Time expired)
Senator Siewert on a final supplementary question.
Would the minister be prepared to try to live on the Newstart allowance—I will throw in the other allowances—for even a week?
As I have indicated through you, Mr President, 99 per cent of Newstart recipients receive more than the base rate. Senator Siewert, please listen to the answer; you might learn something. It is also important to note that many recipients of Newstart do not remain on the payment for long. Around two-thirds of those granted Newstart exit—leave income support—within 12 months. As I said, our welfare system encourages those capable of working or studying to do so while supporting vulnerable people within our society, and we remain committed to ensuring family assistance and social security payments are well targeted but, most importantly, are sustainable into the future.
My question is to the Minister for Communications, Senator Fifield: Is the minister aware that Caboolture, in the electorate of Longman, has been rated as having the highest number of complaints about the NBN from homes and businesses in Queensland? Can the minister confirm that complaints about the NBN alone increased by 204 per cent in 2017?
I thank Senator Watt for his question. The NBN, in contrast to the record of those opposite, is actually being delivered. When those opposite were on the Treasury benches, the NBN was a fantasy. Only 51,000 premises had been connected to the NBN nationwide, despite billions having been spent over four or five years. I am very pleased to advise the chamber that the NBN is now available to more than half the country. It is on track to be completed by 2020, which is a good six to eight years sooner than was proposed by those opposite, and at about $30 billion less cost.
Now, with a project of this scale, where you are effectively transferring the entire nation to a new telecommunications network—
Order. Senator Watt on a point of order.
On relevance. I have been letting the minister go for some time but he hasn't addressed the point of the question. The question was whether the minister was aware that Caboolture in Longman has been rated as having the highest number of complaints and it asked the minister to confirm that complaints about the NBN alone have increased by more than double. He hasn't come to that yet.
Thank you, Senator Watt, for reminding the minister of the question. I note he has a minute and one second remaining to answer. I'm listening carefully to the answer, given that you've restated the question. Senator Fifield.
As I was saying, with a project of this scale, where you are, effectively, transferring the entire nation to a new network, there will be individuals and businesses who will have an experience that isn't all that we would hope it would be. And I would never seek to diminish the experience of an individual or a household that isn't all that it should be. We have been putting in place a range of measures to enhance the consumer experience and provide greater transparency to consumers. For instance, we have tasked the ACCC with the monitoring of services. They are embedding 4,000 probes in premises around the nation so that individuals will be able to see what the service is that retailers are providing in a particular area.
Senator Watt, a supplementary question.
Can the minister confirm that since July last year NBN installers have missed over 80,000 appointments?
NBN, at my instruction, published a consumer dashboard of measures of consumer experiences that go to things such as NBN getting things right the first time. NBN get things right the first time on about nine out of 10 occasions. We want NBN as an organisation to continually improve the service that they provide. But it's important to recognise—
Senator Wong, on a point of order.
It was a very direct question. The answer, I'd ask, should be relevant to the question: 'Can the minister confirm that since July last year NBN installers have missed over 80,000 appointments?' There was only one question.
It was a specific question. The minister has 24 seconds remaining.
NBN is one part of the broadband supply chain. The broadband supply chain consists of NBN as the wholesaler. It consists of the retailers who provide the service to the households. Also, there are content providers. Optus is a content provider and is, perhaps, a conspicuous example. (Time expired)
Senator Watt, with a final supplementary question.
Perhaps the minister can answer this question. Given that Australia was ranked last out of 28 countries for broadband satisfaction, why won't the Turnbull government join with Labor to establish better NBN wholesale service standards and allow for consumer compensation if their NBN experience isn't up to scratch? Surely, Minister, you can answer that question?
Labor, when it comes to consumer safeguards, are actually playing catch-up. I can share with Senator Watt and colleagues here that the ACCC, last year, announced that they were undertaking an inquiry into NBN wholesale service standards. So what the ALP announced over the weekend as their policy is what the ACCC is already doing: undertaking an inquiry into NBN wholesale service standards. There are already existing wholesale service standards between NBN as the wholesaler and the retailers. What ACCC is doing as the regulator—
Senator Watt on a point of order.
On relevance. I'm specifically asking what the Turnbull government will do. It's not about yet another inquiry from the ACCC about the failed NBN. What's the Turnbull government going to do?
The minister is being directly relevant to the question.
The ACCC are doing precisely what the opposition, in their announcement yesterday, said they think should be happening. But it seems the opposition is ignorant of what the ACCC is doing. (Time expired)
Senator O'Neill interjecting—
Order! Senator O'Neill, I've called you a few times this question time.
They should be telling the truth.
Senator O'Neill!
My question is to Minister Cormann, representing the Minister for Defence, Minister Payne.
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order! Senator Hanson, please continue.
Minister, many ex-service men and women have spoken of the difficulty they experience fitting back into civilian life and getting established after life in the Defence Force. Often they join young and find it difficult adapting back into society after the structure of military life. Finding work and housing, coping with physical and mental disabilities and adjusting to civilian life in general become a daily challenge. Minister, does the government recognise the range of problems that many ex-service men and women experience in settling back into civilian life?
That is a very important issue that Senator Hanson raises.
Senator Kim Carr interjecting—
I don't think this is the sort of issue that Senator Carr should make flippant interjections on.
Senator Kim Carr interjecting—
Order!
The short answer is yes, the government does recognise the magnificent service that our Defence Force personnel provide. We do recognise that too many of them leave their service injured, whether that is through mental injury or physical injury, and they do deserve all of our support as they leave their distinguished service for our nation. Between 5,500 and 6,000 ADF members leave the ADF annually. The government is committed to ensuring that former serving ADF members have access to services and support to help them in post-service life, including rehabilitation treatment, compensation and income support, to ensure that the transition from the ADF into civilian life is as seamless as possible.
The government has made a significant investment in a range of problems targeting transition—employment assistance, suicide prevention and support for families, improving transition support and future employment assistance programs—for current and former serving ADF members and their families. We are providing $196 million per year for mental health support for veterans, including the provision of free treatment for any mental health condition to all those who have served at least one day in full-time ADF service and reservists with certain service experience. There is $8.3 million going to further develop, promote and implement the Prime Minister's Veterans' Employment Program; and, to support veterans' transition to civilian life, $4.3 million of this will provide additional services to help and support veterans who are finding the transition to the civilian workforce challenging. (Time expired)
Senator Hanson, a supplementary question.
Minister, I do understand that they go through a transition period. Would the government consider a transition period over a span of three months where they can have a graduated discharge to help them find their feet—for example, going from seven days of service a week to five days, then three, and then, finally, one day a week, until they are fully discharged?
The government is always looking for ways—and I think that is an entirely non-partisan matter. I think all senators would support efforts to continue to consider and explore ways we can better support our veterans and to ensure that the transitional support, given the challenges that too many of them face on leaving the ADF, is as good as it can be. In that spirit, the government is always very happy to consider any suggestions Senator Hanson has in that regard.
Senator Hanson, a final supplementary question.
Minister, has the government failed to earmark certain occupations, such as security at airports and courts, where their skills would be invaluable, and also to identify positions in federal government and, by negotiation, in state and local government, where, in gratitude for their service and loyalty, they can be given priority?
I believe all Australians are very grateful for the service provided by ADF personnel. Of course, we always consider how the support services and the services assisting them in terms of transitional assistance, including employment assistance, can be further improved. There are a whole range of services that are available at present, and we will continue to work with all interested members and senators to continue to improve the services that are available.
My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Energy, Senator Birmingham. Can the minister explain to the Senate the Turnbull government's investment in pumped hydro energy storage across Tasmania and the benefits to the north-west coast?
I thank Senator Colbeck for his question. He is a fierce advocate for families and businesses across Tasmania, particularly in northern and north-western Tasmania. For nearly 90 years, as Senator Colbeck would well know, the Tasmanian hydro scheme has been providing reliable and affordable energy for the use of Tasmanians and, since the National Energy Market came along, for the benefit of all Australians in the NEM. Today it operates at around 30 different power stations in the hydro system, generating more than 2,200 megawatts of capacity. But the Turnbull government knows, thanks to the advocacy of strong Tasmanian Liberals, that we can get even more from the Tasmanian hydro scheme, particularly via support for pumped hydro. As Australia's Chief Scientist has acknowledged, pumped hydro is the most mature form of energy storage around the world, accounting for around 97 per cent of current energy storage.
This potential for more reliable, dispatchable and affordable energy is why we are investing further in pumped hydro. It's why we're pursuing the Snowy 2.0 scheme across New South Wales and Victoria. It is also why, through ARENA, we've identified sites around Australia, including 14 high-potential sites in Tasmania, for more pumped hydro. It is estimated that investment across those 14 sites could generate up to $5 billion worth of investment activity in Tasmania and sustain around 3,000 jobs in regional Tasmania. An outstanding example of this possibility is the Tarraleah Power Station, for which the Turnbull government is providing some $2½ million to ensure a full feasibility study into the potential for pumped hydro that would provide real economic benefits in north-western Tasmania in terms of the energy supply across Tasmania and right across Australia. Ultimately this is just another example of the Turnbull government delivering more investment in Tasmania, more jobs for Tasmania and more—and more affordable—energy for all Australians.
Senator Colbeck, a supplementary question.
Can the minister inform the Senate of how the Turnbull government's National Energy Guarantee will deliver affordable and reliable energy for Tasmanians, including in the electorate of Braddon?
The National Energy Guarantee represents the first time we have a policy that is clearly designed by the experts, comprehensively backed by business and many other groups, supported by states and, most importantly, with modelling indicating that it will cut prices and improve reliability. The NEG will do this. It will deliver more affordable, more reliable energy by ending subsidies for energy, which of course are passed on to all consumers; by creating a level playing field that ensures that all types of energy are part of Australia's energy mix rather than playing favourites; by providing certainty for investors, meaning more supply and in turn lower prices; and by reducing volatility by ensuring there is reliable and affordable power there for every Australian when they flick the switch. The modelling indicates a benefit of around $300 for each Australian household, on average—a real benefit flowing from more affordable and reliable energy. (Time expired)
Senator Colbeck, a final supplementary question.
Can the minister advise the Senate as to how lower prices support economic growth and jobs in Braddon?
It's not just households that would benefit under the National Energy Guarantee. There's the $300 average household benefit that I spoke of. But the modelling suggests that a 23 per cent reduction in wholesale electricity prices would flow through to businesses, allowing them to invest in their enterprise, to create more jobs and to grow the economy. Small businesses, such as cafes, could save hundreds of dollars a year; medium-size businesses, such as supermarkets, could save up to $400,000 a year; and large energy-intensive manufacturers could well save millions of dollars a year. These are all instances in which businesses could invest back into their businesses—employing more staff, lifting wages, growing more jobs, doing exactly the types of things that have been happening right across Tasmania thanks to the work of the Hodgman Liberal government in Tasmania along with the Turnbull coalition government here in Canberra. That's why we've seen record jobs growth nationally, record jobs growth in Tasmania, the strongest circumstance for all Tasmanians thanks to good, strong Liberal advocacy. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. The Attorney-General has made clear that tackling foreign interference is a priority of the Turnbull government. Given the government's stance on foreign interference, when did the federal Liberal Party last accept a foreign donation?
I can confirm that that is a priority piece of legislation for the Turnbull government. I don't have responsibilities for the federal Liberal Party organisation.
Senator Farrell, a supplementary question.
If the government is so concerned with foreign interference, when will the Prime Minister follow Bill Shorten's lead and personally commit the Liberal Party to immediately cease accepting foreign donations?
Firstly, I think that Senator Farrell is confusing two different pieces of legislation—but I'll just set that to one side. I would expect the Liberal Party organisation and, indeed, all party organisations that are involved in the political process and in election campaigns to comply with all relevant laws as they apply from time to time.
Senator Farrell, a final supplementary question.
When commenting on multibillion-dollar donations by Sally Zou, Senator Birmingham said:
I don't care who wants to give money to the Liberal Party.
Does the Prime Minister agree with Senator Birmingham that foreign political donations to the Liberal Party are not worth caring about?
I stand by my previous answer. Our expectation is for the Liberal Party organisation and, indeed, all party organisations to comply with the laws of the land as they apply from time to time. I suspect that Senator Farrell is somehow trying to do a compare and contrast with the circumstances of former Senator Dastyari.
Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—
But, of course, former Senator Dastyari didn't receive campaign donations; he received a personal gift for his own personal use and then started to promote a policy position which was at variance with the official position.
Like some of your people have!
Order! Senator Cormann, please resume your seat; Senator Farrell is on his feet. Senator Collins, I have called you to order twice in this answer. Senator Farrell.
Mr President, I have a point of order. The question is not about former Senator Dastyari; it's about Senator Birmingham's comments and the Prime Minister's response to them.
I'm listening very carefully to the minister's answer. He has 17 seconds remaining.
Thank you very much, Mr President. I don't monitor the activity of individual party organisations on a day-to-day basis.
Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—
Senator Collins!
I would expect all of them to comply with the laws of the land as they apply from time to time, and that is of course 100 per cent consistent with the comments that Senator Farrell has attributed to Senator Birmingham. (Time expired)
My question is to the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Canavan. Minister, last year, Australia faced a gas supply crisis where prices were high and supplies were limited. What actions has the coalition government taken to improve gas supplies for businesses and consumers across Australia, and have they been successful?
I thank Senator Fawcett for his very important question. He is right to point out that early last year the country did face a crisis in gas supplies, a crisis that was putting at risk thousands of jobs, including in Senator Fawcett's home state of South Australia. That state has a proud history of manufacturing and it requires accessible and affordable supplies of gas to survive. The price of gas in Adelaide was $10 a gigajoule, a high for that region. Some businesses were receiving contract offers of $15 and $16—even $20 a gigajoule was offered in one instance.
As soon as the government received a report early last year from AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, identifying a shortfall of gas potentially emerging this year and next, we convened a meeting the next week with the gas industry. The next month after that report we imposed a new framework for gas export controls to make sure that there was sufficient gas in Australia for Australian businesses and households. Later that year, in October, we came to an agreement with the gas industry for them to return gas to the domestic market such that export controls were not needed to be triggered. That agreement has led to 70 petajoules more coming back to the domestic market than previously from the gas industry. That has helped alleviate the gas supply situation and has helped bring prices down.
Last week the Australian Energy Market Operator updated their gas outlook report. Its great news that they now don't report a shortfall for next year. In fact, they report that we'll have 58 petajoules more gas than will be demanded next year, which will avoid the crisis situation we have had. In Adelaide, in Senator Fawcett's home state, the price of gas in the last three months has averaged $7.92 a gigajoule, down from the $10 level of a few years ago. This is good news for South Australian businesses and good news for businesses right across the country. The government is delivering better energy policy for our country to support businesses and jobs.
Senator Fawcett, a supplementary question.
Minister, what other actions has the government taken to improve gas supplies and lower prices, including those in my home state of South Australia?
We recognise that export controls are not a sustainable long-term solution to the situation we face. Last year we had to take significant action to relieve our situation. The long-term solution to this issue is to bring on more supplies of gas to alleviate the supply situation that we have. That is why we put aside $90 million in last year's budget to facilitate the supply of gas in Australia. Included in that was $26 million to support gas production projects directly. In Senator Fawcett's home state, $6 million will be provided to Beach Energy in Adelaide to construct a new gas processing facility in the Otway Basin to bring more gas online. In fact, this program will deliver an extra 25 petajoules of gas right across Australia by 2020. We've also accelerated gas market reforms to bring down the cost of pipelines and gas transportation around the country, and we are funding bioregional assessments to open up new fields and new areas across the country to bring new gas supplies online to, hopefully, help take pressure off prices further.
Senator Fawcett, a final supplementary question.
Minister, what challenges does Australia face in ensuring sufficient longer-term gas supply for businesses and consumers?
The Australian Energy Market Operator, in the report that it released last week, identified that, while there is no longer a projected shortfall in the short term, new gas supplies will have to be developed from next year and, further, more contingent gas reserves will have to be produced and bought online from 2021. The key risk to our gas market going forward is if unnecessary barriers to the development of those gas resources around the country remain. It's important that state and territory governments who want to support manufacturing businesses and jobs allow the natural resources in their states and territories to be developed, because, if the resources of Victoria, South Australia or New South Wales are not developed, gas prices will be higher. We know that Bass Strait is declining as a resource; it's becoming more costly. To keep the strong and competitive manufacturing sectors we have in this country, we must develop our natural resources in an appropriate and environmentally sensible way.
I direct my question to Senator Canavan, representing the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. An overwhelming number of Australians want the cruel live export trade to end. In this period when the exporter Emanuel Exports has had its export licence suspended, will the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources prevent the export licence holder associates of Emanuel Exports from also exporting sheep to the Middle East? The associates are International Livestock Export Pty Ltd and EMS Rural Exports Pty Ltd. Given that there are directors common to Emanuel Exports and its two associate companies, will the department issue show cause notices and suspensions to the associated companies so that the cruelty can end and we can build up boxed chilled meat exports in Australia in the responsible way this government should undertake to do?
I thank Senator Rhiannon for the question. I don't have specific information with me on the directors of those other companies, but the government does support a sustainable live export industry that provides significant numbers of jobs and significant income to Australian farmers. The industry is regulated by an independent regulator, and it's the independent regulator that has made the decisions that Senator Rhiannon has referred to in her question. We support the regulator operating in an independent and arms-length manner from the government. I'll have to take on notice the specific details that Senator Rhiannon has requested and come back to the Senate.
Senator Rhiannon, a supplementary question.
Minister, how does the department of agriculture distinguish between integrity issues when they are being operated by a common director and when the parent company is currently under suspension and investigation? If you do not suspend the licence of all companies associated with Emmanuel, does that mean the suspension of Emmanuel is a PR exercise rather than an end to the cruelty?
I perhaps should point out that the decisions of the independent regulator in regard to this particular exporter have occurred after a review of the conduct of that particular regulator. I can't comment on the specific details of that review. Again, as the decisions the independent regulator may take in the future, I will have to take that on notice because that is a matter for the regulator. As I indicated to the Senate, we very much respect the independence of that regulator to ensure we have a sustainable live export industry in this country.
Senator Rhiannon, a final supplementary question.
Independent reports by Pegasus Economics found South Australian and West Australian abattoirs have capacity to slaughter all sheep exported from those states, and chilled sheep meat is worth 20 times more than live sheep exports. So you should be able to answer this question: is the government working on an assistance package for sheep farmers in these states, including worker training, to manage the transition from the live export trade to local processing? If not, why not?
As I indicated in answers to the previous questions, we support a trade that is sustainable and respects animal welfare outcomes. That's why it is regulated by an independent regulator to make decisions like the one taken last week to suspend a particular exporter. But the government also supports the development of markets and trade with other countries. The government does not believe we should be directing individual farmers or agricultural producers in how they run their businesses. They are best placed to decide what markets should emerge and what will be the best for their families and households, provided they are consistent with government regulations around animal welfare. We have to get the regulations right and then we need to allow Australian farmers to be able to make a buck in this country. While I respect the opinion of Senator Rhiannon, I don't think the farmers of Western Australia, South Australia or Victoria would respect it if we let the New South Wales Greens run agricultural policy in the states.
My question is to the minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. I refer to the article in this morning's The Australian entitled 'Coalition elders fire up for coal'. Former Liberal minister and now head of the Queensland Resources Council Ian Macfarlane yesterday urged the coalition to consider covering the commercial and carbon risks for any private sector investment in a new clean-coal-fired power station. Does the Prime Minister support Mr Macfarlane's position?
Former minister Ian Macfarlane is a distinguished Australian who's made a great contribution to public life. On this the government's position is very clear: we want to implement the National Energy Guarantee, which will help deliver a reduction in electricity prices. We hope to improve the reliability and stability of our electricity system, which will help us reduce emissions in a way that is economically responsible. Electricity prices doubled under Labor. We've worked hard to push them down by ensuring retailers tell millions of households when their electricity plan has changed and work harder to get them the best deal. Families have saved hundreds of dollars as a result of the decisions that we have made. Origin, EnergyAustralia and AGL have announced they will cut or freeze power prices in New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland. It will be the first time since 2015 there will be no increase to their mid-year retail electricity prices. We have given the industry policy certainty with our plan for the National Energy Guarantee. Through the 2018-19 budget—
Senator Wong on a point of order.
The question was: does the Prime Minister support Mr Macfarlane's position? I would ask the minister to return to the question.
The minister may also address other parts of the question. I neither instruct him how to answer it nor which part of it to answer. I remind the minister of all of the question. He has 48 seconds remaining to answer.
I've made it very clear that the Prime Minister, of course, supports the government's position. We have our own position—
What is that?
Our position is to put in place the—
Opposition senators interjecting—
Senator Wong likes to both ask and answer questions. You have to win an election before you can do that.
A point of order on direct relevance: the minister was asked whether or not Mr Macfarlane's position was the government's position. The question is: does the Prime Minister support Mr Macfarlane's position? If there is a government position, perhaps your backbench would like to know what it is.
Senator Wong, there was a preamble to the question. The minister is entitled to address that. I cannot instruct him on how to answer a question.
This is the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate playing political games and trying to be mischievous. Senator Wong understands that the policy position of the government is to pursue the National Energy Guarantee, which is technology neutral—
Senator Wong interjecting—
Senator Wong again tries—she is misleading the Senate. Our party room actually overwhelmingly endorsed our National Energy Guarantee.
Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—
If the point of order is about the answer, Senator Collins, the time for the answer has expired.
The point of order is about the accusation that Senator Wong is misleading the Senate. It's a question; how can she be?
Senator Collins—
Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—
Senator Collins! All interjections are disorderly, and ministers are entitled to address them. Senator Ketter, a supplementary question?
Former Nationals senator Ron Boswell has called for the government to directly intervene in the electricity market through a power-purchasing agreement he hopes will result in the construction of a new coal-fired power plant. Does the Prime Minister support Mr Boswell's position?
We support the government's plan, which is bringing electricity prices down, improving electricity reliability—
Senator Wong interjecting—
And here we have Senator Wong interjecting again. She, of course, comes from a state where the Labor Party could not be more discredited. They couldn't even keep the lights on in South Australia! That's why they were thrown out on their ears! The Labor Party in South Australia could not even keep the lights on!
A point of order on relevance: the question asked was: does the Prime Minister support Mr Boswell's position? The question is, 'What is the government's plan?' not whether you have one!
Senator Collins, I will allow questions to be restated. I would also encourage people not to interject, then people cannot respond to interjections when answering questions.
If Senator Wong, instead of just playing politics, is genuinely interested in the detail of our National Energy Guarantee, I will send it to her office after question time. I might encourage her to get her friends in the Labor Party to come on board with good, sound policy, because our policy will help reduce emissions in a way that is economically responsible. Our policy will help to bring down electricity prices, improve reliability—and, of course, we will be able to keep the lights on, which is not what the Labor Party was able to do.
Senator Ketter, a final supplementary question?
Honourable senators interjecting—
Order on my left and right! I want to hear the question.
Given that party elders like Ian Macfarlane and Ron Boswell are now debating the Turnbull government's energy policy 18 months after the minister took his clean energy target to the party room, how much longer will the Prime Minister allow his government's internal climate wars to stand in the way of reform at the cost of Australian energy consumers?
The question is wrongly drafted and is false. What the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment and Energy took to the party room was a proposal for a National Energy Guarantee, which will bring down electricity prices and improve reliability and stability across our electricity market. Under the Labor Party, we know that electricity prices would again be higher. We know that electricity reliability would again be lower. We know that the Labor party in government would push up the cost of electricity and would push down the reliability of electricity supply—
How?
Because you want to have an irresponsible Emissions Reduction Fund and you want to have an irresponsible Renewable Energy Target. Our approach is technology neutral.
Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—
Senator Collins! Are you continuing, Senator Cormann?
The Labor Party is not interesting in policy; the Labor Party is interested in hurting working families across Australia, with higher electricity prices and less reliable energy. I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.
Mr President, I wish to add to a previous answer. Senator Watt put a question to me about NBN complaints in the seat of Longman. Now I can advise colleagues that the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman reported in '16-'17 that, across all forms of telecommunications—landline, mobile, pre-NBN internet and NBN internet—there were 28,000 complaints across all of Queensland in '16-'17 across all forms of telecommunications. Fifty-seven per cent of total complaints were about landlines and mobiles across Queensland; 42.5 per cent were about internet services. Only a proportion of those related to services provided over the NBN, and, of those services provided over the NBN, some would relate to retail issues and some to NBN issues. In Caboolture, there were 427 complaints across landline, mobile, pre-NBN and post-NBN internet, and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman does not further break those down according to those various categories.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to questions without notice asked by Senators Kitching and Chisholm today relating to company tax cuts.
Senator Cormann had an opportunity in question time today to make clear how this government's corporate tax cuts are fair to the voters in Braddon when only 10 companies headquartered in Braddon will benefit from these further tax cuts. Further, he had the opportunity to confirm that only three companies headquartered in Longman will benefit from these corporate tax cuts.
We know that the numbers are that limited in these electorates because the Australian Bureau of Statistics has provided, clearly, that information—that these proposed company tax cuts, to 2023, according to the ABS, will benefit only a tiny handful of businesses in these electorates. Why? Because the majority of the company tax cuts that this government wants to put forward will benefit, of course, Malcolm Turnbull's own electorate—the Prime Minister's own electorate. Under this Prime Minister's out-of-touch tax cuts, the biggest benefits go to the biggest cities in the country. They do not go to regional Australia. They do not go to electorates like Braddon and Longman.
Senator Cormann, instead of actually answering the question, which he had the opportunity to do in question time, simply carried on with his usual rhetoric saying he is looking after working families across Australia. Well, Senator Cormann, just because you say it does not make it true. In fact, I almost felt that Senator Cormann's nose was growing as he gave answers to these questions in question time! The people of Braddon and the people of Longman know very clearly how untrue they were, because they know—they're living in those electorates—that there aren't these big businesses that simply are going to be benefiting from these unfair company tax cuts.
This morning the government actually had a chance to debate their company tax legislation. But no, they wanted more time to do deals with the crossbench, to do deals with Senator Hanson, in the hope that Senator Hanson would flip-flop around again—or, as Senator Cormann says so often, 'wibble wobble, wibble wobble'. They were hoping that would happen and they could continue to do deals to get her over the line.
Let's face it, that is something that we on this side of the chamber are very concerned about. That is why we called these bills on for debate—to find out where this senator stands. The Australian people should be very concerned that she may again just sell out the voters of Australia, the voters of Longman, through her flip-flopping on this.
Let's be very clear: these bills are about an $80 billion big business tax handout at a time when we have a budget deficit, at a time when we have penalty rates being cut, at a time when we have schools and hospitals being cut in Australia and at a time when we have wages that are failing to keep up with inflation. Seventeen billion dollars of these $80 billion worth of tax cuts go to banks alone—just go to banks alone. This is what this government wants to do. It wants to prop up the banks. This is all while the banks are going through a royal commission, as we know, and all while we have disclosure going on through that process. At the very same time that royal commission is going on this government wants to bring legislation in this place to give banks $17 billion worth of tax cuts. That same amount the government is cutting from schools and every other part of our education system, when we look at TAFE and the rest. How unfair and unaffordable are these tax cuts?
The Australian people know very clearly how out of touch this government is. It doesn't just have to be Senator Cormann trying to convince Australians on that front, because the economists are doing it very well themselves as well. These are economists such as Saul Eslake and Goldman Sachs, who have pointed out that the vast majority of these tax cuts will go into the pockets of overseas investors and banks. That is absolutely unfair and unaffordable. That is why, day in, day out in my home state of Tasmania, Justine Keay, our candidate for Braddon, is pointing that out very much to the voters of Braddon. They understand how unfair this is. (Time expired)
Senator Singh talks about being out of touch, but her presentation on taking note, just then, demonstrates just how out of touch Labor really is. In fact, the topic that she chose to take note on, the question from Senator Chisholm, shows how low the Labor Party has sunk in the politics of envy and how far out of touch they genuinely are about what's happening in their communities, that they would go down this line. The suggestion raised in the community locally by the former ALP member for Braddon—who hung on for months longer than she should have done, regarding her citizenship—that there are only 10 businesses in Braddon that will benefit from the extension of the tax cuts, shows how out of touch Labor is. They don't understand the operation of the economy in our electorates.
For example, there are 3,817 people employed by Wesfarmers in Tasmania. Wesfarmers' registered office is in Western Australia. The Labor party don't count them—Wesfarmers and Coles—because they are based in Western Australia. There's the suggestion that there is no benefit to the people of Braddon or Tasmania from the tax cuts. A quick google is done by the opposition, to work out that there are 10 businesses in Braddon that have their corporate headquarters there, and they forget about all the others. That includes Tassal and Huon Aquaculture, who have significant operations on the west coast of Tasmania, in Braddon, where they create jobs and invest their returns to grow the economy, to build one of the biggest aquaculture sectors in Australia. In fact, aquaculture is the one thing Tasmania does in a greater sense than any other state in Australia. Because Tassal and Huon Aquaculture have their headquarters outside of Braddon, the Labor Party don't count them. There's no benefit to Braddon from the fact that they get an advantage there. And MMG in Rosebery has its corporate headquarters in Melbourne. The Labor Party don't count MMG, but MMG employ 411 people in its mine at Rosebery.
That's how far out of touch the Labor Party are when they're trying to construct these arguments about the benefits of this government's tax plan. They're not interested in how the spread works out through the broader economy. They're not interested in the fact that these companies invest their profits back into the business to the benefit of these communities.
So there are thousands of employees who benefit through their companies from the tax regime, from keeping the economy strong and from growing the economy and growing jobs. Even our local newspaper, The Advocate, is not included, because Fairfax are headquartered in Sydney—even that newspaper, that business that operates and influences our region. A quick google from Ms Justine Keay, in an attempt to get her head around the economic issues, leaves them out. Just because an ASX 200 company isn't headquartered in Braddon doesn't mean it doesn't have an influence and it doesn't mean that it doesn't have an effect.
This just shows how low the Labor Party have gone and also how out of touch they are when they're considering the impact of a strong economic plan like the one the government is looking to put in place. When companies are globally competitive, as they need to be—such as the vegetable processor at Turners Beach, which employs over 300 people and has a turnover in excess of $50 million—they are restricted in their capacity to reinvest in their business by the attitude of the Labor Party. They're not interested in those people. They try to play the politics of envy. They try to play one business off against the other. But the effect of that is a weakening economy, because that's the way Labor operates.
Just to repeat something I mentioned here in a previous contribution—and it's something the Labor Party actually used to believe—cutting the company tax rate increases domestic productivity and domestic investment. More capital means higher productivity and economic growth, and leads to more jobs and higher wages. Bill Shorten used to believe that. (Time expired)
I can say one thing to Senator Colbeck: we're absolutely happy to make the Braddon by-election a referendum on these corporate tax cuts, because the people of Braddon will know, along with the rest of Australia, that the government's focus is a purely ideological agenda, and you can see that.
I'm still relatively new to the Senate, but when this debate was on last week and when they guillotined and rammed it through, it was one of the few issues I've seen in this chamber that has united the Liberal Party. So much in this place divides them—when it comes to energy, when it comes to the environment, when it comes to school funding. But when it comes to tax cuts and when it comes to corporate tax cuts, the whole Liberal Party speaks as one. That's because—and this is the danger for Australians—it is absolutely an ideological pursuit that those opposite want to make. You need to look at the direction of this government and also understand the long-term consequences of this, because this is what their priorities are. Last week it was tax cuts for millionaires; this week it's tax cuts for big business. And who benefits from this? Millionaires, big businesses and the banks, as Senator Singh said: $17 billion of the $80 billion goes to the banks.
This is their vision for Australia. These priorities reflect their vision of Australia. They think that if big business is doing well, if rich people are doing well and if the banks are doing well then the rest of Australia will flow on; they'll get the crumbs. Well, we on this side disagree with that. We know that when Australia is doing well regional cities are doing well, small towns are doing well and outer suburbia is doing well. That's what Labor wants to invest in. That's why you see the differences and the divide between the government's priorities and the vision they have for Australia, which is all about the big cities and all about big business. It's not about small communities and regional towns, who the government think will get the crumbs. But here we understand that the key for those places is investing in education, investing in the school system. That will actually give the best benefit economically over the long term. The government's own economic modelling, when it comes to the tax cuts, showed that any benefit is 20 or 30 years away and is miniscule. Yet the direction of this—and this is why it is an ideological pursuit from those opposite—is that this also, from their point of view, locks in looming cuts. That's where it will lead: handouts for big business and looming cuts to essential services. The Australian people will be able to work this out.
These are the facts. We know there'll be very little benefit to electorates like Braddon, and Longman in Queensland, and that they will suffer the consequences of what those opposite have done. I think the interesting thing about the ideological pursuit by the Liberals is the fact that the Nationals, who would once have stood up to the Liberals, are happy to sit there and watch this happen. They've abandoned the electorates that they purport to represent. In outer suburbia in Queensland and in regional communities, the Nationals are nowhere to be seen standing up and fighting the Liberals and defending those places that need government support. They're happy to vote with their ideological partners and to see this.
What we know is that those cuts to health and education that would be a consequence of this will have, over the longer term, a detrimental effect on those smaller communities and on those regional towns. They actually rely on those services to get ahead. They rely on those services to attract people to come and live there, whether it be health or whether it be education. It is the lifeblood of those communities, which those opposite don't understand. They just see that if there's a benefit to the big end of town, if there's a benefit to capital cities, then somewhere down the track that will flow on to regional communities. We know that isn't the case, and on this side we will absolutely stand up to it.
Senator Colbeck came in here and tried to run the line that there would be some benefit to parts of Tasmania. We know that that is absolute nonsense. We know that it is those smaller communities, it is those regional towns, that are going to suffer the consequence of the ideological pursuit of those opposite. I'd say to the Australian people that you absolutely need to understand the priorities and the direction of this government. It is to favour the big end of town, it is to give a tax handout to banks at the expense of essential services. This will be what they pursue, and this will be what the next election will be fought over. You'll have Labor promising tax relief for those who need it the most, as well as ensuring fair funding for health and education into the future so that those communities can rely on it. (Time expired)
Let's be crystal clear about the political strategy being deployed today by the Australian Labor Party: they are seeking to engage in toxic, divisive class warfare and the politics of envy. It was evident in the question asked by Senator Kitching today, as it was in the question asked by Senator Chisholm—and, indeed, by the political advertisement released by the Labor Party today—that what they are hoping to do is divide Australians by class, to divide them into the haves and have-nots, and to make them feel a sense of resentment about each other's success. They're very clearly attempting to smear and target the Prime Minister, because he is personally wealthy, but I don't think it will be successful. I don't think it'll be successful, because I hold the Australian people in much higher regard than the Labor Party evidently does.
Australians don't resent each other when we have success. Australians admire those who have a go, who take risks and who have success. In this country it's something that we celebrate and that we are proud of, not something that we resent and seek to tear down and be jealous about. Yes, the Prime Minister is personally a wealthy man. I'm very proud to be part of a political party that is led by someone like Malcolm Turnbull, who, with his wife Lucy, has had a lot of good fortune. They've been fortunate to be born in a wonderful, prosperous and free country like Australia. They've been fortunate to have good health throughout their lives. But they've also worked very hard. They've had a bold vision for the future. They've taken risks and they've been rewarded for it. That's something that we should all celebrate.
Entrepreneurs, people who do take those risks in a free country like Australia, are only rewarded if they're providing something of value to others. You can't get rich in a free country like Australia by stealing money from others or by seeking government favours. You get rich by starting a business that offers services or goods to people that they are willing to pay for. In doing so, by accumulating wealth, that's evidence that you have provided something of value to your fellow citizens, because they've willingly parted with their own money in order to purchase those services from you.
Already entrepreneurs have made a great contribution to our society that we should be celebrating, but let's think about the other ways that they contribute. Of course, if they've had success they will pay a lot of tax in their lifetimes, as they should—the Prime Minister among them. He has paid a hell of a lot of tax over his time, and that's contributed to the services that we all enjoy. They've probably also employed people. They've provided jobs for others. They've personally taken risks so that other people can have the dignity of work and can benefit from employment, and that is a pretty significant contribution. And of course many are generous contributors to their community in the form of philanthropy. Many donate and contribute to and support great causes.
Yet the Labor Party seeks to demonise these people. It is trying to say that if these people benefit in any way, shape or form from a cut in personal income taxes or from a reduction in company taxes, somehow we should resent them and we should vote accordingly. The problem with that politics is that, if you hit these people, you hit all Australians, and if you demonise these people, you put at risk all Australians' wealth and prosperity. Whether we're modest income earners or high income earners, we all benefit from an economy that rewards success. We all benefit from an economy that says people who take risks and employ people are to be lauded and followed and copied, not resented. We don't benefit from an economy where we seek to punish these people; ultimately, we would end up just punishing ourselves. If we increase taxes on people's individual incomes, if we increase taxes on companies, if we become less globally competitive then, ultimately, we're hurting all Australians workers and all Australian families—not just those at the top and not just those at the bottom.
Australia is a remarkably equal and fair society. We rank highly in the world in terms of our equality. We rank highly in the world in terms of our social mobility. We do that because we have an open opportunity society. We have a society where you can put your hand up and have a go, take risks and be rewarded for that. Most Australians would much rather live in a country like that than in the alternative. We've seen, throughout history, around the world, that this undergraduate socialist idea of 'smashing the rich' is a dangerous one that is only going to imperil our nation and impoverish it, not allow it to continue to be so prosperous and free.
I rise to speak to the motion to take note of answers by Senator Cormann. Every time Senator Cormann gets to his feet on the subject of taxation, he repeats his main talking dot-point, his mantra—namely, that giving massive tax reductions to the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population, as he did last week, and to the banks and other large corporations, as he wants us to agree to do this week, will lead to greater investment, higher employment and higher wages for Australian workers.
But all the evidence we have from Australia and overseas contradicts this. After the Reagan tax cuts, the Bush tax cuts and the Howard tax cuts, the beneficiaries of these cuts did not use these massive windfall gains to hire more workers or pay their employees higher wages as Senator Cormann would have you believe. No, they used the money to pay themselves bigger bonuses and their shareholders bigger dividends. The evidence for this is overwhelming, and I'm sure that Senator Cormann knows that what I am saying is true. Let's look at a recent example of that evidence. Let's look at the Business Council of Australia's survey from just a few short months ago, where only 16 or 17 per cent of Australian CEOs admitted that they would use tax cuts to boost employment. That's less than 20 per cent of them. More than four in five of the CEOs surveyed would use the extra funds to—wait for it—return money to shareholders or increase investment in the corporate entity. They would not boost employment. They would not boost wages. This is the trickle-down economics that the government would have you believe works. It does not.
In every response to every question, not just today but over the last few months, Senator Cormann has gone with his usual response—even after the BCA survey came to light. But let's look at the history, because it is informative. Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, determined to put into practice the new economic doctrine dreamed up by the conservative think-tanks—that if you radically cut tax on corporations and on high-income earners, economic growth will take off, tax revenues will rise and the tax cuts will pay for themselves. Of course, as we know now, nothing of the kind happened. According to a paper from the Brookings Institution, federal revenues fell by nine per cent, the deficit blew out, interest rates rose to 20 per cent and there was a severe recession. In response, congress had to reverse most of the Reagan tax cuts.
By contrast, when Bill Clinton raised taxes on high-income earners in 1993 the economy boomed, creating 23 million new jobs and a record eight years of continuous growth. Then came George Bush, who once again cut corporate taxes and taxes on high-income earners—exactly what this government did last week and what this government would have us do this week. The Heritage Foundation predicted that the Bush tax cuts would produce a golden age of growth and prosperity so that the US could pay off its entire debt by 2010, but what in fact happened? There was weak growth all through the Bush years, culminating in the crash of 2008 and the deepest recession since the 1930s. Bush left the US mired deeper in debt than ever before. After taking office in 2009, President Obama had to again raise taxes to try and get the economy back on track. Now President Trump is again taking the US down the road of massive tax cuts for corporations and upper-income earners—and, of course, the Australian Liberal Party is following its new mentors in the alt-Right.
All the evidence is that this will of course end badly, both overseas and in Australia. It is simply not true that cutting taxes stimulates economic growth or employment, no matter how many times those opposite repeat this article of faith. Research in the US by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service shows no correlation between the top rate of tax and economic growth. All the evidence is that cuts in tax for corporations is used mainly for stock buybacks, to pay executives bigger bonuses and to pay stockholders bigger dividends—as discovered in that startling piece of surveying by the BCA of their members. I have no objection to shareholders getting bigger dividends, but let's be clear: that is a far cry from Senator Cormann's constant assertion that tax cuts are a magic elixir that will lead to more investment in productive industry, more jobs for Australian workers and higher wages. (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for International Development and the Pacific (Senator Fierravanti-Wells) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to Newstart.
In question time today we heard the minister once again refuse to answer the question as to whether she could live on the Newstart allowance. She couldn't even answer the question—or wouldn't answer the question—as to whether she could live on the Newstart allowance plus the additional payments the government keeps using as an excuse to not raise Newstart.
Just last week, this place passed tax cuts. Tax cuts going to the highest-earning people in the community will almost—not quite; there's a little bit of a gap—pay the vast majority of somebody's Newstart allowance, which has not increased for over two decades. The government's constant refrain is that there are other, additional, payments that mean that Newstart is actually higher: 'Don't worry, folks. There are additional payments. People aren't living in poverty.' That is so patently untrue. For the vast majority of people on Newstart, the only supplement they get is the energy supplement—$4. I'm not arguing that that should be cut, but it is only $4. Even so, that $4 means a lot to somebody living below the poverty line, but the government wants to cut even that. The very excuse the government uses for not raising Newstart is that people are getting additional payments. It knows full well the vast majority of them are only getting the energy supplement, yet the government is saying that knowing full well that it has a plan to cut that payment on its books.
Thirty-eight per cent of people receiving Newstart also receive rent assistance because they pay private rent. The maximum payment is $67 a week for that, but they're paying exorbitant rent. I'd say every member in this chamber knows how hard it is to find affordable rental properties. I'd suggest that if they don't know that, they've been living under a rock and not paying an ounce of attention to the debates that have been going on in this place—not to mention the large media coverage on the lack of affordable housing. Anglicare recently produced their affordable snapshot that showed just how few properties there are available in terms of affordable housing for those living on very low incomes.
The other excuse the government use—and they used this one in estimates—is that the poverty line is a bit arbitrary and we can't say that all people are living below the poverty line if they're living on Newstart. I'm sure the government know very well—I'm giving them credit and the department credit that they know their facts about poverty in this country—that the poverty line is a very good substitute measure for measuring the deprivation that people live in. There's a very strong correlation between the research on deprivation, the various errors around deprivation and the poverty line. So we know very well that people in this country living on Newstart are living below the poverty line and that they are suffering deprivation.
There should be no argument about the fact that we need to increase Newstart and that that needs to happen now, immediately. This country can apparently afford to give tax cuts—although we argue that that's a very bad idea, and we argued in this place that that's a bad investment. A good investment would be to increase Newstart, because those already working would rather see that money invested in services, as would we. We want to see that money invested in public services and supports, because people want a good health system, they want a good education system and they want a good, strong social safety net.
Investing in Newstart also makes economic sense, because poverty is a barrier to employment. If we raise Newstart, we actually help people find work. Also, all that money will be directly invested back into the economy. We're giving those at the upper end of the scale— (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
by leave—I move:
That leave of absence be granted to the following senators:
(a) Senator Payne for today, on account of parliamentary business; and
(b) Senator Williams for 25 and 26 June 2018, for personal reasons.
Question agreed to.
I remind senators that the question may be put on any proposal at the request of any senator.
I move:
That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to amend legislation relating to telecommunications, and for other purposes.
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 table the explanatory memorandum relating to the bill and move:
That this bill be now read a second time.
I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
TELECOMMUNICATIONS LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (COMPETITION AND CONSUMER) BILL 2018
SECOND READING SPEECH
The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2018, which I am introducing today, will, together with the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2018, improve the provision of superfast broadband in Australia.
The Bill implements key measures of the Government's response to the Independent Cost-Benefit Analysis and Review of Regulation carried out by a panel of experts chaired by Dr Michael Vertigan AC. It will improve the supply of superfast broadband by:
Improving carrier separation rules
In 2011, the former Government introduced carrier separation rules to require new superfast broadband networks, other than the National Broadband Network, that service residential and small business customers to supply a basic wholesale service on a non-discriminatory basis and be wholesale-only (that is, structurally separated).
This Bill reforms these rules to bolster competition at both the wholesale and retail level while also resetting the default wholesale-only requirements to make them more effective.
The key changes to the rules are these.
First, the Bill removes the rules from networks servicing small businesses. This creates greater flexibility for carriers to supply superfast broadband to small businesses, enabling small business to benefit from greater competition in this market.
Second, carriers other than NBN Co and Telstra will be able to operate both network and retail businesses on a functionally separated (that is, at arm's length) basis subject to the approval of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC. Networks operating on a functionally separated basis will need to meet core requirements. These include the operation of separate wholesale and retail business units, with separate workers, accounts and IT systems, as well as the non-discriminatory provision of services and the protection of customer information.
This approach will enable carriers to harness the efficiency benefits of integrated operations while allowing other providers to share those benefits through non-discriminatory access to networks.
Third, the Bill allows the ACCC to exempt small start-up networks from the separation rules to encourage entry into the market and the growth of new providers.
Fourth, all services supplied on networks that are wholesale-only or functionally separated will be subject to clear non-discrimination obligations.
Finally, the Bill improves the enforcement regime to make it more effective. This includes giving the ACCC a wider range of enforcement tools and allowing for private enforcement.
Statutory Infrastructure provider (SIP) regime
The current Statement of Expectations issued to NBN Co requires it to roll out the National Broadband Network. However, there is no statutory obligation requiring NBN Co to connect any premises to its network and service them on an ongoing basis.
This Bill addresses this by establishing a statutory infrastructure provider, or SIP, regime so that all premises in Australia can have access to superfast broadband. This will provide certainty and clarity for all parties: NBN Co, its customers and, most importantly, consumers.
Under the arrangements, NBN Co will become the SIP for areas as it rolls out its network and will be the default SIP for all of Australia once it has completed the National Broadband Network. This is appropriate given that NBN Co will ultimately replace Telstra as the principal fixed-line operator in Australia. Other carriers will also be able to be SIPs where appropriate.
The Productivity Commission, in its report on its review of the universal service obligation (USO), saw the SIP regime as a key part of its recommended approach to the USO and recommended it be implemented as a priority.
The Bill methodically sets out how to identify the SIP, the obligations of the SIP, and the processes to be followed when a SIP does not or cannot meet the SIP obligation. There will be a central register of SIPs so industry and consumers can find out who the SIP in an area is.
In doing this, the Government is putting the customer experience front and centre in this legislative package.
SIPs must connect premises on reasonable request from a retail provider and supply wholesale services that support a peak download speed of at least 25 megabits per second and a peak upload speed of at least 5 megabits per second. This is consistent with the speeds set out in NBN Co's Statement of Expectations. SIPs must also supply wholesale services that retail providers can use to support voice calls on fixed-line and fixed wireless networks.
The Bill provides two clear targets that NBN Co, as a SIP, must take all reasonable endeavours to meet.
These targets again reflect the current NBN Co Statement of Expectations and the Government's commitment that people in Australia have ready, affordable access to superfast broadband into the future.
Consumers will for the first time have clear information on why any request for a connection has been refused and by whom, assisting them in seeking redress.
The Bill also gives the Minister for Communications reserve powers to set standards, rules and benchmarks that SIPs must comply with (or in the case of benchmarks, meet or exceed). These could include timeframes for connecting premises and rectifying faults, rules about how premises are to be connected and how complaints must be addressed.
The Minister will also be able to make service provider rules dealing with consumer issues like the handballing of disputes between wholesale and retail providers if required.
By providing certainty that premises can be connected to superfast networks and consumers at those premises can receive superfast broadband, the SIP arrangements provide a solid core around which a new forward-looking consumer protection architecture for the future NBN environment can be developed and implemented.
Regional Broadband Scheme (RBS)
The Bill, together with the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2018, establishes the Regional Broadband Scheme to provide sustainable funding for the provision of superfast broadband services to regional, rural and remote Australians.
Providing quality broadband services to regional Australia is a major challenge, and a very expensive one. Modelling by the Bureau of Communications and the Arts Research has estimated NBN Co's fixed wireless and satellite networks are expected to lose around $9.8 billion over 30 years. Currently these losses are funded entirely from an opaque internal cross-subsidy from NBN Co's profitable fixed line networks. The Regional Broadband Scheme makes this cross-subsidy transparent and requires all fixed line broadband carriers to contribute equitably to the cost of providing regional broadband services.
Under the Regional Broadband Scheme all carriers would contribute around $7.10 per month per premises where a broadband service is provided over their fixed line networks. It is intended that the charge would apply to all premises serviced by fibre to the premises (FTTP), fibre to the node (FTTN), fibre to the basement (FTTB), fibre to the curb (FTTC) and hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC) networks.
Once the NBN rollout is complete, it is expected that NBN Co will have around 95 per cent of the fixed line market, which means it will continue funding the bulk of the cost for providing broadband to regional Australia. Customers on NBN Co's networks will not experience price rises as the charge is already imbedded in NBN Co's pricing. For the remaining carriers, it will be up to these networks to decide whether some or all of the charge is passed on. The Bills also include a concession period for smaller carriers that exempts the first 25,000 residential and small business premises for five years.
The Government is well aware that broadband technology is constantly evolving and new technologies may emerge at any time. The Government is committed to reviewing the Regional Broadband Scheme on a regular basis to ensure the funding base remains appropriate. The Bill includes a requirement to conduct a review within four years of the Scheme commencing.
Once established the Regional Broadband Scheme will provide certainty for regional Australians that their essential broadband services will be maintained and upgraded into the future.
Conclusion
The Bill makes important changes to the broadband regulatory framework to strengthen the provision of superfast broadband infrastructure across metropolitan, regional, rural and remote Australia. The changes put the customer experience front and centre by ensuring consumers can benefit from greater wholesale and retail competition, access superfast broadband under the statutory infrastructure provider obligation and are supported by sustainable funding arrangements for essential broadband services in regional, rural and remote Australia.
I commend the Bill.
Debate adjourned.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 868, standing in my name and that of Senators Rhiannon and McKim for today, relating to charities and foreign interference legislation.
Leave granted.
I move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) on Friday 15 June, the Hands Off Our Charities Alliance released a set of “Red Line Principles” that provide guidance on the government’s proposed package of legislation relating to foreign influence, including the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Bill 2017, the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2017, and the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017 to Parliament in light of some recent government proposals around foreign involvement in Australian Politics, and
(ii) the Red Line Principles provide a framework to enable Parliament to get the balance right in promoting and protecting public participation in our democracy while recognising concerns over improper influence from big business and foreign entities;
(b) affirms that is it critical that the ability of charities and not-for-profits to use funding for issues-based advocacy is not restricted; that there is a clear distinction between issues-based advocacy and politically partisan electioneering, which is already regulated in the Charities Act 2013; and that organisations do not face a greater compliance burden; and
(c) calls on the government to:
(i) support the Red Line Principles, and
(ii) go back to the drawing board on its package of legislation, and instead implement legislation that puts strict limits on corporate and all other donations to political parties, along with election expenditure caps work to ensure that any bill seeking to deal with the problem of covert foreign influence in Australia does not have unintended consequences, including adverse impacts on charities and on freedom of the press.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, in a unanimous report, supported the government's core proposition that for the ban on foreign political donations to be effective it should apply to all relevant political expenditure, including political expenditure incurred by charities. Excluding charities from any such ban would make the ban entirely ineffective, as it would create a significant loophole. The government is considering the committee's recommendations and will act on those as appropriate.
The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has unanimously recommended that the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill be passed, subject to sensible amendments. The government looks forward to receiving the committee's report on the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme imminently.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Labor members and senators have been proud to stand with a broad coalition of charities and not-for-profits to defend their right to advocate and speak out on issues affecting our society. Labor has made its support for the important work of Hands off our Charities Alliance abundantly clear. The advocacy voice of charities and not-for-profits is not only the voice of the various organisations it is the voice of every Australian who donates, volunteers or is a member of a charity.
When the voice of charities and not-for-profits is threatened, so is our democracy. Labor has led the way on reforming political donations and removing foreign influence from the political process, and the opposition is committed to banning foreign donations. However, like the Hands off our Charities Alliance, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and the thousands of Australians who have given their voice to this campaign, the opposition believes we can clean up donations without silencing our community sector.
The question is that general business notice of motion number 868, standing in the names of Senators Siewert, Rhiannon and McKim, as amended, be agreed to.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 872 standing in my name for today by substituting the words 'New South Wales government' and replacing it with 'New South Wales parliament'.
Leave granted.
I move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the New South Wales (NSW) Parliament has copied the socialist government in Victoria to ban protests by people trying to protect the rights of the unborn outside abortion clinics,
(ii) people who enter the 150 metre "exclusion zone" arbitrarily declared around abortion clinics to peacefully protest in defence of the right to life now face jail terms,
(iii) these "exclusion zones" are nothing more than an attempt to restrict freedom of speech,
(iv) no such "exclusion zones" apply to any other forms of protest and violent left-wing protesters opposed to democracy and capitalism do not face such draconian punishments, and
(v) a democratic government should not involve itself in regulating the faith and prayers of Australians, much less imprisoning people for them; and
(b) condemns the NSW Parliament for introducing a law which severely restricts freedom of speech and political expression.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Following the example of the socialist state of Victoria, the New South Wales parliament has introduced 150-metre exclusion zones around abortion clinics, with draconian penalties, including jail terms, for those who breach them. These zones are nothing more than anti-free-speech areas. Worse still, the targeted nature of these exclusion zones is that they exclude only those who are peacefully defending the rights to life of the unborn. No such exclusion zones or jail terms are applied to violent antifa Marxist extremists. Like Victorian socialist premier Daniel Andrews, it seems that so-called Liberal premier Gladys Berejiklian considers peaceful protests defending the right to life to be more of a threat to society than violent anarchist criminals. These laws not only show utter contempt for freedom of religion and free speech but also would appear to show total contempt for the concept of liberalism.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
As this motion involves a matter of conscience—in particular, the exercise of freedom of speech—in line with longstanding practice, government senators are free to vote in accordance with their own conscience. It should be noted that the Commonwealth has intervened in the High Court case of Clubb v Edwards in Victoria because it may consider and determine the extent of the implied right of political communication in Australia.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The Greens—and all the Greens—oppose this motion, because women and all people exercising their choice to have an abortion should not have to run the gauntlet of aggressive opponents in order to do so. Quite frankly, we don't need another man, like Senator Anning, chiming in to challenge women's ability to access health services safely. We know that these so-called protestors outside sexual health clinics have handed out plastic fetuses. They throw holy water at people accessing the premises, and clinic staff are worried about their safety. No reasonable person can call this repulsive behaviour 'free speech' or 'protest'. This is nothing short of coercion and abuse, which is completely and utterly unacceptable. The safe access zone in New South Wales and in Victoria was a victory for the fundamental right of people to access a medical service free from intimidation and harassment and ensure that abortion services can be accessed safely and securely. (Time expired)
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
This motion is an obscenity. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. We have seen these cruel, insensitive antics by Senator Anning before. I said last time that I was ashamed, as a male, to even discuss the day's agenda with female members of my staff. Exclusion zones are there to protect women from ratbags, religious zealots, proselytisers, right-to-lifers and others who target vulnerable women going through probably the most traumatic times of their lives. I suggest that the Katter party senator google the name 'Peter James Knight'. Knight was a rabid anti-abortionist who shot and killed security guard Stephen Rogers when challenged as he tried to enter an abortion clinic in Wellington Parade, East Melbourne. His goal was to massacre every person in there. He had guns and 16 litres of petrol. Last month, an anti-abortion protester attacked the partner of a woman inside a termination clinic in Surry Hills in Sydney. Look it up, Senator, and consider withdrawing your foul motion.
The question is that general business notice of motion No. 872, as amended, standing in the name of Senator Anning be agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) around 85 per cent of marine life within the Great Australian Bight is found nowhere else on Earth, and
(ii) British Petroleum (BP) claimed in an application to the Commonwealth offshore petroleum regulator that an oil spill in the Great Australian Bight would be "socially acceptable", further claiming "in most instances, the increased activity associated with cleanup operations will be a welcome boost to local economies";
(b) recognises that:
(i) Mayo's coastal communities would be among the hardest hit if oil spilled in the Bight, and
(ii) 74 per cent of Mayo residents want World Heritage Listing for the Great Australian Bight; and
(c) calls on the government to respect the wishes of the overwhelming majority of Mayo residents, by beginning the process of listing the Great Australian Bight for World Heritage Status—not only to protect, but to celebrate what's great about the Bight.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Australia has one of the most robust regulatory regimes for offshore oil and gas in the world. The industry's strict safety and environmental standards are overseen by the independent expert regulator, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority. The government has not received any formal proposal to commence world heritage listing for the Great Australian Bight. Any proposal that is advanced needs to have the support of local communities and relevant state governments. World heritage listing should not be thrust upon communities without appropriate consultation.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Labor has a proud history of protecting the environment. It was Gough Whitlam who passed Australia's first environmental legislation, the Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act; appointed Australia's first minister for the environment; and put in place the inquiry into the environmental impacts of the Ranger Uranium Mine. These were the foundation that allowed him to prevent Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen from drilling in the Great Barrier Reef and enabled Bob Hawke to save Kakadu, the Franklin and the Daintree.
It was the Keating government that commenced the process for protecting our oceans, which was concluded when Peter Garrett and Tony Burke held the environment portfolio. Through this process of ocean protection, Australia established the strongest network of marine protected areas in the world. Labor support World Heritage and see it as a critical part of how precious areas are globally recognised and protected. Labor want World Heritage decisions that are based on extensive consultation, science about the values and engagement with traditional owners on all aspects of a listing.
I seek leave to make a brief statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Coastal communities across South Australia depend on the bight's natural resources and environmental value for their quality of life and their livelihoods. The fishing industry and the tourism industry are the backbones of many coastal South Australian towns, and my colleague the candidate for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, knows that this is well and truly the case. Yet all of this is at risk if deep-sea oil drilling in the bight goes ahead. BP's own environmental modelling indicates that the consequences of an oil spill are catastrophic, and any oil slick would spread hundreds of kilometres in all directions. The fishing industry, the tourism industry, every fish-and-chip shop and every bed and breakfast would be badly affected, if not wiped out, for years. The environmental damage would be disastrous. We cannot risk deep-sea drilling in the bight. Rebekha Sharkie knows this, and her community of Mayo know this, and this is why Centre Alliance will also call upon the government to seek World Heritage listing for the Great Australian Bight.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
I find it extraordinary that neither the Labor Party nor the coalition are prepared to listen to the voices and the opinions of South Australians. South Australians desperately want to see our Great Australian Bight protected. They want to see our fishing industry given longevity. They want to make sure that our tourism industry is protected. We know that oil and gas drilling in the Great Australian Bight would devastate South Australia's economy and the natural wonderland in the Great Australian Bight, and would put thousands and thousands of jobs at risk. If Labor and Liberal want to take responsibility for that, they should own up to it and say that they are standing in the way of South Australians having their Great Australian Bight World Heritage protected.
The question is that general business notice of motion No. 875 moved by Senator Hanson-Young be agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the Federal Government has announced $10 million in funding for an aquatic centre rebuild in Mount Barker, in the federal electorate of Mayo, and
(ii) this money is the public's, not the Liberal Party's,
(b) recognises that the Turnbull Government will be in a position to deliver this funding regardless of the outcome of the Mayo by-election; and
(c) calls on the government to honour this commitment irrespective of the result of the Mayo by-election.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Georgina Downer's strong advocacy made this announcement possible. This is an important commitment from the government to the people of Mayo. I note when Ms Sharkie was the member for Mayo, she presented a list of budget priorities to the government in which the aquatic centre was not listed. The people of Mayo need a strong and credible voice like Georgina Downer and a strong Liberal-National coalition government in Canberra to deliver projects like this for Mount Barker and for the wider Mayo community. It is a strange alliance we have in Mayo, a Sharkie-Labor-Greens alliance. It raises questions as to what Ms Sharkie will owe the Greens and Labor on the back of this support.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Labor supports this motion. Across Mayo people are telling the Labor candidate, Reg Coutts, that they feel forgotten by this government. They feel Liberal Party fly-ins offer nothing but empty promises and little action. Reg is a great local candidate who is representing the people of Mayo based on his strong Labor values. He, like many in his community, has asked why the Liberals have waited for a by-election to pledge funds for this upgrade to sport and recreation facilities, an important investment in community health and wellbeing. If their promise is truly about more than just a boost for Georgina Downer's by-election chances, the Liberals shouldn't wait for the vote; they should start delivering funding now so that the community can enjoy this facility next summer.
I seek leave to make a brief statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The $10 million secured for this pool actually arose through an application by the Mount Barker council through the Building Better Regions Fund. In fact, the only reason Mount Barker is eligible to receive funding through this fund is because of the lobbying efforts of the current Centre Alliance candidate for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie. In round 1 of the fund, Mount Barker and Adelaide Hills were not considered regional while cities like the Gold Coast were. Thanks to Ms Sharkie's efforts in advocating on behalf of her community, the government realised its error and the council was able to apply for this funding. Commitments such as this are made to a community; they are not made to guarantee a job and they are not made with the threat of removal should the government's candidate not be successful at the upcoming by-election. We support Senator Hanson-Young's motion and call on the government to honour this commitment irrespective of the result of the upcoming by-election.
Question agreed to.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 860, standing in my name for today relating to the Palestinian Authority.
Leave granted.
I amend the motion in the terms circulated in the chamber, and I ask that it be taken as formal.
(a) notes the unethical use of money to fund and promote terrorism by the Palestinian Authority;
(b) acknowledges that the sponsorship, advocacy and enabling of terrorism and acts of violence against innocent civilians is not consistent with Australian values;
(c) notes the lack of transparency in the use of funds received by the Palestinian Authority from Australia, both directly and through contributions to the United Nations;
(d) welcomes the letter from the Foreign Minister of 29 May 2018 to the Palestinian Authority, raising concerns over and seeking assurances that Australian funding does not in any way enable or encourage acts of violence against Israel;
(e) recognises that, to achieve lasting peace, the so-called 'Palestinian Authority Martyrs' Fund' must be suspended; and
(f) calls on the Australian Government to:
(i) maintain scrupulous oversight of Australian aid to the Palestinian territories, and
(ii) demand the proper investigation of the content and delivery of education services provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Is there any objection to the motion being taken as formal?
Yes.
I am sorry, Senator Anning, there was an objection to your motion being taken as formal.
I ask general business notice of motion No. 878, standing in my name today relating to the policy of US President Trump to forcibly separate families of people seeking asylum in the US be taken as a formal motion.
Is there any objection to the motion being taken as formal?
Yes.
I am sorry, Senator McKim, that has been denied.
Pursuant to contingent notice and at the request of Senator Di Natale, I move:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator McKim moving a motion relating to the conduct of the business of the Senate, namely a motion to give precedence to general business notice of motion No. 878 which relates to the policy of US President Trump to forcibly separate families of people seeking asylum in the US.
The reason I've sought to suspend so much of the standing orders that would prevent me from having this motion debated and voted on today is the serial inconsistency of the government in dealing with foreign policy motions. Remember, last week, the government granted formality, or did not deny formality, to Senator Bernardi's motion giving President Trump a pat on the back over his actions on the Korean peninsula. I note that Senator Bernardi's motion:
(b) congratulates President Trump for:
(i) achieving a diplomatic breakthrough his predecessors could not achieve,
(ii) advancing the de-escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula, and
(iii) advancing the cause of denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
To call those claims 'highly contestable' would be an absolute understatement! Yet today we find that the government won't allow a motion which seeks to condemn the Trump administration for its disgraceful actions in ripping children away from their families as they try to seek asylum in the US. They're doing so by claiming that the Australian Greens' motion is a complex foreign policy matter. If Korea is a simple foreign policy matter, I would hate to see a complex foreign policy matter!
But I think everyone in this chamber knows exactly what's going on here. Senator Bernardi's motion was complimenting US President Donald Trump. My motion is criticising US President Donald Trump. Just drop the charade and admit it: you're not going to allow debate and a vote on a motion that is critical of US President Donald Trump, but you're very happy to roll out the red carpet for a motion that is complimentary of US President Donald Trump. Just drop the charade, Senator McGrath, admit what you're doing here and stop trying to hide behind a veil of claiming that a particular motion deals with a complex foreign policy matter. Ripping children away from their families, acting like fascists and throwing them into cages is not a complex matter; it's highly simple. It's simply disgusting; that's what it is. It's simply disgusting. It should be a very simple question of right or wrong around ripping children away from their families when they try to seek asylum.
Senator McAllister interjecting—
Unfortunately, what you've got here is a government that's lost its way and lost its conscience. In fact, both major parties, including the party that Senator McAllister represents, have lost their conscience. They cannot speak with any authority on the issue of ripping children away from their families and throwing them into detention, because the Labor Party invented indefinite detention in this country. Every single man, woman and child currently on Nauru who sought asylum in Australia, the Labor Party put them there. The Labor Party put every man on Manus Island in Australia's prison for exiles on Manus Island, and they continue to support the policies, along with the Liberal Party, that have inspired the likes of Donald Trump and other far-right regimes around the world. Donald Trump admitted last week that he looked at what Australia was doing—invented by the Labor Party—before he came up with his appalling policy of ripping children away from their families.
I won't even have time to go to the situation in Biloela, where a family of four were woken in their beds in the dead of night—in the pre-dawn hours—while Border Force people ripped the children and their parents away from their home, away from the community that loves them and is trying to support them. It's only the desperate actions of legal counsel on behalf of refugee advocates that, today, have stopped that whole family from being deported.
Yes, there is outrage in the US at the President's suggestion that he will start deporting people seeking asylum without trial and without due process, but the Liberals and the Labor Party have been doing this for years in Australia! Where do they think he got the idea? He got it right here. Last January, President Trump told Prime Minister Turnbull, 'You're worse than I am.' He's right about that.
In line with the longstanding view of successive governments, given that formal motions cannot be debated or amended, they should not deal with complex and contested foreign policy matters. A foreign policy motion is likely to be complex and contested where the motion is insulting or demeaning; contain assertions of fact that are unverifiable; has the potential to damage Australia's relations with other nations; or, in some other way, is contrary to Australia's national interests. The Senate should not consider and vote on foreign policy motions of this kind without the ability to have a full debate, given they involve serious and substantial issues.
I encourage the Greens to liaise with Minister Bishop's office, as they have done in relation to other notices of motion that are on the Notice Paper concerning foreign policy matters. Minister Bishop's office is very consultative in trying to assist all members of the Senate in relation to the motions that appear before us. The government do not like having to deny formality on such motions, but we will continue to do so as the Greens continue to play base politics in relation to the abuse of the notice of motion procedure. You are fully aware—through you, Madam Deputy President—that notices of motion will be denied formality where they deal with contested foreign policy matters. In relation to the notice that is before us today, it clearly deals with a complex and contested foreign policy matter.
I'm not going to be lectured, and no member of the coalition is going to be lectured, by the Greens in relation to some of the comments that have come from Senator McKim concerning the treatment of children, because it was under the previous Labor-Greens government where children died at sea. Where were the tears from the Greens then? Because that happened at sea and away from the glare of television cameras, there was no outrage from the Greens. There was no outrage from the Greens for those children who died at sea. There was no outrage from the Greens for all those hundreds of people who died at sea. There was no outrage whatsoever. What you heard then was silence. So this side, the conservative side of politics, will certainly not be lectured by the Greens when it comes to the treatment of children in detention centres. We're certainly not going to be lectured by you in relation to what a sovereign foreign government is doing to the control of its own borders.
The subtext here is that the Greens are completely obsessed by President Trump, because President Trump is actually doing what he said he was going to do. He is controlling the borders. He is making sure he is delivering on the promises that he took to the American election a few years ago. Whether it is President Trump dealing with North Korea, whether it is President Trump bringing forward tax cuts, whether it is tax cuts that are helping push along the American economy or whether it's actually cutting regulation—President Trump is cutting regulation—the Greens are completely obsessed by President Trump. They've got blinkers on. You just have to say the word 'Trump' and they all start twitching and their eyes start blinking in a crazy-like fashion. It is not the position of this Senate to lecture a sovereign foreign government when there are contested and complex foreign affairs matters.
Like Korea, for example.
Here we go! You want to talk about what President Trump is doing. President Trump is delivering on his domestic agenda and his foreign agenda. The American people voted for President Trump, and it's wrong of the Greens to continue to harp on as they do. This latte set from Balmain have no experience of the real world. They talk about places like Biloela—you wouldn't even know where Biloela is, mate. Have you ever been to Biloela?
This is the problem with the Greens. They govern from textbooks. They govern from the hypocrisy of their own party room. The Greens' party room is where for six years they were an accomplice to Labor's failure to control our borders. What President Trump is doing is a decision for him and is a contested foreign affairs matter. The Senate should not be dealing with this as a notice of motion.
I rise to oppose this motion to suspend standing orders. Senator McKim brought up a number of points as to why we should not oppose this motion and why this motion should go ahead. He generally spoke of the US immigration policy and he mentioned Korea. He also mentioned Biloela, and he mentioned offshore processing on a number of occasions. It is well known in this place that contested foreign policy motions should not be debated in this way, that we should deny formality and that this is just an abuse of the process. We should not vote on this motion but we should pick up on certain points that Senator McKim has spoken about.
The first point that Senator McKim spoke about was in relation to President Trump, who has revoked his own view, his own law, that separated children. President Trump and his wife have admitted that this is no longer an issue and that the law is being changed at the moment. What President Trump has done is apply democratic rules—apply the democratic process, which he has been elected to do—to control the US borders. This is a domestic agenda which is in fact a complex foreign policy motion. Senator McKim referred to the hard line that President Trump has taken. Well, President Trump is merely applying laws. He's come out and said that he is going to apply the law which requires that people who enter the US nation illegally—not refugees; he said people who enter the US nation illegally—at other than approved border crossing points be returned immediately to their country of origin, which in most of the cases will be Mexico.
If you look around the world, you will see that this is not a unique view. Senator McKim certainly knows that this is a policy that has been applied and has resulted in lives being saved. The previous policy caused an extraordinary loss of life—1,200 people died at sea. This policy has now been applied across the world. If we look at what has happened in the Mediterranean, we can see the impact on life and death of the ridiculous migration policies of the EU. We're now seeing Hungary, Austria, Italy and Germany entirely re-evaluating—
Senator McKim interjecting—
Yes, like Germany and Italy. We're now seeing Hungary, Austria, Italy and Germany entirely re-evaluating their entire migration laws. This is very, very important because we recently saw in the Mediterranean a boat with 600 people turned away from Italy when it should have taken those people to the closest port, which was Tripoli; that is international law and that's where they should have gone back to. Spain is very happy to accept those people. Spain has accepted those people. But what is Spain going to do when it gets the same number of people as Italy has got—600,000 people entering that country as migrants?
We saw what occurred under the Labor-Greens government during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, and the coalition government was required to yet again fix the appalling Greens-Labor policies that created those problems. I was honoured to be the co-author of Operation Sovereign Borders. How could we forget the 1,200 people who died and the abuse of our laws in absolutely every scenario? Of course, we didn't start offshore processing. Prime Minister Gillard and Prime Minister Rudd started offshore processing. But who actually stood up and finally moved children out of detention? We did. We closed the 17 detention centres in Australia. (Time expired)
I speak in support of the suspension of standing orders. Nothing in this debate that comes from the conservative side of the chamber surprises me anymore. They have decided to commit themselves to a position on issues of humanitarianism and conscience that commits them to a very dark path indeed—but, on this side of the chamber, the Labor Party!
As somebody who used to consider themselves a Labor supporter, who comes from a proudly Labor family that in the UK would vote nothing but Labour, I say to the Labor Party: how disappointing moments like this are that we have fallen so far, that both sides of politics are now so committed to this blood pact on refugees, to this abdication of humanitarian leadership from a nation that played such a leading role in the creation of the Refugee Convention in 1951, that you cannot even bring yourselves to vote for a motion condemning a demagogue, a Neo-Fascist such as Donald Trump. You can't bring yourself to condemn the man for separating 2,700 children from their families because you dare not put your foot across the line; you dare not come close to advocating the humanitarian response that I know some of you want to support and that I goddamn well know that many of your supporters in WA, from Rockingham to Fremantle and from Denmark to Kalgoorlie, want you to support. I've done polling booths with them. I've spoken with them. I've heard the note of disappointment in their voices as they talk to me about their futile efforts to get your party to come back on board with humanity. They are so tired of fighting this issue and fighting the party.
At moments like this I am not surprised. We are seeing a nation we consider to be one of our foremost global allies acting in a way that is nothing less than repugnant, implementing policies which are ripping families apart—and where did he get the idea? Where did this ignorant buffoon get the idea? Australia. Australia, under the Labor Party. Shame! Shame on you all!
Deputy President, on a point of order: I would ask if you could get some advice as to whether the term 'goddamn' is actually a profanity or parliamentary, because the senator made reference to it.
Thank you, Senator Bernardi. Senator McGrath, on the same matter?
On the same matter: I believe the senator called President Trump 'an ignorant buffoon'. I also think that is not appropriate for the Senate chamber. So, if you're seeking counsel, I would add that to the list.
Thank you, Senator McGrath. I just remind senators to be mindful that we need to act in a way that's respectful. Some senators will or could take offence at blasphemous language, but it's not against the standing orders, nor are comments about the President—the President of the US, I should say, not our President. Senator Marshall.
Thank you, Deputy President. Maybe someone can show me a resolution of the Senate that has alleviated poverty somewhere or created world peace somewhere—
It's coming up!
'It's coming up,' says Senator Bernardi. This debate was really about: should formality be denied to resolutions that are put up to the Senate which go to complex foreign policy matters without any debate? That is a problem. President Trump scares the bejesus out of me, but I don't think it's right to insult presidents. I don't think it's right to stand here in the Australian Senate without any debate and pass judgement on what other countries are doing. I think that is the height of all arrogance and discourtesy. I think it's inappropriate. The Greens seem to have taken offence to a foreign policy matter which probably is complex—I must say, I didn't read it last week when it was up—but they had every opportunity to deny formality. They had every opportunity to do so, if they thought it was complex, but they want the government to do it. Well, if it got through there, that's inappropriate, but that was completely in their control. But they didn't do it, so today they could have this stunt. They could get up, attack everyone and show how mighty and how just they are and how everybody else isn't, because they work at apparently a higher moral level and judgemental standard than everybody else. Quite frankly, I get a little bit sick of the indignation that they have, as though they have some moral authority which no-one else has.
I think the position that the Senate takes is the correct position, on the whole: complex foreign policy resolutions are denied formality. A resolution isn't simply voted on, yes or no, without debate. I think that's a stupid thing for the Senate to do, and, if it does it from time to time, any senator ought to deny formality and not sulk about it and complain.
I actually support the government's position on this. I support it because it's the same position the opposition has. It's a position we had when we were in government and we continue to support it. It is not appropriate for those sorts of resolutions to be simply voted up or voted down without any discussion about them whatsoever. If you want to have a debate about the impact of foreign policy on Australia, let's have a debate so it can be put in context and different views can be tested and challenged across the chamber. Let's do that. Let's not hide behind sneaky resolutions that are put in really just to wedge people. Generally, that's all we ever get from the Greens. In this part of the business of the Senate, motions are put up to try to wedge one party against another politically, or to try to do what Senator Steele-John said: try to wedge off the Labor Party supporters that he knows are so upset with us, but apparently he's been unable to recruit them. They're so upset with us that it somehow creates some difficulty for us. Quite frankly, it's a nonsense. I get sick of it. I'm sure most other senators get sick of it too. If you want to deny formality, do so.
I too rise to speak in denial of this motion. I find myself in thunderous agreement with Senator Marshall's comments. For the Greens to claim that this is not a complex foreign policy issue that deserves significant debate, I find almost incredulous because, at the beginning of their motion, they talk about President Trump and United State government policy. If that is not a foreign policy issue, I don't know what is. I too agree with Senator Marshall. For four years, I have been listening to this moral, pious and sanctimonious lecturing from the Greens as though they have the—
Conscience and conviction!
We provided you the courtesy of listening in silence. I think the Greens, on their motion, could have the courtesy to listen to those on either side, because this is a serious issue. If you say that it's only the Greens who have compassion in this world, let me tell you, Senator Steele-John, that when you have seen the impact of not only terrorism but also serious and organised crime, when you have seen what dead bodies look like—
Senator Reynolds, resume your seat. I remind you to direct your comments to the chair.
I know what compassion is and I know what compassion is to me. Compassion is not opening our borders and putting people smugglers back in business. In 2001, I saw firsthand the consequences of the immorality and the evilness of people smugglers and what they do and how they treat people. They have no respect for human life. Humans and children are not commodities. For the Greens to suggest that they have the upper hand or that they are the only ones who have any compassion or morality in this chamber is simply wrong. Compassion is keeping control of our borders, putting people smugglers out of business and not having our Defence personnel fish 1,200 bodies out of the water.
Madam Deputy President Lines, if you were to show any of my colleagues in the Greens what the consequences of their policies would be, they would change their minds. Twelve hundred people drowning, including children, is not compassion. Compassion is keeping control of our borders, taking control of who we let in. By doing that, by stopping the boats and by closing down the detention centres, we now have an extra 3,000 humanitarian visa applications approved here. These are people who deserve to be here in Australia. These are the most needy, and we keep control of our borders. So, please, spare all of us in this chamber your pious sermonising, lecturing and demonisation.
I hate to tell my colleagues in the Greens this, but there are bad people in this world and they exploit compassion. We saw that when the borders were reopened a few years ago. They exploited that. They sell the promise of coming here to Australia. People die; people never get here. It is wrong, it is cruel and it is evil, and we need to keep control of our borders. So, please, no more piety, no more 'we're the only ones with compassion in this world'. You are not. You might have a very different idea of what compassion looks like, but when you have seen the consequences of terrorism, as I have, and the consequences of—
There's no connection.
Absolutely there is. Quite often, serious and organised crime, criminal business models and terrorist business models are the same thing.
Who gives them the fuel?
If those opposite don't understand that people will exploit other people—
Senator Reynolds, please resume your seat. Senators have the right to be heard in silence. Please allow Senator Reynolds to finish her contribution in silence.
I will take that interjection from the Greens. We have people in this chamber who don't understand that there are people—terrorists or serious and organised criminals—who don't respect human life and that, when we show compassion, they exploit it. If you do not understand that there is a link between that psychology and behaviour and their implications on all Australians, I am truly alarmed. Not only are you pious, you are also terribly ignorant of what happens in the world. Yes, we do have to balance strength with compassion. But compassion is to be provided to those who need it—for example, those on humanitarian visas. (Time expired)
The question is that the motion to suspend standing orders moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.
I ask that general business notice of motion No. 883 standing in my name for today be taken as a formal motion.
Is there any objection to the motion being taken as formal?
A government senator: Yes.
The motion is denied, Senator McKim.
I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 871 standing in my name for today before asking that it be taken as a formal motion.
Leave granted.
I move the motion as amended:
That the Senate—
(a) notes the Australian National University’s (ANU) refusal to host the self-funded Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation on campus, notwithstanding that it already hosts centres promoting understanding of Islam and Asian cultures; and
(b) calls upon:
(i) the ANU to reconsider its opposition to hosting the Centre in the interests of celebrating Western civilisation's foundational contributions to Australia,
(ii) the Minister for Education and Training (Senator Birmingham), given that he said it would be a “great loss” if no university partners with the Centre – to assist in securing a location for the Centre, and
(iii) the government to consider making future higher education funding grants conditional on supporting academic freedom and freedoms of association and speech on university campuses.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
It is a matter for higher-education institutions and their councils as to what funding they choose to accept or reject. In doing so, they need to be accountable in making those decisions to their students and to the taxpayers who sustain them with record funding of over $17 billion a year.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Labor does not support this motion. Labor believes that academic freedom is one of the foundations of western civilisation. This academic freedom should apply to any request or donation to a university, whether it comes from an individual country, philanthropic organisation or corporation.
The question is that general business notice of motion No. 871, as amended by Senator Bernardi, be agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) supports:
(i) Australia Day being held on 26 January each year, and
(ii) our national flag and anthem; and
(b) opposes any move to change these symbols.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Australia Day is the national day of celebration for all Australians. Every year on 26 January, Australians celebrate what unites us as a nation: the history that makes us who we are, the country we love and the values and institutions that underpin it. The Australian national flag is Australia's national symbol and has become an expression of Australian identity and pride since it was first flown in 1901, especially for Australia's Defence forces who have served under it. I invite all senators to join me in celebrating Australian National Flag Day on 3 September. The coalition government will never change the date of Australia Day or the Australian national flag or the Australian anthem.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Australia Day is an important national day. It's a source of great celebration for Australians. But it's also a day of reflection. For First Nations peoples, 26 January speaks of injustice, dispossession and sorrow. On Australia Day, we should acknowledge that the British assertion of possession was without the consent of First Nations people already here. Australia Day should give us pause to reflect on the need for truth-telling, not the one-upmanship that we see from Senator Bernardi—truth-telling about our history, the good and the bad. Hearing the truth is necessary if we are to heal trauma and purge the guilt from our national psyche. Our history has its fault-lines, like other countries. We have our share of triumphs and successes and our share of scars and stains, just as other countries do.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The Greens oppose this motion. We do not support Australia Day being celebrated on 26 January. And one day those on this side of the chamber, the ALP, will be standing up here, saying exactly the same thing, and campaigning really hard to say, 'We need to change the date.' They will join the campaign. They will recognise that this day is a day of mourning for many Aboriginal people. If we are talking about truth-telling, yes—let's tell the truth on 26 January. Let's tell the truth about how this country was invaded, the people dispossessed and attempts to destroy their culture undertaken. We should be recognising that on this day, and celebrating this nation on some other day that is not a day of mourning.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the Australian Government's hire of public sector workers and purchase of goods and services makes it the largest single spender in Australian markets,
(ii) in 2016-17, $47 billion in Australian Government procurement contracts were reported,
(iii) government objectives differ from profit-driven firms, and
(iv) there is a need to ensure that procurement practices uphold the government's social and ecological obligations for the long-term well-being of our community; and
(b) calls on the government to:
(i) make procurement decisions with consideration of broader policy objectives including supporting local industry and job creation,
(ii) ensure that, in any government procurement decision which selects an imported tender over local content, the government must have publicly available justifications as to why the imported choice is better value, where "value" considers the financial cost and the benefit to local industry and local employment opportunities,
(iii) ensure that Australia does not enter into any free trade agreements that restrict the government's ability to preference and support local suppliers, and
(iv) ensure existing policies promoting local procurement are better monitored and enforced.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Achieving value for money for Australia taxpayers is the core rule of the Commonwealth Procurement Rules. Similarly, the use of contractors, where appropriate, is an efficient way to keep the overall cost of government administration low when the business need to access relevant skills and expertise is temporary, or the expertise and skills are more efficiently obtained and maintained in the private sector. The Australian government enters into commitments in trade agreements that are aimed at supporting Australian businesses—in particular, to open up new market access opportunities internationally and to put in place a framework of rules and standards that support transparency and competition on a level playing field.
Question agreed to.
At the request of Senator Polley, I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) the public release of the latest quarterly data on the home care package wait list has been delayed by the Turnbull Government,
(ii) there was a commitment to release the data two months after the period that the data covers, and this time-frame has now not been met,
(iii) the latest figures showed around 105,000 older Australians are now waiting for a home care package they were approved for,
(iv) the average wait time for a high level package has blown out to more than a year, and
(v) the demand for home care packages grew by 20,000 older Australians in the last six months of 2017 alone;
(b) condemns the Turnbull Government for the aged care crisis it made on its watch; and
(c) calls on the Turnbull Government to be honest with older Australians and immediately release the latest round of data on the wait-list for home care packages.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Under the coalition government, aged-care funding is up, home-care packages are up and residential places are up every year. Under Labor's Living Longer Living Better reforms, the ratio set for home-care packages was inadequate and severely underestimated. In February 2017, we transitioned to a new home-care system which gives consumers more choice and control over their care. For the first time, this allows us to better understand the extent of demand for home-care packages nationally and also uncovers the extent of the problem left by the former Labor government. We have acted immediately, with the release of an additional 20,000 high-level home care packages since our last budget. Overall home care packages will rise from 87,000 to 151,000. The coalition government has the best interests of older Australians at heart, which is why in the 2018-19 budget there was a clear focus on ageing.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) on 23 June 2018, it will be 31 years since the then Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, told the Australian Labor Party's election campaign launch that, "by 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty",
(ii) in 1990, the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) recorded that 500,000 children were still living in poverty,
(iii) in 2017, ACOSS indicated that an estimated 731,000 children were living in poverty,
(iv) census data indicates that the majority of electorates with the lowest household incomes are outside the capital cities,
(v) a disproportionate number of children living in poverty live in remote communities, particularly Indigenous communities,
(vi) the last Productivity Commission estimate showed $33 billion a year is spent on Indigenous Australians, and Indigenous-specific spending rose from $1 billion in 1990 to $6 billion in 2017; and
(b) calls upon the government to implement measures in communities with high incidence rates of child poverty that will actually lift families and communities out of poverty.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(1) commends recent public comments relating to the impacts of climate change from the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, including that "we need to help farmers adapt and change as the climate changes, to protect our food production, our rural jobs and country towns."
(2) notes that:
(a) the Garnaut Climate Change Review found that by 2100, under the no mitigation case, there would be a 92% decline in irrigated agricultural production in the Murray-Darling Basin, and that under the hot, dry extreme case there would be "devastating consequences for the Australian wheat industry, leading to complete abandonment of production for most regions";
(b) vast sectors of Australian agriculture will be unable to effectively adapt to 3 or 4 or more degrees of warming, and that greenhouse gas reduction is the cheaper and more cost effective option for reducing climate change impacts on both our agricultural industries and rural and regional communities; and
(c) the synthesis report into the aggregate effects of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions submitted under the Paris Agreement, which was produced by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat and presented at COP 22 in Marrakesh, found that "the estimated aggregate annual global emission levels resulting from the implementation of the INDCs do not fall within the scope of least-cost 2°C scenarios by 2025 and 2030; and
(3) calls on the Government to protect Australian agriculture by committing Australia to do our fair share of implementing Article 2 of the Paris Agreement, which would require Australia to reduce our emissions in line with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The Australian government has a track record of meeting Australia's international emissions target. Australia has set a responsible and strong target under the Paris climate change agreement. Our approach is focused on ensuring a strong economy, support for jobs and support for Australian industries, including agriculture. The government has welcomed the agreement of the Agriculture Ministers' Forum to support adaptation to climate change in agriculture.
Question agreed to.
I move
That the Senate—
(a) notes:
(i) the suppression of democracy in Cambodia, the jailing of Opposition leader Kem Sokha and the dissolution of the main Opposition party, the Cambodian National Rescue Party, ahead of the 29 July 2018 national election,
(ii) the continued intimidation of journalists, closure of radio stations including Radio Free Asia, and government moves to exert broad control over online news and social networking,
(iii) that such a pre-election environment is not conducive to holding free and fair national elections,
(iv) the restricted entry provisions imposed by the United States Government on people involved in Cambodian actions to undermine democracy, and
(v) that the European Union and the United States are not providing funding for the national election committee; and
(b) recalls that, on 21 March 2018, Australia and 44 other countries delivered a Joint Statement at the 37th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, citing "an electoral process from which the main democratic opposition party has been arbitrarily excluded cannot be considered genuine or legitimate";
(c) recognises Australia's key leadership role in the Paris Peace Accord of 1991 which brought an end to the Cambodian Vietnamese war and began the move to democracy in Cambodia; and
(d) as a friend of Cambodia, urges the Cambodian Government to allow all its citizens to exercise their democratic rights, particularly ahead of the 2018 national election.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
I am pleased that the government, and, indeed, the Labor Party have not denied leave. This is a complex foreign policy matter, but it happens to be one that they both agree with. Finally, we are seeing the government and the ALP finally condemning the Cambodian's approach to their national elections in a month. Let's remember what's going on in Cambodia right now. The opposition has effectively been banned. We've got MPs in prison or exiled. Media organisations have been shut down. There is no free speech in Cambodia. The Australian government should be calling this election what it is, a sham. We should declare now that it's not a free, fair or credible result and that it won't be recognised. I have to say it is extremely disappointing that the Turnbull government has been kowtowing to Hun Sen until now. I do hope that this is a sign that there will be a stronger stance towards this appalling anti-democratic regime. (Time expired)
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) 80 per cent of people in Yemen are dependent on humanitarian assistance or protection,
(ii) 30 per cent of people in Yemen are severely food insecure and at risk of starvation,
(iii) 70 per cent of imports into Yemen flow through the Port of Hodeidah,
(iv) the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, Mr Mark Lowcock, has warned that if the operation of the Port of Hodeidah was to be interrupted the humanitarian consequences would be catastrophic, and
(v) the Saudi-led coalition's military offensive on the City of Hodeidah is putting at risk the operation of the port; and
(b) calls upon the Australian Government to support:
(i) United Nations' efforts to find a non-military solution to the conflict in Yemen, and
(ii) efforts by the United Nations to ensure the Port of Hodeidah remains operational.
Question agreed to.
At the request of Senator Farrell, I move:
That the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Lowering Voting Ages and Increasing Voter Participation) Bill 2018 be referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters for inquiry and report by 18 October 2018.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the following bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to amend the Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Act 1911, and for related purposes.
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.
Leave granted.
I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
Today I want to set out the case for a debt ceiling, a limit on the amount of money the government can borrow. A limit on the amount we taxpayers have to repay and a limit on the amount of interest we have to pay to foreign creditors.
In February 2018 another private senator's bill was introduced to limit government spending to $600 billion. However, my bill proposes a limit in relationship to the gross domestic product of Australia.
No one can foresee the arrival of bad economic times, but when bad times arrive we expect government to spend money when others have stopped. If a government is already in debt then the existing debt limits further borrowing and in turn that limits the action the government can take.
So why don't governments keep debt low in the good times so they are better prepared for the bad times?
Firstly, it is just too easy to see the present advantages of borrowing when other generations will repay the debt.
Secondly, governments like to be re-elected so they make promises to citizens without regard to how much they will cost. When the cost of government promises exceeds revenue then governments are faced with a decision, either to cut back on their promises or go further into debt.
Thirdly, governments and public servants are not careful spending our money and that causes money to be wasted.
The federal government has a gross debt of over $530 billion, and during the last financial year each worker paid $1332 to service that debt (collectively $18 billion).
Eighteen billion dollars buys a lot when you consider $7.7 billion is spent on government schools and $9.8 billion on higher education.
Eighteen billion is enough to cover all the costs of supporting the unemployed and the sick at $10.2 billion, and assistance to veterans and the families at $6.2 billion.
The fact is that $18 billion of interest paid to foreign savers represents an enormous loss to Australia, because much of the money we have borrowed was used to cover recurring expenses and we have nothing to show for it.
There is no certainty the interest bill will remain at $18 billion because interest rates are rising. It is quite possible we will have to pay $36 billion in interest in the near future.
It is certain that bad economic times will arrive for reasons that governments cannot foresee and the following examples illustrate.
When militant Sunni Islamists, members of Al Qaeda, took control of three passenger planes on September 11, 2001 they used two of them to cut down the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The loss of life was great, and the tragedy for families unimaginable, but the attack would have a knock-on effect well beyond the initial financial losses.
In the days following the terrorist attack we call 9/11, policy makers responded by taking a decision to stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates for a long period.
The stage was now set for the global financial crisis or simply the GFC of 2008.
In act one, cheap money and poor lending practices created a housing boom in the United States.
In act two, the new mortgages were bundled together and sold around the world as solid investments.
In act three, housing prices fell as too many people were unable to pay their mortgages. These home owners with no equity left in these properties handed the keys to the bank. As more and more people walked away from their homes or were forced out by the banks house prices fell further.
In March 2008, Bear Stearns announced it was holding too many worthless bundles of mortgages containing sub-prime loans, but they were rescued by another bank: JP Morgan.
The US government rescued the insurer AIG, but by the time Lehman Brothers found themselves in trouble in September 2008 it was clear there were too many investment banks to be rescued. So the government let the banks go bankrupt, which caused their counterparts to fail in a collapse that looked like a house of cards tumbling.
Few Australian banks had invested in these sub-prime mortgages, but Australian shares lost 30% of their value. We were relatively lucky when the GFC arrived because external debt was low and the labor government was able to borrow and spent $42 billion to stimulate the economy.
Much of the money was wasted on overpriced classrooms, school halls, pink batts and digital TV set top boxes for pensioners that did not work, but the money did circulate in the economy when most people had stopped spending.
The central truth is that governments cannot foresee financial disasters, whether they are man-made like the GFC of 2008, or acts of nature like the earthquake off Japan in 2011, which triggered a tsunami, which in turn caused a nuclear accident at Fukushima and the closure of all Japanese nuclear power stations. This single event cost the Japanese government 5 trillion US dollars.
The story of the grasshopper and the ants has often been told and this fable reminds us all that we have a choice. We can be reckless like the grasshopper who danced all summer or we can be prudent like the ants that used the summer to store food for the winter. The choice is ours to make.
Governments formed by either major political party cannot be trusted when they have the power to borrow unlimited amounts of money.
What we know is that just below the horizon there is another financial crisis on its way. It could be a slowdown in China which would see our commodity prices fall, or it could be a geopolitical event or an act of nature.
We have so much debt now that we are ill prepared for the next financial shock.
The Parliament needs to place boundaries on government borrowing and it needs to make government more accountable for the mind boggling waste of taxpayer money.
Too many elected representatives in this Parliament have never been in business and have never created a single job. The worst offenders are Labor and their partners the Australian Greens. It is one of the reasons they are so irresponsible with other people's taxes.
We have finite tax revenue, which means if you want to increase payments or bring in a new program then something else has to go. However, there are now so many snouts in the trough that it is difficult to reduce spending in many areas.
It is unfair and unconscionable for governments to borrow to pay for day to day spending and leave it to another generation to repay a debt for things they did not receive.
This kind of thinking must stop and a debt ceiling is part of the answer, because with a limit on borrowing governments will work harder to avoid waste and prioritize their policies. Government needs to be truthful and explain their plans properly to citizens instead of treating us all like mushrooms.
To recap, governments need to be prudent during the good times if they are to be in a position to help the economy in the bad times which cannot be predicted.
The current government says we have enjoyed good times in the form of 27 years of consecutive growth, but the problem is that in each of these good years we have gone further into debt. The exception being the years the government sold off assets like the Commonwealth Bank, Telstra and every major airport in the country.
If the debt ceiling had not been lifted by the Abbott government in 2013 with the help of the Australian Greens, then we taxpayers would be much better positioned for the next financial shock.
Of course, a debt ceiling not only stops unlimited borrowing; it also requires government to do more with what it has. Currently, however, there is no incentive to eliminate wasteful spending.
The government's management of Australia Post, a wholly owned government business, illustrates how wasteful the government is on a daily basis.
In the center of Sydney stands the iconic post office known as the Sydney GPO. It houses the Macquarie Bank and the Westin Hotel. Australia Post committed to keep in trust all CBD General Post Offices, but recently they have been sold off. The money from the sale of these General Post Offices has been pocketed by a few overpaid directors and key management individuals who deliver pitiful dividends whilst being the best paid post office employees in the world.
Labor and the government kept quiet when the CEO of Australia Post received $5.6 million a year for his part-time job. I say part-time because it was not his only paid job. I introduced a private senator's bill to bring the remuneration of the CEO of Australia Post in line with similar positions around the world but the government and Labor refused to support that proposed legislation.
If the government had a debt ceiling then maybe the $20 million dollar dividend from Australia Post would have been more disappointing and encouraged them to ask whether they were getting value for money from the top management team who collectively pocketed $10 million.
All governments say they care about the most vulnerable in our society but it is a patent lie. Any night of the week, less than 200 meters from the Sydney GPO, you can find the homeless bedded down on the footpath and we hear nothing from Labor or the Greens.
I would suggest to the government that if they did care about the homeless, the money received by Australia Post for selling off valuable real estate would have been better spent on the homeless.
The remuneration at Australia Post is but one example of waste by government. Generations of Australians paid for those buildings and they are horrified that the sale of publicly owned assets has ended up enriching a privileged few.
The case for government needing a debt ceiling is compelling but of course neither major party is keen to have one because they use debt to buy votes and they use debt to cover up mismanagement and waste.
The foreign aid budget is bloated but Labor, if elected, proposes to double the amount. Meanwhile, 17% of Australian children live below the poverty line.
Further, those affected by fire-fighting foam from military bases struggle to keep their families alive. When it comes to helping Australians all we see is thrift, but, when it comes to the foreign aid budget, we see waste on a grand scale.
In fact it is very difficult to find out how the money has been spent, and rumors of money ending up in the hands of corrupt officials are so persistent that there must be some truth there. If the government wants a clue it could start with the money we give to Papua New Guinea.
Australians expect their government will work hard to get value for money and eliminate wastage because every tax dollar has been earned by them. However, as we know, they do not work hard enough when they have no limit to borrowing money.
Further, Australians expect that every dollar collected in tax will go towards making a difference in the lives of Australians and they deeply resent their tax dollars being used to pay interest on debts owed largely to foreign creditors.
The Treasurer says that gross debt will peak in 2019-20 at 30% of gross domestic product.
When debt reaches 60 per cent of GDP experts say we have entered an economic death spiral, which, like a strong rip in the surf, is very hard to escape. As it stands, there is nothing to stop government borrowing to the point where debt is 60 per cent of GDP.
The Bill proposes to limit borrowing to 35 per cent of GDP.
In fact the government has created an agency, the Australian Office of Financial Management, whose mission is to arrange for any debt financing the government needs. They issue pieces of paper which promise to repay borrowed money on a set date, and in the interim to pay interest for the use of the money. These debts are arranged by government but they are underwritten by the taxpayers of Australia, many of whom are yet to be born.
It is plainly unfair to ask future generations to repay lenders for things they have not received but this is the case, because Australia's current $530 billion gross debt has largely been spent on the day to day living expenses of the current generation. It has rightly been called intergenerational theft.
The national credit card stood at $75 billion when the Rudd Government introduced a borrowing limit of $300 billion in 2008.
Just five years later that debt ceiling was reached. The Abbott government wanted the debt ceiling lifted to $500 billion. The Australian Greens agreed to support the abolition of the existing debt ceiling in return for an amendment to the Budget Honesty Act 1988. The deal involved greater reporting by the government on its debt and the reasons for additional borrowing. The deal also involved a commitment by the government to report spending on climate change and the effect of its environmental policies on the Australian economy and the Commonwealth budget.
The deal done with the Greens opened the floodgate for spending and we know that because federal government debt has nearly doubled in ten years. Australians do not want their taxes to go towards servicing debt. Australians want their taxes to stay in Australia creating jobs and creating a fairer society.
Without debt ceiling legislation there is nothing to limit the Federal Government going into further debt and endangering our collective future, because every debt comes with a date when it is to be repaid.
The legislation proposed by One Nation will limit the amount of debt that can be issued on behalf of the government. Limiting debt to a ratio of debt to GDP is an appropriate mechanism for restraining government spending.
Perhaps this limitation will encourage government now and in the future to fill the revenue black hole left by non-resident foreign owned multinationals. The government is fond of saying we do not have a revenue problem, but really we must have a revenue problem if we need to borrow from others every year even as we experience consecutive years of growth.
Additionally, the government argues that we should look at net debt, which is gross debt less government assets.
Let us examine this claim. Firstly, we have next to no savings but the government says we have equity of close to $30 billion in the troubled National Broadband Network and that we will get that money back when the NBN is sold. Additionally they say that NBN will repay a loan of a similar amount. The government is dreaming.
There will never be a return to the government from the NBN; it's a white elephant and the payment of $66 million in bonuses shows a lack of regard for taxpayers.
The government says it is owed $44.7 billion in student loans but the government wrote off $6 billion of student loans last year.
The government counts the money in the Future Fund as an asset even though all that money is committed to fund known liabilities like superannuation, medical research, the NDIS and so on.
Australia has never defaulted on its government debt but that is not the same as saying it can never happen. Recent history shows us that when a country cannot pay its debts they choose to either default or they accept a bailout. Both options lead to a severe economic depression that ruins the lives of a generation of young people.
These bailouts see one creditor replaced by another. What follows is austerity and reform policies imposed on people, which hits the poor and the vulnerable the most. The economic depression created by external lenders has crippled a generation of Greek people, and while German and French banks will be repaid, generations of young Greeks have been burdened with the responsibility of repaying the debt for which they received no benefit.
Further, the reforms and conditions placed on citizens in return for a bailout commonly see confidence in democracy undermined and voters willing to support nationalist parties with strong leaders who promise them that they will look after their interests because more moderate political parties have failed to do so.
Too much debt is a bad thing and it's the reason we need to introduce a debt ceiling on the government. I call on the Senate to support a debt ceiling of 35 per cent of GDP on this government and any future government.
I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
I move:
That the Senate—
(a) notes that:
(i) a 2016 sub-licensing deal between Optus and the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) allowed Optus to screen all 64 matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, 39 of them exclusively,
(ii) Optus charged customers $15 to access its streaming service of the World Cup, and
(iii) technical errors left customers unable to watch matches during the tournament's opening weekend;
(b) notes further that the SBS has since arranged to show all remaining group stage matches, for free, to all Australians;
(c) considers this experience has demonstrated, once again:
(i) the importance of our public broadcasters, and
(ii) that the SBS is an invaluable national public institution; and
(d) congratulates SBS for delivering outstanding value for money to taxpayers. (general business notice of motion no.884)
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
Labor supports this motion and stands with Aussie fans who are understandably unhappy over the botched World Cup coverage. The blame lies at the feet of Malcom Turnbull who, as communications minister, ignored warnings that funding cuts would threaten the ability to fully cover future World Cups. SBS managing director, Michael Ebeid, last week told radio: 'At the end of the day, it comes down to finances. We have had about $40 million in reductions in our government funding.' Minister for Communications, Senator Fifield, last week suggested the solution was further commercialisation of SBS through increased advertising. Fans want more football not ads. Labor welcomes the cooperation of Optus and SBS to get games into homes, clubs and other venues. Prime Minister Turnbull and Minister Fifield still refuse to admit their cuts have consequences and to apologise to all Australian football fans. They need to guarantee their elitist out-of-touch government won't cut further funding from the SBS or ABC.
I seek leave to make a short statement.
Leave is granted for one minute.
The point that I made in relation to the advertising flexibility legislation which was previously before the Senate, was that those opposite opposed it and that the managing director of SBS, Michael Ebeid, indicated that greater advertising flexibility is something that would have been of benefit to the organisation. The Senate chose not to support that legislation and so that legislation is no longer on the table. I was making an historical observation, for the benefit of colleagues. But I do note that Senator Chisholm did not, in his commentary there, indicate that it was the policy of the Australian Labor Party to increase the funding of SBS. I note in passing that the government did in the last budget increase the funding of SBS.
Question agreed to.
I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am today, four proposals were received by the President 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 Griff:
Dear Mr President,
Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:
The need for Australia to have a more transparent and accountable health system that helps consumers make informed choices.
Is the proposal supported?
More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: 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.
Anyone who knows me knows that I am particularly passionate about medical transparency. By that, I mean providing consumers, the public, with all the information that they need to make an informed choice about a surgeon or provider; information that allows them to judge up-front the costs and risks before going under the knife. For example, how much will the surgeon cost? Are there any hidden fees? How often does a surgeon perform a particular procedure? Most importantly, what are their revision or, in other words, error rates? What about the hospital or clinic? What is its record of medical errors and patient readmission rates, and how does this compare with other hospitals and clinics? At the moment, consumers have almost none of this information at their disposal, unless, of course, they know someone on the inside. They take it on trust that hospitals, clinics and medical specialists will provide a good service and charge fair fees.
As consumers, we are often embarrassed to ask a surgeon about their fees. We're embarrassed to quiz them about their abilities and how often they have done a particular operation. We don't want to offend them because we are putting our health, and sometimes our lives, in their hands. If we want this information, we have to ask for it ourselves, always at a time when we are the most vulnerable. This information needs to be publicly available; in fact, it is in a number of countries around the world, most notably the UK, where you can review every specialist right down to their different procedures. And guess what? When it's all on the public record, the bar is lifted for everyone. Everyone wins; the public and the medical professionals.
People should be able to sit at their home computer, when they have had a moment to think, and research their surgeon before going under the knife. They need to know all costs beforehand and not be shocked by a bill that could potentially run into many thousands of dollars. Most importantly, they shouldn't find out after the fact that they've been operated on by a novice. Our medical system operates very much as a closed shop. If you are referred to a specialist, you ultimately have no idea of whether you've got a star performer or a dud.
This is not just about consumer information; better medical transparency and accountability will also blow the lid off the otherwise secretive world where the profession protects its own. Imagine if disgraced surgeon Jayant Patel's performance data had been publicly available all those years ago?
Perhaps then it wouldn't have taken a brave whistleblower to come forward and expose this deadly doctor, and perhaps his tragic reign at Bundaberg Base Hospital would have come to an end much quicker.
That's the thing about transparency: there is nowhere for dodgy doctors and deadly hospitals and clinics to hide. The concept is not a new one. In Australia, private health insurer Medibank publishes an annual Surgical variance report in conjunction with the Royal Australian College of Surgeons, which details a number of key indicators, including the rates of hospital-acquired complications, average surgeon out-of-pocket costs plus average total costs for a procedure, and the percentage of patients readmitted within 30 days. But this report misses a key component: disclosure of individual surgeons. We know from answers to questions that I put at estimates that the government is, at a snail's pace, also working to collect better mortality and morbidity data from public hospitals to publish on the MyHospitals website. Transparency of information can really only be a good thing, as it forces outliers to lift their game or get out.
If you want to know what a good system for medical transparency could look like, go to the My NHS website in the UK. It's not perfect but it's pretty damn good. You can look up your procedure by either hospital or individual surgeon to see how both perform. It is easy to navigate and breaks the information down in ways that make it easy to understand and compare. For instance, each hospital will show how many times a particular procedure has been carried out and the average demographic of patients treated for the same condition, and it will show for each hospital what percentage of patients had a greater risk of problems before or after surgery. It provides context and comparison. For surgeons, the data changes with the procedure. For instance, for cardiac surgeons, it provides the two most important pieces of information that you want to know as a patient: how often the surgeon has performed cardiac surgery and their patients' in-hospital survival rate—down to two decimal points.
This is all a far cry from what is publicly available in Australia. It means that as a patient you're not going blindly into surgery with fingers crossed, hoping you've made the best choice. You can take some control at a time in your life when you feel you have very little of it. Out-of-pocket costs are also a well-known problem, and that is why Centre Alliance last year initiated the Senate inquiry into the value and affordability of private health insurance and out-of-pocket medical costs. We are still waiting for the government's response on that report, but we were at least happy to see that the health minister is listening to our concerns and those of consumers and is trying to make headway with out-of-pocket costs by appointing an advisory committee to work with industry to make this information more transparent.
IVF is another area that needs a very bright spotlight shone on it. At the moment, couples can fork out almost $10,000 for each round of IVF treatment, with only half of that recouped through Medicare. All that these would-be parents have to go on is reputation, rumours and what the clinics themselves choose to say about their success rates. There is no standard set of information that clinics need to provide, yet the results for each can vary widely. In 2014, live birth rates between clinics varied from nine per cent and 24 per cent for fresh cycles. Two years earlier, live birth rates were as low as four per cent and as high as 31 per cent, depending on the clinic. Some clinics won't disclose their live birth rates, choosing to instead publish their clinical pregnancy rates, which of course are much higher.
The lack of transparency also poses a significant cost to government. In 2015 Richard Henshaw, a senior fertility expert with the Monash group of IVF clinics, told the ABC's AM program that the worst-performing IVF clinics actually cost taxpayers more than the best performers. He said that clinics in the top 25th percentile cost Medicare around $2 million to produce 100 live births, whereas clinics in the bottom 25th percentile soak up around $6 million to produce the same result. Taxpayers, through Medicare rebates, as well as parents are paying up to three times as much as they really need to, simply because they've had the misfortune to select a poor-performing clinic for their treatment.
One couple underwent 12 cycles of IVF over five years and spent $100,000 to get there. They did 10 cycles at a clinic recommended by their GP—with no success. Then they switched clinics and finally had a child. It doesn't have to be this way. The US and UK both publish individual clinic success rates—that is, the chances of a live birth—vital information for making one of the most important decisions in an infertile couple's life. We have these great examples we can model ourselves on, but somehow in Australia it's just too hard. 'It can't be done here,' this self-serving industry says.
There is every reason to move to a more transparent and accountable health system, and I implore the federal government to work with the states to do just that. I imagine there will be resistance from some medical colleges, but, frankly, we shouldn't try to shield poor performers from the embarrassment or loss of income that might result from such a system. It is, in the end, about more consumer choice, better public safety, better use of taxpayer money and better health outcomes. Who could argue against that?
A key part of the motion that Senator Griff has put forward—and it's a very good and logical motion—is to provide facts. As Senator Griff said, quite often people don't have access to facts or are reluctant to ask for the facts that they need. In a general sense, I'd like to state that the government supports greater transparency to assist patients. We are certainly keen to work with the states to develop mechanisms to ensure greater public disclosure in our healthcare systems.
Information is currently collected and published by the states. It varies and it generally focuses on matters such as admissions, emergency department wait times, elective surgery wait times, hospital acquired infections and patient experiences. The government will work with the states to harmonise the reporting of this information, which can be incredibly important for patients. We will also continue to work with the states and territories to progress a national approach to clinical quality registries, which should lead to relevant outcomes measures being reported through the new Australian Health Performance Framework. But when we consider a motion which speaks of 'the need for Australia to have a more transparent and accountable health system that helps consumers make informed choices' we immediately come up against scare campaigns, disinformation and intentional wrong information that quite often can overcome the well-intentioned information that people themselves may seek.
There is the need for Australia to have a more transparent and accountable healthcare system that helps consumers make more informed choices. There are no two ways about that. But what goes against this is, in particular, the approach that Labor takes to this key issue. I recently had experience of this in Eden-Monaro, the electorate in which I live. The problem is that disinformation provided by Labor, particularly the scare campaign about the health system that was run during the 2016 election campaign—a campaign that was tried again in Bennelong and failed—goes against what Senator Griff is trying to achieve. The member for Eden-Monaro, Mike Kelly MP, as part of that campaign, recently claimed that the government is cutting $2.2 million from Eden-Monaro's public health system. When this is broken down, he claims that certain amounts have been cut from the South East Regional Hospital, from Queanbeyan hospital and from Cooma, Tumut, Yass, Pambula, Braidwood, Bombala, Tumbarumba, Batlow-Adelong and Delegate hospitals. Mr Kelly said:
Access to health care should be determined by your Medicare card – not your credit card …
That's just a ridiculous statement. Mr Kelly claims:
… we will always fight to protect Medicare and we will fight Turnbull's $2.2 million cut to Eden-Monaro's hospitals.
Of course, the relationship between the member for Eden-Monaro and the Labor leadership is something we have to remember.
The Department of Health go to the point that Senator Griff was making, in that they put out the truth. The truth is that, in contrast to Labor's last year in government, this year the coalition has delivered nearly $2 billion more to New South Wales hospitals. The truth is that funding is increasing by $9 billion more under the new hospital funding agreement for New South Wales hospitals. That is a fact. In 2012-13 Labor delivered only $43 million for the Southern NSW Local Health District, the district within Eden-Monaro, compared to $100 million from the coalition in 2016-17. If we want transparency, we must have truth, and you cannot have truth when these facts are being misrepresented. The coalition delivered an increase over 2012-13 of 131 per cent. The coalition delivered $13.8 billion in 2012-14 and increased this to a record $22.7 billion by 2021—an increase of 64 per cent. This is not a cut.
When we were faced with these claims we actually responded, and the response has to be considered. I will take this opportunity to quote what I said in response to the member for Eden-Monaro and his claims that we are cutting in Eden-Monaro. I stated: 'I would not go so far as to say that one of my parliamentary colleagues is lying, but this is scaremongering at its worst. It targets vulnerable patients.' I said: 'The truth is that federal funding for public hospital services under the coalition has increased from $13.8 billion in 2013-14, to a record of $2.7 billion in 2021'—that's a 64 per cent increase—and that 'in New South Wales the coalition is delivering nearly $2 billion more to New South Wales hospitals, compared to what Labor funded in their last year in government.' In 2012-13, Labor only provided $43 million for the Southern NSW Local Health District, which compares to almost $100 million the coalition funded in 2016-17—as I said before, a 131 per cent increase. I said: 'It's deeply disappointing that Mike Kelly and Labor will say and do anything to try to trick patients with patently false statements. Thankfully the real figures show the truth.'
I think that it's a very good idea to go to the reaction of locals, people who live in, work in and administer the health system within Eden-Monaro. I would like to quote from the Bega District News of 11 April. The article reads:
The head of the Southern NSW Local Health District says there is no issue with funding for the region’s hospitals, allaying concerns raised in recent days.
Andrew Newton is the CEO of the Southern NSW Local Health District. The article continues:
While the federal parties bicker over public hospital funding allocations, Andrew Newton, Southern NSW Local Health District CEO, said there was no issue for the 'very robust' budget arrangement across his region.
'I’ve had no indication that we’re getting anything other than what we asked for,' Mr Newton told Fairfax Media on Wednesday.
If we're going to have transparency on the issue of health, we must tell the truth; the truth must be available. The article goes on to say that Mr Andrew Newton, the CEO, said:
'I’m the one who allocates the funding to hospitals anyway [not the federal government].'
The article continues:
Mr Newton said a national partnership agreement is from where federal funding for health comes, with the state’s health districts putting forward their case based on capital needs and activities at LHD level.
'We look at a district level, remoteness of hospitals and the activities undertaken—it's a very objective process, not emotive,' he said.
'We get a fair allocation for our 12 hospitals and there’s been no reason to believe we’re getting anything different.'
I make the point that if we're going to have transparency and accountability in any aspect of a health system, it is absolutely critical that we encourage people to ask questions of their doctors—to go on websites and check to see what is written about the health organisations they're going to. They also must ask political parties—in this case, the Labor Party—to produce the truth. It is of utmost importance that we look back, at least a little bit, to see that Labor's $2.8 billion better hospitals fund simply rehashes an old policy from 2010. This policy failed to meaningfully reduce wait times in emergency departments or for the elective surgeries that Senator Griff spoke about. It is critical that we get transparency. Transparency is based on truth.
One of the more exciting things in the health system over the last 20 years has been the rise of consumer focused health. We have a great deal to be grateful for. There are some active, dedicated and very brave consumers who have consistently put information and personal experience into the public realm to ensure that consumers have a genuine say in the health systems of this country.
I've been fortunate enough over many years now to work with a number of consumer groups. They include the Consumers Health Forum of Australia and the National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum. These two groups have lived and breathed the focus of Senator Griff's motion. What they talk and engage with their community about is ensuring there is transparency and accountability in our health system. As Senator Griff said, 'The voices of consumers will be active in policy development and, most particularly, they will be reinforcing the need for consumers to make informed decisions about what treatments, what services, what processes they want to follow for their health.'
It's not been easy to have this voice heard. Consistently, there have been attempts to push back, to ensure that there's not a view that only professionals in some way have the necessary knowledge, the necessary experience and the necessary probity to determine health practices. I suppose it's not that much different from legal services of any other profession. But I really want to acknowledge in this motion, this afternoon, the fact that consumer organisations have been at the forefront in ensuring that we have the development of effective policies. They also have a very strong role in the coordination—bringing around the table—of people with shared experiences and knowledge so that we can talk through issues around health services and ensure that there is a width of knowledge and experience available.
A Four Corners program recently filmed about out-of-pocket expenses in the Australian health system has caused a lot of questions in the wider community. I think this was one basis for Senator Griff's motion. We did a Senate community affairs inquiry a couple of years ago that looked specifically at the issue of out-of-pocket expenses in our health system. Naturally, the consumers were strong advocates and provided very strong evidence to that inquiry.
This particular Senate inquiry is available in Hansard, as are all public hearings and submissions, and made very confronting reading. I think it was two-and-a-half or three years ago. It was particularly confronting for someone like me. I sat through that evidence and looked at what was happening to the concept of informed choice in our medical process. We made recommendations, and promises were given by government about how they would be able to respond to the issues. We saw, only very recently, more up-to-date filming and experiences in hospitals across this country, which put the fact that changes had not been made. The absolutely solid principle in medical practice in Australia of informed consent does not seem to have the solid basis that one would expect across some areas of medical practice.
I want to put a couple of points on record this afternoon. We were deeply concerned during the Senate inquiry that informed consent seemed to have various definitions, depending on where you were and which practitioner you were dealing with. It seemed to me that if there is one thing that should have a fairly clear definition, it should be informed consent. What we also found was that giving someone a piece of paper and thinking that is the beginning and the end of your responsibility in getting them to sign, saying that they understand all that's above, is not the best and most effective mechanism to fulfil the expectation that the patient and their families understand fully what they've signed up for and what they're going to enter into.
That is not just for financial informed consent. One of the focuses of this particular motion is the financial out-of-pocket expenses, the enormous costs and the variation in costs that seems to be available across the system for exactly the same service, depending on where you live, which hospital you attend and which other services you have. It's also about the absolute knowledge of the process that you're going to face—the different things that you're going to experience once you take that very important step into the medical system.
We've heard that a number of people are just not able to understand the complexities and the variations that are before them once they step into sometimes quite confronting medical experiences. That's perfectly understandable, particularly at a time when you're unwell, or in pain or deeply concerned about a family member who has a serious illness or a need for emergency surgery of some type. We talked at length during our inquiry about which wraparound services should be provided in the medical space to ensure that if people don't have that understanding there'd be services around them that would work with them, so that if anything happened they would have timely intervention to ensure that they are supported through the various issues that could happen and could go wrong.
One of the gentlemen we had evidence from in one of our regional centres claimed that the impact on his health caused by the receipt of the medical bills after his surgery possibly had more impact on his health than anything that led up to the original surgery. He was very open about that. He said that the shock that he received when he received the bill for the other services around what he was in hospital for caused him such immediate distress that he genuinely thought that he was going to need more medical treatment. That was not unusual, except that he had a particularly amusing way of putting it into expression when he came to our inquiry.
The role of the national consumer groups is to ensure that the messages, the understandings, are made public and shared and that they provide another source of reinforcement if people are unsure about where they stand in a certain situation or where they could get support. The national consumer health services often provide helplines, through either the internet or the phone, that can link you to services that can provide the absolutely necessary support that you have to have.
Certainly, my own experience from working in the mental health space and with mental health consumers is that their activities and their knowledge are so valuable in the development of policies in this space and have consistently ensured the concept of wellness. This is that individuals will have the space to have their wellness as the No. 1 focus of the process, rather than medical definition and diagnosis. I think that is one of the most important elements in mental health change in the last 10 years. I will be forever grateful to the patients and for the resilience of the people in the national consumer groups that, despite the many times when they must have despaired about whether their voices would be heard, they continue to be actively engaged in the process.
Senator Griff, your motion remains more real than ever. I think at this stage people across the chamber would understand that the absolute importance of transparency and accountability in our health system must be paramount in the development of any policy and, in particular, when we're looking at the policies around our health and our wellbeing.
In that process, I think it's important that no matter what we do in the development of policy—and no matter what we do in the discussion about how we should have changes or where focus should be on resourcing—we should always put at the very centre of any discussion the role of people who have had the lived experience of illness, of hospital services and of the very personal ways that the whole range of things take place once you take that step onto the medical journey. All of those should be able to be identified and the consequent impact of them should be part of the development of policy. Otherwise, we're going to be consistently just putting things on top of discussion rather than engaging fully. I think that's something that we can benefit from in the development of our health policy.
It is important that this is part of an open discussion. It's sometimes seen as an afterthought and something that can be done after the really important stuff of putting the research dollars—or putting the emergency dollars—into equipment or resources in hospitals. All of those are important, but those things will not be as effective as they could be if we don't maintain that absolute focus on consumers in the situation.
When you consider what we're elected to do in this place, and when you consider what the role of government is, there is nothing more important than ensuring that we provide a health system that looks after people. Election after election, people tell us they want their governments to invest in health care. They want their governments to ensure that there is a health system that they know will look after them if they're sick and will look after their loved ones if they become unwell. Of course, Medicare and our public hospital system are the fundamental pillars of our health system. They are absolutely critical if we're to ensure that people are looked after.
We know that Australians value decent health care. We know that Australians, when asked the questions, 'Would you prefer to have a tax cut?' versus: 'Or would you prefer to have a greater investment in Medicare, ensuring that you and your children aren't faced with big out-of-pocket costs? Would you prefer to have Medicare funded dental care?' always tell us: 'We want to see a better health system. We want to see schools that are well funded.' And that's why I'm glad that Centre Alliance have put this issue on the agenda.
It was just last week that they sided with the government to lock in $140 billion worth of tax cuts—tax cuts that will go disproportionately to people on high incomes and tax cuts that will ensure that bankers, CEOs and politicians get an extra $11,000 in their back pocket while a few hundred dollars in scraps are given to people on lower incomes. The consequence of that decision is that we have less funding available for all manner of public services, with our health system chief among them. You can't rip $144 billion from the health system and expect it to be able to function in a way that you want.
We have a very good health system, but we can do better. Compared to spending right across similar countries, we spend about average; it's approaching 10 per cent of GDP on health care. When you look at what the US spend, it's something like 17 per cent of their GDP on health—with much worse health outcomes. So we've got a pretty good system, but there are challenges.
A PwC report last year for Australian Unity showed that by 2040 we're going to need an additional $57 billion in capital costs and an additional $30 billion in annual operating costs for both aged care and hospitals. There needs to be a much greater investment over the next few decades. Yet when you see the $144 billion in tax cuts—and now we have a debate this week around cuts to the company tax rate—it's hard to see how we're going to be able to find the revenue to invest in those things. What's the consequence? The consequence is that people on public waiting lists, waiting to have their hips done, are going to have to wait longer. A family with a sick child at midnight in an emergency department is going to have to wait longer before their child is seen.
There are already huge pressures on our hospital system. When you consider what the Abbott government did in scrapping the National Health Agreement when they were the first elected, it ripped billions out of our hospital system. There are huge challenges. We continue to give $6½ billion—and growing—in a wasteful subsidy to the private health insurance industry. And of course when we talk about transparency in our health system, that is one area where people tell us that they are sick and tired of the big up-front, out-of-pocket costs they face when they get health care within a private hospital. We know there are a few rogue operators; we know that, and we welcome some of the measures addressed to make sure that there is transparency around the costs that some rogue doctors are charging. But the problem's a systemic one. We can't predict whether there's going to be a complication. We can't predict what the course of treatment might look like for each individual person. Therefore, it's very hard to say to somebody, 'Well, here are the out-of-pocket costs you're facing if you utilise the system through a private provider.' You simply can't do that.
The best investment we have is ensuring that every cent is invested in our public hospitals, in Medicare, in all the foundations that we know lead to better health outcomes and a better use of the taxpayer dollar. If we did this right we could have Medicare funded dental care. If we didn't give tax cuts to people who don't need them, if we didn't give tax cuts to some of the wealthiest companies, every person in this country would be able to access a dentist and have it funded through Medicare. We need to do much better, and the way to do that is to ensure that we've got the revenue base to invest in our health system.
I'm pleased to enter into this MPI debate—which I thought was about health but, from hearing the previous speaker, it seems that I must have read the wrong Red. It seems that it's a re-debate about last week's taxation decisions and the taxation decisions the Senate will be called upon to talk about and decide upon into the future. Of course, I can't let Senator Di Natale's misinformation about the tax system pass unchallenged. Senator Di Natale was part of a Labor-Greens alliance that ran this country for six hard, dark years. Senator Di Natale says that because we give tax cuts and because we encourage investment into Australia we're not going to have money for education and for the thing that this debate is about, health.
Senator Di Natale may have been a good doctor, but I'm afraid his economics is sadly lacking. You see, Senator Di Natale, one of the reasons we want to encourage investment in Australia is so that we can create jobs, so that we can create profitable companies employing people, both of which pay tax. When you have more taxpayers paying tax, you're able to first of all pay off Labor's debt—and we've started that long process, down from over $100 billion when we took office; we've got it down this year I think to around 25 in this year's budget, down to 16 and next year 11, and the following year we're back to the Howard government type surpluses. It was very small at the start—a $2½ billion surplus the year after next—but is projected to go upwards. Contrast that to the Labor Party. Every year they were in power the deficit went up.
Senator Di Natale says that because we're giving tax cuts there won't be money for health. Well, the contrary is the fact. If you encourage investment into Australia, if you encourage this multinational investor who wants to build widgets—and he's going to make X million dollars profit, but he can do that in Australia or he can do it in France or he can do it in the United States—where do you think he's going to go if he can invest his money and still make $100 million profit? Is he going to go to the place that charges him 30 per cent company tax? Or is he going to go to the one that charges him 25 or 20 or 15? You don't have to be a Rhodes scholar to work that out. If he doesn't invest in Australia to build his widgets, that will mean the cost of the work provided in building the widget factory will not go to Australian workers but to United States' workers or to French workers. The people that will man the widget factory when it's built will not be paying tax in Australia. They will not be providing jobs for Australians; they will provide jobs for citizens of the United States or of France, and they will pay tax to those countries.
By keeping our corporate tax rate competitive with the rest of the world, we create investments, we create jobs and we create tax. So Senator Di Natale's comment that because of the tax cuts we won't be able to invest in the health system is just absolute foolishness, misinformation and part of the Labor-Greens mantra. I would remind Senator Di Natale that when he and the Labor Party ran this country for six dark years, health funding actually went down, and what was spent wasn't money that the government had; they had to borrow it all from overseas lenders just to keep the health system going. Now, fortunately, under the coalition government, that no longer applies and we are able to pay our way and start paying off the Labor-Greens debt of those six dark years.
I don't know that the Greens were part of this, but Labor's major contribution to the health debate in recent years was that outrageous lie that the government was intending to sell Medicare. Everybody knew beforehand, they knew on election day and they know now that was nothing more than an unmitigated lie, a fabrication made up by the Labor Party's propaganda machine, and yet it worked. It convinced a lot of people to vote for the Labor Party at the last election. That was an unmitigated lie. What this government has shown is that it is intending to move ahead with the health debate.
I digress slightly to think of the system in Queensland. It was only 2½ years ago that the Newman government was in power and, in that time, it stopped the waiting lists in the public hospitals. They got rid of a lot of people, a lot of those Labor apparatchiks who were employed in the middle level in the hospital area. They weren't doctors or nurses; they were just the normal sort of mid-level clerical people that the Labor Party are so fond of finding jobs for, because they are mainly Labor Party branch members. Lawrence Springborg, to his very great credit, had a hospital system in Queensland that was actually working. There was a dental system that provided private practitioners around the state with the money to look after the teeth of all and everybody, even those who couldn't afford it. It was, for a short period of time, a wonderful health system in Queensland, and that's similar to what the coalition does with health at a federal level.
The health minister is already involving himself in the substantial reform of private health insurance, and some of my colleagues in this debate would have spoken about it. I want to, particularly in the short time left to me, talk about private health insurance reforms and discounts for 18- to 29-year-olds. Insurers in Australia will be making private health insurance more affordable for young Australians, and that's what every young Australian aspires to—I shouldn't use the 'aspiration' word; people opposite me won't know what I'm talking about. From 1 April next year, insurers will be able to offer discounted private hospital cover to people aged 18 to 29. Legislation currently prevents insurers from offering premium discounts to people on the basis of their age. But insurers will be able to offer that premium discount to offer hospital cover of up to two per cent for each year that a person is under 30 to a maximum of 10 per cent for 18- to 25-year-olds, and these discounts will be gradually phased out once the policy holder turns 40. This is important, because private health insurance cover provides consumers with greater choice in the provision of treatment, access to shorter waiting times and coverage for some services that are not funded by Medicare.
Younger Australians, particularly those under the age of 30, have far lower rates of private health insurance participation than most other age groups. This means that young people are currently missing out on the benefits of private health insurance, which I'd suggest everyone in this chamber take advantage of. The viability and sustainability of private health insurance relies upon a broad membership base. Encouraging more young people to take out private health insurance will, therefore, benefit everyone. This will really improve the affordability of private health insurance for young Australians, increasing their access to private hospital services. The lower premiums will encourage more young Australians to purchase private health insurance. With lower premiums, taxpayers will save $16 million over four years on private health insurance rebates, and these premiums for hospital cover, for young Australians, will be up to 10 per cent cheaper. That's just one of many reforms that this government, and our wonderful health minister, Mr Hunt, is looking at, again, to improve Australia's health system. I think it's uncontested that Australia has the best health system of anywhere in the world, and we in the coalition government intend to make it even better in a sustainable—that is, a paid for—way.
I rise to support the motion that has been proposed here; that there is a need for Australia 'to have a more transparent and accountable health system that helps consumers make informed choices'. The need for greater transparency and accountability in our health system is something that the Labor opposition has supported for some time now. As I'll mention in the course of my contribution, there are a number of either policies or commitments that we've already made, and a number of other things that we have asked the government to act on, that would improve transparency and accountability, which, unfortunately, the government has yet to act on.
I think all of us understand that ensuring that Australians have good quality health care and are able to enjoy a decent standard of health themselves is one of the most important things that we can ask of our federal government. It's really good that over a number of years, due to improvements to the way health care has been provided in this country and to advances in medical technology, more and more Australians are living longer, healthier lives. Despite that, we know that there remain pockets of health disadvantage throughout our community, particularly if we're looking at preventable diseases. That is particularly where we need to see greater action on the part of governments.
In terms of transparency and accountability, though, I don't think anyone can deny that it's important for governments to ensure that health consumers, citizens of Australia, have access to as much information as possible about the availability of health care and the likely cost of that health care if they get problems fixed, whether in hospitals, by GPs or in other environments. Giving patients access to more information about the fees and out-of-pocket costs that they are likely to incur in the health system is absolutely critical for consumers to be able to make informed choices about the kind of health care that they need.
All of us who come to this place as political representatives have heard the horror stories from constituents of the cost of health care that they end up incurring which goes well beyond what they expected that they would incur when they made a decision to have a particular operation or procedure performed. Unfortunately, because health care is expensive to provide, it's not as if people get a bill for just another $20 or another $10—which, for many people, is still a lot of money. Too often, what we see in the health system is people agreeing to have procedures conducted, thinking they are going to be fully covered either by the public system or the private system—if they have private health insurance—only to find out, once they've had those procedures undertaken, that they are left with a bill of several hundred dollars or, even worse in some cases, several thousand dollars. That's not something that anyone should be faced with in this country with a universal health system of the kind that we have.
The need for greater transparency was highlighted by an ABC investigation into out-of-pocket costs last month. I think it aired on Four Corners. That was a very revealing investigation. It showed there are still too many instances where Australians face the dilemma of having to make a decision about whether they are going to have a health procedure undertaken on the basis of what the costs are going to be—and sometimes those costs are going to be higher than they should be because of cutbacks to the health system that we've seen by this government. But, even having weighed up the costs and benefits and decided to go and have a procedure performed, the ABC investigation revealed that there are a number of Australians who are facing huge bills when they come out of hospital, or wherever they've had a procedure done, which they hadn't planned for and, had they known about them, may have resulted in them making different decisions. In some cases they would still have gone ahead and had a procedure done. Obviously if it's a life-threatening procedure then someone is much more likely to make that kind of decision and somehow come up with the money needed to do so. But if people are having procedures done in the belief that something is going to cost a certain amount, only to find out that it's going to cost several thousand dollars more, that is an outrage that we should be taking action to prevent.
The ABC report showed that, while we continue to have every confidence that most Australian surgeons are going to do the right thing by their patients and are going to properly inform people about the likely cost of a procedure, there are rogues out there, as there are in any industry, who don't have the best interests of their patients at heart and are doing the wrong thing by their patients by not fully informing them of the likely cost of a procedure. The Four Corners investigation made clear that, tragically, there are some unscrupulous profiteers in the medical profession who do need to be brought into line, and that's what the purpose of this motion is. It is to emphasise the need for action by the government.
One troubling aspect of the Four Corners report was that there are some surgeons in Australia who are charging patients unexpected out-of-pocket booking fees of up to $6,000. That's something that many citizens of our country aren't necessarily providing for or thinking they are going to incur when they're making decisions about the health care that they will receive. This sort of behaviour can add significant stress to patients at a very vulnerable time. If someone is trying to make a decision about whether to get a procedure performed or not, that's a stressful time for people. Obviously when someone has had a procedure performed and they're discharged from hospital, or whatever health environment they've had that procedure performed in, they're hardly in a good position to be making a decision about whether they'll pay some out-of-pocket costs. In some cases, they are under far too much pressure to pay up to be able to think through the consequences.
Labor has called for an urgent ACCC investigation to look into this predatory and unethical practice from what is hopefully a small percentage of the profession, and it's disappointing that the government has not heeded our request. Perhaps the debate today and putting this issue on the radar will be enough to convince the government that this is a very serious issue that is affecting too many Australians and that no Australian should be left in a position where they have a health procedure undertaken only to find out that they are left owing thousands of dollars that they didn't provide for.
An ACCC investigation is urgently needed to try and crackdown on this practice. Of course there are also instances where we have some specialists simply charging exorbitant fees for their services, which means that there are enormous gaps between the amount someone is insured for and what they end up having to pay in the form of out-of-pocket costs. That's also wrong, and that's why it is so urgent that we get better transparency of fees for people so they can make much more informed choices before undergoing procedures. There needs to be a lot more accountability built into the system for surgeons who do the wrong thing by their patients and overcharge people.
Labor are very concerned that, despite the number of times that we've called for action on out-of-pocket costs, in terms of transparency, accountability and just taking action to keep those out-of-pocket costs down—despite all of that—we've seen no action on the part of this government and the current Minister for Health, Mr Hunt.
Instead of tackling the issue as part of their private health insurance package last year, they simply shunted it off to a committee and that's the last that we've heard of it. I know that this is something that we've been exploring at Senate estimates hearings, and we'd really like to know more from the government about what they are doing to try to bring out-of-pocket costs under control.
One of the key factors that is driving this increase in out-of-pocket costs in the Australian health system is the refusal of this government to do anything about the Medicare rebate freeze. We've seen the Medicare rebate just kept at the same level for far too long, and we understand that—even though there are many doctors who want to do the right thing and aren't seeking to overcharge their clients and their patients—the reality is that the cost of providing medical treatment is going up. Despite that, the government has held the Medicare rebate at such a low level for so many years that that has increased out-of-pocket costs that Australians are facing.
Across the entire country, Australians are now paying up to nearly $47 out of their own pocket to see a GP because the Medicare rebate just has not kept pace with the increasing cost of health care. Out-of-pocket fees to see specialists have soared even higher, up to almost $88 for Australians; they are having to pay another $88 out of their own pocket to see a specialist because of this government's refusal to fund the health system properly. As we're going to see this week, in another debate about company tax cuts, the government is happy to ship lots of money off to big business to give them a tax cut that the country can't afford, but out-of-pocket costs is another area that the government should be putting proper funding into.
Thank you, Senator Watt. The time for this debate has expired.
I move:
That the Senate take note of document nos 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
I'd like to move to take note collectively of documents 5, 6 and 7—documents relating to Migration Act 1958 Section 486O, the Commonwealth Ombudsman's reports for 2018, No. 17, 18 and 19, on assessment of detention arrangements—and documents 8, 9 and 10: government responses to those Commonwealth Ombudsman's reports for 2018, dated 21 June 2018. These documents are all related. I've spoken a number of times to these documents since I returned to this place.
These documents being tabled are a direct result of amendments made to the Migration Act, back in the time when I was in this chamber over 10 years ago. It was meant to be an accountability mechanism for people who were in long-term immigration detention for more than two years. Unfortunately, it has become more of a mechanism to describe the litany of unnecessary human misery and suffering of people that have been in detention for four or even five years, where the Ombudsman just keeps assessing their case and the same situation applies. In many cases, even when recommendations are made, the minister doesn't act on them anyway.
And the same applies to these three documents. There are a whole lot of cases here. One hundred and fifty-nine people are covered by this. These are the 17th, 18th and 19th reports of the Commonwealth Ombudsman on these. Just these three documents alone cover 159 people who've been locked up, despite never having committed a crime. I wanted to take the opportunity today to just mention one example.
Firstly, I will take the opportunity, as my colleague Senator McKim mentioned today, to talk about the Tamil family in my own state of Queensland. I mention this a lot because it has captured the imagination of the people of Queensland. This family was in the community of Biloela in Queensland. This was straightforward, blatant, ridiculous injustice. This family had done nothing wrong. They had lived productively in a rural community that wanted new people there to work effectively and constructively. The family was ripped away at dawn and separated. The children were aged three and, at that stage, anyway, less than one year. At this stage, now, that family is getting close to having been in detention for four months.
They don't apply for these reports because they only kick in when somebody has been in detention for two years. But that's the situation. You can see, report after report, shown in these documents—tabled with barely a blink anymore—of hundreds and hundreds of people in detention for years, while the minister's response is, 'Oh, the department's still considering it.'
In one case here, a person was found to be a refugee by the relevant offshore government and they've been in detention in Australia for 4½ years. It's case 1002294-02 in report 17, with a specific recommendation to get that person into community detention. They've been found to be a refugee by the totally inadequate rules the government's put in place. Yet even with a recommendation from the Ombudsman over six months ago saying, 'Get this person into community detention; they've been found to be a refugee,' the minister's saying, 'Yes, we're still thinking about it.'
That is absolutely typical of the attitude of this government compared to the previous Liberal government. When this change to the Migration Act was brought in, there was at least a recognition that people were being locked up and forgotten about. Well, they're not forgotten. The Greens and many others in the community want to make sure that all these families are not forgotten, including Priya and her three-year-old daughter. Thankfully, they had a victory today in court. There was an injunction against them being deported. That protection does not yet apply to her husband and their one-year-old daughter.
The community want them back. Why should all these people spend years locked up when they've been shown to be effectively, constructively, living and contributing to our community? Where is the logic in that? The only thing driving it is deliberate cruelty. Never has that been more starkly demonstrated than in a comment made by the immigration minister over the weekend that a single act of compassion could somehow or other cause all these boats of people seeking asylum to reappear. A government minister is actively arguing that compassion is harmful and dangerous. That is the stage our country has got to, and it is the complete perversion of any semblance of logic. Imagine how twisted your thinking would have to be to think that this, somehow, makes any sense in a decent society.
I repeat my call on behalf of the people of Biloela in Queensland to get this family and these two young children, three years old and one-year-old, out of detention and back into the community whilst the situation is being sorted out. Let them contribute in the way that we know so many of these people can and will and have.
Question agreed to.
I move:
That the Senate take note of document no. 12.
This is the regional forest agreement between the Commonwealth and New South Wales—second and third five-yearly reviews from 2004 to 2014, a report of the independent reviewer. I won't go into detail now about these documents because they need to be very thoroughly read. This is documentation of what's going on in our New South Wales forests and adds to the documentation that was tabled last week of what's going on in our forests of Victoria. It is about the ongoing clear-fell logging and destruction of our native forests. It's going on right across the country under our logging laws, the regional forest agreement.
These laws and documents are just laying bare what is going on. Yet we've got a government that insists we've got to just keep on rolling over these regional forest agreements, rolling on with this ongoing destruction of our forests. It has devastating implications for the forest environment, for the animals that live in these forests, for clean air, for water, for recreation and for tourism. I intend to speak in more detail about some of the findings of this report and the report on the Victorian forests that was tabled last week, but, for the moment, I seek leave to continue my remarks.
Leave granted; Debate adjourned.
I table the response to a question taken on notice during question time, asked on 19 June by Senator Rice, relating to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances—PFAS—contamination.
The President has received a letter requesting changes in the membership of a committee.
I move:
That Senators Bilyk and David Smith be appointed as members of the Select Committee on Charity Fundraising in the 21st Century.
Question agreed to.
These bills are being introduced together. After debate on the motion for the second reading has been adjourned, I shall move a motion to have the bills listed separately on the Notice Paper. I move:
That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a first time.
I move:
That these bills be now read a second time.
I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speeches read as follows—
Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018
The Aged Care (Single Quality Framework) Reform Bill 2018 contributes to the implementation of the Australian Government's 2015-16 Budget decision to work with the sector to develop a new unified quality framework, which includes a single set of consumer focussed quality standards which will apply across all aged care programs.
This Bill lays the foundation for the introduction of a single set of aged care standards, to be called the Aged Care Quality Standards, to apply to providers of Commonwealth funded aged care.
The single quality framework places consumers at the centre of their care and focuses on giving people greater choice and flexibility. It is part of the reforms being progressively implemented in aged care to create a competitive, market-based system where consumers drive quality and where red tape is reduced for providers of aged care.
By providing for a single set of standards that apply across all aged care programs, the amendments are intended to, once implemented, drive improvements to the quality of care delivered to older Australians, decrease regulatory burden on aged care providers and encourage innovation, excellence and continuous improvement.
Currently, there are four sets of quality standards that apply to providers of aged care services:
With these amendments, provision will be made for the same set of quality standards to apply across all types of aged care services for the first time. The introduction of new standards will also reflect contemporary evidence and community expectations of the quality of care and services, with the Accreditation Standards being updated for the first time in 20 years.
The Aged Care Quality Standards will be enacted through amendments to the Quality of Care Principles 2014, issued by the Minister for Aged Care under the Aged Care Act 1997, consistent with the manner in which the current Accreditation Standards and Home Care Standards have been issued. Principles are subject to parliamentary scrutiny and disallowance, meaning that the final content of the Aged Care Quality Standards will be able to be transparently reviewed by Parliament.
A single set of standards will increase consistency across aged care services and make it easier for consumers, and their families, carers, and representatives, to make choices about care and services, including as care needs change. Not only will the standards focus on quality and safety for consumers, they will also encourage providers to offer care and services that promote quality of life and wellbeing by placing greater emphasis on consumer choice and identity and partnering with consumers in their care.
The Aged Care Quality Standards to be made under the reforms in this Bill have been developed through significant consultation and co-design with the aged care sector. The Department of Health has undertaken research and consultation with the public, the aged care sector, and other government organisations. A Standards Technical Advisory Group was also established by the Department. The Australian Aged Care Quality Agency is developing guidance and educational material to support assessment of the standards, and has conducted field testing of the draft set of standards.
In October 2017, the Government released the 'Review of National Aged Care Regulatory Processes' which included recommendations regarding the content of aged care quality standards. These recommendations are being addressed through the new Aged Care Quality Standards.
The Bill also makes amendments to the Australian Aged Care Quality Act 2013, to provide the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency with the power to accredit residential aged care services and to conduct quality reviews of home care services, in accordance with the requirements of the new Aged Care Quality Standards.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency will also have the power to assess the quality of flexible care services, Commonwealth Home Support services and National Aboriginal and Tones Strait Islander Flexible Aged Care Program Services, through a specification instrument made by the Minister for Aged Care.
The Bill also makes amendments to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 so that protected information is exempt from the provisions of that Act. Protected information is information collected by the Australian Aged Care Quality Agency in the course of its functions that is either personal information or information that relates to the affairs of an approved provider. The Australian Aged Care Quality Agency Act 2013 already contains criminal penalty provisions for the unauthorised disclosure of protected information.
The Aged Care Quality Standards are an important part of the broader aged care regulatory framework - they promote consumer confidence that Australian Government funded aged care services are safe and of a consistent quality, by setting out core expectations that apply across all services. This Bill is an important part of the Government's reforms to promote quality aged care services that focus on outcomes for consumers.
A ustralian R esearch C ouncil A mendment B ill 2018
Today I am introducing the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2018 (the bill) which amends the Australian Research Council Act 2001 (ARC Act) to ensure that the Australian Research Council (ARC) can continue to support Australia's best researchers to undertake the highest quality fundamental and applied research and research training.
The ARC's purpose is to grow knowledge and innovation for the benefit of the Australian community through funding the highest quality research, assessing the quality, engagement and impact of research and providing advice on research matters.
ARC-funded research is delivering cultural, economic, social and environmental benefits to all Australians. For example:
ARC funding is awarded on the basis of a competitive peer review process.
The ARC administers the National Competitive Grants Programs. The NCGP comprises two programs—Discovery and Linkage—under which the ARC funds a range of complementary schemes that provide funding for basic and applied research, research training, research collaboration and infrastructure.
The amendments through this bill are required because the ARC Act is the legislative basis that supports the financial operations of these grants programs. This bill will amend the ARC Act to update the existing funding caps and insert two new funding caps through until 30 June 2022 to allow continued funding of quality research in Australia.
The increase to the ARC's funding caps in this bill is in line with inflation and ensures that the government can continue to support thousands of research projects to grow knowledge and innovation for the benefit of the Australian community.
The government is making a significant investment in science, research and innovation—it spent approximately $10 billion across all portfolios in 2017–18 alone.
Demonstrating its commitment to supporting outstanding Australian research, on 10 November 2017, the government announced $333.5 million in funding to some of Australia's best and brightest researchers through the ARC's grant programs. The funding, provided to 859 new research projects, will increase Australia's research capacity by supporting ground-breaking research projects, expanding our research infrastructure and facilities; and supporting Australian researchers, including our early-career and Indigenous researchers.
In addition to this latest funding, in June last year, the government announced $170.6 million in new research funding to support 120 research projects that will grow new industry-research collaborations and support the training and up-skilling of our next generation of researchers—including 17 new Australian Laureate Fellowships, 91 new Future Fellowships and 12 new Industrial Transformation Research Hubs and Training Centres.
In 2017, the government announced 117 new collaborative research projects under the ARC's Linkage Projects program. The projects total $46.5 million and support collaborations with 274 partner organisations, which in addition to the government's funding, have pledged to provide $79.7 million to support those research projects.
The new Linkage Projects were selected under the new continuous application process introduced as part of the government's National Innovation and Science Agenda. Now in its second year, this measure is ensuring that researchers and businesses can collaborate as opportunities arise, improving the timeline for translating research into broader outcomes for businesses and the community.
Australia must ensure we attract and retain world-class researchers and entrepreneurs and that is why we bring this bill to the parliament to ensure the Australian Research Council can play its role in supporting and expanding Australia's research strengths and support the many thousands of direct and indirect jobs that our research and scientific capabilities sustain.
I commend this bill.
N ational C onsumer C redit P rotection A mendment (Mandatory C omprehensive C redit R eporting ) B ill 2018
This bill will amend the National Consumer Credit Protection Act and the Privacy Act. This important reform will require our four largest banks to participate fully in the comprehensive credit reporting system, delivering benefits to lenders and borrowers alike, while preserving and enhancing the important security and consumer protections enshrined in the Privacy Act.
In introducing this bill today, we are implementing a commitment that the government set out in its response to the Productivity Commission's landmark inquiry into data availability and use, as announced at the time of the 2017-18 budget. In that report, the Productivity Commission recommended that we move to mandate participation in the comprehensive credit reporting system if less than 40 per cent of accounts were being reported in mid-2017. We agreed with this recommendation, giving industry a further six months to meet the target.
When I announced our commitment to legislate in November 2017, there was simply no prospect that the target would be met by the end of the year.
Australians have been waiting for comprehensive credit reporting for a long time. The amendments to the Privacy Act establishing the voluntary comprehensive credit reporting system were passed in 2012, following extensive consideration by the Australian Law Reform Commission. The Financial System Inquiry recommended that the financial system take up comprehensive credit reporting in 2014. The industry standard for comprehensive credit reporting—the Principles for Reciprocity and Data Exchange—was authorised by the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission in 2015.
And yet, as of last year, Australia was still waiting for industry to move forward on this issue.
This is why we are committing to this legislation. Australia is an international laggard in credit reporting. Many of our largest trading partners—the United States of America, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Japan—have well-established comprehensive credit reporting systems. On this matter, we are falling behind even developing economies such as South Africa and India.
But movement forward in Australia has been stymied by the lack of a 'critical mass' of credit reporting data.
There is a critical first mover problem at play here – without sufficient data in the comprehensive credit reporting system, there is very little benefit for any individual credit provider to invest the time and capital in building systems and arrangements to access it.
This lack of data means that lenders have a more difficult task meeting their responsible lending obligations. It means that more loans are declined by lenders who simply cannot verify a customer's creditworthiness. And it means that many loans are mispriced, leaving borrowers with good credit histories paying higher interest rates than they otherwise would.
With this legislation, we are changing that equation.
The major banks account for more than 80 per cent of household lending, and hence hold a huge quantity of credit information. Our expectation is that the inclusion of this data in the system, alongside the industry-established principles of reciprocity, will create a 'critical mass' of credit data that provides strong incentives for smaller credit providers to participate in the credit reporting system.
This bill sets out the mandatory credit information fields that must be provided by the major banks to eligible credit reporting bureaus – identification information, payment information, default information, credit liability information, repayment history information, and new arrangement information.
The major banks must supply mandatory credit information on 50 per cent of all eligible accounts within a 90-day window from 1 July 2018, and on their remaining accounts within a 90-day window from 1 July 2019.
This information must be supplied to every eligible credit reporting body – that is, every credit reporting body that meets the standards under the Privacy Act, and had a contract with the bank on 2 November 2017.
This means in effect that every major bank will be required to supply the mandatory credit information to Australia's three largest credit reporting bodies—Equifax, Experian and Illion.
While the bill limits the initial mandatory bulk supply to these three bodies, nothing in the bill prevents additional credit reporting bodies from entering into supply agreements with credit providers and competing with the established bodies. The government strongly supports competition in the credit reporting market.
Once the major banks have supplied the required information, credit providers will be able to access the information from the credit reporting bodies in the event that a customer makes a credit inquiry, alongside analysis and credit scores based on this information.
This means that credit providers will be able to make lending and risk pricing decisions on the basis of comprehensive information, rather than a small fragment of the picture.
All lenders who participate in comprehensive credit reporting will have an enhanced capacity to meet their responsible lending obligations. Those obligations are an important part of consumer protection arrangements.
Small credit providers, including innovative FinTech firms and new entrants, will be better able to serve customers and assess the lending capacity of borrowers.
Placing smaller lenders on a more level playing field with the major banks, in respect of access to credit information, will drive competition in the consumer lending market.
Greater competition in the lending market should benefit consumers, by being offered greater access to finance and better pricing.
Those customers who are currently disadvantaged by the existing negative system—by having a thin credit file, or by having a single default marked against them—will have a better chance to build and repair their credit history prior to applying for a major loan.
Small business owners, entrepreneurs, and sole traders will be empowered to borrow to build their businesses on the basis of strong consumer credit histories.
We are alert to risks for vulnerable consumers. Nothing about this bill changes the important protections in the Credit Act against predatory or misleading conduct by credit providers. ASIC retains all its powers to act to protect customers from misconduct in the lending sector.
Customers who suffer from temporary hardships should not be impeded or discouraged from making appropriate arrangements with their credit providers.
To ensure that the provisions in the Privacy Act dealing with hardship cases remain appropriate, the Attorney-General has asked his department to conduct a review of the arrangements for hardship reporting under the Privacy Act and Credit Reporting Code.
In this legislation, we are building on already-established frameworks to build the comprehensive credit reporting of the future.
Through regulations under the bill, we will ensure that those banks and credit providers that are already supplying comprehensive credit data, including the National Australia Bank, will continue to benefit from the protections and principles embedded in the existing industry-established framework.
Where credit providers and credit reporting bodies are subject to requirements under the bill, they will be subject to penalties if they fail to comply.
Enforcement of these requirements will be responsibility of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, who will be granted the appropriate powers to collect information and require audits to confirm that these requirements are being met.
Credit providers and credit reporting bodies will also be required to provide statements to the Treasurer in January of 2019 and 2020 certifying their compliance with the initial supply provisions of the bill.
Industry is well-placed to meet the timeframes and requirements set out in this bill, which align closely to existing industry standards.
The security of consumer information is of high importance to the government.
This bill strengthens the privacy and security provisions established under the Privacy Act.
We are well aware of the risks of data breaches and privacy infringements in the credit reporting environment.
The government has already acted to strengthen the Privacy Act's approach to data breaches, with the Mandatory Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme coming into effect in February of this year. That scheme introduced serious penalties for failing to appropriately notify customers of a data breach.
The Australian Information Commissioner will continue to have oversight over the management of Australian's personal data, including credit information.
All requirements for credit providers and credit reporting bodies to maintain security standards and protect data against unlawful access or misuse will continue to operate.
In addition, we are extending the security provisions under the Privacy Act to ensure that all credit reporting bodies store their data in Australia, or in a secure cloud service certified by the Australian Signals Directorate.
And we are requiring credit providers to satisfy themselves that a credit reporting body is meeting reasonable security standards, before they supply the mandatory credit information. Under their existing bilateral arrangements, banks already perform audits and ensure that the credit reporting bodies continue to upgrade their security systems to meet the changing threat environment. These important activities will continue under the comprehensive credit reporting system.
The inclusion of these provisions follows extensive consultation with industry, consumer groups, and security agencies, and will allow Australians to rest easy, knowing that their credit reporting information is stored safely and securely.
In addition to the security provisions, this bill allows for innovation and change in the credit reporting sector.
Should new means of information exchange be developed, or new industry frameworks for credit sharing come into existence, the bill will allow for that through the prescribing of regulations.
If it becomes apparent that mandatory supply should be extended to cover second-tier credit providers, the bill will allow for that through the prescribing of regulations.
The bill also contains a statutory review provision, with a review to be completed by 1 January 2022.
We expect that this review will provide an opportunity for the government to confirm that the system is operating as intended; and to consider the impacts of the system on consumers and industry, whether the scope of the system should be expanded, and whether alternate frameworks for credit reporting would be more appropriate given technological changes or changes to the security environment.
In closing, I note that this bill will bring Australia into line with our international peers, by ensuring that our largest banks participate fully in the comprehensive credit reporting system.
We expect that consumers and small businesses will see the benefits of this scheme, as the lending market becomes more competitive and more effective at delivering loans.
The extensive consultation undertaken in developing the Bill will ensure that the approach taken is both workable and effective.
Full details of the measure are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.
Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment f or Carers) Bill 2018
This Bill is to introduce an income test for Carer Allowance and for the Carer Allowance (child) Health Care Card only.
In 2017-18, the Government expects to spend $8.5 billion on payments for carers. This includes $5.4 billion on Carer Payment, $1.7 billion on Carer Allowance for those caring for an adult and almost $600 million for those caring for a child.
Unlike most other social security payments, which are income tested and targeted to those most in need, there is currently no income test associated with Carer Allowance.
Australia's welfare system should target only those who can't support themselves. The Carer Payment, the Age Pension, and Family Benefits are all subject to an income test. This Bill ensures Government support is provided to only those Australians who need it most. It will keep our welfare system strong and sustainable into the future.
Carer Allowance is an income supplement for people who provide daily care and attention in a private home to a person with a disability or severe medical condition. The current payment is $127.10 per fortnight.
Carers caring for a child under 16 years with disability or a medical condition get a Health Care Card for that child with their Carer Allowance.
Those caring for children under 16 years who do not provide the qualifying level of care required for Carer Allowance but who provide at least 14 hours a week care are provided with a Health Care Card in the name of the child.
There is currently no assessment of financial need to qualify for Carer Allowance and the Health Care Card.
This Bill will introduce an income test with a high threshold of $250,000 per annum to both Carer Allowance and Carer Allowance (child) Health Care Card from 20 September 2018.
From 20 September 2018, eligibility for the Carer Allowance payment and the Carer Allowance Health Care Card will be restricted to carers whose own income, and that of their partner (if applicable) is below $250,000. This will be based on Adjusted Taxable Income from the previous financial year.
The income test will apply to new recipients and those who are receiving Carer Allowance or who have a child Health Care Card only on 20 September 2018.
Carer Allowance Adjusted Taxable Income, or ATI, includes taxable income, employer provided fringe benefits, foreign income, net investment loss, reportable superannuation contributions, tax free superannuation income, tax free pension or benefit, and Paid Parental Leave income.
It will exclude deductible child maintenance expenditure. Income from long-term financial assets will also be included in the income test for people who receive tax-free income streams.
In most cases, the ATI of the carer and partner (when applicable), from the previous financial year would be used by Centrelink to assess the claimants eligibility for Carer Allowance. However, a carer would be able to provide an estimate of current year ATI if they have experienced a change in financial circumstances.
The Department of Human Services, Centrelink, will provide current Carer Allowance recipients and new claimants of Carer Allowance information on the income test prior to 20 September 2018.
The $250,000 per annum income limit will apply to both singles and couples. The income test will be a fixed limit with no indexation.
Around 6,500 Carer Allowance recipients will be affected by income testing in the 2018-19 financial year because their own income combined with that of their partner's, when applicable, is above $250,000.
An estimated 400 people with a Carer Allowance (child) Health Care Card only will be affected by the income test.
To put this in perspective, as at September, 608,873 people received Carer Allowance, 16,579 people received a Carer Allowance Health Care Card only, and 264,157 people received Carer Payment.
As we announced earlier this year, the Australian Government will invest the $85.6 million raised through this measure to introduce a range of new early-intervention and tailored services to ensure carers get early support to manage the stresses their role places on them.
Carers Australia, the peak body for carers, has worked with the Government over a two year consultative process to design a new and improved model to deliver support services for carers.
The integrated carer support service will provide a national integrated approach to service provision for carers as opposed to the current fragmented system.
Carers Australia supports the introduction of a $250,000 income test threshold for Carer Allowance to finance reforms to carer support services. The introduction of the integrated carer support service represents the biggest reform for carers in over a decade.
Welfare expenditure on carers in the form of payments and services is an important part of the Australian welfare system. In addition to the $8.5 billion the Government expects to spend on payments to carers in 2017-18, the Government will also provide around $162 million for the delivery of programs and services that assist and support carers.
The Government recognises the very significant contribution carers make to the lives of the people they care for and to the broader community.
Their dedication in overcoming what can be daily challenges is an inspiration. Many of us would personally know someone who provides care to a relative or friend; care that can enable social participation and independence for the person receiving that care.
The need for carers is increasing so it is essential we get the balance right in the welfare system between financial support and availability of services.
The introduction of the integrated carer support service will focus on providing early-intervention, prevention and skill building support, aimed at helping carers before they reach crisis point.
We value the immense contribution carers make to our community, and understand the challenges they face in helping others, in their homes and in their communities.
The introduction of a generous threshold for income-testing Carer Allowance makes the introduction of these new services possible.
This Bill allows the Government to provide financial assistance to those who most need it and increase support services for carers in need.
Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 4) Bill 2018
The Turnbull Government is today introducing an important suite of reforms to protect workers' superannuation entitlements by improving compliance with the Superannuation Guarantee.
It is fundamentally unacceptable for people not to be paid their superannuation entitlements. This Bill introduces very serious consequences for employers who break the law by short-changing their employees.
For the first time, the ATO will be able to apply for court ordered penalties where employers defy directions to pay their Superannuation Guarantee liabilities. These penalties can extend, in the most serious cases, to up to 12 months' imprisonment.
This is one of a number of new enforcement options available to the Tax Office for action against employers who breach their obligation to pay superannuation for their employees.
The Bill also enhances early detection of Superannuation Guarantee non-compliance. In the past, employee complaints have been a primary driver of Superannuation Guarantee enforcement activity. The ATO will continue to act on employee complaints. This Bill gives the Tax Office improved visibility over Superannuation Guarantee obligations and payments, allowing it to detect and act on non-compliance often before the employee has become aware of a problem.
Single Touch Payroll will be extended to all employers from 1 July 2019, giving the ATO near real-time information about an employee's Superannuation Guarantee entitlements. Additionally, from 1 July 2018 superannuation funds will commence near real-time reporting to the ATO of contributions they receive. Combined, these measures provide the ATO with more timely information, supporting earlier detection and enabling quick action against employers detected as not paying the superannuation rightfully owed to employees.
The Turnbull Government is also strengthening the ATO's powers to collect debts on behalf of employees where it uncovers cases of unpaid Superannuation Guarantee by strengthening the director penalty notices regime and tightening arrangements for security deposits. Not just for superannuation obligations, but also for other tax-related liabilities.
The Bill will provide employees with greater ability to check they are receiving the Superannuation Guarantee rightfully due to them by allowing employees to view more up-to-date information about contributions and balances through their MyGov account.
The ATO will also be able to notify employees when it is undertaking collection activity on their behalf. Further, the Bill enables the ATO to pre-fill new employees' tax file number declaration and superannuation choice forms, helping them make informed decisions about their superannuation when beginning new jobs. These measures, which enhance the information given to individuals, will encourage greater member engagement with their superannuation.
This Bill will also amend the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 to improve data matching to help ensure the right people are receiving welfare payments.
Increasing the powers of the ATO to verify a Tax File Number to another Commonwealth agency, where that agency has an existing right to ask for its collection under
Commonwealth law, will offer greater data assurance and integrity across government. This will lead to lower levels of incorrect adjustments in welfare payments and a reduction in welfare payment leakage.
Further, the Bill makes minor amendments to Treasury portfolio legislation to ensure that the law operates as intended by clarifying the law, correcting technical or drafting defects, removing anomalies and addressing unintended outcomes.
Finally, the Bill adds three specifically-listed deductible gift recipients (DGRs). DGR status allows members of the public to receive income tax deductions for the donations they make to these organisations. The organisations are:
Together, the measures in this Bill represent a substantial enhancement to the tax and superannuation system, ensuring employers make the contributions they owe to employees, protecting the system against misuse, and supporting philanthropy.
Full details of the measures are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.
Treasury L aws A mendment (2018 S uperannuation Measures N o . 1) BILL 2018
The coalition government is introducing a new era of Superannuation Guarantee enforcement.
This government has introduced a robust package of legislation into parliament that will, when enacted, mean dodgy employers can't hide from their obligations to pay employees their full superannuation entitlements. That bill gives the ATO the tools it needs to detect future non-compliance and punish it appropriately, including with criminal sanctions in the most egregious cases.
But we know that historical non-compliance has been significant. Last year the ATO found that, while 95 per cent of superannuation guarantee obligations are paid in full, in 2014-15, around $2.85 billion went unpaid.
Some superannuation guarantee underpayment is malicious on the part of dodgy employers. Some is inadvertent, or is a result of poor payment systems, often in stressed small business employers. However in all cases, it's the employees who miss out.
This bill introduces a one-off amnesty to employers who come forward and do the right thing by their employees by rectifying historical non-compliance with their superannuation guarantee obligations.
To qualify, employers will have to come forward voluntarily, without direct prompting from the ATO. And they will have to pay all of their employees' entitlements.
We want employers to bring these debts out into the open and pay them off so that their employees can receive the super they are entitled to and would otherwise miss out on.
The bill offers both a carrot and a stick to encourage non-complying employers to come forward.
The bill does not reduce employees' entitlements by one cent. Everything that an employer owes to its employees must still be paid, and paid in full.
Rather, the bill removes the penalties and fees paid to the Commonwealth that might otherwise apply to historical superannuation guarantee non-compliance by employers that are eligible for the amnesty.
Employers who do the right thing and come forward during the amnesty period will also be able to claim tax deductions for payments made under the amnesty, which is the same outcome as if they had paid on time.
Those are the carrots.
The stick will be reserved for employers that could come forward during the amnesty, but choose not to do so and are subsequently caught by the ATO. Their failure to come forward will be taken into account by the ATO, which will generally impose a minimum 50 per cent penalty on the employer, on top of the other penalties and charges that are ordinarily associated with late payment of superannuation guarantee obligations.
Of course, throughout the amnesty period, the ATO will still continue its usual enforcement activity against employers for any historical non-compliance that they don't own up to voluntarily.
The amnesty runs for twelve months, beginning today, and applies to any historical superannuation guarantee debts up to and including the March quarter of 2018.
The bill also introduces an employer shortfall exemption certificate for certain employees with multiple employers. Currently, employees can breach the concessional contributions cap from compulsory contributions where they have multiple employers.
This measure will allow certain employees to avoid this outcome by applying to the Commissioner of Taxation for an exemption certificate in respect of one or more of their employers. A certificate will mean that their employer does not have to make Superannuation Guarantee contributions for them for up to one year. It will also mean employees are not forced to breach their concessional cap and enable those employees to instead choose to negotiate with their employer to receive the superannuation guarantee contribution as part of their cash or non-cash remuneration.
To be eligible for a certificate, an employee must be likely to have excess concessional contributions for the financial year and have a least one other employer who is required to make superannuation guarantee contributions for them in that year. This targets the measure to those employees likely to breach the concessional cap because they have multiple employers and ensures that employees still receive Superannuation Guarantee contributions from their employment.
The bill also introduces reforms to further support the operation and integrity of the Superannuation Taxation Reform Package announced in the 2016-17 budget. These measures ensure our superannuation system is fair, sustainable and used for its core purpose of providing income in retirement to substitute or supplement the age pension. The amendments also improve confidence in the system by reducing the extent that superannuation is used for tax minimisation and estate planning.
The amendments address the possibility of self-managed superannuation fund members' circumventing the cap on tax-free retirement phase assets through limited recourse borrowing arrangements or non-arm's length income.
The bill includes the outstanding value of limited recourse borrowing arrangements—or LRBAs—in the total superannuation balance of SMSF members at particular risk of entering into certain tax minimisation strategies. This measure will stop those members using LRBAs to circumvent the $1.6 million limit on non-concessional contributions.
The bill also amends the existing non-arm's length income rules to also capture non-arm's length expenses. This will ensure that superannuation funds cannot circumvent the contribution caps by using non-arm's length expenditure to inflate their overall income, for example, by borrowing money from a member at a reduced interest rate.
Full details of the measures are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
T reasury L aws A mendment (Accelerated D epreciation for S mall B usiness E ntities ) B ill 2018
The government is backing business with more competitive taxes to help Australian businesses invest, grow and employ more workers as well as pay them more.
The government has already legislated tax cuts for 3.3 million small and medium Australian businesses employing 6.8 million workers, as part of the Ten Year Enterprise Tax Plan.
We have increased the unincorporated small business tax discount rate from 5 per cent to 8 per cent (up to a cap of $1,000). This rate will increase to 16 per cent by 2026-27.
Further, by lifting the small business entity turnover threshold from $2 million to $10 million, access has also been extended to a range of small business tax concessions, such as the $20,000 instant asset write-off.
This bill continues the government's strong record of supporting small business to invest and grow by extending the successful $20,000 immediate deductibility threshold for a further 12 months to 30 June 2019.
Small businesses with annual turnover less than $10 million will be able to immediately deduct purchases of eligible assets each costing less than $20,000, which are first used or installed ready for use for another year to 30 June 2019.
Assets valued at $20,000 or more can continue to be placed into the small business simplified depreciation pool and depreciated at 15 per cent in the first income year and 30 per cent each income year thereafter. The pool itself may also be immediately deducted if its value falls below $20,000 at the end of the financial year.
To facilitate access to this measure, the 'lock-out rules' that stop small businesses that elect out of the simplified depreciation regime from re-entering it for five years will continue to be suspended until 30 June 2019.
This $20,000 instant asset write-off, first introduced in the 2015-16 budget, will continue to benefit small business, improving their cash flow and helping them to replace or upgrade their tools and equipment and write it off immediately.
This initiative reduces red-tape for small business as they no longer need to track the annual depreciation for assets that are written off immediately, or maintain detailed records substantiating their depreciation claims.
The extension of this measure is welcomed by the small business community.
Around 3.3 million incorporated and unincorporated businesses with aggregated annual turnover of less than $10 million will be eligible to access the $20,000 instant asset write-off.
It will boost activity and investment for another year, encouraging hardworking Australian small businesses to renew their capital base so that they can grow and create jobs.
The government has a plan for a stronger economy. We have a plan for keeping business competitive to grow jobs and wages.
Full details of the measure are contained in the explanatory memorandum.
I call on all members to give this measure their full support.
Debate adjourned.
Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.
I 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 have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows—
S ocial S ervices L egislation A mendment (C ashless D ebit C ard T rial E xpansion ) B ill 2018
This bill adds the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area as a cashless debit card trial area under the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 and specifies people who will be trial participants for the site, as well as exceptions. The bill will allow the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay trial site to operate until 30 June 2020, allowing time to implement the trial, and for it to operate for at least 12 months. The bill updates the current limitations on the number of participants from 10,000 to 15,000, recognising the increase that would come from implementing the cashless debit card to this area. The bill also introduces provisions that allow merchants to block restricted goods at the point of sale. This bill will support additional card functionality at merchants in each of the cashless debit card trial sites, and could allow trial participants to access additional merchants.
In line with this government's announcement on 21 September 2017, the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area will be the fourth cashless debit card site nationally. This bill continues our commitment to provide the cashless debit card as an additional tool to address social harm, particularly in this community.
Welfare payments are provided to people in need to help with essential living costs, in particular food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. The community expectation is that these payments will not be spent on harmful goods such as alcohol, gambling and drugs.
The cashless debit card aims to reduce the devastating effects of alcohol, drug and gambling abuse. The card operates like an ordinary debit card, with the primary difference being that it does not work at liquor stores or gambling houses and it cannot be used to withdraw cash. Consequently, illicit products cannot be purchased with the card.
The trial of the cashless debit card has been ongoing in Ceduna, South Australia and the East Kimberley, Western Australia for more than two years. In February this year, parliament passed legislation to allow the program to continue in these communities and be expanded to a third site, the Goldfields area in Western Australia, which commenced in March 2018.
This bill will allow the cashless debit card to be rolled out to a fourth site, the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area in Queensland, from later this year. The cashless debit card will operate in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay until 30 June 2020. This will allow time to roll-out the program in this area, and allow it to operate for a minimum of 12 months.
For the purposes of the bill, the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area has been defined as the federal electoral Division of Hinkler, in line with the electoral boundaries as at 31 May 2018.
The bill seeks to have the criteria for trial participants in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay site enshrined in legislation. Those persons living in this area aged under 36 years of age, and receiving Newstart allowance, youth allowance (Jobseeker), parenting payment (single) or parenting payment (partnered) would be transitioned onto the cashless debit card. This would impact around 6,700 people, and represents a more targeted approach to the one taken in Ceduna, South Australia and the East Kimberley and Goldfields in Western Australia. The bill also specifies that for the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay trial site, welfare recipients that are not included as trial participants may not volunteer for the cashless debit card. This will allow the government to test the impacts of the cashless debit card trial on people under 36 years of age in this region.
The criteria for trial participants also sets out some exceptions where a person would not be transitioned onto the card, drawing on policy parameters used in existing sites. This includes a provision for the secretary to exempt a person where inclusion in the trial would pose a serious risk to the person's mental, physical or emotional wellbeing.
Expansion of the cashless debit card under these criteria will allow the effectiveness of the program to be further tested and understood in the context of a larger urban population. It is also an opportunity to test the technology in a more diverse community. This area has a significantly higher non-Indigenous population than other sites currently operating.
The selection of the cohort in this area has occurred as a result of significant consultation with the impacted communities in the area. This is designed to help address key social problems identified during meetings with the community. In particular, high youth unemployment, intergenerational welfare dependence and local children whose needs are not being met.
According to regional youth unemployment data produced by the Queensland Government Statistician's Office, in March 2018, Wide Bay, which includes the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area, had a youth unemployment rate of 28.7 per cent. This is an increase of 4 per cent from March 2017. The youth unemployment rate for the state as a whole in March 2018 was 13.4 per cent.
Bundaberg and Hervey Bay has a high level of long-term and intergenerational welfare dependency. Children born to parents who are welfare dependent are more likely to become welfare dependent themselves.
Ninety per cent of the people in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay under 30 and on Newstart or youth allowance, had a parent or guardian who received income support at some point in the last 15 years. Further still, of that cohort, around 13 per cent had a parent or guardian who received income support at least once each year for the past 15 years.
A parent's attitudes to work, welfare, alcohol and drug consumption contributes to the likelihood of their child finding work, remaining on welfare or abusing alcohol or illegal drugs in the future.
Research by the Australian Research Council indicates that risk factors such as attitudes to work and welfare, attitudes towards alcohol and drug consumption, and family influences contribute to intergenerational welfare dependency. The ARC also found evidence that young people from welfare dependent families are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol or consume illegal drugs, thus highlighting the relationship that welfare dependence has on a young person's outcomes in life.
Across Australia, 46 per cent of people attending government-funded financial counselling for their problem gambling were also receiving a taxpayer-funded benefit. In the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area, this is much higher, with 73 per cent of the people attending problem gambling counselling receiving a benefit. Additionally, people attending financial counselling for their problem gambling in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area are more likely to have been on their current benefit for longer than five years, compared to other people in Australia attending problem gambling counselling.
The cashless debit card could help to stabilise the lives of young people in the area by limiting spending on alcohol, drugs and gambling, thus improving their chances of finding employment or successfully completing education or training. By targeting a younger cohort, we can influence positive behaviour change before welfare dependency becomes entrenched in a person's lifestyle.
We have seen that a 'spill-over' benefit of the card is that it can increase motivation to find work. As part of the Final Evaluation Report of the Cashless Debit Card Trial, we received feedback from some card participants in September 2017 that almost a quarter of people on the card are spending several hours a week looking for work. This is an increase from 11 per cent in February 2017.
As I have previously stated, the Department of Social Services has undertaken significant consultations with key stakeholders and community members. Specifically, between May and December 2017, over 188 meetings, including three community information sessions, were held across the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area.
A community reference group was established in late 2017 to work through local policy and implementation issues to ensure the cashless debit card is implemented effectively in their community. They have met four times.
Feedback from meetings undertaken in the area is that while services are available, sometimes they are not connecting effectively with those vulnerable people who might benefit the most from them. The government would work with key stakeholders in the area to determine the needs of local participants and any support they require.
Additionally, a local shopfront will be established with staff who could link people with existing services. Through the community reference group, the department will monitor service demand to ensure the cashless debit card is complemented by appropriate supports for people as they adjust to this change. For example, this will ensure participants who require assistance learning how to use the card can also receive help setting up budgets and get other financial planning support if needed.
Complementing the card will be a further investment in community services of $1 million. There are already a significant number of services in place, including 70 federally funded services across the area, which includes drug and alcohol services, financial capability services, employment and families' and children's programs.
The bill will allow the program to respond to unforeseeable circumstances, such as wide-scale power outages and natural disasters, allowing trial participants in Bundaberg and Hervey Bay to access their full payment as cash. This amendment will ensure participants and their families remain supported in the event of wide-scale emergencies.
The bill will also allow the option of establishing a community panel in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area to allow participants in the area to apply to have access to a higher portion of unrestricted funds. Consultations with community leaders in the area have indicated that independent community panels may be a useful tool in encouraging people to uphold social norms.
The expansion of the cashless debit card to the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area builds on findings in the final independent evaluation report, which found that the card had 'a significant positive impact' in the first two trial sites. According to the evaluation, the cashless debit card has been effective in reducing alcohol consumption and gambling in both trial sites and found the participants who reported drug use before the trial were using illegal drugs less often.
Across the two trial sites, 41 per cent of participants surveyed who drank before the trial started reported they drank less frequently.
Additionally, 37 per cent of participants who reported engaging in binge drinking before the trial said they were doing this less frequently.
In the East Kimberley specifically, of participants reporting that they drank alcohol before the trial commenced, 43 per cent reported drinking less at Wave 2.
Across the two sites, 48 per cent of people reported gambling less often. From April 2016 to March 2017, poker machine revenue in the Ceduna area was 12 per cent lower than in the same 12-month period before the trial started in March 2016. This is the equivalent of almost $550,000 less spent on poker machines in the 12-month trial.
The government is heartened by the initial positive findings. The expansion to the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area will help test the card, and the technology that supports it, in more diverse communities and settings. However, this rollout would retain the policy objective of the cashless debit card program in making sure income support payments are directed towards helping people to pay for their housing, food and other essential items, for individuals and their families.
The government has also announced a second evaluation of the cashless debit card across all three current trial sites, to assess the ongoing effectiveness of the program. The second evaluation will use research methodologies developed independently by the University of Queensland, and draw on the baseline measurements of social conditions in the Goldfields, developed by The University of Adelaide. Findings from the second evaluation will be published in late 2019.
To support the cashless debit card trial, this bill will strengthen the provisions that enable merchants to block the sale of restricted goods to trial participants at the point of sale. Merchants in trial sites will more readily be able to service participants of the program, through the option to implement product level blocking solutions, automatically blocking transactions where a participant is attempting to purchase restricted goods with the card.
In doing so, the bill also clarifies the restriction on 'cash-like' products, such as gift cards, vouchers, money orders, or digital currency, where these could be used to purchase alcohol and gambling products. These products are included as restricted goods, as has always been the intention of the program. Clarifying this provision to include 'cash-like' products will support product-level blocking amendments, and help prevent participants from circumventing the program and spending their welfare payments on alcohol, gambling and drugs.
The cashless debit card is a world first in how it operates. The evaluation has been conducted and it has been shown to work. Consultation in the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay area demonstrates it needs a way to break the cycle of welfare dependency, and help people manage their income and stabilise their lives. This bill will allow this to occur.
In accordance with standing order 115(3) further consideration of this bill is now adjourned to 14 August 2018.
These bills are being introduced together. After debate on the motion for the second reading has been adjourned, I shall move a motion to have the bills listed separately on the Notice Paper. I move:
That these bills may proceed without formalities, may be taken together and be now read a first time.
Question agreed to.
Bills read a first time.
I move:
That these bills be now read a second time.
I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speeches read as follows—
Australian Institute of Health a nd Welfare Amendment Bill 2018
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (the Institute) is recognised nationally and internationally as a leader in the production of data and statistics in health and welfare.
For 30 years the Institute has been at the forefront of supplying the evidence we need to inform national priorities. The Institute has significant data holdings and publishes around 180 reports annually. These reports are used to help inform evidence-based policy in the health, housing and welfare sectors.
The Institute is trusted by governments, researchers and the community for its independence and has become recognised as the single source of truth for reporting on the health of Australians, reporting on key social issues and measuring the performance of the Australian health and welfare systems.
The Institute has continued to evolve in a changing data landscape, with its data linkage activities helping to build an understanding of pathways within and across the health and welfare sectors. The Institute is well placed to meet the increasing demand for data linkage services, drawing on its expertise as an accredited Integrating Authority to undertake projects involving Commonwealth data for statistical and research purposes across a range of subject areas.
In 2015, an Independent Review of the Institute (the Independent Review) made a number of recommendations to improve the way the Institute operates. Most of the recommendations related to internal processes or administrative arrangements with its main partnering departments.
The Review also recommended moving to a skills-based Board.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act Amendment Bill 2018 builds on 30 years of success to modernise the Institute's governance and administration without compromising its independence or well-deserved reputation.
The major changes proposed by this Bill are a reduction in the size of the Institute's Board and streamlining appointment processes. The Board currently has 15 members and is a mix of ex-officio positions and other representative positions with prescribed eligibility requirements. Members cannot fulfil more than one role.
Unlike other similar agencies, these appointments are made, and if required, terminated, by the Governor-General.
This has led to a time-consuming and inefficient appointment process in identifying willing and suitable candidates that meet the relevant criteria and then seeking the approval of the Governor-General. It can also lead to lengthy vacancies when members resign unexpectedly.
Consistent with the recommendations of the Independent Review, this Bill proposes a skills-based Board appointed by the Minister for Health for terms of up to five years. This will provide the necessary strategic governance of the Institute to ensure it continues to grow its role across governments.
Members collectively will have skills or experience or significant standing in a range of fields including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and welfare, statistics, finance, business and law, as well as expertise in health, welfare and housing.
The Board will comprise 12 members, including a Chair, a Deputy Chair and the Institute's Chief Executive Officer.
The Institute could not do its job without the strong cooperation of the states and territories. To ensure that this continues, up to three members of the Board will be nominated by State Health Ministers. This will ensure that the Board maintains its linkages to the key policy advisers of governments to keep the Institute aligned with broader national policy.
The Bill will also ensure that decisions on the terms of employment for members, including terminations, resignations and leave of absences, will be the responsibility of the Minister for Health. This is consistent with the change in responsibilities for appointments from the Governor-General to the Minister for Health.
Other amendments include changing the title of the head of the Institute from Director to Chief Executive Officer and changing responsibility for the appointment of the Chief Executive Officer from the Minister for Health to the Board. This is consistent with the approach used by other Commonwealth Boards and reinforces that the Chief Executive Officer is directly accountable to the Board.
The measures will also remove the need for contract limits to be approved by the Minister. This change removes an unnecessary restriction on the Institute's business and is consistent with the requirements of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013.
The Bill will also remove the requirement for the Institute to seek agreement from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the collection of health and
welfare-related information and statistics. This is a relationship issue and provides the Institute with the flexibility to consult with the Australian Bureau of Statistics on such matters as necessary.
Transitional provisions are also introduced to ensure that the Chair and the Institute's Chief Executive Officer can continue in their positions for the balance of their current terms, as well as specifying delegation powers under the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987.
The Institute has rightfully earned its reputation across all levels of government as an independent leader in the provision of health, housing and welfare information. This Bill seeks to make the necessary improvements in governance and administration to ensure that this reputation continues to grow.
Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment Bill 2018
This Bill helps implement the Asia Region Funds Passport framework which the Government committed to by signing the international Memorandum of Cooperation in April 2016.
This Bill makes minor consequential amendments to the Corporations (Review Fees) Act 2003 (Review Fees Act) stemming from the Corporations Amendment (Asia Region Funds Passport) Bill 2018 (Passport Bill). It updates the definition of 'review date' to be consistent with the Passport Bill and includes notified foreign passport funds in the list of entities required to pay review fees.
Full details of the measure are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.
Treasury Laws Amendment (APRA Governance) Bill 2018
The Treasury Laws Amendment (APRA Governance) Bill 2018 bolsters the ability of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) to provide oversight of the Australian financial sector.
APRA is Australia's prudential regulator overseeing banks, credit unions, building societies, general insurance and reinsurance companies, life insurance, private health insurance, friendly societies and most of the superannuation industry.
It is an independent Commonwealth Government body set up under the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Act 1998 (APRA Act).
In recent years, APRA has had an extensive program of supervisory and policy work. It has implemented important reforms to bolster the soundness and stability of the Australian financial system, including those originating from the Financial System Inquiry that the Government initiated as well as the recently passed crisis management bill. This critical work must continue. In recent years, APRA has also rightly given greater attention to issues of governance, culture and accountability within the financial sector. This important work must also continue.
A good example of this is the recent prudential inquiry by APRA into the governance, culture and accountability within the CBA group. While CBA is undoubtedly financially sound and providing strong returns to shareholders, the APRA report showed that shortcomings in governance, inattention to aspects of risk management, and a complacent culture can occur without strong and constant vigilance by boards, who have the primary responsibility for the management of their institutions. To ensure they are up to the task, regulators must keep their spotlight on these issues too.
As part of doing this, APRA will, amongst other things, be heavily engaged in implementing recent reforms to the banking sector to improve the accountability of bank executives. It will also help foster competition and drive out complacency amongst incumbents by supporting the entry of new banks into the sector. Beyond banking, APRA's work on risk culture and remuneration will be very important across the financial sector as a whole. And there are a range of emerging issues – including cyber risks – that need on-going attention and focus.
The community benefits from a strong and capable prudential regulator, and the Government is committed to ensuring APRA at all times continues to have the strong and capable leadership necessary to fulfil its important role as the financial system evolves.
Under its enabling legislation, APRA is currently headed by an Executive Group consisting of not less than three and not more than five members. The terms and conditions of the appointment of members are set out in the APRA Act, and members are appointed by the Governor General. Currently one member must be appointed Chair, and another member may be appointed Deputy Chair.
Legislation has already been introduced to appoint a second Deputy Chairperson at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to enhance its effectiveness. The Government considers it appropriate this also occur for APRA.
The amendments in this Bill, by permitting a second Deputy Chair to be appointed, will provide greater flexibility in the way in which APRA is governed and for the allocation of responsibilities to each member. This helps to maximise the skills and capabilities available to APRA within its leadership.
In so doing, the changes can facilitate more oversight of the financial sector at this critical time, as well as allow the Chair to have a greater oversight of the entire system and of APRA's overall performance.
These amendments will enhance the ability of APRA to undertake its critical functions.
The ability to appoint up to two Deputy Chairs will assist with recruiting very senior and experienced members as needed, and so enhance the ability of the APRA Executive Group to manage new or more complex issues in the future.
Accordingly, it is entirely appropriate that the APRA Act to be amended so that a second Deputy Chairperson can be appointed if that is considered necessary.
The amendments would permit, but not require, that there be two deputy Chairs, thereby providing flexibility depending on the circumstances. Similarly, the legislation does not prescribe a particular role for each Deputy.
Full details of the measure are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.
Debate adjourned.
Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.
Proceedings suspended from 18:30 to 19:30
I move:
Business of the Senate notice of motion No. 2, standing in my name for today, proposing the disallowance of the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Concessional Application Fees) Regulations 2018.
Senators could be forgiven for thinking that this is groundhog day, because there has been a pattern of behaviour established, firstly, by government ministers who want to punish migrants, who want to attack multicultural Australia and who want to make it more difficult for people to become citizens, particularly people who are in financial difficulty; and, secondly, by the Senate.
We have seen the Senate time after time stand up against this government's divisive agenda. We saw it first during the debate around section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, when this government and its coalition partners in One Nation tried to basically make it easier to be a racist in this country by either abolishing completely or, in some cases, watering down section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Section 18C, of course, is the section of that act that protects against race based hate speech in Australia.
We've seen that pattern repeated through the divisive changes proposed by then immigration minister, Peter Dutton, to citizenship legislation, which would have drastically extended the length of time that an applicant needed to be a permanent resident before their application for citizenship could be considered and which attempted to introduce a university-level English language test. Remember the hallmark of the White Australia policy, which many of us believed and hoped that we had left behind forever, was, in fact, a language test that was applied in a particularly unfair way in order to give effect to the then bipartisan policy position of supporting a White Australia. We had, again, the Senate standing up in support of a motion moved by the Australian Greens striking that legislation off the Notice Paper late last year.
We have also seen that pattern more recently through the government's attempt to restrict family reunion visas to wealthy people by increasing the assurance of support that people need to provide before they can have their applications for family reunion visas considered. And, again, once the Australian Greens had put a motion forward to disallow those changes, and once the numbers had coalesced against the government, we saw the minister having the good sense to withdraw those changes in a negotiated outcome with the Australian Greens before the government were defeated in this place.
And now here we are, with the government trying to remove concession fees for people applying for citizenship. It's important to understand the changes that are in the instrument that the motion before the house is seeking to disallow. Previously, pensioners, healthcare card holders and veterans' affairs concession card holders were able to pay either $20 or $40 to apply for citizenship. This is instead of the $285 full fee. With the stroke of a pen, Minister Dutton has basically tried to erase these concessions. This is trademark arrogance from Minister Dutton, and it's a repeat of a pattern of behaviour where he tries to kick migrants and multicultural Australia in the guts and hopes that no-one notices or, if they do, hopes that no-one will stand up to him.
The Australian Greens have led the charge against Minister Dutton on every occasion, and we've held the line. It's worth recalling the massive community backlash against the government's attempts to water down section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. It's worth recalling there was a massive backlash from multicultural Australia in particular to the government's attempts to make it far more difficult to become a citizen in this country and to apply a university-level English test that applicants would be required to pass before they could become citizens. It's worth recalling the massive groundswell of support for the Australian Greens' motion to disallow the changes to assurances of support. What I want to say about those things—again, in the context of the motion that we're discussing today—is that these are the Australian people standing up and making it clear that they're not prepared to accept this kind of divisive and hate-filled agenda from the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, and more recently in his new role as the Minister for Home Affairs.
So as the Australian people have stood up and as the Australian people have rallied around the moves that the Australian Greens have made to hold the line against this divisive agenda, so we've seen other senators come to the party and stand up for multiculturalism and for multicultural Australia. I do want to thank the Labor Party, I want to thank the Centre Alliance party and I want to thank other senators who have supported our previous motions to strike off legislation or disallow instruments that had been made. And in the context of this motion, which I believe does have the numbers to pass the Senate this evening, I want to thank those people—Labor, the Centre Alliance party and Senator Hinch, as well as one of our newest senators, Senator Storer—for indicating their support for this motion. All of these senators, all of the political parties that I've mentioned in thanking people, and the Australian Greens are doing what we're doing because we believe that it reflects the fact that most Australians fundamentally believe in fairness. They believe in a fair go; they believe in helping people who are doing it tough. They want to see migrants be given the chance to succeed in our society.
We know about the story that has been quite prominent in the media over the last four months, the story of the family from Biloela who were ripped from their beds in the predawn hours and who have languished in immigration detention ever since. We know, importantly, from the response from the Biloela community to that change of events, that Australians do believe in a fair go and they believe in multiculturalism and they understand and celebrate the contribution that people from right around the world have made to our country through the period of our European history.
Australians don't believe in putting unfair barriers in people's way. They don't believe in putting unnecessary hurdles in people's way and requiring them to jump them. But that's exactly what we're seeing time after time after time from this government: unfair barriers and unnecessary hurdles. Again, in the context of this debate, abolishing concessional rates for applications for citizenship hits hardest those who can least afford it. I've spoken about patterns of behaviour. This is another pattern of behaviour from this government. The government have a track record of punitive responses to people who are in financial difficulties. You only have to look at the way they treat people on unemployment benefits. We've seen the robo-debt saga, where people were extremely distressed to receive automatically generated debt notices in the mail from Centrelink, many of which didn't have a leg to stand on in terms of a relationship with reality. But, no, the government go ahead and continue to try to punish and make life difficult for people who are already facing the highest level of difficulties in their lives.
We've seen the attacks on multiculturalism, we've seen the attacks on multicultural Australia, we've seen the pattern of attacking people who are doing it tough, and the instrument that this motion seeks to disallow fits all of those patterns. It is an attack on multiculturalism; it is an attack on multicultural Australia. It's designed specifically to make it more difficult for more people to become citizens of Australia and it repeats the pattern of behaviour we've seen from this government where they take some glee, it seems, in making life harder for people who already have far too many challenges in their lives.
While the government believe in unfair barriers and unnecessary hurdles, the Greens do not. We believe in things like fairness, we believe in things like decency and we believe in things like not just respecting diversity but celebrating diversity. It's diversity that makes this country what it is. It's diversity that we should be celebrating and encouraging, not criticising and trying to discourage. We'll stand on the side of fairness, we'll stand on the side of diversity, we'll stand on the side of multiculturalism and we'll stand up—and our track record shows conclusively that we do—against this government's divisive political agenda, attacking multicultural Australia and attacking people who are doing it tough.
I thank the senators who will shortly support this motion and say to them that, together in this chamber today—democracy in action; a chamber where the government cannot, through sheer weight of numbers, determine on its own an outcome—we will again strike a blow for fairness, a blow for diversity, a blow for multicultural Australia and a blow for this government that appears to understand none of those concepts.
Labor supports this disallowance motion. The proposal by the government is unnecessary and unfair. The current Australian Citizenship Regulation 2016 provides for concession rates of $20 to $40 for citizenship for migrant pensioners, veterans, widows and some others who qualify under schedule 3 of the regulation. This change will remove those concessions. So, from 1 July 2018, groups such as migrant pensioners, veterans and widows will have to pay the full fee of $285 when applying for citizenship. The government wants increased fees for migrant pensioners, veterans and widows to go from between $20 and $40 to $285.
The aim of the concessions is to provide greater access to Australian citizenship for those of disadvantaged backgrounds. The Minister for Home Affairs lodged the legislative instrument on 7 June to repeal these concessions. It specifically repeals table items 10 to 13 and 17 of schedule 3. There is no other way to describe these changes than unfair, unnecessary and mean-spirited. These changes mostly affect those holding pensioner concession cards who receive forms of welfare, including Newstart, pension, disability support or parenting payment. We're talking about veterans with pensioner cards who receive income support payments, including payments for aged service, invalid service or partner service, also losing their ability to access a discount.
In 2016-17 a total of 137,750 people became Australian citizens by conferral from at least 190 different countries. This measure is expected to affect three per cent of applications. This change aligns with the broader government agenda to attack migrants and reduce the number of new citizens. In June last year the government also tried to change the rules around people acquiring Australian citizenship, in introducing the Australian Citizenship Amendment Bill 2017. Despite significant changes being proposed, the government could not provide any evidence that the changes were based on anything other than a report by Mr Philip Ruddock and Senator Fierravanti-Wells. The community opposed this bill, Labor opposed the bill, and it was struck off the Notice Paper last October.
Over 10,000 submissions were lodged with the citizenship bill inquiry and only a small number were in favour of the changes, one of those being from Minister Dutton's own department. The inquiry heard stories about the sense of belonging and community that citizenship gives to new migrants. Evidence given in the inquiry found that over two million Australians would not pass the proposed English language test either. These unfair changes would increase the pathway to citizenship to over 10 years, causing unnecessary delays to good people. The university English test would result in a permanent underclass where people live in Australia permanently but never get to pledge allegiance to Australia and become a citizen.
The proposed legislation also stated that a person could be deemed as having competent English if they were a passport holder of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Canada, the United States of America or New Zealand. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights report said in regard to the university-level English test that 'the measure appears likely to be incompatible with the right to equality and nondiscrimination'. The report also confirmed Labor's questions around the evidence base and the rationale provided by the government to justify the unfair measures, stating that some outcomes could be averse to social cohesion and 'concerns remain that the measure may not be rationally connected to its stated objective'. The citizenship test is already in English, and Labor supports people having conversational-level English. Minister Dutton proposed to increase the English language level requirement to level 6 university-level English. That failed. Now Minister Tudge has talked about reintroducing the legislation with a lower level of English needed for applicants to pass the language test.
Recently in Senate estimates when asked whether the department was providing information to Minister Tudge on citizenship, the department confirmed it was. When asked whether further research into the English language requirement for new citizens had been undertaken or sought, the department took the question on notice. This reveals that the government's proposed citizenship legislation is policy on the run—mean spirited and unfounded thought bubbles formed firstly by Minister Dutton and now by Minister Tudge. The government has been unable to illustrate why these changes are still under consideration. Labor has always said that people need to pledge allegiance to Australia and commit to the values of the nation, but we don't support unfair changes that have no credible basis.
I will take a few minutes to turn to Mr Tudge's claims. In speeches and in media Minister Tudge has claimed that he has focused on cohesion to avoid, and I quote, 'parallel' communities and that there was a reduced level of English capability. These claims were questioned in a The Sydney Morning Herald article by Jacqueline Maley on the weekend:
Tudge cited a scary statistic - he said that by 2021, Australia will be home to 1 million people who either don't speak English well, or don't speak it at all.
He reached the 1 million figure by extrapolating from Australian Bureau of Statistics data, which shows that in 2006, about 560,000 people in Australia did not speak English well or at all. By 2016, the figure was almost 820,000, which sounds like a lot.
But as the minister later acknowledged, these figures are absolute - as the population grows, and the overall number of migrants increases, so will the number of people whose English is poor.
That doesn't mean the problem (if you see a lack of English proficiency as a problem, and many don't) is worsening. It's more instructive to look at the proportion of migrants who don't speak English well or at all.
According to the minister, that proportion has increased, from 18.6 per cent of new migrants in 2006, to 24 per cent of migrants in 2016.
But an alternative analysis of the same data, by Ingrid Piller, a professor of applied linguistics at Macquarie University, shows the proportion of people who speak English not well or not at all has actually declined slightly. Piller finds that in 2006, 17.5 per cent of migrants spoke poor English, and in 2016, the proportion was 16.6 per cent.
Minister Tudge also quotes the Scanlon report in his speeches. The part he forgets to quote is that the report also found that 83 per cent of respondents agreed that multiculturalism has been good for Australia. It's this kind of selective reporting that Minister Dutton tried to push and failed, and which now Minister Tudge is pushing.
We also see an attack on citizenship through neglect. Since March 2016 processing times for citizenship applications have increased from 12 to 16 months. The department confirmed this extension of wait times for applicants and said it had hired some staff to assist with processing applications. The department has also confirmed that complaints regarding citizenship applications have increased. The delays are causing distress and hurting people who have spent years in Australia studying, working, buying a house and raising children. All they want is to be able to pledge allegiance to this country and live here as citizens.
Labor cannot and will not support the changes by the government. We support the disallowance motion. We want it to be on the record that modern Australia and multicultural Australia are the same thing. Anyone who thinks differently is living in the past and, in the case of the government, is trying to create division for political purposes only.
The government opposes this disallowance. I heard both Senator McKim and Senator Brown, and, as somebody who has spent over 35 years in what is multicultural and diverse Australia, I have to say that some of the assertions that were made by both Senator McKim and Senator Brown are plainly wrong.
Since World War II, this government has welcomed 7.5 million migrants, including about 850,000 under our humanitarian program. Indeed, my parents were part of that migrant cohort that came to Australia. The reality is that any examination of issues pertinent to citizenship English and English language is vitally important. When we were predominantly a manufacturing based economy, English was not as important, but today English is very important.
Also, this disallowance motion is not about the sorts of things that both Senator McKim and Senator Brown were talking about. This is, plain and simple, about citizenship applications fees. Currently, citizenship application fees do not cover the increasing costs of administering the program. These changes will in some part offset that rise. The changing profile of applicants—including those with complex identity issues that need to be assessed—and strengthened integrity screening, biometrics capture and regional testing have all have driven the increased costs. It should be noted that the costs of applying for Australian citizenship is significantly lower—and I want to stress that—than comparable OECD countries. In the UK it is $1,995, in the United States it's $940, in Canada it's $595 and in New Zealand it's $440. Also, only three per cent of applicants were eligible for a concession over the past year. So, the figures Senator Brown and Senator McKim have sought to tell us about this evening are totally overblown.
The question is that the disallowance motion moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.
When I was interrupted before question time, I was noting how the Water Amendment Bill 2018 is the result of a dirty deal between the Labor Party and the Nationals and how tragic this was, and the sad and sorry history of how the Basin Plan has been a political fix-up since day 1.
Let's listen to some more evidence from the South Australian royal commission that backs this up. How about the evidence from David Bell, a water planner who worked at the authority from 2009 until his retirement in 2017?
He said in his submission that he was hastily given the task of identifying the key environmental sites in the basin and to go away for half an hour and come up with an estimate of the sustainable diversion limit. He said, 'From memory, I came up with a recovery number in the vicinity of 4,000 to 4,500 gigalitres.' The target, though, was subsequently reduced to a number beginning with two because those responsible for landing the plan politically, including the then federal Labor water minister, Tony Burke, didn't think they could get away with a number as high as he and other scientists were recommending. That is how we ended up with a Basin Plan with only 2,750 gigalitres of environmental flows—and we are talking about reducing that level.
I want to paint a picture of what this lack of water means in a pretty special part of Victoria. Sadly, the devastation of not having enough water isn't just restricted to iconic localities like the Coorong or the Darling River. I had the great privilege last month of visiting the Murray near Swan Hill in northern Victoria to attend a local forum about the water in the river, meet some farmers, visit a local orchard whose future depends upon a healthy river and visit the Nyah-Vinifera river red gum forests with one of the traditional owners of this land, Wadi Wadi man Cain Chaplin. I want to give a call-out to Jackie Kelly and Morgana Russell, who organised my trip, orchardist Peter Thornton, from Woorinen, and the local campaigners for the river that I met with, including Nicky Mackay and, in particular, Cain, who was so generous with his time as he led us on a tour of the forests.
These are the people that I'm thinking about as we debate this bill. I'm thinking about the attendees of the public forum that I attended. They were ordinary residents of country Victoria—farmers, irrigators, townspeople from Swan Hill, Nyah and as far afield as Mildura, the local Indigenous community and representatives of Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations. Many were older folk who had lived on and near the river all their lives. They were absolute salt-of-the-earth folk. They had some simple requests at this forum. They asked that any amendments to the Basin Plan secure enough water for the Murray to flow across flood plains and all the way out to sea. They wanted to see guaranteed delivery of the additional 450 gigalitres of water that was promised as part of the Basin Plan recommendations for rivers, wetlands and flood plains. They wanted to ensure that any projects that justify taking more water from the river will unequivocally benefit communities and wildlife and meet the requirements of the Basin Plan, and they wanted to see the removal of physical barriers and rules that stop water getting to wetlands. By this bill tonight, these people are being sold out.
I'm thinking of irrigation farmers Peter and Graeme Thornton, whose orchards we toured. They know that they haven't got a healthy future unless the river has a healthy future. They want to see more water returned to the river, not less. Peter and Graeme and other irrigation farmers of northern Victoria are being sold out. Today's Water Amendment Bill is going to remove another 70 gigalitres from the already compromised Basin Plan, on top of the 605 gigalitres of so-called southern SDL water, on the basis that somehow a series of yet-to-be-developed infrastructure projects—projects for which there are no business plans—will mean that that environmental water will be able to be used more efficiently, so the 675 gigalitres won't be needed anymore. It is patently ridiculous. It is scientifically, socially and economically unsubstantiated. Anyone who believes it's going to work, that it's going to ensure the health of the river, is in cloud-cuckoo-land.
The reality is that the tragic impact of not having enough water will continue to be felt across the basin from the Darling to the Coorong—and at Swan Hill and Nyah in between. It was a privilege, but it was sobering and sad to walk the Nyah-Vinifera river red gum forests with people who love them, who know them well and who are devastated as they see the forests dying before their very eyes. To stay healthy, river red gum forests need to be inundated with water every few years and these forests haven't been. These forests are used to getting by without enough inundation in dry years as long as they get flooded in wet ones. But since the millennium drought broke in 2010, these forests should have been getting enough water over the last eight years to revive them after the devastation of that long drought, but they haven't. Not enough water has been allowed to flow. Too much water has been captured and used upstream, and the results of not enough water are as inevitable as they are inexcusable.
It was obvious, as I toured this area, that this precious remnant of forest was under serious stress. Every large tree showed evidence of that stress. You could look up and see the branches dying on these wonderful river red gum trees. There were problems with weed infestation through the forest because of the lack of inundation. Previously if you got enough inundation, the weeds would get drowned out but, without enough water, the weeds are expanding. And there is a fire risk that's developing because of the lack of water. Again, if you get enough water, the fire risk disappears.
It was not just an environmental tragedy that we were seeing there; it was a cultural tragedy. Traditional owner Cain Chaplin shared his knowledge with us of this cultural landscape—one which, for tens of thousands of years, has supported thriving communities, abundant wildlife in a healthy system in a river of fertile soils and wetlands. And I felt his pain—his responsibility to his ancestors, to his elders and to future generations as he's doing the best he can to protect his country, to protect their traditional lands, but seeing the river red gum forest dying before his very eyes. This forest is just a small remnant of a forest that covered a much larger area presettlement, most of which has been lost due to logging and clearing and yet, now, even these small remnants that escaped being cleared are dying because of the lack of water. This is exactly the sort of water issue that the Murray-Darling plan was set up to resolve. Yet this bill and the previous one are signing off on taking more water away from the river, decreasing the water allocations to the environment, and signing off on decreasing the amount of water from an already inadequate 2,750 gigalitres by a massive 675 gigalitres—including the southern so-called sustainable diversion limits and the 70 gigalitres that this bill allows to be brought forward.
Let me share with you what these so-called sustainable diversion limit projects that mean the river environment can cope with less water look like in the Nyah-Vinifera forests. The SDL projects that are planned for these forests are levees, locks and concrete weirs that are going to open up and shut off parts of the flood plain. There are plans to raise the height of the currently very simple forest tracks to essentially make them almost super highways, separating the river from the flood plain. These projects are planned around the theory that instead of allowing water to flow through the flood plains, you can make do with less if you let the water sit there for a while; therefore you don't need as much water. But even if they work, even if this irrigation model works and we don't end up with blackwater events because of the water being stagnant where it was once flowing through, these sustainable diversion limit projects are only going to allow 53 per cent of this forest to be irrigated. Only 53 per cent will have water flowing through it. So we are spending billions of dollars on these unproven projects that are going to industrialise the forest, that very possibly won't work, and we will still leave almost half the forest as sacrifice zones destined to die a long, slow death.
No, this bill will not meet the requests of the people attending the public forum in Swan Hill. It certainly won't be securing enough water so that the Murray can flow across flood plains and all the way out to sea. It will reduce rather than guarantee the delivery of additional water. There is no assurance that the projects proposed under the sustainable diversion limits will benefit communities and wildlife, and it's going to create rather than remove physical barriers and rules that stop water getting to the wetlands. It is just making a bad plan worse, a plan in itself that is a fraud on the environment. It's being signed off by the Labor Party hand in hand with the Nationals and the Liberal Party. It's being signed off because the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, no matter how flawed, is seen as Tony Burke's legacy. To admit that his plan is not delivering from the basin is to admit that he got it wrong when he was minister. Labor are sacrificing our river rather than acknowledging that.
Politics has weakened the Murray-Darling Basin Plan every step of the way, and every time the plan gets weaker the river gets worse. We in the Greens think it is about time that politics worked for the river not against it. The Water Act says that the basin plan needs to meet an environmentally sustainable level of take. This is defined in the act on purely environmental terms. But the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has made it clear, time and time again, that it doesn't interpret that environmentally sustainable level of take purely on environmental terms. The big question before us, even before today's severely compromised bill, is whether the 2,750 gigalitres is an environmentally sustainable level of take. In other words, does our current water-recovery target actually allow the river to survive? If it doesn't, the biggest threat to the river is the basin plan itself. You can't compromise on the survival of a river.
In 2010 the Murray-Darling Basin Authority had a guide to the proposed basin plan. It said that a reduction in environmental flows of 3,856 gigalitres would still have a high uncertainty of achieving environmental water requirements. Almost 6,983 gigalitres would have a low level of uncertainty. So even if we had a 3,800 gigalitre recovery target that wouldn't be enough to guarantee the river's survival. Yet we are debating not only the 2,750 gigalitre target but also the removal of water from that target. It is destined to completely compromise and damage the river.
In the words of the South Australian royal commissioner, the legal basis for this compromise that we're voting to enable today is 'not maintainable'. It is 'a legal error'. Finally, he says that if the SDLs for the basin plan do 'not reflect an environmentally sustainable level of take', there is a 'real risk' that all or part of the Basin Plan is 'unlawful'. This is a hugely serious allegation and it has enormous and wide-ranging implications. We shouldn't be voting on this bill today. The whole Murray-Darling Basin Plan will need to be looked at again after the royal commission has concluded. We should not be making conditions even worse for the river while the royal commission's work is underway.
This is much more than a minor vote to correct a legal error, to get over the fact that the Senate disallowed the 70-gigalitre northern basin SDLs before Labor rolled over. If the Basin Plan is unlawful, then a vote on the northern basin amendment, which is not what's best for the environment, would be much more than a legal error. You can't call it a legal error when you've had it brought to your attention and you do nothing about it. It's a wilful dismissal of the law. It's not an honest mistake. It is something that's much worse.
The Greens do not support this bill and do not believe that the Senate should be supporting this bill. The Senate should not be voting on something as serious as the survival of the vast reaches and flows of the mighty Murray-Darling when we are aware that what we are voting on is potentially unlawful. To do so, to sell out every member of every community—every wetland, every billabong, every reach of every creek and river of the whole basin—is to sell out every Australian, all Australian society and all the precious environmental life-support systems that we all depend upon.
Can I just foreshadow that, at the end of my contribution, I will be moving an amendment which has been circulated in the chamber. This bill, the Water Amendment Bill 2018, introduces a new direction power to the Water Act 2007. This power will enable the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources to direct the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to promptly prepare an instrument that has the same effect as a previously disallowed Basin Plan amendment. It is a bill that will provide certainty to irrigators and communities and to basin states. Importantly, it will allow the Australian government to achieve the key objective: to deliver the Murray-Darling Basin Plan on time and in full. As a nation, we want a sustainable, thriving basin to support farmers, communities and the environment, and this is what this bill supports.
The Basin Plan is now back on track, with the welcome support of the federal opposition. This bipartisanship is critical for communities, particularly the small towns and communities that rely on the Murray-Darling Basin for their very livelihoods. Since the 14 February disallowance of the Northern Basin Review instrument, there has been anxiety about the future of those communities. The government is pleased that the federal opposition could again join us on the journey to deliver the plan. It is exactly what these communities need from their representatives in Canberra.
We look forward to implementing the measures agreed through the bipartisan agreement as soon as possible. The measures will build confidence and enhance community engagement in the implementation of the plan. These measures were based on the best available science and data. They were recommended by the independent Murray-Darling Basin Authority, following a series of reviews and a long and fulsome consultation process, and were developed fully in line with the requirements of the Water Act 2007.
The Greens amendment that is before us proposes to remove the 'neutral or improved' socioeconomic test for the delivery of the 450 gigalitres of efficiency measures. This amendment is unnecessary and therefore is not supported by the government. This requirement for efficiency measures to achieve neutral or beneficial socioeconomic outcomes is absolutely fundamental to implementing the Basin Plan, and removing this test puts at risk the delivery of the 450 gigalitres of efficiency measures by the basin states. What the Greens amendment does is deliver more uncertainty for our river communities. Once again, the Greens are proving that they don't really care about the people who live and work along the river. They have no regard for a balanced approach. They simply ignore the science when it doesn't fit with their view of what they want. The Greens amendment is an unwarranted distraction from the important task that is before us: delivering the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
The new directions power in this bill is subject to a number of strict limitations. The minister can only use the power within 12 months of the disallowance. The amendment prepared under the direction power must be the same in effect as the disallowance amendment. This means it must achieve the same outcome. The amendment prepared under the directions power is required by the Legislation Act 2003 to be tabled before both houses as a disallowable instrument for 15 sitting days. Therefore, the process of the disallowance remains. The power is only available if the previous disallowance instrument has been through the consultation requirements as set out by the Water Act. These limitations mean that the integrity of the consultation process that a disallowance amendment has been through is preserved.
In its report published on 12 June 2018 the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee recommended that the Senate pass this bill. Not surprisingly, the Australian Greens put in a dissenting report. The Senate committee's report on the bill contained an error, which I'd seek to correct. The report states that the Basin Plan amendment made under the provisions of the proposed new section 49AA would not be a disallowable instrument. This is, in fact, incorrect. The amendment is made under section 49AA. The direction is a disallowable instrument. I believe that the committee secretariat has published and will table the correction.
In conclusion, the government can now get on with implementing the Basin Plan. The next steps on this pathway are the remaking of the Northern Basin Review. This will provide certainty to basin states and communities, as the states prepare Basin-Plan-compliant water-resource plans, in consultation with water users. More importantly, communities across the Murray-Darling Basin want to see the Basin Plan succeed. They want a healthy river system that supports both their livelihoods and the environment well into the future.
Before I commend the bill to the house I'd like to respond to Senator Bernardi regarding the South Australian royal commission. The South Australian royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was announced by the South Australian government on 26 November 2017. This followed a number of allegations, including a Four Corners report about water theft and noncompliance, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland. At the time, the Commonwealth agreed to cooperate with the royal commission insofar as it related to compliance. In fact, the Prime Minister wrote to the South Australian government to this effect on 18 January 2018. On 23 January the South Australian government formally established the royal commission, and the terms of reference that we saw at the time were far broader than the compliance intentions originally flagged by the South Australian government as the reason for its establishment of the royal commission. At the time, there was certainly a change in position from the South Australian government and the royal commission as to what they would be seeking to prosecute by the establishment of the commission.
Again, in April and May 2018 the royal commission released two issues papers and two explanatory memorandums outlining the areas of particular interest that it intended to pursue. In the latest issues paper, on 30 April, the commissioner suggested that the Basin Plan 2012 was unlawful. In this regard, the Australian government is confident of the legal underpinnings of the Basin Plan. In addition to requiring that the Commonwealth produce legal advice on the validity of the Basin Plan in the Water Act 2007, the commission issued formal summonses to the Commonwealth officers on 31 May and 1 June 2018. The Commonwealth's view is that the royal commission cannot compel Commonwealth entities and officials to provide documents and give evidence, and has commenced proceedings in the High Court to obtain a ruling on this matter. It has been joined by the Western Australian and Tasmanian governments, as well as the South Australian government. As this matter is now before the High Court, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further. However, the South Australian royal commission must not be a distraction from implementing the plan, and the government's priority is to continue to ensure that the Basin Plan is delivered on time and in full.
Before I commend this bill to the house I'll move the amendment that I foreshadowed at the beginning of my contribution, which has been circulated in the chamber:
At the end of the motion, add:
"and for the purposes of subsection 48(2) of the Legislation Act 2003, the Senate approves the making of an instrument the same in substance as the Basin Plan Amendment Instrument 2017 (No. 1), which was disallowed by the Senate on 14 February 2018".
I commend this bill to the house. Thank you, minister.
The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Ruston be agreed to.
The question is that the bill, as amended, be read a second time.
I move:
(1) Page 6 (after line 11) , at the end of the Bill, add:
Schedule 2 — Modifications of Basin Plan
Water Act 2007
1 At the end of Part 2AA
Add:
86AK Primacy of environmental considerations in delivering 450 GL of additional environmental water—modifications of Basin Plan 2012
(1) Section 7.09 of the Basin Plan 2012 has effect as if:
(a) the words “while maintaining or improving social and economic outcomes” were omitted from paragraph (a) of that section; and
(b) the words “economic, social and” were omitted from paragraph (d) of that section; and
(c) the words “and benchmark conditions of development” were omitted from paragraph (d) of that section.
(2) Subsection 7.17(2) of the Basin Plan 2012 has effect as if paragraph (b) of that subsection (including the heading) were omitted and substituted with the following:
Improved environmental outcomes
(b) The efficiency contributions to the proposed adjustments achieve improved environmental outcomes compared with the benchmark environmental outcomes.
2 Application
(1) The modifications of the Basin Plan 2012 made by subsection 86AK(1) of the Water Act 2007 , as inserted by this Schedule, apply in relation to a supply measure or an efficiency measure, whether the supply measure, or the efficiency measure, was notified under section 7.12 of the Basin Plan 2012 before, on or after the commencement of this item.
(2) The modifications of the Basin Plan 2012 made by subsection 86AK(2) of the Water Act 2007 , as inserted by this Schedule, apply in relation to an efficiency contribution that relates to an efficiency measure, whether the efficiency measure was notified under section 7.12 of the Basin Plan 2012 before, on or after the commencement of this item.
I circulated the amendment in this chamber and it was referred to a number of times already through the second reading debate. This amendment seeks to ensure that the promised 450 gigalitres that was essential in securing South Australia's support for the original Murray-Darling Basin Plan is in law, that we lock it in so that it happens.
We know that back in 2012, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was finalised and voted on in this place on the basis that the remaining 450 gigalitres were to be promised. Yet what we've seen to date is that every time there is an opportunity for Victoria, New South Wales or, indeed, the big corporate irrigators to run an argument against delivering the 450 gigalitres, they take it.
Last year there was the exposure of the corruption going on throughout the Murray-Darling Basin, particularly in the northern basin, which is what this overall bill deals with in terms of water in that area. I must point out that it doesn't deal with the corruption, the rorting or the fact that more water is being taken out of the system than the river can manage, but it does indeed deal with the northern basin. Every time these allegations were raised, we had Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and the big irrigators saying, 'Well, if you try to hold us to account, we won't give you the 450.' Over and over and over again, we've seen upstream states hold the river, South Australia and the environment to ransom. Indeed, I would argue that they try to hold the Senate to ransom as well, because every time we raise issues of what's going on in the Murray-Darling Basin, we get told, 'We're going to run away from the Basin Plan and you'll never get your extra 450 gigalitres.' It's not good enough. This is absolutely not on.
This amendment says: 'Okay, if we agree in this place, and if the states have all agreed'—which they say they have—'that this 450 gigalitres of water is required to meet the objectives of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, to keep the river alive and to ensure that the environment is looked after, then let's put it in law. Let's make sure it's locked in, that it must be delivered and that it can be delivered, and not give any wriggle room to those who want to continually stifle the opportunity for us to return the water to the river.' We need this 450 gigalitres, as previously promised, to ensure that the environment thrives, that the Murray mouth is able to stay open and that our Coorong and the Lower Lakes in South Australia can survive. The 450 gigalitres is critical to the achievement of the plan's original intention—the ultimate purpose—to restore water to the river to keep the river alive. If we don't, in five years time, 10 years time or 20 years time there isn't going to be a river. There won't be enough water left in the Murray-Darling Basin for the farms that rely on it or for the communities that rely on it. For those of us living in South Australia, at the bottom of the system, we already know how vital it is to ensure that we restore the river's health. Already, we can see that as the drying periods are coming upon us, there just isn't the water in the river to keep it flourishing and alive.
For South Australians, this amendment is crucial. Our state was promised this water. It's time we put it in law and make it a reality. For South Australians, this isn't just about a number of 450 gigalitres; it's the difference between clearing out the salt of the Coorong and the Lower Lakes and not. It's the difference between keeping the mouth of the Murray open and not. It's the difference between watering 35,000 hectares of flood plains and not. Without the 450 gigalitres guaranteed and delivered, the whole purpose of the plan is put into jeopardy. Without this water, the river is put into jeopardy. It is a core component to the whole objective of having a plan to manage the Murray-Darling Basin so that the water is shared equally and that the river can flow from one end to the other and keep the river system alive. It is not optional. This 450 gigalitres is the difference between life and death for the river.
Our position when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin plan has been consistent all the way along. It needed to be based on the best available science, and science said we needed at least 4,000 gigalitres to give the river any hope of survival. This is the science of the CSIRO—originally the MDBA—despite which, we know now, they've watered that down, they've reduced that number, because of political interference not because the facts support it.
The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has also said that 4,000 gigalitres is the bare minimum. Yet this plan didn't even deliver that. This total amount gets reduced, gets cut down further and further and further. All this amendment bill tonight is doing is saying: let's at least sandbag the 450 that was promised and is yet to be delivered.
It's the science that matters here. The science says climate change isn't a trivial omission from the original plan. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan doesn't even talk about climate change. Yet already we have this government, other upstream states and the big corporate irrigators finding every which way to reduce the amount of water that should be returned to the environment through this process. The science says that you can't rely on historical water flows to calculate the future needs of a rapidly warming planet, yet none of these figures are even factored into these calculations. All the science says this 450 gigalitres is what is needed. All the science says we actually need more.
This amendment makes sure we can at least secure what the original intent was. The delivery of the 450 gigalitres is currently contingent on it being demonstrated that there is no negative social or economic impact. If we don't deliver the 450 gigalitres we will find out that there ain't going to be a river in generations to come. The next time the drought hits, as the climate warms, there is not going to be enough water in the river for it to survive. This requirement that the government stands up and spruiks day in and day out on this issue is meaningless. They misunderstand that, unless you have a strong underpinning of guaranteed water for the environment, the river is going to die; and that is the ultimate impact on the socio-economic issues for the basin and the basin communities.
If we're serious about looking after the communities, they need to know that the river's survival is paramount and that it is supported by the figures that are being passed and endorsed in this place, and not just for this year and not just for five years time but for decades. For decades we have debated how we share the amount of water in this river fairly, and for decades it's been the environment and the river that continue to be short-changed. Ultimately, it's the communities who rely on a healthy river that will suffer; it's not the big corporate irrigators, who're going to bank all their money and put all the cash, paid for by the taxpayer, in their back pockets and bugger off after this process is finished. They're not the ones who're going to be upset when the river's not healthy; it's going to be the communities that are left there with a river that is unhealthy and can't sustain and underpin those communities.
This amendment removes the requirement that the delivery of 450 gigalitres is simply a condition of it having neutral or positive socio-economic impacts. And that is because these are a farce; they don't tell the true story to those communities who desperately want to know that the river is going to be there for the future—not just for the end of this government's term, not just to when the end of this planned process has finalised. They want to know that this river is going to sustain them into the future for generations to come. Calculate that into your impact on socioeconomic factors. If that were the true calculation, this government would not be finding every which way to reduce the amount of water that's being returned to the environment and the river.
We know that we just can't trust the state governments of Victoria and New South Wales on this issue. Every single time they have an opportunity to slam the delivery of the 450 gigalitres or wriggle out of it, they take it; they try to manoeuvre themselves so they don't have to be part of this process. Give them an inch and they take a mile. That's what the Victorian and New South Wales governments are doing at the behest of the big corporate irrigators upstream. They don't give two hoots about what happens to the health of the river in years to come. They don't give a damn about what happens to the communities that rely on the river, and they certainly don't care about what happens in South Australia at the end of the river system. During the process of the negotiations over the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the only way South Australia would come to the table—reluctantly—was if this 450 gigalitres was delivered. This was reluctantly agreed to at the time by the upstream states and the federal government. It wasn't put into legislation; it was simply: 'Oh, yes, when we get to it—wink, wink, nudge, nudge.' It was a side deal. As a result, exactly what we thought would happen did. Those who never wanted it on the table in the first place are now the first to say it should be done away with.
For those in this place tonight who are from South Australia—and there are a number of us—I implore you to think very carefully about what this amendment will mean for our home state. We were promised this water. What is the excuse for not putting it in the legislation? The assistant minister is going to stand up and say, 'It can't be done.' That's only because the upstream states have bullied your government so badly. It's only because, on this issue, the upstream members of your own party room have you bent over a barrel singing the tune of the big corporate irrigators. They are never going to do what is right by the river. They don't care about the health of the system going forward, and they certainly don't care about the communities and the smaller farms throughout the basin.
I have spent quite a bit of time in the last few weeks down at the Lower Lakes and the Coorong in South Australia, talking to locals about what's going on down there. They are in despair. People in the electorate of Mayo are in despair. Of course, the bottom of the river system is right there. After years of debate on this issue, they thought that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan would be the thing that would, finally, be a circuit breaker. Billions of dollars were put on the table to make it happen. No other reform in this place has had so much money thrown at it yet been rorted so badly. Now, right at the end of the process, we see the upstream states and the Turnbull coalition government, at the behest of the National Party, saying, 'Oh, yeah, that 450 gigalitres—we'll deliver it if we can.' No, you deliver it now, you deliver it in full, and you stick by your promise. South Australians are not going to sit by and be ripped off again and again. If you're a South Australian in this place, do the right thing by your state and stand up for the river. (Time expired)
I rise this evening to put on record that we do not support this amendment. We are fundamentally concerned with the way that it alters the Basin Plan put in place by the previous Labor government.
The choice that we have here before us in this chamber is: do we have a plan that we've agreed on and that the nation can agree on or not? Do we have an independent authority or not? Labor, very firmly, wants the plan. Indeed, we also want an independent authority. We're sympathetic to many of the issues that are raised in this amendment, but we understand that by supporting them we would be attacking hard-fought agreements that we've worked hard to deliver and where we have to bring everyone to the table. We understand the plan is not perfect, nor is its implementation, but the simple fact is that we have come a very long way. It's a framework for delivering more water for the environment and, indeed, returning the rivers to health.
Let's not forget, in this chamber, that the Greens voted against the plan in the same way that they voted against the CPRS. They cannot accept a way forward where we have to take the whole of the community with us to get the job done. We very much see this as another attempt by the Greens to sabotage the agreement and the plan.
We are very aware that there's been problems with compliance, reporting, data and modelling. We've sought assurances from the government that these problems will be addressed, and we will be vigilant in making sure they stick to their agreements with us to make improvements. These include improvements in transparency, compliance, data and modelling, Indigenous engagement, the 605 gigalitres of supply measures and delivery of the 450 gigalitres of water for the environment. This agreement between Labor and the government simply highlights that the days are over where the likes of Mr Barnaby Joyce can say, 'The 450 gigalitres of water for the environment simply isn't possible.' He said, 'Not a hope in Hades.' We want to see those days behind us.
This isn't about the Greens seeking to politicise this issue for their own political gain. We have to be above that. This is about taking the states with us. It's the only way to get this job done, including, as you highlight, with the more difficult upstream states.
The ministerial council, on June 8, met to progress these issues. They are setting up a new Basin Compliance Compact to deliver a consistent and transparent approach to compliance with all Commonwealth and state laws on water use in the basin. We know they are also starting to address more metering so that we know where the water comes from and where it's going. We know that states have introduced more laws on compliance and established embargoes so environmental water isn't stolen or taken illegally. We've seen a fund, importantly, for cultural water—a measure I would have certainly thought the Greens supported—new measures to improve outcomes for Aboriginal people in the basin and a new Northern Basin Commissioner. These are all worthy things. The Greens playing politics with these issues simply undermines the fact that we have to get this job done as a nation and we have to do it together.
We know that the basin states and the Commonwealth announced 62 gigalitres to contribute to the 450 gigalitres of water for the environment. That means, effectively, that we have less than 390 gigalitres of that 450 gigalitres to recover. We are impatient for water recovery, but that is a start towards that 450 gigalitres. We asked for action, and we are pleased to see that action is being taken. The Commonwealth announced that it will soon run an infrastructure round to recover more water to bridge the gap and keep the 450 gigalitres of recovery water coming in. Members have also agreed to an efficiency measures work plan through to 2024 to deliver a pathway to achieving the remaining water recovery of the 450 gigalitres through efficiency measures.
So let's be clear: Labor very firmly supports this plan. It is a plan that has resolved over 100 years of conflict. We don't want to stand here and take us back to those days of conflict, which is why we are not supporting the Greens' amendment. We want to see results, not just a fight about these issues. What is very clear is that when there is conflict the only thing that suffers is the health of the river, and that is what 100 years of conflict has brought us.
The government does not support the amendment that's been put forward by the Greens, because we believe that the amendment is both unwarranted and unnecessary. The 450 gigalitres has frequently and often been guaranteed by this government, and I think that Senator Hanson-Young is being a little disingenuous in not acknowledging the fact that the Prime Minister, the previous water minister and the current water minister and I have continually reaffirmed the intention of the federal government to deliver the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full.
Senator Hanson-Young interjecting—
I'll take Senator Hanson-Young's interjection. She just yelled out, 'Well, put it in law.' I draw to the attention of Senator Hanson-Young the Water for the Environment Special Account, and I quote:
(3) The object of this Part is to be achieved by:
(b) increasing the volume of the Basin water resources that is available for environmental use by up to 450 gigalitres.
It's quite clearly written into the special account. So it is already enshrined in legislation that we are required to deliver on the 450 gigalitres.
Senator Hanson-Young's amendment seeks to remove the requirement of the plan to get the water for the environment that is outlined here—the 450 gigalitres of water—from efficiency measures with neutral or beneficial socioeconomic outcomes. I would have thought that to do so was entirely responsible and sensible government. To actually go out and say that we're going to take 450 gigalitres of water without any regard whatsoever for the socioeconomic impact on the communities that rely on this river is, I think, tremendously irresponsible.
Senator Hanson-Young interjecting—
I hear Senator Hanson-Young continuously objecting. We have worked very hard on this, and I thank the opposition for coming on this journey. We've been on this journey together since the plan was first agreed and we continue to work together. The opposition and the government are on a unity ticket in making sure that we actually improve the environmental outcomes for the river as well as take into account the impact that this water recovery is having on our river communities. We in the government—and I'm assuming that the opposition is the same—believe that you can walk and chew gum at the same time. You don't just have to take water for one reason; you can do so without causing severe economic and social impacts on the people who are directly impacted.
I would point out to Senator Hanson-Young that I am the irrigator in this chamber. I am a senator for South Australia—as Senator Hanson-Young is—and I have seen firsthand the impact that the water extraction has had on my community. I can assure Senator Hanson-Young that there are other communities that are a lot worse off than the community I live in and that there has been a lot of pain.
We are committed to the delivery of the whole plan. Senator Hanson-Young and the Greens might like to think that the plan is something that they've conjured up with the science that they want to listen to, but the Basin Plan is actually a plan that is made up of a number of components. It's made up of 2,750 gigalitres of water, which is the gap water. This is the base water, much of which has been achieved. There is another 450 gigalitres of efficiency water, for which we are debating this amendment. There is 605 gigalitres that was enshrined last week by amendment, which is the sustainable diversion adjustment mechanism, which allows us to achieve the same environmental outcomes without having to take water out of these communities. I would have thought Senator Hanson-Young and the Greens would have thought it was a really good idea to deliver the same outcome without actually taking more water out of our communities. Today we are seeking to remake an amendment to enable the northern basin to have the same privilege as the southern basin, and that is to be able to deliver their environmental outcomes in the northern basin without having the guts written out of their communities.
What we're saying is that we wish to continue with the delivery of the plan in full. That's a 3,200-gigalitre plan—if I add 2,750 and 450 I get to 3,200—so one could suggest that we're not moving away from the commitment of the 450. But we're not going to do it without regard for the communities. We are very serious about looking after our river communities into the future. Today before the chamber is a very significant and important amendment to this bill that will enable us to honour one part of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This is not an opportunity, as Senator Hanson-Young is choosing to take, to revisit the Basin Plan. This was agreed by all the states and territories and the federal government back in 2012, and we are not seeking to re-prosecute it. What we are seeking to do today is deliver that plan. I commend the bill to the House. We will not be supporting the amendment by the Greens.
The question is that amendment No. 1 on sheet 8444 be agreed to.
I move:
That this bill be now read a third time.
The question is that the bill be read a third time.
I rise to speak on the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loan Sustainability) Bill 2018. We understand that this bill is part of the government's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, or MYEFO, package of cuts to universities and represents an attack on students with a savage $2.2 billion worth of cuts. Given its failure to pass its three previous packages, the government resorted to bypassing the parliament and inflicting a grants freeze on universities as well as changing Australia's world-class income-contingent loans program, HELP. The Liberals have only ever had one plan for university policy, and that is, I'm sad to say, to make cuts and make students pay more.
We know that if Labor had not worked with the crossbench and the community over the last 4½ years we would already have in this nation $100,000 degrees and students saddled with an absolute debt sentence. But just before Christmas the minister struck at universities by imposing a grants freeze. This decision, bypassing parliament, will effectively kill off the demand-driven funding system in our country. We've already heard from Universities Australia that the grants freeze will mean that 10,000 places will be underfunded in 2018 alone. For our nation this means that 10,000 Australians could miss out on the opportunity of a university education, just because the government wants to make budget savings. It is a rip-off. One of the greatest achievements of Labor's past period in office—and this is something I'm very proud of—was the demand-driven system. As the deputy chair of Universities Australia, Catriona Jackson, noted during the Senate inquiry into this bill, since 2008 Labor's demand-driven funding and equity participation scheme has been responsible for a 55 per cent increase in low-SES undergraduate student enrolments, an 89 per cent growth in Indigenous undergraduate student enrolments, a more than doubling of enrolments by students with a disability and a 48 per cent increase in the number of regional and remote students. These are opportunities that will transform their lives.
That is why this reckless grants freeze is so very mean. It will have very little impact on wealthier parts of the country but will hit our outer suburbs and regional areas the most. The northern suburbs of Perth and Western Sydney and the outer suburbs of Brisbane and Melbourne are the ones that will feel this cut. Universities in these regions, many of which have growth strategies in line with economic and population growth, will have to turn away some of our best and brightest young people. We in Labor want a strong, vibrant higher education system with well-resourced universities. That's why the Leader of the Opposition announced as part of our commitment to the sector that Labor would reinstate a demand-driven funding system when we are next in government.
This bill also seeks to make changes to Australia's world-class income-contingent loan scheme. It was the reforming Labor education minister, John Dawkins, who introduced the scheme, then known as HECS, the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, in 1989, drawing on the expertise of Professor Bruce Chapman to design a fair system of student contributions. We understood that to expand our higher education system from a small elitist model to a broad high-participation model, we needed to broaden the funding base. Labor believes that it is appropriate that students who gain a personal benefit from a university qualification make a contribution to the cost of their degree. But, in the three decades since HECS, and now HELP, was introduced, the Liberals made numerous changes to make it much less fair. In fact, Australian students now make the sixth-highest contribution to the cost of their university education compared with other OECD economies. As we saw during the inquiry into the bill, the President of the National Union of Students, Mr Mark Pace, said the most recent data reveals that two-thirds of Australian students live below the Henderson poverty line and one in five students regularly skips meals. He reminded the committee that student life is not the lifestyle that people choose. Young Australians are going to university to get the skills and knowledge they need for the careers they want and need, and we in this place should be supporting them and not saddling them with debt and more stress.
This bill proposes to lower the HELP repayment threshold to $45,000, with a one per cent repayment rate and a further 17 thresholds and repayment rates up to a top threshold of $131,989. It would change how thresholds are indexed, moving away from the average weekly earnings to the consumer price index. This is a recycling of the proposals from last year's budget, where the government failed to lower the HELP repayment threshold to $42,000.
It is clear to us that budget savings are driving these policy changes. Labor thought at that time that $42,000 was too low, and we think $45,000 is still too low. After all, $45,000 is only $9,000 more than the minimum wage in our nation. On average, graduates are taking 4.7 years to find full-time work—that's incredible, isn't it?—and Australians earning $45,000 are spending, on average, around half their income on rent. We also know that the Department of Education and Training hasn't done nearly enough work to determine how the proposed changes to HELP repayments intersect with our tax and social security systems.
When you talk to young people in this country, it is clear they are facing significant pressure and that the government policies are certainly not there to support them—be they the government's championing of unfair negative gearing, which locks young people out of the housing market, or the cuts to penalty rates, which hit the pay packets of more than 700,000 Australians. If this bill were to pass, an Australian earning $45,000 would be slugged another $450 because of this bill. Many students who already work while they study will have to start paying back their HELP debt before they graduate.
I go to a note on this bill in relation to its impact on women. As the ACTU said in their submission about this bill, 60 per cent of Australians with a taxable income and an outstanding HELP debt are women and the number of women affected by the HELP repayment threshold lowering will be double that of the number of men affected.
Senators—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President—if Australia is to exploit the challenges and opportunities of the Asian century, we must boost participation in post-secondary education. As the Mitchell Institute has said, the majority of jobs created in 2020 will require a post-secondary qualification. About half of these will need to be university level and the other half vocational. The government's policies simply build barriers to participation in post-secondary education.
The other major change in this bill is a new lifetime loan limit on how much students can borrow under HELP. This is a significant change to the system. Currently there's no limit on how much a student can defer if they are in a Commonwealth-supported place, and there are restrictions on the amount students can borrow for full-fee places. We support the principle of a borrowing limit that can send a price signal in the education market. Labor did not oppose the government's amendment to change the proposal from a one-off limit to a renewable limit, although we still believe that there may be a range of unintended consequences from this proposed change.
Labor understands that, in this period of immense change, we need to encourage Australians to continue to update their qualifications throughout their working lives and that we should be encouraging lifelong learners. That is why Labor has always supported a system where students can borrow to fund further study. Increasingly, students will need to take a mix of education options from both higher education and vocational education. This is why we are concerned about how a renewable borrowing limit might operate.
The rising cost of higher education in our nation has been highlighted during the inquiry into this bill. We've heard evidence from students and universities about the cost of full-fee qualifications. We're very concerned about the rise of qualifications that go over the current FEE-HELP limit, and we've heard many examples of courses with fees of over $100,000. A large number of students in these programs have to find ways to pay the gap between the fees set by the university and the current FEE-HELP limit. This simply isn't good enough. We will not accept that universities have to come up with bursary schemes or simply rely on their students having access to family support for these fee gaps. The last thing Labor wants to see in this country is the rise of commercial, American-style student loans. That will devastate students, who already face so many challenges.
This bill does not do enough to address reckless high-fee setting. While Labor accepts that some courses are expensive to teach—things like medicine, dentistry and vet science—we do not want these students taking on many mountains of debt. Experts have told us that lower-income students are much more debt averse than those from higher-income thresholds, and that debt is a barrier to taking on a university qualification.
In February, Labor's shadow minister for education and training, Tanya Plibersek, along with our shadow minister for skills, TAFE and apprenticeships, Senator Doug Cameron, and our shadow assistant minister for universities, Terri Butler, announced that a Labor government would conduct a once-in-a-generation inquiry into Australia's post-secondary education system. We know that if we're going to take advantage of the challenges and opportunities of the future that we need a TAFE system that's fit for purpose. Never before have TAFE and universities been looked at together in a national inquiry. This must be done.
We want to ensure that our universities have stable funding and can respond to our rapidly changing economy and society. The funding stability in universities contrasts sharply with that of TAFE, and Labor's inquiry will make sure that we have two great systems for the future. As Terri Butler said so well in her contribution to this bill, we want to see kids from poorer backgrounds going to uni as much as we want to see rich kids choosing TAFE as well. We know we can't grow these systems by cutting them.
In conclusion, as Catriona Jackson, Chief Executive of Universities Australia, said:
… the first principle—the first thing you must keep in your mind when you're changing this fundamentally important scheme—is to do no harm.
As we said in our dissenting report, Labor believes that the changes in this bill do not pass the 'do no harm' test.
I note that this principle is something in which Senator Martin used to believe. In March, he said he would not support any cuts to education and would oppose the changes to HELP repayment thresholds in this bill when he said that any cuts to the HECS-HELP repayment thresholds would, in effect, be a disincentive to students—especially those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds—from undertaking study to improve their prospects in life. Labor agrees with the old Senator Martin. The old Senator Martin knows how much the changes in this bill would be a disincentive to Tasmanians wanting to get a diploma or higher education. The old Senator Martin knows that we can't boost participation in post-secondary education by erecting barriers.
This bill is about finding money for the government's tax give-away, to give to the big banks. We've been proud to stand with universities and students against the government's repeated attacks. Access to education is the great equaliser in our country. We will continue to ensure that every Australian, regardless of their background, can access the education and training they need. I urge the Senate to join Labor in opposing this bill. I seek leave to continue my remarks.
Leave not granted.
If there is one thing that the Australian public despise about our political debates, it is the presence of hypocrisy. Tonight, in this chamber, as we debate the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loan Sustainability) Bill 2018, the air is thick with it. On one side of this chamber, we have a party whose government in the other place is made up primarily of those who went to university for free or at a substantially reduced rate. Now—between giving a $144 billion tax cut to some of the richest Australians in this country and attempting to give $80 billion away to some of the largest tax multinationals in the world—they have decided this evening to stop and give a little kick to the young people of Australia trying to go through university. It is a disgrace and an outrage.
As a young person who, before my time in this place, was proudly a university student, I am absolutely furious, though not surprised. It is clear that this government's agenda, from day one, has been to drive the higher education system of this nation into the ground so that it can be sold off; so that it can be privatised; so that we can convert our higher education system—which has been one of the best in the world—into an American-style system where your pocketbook, not your aspiration, not your drive, determines whether you are able to go on to higher levels of education. It is a system which, we have seen over and over again, fails young people. It fails nations.
Education is a human right and an economic imperative, yet so often it is the first thing on the chopping block in our politics. An obsession of this government has been to cut it to smithereens—$20 billion since the Abbott government came to power. On the other side of the chamber, we have the Australian Labor Party that is very quick to talk about the legacy of Gough Whitlam and is very quick to talk about the benefits of higher education. It seems to also be very quick to forget that it was those on that side of the chamber, the ALP, who attempted in 2013 to rip $2.1 billion out of the higher education system. They instigated two reviews into Australia's higher education system that found a need to increase base funding by at least 10 per cent, but did absolutely nothing. In fact, they cut it. Hypocrisy, in its worst form.
This chamber tonight conspires to continue to punish young people for the crime of seeking an education, to saddle them with debt, to place barriers before those simply wanting to contribute, to gain knowledge, to build the Australian nation from its strongest base, to bring us innovation and knowledge. And the only thing that we can think to do as a legislature is to make it harder. The extent of the government's imagination in this space is to think to itself: 'How can we make this more difficult? God knows, we've got enough money to give to millionaires and billionaires. We've got enough money to give to Google and Amazon. We've got enough money to give to Gina and Clive and Twiggy.' But there's not enough to enable somebody from Rockingham to go to a high-class university, not enough to do something about the fact that university students nowadays exist in an environment unheard of and unimaginable to those who went through the system in previous generations.
University students are graduating nowadays into an environment dominated by insecure work, fear and mental stress. The No. 1 issue identified by young people, particularly those in university, as being their highest priority, the thing they wish we dealt with, is mental health. How do you think it contributes to somebody's mental health, to their anxiety, to load them up with more student debt? You tell them: 'You're entering a job market which requires you to be self-basting and oven ready. It requires you to have multiple degrees and the ability to undertake an internship and the ability to belong to a family that will get you in the front door with a nice little quiet conversation.' And you say: 'You enter that arena and we'll saddle you with a couple more thousand dollars worth of debt. Soon, you will have to start paying it back, while we didn't pay a penny, or we paid far less.'
I wonder sometimes, on this issue, how members of the government sleep at night, and how members of the opposition get to sleep, understanding the lack of ambition evident in their policy aspiration from this base. If you believe that education is a fundamental human right, then your North Star on this subject should be the return of higher education to something which is free and universal, something which is disconnected from debt, something which is provided to all not as a marker of their wealth or of their status or of their luck but as their existence as a human being. It should be alongside health care and housing and a secure job and a safe environment. I could not participate in this place, I could not be a voice for the people of Western Australia, in the knowledge that I was advocating something so small, something so measly, as the tinkering round the edges of the issue that seems to come day in, day out from the opposition.
You have young people, saddled up with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, entering a job market which you know is harder than any previous generation has ever had to face and confronting a housing market which is making the idea of owning your own home an ever-more-distant dream. Meanwhile the climate crumbles around them. And all you can offer is reviews. It's a bit like Newstart. I'll return to my state of WA and inform the people there on the streets, in my community of Rockingham, that Labor is conducting a review into Newstart, along with a review into higher education. For God's sake, the hypocrisy of it! I thank the chamber for its time.
Let me say at the outset, so that Senator Steele-John can rest easy tonight, that I sleep very well. I know my government colleagues sleep very well, and I know they'll sleep very well in voting for this particular piece of legislation, because, fundamentally, it's about fairness. This Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loan Sustainability) Bill 2018 is about fairness, because if you are fortunate enough to go to university—as some Australians are and as many of us have been—if you take a loan from the taxpayer to cover the cost of your university education and if throughout your working life you can afford to pay back that loan, then it is only fair that you do so.
What would be unfair would be if we privileged few who did go to university, who borrowed money from the taxpayers to do so and who can afford to pay it back in our lifetimes didn't do so, because if we don't pay it back that means someone else has to pay for it. Invariably, that burden will fall on people who didn't attend university at all. How fair is that?
I'm pleased to rise to speak on this bill. I was the acting chair of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee during the inquiry into the provisions of this bill, and our recommendations, which were adopted by the government, have ensured that the tests of fairness and sustainability have been met. The bill amends education and other legislation that underpin student loans. It introduces a revised set of repayment thresholds for student loans, changes indexation arrangements for repayment thresholds and introduces a replenishable loan limit for HELP. These measures are designed to ensure Australia's world-leading income-contingent student loan program can continue to be available for future generations of students. With outstanding loans now above $50 billion and with one-quarter of all new loans never expected to be repaid on current policy settings, unless we do something to shore up this generous taxpayer-funded system it may not be there for future generations of students.
In MYEFO in December the government reversed its previous higher education reforms and announced revised measures, including these legislative amendments. Despite the increasingly desperate claims by those opposite and, of course, the Greens, we are not cutting funding for higher education across the forward years and we are not capping places. Universities can continue to enrol as many students as they like, and they will still receive the indexed student contributions for these students. Far from cutting funding, Australian government funding for higher education is projected to increase by $2 billion between 2017 and 2021, with base funding for teaching and learning for Commonwealth-supported places set to increase by $1 billion as part of that. That is based on the universities' own projections from this year, after the decision on the funding freeze, and follows growth in Australian government funding for Commonwealth-supported places that has been twice the rate of the growth of the economy since 2009. Australian government funding for higher education is at record levels, at over $17 billion per annum this year, and it will continue to grow. The government is facing up to the task of ensuring our good higher education system is on a more sustainable path. The measures in this bill are proportionate, and they help achieve that goal.
Labor, too, realised that something had to be done when they were last in government, which is why they announced $6.6 billion of higher education and research savings in their last three years, including $2.9 billion in their last budget in 2013-14. That included an efficiency dividend, which of course they have since opposed in opposition, along with all of our other higher education measures. The problem with Labor is that you have to look at what they do, not what they say.
We are increasing transparency for students around admissions requirements and course cut-offs. We are working to give students better information about their choices.
Debate interrupted.
It is a pleasure to make a contribution to the adjournment debate tonight. Here we are in the last week of parliament, before we depart this place for the winter break—and I can see the relief on your face, Mr Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan, as much as I can on everyone else's face around here. But, while we will be departing parliament, electors in five electorates across the country will be going to the polls in a number of by-elections, courtesy of our good friends who drafted the Constitution and of course those members who failed to comply with it when they ran for parliament earlier on.
On 28 July, voters will be going to the polls in the electorate of Braddon, on the beautiful north-west coast of Tasmania where I hail from originally. It's an electorate where voters will be confronted with a very stark choice between former member and Liberal candidate Brett Whiteley and former Labor member Justine Keay. It's a choice about a proven record of delivery, of being able to keep the economy strong, of being able to do things that actually grow the economy and create conditions where people want to invest, create jobs and grow our regional communities. It is about the plan that Brett Whiteley and the Turnbull Liberal government have for creating much-needed jobs—jobs we heard about in question time today, which I will turn to later—and guaranteeing essential services, which have been budgeted for, fully funded, fully costed and paid for, in health, in education and, of course, in public safety.
Going back to that choice, we have the stark contrast between Brett Whiteley, who has a record of delivery, and a Labor candidate who can't deliver. The reason she can't deliver is that she comes from a party that is not in government. How can you deliver on promises that you are making willy-nilly across the electorate when, if you are returned to this place, you will still be in opposition and you will not able to deliver on any one of those promises? It's a bit like a 'terms and conditions apply' when it comes to any of those promises that are made in this election campaign, and voters in Braddon need to be aware of that.
In addition, we face the same story we have faced in Tasmania time and time again, where Labor members are often captive to the Greens—and in Braddon it's no exception. Those of us who hail from the north-west coast will remember the damaging days between 2010 and 2013 when Bob Brown and Julia Gillard signed up to a lovely coalition agreement and, at the same time, we had a double whammy with the Giddings and McKim Labor-Greens government in Hobart, which did nothing but wreak havoc on the regional economy and regional communities in north-west Tasmania, in the electorate of Braddon. That is what voters will get when casting a vote for the Labor candidate in Braddon. So I strongly counsel them against that.
As I said, voters will be confronted with a choice on 28 July. They can vote for a stable strong, majority Liberal government and an economy that is growing, where jobs are being created and where people have the confidence to invest, like they do in Tasmania—and all economic indicators show we are the highest in the nation when it comes to business confidence—and where we have tax relief for hardworking Australians who deserve to keep the money they earn and spend it how they see fit, such as saving and putting it away for their kids' futures, for their university education or for whatever it might be. Or they could vote for Labor for higher taxes, for higher power prices—$300 per annum, per household, on average—for more debt and, of course, for higher deficits and for red ink as far as the eye can see.
But, rather than talk about what the candidates are saying they are going to offer, I think it's important to talk about their records, what the candidates have delivered in the past—both of them former members for Braddon and both of them former members of this very parliament. I want to start with Mr Brett Whiteley's record of achievement when he was the federal member for Braddon between the years 2013 and 2016. I'll start with some significant ones, include the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme. That was a massive enabler for the Tasmanian economy. It's something that has helped manufacturers and other businesses that rely on getting goods to market, interstate and overseas, to be able to compete with their mainland counterparts. That's something that Brett had a great hand in securing: the extension of that scheme.
The Circular Head Irrigation Scheme was something Brett championed and worked very hard for. There were also the University of Tasmania Burnie upgrade, the $25 million jobs and investment package and, of course—even though my colleagues on the other side don't like to talk about it—the west coast NBN fibre-to-the-node package of $18.5 million, where we see west coast residents being able to connect. That's something that those opposite never delivered on, and probably wouldn't be able to if they were still in charge.
I'm talking about local projects as well. It's great to talk about some of those small projects that matter to small communities that aren't in big cities like Hobart, Launceston, Melbourne, Sydney or wherever. The Devonport Country Club facilities will open up a number of recreational facilities to many, many community groups to the value of $3.5 million, delivered by Brett Whitely. The new Dial Regional Sports Complex, also to the value of $3.5 million, will be a great regional sporting complex that will enable young Tasmanians from the north-west coast to compete in sporting events at a very high standard on a premium sporting ground. There is the Circular Head indoor pool, with the value of $3.6 million, the new facilities for the Cradle Coast outriggers and mobile phone blackspot funding for both Sisters Beach and Sulphur Creek. I have to say I was most disappointed about Sisters Beach: I used to go there for holidays with no phone reception, now I get it better than I do at home! But good on Brett Whiteley for delivering that, along with other things, including the dairy assistance package, the Wonders of Wynyard funding, the Cape Wickham Golf Course funding and the funding for the Tasmanian pickled onions processing facility to the tune of $500,000.
Senator Ruston interjecting—
Yes, pickled onions, Senator Ruston. You should come down and try them. Brett Whiteley has delivered all of this for his community. He was able to secure and provide funding to the Mersey-Leven cycling club, a great club, for their clubroom upgrades. There was also funding for the Wynyard Bowls Club new air conditioners, the McKenna Park scoreboard, $4,000 for the Vietnam veterans' Mersey-Leven memorial board, the South Burnie Bowls Club disability toilet facilities and the East Devonport Community House garden. The list goes on and on, including some critical improvements to infrastructure for safety along the Bass Highway at eight north-west intersections valued at $4.8 million. It's an extensive list, but that's Brett Whiteley's record. That's what he has delivered. That's what people can look to when they make a decision on 28 July. They can see that this man has delivered for that region.
Compare that to the record left behind by former member—a former member, so someone who should have a record we can judge her on—Justine Keay. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can point to, because she's in opposition. That is what voters in Braddon need to remember. In voting for Labor at this election, you are voting someone who cannot deliver back into opposition.
The one reminder I need to give to the voters in Braddon is that Labor and the Greens are bad for Braddon. I go back to that point about the Labor-Green government in Canberra and the Labor-Green government in Tasmania between the years of 2010 and 2013. What did they do? They shut down the forestry industry; thousands of jobs were gone and several regional communities were decimated. That was Labor and the Greens. They also targeted the aquaculture industry. The same thing is happening again: over 5,000 jobs in regional Tasmania are under threat because of a Labor Party captive to the Greens in my home state. My message to voters in Braddon is this: Labor are captive to the Greens and they are bad for Braddon. Vote Liberal. Vote Brett Whiteley.
I'm not quite sure what to say about that previous speech, except to say that I do thank Senator Duniam for mentioning all those things that Labor funded.
Last week in the House of Representatives we had a moment of honesty from our Prime Minister. On Tuesday, Mr Turnbull was asked in question time whether he thought a 60-year-old aged-care worker from Burnie should aspire to be an investment banker in order to get a $7,000 tax cut under the Liberal's tax policy. The Prime Minister's response was telling—it was very telling, in fact—about the attitude that this government has to people in need. Here is what Mr Turnbull said: 'The 60-year-old aged-care worker is entitled to aspire to get a better job.' This reveals a lot about our Prime Minister's attitude to working Australians: a job isn't regarded as a good job unless it pays the kind of salary that attracts a $7,000 tax cut under Mr Turnbull's plan. Not every Australian can be an investment banker or a CEO or a government minister. This country needs its nurses, it needs its teachers, it needs its early childhood educators and it needs its aged-care workers. Just because they are not paid more than $125,000 a year doesn't mean their jobs are not important. In fact, they do some of the most important jobs in the country. I ask people: would you place your elderly relative—your parent or grandparent—in the hands of an aged-care worker if you thought they didn't regard their job as important, if you thought they weren't dedicated and passionate about their job? Would you rather leave them in the hands of an investment banker? I don't think so.
It is simply outrageous that, at a time when Australia needs to increase its aged-care workforce, our Prime Minister is sending a message to those already in the workforce that their jobs aren't good enough. An aged-care worker from the north-west coast of Tasmania, Elaine, heard Mr Turnbull's comments and was justifiably shocked by them. But her response was dignified and to the point. Elaine said: 'A lot of people aspire to be carers, to look after the elderly and to be there for them. It may not pay well, but it is a job we all love. One day when he becomes aged and needs help, I hope there are still carers around for him.'
What does the Liberal candidate for Braddon, Brett Whiteley, make of the Prime Minister's comments? The day after Mr Turnbull's out-of-touch statement, I read the following in the north-west based newspaper The Advocate: 'Braddon Liberal candidate, Brett Whiteley, stood by Mr Turnbull's comments.' In other words, Mr Whiteley supports the idea that Elaine and her colleagues should aspire to get what they regard as better jobs. The 39,000 workers in the electorate of Braddon who earn less than $125,000 a year need to remember, when they go to vote on 20 July, that they have a choice. They can vote for Labor's Justine Keay, who would support a bigger, better, fairer tax cut, a tax cut that is almost double what they are being promised by this government, or they could vote for someone who thinks they are not worthy of a better tax cut unless they 'get a better job'.
I have a message for Mr Turnbull and Mr Whiteley: aged-care workers in Braddon or in the rest of Australia don't need a better job, what they need is a better government. In Braddon, they need a local member who believes that, instead of giving $17 billion to the big banks, the government should be handing back the $17 billion they have cut from schools, including the more. than $14 million to schools in Braddon in 2018 and 2019. And they need a local member who, in the interests of Braddon residents, will reject the Turnbull government's other cruel cuts and their $80 billion tax cut to big business. In the electorate of Braddon Mr Turnbull and the Liberals have cut over $700,000 from the North West Regional Hospital—the equivalent of the loss of three doctors, six nurses and 1,000 emergency department visits or almost 2,000 outpatient services. The cuts to pensions have caused 1,570 pensioners to be worse off, including 400 who lost their pension entirely. And, while those opposite have been in power, vocational education and training has suffered, with the north-west of Tasmania losing 700 apprentices. There are 7,000 retail and hospitality workers in Braddon, which means more than one in five workers are affected by the government's cuts to penalty rates. That's 7,000 workers who stand to lose up to $77 a week from their pay packets—and this government thinks they should be grateful for a $10-a-week tax cut! Voters in Braddon will go to the polls in just under five weeks time and they have been presented with a Liberal candidate who supports all these cruel cuts. The 7,000 retail and hospitality workers should know that, in 2014, when Mr Whiteley was member for Braddon he said, 'Penalty rates and wages in general for young people are becoming too expensive for small businesses to even think about putting them on.' In 2015 he said that changes to Medicare that would see some patients hit with a new $20 fee for seeing their GP were 'entirely necessary'. In 2007, when Mr Whiteley was a state member of parliament, he described the mortgage stress suffered by young Australians as 'self-inflicted'.
Another demonstration that the Liberal candidate for Braddon is out of touch is that the minister for communications described the NBN rollout to the west coast of Tasmania as Mr Whiteley's signature achievement. Despite the government's backflip on the NBN rollout to the west coast, the new fixed line service was still using Mr Turnbull's outdated copper based network rather than the 21st century fibre to the premises that Labor promised during the 2016 election. The minister promised that the region would be connected by the end of this year, but we have recently heard that the first few homes will start being connected only from the end of this year. Not only have the government broken their promise, not only are they rolling out the fixed line network to the west coast using outdated technology, but Mr Whiteley didn't even support the policy in the first place.
At a forum in March 2016—and I think my colleague Senator Urquhart attended this forum—Mr Whiteley told Queenstown residents they would have to put up with the satellite service because he had to do the same at his property. Unsurprisingly, this comment wasn't very well received by the forum. It demonstrated a few things about Mr Whiteley. First, it showed a lack of appreciation for the needs of west coast residents. That's pretty typical of the attitude of the Liberal Party to remote and regional Australia. Those opposite fail to understand that fast, reliable broadband helps to bridge the digital divide between the country and the city. It improves the competitiveness of regional Australia in the global digital economy and improves their access to essential government services. Mr Whiteley failed to understand that satellite broadband is less reliable on the west coast due to heavy rainfall and regular storms. Mr Whiteley's comments also show that he didn't really support the policy of a fixed line rollout to the west coast but was instead being dragged, kicking and screaming, to accept it.
So, according to Senator Fifield, Mr Whiteley's signature achievement was delivering an outdated copper based service to the west coast when he didn't even support the policy in the first place. I think that speaks volumes about how out of touch Mr Whiteley really is with the needs of constituents. If Mr Whiteley supports Mr Turnbull's comments about aged-care workers, then perhaps he would do well to reflect on the 2016 election and why the voters in Braddon chose not to give him a second term. Sure, there were federal issues at play. But when you tell 7,000 workers that the penalty rates they rely on to pay the rent and put food on the table are too expensive, you can't really expect those workers to give you a resounding endorsement. When you tell people it's necessary for them to be slugged another $20 to see their GP, you can't really expect them to support you either. When you tell people on the west coast that if you have to put up with the satellite service then so should they, you can't expect them to support you.
There is, of course, a candidate for Braddon who will stand up and protect the penalty rates of retail and hospitality workers; who values aged-care work; who will vote for a bigger, better, fairer tax cut for thousands of workers in Braddon earning less than $125,000 a year; and who will support reversing a $17 billion cut to Australian schools rather than giving $17 billion to Australia's big banks. That candidate is Labor's Justine Keay. She absolutely deserves to be returned as the member for Braddon on 28 July.
The Greens New South Wales is the party I joined in 1990. It is the party I'm very proud to be a member of, the party that has consistently shown what a well-organised, small, left-wing party can achieve. I want to put some of our electoral achievements on the record, as our results have been misrepresented in ways that have contributed to the false narrative that the Greens New South Wales is underperforming. In fact, the opposite is the case.
The Greens New South Wales' electoral achievements include a number of historic firsts that, if acknowledged, bring credit to the Australian Greens. The first Greens party was formed in NSW. We were the first to win a single-member lower house seat in a general state election. We achieved this in 2011 in the seat of Balmain, when Jamie Parker became the local Greens member. We now have eight New South Wales MPs: five in the New South Wales upper house and three in the New South Wales lower house. In 2015, the Greens won the newly created state seat of Newtown with a primary vote of 46 per cent, the highest vote ever achieved by the Greens in a state or federal election. That record still holds. Jenny Leong was our candidate for the seat of Newtown, and she's now the Greens MP. The Greens New South Wales notched up another first for the Australian Greens in that same election. We won the first seat off the Nationals, when Tamara Smith became the Greens MP for Ballina. Our state Greens MPs play active and often successful roles in campaigns as diverse as those for Aboriginal justice, against fossil fuel mining, to curb plastic packaging, opposing privatisation of public services and assets, supporting larger and more-secure marine and national parks, for stronger anti-corruption laws, for more rights for renters and for better-funded public schools, TAFE and public transport.
Turning to our federal performance, Greens New South Wales won its first Senate seat in 2011, when Kerry Nettle was elected. We were the third state, after Western Australia and Tasmania, to win a Senate seat for the Greens. The first House of Representative seat won by the Australian Greens was in New South Wales. It was in 2002 that Michael Organ became the Greens MP for Cunningham, on the New South Wales South Coast. Yes, that seat was won in a by-election, but it was still a big breakthrough. In 2010, I was elected a Greens senator in New South Wales, with the party polling 10.69 per cent of the vote. This is the highest vote ever achieved by the Greens in New South Wales in a Senate election. The Green New South Wales Senate vote in that election, however, was lower than that for other state Greens parties across the country.
A significant reason for that lower Senate result was how the $1.6 million that Graeme Wood donated to the Australian Greens was used. This money was spent on advertising to assist the Greens election campaign in every state and territory except New South Wales. No money was offered to the Greens New South Wales. If any money had been offered to New South Wales, I doubt that we would have accepted it, as we oppose large political donations on the basis that they potentially buy influence and distort our democracy. The Greens Senate results in 2010 are informative. They demonstrate that big money buys advertising that, in turn, can win over voters. The results also show how an empowered party—in this case, the Greens New South Wales—where members have a major say in the campaign and that is promoting policies for the public good can increase votes without relying on big donations. Our members work incredibly hard on election campaigns, and that is why I was elected as an MP and why the Greens have had the electoral success that we have achieved in New South Wales. Members control party campaigns.
Since 2010, there has been some decline in the Australians Greens vote. Some people assert that the Greens New South Wales is causing the slump in the nationwide Greens vote. That is ridiculous. I'm not keen on making comparisons of Greens New South Wales voting achievements to those of other states, but I have decided to put this on the record, as the misinformation about the Greens New South Wales and myself is quite shocking. Recent Greens election results have been inconsistent, but they include strong results in the Queensland 2017 state election and the New South Wales local government elections in both 2016 and 2017.
Obviously a party's vote is determined primarily by one's political stance but organisational factors right through to the party's position on the ballot paper are relevant. The following Greens vote figures by state show that a number of Greens state parties have experienced a higher drop in their federal vote when compared to the drop in the Greens New South Wales vote. Compared to 2010, the 2016 Greens Senate vote in New South Wales dropped by 3.3 per cent, in Western Australia by 3.4 per cent and in Victoria by 3.8 per cent. In Tasmania, the Greens Senate vote declined by 9 per cent since the 2010 high-water mark. A similar trend is evident in the Greens House of Representatives vote. I am highlighting that this voting data is not consistent with the narrative built about the Greens New South Wales. The unethical attacks on the Greens New South Wales do not help anyone other than the opponents of the Greens.
True, in percentage terms the Greens primary vote in New South Wales is not as high as it is in Victoria and Tasmania, although it is higher than in some other states. Compared with New South Wales, no other Greens state party has such a high proportion of federal seats with unfavourable demographics—seven non-coastal conservative rural seats and 12 solid working-class multicultural seats in western and south-western Sydney. We have campaigned in those seats for years, and we are slowly increasing our vote. The challenge these areas present for progressive causes was on display in last year's marriage equality poll. New South Wales had the lowest vote in favour of marriage equality of all the states and territories. Only 17 of the nation's 150 federal electorates voted no, and 12 of them were in New South Wales.
I've set out these variables to correct the misinformation about the Greens New South Wales vote. Local government election results are a further example of the success of the Greens New South Wales grassroots approach to political campaigning. At present there are 58 Greens local councillors across the state, including five mayors, three of them popularly elected. Almost half of the population in New South Wales now live in a municipality or shire where there is a Greens councillor they can consult.
The commitment of the Greens New South Wales to grassroots democracy was evident in the participation by our members in the recent campaign throughout the state that succeeded in saving 40 local councils from amalgamation into supercouncils. The electoral success of the Greens in New South Wales needs to be seen in the context of a decision the state party took in the early 2000s to not accept any donations from for-profit companies and to strictly limit the size of all donations. We were criticised by some prominent Greens for taking this stance, but it was a winner—a decision that demonstrated to the public and the media that we would stand by our policies. Our stance won support in terms of electoral success, and in time our strong campaigning on the issue helped change the law on political donations in New South Wales.
The Greens New South Wales is particularly proud of its practice of grassroots democracy. For instance, our candidates have always been chosen directly by the members, and we have a constitution that puts considerable power and resources in the hands of our local groups—what many people call party branches. When the Australian Greens was formed in 1992, the Greens New South Wales backed the federation model that was adopted, rather than a centralised, top-down organisation. While some have attempted to centralise the party, the federation model, with an emphasis on member involvement, not only is an ideological commitment but also has been critical to our electoral success. The great strength of the Greens in New South Wales and around the country resides in its members. In New South Wales we do not accept corporate donations, which so often carry an odious political influence. Nor do we enjoy the grace and favour of mainstream organisations.
This false narrative that I've set out to dispel is not just a media construct. The comments by some Greens members on the ABC's Four Corners and 7.30 and in some print media have helped drive this incorrect analysis. Our successes are due to our members. When the Greens in New South Wales are denigrated, it is those rank and file members who are being attacked. But I believe that those attacks, from whatever source, have not and do not deter members from pursuing a world based on our four founding principles: ecological sustainability, grassroots democracy, social and economic justice, and peace and disarmament—a pursuit that already has achieved significant success. Thank you.
Senate adjourned at 22:18